Well Met in Molos

by J. Hepburn

  A wild urge stirs inside Zerris. Such an expedition seems like the perfect, ludicrous end to a ludicrous evening. Why not? He has nothing left to lose, and the possibility of much to gain! And with the Egg recovered tonight… After that, there will be time to confront Kalle about other matters.

  "Why not?" Zerris starts grinning as fiercely as Kalle is. "Yes, why not! This night is either cursed or blessed, let's roll the dice and find out which!"

  Kalle claps his hands in a display of childlike delight. "So tell me of the layout! You said a vault?"

  Zerris nods vigorously. "Vault. It does not—normally—have extra guards. It is in the cellar, with one door down."

  "All this information came with the contract, or your own research?"

  "Yes," Zerris says, refusing to specify which.

  "Ah. I understand, you have contacts to protect. I don't mind. A vault this key fits?"

  "Yes, the vault that key is for, and I—we—may need to open other locks, as well."

  "Perhaps," Kalle says. "Perhaps. Let us not delay! What do you need?"

  "We leave from my home," Zerris says. "I started this as Orianna, and I intend to finish it as Orianna. Very well, Kalle, you may meet Orianna."

  Kalle looks, if possible, even more enthusiastic. "Can you climb walls dressed as Orianna? Fight?"

  Zerris keeps a grimace off his face at Kalle's phrasing, and forges on instead. He jumps to his feet. "In the right clothes, she can! Come with me."

  "Wait!"

  Zerris stops halfway to the door.

  Kalle holds up their glasses, both still half-full. "We have to toast our venture!"

  Mischief Afoot

  The last of the wine is settling in their stomachs as they scale the wall around the abandoned courtyard and drop back down to the street.

  Zerris leads Kalle along wide streets and through narrow alleys to twisty streets, over walls and from rooftop to rooftop. He thinks a few times he has managed to lose Kalle, only to have his heart jump into his mouth when a patch of darkness grins at him.

  The cocky bastard seems able to appear out of shadows without having entered them first. Only in a hard run does Zerris have the advantage. With that knowledge spurring him on, he would take the most direct route home, but caution makes him, as usual, take a route that, before now, nobody could have followed.

  When they near Zerris's house, he slows and becomes more cautious. He and Kalle move in tandem, scouting out before and around them, but, much to Zerris's great surprise, there seems to be no guard watching his door.

  He checks his door carefully, but sees no signs of tampering.

  Kalle, who has been keeping watch during this examination, shakes his head slightly that no, there are no watchers.

  Frowning, still cautious, Zerris leads Kalle around the back to scale the wall to the courtyard.

  Kalle is nearly soundless dropping into the courtyard, seeming merely a shadow flowing down the wall.

  They glide into a dark house, both listening intently and sniffing the air carefully before relaxing.

  Zerris lights the lantern by the door, then leads Kalle downstairs, lights another lantern, and offers Kalle water because his desert blood insists he fulfil a host's minimal obligations.

  "I will change. I will be down shortly," he says, feeling self-conscious, and more so when he hears Kalle's soft chuckle following him up the stairs.

  In Tiglis's room, he takes a few moments to steady himself and clear his head. He still can't be around Kalle without his thoughts scattering.

  Kalle. Zerris freezes. As his focus returns, he finally adds up everything he knows of Kalle. A fighter who will kill if he judges it best, not because passion drove him to it. A thief perhaps as good as Zerris, who can get into a thoroughly guarded and well-lit house. A man who can slip through a crowd as well as Zerris ever could, and disappear into shadows far better. A killer. Above all else, and the one thing that makes him truly different to Zerris, he is a skilled and unrepentant killer.

  Of course! Zerris has to smother a shout of triumph. But after the initial shock of revelation, he almost feels like laughing. Kalle's humour and outrageous habit of making himself obvious make the idea seem absurd. Kalle has repeatedly shown he is no danger to Zerris or to Tiglis, despite no little provocation, and although he has killed easily in Molos, there has been no outcry about the death of anyone important enough to have rich enemies. Besides, Zerris has at times found killing the most prudent path―albeit he has always avoided it unless necessary―so he can hardly judge another for courting death more readily. Can he?

  Could Zerris be mistaken?

  Could he confront Kalle?

  Zerris grinds his teeth. Can he not confront Kalle? Can he work alongside Kalle tonight without knowing?

  There is only one answer there. Zerris turns to his preparations with fresh resolution.

  Tiglis's wardrobe gives up a pair of light pants that tie at the ankles, a light shirt, and light robes, all in black.

  As Zerris removes his beard, his movements are already changing, but his eyes and the set of his jaw are still Zerris despite his clothes.

  He hesitates then, staring at his own eyes in the mirror, in an agony of indecision, caught between Zerris and Orianna and emotions that do not seem to match either.

  Then he stands abruptly, snatching up the box. He feels an unfamiliar need to have Kalle watch him change, watch him become someone else.

  The urge feels perverse, and as if he'll change his mind with but a little more thought, but in this moment, Zerris knows that Kalle needs to see to understand.

  When Zerris descends the stairs back into the house's main room, Kalle stares at him, appearing both surprised and disconcerted. Zerris, whose beardless face is making him uncomfortable and leaving him struggling for a sense of his body, knows he does not move like Tiglis, Orianna, or Zerris, and does not find Kalle's expression surprising.

  There is another mirror, not quite as elaborate as the one upstairs, on a wall. Zerris kneels before it, his movements still, slowly, altering.

  He thoroughly washes his face before getting to work with kohl to change his eyebrows.

  Kalle watches in fascination.

  "You're an assassin," Zerris says, his voice shifting octave and timbre. Working on his transformation gives him focus, clarity, and the centred, calm mind that can put aside Zerris and become someone else. The mind that can ask this question in the certainty he will not provoke Kalle by doing so.

  "Yes."

  Zerris blinks at his reflection in surprise. "You're not worried about admitting that?"

  Kalle laughs. "Should I be? Nobody would take me seriously if I told them. They'd think I was boasting. Everyone knows that no assassin is stupid enough to reveal themselves, and black clothes are common enough. Especially here, in the desert, although I suspect the tribesmen know something about keeping cool that I don't."

  "You have to wear loose robes," Zerris says, opening pots containing fine powders and pastes. "The layers keep you cool. Your clothes are too tight."

  Out of the corner of his eye, reflected in the mirror, Zerris catches the look Kalle gives him. He nearly blushes.

  "Do the tribeswomen really wear the same robes as the men?" Kalle asks. "I thought I hadn't seen any of their women, until someone told me they all dress alike."

  "Much the same. Most wetlanders cannot tell the difference. But inside Molos's walls, city men do not treat women the way desert women are used to being treated, so we hide ourselves inside headdresses so we do not feel compelled to slit someone's throat for disrespect." His voice pattern is becoming Orianna, his tone lightening and hinting at her breathiness. But the voice does not come easily until he places the wads of cloth inside his cheeks and settles them in place, finding the process quicker and easier than he had been fearing.

  "I am liking this look already. Those are women's robes?" Kalle asks.

  "I bought these from a tribeswoman who thought I was a woman."


  Kalle nods cheerfully.

  As Zerris lightens his face, he shades his cheekbones so subtly even close observers would fail to notice the deception.

  "How do you clean that off?" Kalle asks.

  "Spirits of wine," Zerris says shortly. "They are strong, but my skin has long learned to tolerate them."

  "It is all a considerable amount of effort for something you seem to do several times a day."

  "It gets easier with practice," Zerris says as he attempts to keep his focus on his face.

  "You seem to be more angry as Zerris, and more comfortable as Tiglis," Kalle says.

  Zerris fails to hide a spasm of anger at Kalle's casual intrusion into his soul. "What of it?"

  "Why even still be Zerris? Why not be Tiglis all the time?"

  "I don't have much of a choice," Zerris snaps. "Tiglis could not maintain my contacts, Tiglis would not have the respect of any procurer able to offer large contracts or take expensive items."

  "After tonight, your choice will be to leave Molos. After we take this Egg and you deliver it, let me take you to Reshoon."

  Zerris silently and roundly curses his inability to stop himself blushing at every second thing Kalle says. He takes refuge in changing the subject.

  "Will you be able to leave? If you truly are an assassin, aren't you here for a contract?"

  "No, I left the guild. I really am just wandering."

  Zerris is startled enough to freeze for a second. "They let you leave?"

  Kalle waves an airy hand. "I finished my apprenticeship, I passed my tests, I paid off my debts. I am free to go as I choose. I wanted to travel. I'm not the first."

  "How many have you killed?"

  "Ah, now, that would be a trade secret!"

  Zerris turns his head to look sharply at Kalle, who relents.

  "As a guild assassin? Five."

  "Ha!"

  "I swear it on my mother's uncertain grave. Five. One to prove myself and finish my apprenticeship, then four contracts to pay out my indebtedness to the Guild. I've killed a sight more men in my travels, by accident or for my protection, than I did as an assassin. I have even taken contracts, in cities where the guild has no presence. We kill with care, and we kill for a high price, for we know our worth and the worth of those we kill."

  "So now you thieve?" Zerris settles small wads of linen inside his cheeks.

  Kalle waves a hand airily. "I thieve, I guard, I gamble, I do whatever takes my fancy. I once hit a man over the head for his purse to see what it is like. I don't recommend it. I prefer killing cleanly or facing them fairly. I like a good fight. But I salute your hands. Tiglis had my match this evening, I do not lie about that."

  "I can open safes as well."

  It is Orianna who speaks wholly out of Zerris's mouth now, the vocal transformation complete.

  "An excellent talent! We really should be partners. Think of the deeds we could do together!"

  "I'll be doing them as Tiglis," Zerris says. He barely manages to finish his preparations without freezing in horror at what he has just said.

  A triumphant look flashes across Kalle's face, then returns after its departure to settle in and linger.

  Zerris busies himself in finishing his preparations.

  "Who is Orianna?" Kalle asks. "Have you used her before?"

  Zerris turns to look at Kalle, who stares.

  Zerris had been constantly aware that Kalle was watching him with hawklike intensity, surely missing no change of posture, movement or expression. Yet Kalle now stares in shock.

  "I am Orianna," she says, her voice breathy and carefully precise. "I have not been seen in Molos before. I arrived for Gabrio's party. I am travelling with a caravan on secret business. They have a carriage for me, and I have my guards."

  Kalle seems, uncharacteristically, to be floundering for words. "Have there been others who arrived for a party?"

  Orianna turns back to the mirror, cocking her head to examine herself critically. "There has not been the need before, and it takes a lot of work to truly create someone new. Much work, and more practice than you can know." She cocks her head the other way. "She is pretty. I like being Orianna—she could have so much fun. I may even keep her. But possibly not until I am a long way from here." From out of the corner of her eye, she catches Kalle looking uncharacteristically unsettled.

  "I have to say," Kalle says, a strained note in his voice, "not only do you have skill at disguise I have never met before, you occupy your characters so completely I have no wonder you are successful."

  Orianna's cool, faint smile becomes as brittle as bone china. "Kalle," she says, her voice sharp enough to cut, "you have said too much unchallenged. There is one thing you must understand now, before we have any further business together."

  Kalle looks at her, bereft of witticisms.

  "I do not know who these 'therai' are. It seems I am not alone in the Empire as knowing myself not to be how I was born. That is to the good. But you are wrong to imagine that Zerris puts on Orianna as a costume. You say the therai believe themselves to be women? Do not use this word, 'belief,' in my presence again, Kalle, or there will be no more alliance between us. I cannot speak for others, but should I, I would tell you that there is no 'belief' with myself or any other. Tiglis is not an identity I take off, Tiglis is the heart of me, Kalle. I maintain Zerris so I may survive and, if the Gods below be willing, profit enough to leave the only home I have known for other sands where I may better be myself. I become others so I may pursue my own ends, but I am a woman, Kalle, without need for your qualification."

  Kalle seems struck dumb while Orianna speaks, first taken aback then stunned by her sharpness, then his lightly tanned face colouring as she continues. He seems to gather herself when she stops, and opens his mouth, but she holds up a finger as she draws breath and, with a look as if he's surprised at his own reaction upon his face, he reseals his lips.

  "And, as to a second point, you are equally as wrong, if not more so, to imagine Orianna and Tiglis are merely costumes Zerris wears; or Zerris and Orianna merely costumes Tiglis wears. Zerris did not develop Tiglis as 'someone to be'; he came to realise the shape of his soul, and took the name Tiglis. Zerris became a necessary skin to put on. Zerris already had the contacts and contracts. Zerris was known. Zerris was a man in a city where it is hard for a woman to live without one, and very nearly harder for a woman to remain without one. Having Zerris lets Tiglis live. But for Tiglis to step outside this door safely, to not be found out, to have no suspicion cast upon her, even in this city where no man dares openly dress in women's clothes and so no man is suspected? That does not merely require skill. You say it took even you some time to realise Tiglis's secret. Imagine how any of those others in Reshoon might fare in Molos, should they try to move about these streets. The only way for Tiglis to be safe is to be Tiglis entirely. Not to be perceived as a man believing he is a woman—"

  Kalle flinches at the sharpness in Orianna's tone.

  "But a woman entirely. Not Zerris becoming who he knows himself to be, but Tiglis, Zerris's sister, who knows not the friends who ran with Zerris on the street, or the vendors who sell food to Zerris, or the thieves and associates of thieves with whom Zerris must do business daily. I am not Zerris dressing as Tiglis, I am Tiglis. When I become Orianna, I am not Tiglis painting her face, I am Orianna. There can be no room for doubt. Doubt would give me away. I have seen others attempting to disguise themselves, who give themselves away through inconsistency or familiar traits or through constantly looking at others to see if they are discovered. I can afford none of that."

  Orianna stops to draw breath and to settle rising fury, damping hot anger back into cold.

  "I have heard similar," Kalle mutters, "priests who take upon themselves the persona of a God, performers who inhabit fully—" He clamps his mouth shut hard when Orianna glares at him.

  "Do not wonder how I was able to walk through Gabrio's party in a dress of finest cashmere and have nobody guess I am a g
irl from Saradakh who was born with ballocks and not breasts. I might wonder how you stole into Gabrio's house unseen or how you ever followed Tiglis through Saradakh without her sensing your presence."

  Kalle is silent for an unprecedentedly long time as Orianna maintains a stare as cold as the desert before dawn. When he does stir to speak, he hesitates, subsides, and seems to be turning things over in his mind. Under any other circumstances, Orianna might feel a smug sense of triumph at having reduced Kalle to this.

  "Truly, there is much in what you say that strikes me hard," he begins at last, subdued for the first time Orianna, Kalle, or Tiglis has ever seen. "I appear to have been carrying with me assumptions I should have discarded long ago. Should have tested long ago. As I think back upon my path, I believe you chasten me duly, and now my honour is sorely pricked, for which I have nobody to blame but myself. I apologise most sincerely for what I have said in error. I will not beg forgiveness and offer no defence, for the fault was wholly mine."

  Kalle takes a deep breath before continuing. "As for the distinction between you, Tiglis, and Zerris—and others, I have no doubt—I can only say the same. My lack of experience led me to assumptions I did not test. Were I to do that as an assassin or thief, I could forfeit my life. As it is, I forfeit my honour, and I am unsure which is worse, although I may hope to reclaim my honour. I interrupted you—for which I also make apologies—to say I have met in the past those who utterly inhabit roles they play. I have now no doubt that you bear only slight compare to them, and surpass them in every way. I bow to your skill, for I have never to my knowledge met its like and have no way myself to comprehend it." He suits actions to words, bowing this time without maintaining eye contact.

  Orianna relaxes slowly, settling like a crow's ruffled feathers.

  Kalle clears his throat, a surprisingly timid gesture. "And I apologise to Orianna and to Tiglis both for suggesting that meeting one would not be cheating on the other. I believe I see now my error. I look at Orianna now and see no more of Tiglis than I would between two distant cousins."