Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “We’re better off, aren’t we, Mektu? Better with it all torn out by the roots?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Kan, you sound crazy.”

  A long pause, then Mektu speaks again. “You had to provoke them, to be sure that they’d charge. And of course we hate the Prophet. I mean the thing she is today. Not what she was, the savior of our people, blessings on her soul.”

  “Now you both sound crazy,” says Talupéké.

  “It’s something only Chilotos understand, girl,” says Mektu. “And anyway, Eshett’s a whore.”

  “You piece of shit,” says Talupéké.

  “Was, I mean. A whore.”

  “Be quiet now, Mek,” says Kandri.

  “No, I’ll keep talking,” says Mektu. “I can’t say these things to Eshett, or when Uncle’s around to call me a fool. But I dream each night of that Parthan. Don’t laugh. For the second time in my life, I’m in love.”

  “What happened to the first lucky girl?” asks Talupéké.

  Mektu ignores her. “She has a secret, Eshett does. You don’t really think she just happened to show up when you killed Ojulan, do you?”

  Kandri frowns at his brother. “Of course I do. What else? What the hell are you saying?”

  “She’s kept something from us,” says Mektu. “She’s not just a runaway whore. And don’t lecture me, I don’t judge think less of her for whoring. How could I? Look at the refuge we chose.”

  “The army?” says Talupéké.

  “No,” says Mektu, “belief.”

  At dawn, Talupéké sheds her boots and scales the inner shaft with the ease of a gecko. Kandri sees her standing fearlessly atop the broken spire, leaning a bit into the wind. After a long look in each direction, she scurries down again.

  “All clear,” she says. “They must be scouting, finding out if there are more of us. But they’ll be back soon. We should run.”

  And run they do, across the sticky flagstones, through the reek and the flies, stopping only to recover what weapons they can. Kandri tries not to look at what remains of the six who came to kill them. The black gauntlet has stopped burning at last, but they avoid it all the same.

  When they spill out through the gate, they see one of the Ornaqs circling far away to the south.

  “Do you know what’s fortunate?” says Mektu. “If others come here, looking for us, it won’t even matter if they recognize the scraps—the cloaks, the belts, the sivkrin hides. They’ll blame the Ornaqs, naturally. They’ll never know we were here.”

  “It won’t make any difference,” says Talupéké ambiguously. Then she looks hard at the brothers. “She can’t do it, can she? Order every fucking Chiloto in Urrath to learn your name, and curse it?”

  “Sure, she can,” says Kandri.

  “Where the fuck did she come from?” the girl almost shouts. “How did she dream up all this crazy shit? A path to heaven, Godlike sons, all Urrath ruled by one Chiloto family, madder than moon flies. You two are Chilotos, but you’re normal people, too. Sort of normal. You say you hate her now, you don’t believe in her cause. But do you believe in her powers?”

  Who will answer first? Neither, as it happens: the silence holds all the way to the wreck. As they draw near, Chindilan emerges from the hull. An incoherent whoop, joy and disbelief at once, bursts from his chest. Eshett joins him, and the two rush out onto the scree.

  The Parthan woman’s eyes are bright. “You should be—”

  “Dead?” says Kandri. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “We saw the Ornaqs,” says Chindilan. “How in the flaming Pits did you escape?”

  They sketch the events of the night before, and Chindilan hugs them, one by one. “Brilliant, brilliant!” he says. “Gods below, we were grieving already. Now come and eat something, and let’s get the hell out of here. Together, of course—”

  He is glancing at Talupéké, wringing his hands. Eshett watches him intently. Talupéké shrugs and brushes past him into the wreck. The smith’s gaze drops to his toes.

  Squirm, you old fool, thinks Kandri. I hope Eshett chewed your ass off all night. But her face shows only relief at their survival. When Mektu drops to the ground to empty sand from his boots, she actually tousles his hair. She lifts her eyes to Kandri, beaming, and touches his arm. But even as Kandri smiles in turn, her face hardens.

  “Congratulations, Chilotos,” she says. “It’s your holy day.”

  Mektu freezes with a boot in his hand. Kandri, bewildered, turns to Chindilan. The smith gives a reluctant nod.

  “She’s perfectly right, it’s Revelation Day. I’d lost count. Funny how that happens.”

  Revelation Day: the anniversary of the Prophet’s first communion with the Gods. And her declaration of war.

  “Not quite the same as last year, is it?” adds the smith.

  Mektu lies flat on the earth, staring up into the cloudless sky. Kandri feels Eshett’s grip tighten, helping him balance.

  “No,” he says, “it’s not much like last year.”

  “Well, what the fuck happened last year?” asks Talupéké.

  Kandri turns his head away. He does not want to see the girl, or Eshett with her accusing eyes, or Chindilan with eyes full of kindness. Only now does he realize that he has been dreading this anniversary, the fifty-first. Dreading the memories it will not let him avoid.

  Talupéké turns to Eshett. “Why are you the one who remembered, anyway? You’re no Chiloto. What’s the Prophet to you?”

  “An enemy,” says Eshett. “Isn’t that enough?”

  Kandri walks to the far side of the wreck, trembling and ashamed. He’s not weak. He’s just come through carnage, spent the night in a tower full of blood and piss and shit and flies, scraps of dead men and animals. But this is different. Revelation Day. No, no, he can’t look at anyone just yet—not even his brother, when Mektu shuffles up beside him and takes his hand.

  It had begun with mind-shattering noise. Steel hammer. Brass bell. Their captain was storming through the tent, issuing orders in a nonstop howl. The bell was the signal for mobilization. The fiftieth Revelation Day would not be a holiday in any ordinary sense.

  The world was black and frigid; dawn was still far off. Nonetheless, in twenty minutes flat—dressed, armed, stuffed with food—his unit assembled and marched for the North Gate, heads held high.

  Kandri was anxious. Their breakfast had included sutsak, a hot fermented drink normally reserved for mountain units. Brewed with honey and aromatic herbs, it went down easily, but the lingering taste was strange and heavy on his tongue. Adding to the strangeness was the behavior of his commanding officer. The captain was known for decency and a genuine concern for his men. But he had been irritable for weeks now, and had pushed Kandri’s unit like never before. “The war front’s waiting, you dogs!” he’d snapped just yesterday, without provocation. “You’ll be back there before you know it, and the slow-arsed among you will be cut to shreds.”

  But this morning Kandri’s greatest worry was his own heart. He knew he should feel nothing but pride and awe on this day. Fifty years of Revelation. Fifty years since the Gods allowed Her Radiance to perceive their greatest secret: Heaven’s Path, the silver-paved road of glory that would transform the world. Fifty years since she swore on the Well of Fire that Chilotos would never again be slaves.

  Pride, awe—and joy, of course. For the enemy was in retreat, the Chiloto heartlands were once more ruled by Chilotos. And the war’s end surely could not be too far off. So stop worrying, you fool. You’re a good soldier. You feel everything you should.

  But was it enough? Did his joy truly match the greatness of the day? By the light of the security lamps he saw Mektu and his friend Betali, whose ears stood out from his head like the wings of a grouse. Both men were smiling, beaming. Suddenly aware of his own face, Kandri smiled in turn. It felt like donning a mask.

  How would the great day be celebrated? No one in his unit knew a thing. Kandri imagined speeches, martial music, parades al
ong the victory route. But nothing prepared him for what he saw outside the gate.

  Countless thousands were on the march. Pike men, breachers, axe-wielding Jindits, lowly sandalmen with their chipped blades and rusted halberds, bricklayers, sappers, the Akoli Militia, the scarlet-sashed Orthodox Guard . . . and the Rasanga, aloof and terrible; and other elite forces Kandri could not identify. Everyone, in short: the Prophet was emptying the camp.

  But the crowd was not limited to soldiers. Common Chilotos, farmers and townspeople, were everywhere. They had swarmed the local village and overflowed into the fields; they had erected tents of their own outside Eternity Camp. Ang’s blood, thought Kandri, they must have been arriving for days.

  The great throng flowed northward over the Windplain, murmuring like a river in flood. No orders were shouted; no officers addressed them at all. Far ahead, at the vanguard it seemed, a single kettle drum was booming, a lonely sound, a heart in a vault.

  For many hours they marched to that drum. Fields were trampled, villages swallowed whole. Rumors buzzed like flies through the ranks. Some said that they were making for Hunger Cliff, where the Prophet came of age as the common-law wife of the warlord Bitruk Uslor, and later experienced the vision that would change the world. Others whispered that a great engineering project lay ahead, something at which thousands had toiled.

  At daybreak, the whole throng knelt in prayer. In the vast, loving silence, Kandri asked the Gods to watch over the souls of his grandparents and the child Peyar they had tried to save: three martyrs, brutally killed by the Važeks. But his prayers were over before anyone else’s, and long before the signal to rise. He waited, motionless. Once again he could taste the heavy sutsak—and once again his worries pounced.

  The captain was right, of course: the front was waiting. At month’s end, his legion, one of the smallest, was to march on a clan he’d never heard of before, a clan known as the Ghalsúnay. There were dark rumors about the mission. Several officers, without explanation, had been quickly transferred to other legions. Men were saying that they had requested—even begged—for the transfers. They’re afraid, Kandri thought. They know something that’s been kept from the ranks. They know what we’ll be facing and want no part of it, they—

  No. He glanced at his comrades, still praying fervently, their faces serene. What was wrong with him? In his mind’s eye he saw the face of the All-Shepherd, Father Marz, an enemy of the Hinjumans but a great favorite of Her Radiance. He thought of the way the hunched old man had squinted at them from the courtyard gate, as they stumbled from the barn after all-night lessons. If Marz hated his family, wasn’t his family in the wrong? Moral correction: that was what Marz had always preached. True self-criticism in the deep stillness of the soul. Had he, Kandri, ever attempted it sincerely? What if he was too far gone even to try?

  He panicked: faith was leaving him, the Prophet’s love was leaving him, her holy eyes would turn away in despair.

  No, no, no. With an immense effort he silenced his doubts. And in the void he recalled the words of her First Encyclical, committed to memory by every new recruit.

  Study the mirror, my children. When you walk Heaven’s Path, you must descend before you climb. Down it leads through lightless depths, through the Valley of the Gorgon, the Black Wood of the ghouls. Follow me, fearless, and you shall know the strength that is your birthright, and your true people, and the love that fear has kept from you. In the caverns of the soul, like the caverns of the earth, there is a well of sacred fire. Lift the cup with me. Dare to drink.

  “Hinjuman!” His captain’s voice was soft but imperative. “Get up, lad, we’re moving out. And take the cup from your comrade there. Drain it. You’re the last one to drink.”

  Kandri rose; a cup was thrust into his hand. More sutsak: he drained it dry. The taste was exactly like what had been served at breakfast, but this time he found it good—startlingly good. Instead of heaviness and dread, he soon felt a deep serenity. From across the ranks, his brother glanced his way and smiled, crazed and earnest. Kandri smiled back, and this time nothing was forced. As they marched on, he recited the rest of the First Encyclical and moved on to the second, and so the hours flew by.

  Midafternoon, their numbers doubled. Four entire legions, recalled from the various war fronts, met them at a crossroads, along with still more civilians. The two throngs became one whispering, northward-gushing sea. Here and there among the common folk, songs broke out, but they died quickly. Only the lone kettle drum, that steady heartbeat, played on. The sun sank low. Kandri became light-headed—they’d eaten nothing since breakfast—but he didn’t mind. In the Prophet’s army, everything happened for a reason.

  The drum fell silent. Kandri looked up and felt a tightness in his chest. Before them rose a hill: tall, barren, solitary; and on its summit crouched a sinister ruin. Whispers of awe swept the ranks. They had come to the Theater of Bones.

  It was a coliseum, ancient and gigantic, six levels of tall stone arcades. Many were crumbling; a few had collapsed altogether: the place was long abandoned. The men of Kandri’s unit nodded to one another: their captain had spoken at length about the Theater some weeks before—about the time his behavior started to change.

  Now he beckoned his sixty men together, raked them with a manic stare. And to their astonishment, he screamed at them—he, their captain, a lone voice above that multitude.

  “Are you going to be fit soldiers today?”

  “Yes, sir!” his sixty answered, abashed.

  “Come again? Are you going to make me proud?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The man’s lips worked in fury; a vein stood out on his neck. “Did I hear a fucking crow in the distance? Where in Jekka’s entrails are your manhoods? This is where your ancestors were gutted, you prize pigs. This is where they tried to end us all. Now speak the fuck up: are you ready to stand proud under the gaze of everyone who’s made this journey today—every widow, every grandfather, every last warrior in the Army of Revelation?”

  In unison, they screamed at him: “YES, SIR!”

  The captain whirled. A flag was thrust into his hand, and he set off, waving it in a great arc above his head. And the multitude fell back like parting curtains, and Kandri and his comrades advanced on the hill, and their fellow soldiers cheered. To either side, comrades rushed up to them, offering new uniforms: not hand-me-downs but pristine coats, never worn by anyone—and before they left the throng behind, all sixty had shed their tattered rags for these bright blue-and-golden raiments. They were not practical coats for warfare, but they were spectacular.

  As if in a dream, they led the throng up the hill, right to the foot of the Theater of Bones. A moat surrounded the coliseum, twelve feet deep and bristling with spikes. An acrid smell, like oily paint or turpentine, wafted from the entire structure. “Circle round, ten-yard intervals, stand at attention!” their captain bellowed. “You’re the honor guard tonight.”

  The sixty men raced to comply. They staked out positions and turned their back to the moat, weapons drawn, facing that sea of souls.

  And then they waited. All of them. Two thirds of the entire Army of Liberation, it was said, and an equal number of common folk drawn by rumor and fascination. The sun set. The darkness deepened. Kandri and Mektu glanced at each other, smiling still, floating on the wonder of the privilege they’d been given. But an hour passed, and then another. And although Kandri fought it with all the strength he could muster, the sense of dread came for him once more.

  The Theater was an abattoir, after all. Within those arches, the captain had explained, great rings of stone descended to a central fire pit: a crucible, with air-shafts beneath it to feed the blaze. The Kasrajis had built the place to strike terror into the hearts of the fractious Chilotos. When the Empire fell, the Važeks seized control of the Chiloto lands, and saw at once how useful this circus of horrors could be. During the last years of their rule, the stream of arriving prisoners was almost constant.

  The Thea
ter’s very shape was a blasphemy. Kandri’s people built open tombs, much like the Theater but a fraction of its size. Every significant town built one; smaller villages shared a single tomb. Inside, upon those stone rings facing the skies, the Chilotos laid out their dead—washed, blessed, prayed for, unclothed—for the birds to pick clean.

  Other clans thought it gruesome, but for Kandri’s people the rite was holy, a return to the earth. At year’s end, the bones were gathered and burned in the central pit. Ashes from the many tombs were exchanged, mingled, sealing the bond between villages far and near. And when the Pilgrim, that great second moon, next appeared over Isp’rallal, the ashes of twenty-one years of Chiloto dead were thrown to the wind, or spread over farmland, or poured with prayers into the sea. In death, the Chiloto people were one.

  But their enemies brought no corpses to the Theater of Bones. Instead, Chiloto prisoners were marched to this hill, driven over flimsy planks spanning the moat, and forgotten. In that circular jail they were left to starve, or to make whatever end they could. Many climbed to the highest arcades and begged their captors for mercy. Finding none, they leaped. The able-bodied might get a running start and try to clear the moat. A few succeeded. The guards kept poles handy, to nudge their shattered bodies back upon the spikes.

  Over the decades, ghouls infiltrated the structure, feasting on the dead and harrowing the soon-to-die. The Važeks had watched them at twilight, chasing men and women in circles round the arcades. It was an entertainment, this place. In some seasons, tickets were sold.

  Three centuries of mass murder. Fifty thousand killed in this structure alone. Whole territories of the Chiloto heartland emptied of life. And their numbers not yet half recovered.

  My Prophet, Kandri thought, what if you’d never come?

  He was trembling with emotion. His head was not quite right. Then he jumped: a weird, thin sound, the hiss of some night creature perhaps, was issuing from the structure behind him. A cracking sound followed, like a stick broken over someone’s knee. He looked at Mektu, but his brother still stood rigidly at attention, the perfect tin soldier, although his body trembled a bit.