The Assassins of Tamurin (17 page)

“My wraiths have heard your oath,” Nilang murmured. “If you betray it, they will know and they will come for you.

You’ll see them from the comers of your eyes, you will feel their wings at your mouth, and you will feel them within your flesh. Sometimes they will leave you for a little while, and you will think you are free, but always they will retum to feed on you. And they know how to keep you alive, so that you will be a long time dying; and before you die you will have clawed out your eyes and bitten off your tongue and lips and fingers, and you will be mad.”

I tried not to look at the shadows. I imagined, or perhaps did not imagine, that I heard faint voices, sweet and merciless.

“Do you understand this?” Nilang asked.

“Yes,” I croaked.

And Dilara whimpered, “Yes, mistress.”

Nilang opened her blue eyes, made a complicated gesture before our faces, and said, “Enough.” Her sudden movement startled me, as if I’d been asleep and she’d rudely shouted me awake. Instantly the shadows faded, withdrew into the room’s comers, and seeped away. The evening light returned, and with it a soft, forest-scented breeze. I was damp with the sweat of fear, though the fear itself had fled, as if dismissed by Nilang’s word and gesture. But I knew a curse when I heard it, and I knew I’d do anything rather than bring this one down on me.

“You’ve passed your initiation,” Nilang said. Her voice had regained its usual harshness. “With it comes something else. Are you listening carefully to me?”

I didn’t at all like the sound of this “something else,” so I listened very carefully indeed.

“Because you have felt the wraiths,” she said, “you can now experience certain other emanations from the Quiet World. From time to time, I may need to speak to you from a distance, and it is by this means that I will do so. These emanations are under my control and you need not fear them, although their character may cause you some discomfort. You will be trained to recognize such sendings. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress Nilang.”

“Good.” She clapped her hands and called out loudly, “It’s done.”

The door opened and Tossi entered the hall. She surveyed us and then said to the sorceress, “Well?”

“The Despotana has two brave young women here,” Nilang said. “I’ve seen strong men disgrace themselves under the same test. They’ll serve her well.”

“I’m so glad,” Tossi said, her face suddenly radiant, and she hugged us both. I was so happy I almost wept. Dilara and I had been tested, and we’d both passed. It made me feel proud and superior, as if we’d found a place among a secret and exceptional few. Which, indeed, we had.

“Come in, everybody,” Tossi called, and instantly the others burst into the hall, surrounding us with laughter and praise. The memory of the wraiths was suddenly far away, and when I looked around for Nilang, she had gone.

“Scary, wasn’t it?” Neclan said. “Don’t say it wasn’t, because it scared
me.
But you’re all right now, aren’t you?” “We’re fine,” I said. “But now can we
please
find out what’s going on here?”

“You still haven’t guessed?” Temile asked. “How slow of you.”

“For pity’s sake,” Dilara burst out, “stop it! Tell us!”

“Tossi?” Kidrin asked, and Tossi nodded. Kidrin paused dramatically, like an actress about to deliver a killing line. “Three Springs,” she said, “is a school for spies.”

“It’s
really
a school for spies?” Dilara asked.

It was early evening, not long before supper. Tossi and Dilara and I were sitting in the courtyard garden of the Fourth Terrace, under the mist trees that were now coming into golden blossom. Beyond the terrace’s stone balustrade was the view: the deep shadowy cleft of the valley, whose far wall was a mountain clad in forest, and beyond that another peak and then another, all the way to the northern horizon. “That’s exactly what it is,” Tossi replied.

“We call it the Midnight School, partly because of Mother’s nickname and partly because we keep it wrapped in a very secret darkness. The Heron Guardsmen who bring our supplies know it’s more than a sanctuary, because they help the departing girls get on their way. But they don’t know much else, and they’re oath bound to Mother not to ask questions or talk. They also know Nilang’s involved, and
that
would bridle their tongues, even if their oath didn’t.”

Mother, she went on, had founded the Midnight School the year after I came to Repose. Tossi was the senior of its first three students, and there were five instructors to teach them, headed by Master Aa and his wife. In the five years since, seventeen young women had completed their training and gone out into the world to be weavers, perfumers, bakers, and owners of wine shops. And to work for Mother. “Where?” I asked.

“Here and there,” Tossi said with a smile. “You only know that kind of thing when you need to.”

“But why?” Dilara wanted to know. “What’s it all
for?"

“Knowledge,” Tossi said. “People think that arms, men, and wealth are power—and so they are. But without knowledge, these can be lost between one dawn and the next. An army can be destroyed because it doesn’t know where its enemy lurks. A besieged city falls because its governor doesn’t know his second in command has been bribed to open the gates. A merchant is ruined because he doesn’t know his competitors have conspired against him.

“So, you see, strength without knowledge is brittle and easily broken. But even a lesser strength, if it’s multiplied by knowledge, can overcome a much greater power. We are Mother’s eyes and ears in the world; through us she gains the knowledge she needs to protect Tamurin from its enemies. Particularly, as you know, from the Sun Lord and his Chancellor but also from the other Despots. Though she does have friends among the Despots, and she helps them occasionally with what she knows.”

“But how do we get such knowledge?” I asked, feeling very inadequate. “And how do we send it to her? How do we know what she wants?”

“You’ll be trained. For example, when you’re out in the world, instructions will be sent to you from time to time. But you won’t hear from Mother directly. A man may come to your shop, for example, and hand you a letter folded in a certain way, and you will give him a report. Or a woman will say certain words you’ll recognize, and you’ll go to a tree in a certain place to collect a message. Perhaps the message will tell you what information you are to obtain, or perhaps it will instruct you to carry out a particular action on such and such a day.”

Suddenly struck by the solution to an old mystery, I exclaimed, “Was
that
who Master Lim was? One of Mother’s secret messengers?”

“Exactly so,” Tossi replied. “Although I still have no idea why she sent him so far south. She doesn’t tell me everything she’s doing, you see. Just as much as I need to know. It’s better that way.”

“But then it’s not only us who work for Mother,” Dilara said. She sounded disappointed—as I was also, for I wanted us to be completely exclusive. I remembered the nondescript people who came and went from Repose and realized they were the counterparts of Master Lim. But I didn’t want to be like
them.

“By no means is it only us,” Tossi said. She leaned forward and her tone became emphatic. “But remember this: All rulers are at war all the time, even while they claim friendship and brotherhood with other rulers. These are secret wars, hidden from almost everyone, but their victories and defeats can overthrow a ruler in a night or destroy his army in an aftemoon. We of Three Springs are by far the most important of Mother’s soldiers, because we are the hidden warriors in the thick of the fight, the ones who do the hardest work, the most dangerous, the most desperately needed. All the others—the men who carry the messages, the women who leave you a purse of coins—can be replaced.But you can’t. To Mother, every one of you is a gem beyond price, because it is you who slip into the most carefully hidden sanctuaries of our enemies, to learn the secrets they dare not breathe even to themselves. In doing so you protect us from defeat and ensure our victories.”

“But how,” Dilara asked, “are we to do such things?” “You’ll be trained, as I said. That will take between one and two years, depending on your aptitude and any special skills Mother may want you to learn.” She tumed her gaze to me. “You, for example, Lale—when you leave here, you’ll probably be going to Master Luasin’s school in Istana.” After several moments, during which I tried to find my tongue, I said, “I
will?"

“I think so, if your promise as an actress holds true. And, Dilara, while you may not become a weaver as soon as you leave the Midnight School, a fine loom awaits you someday. I believe that’s what you want.”

Silence fell. A flock of wine finches flew down into one of the mist trees and settled in the branches, twittering. The evening sun tumed their violet plumage to crimson and purple, rich amid the flowers’ gold. I stared at them, contemplating the fact that I might become an actress after all.

“You’ll also be trained to fight,” Tossi went on. “That’s what Master Aa and his instmctors are for. When they’ve finished, not even a veteran swordsman of the Sun Lord’s guard will be able to touch you. That’s why we have no guards here; we don’t need them.

“But there’s something else you must know, and it’s this: To defend oneself, one must sometimes kill. You will learn how to do that, too, silently and without blood or struggle. You are to be not only spies but also, if need be, assassins.” If the rest seemed strange, this last was unimaginable. I’d heard Sulen crying out in the sickroom before the fever took her, and I’d seen two or three criminals hanged in Chiran, so I knew what people looked like and sounded like as they died. But the possibility that I might someday kill someone seemed as remote as the ruby mountains of Narappa-lo.

“Assassins?” Dilara said. She sounded curious rather than surprised. “We might really have to kill somebody?”

“You might. But all this is for you to learn later. Ah, there’s the supper gong. Come down with me and we’ll eat together.”

That night, as Dilara and I lay in our beds in the darkness, I said, “Do you think you could really kill somebody?”

A pause. Then she said, “Yes, if I had to. There are people I’d like to see dead, people from the time before Mother found me. I think I could do it, if I knew I’d never be caught. What about you?”

I remembered Riversong and its villagers, and Feriti and Adumar who would have kicked me to death if the priest hadn’t stopped them. I remembered all the others who had bullied me, hit me, starved me, and called me a useless good-for-nothing and a thief. I hadn’t thought about them for a long time except fleetingly. But now a breaker of rage swept over me and I saw Adumar with a knife in her belly, her eyes staring in shock, blood sliding out of her mouth. I saw Feriti choking her breath out in a hemp noose, and Detrim with his head lying beside him in the dirt.

Astonished at my fury, I tried to drive it back into its lair, and more or less succeeded. My heart slowed and I unclenched my fists.

“Well, would you?” Dilara prompted.

“Yes,” I said.

Dilara emitted a low laugh. “But I doubt if Mother would let us do away with somebody just because we were mad at him. She’d have to order it, wouldn’t she?”

“I suppose.” I pondered this. I reckoned I could kill if I were defending myself. But could I take a life only because Mother said I must?

Then I realized that Mother would order only the deaths of our enemies, so obeying her would be the right thing to do. Moreover, we were soldiers in a secret war, and war made the whole business different. Nobody thought soldiers did wrong because they killed other soldiers in battle. In fact, the more enemies a soldier dispatched, the more highly his officers and fellow warriors thought of him.

“Maybe it’ll never happen,” I said. “Maybe we’ll just have to find information for her.”

“Maybe,” Dilara murmured.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” I said. “It might be fun.”

“It might be,” she answered, then fell silent. Through the open window I could see stars. I thought again about Riversong and that made me think about being a foundling and about my real mother and father. I rarely did this any more, although I vaguely recollected that searching for my family was one reason I’d left Riversong. Maybe, once I was out in the world, I could try to find out who I really was.

But then I realized that even if I did find my real blood, I wouldn’t dare tell them I was their daughter. Being at Three Springs had already given me too many secrets. I could never risk betraying Mother, even by accident—and not just because of what Nilang’s wraiths would do to me if I did. It was because I loved Mother so much.

I would never find my parents, anyway. It was a big world, and there were so many people in it. My only small comfort was to remember that I did have ancestors, because Nilang herself had said that one had helped save me in the Quiet World. Back when I was fifteen. I’d twice secretively tried to summon that ancestor, but nothing had happened and I’d never tried again.

“Dilara,” I whispered, “do you think about your mother very often?”

But Dilara only snored, and after a while I fell asleep.

Discipline at Three Springs was very strict. We rose at dawn and meditated for an hour before breakfast, no matter how our stomachs complained. Our instructors took these sessions seriously. Master Aa’s wife, Mistress Ipip, supervised them, and she would apply a light cane smartly to the shoulders of anyone who dozed off.