The Perfect Assassin

by K A Doore

  “Oh, that’s simple.” Tamella smiled. “I’ll kill you.”

  Silence met her avowal. After a heartbeat, Azulay laughed, but it was strained, a noise to fill the void.

  “They’re just jaan—” he began.

  Tamella’s smile sharpened with teeth. “And that’s where you’re wrong. They’re not just jaan. The stories you’ve heard are always about the jaan on the sands and in the Wastes. The anonymous dead whose names have been lost in storms. But these jaan are your neighbors: your charm makers, your gear workers, your watchmen, your stormsayers, your family, your cousins. They were people once, alive and whole, and they deserve our respect. G-d created us and gave us each a piece of G-d, if you listen to the marab. We are nothing without G-d, as we are nothing without our jaani. And a jaani unquieted is lost and cannot return to G-d.”

  “All right,” said Azulay. “We get it, ma. We won’t hide any bodies.”

  Tamella stalked toward the tombs. She gestured with her knife. “Azulay. Come here.”

  Dihya let out a low whistle while Menna tried to hide a snort behind her fist. Amastan could only watch, feeling sick. Azulay sighed and shuffled to Tamella. When he was within a few feet, she grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him close, her fingers digging deep into his wrap. She pointed at the tomb in front of them, its occupant’s shroud more white than gray. Fresher. New.

  “This body has been here for three weeks,” said Tamella, using the tip of her blade to underline the date on the plaque. “It’s been six days since the last quieting ceremony. The marab will return tomorrow. Would you feel comfortable spending the night alone in here? Well … I guess it wouldn’t be alone.”

  Amastan swallowed, Tamella’s threat working even though it wasn’t directed at him. Fear prickled his scalp as he tried—and failed—not to imagine being surrounded by so many jaan for an entire night. Don’t you dare antagonize her, Az’, willed Amastan. If they had to spend the night in this crypt because Azulay couldn’t hold his tongue, then he might just cut it out for him.

  “Menna—what would happen if, for some inexplicable reason, the marab weren’t able to get in here tomorrow morning?” asked Tamella, sweet as a date.

  “They would get in.” Menna’s eyes darted from Tamella to the door and panic spiked her voice higher. “They’d have to get in.”

  “And if they couldn’t?”

  “The jaan would begin to untether themselves by the end of the day,” said Menna.

  “And if someone was trapped in here with them?”

  Menna licked her lips, glancing from Azulay’s wide eyes to Tamella’s sickly sweet smile. “The jaan would possess them. The burden of having two jaan would drive them mad or—or just kill them.”

  “Have you ever seen this happen?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Menna spread her hands. “Because we make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  “Right.” Tamella turned back to Azulay. “So I ask again: do you want to spend the night?”

  “Of course not, ma,” said Azulay, his voice shaky.

  “Then maybe you can begin to understand why it’s so important we don’t let a jaani loose in Ghadid.” Tamella let go of Azulay and pushed him away. “Am I understood?”

  “Yes, ma,” answered Amastan and his cousins in unison.

  “Good.” Tamella folded her arms behind her back and assessed them, her lips pressed tight into a thin, grim line. “Now. I have one last thing to tell you. Normally after this lesson, I would wish you luck and turn you loose, trusting that Kaseem would find each of you as needed. But Kaseem won’t be visiting, at least not anytime soon.” Tamella closed her eyes. “I’d foolishly assumed I wouldn’t have to give this talk. That the drum chiefs would’ve come to their senses by now. But, here we are. Here you are.” She opened her eyes. “There are no contracts.”

  The single sentence fell on the room like a thrown stone and it took a moment for them to understand. Azulay gasped, Dihya took a step back, and Menna tilted her head and said, “What?”

  But Amastan let out a breath. Could he be so lucky…? No contracts meant no work. No work meant no killing. Assassins only took the lives they were contracted and paid for. Beyond that was murder.

  Tamella continued. “There haven’t been for some time. Not since … well, you don’t need a history lesson. Let’s just say the drum chiefs placed a ban that should’ve been lifted by now.” She sighed her annoyance. “But the ban will be lifted. If not for your generation, then the next. Which is why it’s still important that you work on your skills and even more important that you pass them on. What we do is necessary. The drum chiefs will remember that. Someday.”

  Someday. Not today. Amastan breathed deep, once, twice. His lips twitched up with a smile that he tried to keep hidden beneath his tagel while his cousins grumbled in dismay.

  Tamella held up a hand and the grumbling subsided. “I know you’re all disappointed that there’re no contracts now that you’re ready. You might be wondering what the point of all of this was, all the training, the tests, the rules, if you’d never get to apply your skills. Why bother, right?”

  She paused and waited. They nodded, one by one, Azulay last.

  “We’re not here for us,” she continued. “We’re here for Ghadid. As long as Ghadid needs us, we’ll keep training new assassins. The contracts are relatively recent in the history of our family. We’ve persisted through worse. But one thing has stayed constant: Ghadid will always need us. So this may be your last official lesson, but I want you to keep practicing. Keep honing your skills. If not for yourselves, then for the next generation. Ghadid will need us again. And we’ll be ready.”

  3

  The words on the vellum blurred and smeared. Amastan set his pen down and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, willing them to work. But when he tried to focus on the scroll again, the lines ran together as if he’d dropped the vellum in a bowl of water. It was useless. He set the scroll aside.

  “Long night?”

  Amastan looked up. Barag peered at him across his own pile of scrolls. Three ink bowls sat precariously close to his elbow, but he didn’t appear to notice. His unassuming brown wrap was tied loose and he wore his colorless tagel low, just barely hiding the bottom of a wide, flat nose.

  Behind him, shelves upon shelves overflowed with tightly wound scrolls. A dozen chests were stacked three high along the far wall, filled with even more scrolls. These, though, were older scrolls or originals of the ones they’d copied and filled the shelves with. A basket held stacks of vellum and parchment, another bundles of string, and a third had neatly stacked jars of ink.

  All of it was densely packed and threatening to overflow into the rest of the living area. Yet in the years Amastan had worked with Barag, their tools had stayed on this side of an invisible line. The other side was open and welcoming, the floor swept clean of dust and sand, the pillows fresh if stained. A fire was almost always crackling in the hearth, the kettle full of water and ready for tea.

  At least, that was the case for most of the year. As season’s end approached, the fire was usually little more than coals and the kettle often empty. Even Barag, who received most of his work from the drum chiefs, was running low on baats.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” continued Barag, his voice warm and as light as risen dough. “Although, of course, I know nothing about anything. Especially not what you and my wife were doing last night.” He chuckled as if he’d made a joke.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” said Amastan, not sure if he was trying to reassure himself or Barag. “There’s no work.”

  Barag pointed his pen at Amastan, his fingers black with ink. “Don’t give up hope. Tamella doesn’t waste her time.”

  Amastan shrugged and leaned back in his chair, grimacing as his stiff muscles protested. “It’s okay. I’m relieved, actually. I don’t think I could do it.”

  Barag set his pen down. He looked at Amastan as if he w
ere a barely legible scroll. “Why did you accept, then?”

  Amastan fidgeted, unable to meet Barag’s gaze. “You know how hard it is to tell Tamella no.”

  “It’s an important skill,” said Barag. “She, more than anyone I’ve known, needs to be told no occasionally.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Oh, but it does.” Barag’s eyes glittered with amusement. “You trained with her for five years and you only started to doubt now? I … doubt that.”

  Amastan shifted uncomfortably. “I wanted to be something more. More than a glassworker. Becoming an assassin would’ve upheld a tradition spanning centuries.”

  “So would glasswork,” pointed out Barag.

  “Yes, but anybody can be a glassworker,” said Amastan. “It’s just heating sand and trying not to burn yourself. Not everyone gets chosen to become a cousin. Tamella said I’d be good at it, because I never overlooked details. I thought that training would make it easier to do the, well, hard part. The other cousins all looked forward to getting their first contracts, but I…” He frowned. “I never did.”

  “If you wanted to, you wouldn’t be the first to leave the family,” said Barag carefully.

  Amastan turned the possibility over for a moment. He’d considered leaving many times, but it had never felt right to him. “No. No, I don’t want to leave.”

  Barag steepled his fingers. “And why not?”

  “I can still teach the next generation. Or—or something. But I don’t want to leave. It’s my responsibility.”

  “Hmm.” Barag considered him for a long moment, then pushed himself back in his chair. “You want to uphold a tradition? Then I have a proposition for you. What do you say to taking on a special project of mine? I promise it’ll be more fun than transcribing decades-old Circle decisions and cleaning up messy merchants’ script.”

  Some of Amastan’s exhaustion flaked away. “Oh?”

  “Yes,” said Barag. “Get here nice and early tomorrow and I’ll start you on a new project. It’s been my personal little secret for years, but the drum chiefs would never pay for it, so I haven’t given it the time and attention it deserves.”

  “What is it?”

  Barag smiled mysteriously, but he could only hold on to his mystique for so long. “The history of the Basbowen family,” he said with no small amount of pride.

  The door slammed open before Amastan could pry further. They both jumped at the bang, but Amastan also stood, his hand going to his belt. The evening sun poured into the room, backlighting a tall, thick figure. Amastan blinked rapidly against the glare, but already the figure was inside, the door shut. By the time Amastan’s vision had cleared, the figure had split in two. The taller one was Usem, Tamella’s brother, his high-worn tagel a dusty blue. The smaller was tagel-less—a young girl. Her features were smooth with youth, her skin a glowing dark amber, and she had her mother’s sand-brown eyes: Thana.

  “Usem,” said Barag, rising from his chair just as Amastan relaxed.

  Usem raised his hand and Barag sank back down. “Don’t let me interrupt, sa. I’m just escorting the young ma home from her lesson.”

  “If you want to stay for tea, Tamella will be back soon,” said Barag.

  Amastan wiped his pen clean and capped his ink, then began rolling up the scroll he’d been working on. Thana’s return meant the end of his day. Even though her mother was the Serpent, Thana often trained with her uncle. Being the Serpent’s daughter had its drawbacks, one of which was that she couldn’t risk being associated with her own mother. So Thana spent most of her days with Usem, and her uncle and his wife stood in for her parents at public events. He finished cleaning up his desk and turned to grab his water skin. He nearly jumped out of his own skin when he found Thana standing at his elbow, silent as the stars.

  “What do you do all day?” she asked. She brushed her fingers across his stacked scrolls, upsetting the one on top. It rolled across the desk and over the edge, but Amastan caught it before it hit the floor. He gently placed it back on top.

  “Nothing nearly as fun as what you and your cousins get up to, I’m sure,” said Amastan.

  “Thanks, but I can’t stay,” Usem said. “Give my sister my fond regards. And tell her she should be proud of her daughter. The only other person I’ve ever seen throw a knife that precisely was Tam’.”

  “I’ll pass it along,” said Barag, but he sounded weary.

  Thana stared intently at Amastan. “Is it true?”

  “What?”

  “You’re an”—she dropped her voice to a whisper—“assassin?”

  “As of last night,” admitted Amastan. He stood and hooked his water skin to his belt, then ran down his mental checklist to make certain he wasn’t leaving anything behind or out of place.

  Thana stared at him in wonder. “What’s it like?”

  Amastan shrugged, uncomfortable. It wasn’t up to him to tell her about the contract ban. “Not much different than before. You’ll see for yourself someday.”

  “Yeah,” said Thana. She reined in her wonder and marshaled her features into a grave mask. “I will.”

  With that she turned and headed for the stairs. Amastan watched her go as he straightened his wrap and knotted his tagel higher. She couldn’t be more than twelve seasons old, yet Usem was already teaching her to throw knives. Most cousins weren’t selected for their training until they hit puberty. Of course, there was no question about whether the Serpent’s daughter would follow in her footsteps.

  Amastan raised his hand to Barag. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sa.”

  “Remember: nice and early,” said Barag.

  Amastan opened the door to a blast of heat and a sinking sun. He ducked his head against the light and blinked away the glare. When he could see again, he stepped into the hot evening on light feet, feeling the searing heat even through his sandals. Things really weren’t that bad. He’d passed his test, but he didn’t have to take a contract, perhaps ever. And now Barag was trusting him with a special project. Not just any project: the history of the Basbowen family.

  He knew a little about their history, about their place in Ghadid. He knew the family’s assassins had played a role in keeping the city safe, from threats both within and without. But Tamella had never been keen on particulars. She preferred application, and she believed that history couldn’t be applied.

  Amastan drifted through the streets, which swelled with merchants and errand-kids as the worst of the day’s heat dissipated. Home was a neighborhood and two bridges away, but he barely remembered crossing them. He was still in his own thoughts when he shoved the door open with his sore shoulder. The pain jerked him back to the present and he paused in the doorway as noise briefly overwhelmed him.

  The acidic warmth of fresh-brewed tea washed over him. A cluster of women sat around the hearth. They’d gathered all the pillows in the room into a heap, stripping the rest of the room bare. His entrance cut their chatter short and half a dozen heads turned toward him. Amastan froze beneath their collective stare.

  Then he caught himself and waved, stepping inside. Here were his sisters, an aunt or two, and a collection of close family. Cousins, but related by blood instead of knowledge: the safe kind. Once or twice a week, they got together to share chores and gossip. His youngest sister, Guraya, threaded beads for a charm. His first cousin, Tatrit, wove a wedding scarf. His second cousin, Kura, poured water for tea. And Menna, his cousin by profession instead of blood—

  Menna smiled sickly sweet at him and plunged a needle into the heart of a tagel.

  “The boys are on the second floor, if you want to join them,” said Tatrit, her round face soft and earnest.

  “Or you could take a cup and join us.” Menna playfully punched Tatrit’s arm. “We’re celebrating an engagement.”

  Tatrit dipped her chin and averted her eyes, but she couldn’t cover the reddened tips of her pale ears. That explained the wedding scarf. He took a moment to look again at the circle of wo
men. This time, he noticed that his older sister, Thiyya, held a bowl of water in her lap. A blue glow wrapped gently around Menna’s exposed knee. Even as Amastan watched, the bloody scrape that stretched from her knee down her shin closed over with new, pale skin.

  Thiyya was a healer, one of the few professions in Ghadid that one was born into instead of trained. Healing required more than a knowledge of herbs and stitches. A healer used water to speed the body’s natural healing processes, to replenish blood and close wounds, to heal what would normally kill.

  But there was never enough water for all who needed it, and Thiyya shouldn’t have been wasting water on mere scratches that would heal on their own. None of the women said anything about Thiyya’s egregious use, so Amastan didn’t, either. She was still in training and probably needed the practice.

  The blue glow released and Thiyya took a deep breath. She passed the bowl to an aunt, who added the remaining water to the kettle. Thiyya sat back and pushed her braids out of her face. As he always did when he saw his sister, Amastan counted the colorful salas that wove through those braids. Every life a healer saved was represented by a piece of cloth or string that they wove into their hair. Since Thiyya was still training, she only had a few. Amastan counted no new ones.

  Menna slid her wrap back over her knee and squeezed Thiyya’s hand. Menna’s expression was soft in a way that Amastan rarely saw. Thiyya was the real reason why Menna had started coming by Amastan’s house so often. Menna had made the mistake of looking for Amastan at home once and struck up a conversation with Thiyya. There’d been no turning back. Now Menna treated Amastan like a brother: a younger, annoying, naïve brother.

  Guraya piped up. “Are you going to join us or just keep standing there?”

  Amastan cleared his throat. “I’ll pass on the tea, but I hope you enjoy yourselves.” Then, just to Tatrit, “Congratulations.”

  His gaze slipped over Menna as he turned for the stairs, and she caught it with a wink. Amastan returned the signal with the smallest of nods. He ascended the stairs slowly, savoring their cool wood against his feet. He passed the second-floor landing, briefly registering the sound of male voices nearby, and kept going. His room was on the third, the only closed door in a line of open ones. Most of his close family slept up here. He shared the house with his father, two aunts, an uncle, and his two sisters. An occasional cousin came and went, but otherwise there were enough of them to fill the house and give it breath.