By Lizzie Meddler
Author's Note
Assassins are criminals, but let's face it - assassins
are also freaking awesome. ^_^ I've always loved stories about assassins, so
it's no surprise that assassins are, in fact, rather heavily featured in my
bigger story The
Freelance Chronicles (and you won't find any annoying female assassins with
serious attitude problems here! Bring back male assassins!). In writing about
one such (side) character, I realized that he had a really big backstory and
was, in fact, much more important than I initially thought. This is a somewhat
"watered down" version of what will probably be a much bigger side
adventure in The Freelance Chronicles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am not a bad person. I
kill only because it is necessary.
The blood pooling at Aalar al-Hadaar’s feet, soaking into the
exquisite rugs and clotting the hair of the woman and her two children, spat
the words back at him.
I am not a bad person. I kill only because it is
necessary.
The woman and children had nothing wrong. The patriarch
of their small family, an honest rug merchant who had inherited the business
from his equally-honest father, had also done nothing wrong. They had all been
well-liked and well-respected in the merchant village on the outskirts of
Balibar.
I am not a bad person. I kill only because it is
necessary.
The man who had hired the Ebeti Diken was a rival of the
rug merchant’s. He had done many things wrong; cheated his customers, drowned
the stray cats his daughter loved so much, lied and besmirched good merchants
who did business better than he.
I am not a bad person. I kill only because it is
necessary.
The Ebeti Diken didn’t question their clients’ motives.
They took contracts that benefited them and them alone. This client was a good
source of information; he frequented the hooka shops and gambling dens and was
well received in many harlot houses. The Ebeti Diken willingly granted favors
to their informants.
I am not a bad person. I kill only because it is
necessary.
But it hadn’t been necessary. Aalar al-Hadaar knew that. The
lying, cheating merchant was only one in a thousand informants the Ebeti Diken
had at their disposal. If they had lost his assistance, they could have found
another. But Aalar al-Hadaar needed this one more kill before he would be
ranked a full-fledged katil.
I am not a bad person. I kill only because it is
necessary.
And above all, Aalar al-Hadaar, once the youngest son of
Ha’mash al-Hadaar and now the sworn brother of the Ebeti Diken, Arridia’s most
revered assassin’s cult, wanted to be a katil, truly on equal standing
with his brethren. Because no matter how much Aalar al-Hadaar told himself
otherwise, he was born to be an assassin. Nothing gave him greater pleasure
than the thrill of his work.
I am not a bad person. I kill only because it is
necessary.
There would be no evidence that he had been there, beyond the
bodies themselves - and a circlet of dried thorns left in their blood. So that
all would know that it was the work of the Ebeti Diken.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Aalar sank deeper into the
hot spring, naturally cut from the blue-flecked marble, his guilt washing away
with the blood.
The Ebeti Diken called no single place their lair. The
assassins holed up in every corner and crevice of Balibar, in neighboring
townships and villages, their eyes and ears stretching far into even the most
distant caliphates. They entered into the territories of other assassins’ cults
with the greatest courtesy, though none would have dared deny the Ebeti Diken
whatever they desired. Still, the assassins found it best to handle things with
the utmost decorum and diplomacy, rather than exercise the brutal strength they
undeniably possessed.
But even though they reached far and wide, the Cansiz
Palace was the favored gathering place for the brethren. It wasn’t a real
palace, not anymore. Little more than ruins some miles from Balibar, with
connecting underground smuggling tunnels to the city, the Cansiz Palace housed
crumbling fountains, gnarled and neglected fruit trees, and not a shred of the
distinctive blue stone for which it was named.
That is, until one went underground. Through the
centuries, the assassins had carved out a close likeness to the previous
grandeur of the ruins. Underground springs cut pathways through an orchard,
feeding marble fountains and natural-cut hot spring pools just like the one
Aalar now bathed in. Vast training halls echoed at all hours with the sounds of
knives and staff practice, and the familiar thrum of bowstrings.
Most acolytes lived at the Cansiz Palace until they were
considered katil. Aalar’s first master, whom he had only known as Usta,
had kept him at his secluded home on the far southern outskirts of Babilar,
before he had brought him to the Cansiz Palace. And here Aalar had remained,
gaining as many kills as he was assigned so that he could rise above the other
acolytes and join the katil, and then he could leave this place if he
wished.
Aalar ran a hand over the blue-black tattoos tracking
their way down his right cheek. Usta had given them to him, after his first
kill at the young age of thirteen. Even then, Aalar hadn’t shied away from the
poisoned blade his master had put in his hands. He hadn’t been sick at the
stench of copper as the blood ran over his fingers and splattered on his face.
His first kill had been messy, but not anymore.
“If the Heyeti weren’t saying differently, I’d suppose
that things went poorly by your expression.”
Bare feet slid into the water next to Aalar as Bastian
Sariidd sat at the lip of the marble pool. His friend flicked water at him.
“It went well,” Aalar replied.
The dark-haired boy, twenty to Aalar’s eighteen, regarded
him with serious silver-blue eyes. Bastian Sariidd was a strange person - even
Usta had agreed with this assessment in his quiet way. Built like an acrobat,
mild-mannered, and studious to a fault, no one quite understood how it was that
Bastian had become one of the Ebeti Diken. He possessed none of the deadly
silence so present in many of the assassins and he enjoyed nothing more than
keeping the orchard. No one could say what heritage he could lay claim to, with
his raven-black hair and strange eyes and cinnamon-dusted complexion. But
everyone knew he had been with the Ebeti Diken all his life - and that the
Heyeti only sent him on justice strikes - murderers, rapists, war criminals,
fleshmen; the worst of the worst.
Perhaps even stranger was that Bastian Sariidd had kept
Aalar’s company ever since Usta had brought him to the Canzis Palace. There were
already high expectations for Aalar al-Hadaar. He was efficient, yet ruthless.
He turned down no contract. He spent all his time constantly training. No one
picked a fight with him; no one had ever dared try.
Aalar al-Hadaar was an assassin born. And Bastian Sariidd
had absolutely no business being there at all.
“Something weighs on you, my friend,” Bastian said. “What
was so different from this contract that you flogged yourself for it?”
It was Aalar’s secret; no one - not even Usta - knew that
he mortified his own flesh after most of his contracts. Aalar al-Hadaar enjoyed
his work, but he knew he should not. He didn’t want to. For every life
he took, he carved a new mark into his arm. For every family, he laid open his
back with a lead-tipped flail.
I am not a bad person. I kill only because it is
necessary.
“There were children,” Aalar replied. He dropped his head into
his hands. “I wish to be called kalir - it’s my purpose now, to take
life, whether or not it’s deserving. But it will be at the cost of my soul. I
will not join the stars once I am dead. I know it and yet I seek my doom with
eagerness.”
Bastian said nothing. He knew when to stay silent and
when to give counsel.
“Why is it different for you?” Aalar suddenly demanded.
“Why are you the only one among us who always kills those who deserve it? You
don’t understand the poison that eats at our souls, as we kill and kill again.”
Bastian looked down at his hands. “Because there has
always been the Weeping Assassin, and my family has always held that role.
Though I think you would be more fitted for it.”
Aalar didn’t smile.
“Listen, my friend. Your soul can’t be totally damned if
you feel remorse for what you do.”
“I do not feel remorse for what I have done,” he
muttered. “I feel remorse because I am not sorry for it.”
“Your self-inflicted wounds would say otherwise,” Bastian
commented. He leaned back to look up at the cavern ceiling, etched to map the
starlit skies. “How many more until you are kalir?”
“Five,” said Aalar.
“And have you thought of who you will choose as your
blood-sworn?”
Aalar had been deliberately not thinking about it. Kalir
always swore a blood oath with one other of the brethren, he above all others
the closest to him, the one most trusted to guard the other’s back. They would
protect one another during contracts, depend on one another’s counsel and
discretion. One’s blood-sworn would never even think of betrayal.
Bastian still stared up at the imitation stars, little
more than dots of white glass. “Aalar al-Hadaar, I will be your
blood-sworn. And so long as I am at your side, your blade will not take another
innocent life.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Aalar felt no pain when
the final set of tattoos were inked into his skin, marked over his left eyelid
and down his cheek. He didn’t flinch when he swore his creed before the Heyeti,
the ten eldest assassins and leaders of the Ebeti Diken, and laid open his
wrist to swear his blood-oath to Bastian Saliidd.
He felt nothing but solemn contentment when he was told
to, “Arise, Aalar Kalir, brother of the Ebeti Diken and blood-sworn of Bastian
Saliidd Kalir, the Weeping Assassin.”
Aalar al-Hadaar no longer existed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It was unusually cold that
night, the sky empty of the moon and her twelve handmaiden stars looking
forlorn without her. Aalar and Bastian had chosen this night for that very
reason. A black moon was the friend of assassins.
The streets of Balibar were quiet, save for one specific
house, crowned with the distinctive rose-washed walls of a nobleman’s dwelling.
The arched windows spilled out lamp light and the happy chatter and laughter of
many guests. An oudist could be heard plucking out a dance tune and the rich
scent of spiced lamb and fresh falafel drifted out on the evening breeze.
The nobleman’s son and his close friends and family were
celebrating his engagement. The girl, it was said, was the fairest creature to
ever behold; in any other caliphate she would have been taken for the caliph’s
harem, she was so fair. Best of all, she would bring a tremendous dowry to the
marriage. And even rarer still, it was predicted to be a truly happy union, as
the girl and boy were genuinely fond of one another and had been for quite some
time.
But it seemed that another family had had an
understanding with the bride’s uncle. They would not take the girl now; they no
longer wanted her. But nor would they tolerate such a slight.
It was simple: Aalar and Bastian were to kill the groom
this night, the night before his wedding, and send his left hand to the bride’s
uncle. The girl herself did not have to die. They had other plans for her.
Aalar and Bastian waited in the shadows adjacent to the
house, so silent and still that none knew they were there. And when the
revelries died down, they crept from their cover and climbed up to the young
groom’s room. It was so easy; the family had no reason to suppose that anyone
would wish them murdered. The two assassins were so swift and quiet that any
personal house guards never suspected a thing.
The groom lay slumbering deeply in his bed, too much wine
weighing down his limbs and making him oblivious to all danger. That familiar
sense of heightened excitement thrummed in Aalar’s veins as he crept closer to
the boy’s bed. It was always there, no matter how simple the job.
Bastian and Aalar positioned themselves on opposite sides
of the sleeping nobleman, dark harbingers bearing his doom. Aalar gave Bastian
a slight nod and he shook the nobleman awake, clamping a death-grip over his
mouth and a thin dagger to his throat. Aalar pinned the nobleman’s arms down.
Despite the excessive drink, the young groom recognized
the danger he was in. His eyes widened in horror at the two cowled men keeping
him pinioned to his bed.
“Amar al-Dubar,” Bastian said in a low voice, “you have
done nothing wrong. But it is at the behest of another that the Ebeti Diken
visit you now and take away your life. We are sorry.”
Aalar was used to this speech by now. He found it no less
strange than when Bastian had first done it. He apologized to all of their
targets, unless it was someone deserving of their death. Few were awake for the
apology, to witness the bizarre sight of genuine regret on an assassin’s face
before ending a life. But their client wanted Amar al-Dubar to know what was
happening.
The young nobleman struggled, but Aalar’s grip was firm
and Bastian’s even firmer. With a final blessing for a swift eternal rest,
Bastian slid his dagger into Amar al-Dubar’s throat. Blood drenched the dying
boy, but it was a clean kill and the life left his eyes before he could feel
much pain.
Aalar extracted a braided circlet of dried thorns from
his pocket and put it on the body while Bastian cut off the nobleman’s left
hand with a quick stroke of a heavier-bladed dagger.
Their work was done. Quick. Efficient.
Aalar’s hands free of any real blood.
Such as it had been ever since he and Bastian had become
blood-sworn. They took contracts together, hunted down their targets together,
got equal credit. But it was Bastian - always Bastian - who dealt the fatal
blow. They never told the Hayati. They had only allowed the blood-oath after
Aalar had sworn that Bastian would never kill anyone undeserving of it. Bastian
Saliidd must always, first and foremost, be the Weeping Assassin - the bringer
of just death.
They kept lodgings that night in Balibar. There was
another contract to enter into the moment they gave the severed hand to the
intended recipient. Aalar hadn’t realized that being a kalir meant the
number of contracts he was assigned to would merely increase.
Aalar disappeared momentarily from their lodgings to get
food. When he returned to their room, it was to find Bastian bent double over a
basin, coughing so violently his shoulders shook. Black tar streaked the sides
of his mouth.
“Bastian!” Aalar ran to his side.
Bastian gave one final heaving cough, wiping at the black
tar and smiling somewhat sheepishly. “I wondered when it would catch up to me,”
he muttered. “For a while, I wondered if the Hayati had been lying to me all
this time. I guess not.”
Aalar frowned at his friend. “What do you mean? What’s
wrong with you?”
Shakily, Bastian got to his feet and collapsed to his
pallet, brow pale. “I didn’t want you to find out, but. . . .Well, it looks
like it’s unavoidable now. It’s the Weeping Assassin’s duty to grant a just
death to those deserving of it. It’s a sacred calling, given to us by the
Djinn. For centuries, my family has kept that role, one after the other. We are
of the Ebeti Diken, but we aren’t like the rest of you. You noticed this from
the beginning.”
Aalar had to admit that he had. Bastian had joined the
other acolytes in training, associated with them when free time permitted. But
he had always been summoned at odd hours by the Hayati, been given extra
training, and there had never been any clear moment when Bastian had gone from
acolyte to full-fledged kalir. Expectations were different for him; that
had been obvious to everyone, though no one had been told that.
“The Weeping Assassin kills only those deserving of it,”
Bastian repeated, staring absently down at his own hands. “If the Weeping
Assassin ever takes a life undeserving of death, if he ever corrupts his sacred
purpose with innocent blood, the poison of such a heinous deed will blacken and
poison his soul until he dies of it.”
Aalar stared at Bastian Saliidd in silent horror. For
months now they had been working contracts, and always Bastian had given the
fatal blow.
For Aalar. To keep him from blackening his own soul with
the blood of more innocents, to keep him from falling into the dark abyss of
evil deeds and derision for another’s life.
“You knew this would happen,” he said, curling his hands
into fists. He was angry at Bastian - and appalled at himself for ever allowing
it. Even if he hadn’t known what it would do to Bastian, how could he have ever
allowed him to kill in his stead?
Aalar Kalir was not a good person. He knew he wasn’t He
had been a fool to ever try and convince himself otherwise. Bastian was the
good person; the one who would join the other stars when his life finally ended,
no matter how blackened his soul became.
Bastian smiled. “I’ve been told of it ever since I was a
child, though I began to doubt it when there were no adverse effects after our
first few contracts. Then I began to feel it, the creeping coldness in my
chest, squeezing my heart.”
“Why? Why would you do this for me?”
“Aalar al-Hadaar, my hands are no less free of blood than
yours. But unlike you, I have never fought against my duty to kill. You call
yourself a bad person because you do not feel remorse over the lives you’ve
taken. But only a truly remorseful person would punish themselves for not
feeling sorrow over what they’ve done. I justified what I did; I said they
deserved to die, I reminded myself that it was my sacred duty as the Weeping
Assassin. I cannot save myself or our other brethren, but I can save you. I can
help you fight your demon. My life is a small price to pay for the hundreds
I’ve taken and will continue to take.”
Aalar’s shoulders shook with pent-up emotion. “How much
longer can you do this before it kills you?”
“I don’t know,” Bastian replied.
“Then this I tell you: you won’t kill for me again.
Perhaps there is salvation for me somewhere, but if you die because I am too
weak to face the blood staining my own hands, that is a death for which I
cannot hope to be held responsible for and then be redeemed. We are assassins;
we must carry our own guilt and we must fight to keep our humanity even as we
steal it from others.”
Bastian clasped Aalar’s hand. “Then let us face our demons
together, brother.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I am human. My
blood-drenched hands are proof of it. I have chosen this.
Aalar al-Hadaar, kalir of the Ebeti Diken told himself
this as the blood dripped from his dagger. The body now stretched out on the
floor was another assassin, once of the Ebeti Diken, turned traitor and having
defected to another assassins’ cult.
I am human. My blood-drenched hands are proof of it. I
have chosen this.
Bastian Saliidd was bent over coughing up that black tar
which stained his soul again. He did not kill for Aalar anymore; not unless it
was to defend him. But the damage had already been done.
I am human. My blood-drenched hands are proof of it. I
have chosen this.
The Hayati would find out. Or perhaps they already knew. Maybe
that’s why they had sent them all this way across the ocean, to the hellhole
known as Mishall in the Cyrollian empire. Maybe they had hoped that Aalar would
die along the way - maybe they had hoped that they would both die.
I am human. My blood-drenched hands are proof of it. I
have chosen this.
But Aalar suddenly realized that he was wrong. The Hayati didn’t
want either of them dead. They had sent them to Mishall, after this particular
assassin, because they knew he would lead them to this brothel house - and to
the dark-eyed young woman now kneeling next to Bastian, offering a scrap of
flimsy cloth torn from her own skirt to wipe away the black tar.
Her next words, so simple, were what made him realize
this: “You’re dying.”
The Hayati had sent them to save the Weeping Assassin.
