The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  “With Ardavan gone,” I ended, “her plans to rule an Exile empire are ruined. But none of us will be safe while she’s alive. Dilara may be dead, but the Despotana has plenty of killers like her.”

  “And Nilang?” he asked thoughtfully. “Why are you so certain she’s on my side?”

  “Because she hates the Despotana. She’s a slave to the binding, Terem—she couldn’t even stay in the room to hear all this or it would have driven her to kill me. All she wants is to be free of Makina Seval and to find her daughter again.” “And she hopes you will kill the Despotana for her, to make those things happen.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which leads me back to you.” He looked at me with pain in his eyes. “What am I to do with you? What?”

  “I have been a traitor,” I said. “I confess it. But I hope that what I’ve done tonight will help you forgive me.”

  “You betrayed everything,” he said bitterly, as if I hadn’t spoken. “The dream I thought you shared. My love for you. All the people who served me faithfully. You betrayed everyone and everything.”

  “I am most humbly sorry,” I said, my voice breaking. “Do to me whatever you want. But first let me have revenge for my dead sister. Let me go with Nilang to Kuijain and give the Despotana the justice she deserves.”

  Terem frowned. “Why should I not simply order Halis to arrest her? Or go after her later, after she’s back in Tamurin?”

  “Because it would be better for us all if her end is quiet. If you allow her to retum to Tamurin and later attack her, or if you arrest her in Kuijain and publicly execute her, you risk frightening the other Despots into combining against you. I don’t think you’d want that. Even with Ardavan gone, there will be a lot of fighting before the Kingdoms are destroyed.

  and you don’t want a war with the Despotates into the bargain.”

  He regarded me appraisingly. “And here I once thought you had no deviousness in you. So, if Makina Seval dies of natural causes, shall we say, there is nothing to frighten the Despots.”

  “Exactly so. One might suppose she came to Kuijain to offer you alliance, but sadly her health failed her. And when Ashken succeeds to the dais in Tamurin, you can deal with her as you deal with the other Despots.”

  Terem stroked his chin. He hadn’t been shaved recently, and I could see the red-gold stubble agleam in the lamplight. At length he rose, still silent, and went to the map table, where he picked up a sheet of closely written paper. This he tore into pieces, which he then tossed into a brazier. Flames leaped high.

  “That,” he said, “was a dispatch to Halis, telling him you are a traitor. It seems to be out of date now, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’ll write a new one for you to take on the galloper. You’ll leave within the hour, and you should be in Kuijain in no more than three days. I hope the Despotana will still be there.”

  “So do I. If she’s not, our lives will become much more difficult.”

  “All the more need to be quick. As soon as you reach the Jacinth Fortress, send this new dispatch to the Chancellery. Don’t deliver it yourself, just tum it over to the commandant and have him get it there. Then go and do what needs doing. You may decide you need a few men after all. If so, get them from the commandant.”

  “Yes, my lord. But the battle—” I wanted to see him win.

  “I’ll attend to the fighting,” he said. “Go find Sholaj and tell him you are to be fed and clothed as necessary. You’ll be given the dispatch for Hahs before you sail.”

  “Terem,” I entreated. I wanted a smile, a hint that he would forgive me, anything.

  His face was impassive. “Go,” he said.

  Thirty-one

  It was a bright, sharp-edged winter moming in Kurjain, with a wind off the sea that smelled of salt and frost. In the streets the hems of the puddles were plaited with rime, and small icicles hung from the eaves on the shaded sides of buildings. In the canals the fishmongers and bread sellers sculled from door to door, and the breeze carried the tang of burning charcoal from a myriad breakfast fires.

  Nilang and I had reached the Jacinth Fortress just after dawn, then delivered the sealed dispatch. Now, with eight soldiers in civilian dress coming behind us in a second craft, we were in a periang on our way to find Mother.

  According to Nilang, she had secluded herself in a small villa she secretly owned near the Salt Lagoon docks on Tannery Canal. This canal, along which I was now sculling our boat, was only half again the width of a slipper, and cloudy with runnoff from the tannery vats. Over it hung the stink of half-cured hides and bumt animal hair.

  “That is the one,” Nilang said, “two landings along. There is a squid carved over the door.”

  I saw it. In spite of my apprehension at what was to come, I wondered for the hundredth time what had happened at Gultekin. Terem would have fought his battle three days ago, probably beginning at this very hour. But I was as ignorant of victory or defeat as anyone else in the capital; our galloper, with two crews of rowers keeping us on the move night and day, had outrun any courier in our headlong rush down the Jacinth.

  I raised a hand to the soldiers in the second periang, which halted at a water stair behind us. The men scrambled ashore and disappeared into the alley that led to Lime Burners’ Street and the landward entrance to Mother’s villa. Watching them go, I thought glumly how much simpler it would be to have them kill her. But this was my very last resort, for I had promised Terem perfect secrecy in the manner of Mother’s death.

  Nilang wouldn’t have agreed to using the soldiers anyway, because Master Aa and Instructor Harakty were also in the villa. If soldiers came for Mother, these two would defend her to the death, and Nilang refused to accept this. They shared her bloodhne, and she would not buy her jfreedom with their lives. So we must try deception instead and hope that this would not awaken the horrors of Nilang’s binding.

  I would still have to deal with Tossi. But she wouldn’t expect me to come as an enemy; if Nilang could get Master Aa and Harakty out of the way, I could take her by surprise. Or so I hoped. If she defeated me. Mother’s fate would be up to the soldiers. They were to arrest anyone who came out of the villa, unless Nilang or I accompanied them, and take the captives to the Arsenal to await Terem’s pleasure. This was a failure I wanted very much to avoid, since I’d aheady failed him in so many other ways. Nilang wanted to avoid it at least as much as I did; she did not want Mother in a dungeon but in a tomb.

  We arrived at the villa. It was a tall building of three floors, with two of its windows winter-papered against the wind and the rest shuttered. I eased the periang to the water steps where Nilang secured us to the mooring ring. Then I followed her onto the landing, where she rapped in a complicated rhythm on the door. Several moments passed. I felt short of breath and edgy, just as I always did before going onstage.

  The spy hole in the door shd open and a blue eye peered at us. The eye widened, then disappeared, and I heard the bar draw back. The door opened to reveal Instructor Harakty. He spoke to Nilang in Taweret; she answered, then said softly to me, “The Despotana and Mistress Tossi are upstairs. Harakty is surprised to see us, but I told him all is in order.” We entered, hiside was a dark kitchen storeroom with iron pans on a charcoal stove. Master Aa stood in front of it, frying small silver fish on a griddle. He tumed around, dehght on his face, and opened his mouth to speak. Nilang covered hers, urgently. Master Aa looked perplexed but remained silent.

  Nilang spoke again in Taweret, keeping her voice low. Master Aa looked up at the ceihng, shrugged, and moved the griddle off the coals. Then, obediently, he and Harakty shpped out the door onto the water steps. Nilang followed, and I watched through the doorway as the three boarded the periang.

  From upstairs. Mother called, “Who’s there?”

  Master Aa looked up. My heart almost stopped. Then Nilang spoke quietly but urgently and he pushed off from the landing. Harakty took the scull and drove the boat swiftly out into the canal, and Master Aa settled himself on a thwart
. He did not look up again. I softly closed the door.

  “Who’s there? Master Aa?” Now it was Tossi’s voice, closer, from the top of the stairs. And then I heard her footsteps descending.

  If I’d been closer to the stairway I might have taken her by surprise, as I’d intended, but it was three paces too far. Her face came into view and her eyes opened wide.

  “Lale?” she said in a sharp, astonished voice. “What are you doing here?”

  If there was ever a time in my life to he, this was it. “Nilang ordered me to come,” I said. “She’s still in Gultekin— she’s ill. She tried a sending, but she was too weak, so I had to bring the news. Dilara succeeded. The usurper is dead.” Joy ht Tossi’s face. She clapped her hands with delight and burst out, “Thank the Moon Lady! Now we can go home.” Her gaze swept around the kitchen. “Where’s Master Aa?”

  “Master Harakty let me in, but then he said he had to go do the marketing. Master Aa went with him. They left a few moments ago.”

  ''Both of them?” Her smile vanished. Clearly this was not supposed to happen. I edged a little closer to her.

  “Tossi, who’s down there?” Mother called. “Is that Lale I hear?”

  “Yes, Mother,” I called. “I’ve come in place of Nilang. But everything’s all right.”

  “Come up and explain.”

  Tossi gave the kitchen an uneasy glance, then motioned me toward the stairs. She was very alert and maneuvered me into ascending ahead of her, something I could not avoid without looking suspicious. She gave me no chance to take her unawares, and the back of my neck prickled.

  I reached the top of the stairway, which ended in a large room overlooking the canal. The chamber was well lit by moming sunlight streaming through the papered window, and a brazier radiated a welcome warmth. Near the brazier. Mother sat at a small table, on which were the remains of breakfast: fried fish on a large earthenware platter, a loaf in a basket, and a dish of beets pickled in vinegar. Wasting no time, she asked, “Is he dead?”

  “Yes, Mother.” To my relief, there was no suspicion in her manner. “Dilara did it, and she got away afterward. But Nilang’s had a fever since she arrived in Gultekin, and when I left, she was very ill. She couldn’t make the sending to Tossi, so Dilara and I decided I should come instead, and Nilang agreed.”

  “I see. And the battle?”

  “I headed west the moming after Dilara killed him, so I can’t be sure.” I covertly studied her expression, which suggested she believed everything I was telling her; it was what she wanted to hear, after all. “Ardavan outnumbered the Sun Lord a good two to one,” I added. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about who had the victory.”

  “Then we have won,” she said quietly. She rose from the table and came forward to embrace me, and the dehcate scent she wore filled my nostrils.

  I could have broken her neck before Tossi could stop me. But I did not. Was it her scent, and the memories it woke in me, or the famihar warmth of her embrace? Whatever it was, I hesitated, and the moment passed. She shpped out of my reach and resumed her seat at the table.

  Tossi said, “Mother, Master Aa and Harakty aren’t in the house.”

  Mother went very still. Then she said, “Why not?”

  Tossi watched me carefully. “Lale says they went to market as she came in. Both of diem.”

  “What, both? Tossi, you instructed them otherwise?” “Yes. They appear to have disobeyed me.”

  There was a frozen instant. And then Mother’s face went cold, and Tossi said, “You told me Nilang ordered you to come here. If she was too sick to make a sending to me, how did she do that?”

  Too late, cursing my carelessness, I went for her. But she was already on guard, and my first blow glanced harmlessly from her forearm. She kicked at my kneecap, I spun aside and slammed her in the ribs with my elbow. The impact would have broken her bones if she hadn’t been so fast, but she was, and she merely grunted.

  “Don’t kill her, Tossi,” Mother said in a strange harsh voice. “I want answers.”

  We faced each other, circling. I dared not drop my guard long enough to draw the Taweret murder knife at my waist. She’d break my arm if I did.

  “I’ll leave enough of you to feed the wraiths,” Tossi hissed at me. “Remember Adrine?”

  “Tossi,” I said, in the faint hope that I might reach her, “I’m free of the wraiths. You can be, too. You don’t have to serve her. She’s mad, Tossi.”

  It was useless; she snarled and came at me. For the next few moments we did our best to kill or maim each other, dodging, grapphng, breaking free. I was younger and faster than Tossi, but palace living had made me soft, and she was frighteningly strong. Once she got my throat and would have crushed it, but she must have remembered that she mustn’t kill me, because her grip relaxed and I twisted free.

  But I was no longer sure I could win. I’d squandered my chances. I should have gone for her in the kitchen. I should have killed Mother as she kissed me. The soldiers would still take them if Tossi won, but that would be small consolation, because I’d be dead. Or maimed for life; crippled, blind, paralyzed.

  Tossi had my left wrist. I yanked her toward me, hand sweeping back to break her nose. This would do it—

  Something hit the back of my head. Bright lights burst inside my skull and I dropped to my knees. An instant later, Tossi had yanked my wrist up between my shoulder blades and clamped my head in the angle of her right arm. I knew the hold and froze into stillness.

  “If you move,” she croaked into my ear, “I’ll twist your head off.”

  Still on my knees, fixed in Tossi’s relentless grip, I looked with dazed eyes at Mother. She’d left the table to strike me with the edge of the heavy fish platter, which now lay in two pieces on the floor. A hot rivulet of blood soaked into my hair.

  “You’ve got her securely?” Mother asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, Lale, I’m sure you haven’t come alone, and that you have men outside. If you call for help, Tossi will kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Now, let’s have some truth from you, shall we? Is the usurper dead?”

  I didn’t reply. Tossi rotated my wrist and agony speared through my shoulder. Just a little more and she’d dislocate my arm.

  “No,” I gasped, tears of pain filling my eyes. “But Dilara is. She missed him and his guards killed her.”

  “I see. And you? You were supposed to poison him if she failed.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  She sat down behind the table again, like a magistrate about to pronounce sentence on a kneeling prisoner. The light from the windows made an aura around her head. Behind me, the door to the staircase was ten thousand miles away. I would never pass through it again, not living.

  “I think you have betrayed me, Lale,” Mother said. “Haven’t you?”

  My fate was sealed, but I might get a last satisfaction from telling her of the wreckage of her dreams. She’d ruined mine, after all.

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s exactly what I’ve done. There’s been a battle, all right, but I don’t think the Exiles won it, because Terem’s alive. Better yet, Ardavan’s dead.”

  “Ardavan?” Shock passed over her face. “How do you know?”

  “Because I killed him. I got into his camp and left him dead in his tent the night before the battle. The Exiles are leaderless.” I took a deep breath. “And before I left Gultekin, I told Terem about you, and about Three Springs, and what you made of me and my sisters. I told him everything. He’ll be coming for you as soon as he’s finished with the Exiles.” Had I hoped she’d crumble at my words, at the ruin of all her intricately crafted plots? She did go pale, and her mouth tightened. But she was made of harder marble than that, and in her face I already saw the complexion of her thought, calculating, devising, scheming, searching out a way to retrieve the situation, to find a path to victory in the wildemess of defeat.

  “It’s
not all lost,” she muttered. “Ashken and he . . . perhaps.” Then her gaze focused on me again. “But why, Lale? Why did you do it?”

  “I fell in love with Terem,” I said. “But it wasn’t only that. I saw Ihshan Aviya in Gultekin, and he told me who Merihan was. You knew who she was, too. All those years, you knew she was my real sister, and you kept her from me. You kept us apart, when you could have brought us together. And then you murdered her. You murdered the last of my blood kin. And you still wonder why I’ve betrayed you?”

  “Ah, I see. Who told you about the Surina?”

  “Dilara. She was my best friend once, but then you made her a murderess, and now she’s dead. You destroyed her. You destroy everything you touch.” My voice was shaking now with sorrow and outrage and, yes, fear. I was going to die and I didn’t want to. I tested Tossi’s grip, just a fraction. “Careful, Lale,” she whispered. No hope there.

  Mother regarded me thoughtfully. “I did what I needed to do, child. But what I would like to know is this—^how did you wriggle free of the wraiths? Nilang said only she . . .” She trailed off and then said, “Oh, I see. Nilang released you. Yet more treacheries.”

  “What did you expect? You enslaved her and kept her from her daughter. All she needed was the chance to tum on you, and I gave it to her. And once you’re dead, she’s free.”

  “But I’m not dead,” Mother observed. Her face was stony. “And when I get her back. I’ll make her suffer. By the Moon Lady, I will.”

  “You won’t escape even if I’m dead. There are men waiting for you.”

  She laughed. “Did you think I wouldn’t foresee such a thing? There’s more than one way out of this house. Tunnels. Even Nilang didn’t know about them. That was wise, wasn’t it?”

  “Mother,” Tossi said from behind me, “shouldn’t we go?” “I think we should. Very well, Tossi, kill her.”

  “Good-bye, Lale,” Tossi murmured. She yanked at my arm to render me helpless with pain, and the vise around my head tightened.