Age of Assassins

by Rj Barker

  But in my dreams I do not wear a noose around my neck or play to a grim-faced audience of two—one my master, bound to a chair. The other a woman of similar age but dressed finely in flowing jerkins and gold-threaded trews who holds my master at swordpoint. Both are illuminated by a shaft of light and utterly still like players before the opening of their performance. I wondered if this had been done on purpose. If so there could be no doubt our captors had a flare for the dramatic.

  “Aydor,” said the woman, her voice husky as if she were aroused, “make sure the rope is tight around the boy’s neck, or Merela may not believe I am serious.” The noose around my neck snaked shut and the air in the room thickened. “Good boy,” she said.

  Aydor’s foul breath enveloped me as he whispered in my ear.

  “You’ll regret that kiss you gave me when you’re begging for air, mage-bent. No one treats me like a woman; I’m the king-in-waiting.”

  The woman turned and tore off my master’s mask. “So, Merela Karn—” she walked around my master’s chair “—who did you come here to kill?”

  There was silence then. A long silence. The sort of silence used to underline the drama in the bad theatre pieces that were performed at Festival, the great travelling trade caravan that toured the Tired Lands. This was a bad thing for me as a cripple. A fast rule of poor Tired Lands drama is that the hero’s well-meaning cripple friend dies as early as possible in the first act. This gives the hero a reason to continue; it provides them with some impetus. I had never taken the common hack playwrights’ work personally until I stood on a stage with a noose around my neck.

  “You know me, Merela,” said the woman. “You know you cannot lie about your trade. So spare your apprentice some pain. Tell me who you came to kill.”

  My master said nothing.

  “I am the queen now, Merela. Adran Mennix, queen of the whole of Maniyadoc and the Long Tides. You know that; you helped put me on my throne. Aren’t you proud of that?” She walked around my master, who ignored her, staring fixedly forward. “Do we not have some bond, Merela? Does our past not tie us together?” She knelt, putting a hand on my master’s leg.

  My master said nothing and the queen remained kneeling, searching her face, then straightened. When she spoke again there was a yearning note in her voice.

  “Is there nothing there, Merela? Not even in in your code of murder, that says we are bonded?”

  My master said nothing.

  “Very well, you were always stubborn. Let’s see if we can find something you do care about,” said the queen. “Aydor, pull on the rope.”

  “Wait.” My master spoke in nothing more than a whisper but it filled the entire room. It was a skill she had taught me in my tenth year, a way of speaking from the bottom of your stomach rather than your throat that fills your blood with energetic fizzing and a room with sound. The queen, at that moment gesturing towards me, gave an imperious smile and let her hand drop. Aydor, who I had decided must be her son as there was a definite resemblance, gave the rope a spiteful tug that had me standing on my tiptoes to avoid choking. I was desperate to hear what was being said by this woman who called herself a queen. My master had always been tight-lipped about her past, and now it turned out she knew one of the most powerful women in the Tired Lands, Queen Adran Mennix of Maniyadoc. If I was about to die then I would at least try to die with my curiosity sated.

  “Very well, Merela, I will wait upon you again,” said the queen with a mocking bow. “I hope you understand what an honour that is now.”

  “We were invited here, Queen Adran,” said my master, “invited to meet a contact in the castle, and they would tell us our target.”

  “You came, to my castle, to kill. Even though we were friends once?”

  “Yes, I came because we were friends. Once.”

  “And do you know who brought you here?”

  “We both know that.”

  “Do we?” said Adran.

  “Of course we do. You brought us here.”

  Once again the dramatic silence. Though I knew my master was right because she is always right. I also knew that I had been the only person in the room in the dark about this as Aydor let the tension on the rope slacken slightly in surprise at being found out.

  “And,” said the queen quietly, “what makes you think that?”

  “A night-soil drain designed as a trap. The insistence on our coming through the night soil gate when we all know the blessed keep them watched. And lastly, and most obviously, that I was asked for by my full name.”

  “Is that so strange?”

  “Yes, the number of people who know my real name and what I do can be counted on the fingers of one hand.” She looked up then, a big smile on her face. I do not like that smile. It generally bodes nothing good. “All of them are in this room.”

  The rope creaked, tightening around my neck as Queen Adran stared at my master. Then the queen laughed. She had a beautiful laugh, a chiming girlish laugh that was full of life and pleasure.

  “Sharp as ever, Merela. I knew I was right to bring you here.”

  “And you, Adran, are as willing to make things needlessly complex as ever. You could have asked to see me.”

  “You would not have come, Merela. Not for what I want.”

  “And that is?”

  “Your advice. Your help.”

  “Why?” My master tipped her head to one side. She seemed genuinely confused.

  “My son.”

  “Son?” My master raised an eyebrow. “I thought you only ever wanted daughters?” I felt Aydor’s muscles twitch through the tension of the rope.

  “What was it you always said, Merela? We work with what we have?” The noose tightened another notch. “Nonetheless, I love my son and someone in the court wishes to assassinate him.” She nodded at Aydor, a man with breath only a mother could love.

  “Of course they do,” said my master, and the rope around my neck tightened again, forcing sweat out of my pores.

  “Then you know about this? For sure?” Adran—all angles and worry.

  I am an assassin, Adran—”

  “Queen Adran,” she snapped.

  “I am an assassin, Queen Adran—” though she used the title my master did not make it sound respectful “—and your son is the heir to the throne so at least half, if not more, of your court would see profit in his corpse. So if your question is ‘Does someone want to see your son dead?’ the answer is almost definitely yes.” Aydor did not take kindly to this news and I felt his indignation in increments as the noose closed further around my windpipe. “The question you should be asking, Queen Adran, is if anyone has the spine to follow through on their desire.”

  Adran lowered herself to a crouch so she could look into my master’s face.

  “Or maybe that is a question that you—” she poked my master in the chest “—you, Merela Karn, should be asking.”

  “Me?” It is rare I hear my master sound surprised but she was then. “Why would I do that?”

  “Who better to stop an assassination than an assassin?”

  “Surely the king has a Heartblade for such things?”

  I waited for Adran to reply. It is normal for any of the high blessed to have a Heartblade, a man or woman trained to stop assassins.

  “He did have. He died protecting Aydor, though the castle thinks he fell down the stairs, drunk. After all, if it was common knowledge an assassin was already here, you would not have come. But now Festival is coming with all its trade and train, they will flood my castle with people, and …”

  “You have no replacement to watch your son?”

  Adran stared at my master, a smile playing about her lips.

  “I have someone to watch him, but not to find whoever ordered this. I want you for that.”

  “Me?” said my master.

  Adran turned to me.

  “Your boy is quite talented—the way he dealt with those two guards was impressive. I would have preferred he killed them but
that is being dealt with.” She stared at me then smiled the way a cat smiles before it pounces on a mouse and turned back to my master. “Let us talk in private, Merela. Aydor!” she shouted. “Hoist the boy!”

  What was said between them then I missed as I was choking on the rope. I do not know how long they talked, only that it was for less than seven minutes as I did not lose consciousness and that is how long I can survive on one breath. My eyes streamed as they started from my head, and my tongue swelled to fill my mouth while my master and Queen Adran talked.

  As darkness started to close around me an agreement was reached between them. Aydor let go of the rope, and I fell to the floor of the scaffold gasping for air while he laughed, calling me a useless cripple as he slit the ropes binding my hands.

  “Go talk to your mistress,” he said. “Learn your duties.”

  By the time I had limped over to my master she was also free. She shepherded me away from the queen and her sewer-breathed son.

  “We are to find out if there is a conspiracy to assassinate the heir and, if so, we are to stop it.” She spoke loudly enough for the queen to hear.

  “But the Open Circle … The other assassins will …” I said, following her lead and keeping my voice audible.

  “Don’t worry about them. I have given my word to help. We will have to answer for it.”

  “Why, Master?” My question was genuine. She did not give her word lightly nor, in my experience, ever go back on it.

  “The queen says that if I do not do as she wishes she will expose me. Tell people that the great Merela is a woman and that I am a Death’s Jester.”

  “But then—”

  “They will wipe every Death’s Jester from the Tired Lands, presuming they are all assassins, and an ancient art form will die. I cannot be the cause of that.”

  “But—”

  “I have given my word, Girton.” Sharp words meant to cut me off. She would talk no more about a thing once she was decided.

  From the theatre we were taken by a slave to a room where two heated tubs of water waited so we could wash off the filth of the day. The slave did not stay. Adran clearly knew my master well enough to trust her word. I itched to know more but knew that questions would be as welcome as a sorcerer at a crop sowing.

  The moment she was sure we were alone my master leaned over from her tub of water and said my name in a whisper.

  “Listen to me, Girton. Adran wanted to lock you in a cell as surety. Her son has a warrior called Celot to guard him, and now she has me as well. They see no use for you. I have told them I need you to spy for me if I am to achieve their aims but you may walk away from here. Do you understand? I have given only my word and Adran cares nothing for you; she wants me. You may ensure your safety and slip away in the night and, if you do, you will go with my thanks for many good years of service.”

  “You mean leave you, Master?” I said.

  “Yes. Adran did not get to be queen through kind words and soft hands. She is not someone you wish to be mixed up with if it can be avoided.”

  “But what would I do without you, Master?”

  “Kill people, Girton. It is what you are trained for.”

  “But I am still an apprentice.”

  “Do not play the fool,” she said, angry. “You are fully ready and have been for long on long. You are twice the assassin of any other I have met.”

  “Even you, Master?”

  “Girton,” she said and shook her head, her anger passing as quickly as the warm breezes that bathe the land in yearslife. She reached out and ran a cold wet finger down the line of my jaw. “You are always ready with a joke.” She smiled then, her real smile, a small, fragile and seldom-seen thing. “Do not stay out of loyalty to me, Girton. We are not loyal; we are death bringers, cold people.” Looking into her eyes I felt the same fear that I had felt when Aydor ap Mennix placed the noose around my neck, the same fear I had felt as a scared child when she first took my hand at the slave auctions. She had found me when I was six and been all I had known in the nine years since. She had trained me in weapons, nursed me through sicknesses, held me when I had nightmares of hedgings coming for me and taught me all I needed to pass in the world. “If I do what Adran wants, Girton, the Open Circle will never rest until I am punished for it. They may overlook your actions, at first, but the longer you stay the more they will see you as my accomplice. So if you stay, be sure.”

  “I am sure, Master.”

  Those words, spoken so quickly and without thought to anything but my own loss. I often wonder, now I am older and wiser, if I had paused and thought about what she was saying, if I had considered the facts behind the words, then would I have reconsidered? Because what I did not see, through the selfish eyes of my youth, was that Queen Adran had only one thing she could hold over my master. It was not her identity as a Death’s Jester—a new disguise is ten a penny to our kind. It was not that an art form would be lost from the world. That would have saddened her—she enjoyed the work—but she was always a cold realist.

  No. There was only one thing my master valued highly enough to betray everything she had lived and trained for. I did not see it then, but now I am older I see it as clearly as the nails on my fingers.

  Me.

  It was me.

  Merela Karn, the greatest assassin I ever knew, gave up everything for me. Dead gods help me. I should have run.

  For both of us.

  I should have run.

  Interlude

  This is a dream of what was.

  He is scared.

  He is always scared.

  Today he is more scared than he has ever been because today everything changed.

  His life, though it is settled and ordered, is not good and it has never been good, but he has never known any other life so he does not know his life is not good. He only exists. Slave-Father is quick with his whip, and the boy fears the whip, but are not all children whipped? And because he is crippled he is always the last to be fed. Always the smallest and hungriest of the slave pack, but is that not right? He is worth the least to Slave-Father so his life is hardest. He will not even make back his investment and maybe they will use him to train the war dogs.

  He does not know what an investment is but he knows it is important to be able to make one and that he cannot.

  There are other children in the flock, and they share an existence. They play in the same runs, sleep on the same sacks in the same corners. They eat the same meagre food at the same time every day. He is surrounded by people he knows. He knows which ones to avoid and which ones are safe to be around. He knows that if you escape the slavers will let the dogs rip you apart while the other children watch and scream. He even has friends—White-Hair and Blue-Eyes. He is content. There is comfort in routine, comfort in what he knows, comfort in the unchanging cycle of his life and the bars between him and the dogs.

  But everything is changing and now he is scared. They are split into boys and girls, and Blue-Eyes cries for him when she is being taken away and loaded into a cart with high wooden sides. He can hear her shouting for him over the excited yapping of the dogs. “Club-Foot! Club-Foot!” Even after Slave-Father screams at her to stop, she carries on until the cart is out of sight.

  They never whip the girls or the prettiest boys. He does not know why.

  In the boys’ cart he sits with White-Hair but they do not talk. They hold hands.

  As the crowded cart sways it makes some of the other boys sick and the air is thick with the sweet smell of vomit and that makes more boys sick and by the time the journey is finished they are all covered in each other’s sick. Men throw barrels of cold water over them. Big men, strange men who pull them from the cart, strip them and give them sacks, with holes cut for heads and arms to wear. He cannot see Slave-Father, and that makes him feel strange, like a flying lizard is trapped inside him with its wings fluttering against his ribcage. He worries because the flying lizards are delicate and their wings break easily. He doe
s not like to hurt things.

  He finds his friend, White-Hair, and they grasp hands so tightly it is hard to believe they will ever be separated.

  But they are.

  One of the big men tears them apart as if they are nothing but straw dolls. He walks away with White-Hair, pulling the small boy along by the top of his arm in a way that is obviously painful.

  “Club-Foot! Club-Foot!” White-Hair can barely say his name for crying but the big man does not care. They are not mean, the men. They are not deliberately cruel. They do not want to hurt them but they do not want to not hurt them either. They treat the boys as if they are nothing more than sacks of grain rather than sacks of boy. And one by one they vanish. The children he has grown up with, huddled with in the cold of yearsdeath, starved with in lean times, and fought with constantly for enough to eat. One by one they are gone and he does not know where. He cannot see over the wooden walls.

  Maybe they are being eaten. Like the dead are eaten.

  Eventually, when the sun is going down and the high walls are throwing a cold shadow over him, it is his turn. A man takes him by the upper arm and drags him along through the dirt. The man smells of sweat. He takes him down a corridor in the high wooden walls. Someone has been sick halfway down it.

  From the corridor he is taken out into a place. A place like no other he has ever seen. The low hot sun makes him squint, and he raises a thin arm to shield his eyes. Adults fill his vision, so many adults. More adults than he has fingers and toes. Then he sees the space beyond them. So much space.

  He tries to run back to the walls.

  The space is huge, impossibly huge. He can see further than he has ever imagined could exist. A never-ending plain of yellow earth and sky the colour of piss. It presses on him, it is a giant hand pushing him to the ground and drowning him in liquid fear, but the man does not care about scared boys, he does not even notice scared boys and he continues to drag him forward. They go up some wooden stairs onto a small platform and he is lifted up onto a small box garlanded with straw dolls. A rope is passed around his middle and they use the rope to hoist him up in the air. That is when he starts to scream, to scream and to kick and to wriggle. A small crowd of people watch as the momentum of his terror causes him to spin round on the rope. He sees that—all around in all directions—the land is flat and dead and like the carcass of an insect left to dry out in the sun. Dust blows in great curling clouds and gets in his eyes so he sees the world through a lens of tears and hurt. Despite the heat all the adults are wrapped in thick woollen cloaks with bright geometric designs on them. A man starts to speak and the words filter through his screaming and shouting.