An Assassin's Keep

Sasha swallowed against the dryness of her throat as she tried to unknot the fear coiled beneath her confidence. The chalk circle drawn around her was fresh. She could tell the floors had been scrubbed clean the intricate lines carefully redrawn. Generations of initiates had stood where she stood. Some had walked out of this chamber an assassin with a full Bond. She didn’t think about the ones that hadn’t.

Three braziers waited at the circles north, east, and western points. She knew the theory, her training with the Covenant had been thorough and intense. The smoke would draw out her Bond, and the chalk geometry would help channel and contain it. But theory brought her little comfort tonight.

The Covenant Elder stood beyond the circle. His face half-shadowed by torchlight was unreadable to her. In the blurred periphery of her vision Sasha counted four others, the coterie. Masks obscured all but the glint of their eyes.

“You have selected your Keep,” the elder asked.

“I have.”

“Speak their name.”

“Corin,” she said. “Stable master to the royal house and childhood friend and confidant of Prince Aldrick.”

“The stable master,” the elder said flatly. “Not the King. Not Prince Rodrick, the brother to whom he served. Not Duke Jory, who’s begun amassing power in court. Not Mountain King Bronn, who harasses the foothill villages and farmlands. But instead, Corin. A man who smells of horses and dogs?”

“Yes.”

“You are sure of yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.”

Sasha straightened, her fingers dipping into her pouch. She produced the first taglock—A lock of dark hair curled and bound with twine.

“The King rotates his servants,” She began, as her fingers worked at the twine. “He trusts none of them fully. His secrets are scattered.” She uncurled the dark hair, tossing the twine aside. “Prince Rodrick is young and believes himself careful, but he has never learned to see the people who serve him. They are furniture to him.”

“Mountain King Bronn has no body servants at all. Sleeping in a different bed each night and eating only what his dog eats first. If he meets the fate he taunts by harrying our borders, then a Bond with him would be wasted.”

“Duke Jory surrounds himself with men he’s known since boyhood. I’d grow old waiting for a way in.”

“And the stable master?”

She raised the lock of hair above the first brazier. “Corin has served the royal house for twenty-eight years. He taught Princes Aldrick and Rodrick to ride. He knows which gate the king uses when he visits the east tower. He knows which messengers arrive after dark.”

Sasha released the lock of hair. It fell slowly, caught by the still air of the room. Then came to rest on the dark iron of the brazier.

"I obtained this at Prince Aldrick's grave," she said. "Three days after the burial, Corin returned alone. He knelt at the stone and cut his hair. I was already there waiting in the shadows beyond the cemetery wall. I'd been following him for months by then. I knew he would go back to grieve privately. Men like Corin are loyal like that."

She met the elder’s eyes. “The King will die. Prince Rodrick will die, like his brother before him. There are turbulent times ahead and Corin will outlast them all.”

The elder regarded her silently, then gestured to the second brazier.

“The nail,” he said.

Sasha reached into the pouch and produced the second taglock component: nail clippings, barely the size of a barley grains. Four of them. She held them in her palm where the torchlight could find them.

“Corin plays dice,” she said. “Every seventh night, when prince Aldrick lived and still dined with his father and did not require attendance, Corin would play. He still goes, out of habit. And to keep tabs on Rodrick. The game rotates between three locations: the farrier’s quarters, the under croft beneath the granary, and the storeroom behind the kitchens that officially does not exist.” Sasha turned her palm slightly, letting the clippings catch the light. “He is not a good player. He loses more than he wins. But he returns every seventh night regardless, because the game is not about the coin.”

“Where are you going with this?” The question came from behind the elder. A woman’s voice, Robin, the leader of the coterie. Sasha did not look at her.

“Gossip.” Sasha answered. “The dice game is where the castle’s servants exchange what they have seen and heard. Corin sits at the table because information flows to him there. He has been doing this for more than twenty years. Half the servants in the room do not realize they are reporting to him. They think they are merely playing dice with a man who smells of horses and sweat and venting their circumstances to a fellow servant.”

The elder’s expression remained unchanged.

“Corin bites his nails when he is losing,” Sasha continued. “Only when he is losing, and only when the loss is large enough to sting. I played at the table for six weeks before I saw the pattern. I learned to read which nights the pot would swell largest and make him careless.”

She raised her hand to the right, holding it above the second empty brazier.

“On the night I took this, I made certain the pot was very large indeed. I borrowed coin from a laundress who still hates me for it. Corin lost eleven hands in a row. By the fourth, he was biting at his thumb. By the eighth, he tore a piece free with his teeth and flicked it to the floor. By the eleventh, he’d repeated the behavior three times over other fingers.

She released her grip. The nails fell into the bowl with a sound too small to hear.

“I palmed them when I dropped my stake,” Sasha said. “He never looked at me twice. A laundry girl with more coin than sense.”

The elder studied her for a time, the lines carved into his face by the torchlight danced quietly.

“The blood,” he said, gesturing to the third brazier.

The third brazier waited to her left. Southern would have been more traditional, but the Covenant placed blood where the sun died each day. Sasha had read the old texts and understood why.

Sasha reached into the pouch for the last time.

The cloth was small. A torn strip of linen, stiff and brown with what it had absorbed.

“Blood is the hardest,” she said. “Hair can be found. Nails could be scavenged. But blood requires a wound.”

“You cut him?” A member of the coterie asked.

“No.” Sasha shook her head. “That would have violated the terms of the Bond. As we all know, the taglocks must be given freely or unwittingly surrendered. If I had cut him, I would not be leaving this circle tonight.”

She repeated for the third time the act of holding her taglock above an empty brazier as she spoke.

“The inland duchies have been restless since the northern raids. What you may not know is that Duke Jora sent fourteen men to court last month. Not soldiers, but second sons. Men with opinions and no consequences for voicing them.”

The torches guttered in a sudden draft. The shadows of the coterie stretched and danced on the stone walls.

“Corin has served the royal house for twenty-eight years. He is not a political man and he does not understand the game of alliances and positioning that occupies the nobles. But he understands loyalty. And he cannot abide hearing the King’s name spoken with disrespect.”

Sasha looked to the elder. His eyes were fixed on the cloth.

“Jora’s men drink in the lower hall, because they have not yet secured invitations to the great hall. They are proud and bored and far from home. They talk loudly about the King’s failures.” She paused. “Corin, passes through the lower hall every evening. At the same time and through the same door.”

“I spent three nights drinking with Jora’s men.” Sasha explained. “On the fourth night, I wondered aloud whether it was true what people said about the King’s mother. Whether the bloodline was truly muddled by beast-magic as the court rumors claimed.”

A member of the coterie exhaled sharply. Even here, among secret assassins, some insults still carried weight.

“I did not say I believed it. I only asked if it were true. And Jora’s men assured me, it was. Guy. The third son of some minor lord. He spoke on the subject with a crudeness that would have been more appropriate in a dockside tavern.”

Sasha allowed herself a small smile.

“Corin broke his nose,” she said. “And when the other men pulled him off, Corin was bleeding too from where Guy managed a lucky blow. He was still bleeding when he left the hall. Drops on the flagstones. A heavy smear on the door frame where he steadied himself.”

She released the cloth. Watching it fall into the brazier.

“I was the servant who cleaned the door frame.”

The elder regarded her quietly, then made a small gesture with his hand that sent the coterie into action around the circle. Only Sasha, the elder, and Robin remained still.

One member snatched a bag from a table at the rooms edge, dumping it’s contents into each brazier. Sasha recognized them as wooden chips of ancient oak. The chipped flesh of the ancient oaks was fuel for ritual, chosen for their rich smoke when burned. She watched as each taglock was buried beneath a pile of the dry chipped oak.

Another of the coterie followed, grabbing a bucket and ladling a spoonful of greasy oil atop the wood. The oil was infused with herbs that enhanced a persons susceptibility to ritual. It’s primary purpose however, was to slow the burn of the wood allowing it to smoke and smolder for an extended time.

The third, held a small box filled with something dark and simmering. With delicate fingers, they pinched and sprinkled the grainy black sand over the contents of each brazier. The catalyst that would ignite the oil and wood.

When this was done they retrieved torches from their sconces before returning to the edge of the circle and waited.

Sasha closed her eyes and took one last steadying breath. The elder made a motion she couldn’t see and the coterie members touched flame to brazier in sequence. North. East. West.

First the acrid smell of fire powder followed by the perfume of burned ancient oak mixed with the herb infused oils. Then the scent of burning hair. Then the cloth and blood. Last, the sinewy smoldering of the nails. The smoke of the braziers rose and braided together above the circle’s center, filling the high turret with a layer of dense smoke above the group.

Keeping her eyes closed she focused on her breath. Resisting the urge to choke on the smoke and focusing instead of the muffled chanting that the coterie began.

From somewhere distant Sasha felt a shockwave pulse through her as the ritual roared to life. She held her eyes shut resisting the dizzying swirl of smoke and ember that clawed at her senses. The overwhelming heat and pressure against her skin, a sound like rushing water filling her ears. And then, as suddenly as it began the chaotic fury of the moment collapsed in on her like a punch to the core of her being. The force punched through the core of her being. Forcing the air from her chest. She opened her eyes gasping to refill her lungs.

Blackness.

She could taste the smoke, and feel the burn of it in her lungs. She could hear the muffled chant of the coterie around her. But the room was gone. She was alone in vast expanse of darkness.

Remembering her studies, she tried to relax taking smooth deep breaths, allowing the smoke to draw out the Bond within her.

It was not like opening a door, it was more like pulling on the rope of a well. At first it came easy and quick. Then, suddenly, she was pulled taught like the rope pulls against the weight of a full bucket. There was pressure as something within her resisted.

She fought her instincts and relaxed her awareness as best she could. Each breath, hoisted the bond from within her towards the surface of her being.

One breath. Another. Another.

She felt the pressure press against the surface of her mind and like a bucket tipped over, she felt as her Bond overflowed filling the space around her. Like water it settled along the ground rushing to fill space. But unlike water it moved in weblike channels. They pressed against something around her, eventually finding a new path forward and moving along new angles and curves as if searching for a way out. She recognized the shape it was taking.

Breathing deep she forced herself to relax. She could still hear the chanting of the coterie distant and muffled. She could still taste the smoke with each breath, and feel it burning in her lungs. But, something new happened now that her bond was exposed. Each new breath, brought with it the sting of the smoke but also a wave of light that spread from her and through the dark web of her bond around her.

As the pain in her lungs faded, the web too faded back to smokey darkness.

Another breath brought forth new burning and with it a new pulse of blue through her Bond. She stared. The text hadn’t done the pulsing glittering web of her Bond justice. But she understood better the purpose of the circle. She watched as her bond fought against the invisible wall around her. It seemed desperate to reach for the coterie she could sense just beyond.

She brought her mind back to her training and thought of her target. Corin.

The darkness around her pulsed and vibrated. Her mind scattered, frantic and clawing to escape the uncomfortable sensation. The circle held her, forcing her back into herself. She thought again. Corin.

She threw herself against the pulsing vibration and, fell. She fell out of, or maybe through, or perhaps into the circle. She couldn’t be sure. But when she looked up there was the circle and the Bond safely contained within it. There was also distance between her and her bond now.

She could no longer hear the chanting or feel the burn. But with each breath she could see the pulse of blue ignite her bond within the circle. She waited, looking through the vast expanse around her.

There. Somewhere in the distance she could feel it. A presence. A second heartbeat thrummed somewhere in the blackness. As she tried to orient herself and discern the direction, a serpentine braided weave curled its way out of her bond. It crept forward. Slowly at first but with each breath it gained momentum. Spiraling. Weaving. Searching. Hunting for the presence she could sense.

She knew, somehow, it hunted for Corin.

As the thrum of the heartbeat grew in her ears so too did the smell hay. She felt an ache develop within her knuckles. The blackness slowly gave way to the warm gentle light of a stable lantern. Hands stretched forth before her as they brushed a gray mare in slow deliberate circles.

She reached what she felt was her hands forward.

Noise. An overwhelming sensation of space and vibration overwhelmed her. Sasha felt as if she'd been submerged in the cold of a rushing a river. But instead of water, it was knowledge and sensation. Knowledge of everything Corin saw and touched and heard and remembered. The knowledge of which stalls held horses and which one would be saddled later in secret. The memory of finding Prince Aldrick’s lifeless body splayed naked on the bathhouse tiles. The cold satisfaction of having defended the King’s honor.

The weight of nearly three decades of life forced it’s way through the Bond.

Sasha opened her eyes.

The braziers had burned down to ash. The smoke had cleared. Only Robin stood outside the circle. She stepped forward and offered a hand across the chalk line.

“Welcome, my sister,” he said, “to the Covenant.”

Sasha took her hand and stepped out of the circle.

Behind her eyes, Corin continued brushing the grey mare, completely unaware.