Talwar and Khanda--Assassins in Love

by Barbara G. Tarn

  Talwar and Khanda

  Assassins in Love

  by Barbara G. Tarn

  ***

  Barbara G.Tarn copyright © 2017

  Cover art by Rossana Beretta

  electronic edition by Unicorn Productions

  June 2017

  ***

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  About the Author

  Further Reading: Kilig the Sword

  Also By Barbara G.Tarn

  1.

  He smelled incense filling the big room, mixed with other scented fumes, as he stepped in from the "boys'" door. The air was warm, almost hot from the braziers giving light to the underground ceremony hall. Two big iron circles that held ten candles each hung from chains attached to the ceiling, their flickering light dancing on the yellow sandstone.

  He'd never been allowed in the room before. The diwan-i-khas was only for private audiences. It was rectangular, with sculpted half-columns on the walls, and a narrow and low dais on this side. No paintings or colorful statues like at the temple of Zindagi, no sunlight coming in from anywhere, only the uncertain light of candles and braziers.

  Welcome to hell night, when you lose your childhood and are admitted into adulthood. He was already twenty-two, but wasn't considered a man yet.

  He had stepped through the door opening on the side of the dais, naked, along with his cousin and a dozen other young men about his age. Their body hair had been shaved off, as if to return their looks to childhood, and not even a loincloth had been given to them to cover their privates.

  Next time he'd enter the room from the door straight ahead – the men's entrance. He'd be clothed and wouldn't have to be humiliated again, walking naked into a room full of men. Next time. But now he felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment as he walked stiffly forward, staring at his feet.

  He wished he could have another kind of initiation ceremony, one that involved sun rays and the smell of candle-wax and priests chanting. A rite that would give him a new name, much like this one, but with a completely different meaning. And a completely different mission.

  But no, his father wouldn't allow it. He'd been dragged away from the temple and the monastery, and taken back to the fortress in the desert to fulfill the family tradition. Like his father was now known as Jamdhar, he'd soon have a weapon's name instead of his birth name.

  A secret name for a secret guild. Which meant he'd still use his birth name outside of the family... hence the pointlessness of this initiation ceremony. He wondered if the others were as angry as he was. Probably not. His cousin seemed to be quite eager to be admitted into the family business.

  The line of young men stopped in front of the dais where the elders sat. He looked at his father who smiled proudly at him. He scowled, hating the old man for changing his life once again, and even more against his will than the first time seven years earlier, when he'd been taken out of the fortress and into the classrooms of the monastery of Zindagi.

  "On your knees!" The order came from his uncle, the Head of the Guild, now commonly known as Sosan Pattah at family gatherings. A sword with a forward-curved blade for the elder brother, a wedge-shaped, double-edged blade for the younger one. Both mustachioed and bulky and very similar in looks. Both merciless and harsh and full of themselves. Talk of family pride.

  He obeyed. The sandstone floor was blissfully cool, but sweat kept running in rivulets all over his body. He was used to kneeling in the beautiful temple of Zindagi, praying in front of the painted statue of the goddess, but this was different. Much different. No prayers to any god, just subservience to elders who must be addressed with weapon's names.

  He shivered in spite of the heat. The Assassins' Guild wasn't kind on its members, and there was no way to avoid the initiation rite. His father had made that very clear when he'd tried to say he'd rather become a fighting monk of Zindagi.

  He wanted to throw up, but hadn't eaten anything today. He almost choked on the bile rising in his throat and gulped it back down, trying not to flinch. The bad taste remained in his mouth, though. He wanted to go back to the years that had felt like punishment and exile at first, but now looked blissfully peaceful compared to what was coming.

  The elders sat comfortably on plush cushions, clothed and armed, and watched the younger men kneel, heads bowed, waiting for further orders. The carpets covered only the low dais, not the room floor. Their bejeweled turbans and hands glittered in the flickering light with the pearl necklaces hanging from their necks. The silks of their clothes also shone, displaying their wealth. Old bastards.

  "Time for the pledge!" Sosan Pattah again, his eyes gleaming red in the firelight. As if he were a real king, holding court! There was no more kingdom to speak of! Still, the room was a diwan-i-khas and the guild behaved like a royal court.

  He went to the dais, and groveling on all fours he kissed the feet of all the elders at the top of the Guild's pyramid. Then his father took him on his lap like he was a child and spanked him one last time, with unusual strength. As if slapping out the child from the young man's body, one slap for each year passed, which left his buttocks red and sore. As if reminding him who was in charge of his life and his future.

  "You are now stripped of your childhood name and shall remain nameless until you earn your man's name," Sosan Pattah said. "After your first mission." He smirked at his son.

  His cousin was the second born and had always shown great ambition, unlike him. He'd been glad to get away from the competitive fortress after the shock of the sudden change of environment. He'd excelled at the monk's school mostly because he didn't have a cocky cousin constantly challenging everyone around him.

  He had missed his best friend, though. He glanced around at the faces of the other young men, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to talk to anyone just yet. Some he recognized, others seemed new. He wondered how much he'd changed himself and who would recognize him after seven years.

  It wasn't over yet. His father helped him to his feet only to make him sit again for the next ordeal. He thankfully drank the sour drug that would dim his senses during the scarification process. The monks would never hurt him physically before ordaining him. He was losing count of the reasons to hate the initiation night as the drug warmed his belly.

  The room became fuzzy along with his father's face. He was barely aware of what was happening, although he knew what was going on.

  Jamdhar performed the rite, cutting his skin and rubbing ink into the fresh cuts.

  He managed not to faint in the hotter and hotter room. He could hear some of his friends moan or groan, but he didn't let a sound come out of his lips.

  "I'm very proud of you," his father whispered, laying him to rest on a soft carpet. He closed his eyes and passed out.

  ***

  He woke up in his room, on his cot, with the sun coming in from the narrow window. A small room in the recesses of his parents' apartment that he hadn't seen in seven years, although he had to leave his clothes here before the initiation ceremony, when his father had shaved off his chest and pubic hair.

  The cot was harder than he remembered, probably because he wasn't at his best and most fit. The wounds of the scarification still hurt, it would take a few days before he'd able to go on his first mission.

  He breathed in the warm breeze and moved uncomfortably on the cot. His face was now cover
ed in soft stubble but he felt too weak to shave. He'd keep his face clean, like the monks, but for now he considered himself sick and unable to groom himself.

  He seemed to hurt everywhere from the spanking and the scarification. On his left arm, his father had packed some clay in the wound, so he'd have a hypertrophic scar that would form during healing, roughly representing an assassin's chakram. On his right arm an inked scar that represented a jamdhar, and smaller symbols on his shoulders and back that could be easily hidden under the clothes.

  He should have stayed at the monastery. He should have stood his ground. But he was a dutiful son, and even if his whole being was rebelling at the thought, he'd allowed his father to bring him back and put him through the ceremony.

  The curtain across his door moved and his mother came in, holding her veil with one hand and a tray-table of food with the other.

  "How are you feeling, son?" she asked, kneeling next to his low cot and putting the tray on the floor. Like his father, she had a weapon's name, Gupti, a secret weapon with a curved steel hilt terminating in a flower bud and a steel blade.

  She was also an accomplished assassin, even though she'd spent the last twenty-plus years being a mother to him and his five surviving siblings. He noticed a few white hairs in her black braid and a few more wrinkles on her stern face.

  "Hurt," he managed to say. "Why do we have to go through this?"

  "Because it's the Guild's way." She sighed, caressing his shoulder-length brown hair. "We all go through the initiation, men and women alike, and you know it."

  Even though the training was mostly mixed, the initiation ceremonies weren't. Being naked in front of members of the other sex was forbidden until after marriage. It was humiliating enough to be shaved and have to stand in front of the elders, doing it in front of women too was too much even for the Assassins' Guild. Thank Zindagi.

  "I know, but I hoped..." He sighed and managed to sit so he could eat, even if his buttocks were probably still quite red.

  "That because your father sent you to the monastery of Zindagi you'd be spared this rite of passage?" His mother smiled ruefully. "We're assassins, son. We are a secret guild with our rules and our regulations."

  "That Father broke when he sent me to Agharek to complete my training instead of keeping me here at the fortress," he said sourly, nibbling at the food. His mother had prepared his favorite dishes from childhood, oblivious to the fact that he had grown up, was supposed to forget his childhood and had changed some tastes while he'd been away. "I wanted to stay there and become a fighting monk."

  "Why waste your skills in a monastery when your family trade would allow you to use them more?" his mother chided. "Why make a chastity vow, when you could soon be married to a beautiful woman and have children?"

  He shrugged. He hadn't really considered marriage yet.

  "I'm glad to have you back," she continued, caressing him again. "I missed you."

  "I missed you all!" He sighed. "But... I had made new friends and was hoping for a different life."

  It had been the longest seven years of his life, away from family and friends, training with fighting monks who worshiped Zindagi, Goddess of Life, and practiced abstinence. A completely different way of life from what he'd have had at the Guild's fortress.

  "Those friends might be useful in the future for your hereditary profession," she replied. "Now eat. Don't you like meat anymore?"

  He smiled despite himself. "Mother, I've grown up. I've tasted other food in Agharek." Seeing her disappointed look, he added, "But I still love your cooking, and I missed it very much."

  He ate the spicy mutton, savoring it. Maybe he hadn't changed tastes after all. The monks had fed him only vegetables, and he had missed the meat only warriors ate. And assassins. Meat was for warriors and fighters. But the monks worshiped life in all its forms, therefore didn't eat any animal, even though meat was supposed to give them strength.

  His mother took away the empty tray and allowed him more rest in the small room that barely contained the cot and a chest of clothes. He'd kept a journal at the monastery, but it was probably still there, since his departure had been hasty and he hadn't had time to gather his things.

  Oh, well, he'd get it back, eventually. Not that he needed any of the things that had been left at the monastery – he had plenty of spare clothes, shoes, weapons, anything he would need. And maybe it was better if the journal stayed with the monks. He didn't trust his sneaky relatives much.

  He lay in bed for two days, getting up only to relieve himself in the even smaller outhouse on the other side of the apartment's main room. Nobody visited and he thought his parents had isolated him because they didn't trust him completely yet. Until he earned his assassin's name, he was stuck in no-man's land. Nobody claimed him, but his father still "owned" him.

  They didn't talk much. Jamdhar made sure the wounds scarred properly and helped him to bathe before giving him new clothes. It was time to go back to the underground hall and be given his first mission.

  He shaved alone and went down the stairs, meeting a couple of young men on his way down who nodded a silent greeting.

  The elders were sitting on the dais again when he stood in front of them with his peers, dressed and armed with silken noose, daggers, brass wheels and a scimitar hanging by his side. He noticed some even had a blowgun in their sash and he suddenly missed his pole-arm.

  Sosan Pattah looked at all of them before pulling out a list of assignments. They were divided in groups of two or three, and he was assigned to his cousin and another young man who didn't look too happy with the company.

  His team was ordered to go to Agharek and kill a certain nobleman who was gaining too much power and support, and might end up crowning himself king. The target was high profile and very well protected, so he wondered why the Head chose them. Probably a team of more expert assassins would finish the job if they failed.

  If. They wouldn't fail. His cousin was a fool, but he knew how to fight and how to kill. And the other... he had no idea, but he was sure they'd earn their assassin's name. Only a few days and he was already sick of being nameless, of not belonging. If he couldn't be a fighting monk, he might as well fulfill his father's wish and become a true assassin.

  Let's do this. Let's kill the man, end the mission and earn that name. That is the way of the Assassins' Guild.

  ***

  She washed away not only the blood, but also the man's smell. She had never spent so much time in the marble bathtub of her father's palace. She was grateful for the loneliness and that nobody was around when she came back before dawn.

  The sun was up now, its rays making the dust dance in the bath chamber. She sighed and got out of the water, wrapping herself in a towel. She wondered how the others had done. Her first mission was accomplished and tonight she'd receive her assassin's name, but she didn't feel proud.

  She dried her long brown hair as best as she could with another towel, then wrapped it around her head and headed back for her room. On her bed she found clean clothes, while the ones she had used for the mission were gone.

  Her mother came in to help her dress and comb her hair. She didn't feel like talking, so gave one-word answers to the questions. Her stomach was still tight and she declined to have something to eat.

  "I will go to the garden, now, Mother," she said when she was fully dressed. "I need some fresh air."

  She quickly went down the marble staircase and exited in the inner garden. The smell of jasmine filled her nostrils and she headed for a small gazebo at the center of the green. The gravelly path was surrounded by hibiscus bushes, and palm trees gave some shadow to the garden.

  Shadows very different from the ones in the fortress's diwan-i-khas. A week had passed since her initiation ceremony when Sosan Pattah had stripped her of her childhood name and given her her first mission.

  Now she wondered if it had been worth it. She had been the best of the female students, often ending up in male classrooms, which meant s
he had completed her education faster than any of her peers. She had hoped to go to Agharek and reunite with her childhood friend, but when she'd reached the town, she'd found out that he'd been taken back to the fortress for his initiation ceremony.

  It was a disappointment, but he'd be here soon enough. She looked forward to hearing how his training went. She wasn't trying to learn other tricks, but wanted to know if there were alternatives to the assassin's life. Of course the fighting monks didn't admit women, but he'd had the opportunity to learn other ways.

  In the meantime, though, she was an assassin. Like she'd been instructed, she'd approached her intended victim and pretended to like him. She had learned to control herself so well, that she hadn't even flinched when he'd touched her.

  Killing him had satisfied her only because she'd considered it self-defense against an assault on her virtue. She doubted it would always be like this. Maybe she could become a warrior woman instead of a stealth assassin.

  Pity women weren't allowed in the town militia or any form of army. Women were not even allowed to have swords. She was lucky that her family had taught her to use weapons because of their secret profession, otherwise she'd be as harmless as any other noblewoman of Agharek.

  She sat in the gazebo and soon found herself surrounded by birds. The four bellbirds were as usual the most vocal, but they were her favorites with their beautiful feathers and it was a joy to listen to them.

  There was also a Malachite Kingfisher from the nearby river that had come to greet her and bring her news of the river shore, and a bright green parrot that looked a giant next to the other smaller birds. Its face and throat had a yellow color, its bills were black, its nape was blue and it had a bit of orange on its tail feathers.

  Each of the birds had his or her story and listening to them slowly allowed her to relax and forget the previous night, and the mission she had carried out. Some people thought she was strange since she preferred talking to birds than to humans, but she didn't care.

  She had discovered very early she understood the language of birds and often they had helped her through her life. When her good friend had been sent away, to study at the Monastery of Zindagi, her bird friends had kept an eye on him.