In the Shadow of Swords

by Val Gunn

  “And what of those who desire both?”

  “Pity them, for they will lose the race. Their passions are diluted. Those whose appetite is pure—for good or greed—have the greatest strength.”

  Sarn finished his glass of wine and poured himself another. He took a sip. It was some time before he spoke again, his voice reflecting his exhaustion.

  “Where do I go?” Sarn asked. “How long before I am found again? Tanith is no sanctuary, yet I believe that is where I’m being led.”

  “I don’t follow,” Taghmaoui said, as if alarmed.

  “I’m a puppet on a string. Fate is not in my favor; it’s held in the hands of others.” Sarn took another sip and smiled sardonically. “Perhaps it’s held by no one.”

  “There are those I can contact who may be able to offer you aid. But you cannot stay in Marjeeh for long.”

  Sarn could not pry deeper. It’s obvious the merchant feels at risk, he thought. He’s probably also worried about revealing the names of his contacts. Sarn had to decide whether the merchant was now an asset or liability—and he had to do so without direct attachment to the man himself.

  Sarn realized that if anyone were to profit from these recent events, it would be Taghmaoui delivering value to Sarn—not gaining anything from him. The merchant had made his alliance with the assassin many years before; but the past would be meaningless if Taghmaoui felt he could benefit more by turning Sarn over to his pursuers.

  Sarn’s eyes never left the merchant’s face. So what is it, Taghmaoui? he mused. Are you an ally, or a threat?

  It was obvious the merchant was thinking the same thing. Sarn’s eyes dropped to his wineglass for a moment. He looked up at the merchant again. “So, it is possible, then?” he asked.

  The merchant visibly relaxed. Sarn had done the right thing.

  “‘Can it really be done?’ would be a better question,” Taghmaoui answered. He sliced some cheese and crammed it into his mouth with a piece of bread. He continued talking while he chewed. “There are other killers to catch, but more gold is wagered in your favor than otherwise. They say you’re to be feared because you have no heart.”

  “I had a heart once,” Sarn said. “It was of little use to me.”

  Later, in bed, Sarn thought about the evening’s conversation. He was glad he’d left the past alone, and he was pleased that Taghmaoui was willing to help him despite the lure of reward. He could not stay at the house long and upon his departure would have to proceed carefully, with so many still hunting him.

  How much time did he have left? Sarn wondered.

  Then he fell asleep.

  4

  THE BATHHOUSE bursar was dead.

  Only one other thing was certain: Sarn wasn’t the executioner this time. He’d merely found the body.

  After breakfasting on strong coffee, date-nut bread, and sweet figs drizzled with syrup, Sarn had left the riad. His dreams had been plagued with cruel images and haunting memories of his father, the emaciated and mutilated figure staring at him with dead eyes. Sarn needed the daylight to comfort him.

  His walk to the fortifications that surrounded the city was uneventful. His thoughts ran from his father and the talisman Barrani had given him to the conversation with Taghmaoui, then to Rimmar Fehls.

  He’d forgotten about Fehls. Sarn had used the man before. Fehls often served as a go-between for Sarn and Dassai, even sometimes for the Sultan himself.

  He’d last seen Fehls more than a year earlier. The man had proved valuable in leading Dassai away from Sarn during his affair with Jannat. Long before that, Sarn had brought the man into his web of contacts. Sarn’s bribes had been enough to win Fehls over, and he’d played to the man’s greed. He couldn’t rely on that forever, though. Sarn would have to be rid of the curse soon or take a chance on Fehls’s weaknesses.

  The number of people he could trust—never a great many—was slowly shrinking, and he could feel his enemies tightening

  around him like a noose on his neck.

  Sarn headed to one of the many bathhouses that dotted the city. He had a contact at the Hamam al-Hannah, a man who could deliver a message. Sarn would have to risk it. He needed Fehls again.

  He walked quickly, with calm purpose, avoiding eye contact with others as he passed them on the street. When he arrived at the hamam, he hung back a little to assess the area. All was clear. He advanced furtively toward the entrance.

  Sarn slipped into the small room through a window that extended across an entire wall. It was then that he found the bursar’s body. Leaning down, he placed his hand on the man’s neck, his eyes darting around the room, scanning for any movement. The flesh beneath his hand held no heartbeat but had not yet cooled, and the blood that pooled beneath the man’s head still oozed, soaking into the tiled floor. The bursar’s life—and his killer—had departed just moments earlier.

  Sarn stood up silently, his face impassive while his mind worked furiously. Another assassin at work here. Sarn pressed himself against the cool wall and moved to the window, scanning the street and nearby buildings. He’d not seen any movement on the rooftops, and the only other way into the hamam was from the rear. Sarn moved silently through the deserted hallways to the back of the bathhouse and approached the door, alert and ready. Grasping the handle, he slowly opened it and peered out, his face nearly two feet from the crack in case of an attack. From his position, he could see the dim alley. The silhouettes of several people were visible; they seemed oblivious to the murder of the bursar.

  On the second-floor terrace of the opposite building, two doors were both shut. Again it seemed that no one had been alerted to the killing. Sarn knew the assassin had to be nearby—most likely still in the hamam.

  Nothing was coincidence. Someone was trailing him closely, forcing his hand. Preoccupied by his thoughts, Sarn had let

  another take the advantage. Now he was in danger again.

  Ready for an ambush, Sarn waited until the alley was empty. He closed the door behind him and moved away from the bathhouse. He had to work quickly, before a patron stumbled on the bursar’s body.

  The narrow alley led to a cobbled street. The opening was bracketed on both sides by painted terraces topped with stone balustrades and pots overflowing with flowers. The placid scene contrasted starkly with the scene of death that he had left behind.

  Sarn knew there was someone hidden just out of his sight. He couldn’t take any chances. Whoever it was would soon die.

  Seconds later, Sarn was upon the would-be assassin, thrusting a thin metal blade neatly into the base of his skull. The man slumped forward, sprawling in the alley’s entrance.

  Sarn hid just inside the passage, hoping the body would serve as bait to draw the other killer into the open.

  Would it work?

  5

  SARN WIPED his blade.

  He moved away from the body into the shadows and returned to the hamam. With his skills and his heightened senses, he had no need to search for his prey. He merely needed to stand still and detect the changes in the air, the emanations from stone and earth, the sound of heartbeats.

  Within a few seconds, Sarn was satisfied that he was the only one drawing breath inside the room where the bursar lay dead; and he realized that the other assassin was somewhere else, waiting for him.

  While he knew of only the bursar, there could be others somewhere in the many chambers of the bathhouse. These hidden forces concerned him; whether one or many, they were athreat until he could identify them. However, he was confident that he could evade them. Sarn’s birthright of hatred had fueled his hunger for death since he was a young man. Over the years Dassai had tranformed him into the most lethal assassin who served the Sultan.

  He smiled, thinking back upon the irony that had led him to his current situation. Sarn had lost his mother at birth. He grew to watch his father become a shell of the man he once had been. Mired in depression and guilt, Sarn began to loathe Barrani, and to hate his stepmother even more. The whore h
ad married his father only to get close enough to bed the dignitaries and the merchants who frequented Barrani’s tailor shop.

  Sarn knew his stepmother despised him. He tried to convince his father that the woman was a leech bleeding him dry. But no matter what evidence the boy presented to his father of the woman’s true nature, Barrani was too stubborn to listen.

  Finally, Sarn stumbled on the excuse he needed. Coming home from the bazaar one day when he was eleven, he found his stepmother in bed with another man. His father was away on business for the royal family. In a fit of rage, Sarn lashed out with his unharnessed powers and brutally injured the man.

  His stepmother’s screams shook him out of his fury. As she tended to the terror-stricken man’s wounds, Sarn threatened to kill her if it happened again.

  That had been his mistake.

  He should have killed the bitch right then.

  In fear of her life, his stepmother revealed Sarn’s power to one of the Sultan’s viziers. Soon after, Sarn was taken away from the only home he had known, and away from a father whom he grew to despise more every day.

  His birth-mother was a Para; female elemental spirits brutalized by greater Jnoun such as the Jinn, Jann, Marid, and Efreet. All such elemental beings were bound to the world. The Jnoun did not have free will and could not enter Paradise, thus escapingthe bounds of Mir’aj—therefore most were jealous, spiteful, and harbored hatred for the mortals whom they, on behalf of Ala’i, had originally created.

  Often harem Jnoun such as Paras attempted to flee to the mortal realm to escape their suffering, seeking out kind-hearted males to marry. Sarn’s mother had chosen Barrani. She transferred her soul into her unborn child and upon his birth, she died—but her spirit lived on in the body of her half-elemental child. She had been powerful for her kind, and Sarn held a strong link to the unseen world.

  Knowing his unique birthright, the Sultan ritually bound Sarn, who was thenceforward cursed to be an assassin in the Sultan’s household.

  The rest of his formative years were spent under the guidance of Fajeer Dassai, from whom he learned the art of killing.

  Tajj al-Hadd, a shadowy organization known only to the Sultan and a select few within his circle, raised children who showed promise as ruthless killers. It was there that Ciris Sarn learned to fight. It was also there that he learned to harness his Jnoun power, learning to guide it under the watchful eye of Dassai.

  Sarn had proved to be one of Dassai’s star pupils; he was destined to be the best. Once unleashed, he proved to be unstoppable. Working under the twin command of the Sultan and Dassai, Sarn dispatched political enemies, dignitaries from neighboring kingdoms, merchants, and crime lords. He became known as the Kingslayer.

  His career had not been without its mistakes. The first began when he was assigned to kill a man in the court who had been deemed a threat to one of the Sultan’s advisors. Sarn was twenty-four at the time, and had already earned an impressive reputation. He’d followed the man home and discovered that his target’s wife was his stepmother. She had remarried; Sarn would discover moments later that she had given birth to four children with her new husband.

  Although Sarn had been commanded to kill only the man, he’d been overcome by such blind rage at the sight of his stepmother that he killed her, too, along with their children. When it was over, he’d stood in the middle of the man’s lavish living room, panting heavily, covered in blood.

  He remembered looking around, seeing the lifeless bodies of his target and his stepmother—and the discarded bodies of the four children, hurled about the room and shredded like rag dolls.

  I was supposed to kill this man and make it look like an accident, he’d thought. What have I done?

  He’d fled the scene, knowing that he would face certain death when his carelessness was discovered.

  When Dassai found out, he was furious. Despite that, however, he had not had Sarn killed. The assassin was too valuable.

  Sarn lived on, doing his duty for Dassai, all the while plotting his escape. Several times he’d tested Dassai’s strength by disappearing for days, or even months, at a time. But he was always caught.

  Not again.

  Sneaking away from the front entrance to the bathhouse, Sarn made his way down several cross streets before pausing. Marjeeh was teaming with people who wanted him dead. Since his arrival, the main gates to the city had been placed on the highest alert and guards were checking everyone who tried to enter or leave. In the time since he’d ended his visit with the merchant Taghmaoui and returned to the city, the number of patrols had tripled. Was the merchant already dead, with betrayal on his lips?

  The noose was tightening.

  6

  JUST A little longer.

  Certainly the night could offer him cover. But darkness was still an hour away. Sarn continued to wait. Left with his thoughts, he turned his focus on the firestorm of plotting against him. He had to eliminate this threat and get out of the city soon.

  By now, someone would have found the two dead bodies. The alarm would be raised—quietly—all over the city. The authorities would be looking for a killer. It was possible that one of those hunting him would recognize Sarn’s handiwork.

  Despite his anxiety, Sarn knew escaping during the day was too dangerous. So he postponed it until darkness arrived.

  From ancient times the sheikdom of Marjeeh had been a city of pearl merchants. As the late-afternoon suns waned, Sarn could hear in the distance the voices of loungers congregating on rooftop coffeehouses. Somewhere to the east, beyond the crowded buildings, a pearling fleet was anchored in the harbor.

  Sarn hid in a walled garden of one of the city’s many opulent mansions. He’d watched this one for several hours to confirm his first impression: there was no one living there at present. He rested his back against a fountain, the water of which flowed down from the holding vessel into a shallow pool.

  Though the sheikdom was quite wealthy, with many rich inhabitants, but there was a poorer quarter of the city as well, where paint peeled from walls and windows were covered with oilcloth. The pungent odors of cooking and of human waste offended sensitive noses. The affluent merchants had long since moved on to locations that were more desirable.

  That was where his pursuers would expect him to go, to hide among the squalor.

  But Sarn knew he was safer among the rich.

  As night fell, he abandoned his temporary haven. He continued into the market quarter, its wide streets empty and still, dimly lit by flickering oil lamps. When dawn arrived, this place would be teeming with activity. Merchants would badger passersby to purchase their wares, shouting incessantly as they wove their way through the crowds that passed from one end of the market to the other.

  Sarn paused at the door of a small shop, its window decorated with indigo silk. He removed a length of soft, pliable metal from his cloak and bent it into the shape of a key. He slipped it into the lock, and it clicked softly. He gently pushed the door open.

  Inside, Sarn quickly gathered a bundle of cloth, and some matting, floor screens, and wooden crates. As he knelt in front of the assortment, he thought back again to his youth. It was only in desperate times that he used such alchemy. Slowly, rhythmically, he began to chant, the arcane words flowing freely. As he gathered more energy from within, his hands began to tingle and his head felt as though it were separating from his body.

  The forces he called began to pull up on his spirit. The room lit with a flickering glow, and he felt a sudden heat burst from the floor in the middle of the room. Sarn retreated to the far wall, his eyes dazzled by the glow, as snakes of fire climbed into the darkness.

  Sarn covered his face with his sleeve and steeled himself to wait until the fumes within the shop became a dense cloud, forcing all of the air into the fire. Choking and gasping, he felt his way back to the front door and went outside. The tenants above would wake in horror to billowing clouds of smoke. He continued slowly down the deserted street, allowing the arson to serv
e as a screen.

  At the first corner he stopped and turned to watch as the street filled with people. City guards came from everywhere, shouting instructions and yelling for water. A woman in a nightdress wept while children stood motionless, entranced by the flames. Sarnturned and walked through an open archway, continuing calmly down the street as people raced out of their homes and rushed past him.

  He made his way to the other end of the quarter, walking more quickly now. He passed more shuttered shops, turning at each corner, weaving his way from the center of the city toward the walls. He did not delude himself that his escape had gone undetected. Somewhere, someone would know the fire was a diversion, and would know it had been started by alchemy. It was only a matter of time—hours, perhaps—before he could expect the silent shot of an arrow or the thrust of a blade in the darkness.

  HOW soon would it come?

  7

  NO EXIT.

  There were four gates out of Marjeeh, one for each wall that kept Sarn contained. Each would be on alert and well guarded. He would have to find another way.

  He eased his pace and ambled along the darkened street toward the west gate. Oil lamps flickered for some distance, ending at one of the walls he’d have to scale to get out of the city.

  He ducked into the entrance of an alchemist’s shop that advertised itself on the wall with faux arcane sigils. The entryway was deep, more than adequate for his needs. He took a vial and a small glass square from within his cloak. From the vial he tapped out several drops of blue fluid onto the glass plate. Swirling the cerulean liquid with his finger and reciting another incantation, he trained his eyes on the glass as he held it out toward the empty street.

  He could think of at least three people who were trying to kill him, and there would be at least double that number tracking him now. Everyone would suspect Sarn. He knew that.

  Sarn concentrated harder on the swirls of blue before him,waiting for an answer. He stood motionless, hidden from sight by the deeper recesses of the doorway. Only occasionally did he avert his gaze from the glass to relieve eyestrain. Otherwise, his focus was direct and intense. Before long he was rewarded for his patience: he detected movement. The spell produced a flutter in the darkness, nothing more, but it had revealed everything he needed to know.