The Assassins by Patrick Kapera

The evening lamplight of the Merchant Quarter spills out between the cracks of a stone wall like melted wax, illuminating the soft footfalls of two heavily-garbed wanderers. The sounds of nearby business transactions are only a level droning here, within the spaces between the city of Medinaat al-Salaam and the angry desert.

Halting briefly and cocking his head, the Old Man listens to the banter of a trader and his prey outside. Stepping carefully to the intervening wall, he places one hand and then his ear to the cooling stone. A moment of focused attention, and then he is moving again - quickly, but silently.

"How long have these corridors been here?" his companion asks, somewhat in awe of him, even given his obvious preoccupation.

A long moment passes as he leads her deeper into the city walls, behind and between businesses and homes, then down a quick grade into the underworld. She had been warned about the sewers, told of the forsaken bodies whose souls had been stolen away. Yet she had also been assured that the Assassins were well-established here, and that none had challenged their presence for quite some time.

She fears that this condition is soon to change.

After the last glow of the city is well behind them, he speaks. The words crawl along the irregular surfaces of the tunnel uncomfortably and settle within her like a plague. "Since the beginning..."

The tunnel continues deeper into the Jewel's belly, but he stops suddenly and turns toward the packed dirt alongside them. To the woman's eyes, it seems a little too tightly packed, though this may be only a trick of the shadows or the disorientation of near complete darkness.

Flakes of the dry ground are brushed away, revealing a dull steel square imbedded beyond. A tarnished bronze ring in its center is grasped and jerked outward. A slight breeze tugs at the her silks, and a shiver rushes along her skin beneath. I'm not prepared for this, she thinks. Raya and Jangir were wrong to choose me.

"Why would you think that, child?" It is unnerving, the Old Man addressing you directly - like falling naked into slipsand. Before she can muster a response, he is shuffling through a portal that has replaced the section of wall bearing the steel plate. She doesn't recall it opening.

The chamber beyond is cold and dry, circular and tall. The ceiling is lost in a veil of swirling shadows which dance with a grace akin to that of her own people before falling into dozens of alcoves cut into the hard rock all around and above them. Staring intently at one, it almost seems as if the darkness takes on the shape of a man...

She is led into the center of the room, into the crux of the intricate carvings upon its floor. Her head swims when she tries to grasp the subtle patterns therein, and she decides that a focused gaze at a blank patch of wall level with her is prudent.

The eyes of the owl on the Old Man's shoulder never leave her form as the he walks in circles about her. She swallows hard, thinking about home before he calls out to the shadows above. "My family! The outcasts have sent us a messenger!"

There is a moment of unexpected chatter above them, voices cast about at one another from the deep alcoves. Looking up, she sees that not one of them is empty - a hundred hunched and kneeling bodies having silently appeared within.

"She brings with her news of the arrival of foreigners in our lands. They bear the symbols of our enemies, the Senpet, yet have been taken prisoner by them." The voices rise again, and he continues, more loudly, "But there is something far more important that they have brought with them."

He reaches out with firm hands to her, and she lifts the heavy circle of glass out of her sack, unwrapping it. The faint light in the room reflects upon it, and for a moment she can see herself within its depths. She is young, as she is now, but changed somehow. There are dark lines stretching out from her eyes, and her fire has drained away...

Lifting the dark plate out of her hands, the Old Man raises it above his head for the others to see. "This is the pool in which we bleed! Look in its cruel heart and see the out future!"

Silence follows, and she senses a welling of emotion in the room - despair or hope, she cannot tell. Her eyes are closed now, and she is fighting to remain standing as balance betrays her.

The room is awash with frantic words now, confusion and astonishment vying for supremacy over the Assassins. The Old Man is unmoving, the centerpiece of calm in a sea of chaos. It is almost as if he is nurturing it, waiting for...

"Children! It is time we took back what is ours!"

His booming voice echoes throughout the chamber, stamping out each harsh comment in turn, until none remain. Every breath catches in anticipation of his next words.

"The Caliph and her Senpet lap-dogs have ruled over this place for far too long! Our distant neighbors are now our jailors! The city is dying around us, and we, Her soldiers, who have been waiting three hundred years, are now ready to remedy her ailment. The portents of our allies have been fulfilled!"

"Blood calls for blood!" one of the figures above rallied.

"Blood calls for blood!"

Long, firm fingers grasp her arm, drawing her toward another portal across from their entry point. "Come, Shalimar. We have much to discuss."

Opening her eyes again after her first few steps, she finds the obsidian disc tucked under the Old Man's arm, a blood-red Scorpion clearly visible upon its watery surface...

BACK