The Perfect Assassin

by K A Doore

  And what could Yanniq have possibly had in common with Emet?

  Unfortunately, the scrolls that recorded the decisions made during the drum chiefs’ monthly Circles filled an entire shelf. Amastan didn’t know where to start, so he picked the ones for the six months prior to Yanniq’s death. He started toward his desk, then hesitated. After a moment, he plucked another scroll off a different shelf: the record of deceased. Barag had mentioned he’d added Yanniq to the record earlier, but Amastan hadn’t had a chance to look yet. He doubted it would tell him much, but any context could only help.

  The decisions ended up being entirely unhelpful. For the past six months, Yanniq had voted with the majority of the other drum chiefs on almost every decision. The ones where he hadn’t, he’d abstained. Amastan picked through the decisions one by one. Dull stuff, mostly. Petty trade arguments between merchants, undisputed confirmations of inheritance, marriage blessings, and disagreements between families. The most exciting decision had been about a husband accused of infidelity. He’d been fined an entire bo-baat.

  Nothing stood out as a possible impetus for murder.

  But Amastan did get a better feel for the man Yanniq had been. He even understood some of Yufit and Megar’s disdain. If the drum chief’d had any opinions at all, he hadn’t voiced them. His decisions came across as weak-willed and his leadership ineffectual. While the other drum chiefs fought over resources for their neighborhoods, Yanniq had remained silent.

  You can’t deny that whoever killed him did us all a favor. He found himself agreeing with Megar. The Aeser neighborhood was probably better off without Yanniq.

  Amastan shook his head and rolled up the last of the Circle’s scrolls. He couldn’t think like that. Yanniq might not have been perfect, but that wasn’t a death sentence. He deserved justice. Not for the first time, he wondered if Megar could have killed Yanniq. As a gear worker, he was strong enough. But dislike wasn’t enough to motivate murder—he’d have to find more.

  Amastan unrolled the last scroll. Yanniq’s entry was one of the latest ones. A few names came after, but Emet’s wasn’t on there. Of course not; his funeral hadn’t even been held yet. One of the entries, though, was for an old woman who had died peacefully in her own home. That must have been the woman Menna had mentioned. His finger traced Barag’s familiar script from the bottom of the scroll upward, until he came to Yanniq’s entry.

  Yanniq Feqamen sa Basil, sa Ziri, sa Kura, sa Thama, Drum Chief of the Aeser Neighborhood

  Took up the drum from Annat Feqamen, may his jaani rest with G-d in peace, in the year 345. Ruled with fairness and faith for 21 years …

  Amastan started skimming. The drum chief’s entry was by far the longest on the scroll, but that didn’t tell him much. A lot of it was formulaic, the kind of stuff they had to write about the drum chiefs who weren’t reviled or revered for any specific reason. According to the record of deceased, every drum chief had ruled with fairness and faith, no matter how corrupt or immoral they might have been.

  He found nothing that could connect Yanniq to Emet or any of the other cousins. Amastan wasn’t surprised. He’d hoped, but he’d known better than to expect. Instead, he took wry amusement at how the record listed his cause of death. Extreme blood loss. Not wrong, but not quite the truth, either.

  Amastan returned the scrolls to the shelves, disappointed at how little he’d found. As he placed the last scroll, the record of the deceased, in its slot, a realization hit. Of course he hadn’t found a connection between Emet and Yanniq. He’d been looking in the wrong place. He dropped his hand and turned back toward his desk, toward the heap of scrolls in the basket that constituted Barag’s special project.

  Emet was an assassin. He had died while on contract. That part of his life wouldn’t be in the public records. And neither, perhaps, would whatever connected Yanniq to Emet and possibly to the family.

  Amastan was halfway back to his desk when the door opened. Thana split from the hulking shadow at her back, aiming with focused intent for her father. Usem stepped inside, letting the evening light spill into the room.

  “Tea?” asked Barag, paper rasping as he began cleaning up his desk.

  “Thank you, but no. I want to hit the markets before they get too busy.”

  Thana wrapped her arms around her father and settled her head on his shoulder. She was easily half a head taller than Barag. For a brief moment, she looked fragile, like the child she was. Barag paused in his task and put his hand on hers. Amastan looked away, focusing instead on the scrolls he wouldn’t finish today. He itched to stay anyway, but with Thana’s arrival, the library had turned back into a home.

  “Tell Tam’ that her daughter was exceptional, as usual,” said Usem, still hovering by the door. “Let her take a day off tomorrow to visit her cousins or friends. She’s earned it. I can send Rema by, if Tam’ wants.”

  “What about you?” asked Barag. “Tam’ wants to see you, I’m sure. Why don’t you come by and share a meal with us?”

  Usem shook his head. “I want to, but I have something I’ve got to finish up first. But as soon as that’s done, I promise I’ll be by. I’ve got a lot to catch Tam’ up on.”

  “Good night, Uncle,” said Thana.

  Amastan finished cleaning off his desk and headed for the door. Usem held the door open for him and they both stepped out of the stuffy darkness together. Amastan squinted against the glare. The city felt as if it were holding its breath for sunset, the streets swept empty by the heat and the wind. The markets Usem had used as his excuse to turn down Barag’s tea wouldn’t even be set up yet. Was Usem avoiding his sister? And if so, why?

  The door closed, but Usem didn’t leave. His presence was like a wall’s: immovable, vast, and harmless. But Usem was far from harmless.

  “Barag treating you all right?”

  “Of course.”

  Usem grunted. Amastan looked up, trying to read the strip of Usem’s face. He wore his tagel higher than usual, so all Amastan could see were his eyes, as pale as his sister’s.

  “You wear charms, right?”

  Amastan touched the lump that lay between his collarbones. “Always.”

  “Good.” Usem scanned the area, but didn’t look at Amastan. Then he started walking.

  “Wait,” said Amastan, catching up and keeping pace with Usem’s long stride. “Why’d you ask?”

  “Nothing to worry about,” said Usem, but he didn’t sound confident. “There’s just been rumor of a jaani loose in the city. But I’m sure it’s just that—rumor. Still, better safe than mad.”

  A chill wound itself deep in Amastan’s gut. “A jaani?”

  Usem paused and gave Amastan a smile, but although the edges of his eyes crinkled with the gesture, his eyebrows betrayed his worry. “Like I said, probably just a rumor. I wouldn’t worry about it. You know how people get at the end of season. So tense with waiting that they start making things up, seeing stuff. Speaking of—you got enough baats to last you? I know work’s been scarce for you younger kids, but you shouldn’t have to go thirsty because of mistakes made years ago.”

  “You knew about the ban,” said Amastan. As soon as the words were out, he realized how stupid they sounded. Of course Usem knew about the ban—it must have ended his career as surely as it had Tamella’s, along with every other assassin of their generation. Including Emet. “Do you ever resent her for it?”

  Usem tilted his head back to look at the sky. “Not Tam’, no.”

  “But the drum chiefs.”

  “Resent is a strong word,” said Usem carefully. “But it’s hard to blame any of them. If I’d been in Tam’s place, I can’t imagine treading a different path. Perhaps I could’ve been more subtle than her, but subtle might’ve let the conspiracy—and the warped ideology that fueled it—continue to fester. As for the Circle, well. Tam’ broke one contract and then killed without one. They couldn’t exactly let that go unpunished, could they.” But his tone held a tightness to it that suggested he though
t otherwise.

  “Tamella broke a contact?”

  Usem glanced at him. “She never told you about that, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Shame. It’s a good story.” Usem checked the sky again. “One that’ll have to wait. Ask Barag about it sometime—after all, she broke it for him. Here.” He pulled a few coins from his belt, grabbed Amastan’s hand, and pressed them into his palm. “And don’t try to pay me back, either.”

  Amastan closed his fingers around the cool baats. “Thank you.”

  Usem looked away. “Don’t hesitate to ask if you need more. I need to go. Take care of yourself, ’Stan. G-d bless.”

  “G-d bless,” echoed Amastan.

  They split ways, Usem turning and heading north, deeper into their neighborhood, while Amastan crossed a bridge to the next. The baats felt heavy in his hand, but the story Usem had hinted at hung heavier in his mind. He’d never assumed he knew everything about Tamella, but now he was finding out he knew very little at all. How little did he know about his other cousins? What secrets were they hiding?

  And Barag? After all, she broke it for him. What was Barag hiding?

  Did it even matter? All of this was from over a decade ago, events long past. And it still didn’t explain Emet. Usem and Emet would’ve been the same generation. Amastan paused and glanced back, but Usem was long gone. He’d have to ask Usem about Emet tomorrow.

  Usem had been right about one thing, at least. Amastan’s water skin was almost empty. His meeting with Yufit was drawing close, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t stop by a pumphouse on his way and fill his skin. Unlike yesterday, he wasn’t going to be late. If anything, he was too early. He didn’t want to appear too eager to see Yufit, even if he’d been looking forward to this meeting all day. Fun, Yufit had said. But what did that mean?

  The day’s heat wafted up from the stones and a wisp of breeze accompanied Amastan as he wove through the streets. He passed two pumphouses before he finally stopped at one. Only when he reached for the door did he fully register that he was in Aeser, Yanniq’s neighborhood. This just happened to be the closest pumphouse to where he’d be meeting Yufit.

  Even though Yanniq’s jaani could be anywhere in the city, Amastan touched his charm. Its lack of warmth reassured him. He entered the pumphouse’s cool interior and pulled back the hatch at its center, revealing steps winding tightly downward. They led him below the platform’s surface to a wide, circular room. Down here, the air tasted of moisture and metal. The pylon sat exposed at the center of the room, its smooth metal dark and matte. A long bench jutted from the wall for the line that often formed after the aquifers refilled. A beggar lay across it, his dirty and faded wrap pulled over his head. A thin, reedy snore echoed around the room and the beggar’s hand rose and fell with each breath, fingers pointing toward a bowl holding a few cracked glass baubles.

  Like the crypt, the room wrapped around the pylon. Unlike the crypt, the bodies down here were still alive. A faint glosh of water came from the pylon, magnified by the emptiness. A basin had been carved into the pylon at waist level and orange rust ate at its edges. More orange and red rust crept up the pipe that hung above the basin.

  Amastan slipped one of Usem’s baats into a slot at the basin’s side. The glosh became a glug and ancient pistons and mechanisms deep within the pylon were set into motion. Hundreds of feet below, a pump fed water from the aquifer into a pipe, bringing it all the way up inside the pylon to this font. The people who’d built Ghadid had tapped the aquifer that stretched for miles and miles deep beneath the sands. They’d run pipes down to it and built pumps that brought the water up to these basins and fonts, found in each neighborhood. This system of pumps and pipes and gears made it possible for a city as big and diverse as Ghadid to not only survive, but thrive, where life was otherwise impossible.

  But while their technology had lasted, their knowledge hadn’t. No one knew quite how the pumps worked, just that they did. Gear workers had tinkered with broken pumps until they’d gotten them working again, learning as they went and passing on what they had learned, their secrets almost as well guarded as the family’s. But a lot was still unknown and a lot could still go wrong.

  Thankfully, it hadn’t, at least not in the last few centuries. The pumps remained reliable. A baat inserted meant a pint of water. Above, people traded baats back and forth for other things, other wares, but as the season wore on, they reserved their baats for water. The people continued to trade, they just used their own work and wares in place of baats, but season’s end inevitably meant a slump. The markets quieted as people started rationing their baats to make it until the end of season.

  When the storms finally broke and the aquifer refilled, the basins released their hoarded baats. It was then the responsibility of each neighborhood’s drum chief to distribute those baats as they saw fit. A wise drum chief knew how to dole out their baats to keep their neighborhood healthy, hydrated, and stable, while a foolish drum chief could do a lot of harm.

  Even if Drum Chief Yanniq had been ineffectual in the monthly Circles, he must have done a decent job distributing baats. Otherwise he wouldn’t have lasted so long as drum chief. But it was possible that something had changed in his last years.

  Amastan held his water skin under the pipe as it slowly expanded. When he’d captured the last drop, he tied it shut and returned it to his belt. The skin hung heavy off his belt in a uniquely satisfying way. He paused at the stairs, then stepped back and dropped Usem’s other baat into the beggar’s bowl. The ring of metal on glass seemed to fill the small room. He was just turning back to the stairs when the sound of footsteps echoed down them. The stairs were too narrow for two, so he waited.

  A servant wearing a bronze wrap came down the stairs. Black embroidery coiled around the edges of the wrap, marking him as a part of Yanniq’s household. Silver at his sleeves showed that he was a gear worker. Yanniq only had one gear worker.

  Megar.

  13

  Megar didn’t appear to recognize Amastan and walked right by. He approached the basin, carrying a leather bag and a small glass lamp. Amastan hesitated at the foot of the stairs. He still had a few minutes before his meeting with Yufit. He might be able to get more information out of Megar, maybe better understand his dislike for Yanniq, and ask a few questions about Yanniq’s baat allocations. When else would he have a chance to run into the gear worker?

  Megar set down the leather bag he was carrying and rustled through it. When he straightened, he held a long metal screwdriver, its head narrow and sharp. There were at least fifteen different ways to kill someone with that screwdriver. Megar used the tool to pry open a panel at the bottom of the basin. His bag was just out of reach behind him, but tantalizingly close to Amastan.

  What other tools did a gear worker use? Could all of them be used as weapons? Amastan itched to grab the bag and see, but waited and watched instead. Dislike of Yanniq might not have been sufficient motivation, but maybe Megar thought he’d been doing the household—and his neighborhood—a service.

  Megar undid the knots of his wrap and pulled it down to his waist, exposing a broad expanse of wine-dark skin. Scars littered his chest, short punctures mixed with longer slices. Megar rolled onto his back and slid beneath the basin. He set the lamp on his chest and his arms disappeared inside the pylon. He worked with the ease of proficiency, the muscles in his arms and chest thick cords of rippling movement. He was more than strong enough to take an old man. But was he strong enough to kill an assassin?

  Whatever Megar was doing didn’t take him long. Without warning, he pushed himself back out of the basin and sat up. He extinguished the lamp’s tiny flame, replaced the panel on the basin, then stood and stretched, muscles shifting beneath his taut skin. The screwdriver dangled from his hand as he assessed his work.

  When he turned and finally noticed Amastan, he started. Frowned. Blinked. Then he smiled, the expression warm beneath his loose tagel.

  “Asaf!”


  Amastan swallowed, looking at his hands instead of Megar’s uncovered chest. He heard Megar chuckle, followed by the rustle of fabric. When he lifted his gaze, Megar had pulled his wrap back into place. Amastan returned Megar’s smile as the gear worker approached, his bag clanking with a dozen more metal tools. Megar raised the screwdriver. Time slowed.

  Amastan’s hand went to his belt, but before he could draw his dagger, Megar had lowered the screwdriver. Megar paused long enough to put the tool into his bag, then reached for Amastan’s hand and patted his back firmly.

  “And just where have you been?”

  Amastan tried to ignore the frantic beating of his heart and shrugged. “Sarif got better, sa. Idir didn’t need me anymore.”

  “To be honest, you didn’t seem particularly suited for the job,” said Megar. “How about you join me for a drink? I’m done for the day. This was the last pump I had to check for her royalness ma Yanniq. She wants to be certain they’re all one hundred percent working before season’s end. Any hitch with allocation will reflect poorly on her, you know. You can tell me all about what Yufit’s been up to. I’ve got a few bets to settle.”

  Megar was already guiding Amastan toward the stairs. When they stepped out onto the street from the pumphouse, Amastan was surprised—and relieved—to find that the sun hadn’t already set. Time had passed slower below than above, it seemed. He wasn’t late for his meeting with Yufit, not yet.

  But if he took up Megar’s offer of a drink, he would be.

  Megar beckoned him toward Idir’s inn. Even though Amastan knew he should follow Megar, needed to, he hesitated. Why was this so hard? Logically, it made sense to keep Yufit waiting if he could get more information out of Megar. Yet guilt filled him—guilt and something else. Something he couldn’t quite place.

  Want or need? Yufit had asked.