Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Kandri lies with one arm over his face. Beneath his elbow he watches Talupéké furtively. She is flat on her back with her unsheathed mattoglin upon her chest. Seventeen, perhaps only sixteen. At that age, he was hiding cheroots, feeling up the girls who would let him, writing moony love letters to Ariqina. Those were quiet years in the Valley: the liberation of the heartland completed, the surge northward into Važek territory hardly begun. For Kandri, the war was barely visible, a monster prowling somewhere east of the mountains, nothing that could cross them to prey on his life. He’d never spoken to a soldier, excerpt Uncle Chindilan. He had never imagined the horror hidden in a blade.

  Talupéké’s eyes are red and puffy. Over and over he watches them start to drift close. Each time this happens, she awakens with a violent twitch.

  Nightfall. A lone splash of daylight on the horizon. Somehow they have all overslept.

  Kandri staggers to his feet. He is about to wake the others, but a strange reluctance comes over him. He is dizzy and his thoughts feels strange; is he about to be sick?

  He steps away from the other four. The wind is cold and the stars are infinite. No, he’s not himself. His balance: all off. Small movements of his legs seem to propel him weightlessly across the land. When he turns, he finds that he has walked not the three or four paces he imagined but a good fifty feet, and the still forms of his companions are barely discernible against the dark. Alarmed, he starts to hurry back. He moves closer to the sleepers, but they are still far away. Not just fifty feet, then: he has ambled ten times that distance on these buoyant legs. What is happening to him? Dehydration, dysentery? Fever from a wound?

  He stops in his tracks.

  High above him, shapes are gliding through the sky. They are pale and soundless and scattered far and near over the Yskralem. Graceful, fluid shapes, white stencils, rocking and pitching in the air.

  They are ships. Long-oared galleys, high-prowed fishing boats with battened sails, massive carracks, tiny dhows. They move like mist, swifter than they first appeared. Some drag nets beneath them; others winch in hauls of invisible fish. Kandri turns in a circle. He can see men working the halyards, swinging from the braces, scaling the masts. A small boy dangles from a bowsprit, kicking his heels. A white anchor drops on a translucent chain. It is not one day he is witnessing but centuries. Not the wasteland through which they have walked but the home waters of a people. These people. The ones from whom the sea was stolen.

  Raiders come. Warriors mass at gunwales as ship closes on ship. Over the gaps, men leap with soundless war-howls, feet thumping down on quarterdecks, swords driven through the chests of merchant traders and fisherfolk. A mainmast topples; ghostly flames consume a sail.

  There above him: a man’s legs are on fire. He drops his cutlass and flies to the rail of his ghost ship and leaps. The fire vanishes, but the man sinks swiftly, tearing at his boots and clothing, reaching hopelessly for the sky. He has coins stuffed in his pockets: many pockets, many coins. He rips at them, desperate; the coins blink and flicker like the bubbles from his mouth. Deeper, deeper. His body jerks a final time. It reaches the sea floor ten feet from Kandri, bobs there, lifeless, a heel tracing patterns in the sand. His eyes still open. His short beard combed gently by waters vanished from the earth.

  Ghost coins fall around him, winking. Suspended high above, a single boot.

  He runs for his friends with all his might. In the skies, fleets are burning; dead men fall like snow. He cannot shout. He trips and rolls and finds his feet and keeps running. The others loom near at last: Mektu and Talupéké motionless, Chindilan twitching a little in his sleep.

  Eshett, however, is wide awake. She stands apart from the others, reaching for the heavens. Her face is wild, exultant.

  But no, he’s deluded; she lies asleep with the others. And a new fear surges in Kandri: what if they are the mirage? What if he is of this place and always has been, and the journey across the sea floor only the fancy of a short-bearded man, a man with one boot and useless riches; what if he has drowned here, alone?

  He closes half the distance. And half again. And half again.

  Later, as they march, he needs no one to tell him that he’s had a nightmare. But what is uncanny is how well he recalls the vision. Every detail, every silent moment, except the one when he rejoined the others, either by running wild-eyed into their midst or waking with a gasp between his brother and Eshett. No matter how he searches his mind for that transition, he cannot find it. His leap back to the living world is gone.

  They walk all night into a chilly headwind, over land flat and bare as a blade. The moon glitters on the salt as if on polished marble; fine sand peppers their cheeks. It is such empty country that they are all startled by what the dawn light reveals.

  It is another island, even taller than the colossus behind them, and once again shaped like an hourglass. But atop this island is an enormous structure. They stop in their tracks, pass the telescope around. Battlements, crumbling but massive, enclose the summit in a ring of amber stone. A broken tower stabs at the sky.

  “A fortress,” says Chindilan. “Imperial, or older.”

  As the light grows the scene becomes uncanny. Bands of color streak the cliffs, salmon pink, bruise purple. And the erosion of the cliffs is far more severe than in any previous island. In many places, the fortress walls rise above open air.

  “When those stones come down, the whole Yskralem will hear it,” says Mektu.

  “Some kind of naval base,” says Chindilan, passing the telescope on. “See how those cliffs fold in on themselves, around the corner? What could that be but a cove?”

  “I don’t see a path up to the walls,” says Talupéké. “If that is a cove, maybe there’s a way up inside. Or maybe no one’s been there since the Theft of the Sea.”

  Kandri scowls at the island. There it sits astride their path, smug in its mystery and menace. Of course it offers shelter. They could do with another cool day, a solid roof overhead. And from those walls they could study the land about them for a day’s march in all directions.

  So, of course, could anyone else.

  Predictably, an argument begins. “It’s getting there that confounds me,” says Chindilan. “Up close we’d find plenty of hiding places—hell, we could be directly underneath the walls and they’d be none the wiser. But we’d have to cross those flats in perfect darkness. Even moonlight could give us away.”

  “We should go around,” says Eshett.

  “Impossible,” says Mektu. “If the army’s up there, they’ll have telescopes, and a man with a scope could spot us at twenty miles. We’re nearly too close as it is. We’d lose days, and we don’t even know that there’s any reason. What we do know is that a Wolfpack is behind us.”

  “Close behind, maybe,” adds Talupéké. “Your brother’s right. Every hour we’re not moving due east is a gift to your Prophet.”

  “Letting ourselves be seen would be a bigger gift,” says Eshett. “We should go around.”

  Kandri’s mind hurts: too many choices, too little sleep. He doesn’t have the heart to speak of their water problems now. We must stay cool, he thinks. Every step must be efficient.

  At last the debate tips in favor of avoiding the island altogether. Wearily, they shoulder their packs and fall back, a mile or more, to round the island on its southern flank. But as dawn approaches, they stumble upon an object that changes their calculations entirely.

  It is the wreck of an old fishing trawler, demasted, wedged on its side among rocks. A long wound in the hull gapes at them like a carious mouth. Ancient barnacles still cling to the sun-bleached planks. The anchor chain, feathered with salt and rust, snakes across the seabed for some fifty yards before it dives beneath the salt.

  “Found our day camp, haven’t we?” says Mektu. “Couldn’t ask for better shelter, from the sun or enemy eyes.”

  Kandri feels his breath grow short. He half-expects to see white wraiths spinning about the vessel in the last shadows of the n
ight. But there is nothing of the sort, and he can find no legitimate reason not to spend the day in the boat.

  Easy, child. You can’t drown in an empty sea.

  Kandri smiles. He isn’t sure whose voice he’s imagining—mother, birth-mother, father, friend?—but the words are comforting nonetheless.

  They crawl in through a gash in the bow. Inside, the boat is merely a shell, earth-filled and odorless. A great oblong of daylight enters through the cargo shaft: something to block with the sunshield.

  Chindilan moves to the stern and looks out through a porthole. “Beautiful,” he says. “We can watch the fortress all we like from here. One flicker of movement—or a torch at nightfall—and we carry on around. But if there’s nothing, I say we make straight for it, and have a look from those battlements ourselves.”

  “If we can find a way up there,” says Mektu.

  The telescope, when they train it anew on the fortress, answers one question: the folded cliffs do indeed form a cove. Other boats lie abandoned in its mouth, and farther in, rows of blackened stumps suggest the remains of a pier. In the deepest recess of the cove is a great mound of earth and rock. Directly above, the wall is shattered. It is the first real gap they have seen.

  “There’s a big arch standing yet,” says Mektu, his eye to the telescope. “I suppose that’s the main gate, or the remains of it. What do you think: were they sacked after the waters fell or before? I’ll bet you three sips from my faska it was pirates, long ago.”

  “Don’t fuck around with the water,” says Kandri.

  “I was only kidding, brother.”

  “Kid about something else.”

  Kandri sets his back to the hull. His eyes are in actual pain. Mektu notices his vigorous rubbing and asks why he spent half the night staring up at the skies.

  “I was just . . . checking,” says Kandri.

  “Checking? What the hell for?”

  Kandri stares him down. He would rather swallow nails than tell his brother about the ghosts.

  “My eyes don’t feel right either,” says Eshett.

  “Nor mine, come to think of it,” says Chindilan. “They itch.”

  Kandri looks from one to another. Deep inside him, an alarm begins to sound.

  Then Mektu says that his arrow wound feels warm to the touch. Kandri bolts upright. “What do you mean, warm? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I just noticed,” says Mektu, taken aback.

  Kandri drags him into the daylight. The wound has closed, front and back, but at the arrow’s exit point, the skin is puffy and red. “Mektu, Mektu,” he says, too alarmed even for anger, “you have to fucking talk when this sort of thing happens.”

  “I’m talking now,” says Mektu. “It changed suddenly, that’s all.” He looks at Eshett. “I’m not a fool, although he tries to make me look like one. Especially when you’re around.”

  “I’m always around,” says Eshett.

  Talupéké smirks. Mektu glares at each of them, as though he has discovered some cabal of ridicule. “I know as much about medicine as Kandri,” he declares. “I worked in her clinic too.”

  “Whose clinic?” asks Eshett. “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind,” snaps Kandri. “Mek, listen to me: there’s still a chance it’s not serious, just angry flesh trying to heal. But will you please, please watch it like a fucking hawk?”

  “And stop poking at it, fool,” says Chindilan. “And for Ang’s sake, keep it clean.”

  Mektu drops his hand, too angry to look at them now. “I’ll bathe it with rosewater,” he says.

  After a quick meal they stretch out in the shade. Once again Kandri takes the first watch, propping the telescope in the fist-sized hole. This time Talupéké is almost instantly asleep. Watching her, Kandri finds a smile on his face. Starting to trust us. The thought lifts his spirits. By rights they should have died on the rim of the canyon. By rights they should have been murdered by Atau. Instead they are well into the crossing, and armed with bows, and the deadliest sort of wounds for runaways, wounds to the legs or feet, are something none of them have suffered. The Gods have not abandoned them yet.

  Then Talupéké begins to twitch. A moan escapes her; one hand gropes beneath the coat she has rolled up for a pillow. Kandri is about to nudge her when Eshett opens her eyes. She crawls over to the girl.

  “Wake up,” she whispers. “Sister, wake now. It’s just a dream.” But the girl goes on twitching, her faced creased in rage or fear. Eshett taps her arm.

  Talupéké explodes to her feet and lashes out with her mattoglin, which seems to appear out of nowhere. Eshett, astonishingly quick herself, twists and hurls herself away. The tip of the blade flashes within an inch of her throat, only slightly farther from Kandri’s chest, and bites deep into the boat’s rotting side.

  Everyone howls. Talupéké gasps into full wakefulness, rips the blade from the wall, and brandishes it, consciously this time, as though expecting them to close ranks and kill her on the spot. Eshett reaches out for her; Chindilan hauls her brutally back. He points a thick finger at Talupéké and shouts: You rabid dog! You butchering batshit savage! Kandri, appalled, grabs his uncle by the shoulders and begs him to be quiet. Mektu does not appear to know what is happening. He waves his own machete and bellows wordlessly.

  Kandri moves between the smith and Talupéké, arms spread wide. The girl herself has backed against the hull, reciting the Lone Soldier’s prayer.

  “To hosts of hell my brethren fell, but swift to Thee I fly—”

  “Stop that,” Kandri shouts. “No one’s going to hurt you, I promise. Will you please, please drop that blade?”

  “Drop it, bitch!” screams Mektu.

  They are drowning; all the sanity has bled from this boat. Talupéké’s eyes leap from face to face, her chest heaves like a bellows. “I’m offering again,” she says, “to pick up and leave.”

  “Accepted!” says Chindilan.

  “Not accepted!” cries Eshett. “Shut your mouth, you lard-headed old donkey! Think about the fate that brought this girl to us!”

  “Think about fate!” screams Mektu, louder than the rest of them combined.

  Chindilan snorts. “Don’t talk to me about fate. There’s blind chance and tough choices, and I’m fucking tired of choosing badly. No mystic fate made you a streetwalker.”

  Kandri seizes his hands. “Uncle, shut up! For the love of Ang—”

  Chindilan stamps his foot. “That girl almost took Eshett’s head off!”

  “But she didn’t,” says Eshett.

  “She didn’t!” screams Mektu. “But she almost! What does it mean?”

  Eshett takes the machete from his hand.

  “Your uncle’s right,” says Talupéké. “I’m not safe to have around. Why do you think I tried to leave in the first place? I could kill one of you.”

  “Or,” says Kandri, “you could stay with us, and sleep with your blade out of reach.”

  That, somehow, is the end of the argument. Not a resolution, but an end. The girl retreats to the stern of the boat and crouches, trembling, the mattoglin across her knees. The others mill about, waiting for their nerves to settle. Chindilan can meet no one’s eye.

  But they have marched all night, and the next march awaits them, and soon everyone but Kandri is asleep. When his watch is over, he lies down and wraps his headscarf tight over his eyes. He dreams of storms and the trawler underway, the cries of men and seabirds, boots on the top deck, a fierce wind tearing at the sails. He is there in the roaring darkness, hauling ropes, swaying, stumbling. A great city awaits them on the horizon but will not submit to scrutiny, it darts and whirls, and the glimpses he catches are from the corner of his eye. Likewise the sailors: no faces, only forms. Who are these people, these half-drowned, desperate souls? Warriors, fisherfolk, his family, the living and the dead. All of them exiles, riding forces beyond anyone’s mastery, praying for dry land.

  “Kandri?”

  “. . .”


  “Kandri?”

  “Jeshar, Mek. I was sound asleep.”

  “That’s all right. Isn’t it strange, though? First Ari, then Papa. Two people we loved just disappeared. And now we’re trying to do the same thing. Do you suppose we’ll ever see them again?”

  “Yes. Hell yes. We’ll see them both before the end.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I don’t know, Mek. I just feel it. Go to sleep.”

  “And now it’s our turn to run. I wonder if that means we’re as good as they are.”

  “Not yet, Mektu. But maybe we will be, when we find our true selves. Maybe we’ll drink from the Well of Fire.”

  “Like Ari used to say.”

  “Right,” says Kandri quietly. “Now that’s enough, let’s—”

  “Or maybe we’re all running for the same reason, Kan. Maybe when a place fills up with too much badness, you can spot the good people because they run for the hills.”

  “Brother, I’m begging you. Go to sleep.”

  “And with the yatra it’s exactly the same. Your mind fills up with the demon, with all its tricks and lies and pokes and snickering, like an evil storm, black water pouring in through a hole in the roof, and you try to block the hole but it keeps coming, and your soul has to run, but where can it run to? It’s a soul. It belongs where it is, and the yatra’s there too and its arms end in razors, so your soul leans out the attic window and cries like a fool, waves its arms, cries for help, which is not easy for anyone to give if you think about it. Which is why I am like I am.”

  Minutes later his brother is asleep and snoring, and Kandri is as wide awake as one thrown into ice water. His fury boundless and impotent. The Gods are sick bastards, to make people who snore. Mektu gets it from Lantor: a man whose snores could wake the dead.

  He thinks of his last real conversation with his father. It was just after their interview with the Prophet, when Her Radiance had asked about his fear of drowning, and Kandri had defied her, keeping his silence. Father and son had left the palace compound and wandered a bit through Eternity Camp, too shaken to speak. Thirty minutes passed before the Old Man broke the silence.