The three consistent enemies to a merchant of death are complacency, sympathy, and doubt. Complacency makes you careless and carelessness begets mistakes with fatal consequences. Sympathy prevents your hand from striking when you need it to the most. Doubt keeps you from even reaching for your sword for fear that you are not strong enough or fast enough to do what needs to be done. Theoposition of these enemies were hammered into me over and over again so that when it finally came time for me to go on a mission I would be ready to do whatever it took to complete that mission.
My first mission was in the city of Harusame where it was considerably easy to blend in with the crowd as long as you didn’t completely stand out. The problem I had with getting lost in a crowd was that my skin was tanner than the pale people of Eastern Embre. Spending so much time in the Rainlands lightened my skin some due to lack of exposure to the sun but I had discovered a kind of paste that, if rubbed over exposed parts of my body, would make it look like I was naturally fair skinned. I just had to keep myself dry or the substance would wash off with enough water.
Jukahn would follow me through the streets as I wandered downtown to where my target was unknowingly waiting for his executioner. All I knew about this man was what I needed to know for the mission. His name was Han-Wei and he was the spoiled son of a lord. His father, Chen-Wei, controlled the territory Harusame was in. Chen-Wei was in service to the warlord and valuable in not only controling of the territory but also making it thrive. Somewhere along the way, his son had become a disappointment and was not fit to succeed Chen-Wei when he would inevitably die from the disease eating away at him from the inside. All was not lost, though, as Chen-Wei had a daughter, Lin-Wei, who could succeed him and was a better fit for the role but she was second in the line of succession. That is where I came in. I had been contracted with the assassination of Han-Wei so that Lin-Wei could step up as heir to the territory.
Han-Wei spent most of his time in the entertainment district of Harusame. There are a plethora of gambling halls, brothels, bars, drug dens and many other ways to sate one’s appetite located in this haven of debauchery. Eastern Embre has never been a stranger to decadence, to which I have been informed, is the same with most of the mainland even after the War of Judgment where the surviving gods tried to punish mortals for living lives of excess in the gods’ names.
It wasn’t easy getting his exact location. The first problem I ran into was that he frequented many of the places in the entertainment district. The second problem I ran into was that his father required him to use a pseudonym in order to protect the family reputation. I spent most of the time just asking for anyone fitting his description. Most would ask if I was talking about the lord’s son and I would correct them by saying it was just someone who looked just like him. Eventually, I got his location and his fake name from a night worker. “Quan-Wo” was what he was going by and he was currently using the name in a brothel on the renowned “pleasure street” a few streets from where I found all this out.
It was called the Purple House and it tried to save some face by identifying as an inn but it didn’t try very hard. The building was three stories tall with a fair number rooms and a very wide foyer. There was a bar not far from where guests were greeted. As I stepped inside the foyer adorned in fine attire for the region, the first thing I was met with was an elderly hostess eager to show me the merchandise.
Women and men, all nearly identical in shape and build, were lined up before me awaiting my judgment for who would escort me to one of those many rooms. Prices weren’t mentioned and everything operated on assumption. A place like this doesn’t deal kindly with those who cannot pay and such transgressions are not easily forgiven. There was only one person I was seeking and he was already with someone. The only way I was going to get to him is if I refused for the time but gained enough of their trust that they allow me to wander the brothel without throwing me out for wasting their time.
I told them that I was applying for a job. When I sighted the grisly looking bartender, I told them I wasn’t looking for anything in “sales” but I was very interested in taking up the position of bartender to take the current one’s place. I had no reservations in thinking that I was attractive and even with the paste hiding my origin, I did have a certain exotic look to me. It was only more subtle with the disguise. It was this handsome youth convinced them to interview me for the position. A younger and more attractive bartender could draw in a better crowd. The current looked like he doubled as a guard.
The hostess told me to take a seat at the bar while she went to go fetch the owner of the Purple House. I dif, then took off my jacket and folded it in my lap. The tender asked if I wanted anything to drink and I declined, saying I was here on business and there would be time for a drink after I had finished it. I did, however, ask him where the restroom was while making a related remark about modern conveniences. Once he told me, I put my jacket on the seat and asked he watch it for me while I headed down the hall.
The jacket was to secure any doubt. It was nice enough that it would be unlikely anyone would abandon it, thus instilling a false confidence that I would return. This allowed me the freedom to roam about in search of my target. The question was: what room was my target in? It was time to change personas.
I didn’t bother asking any of the guards who made sure that nothing violent happened to the merchandise and that no one tried to cheat the establishment. Instead, when a girl would pass by me, I told her I was the liaison for the lord who is searching for the lord’s son. I was surprised that the very first girl I asked knew who I was talking about and was able to point me where to go.
He was upstairs on the third floor, in the green and gold room with “Prince” written on the door. I moved confidently through the halls and up the stairs, careful not to make my pace seem too fast or intentional. Otherwise, I would stand out too much.
Upstairs, all the rooms had been labeled with strange titles ranging from “King” and “Queen” to “Dragon” and “Tiger”. I never found out the purpose of that but I did find the Prince Room halfway down the hall from the stairs. Two very large and intimidating men stood outside of the room, one on either side of the door. I could hear all manner of giggling and moaning going on beyond it and the first of the two men, a bald mammoth of a man with his hands behind his back, looked at me with suspicion.
“If you do not have urgent business here, move along,” he grufflyspoke in the common tongue. The other man, who had shorter hair and a scar so deep from one cheek to the other that it took a large chip out of the bridge of his nose, also turned his attention on me.
I crossed my arms over my chest, secretly fingering at the short knives hidden within my sleeves and bringing them closer to my cuffs. All I had to do was dip my arms down and they would fall into my palms. “The lord wants his son home, now.” The stern voice I used to convey this command was enough to provoke them. It was enough to reel them in to my control. They wanted less to know about whether or not I was trying to pull something and more about who I was and how I knew Han-Wei was in this room of this brothel.
I uncrossed my arms and the knives slid comfortably into my hands where they stayed firmly in my grip. In the same fluid motion, I swept my arms out while lunging forward and pushing myself upwards. I arced the slashing motion towards that thick column where head met shoulders and twin ribbons of blood flew from the necks of both guards, robbing them of their ability to call out for help. They both lost balance, falling with their backs to the wall and sliding down. I checked left and right, estimating a good ten seconds before they were discovered by someone, given the traffic of this place.
Quickly, I slipped inside the door and had only seconds to react to whatever was waiting for me inside. By sheer good fortune, he has his back to me while he was lurching over his woman of the evening. I stalked towards them both, unseen, eyeing the brooch of gold standing out from his river of well-kept, black hair. The brooch was a lotus of gold that was revered in this part of the world for its ability to thrive in the most devastating rains. It was also the symbol of the Wei family. There was also a birthmark on his right shoulder in the shape of a diamond. This was him.
I came up behind him, using my speed and precision to my advantage. Once I closed the distance, I reached around and put one knife to his neck. In the same movement, I pulled it back to slash his throat, I also plunged the second knife forward to drive it home into the heart of the woman he had paid for. Han-Wei flopped to the floor with a loud thud and the woman didn’t have time to scream as the life pumped out of her in fits and spurts, pooling beneath her on the bed from the hole between her ribs reaching down to her heart.
I had just enough time to hear the screams from outside and get to the window of the green and gold room. The last thing I heard in the room was the sound of them bursting into the door while I ducked out into the open air of the warm city night. I looked down at the busy street below and I knew I couldn’t drop down for the same reason I couldn’t have climbed up to infiltrate the Purple House in the first place. I would be spotted and most likely stopped. Instead, I went up, clambering to the roof.
They had reached the window by the time I had scaled on top of the building. In the span it took them to figure out where I had gone, I was already sprinting across the wooden slats that covered the Purple House. When I reached the edge of the roof, I leaped across to the next one, clearing a small alley in one bound and landing on the next roof. I had to do this for two more buildings before I could see that I wasn’t being followed. After that, I slipped down to the beside another building and waited for the crowd to thicken before I blended into it, mixing in with the street folk. Theb I’d make my way to where my ride was waiting. I would never see that jacket again.
I had a long trek back to think about all that had transpired. Did I really just take a life that posed no immediate threat to me? Why was it so easy? How did I manage to turn off that part of me that still holds to some kind of morality? Is that part of me even something I can turn on and off or is it something that I unknowingly got rid of altogether? It’s possible that I no longer knew where to draw that line between what is right and what is wrong. Or maybe I did, but for the sake of circumstance, I had to push that line much further back. So far back for so long, that I wasn’t sure if it would ever be returned.
Eventually there was no line and I was left standing so far from where I had started that I didn’t recognize the place I lived in. So many people had fallen at my blade and I stopped asking why. I stopped asking who they were or what purpose their death served. Everything blurred out to the same abstract image. I felt like I was lost in fog where the only choice I had left was the wander until I could find a light to hold on to. I was drowning and I doubted there was even a surface to swim to.
Twelve years passed and I had learned so much at the cost of so much forgotten. When I abandoned Kael Lione, I abandoned everything that had driven him. That is why I was so lost. Kael Lione was someone who had a purpose in life. Juik was truly empty as the void. Every assassination made the deficit inside me deeper and deeper. For as long as I was Shinohari, I would always be at the bottom of that hole with no way of knowing how to start making my way back to the top.
Jukahn and I left midday for the river road. Once we had made it to the boulder that marked the hidden path to Shinohari, we had to part ways. He had business south of the Rainlands and I had to go east for a mission involving the pilfering of plans for an attempt at overthrowing the newly established government of Eastern Embre.
The entire order of Embre had changed and I had a personal hand in changing it. I got to see much of the world beyond Eastern Embre, and I was more than a witness to the downfall of the old ways. “The Fall of Kingdoms”, it was called. A man named Marcus Fox, who ruled a kingdom in the north, had found himself unhappy with Embre’s structure. He rallied the kings and queens of Northern and Western Embre to the noble cause of equality. Give the power to the people, he insisted. It was his insisting that caused this democracy to infect the land, coursing its way through until all the Mainland was united by inspiration or by force.
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One faction did not wish to be a part of this new proposed utopia. The collective kingdoms of Southern Embre united into a versamilitary to stand up against the Alliance of Nations. This sparked the fires of a war that consumed the world. “The End War” is what it would be called, for many felt that it was so great that it would be the last war Embre would ever see. Atrocities were committed and scars were made that would never heal. It lasted for years with each side clashing.The Alliance of Nations was trying to overpower with numbers and advanced technology and the Southern Embre Versamilitary was holding their own with strategy and mystic forces beyond human.
The End War had to eventually end and Southern Embre fell to the might of the Alliance of Nations. Negotiations were reached and while Southern Embre was no longer allowed to establish any monarchies or take the power away from their people, they were given a generous amount of freedom considering they had just lost a war to the power of a united mainland. It would most likely take another age before the tensions would finally wear down between the two continents. Being a foreigner in any land now meant almost certain persecution and general prejudice from the people. That meant it was even more important that I hide my Southern Embre descent.
The plans I was meant to steal were part of a plot by the descendant of the warlord who once controlled all of Eastern Embre. The son of that warlord had been groomed to succeed his father as ruler of all of Eastern Embre and when Marcus Fox dethroned and killed the warlord, the son suddenly found that he had nothing to inherit. He had spent his life believing the world was owed to him and it had all been taken away. So, in the darkness, he began to scheme on how to get what he felt was rightfully his.
“The hostilities have already ended and the entirety of Eastern Embre has become its own democracy, so if this man’s idea to overthrow Eastern Embre were even allowed to go public, it would undermine everything about the Alliance of Nations and it would fall bit by bit like a house of cards with uprisings in places where the AN had to use force to assimilate the kingdoms.” Jukahn had a habit of trying to convey the importance of certain missions to me when he feared that I didn’t care enough to show the concern needed. I was ready to part ways and get it over with. It was Jukahn who seemed apprehensive.
“I like information theft. It’s a nice break from assassinations and it challenges a different set of abilities.” It was a half truth I spoke. Information theft was a good break but only because I was drowning in blood and needed an exercise I could complete without adding any more bodies to my growing count.
A sigh escaped from Jukahn and a hand reached out to grip my shoulder. It had been a long time since I was given such a gesture. “Juik, do not think for a second that I am not proud of what you have become. Think of the people of Shinohari. You have become the protector you were meant to be. As long as you are giving it your all, these people will stay safe.”
“And how long do I remain their protector?” I asked. “How long am I to be tied to this place? Do I stay until I die of old age like Junoro or you? Do I wait until I’m killed by another Saban? Or will I become the next Saban?” I was tired of being patronized. This wasn’t about protecting a village. Even if it was, that was not why I started this path.
“You do what needs to be done for as long as it is needed. Trust that you’ll know when it is time to move on. No one is tied to this place, Juik.” He motioned behind him towards the direction that Shinohari was in. “We don’t stay because we have to. We stay because we want to. We stay because there is nothing waiting out there that can give us the home we have in Shinohari. You are not a prisoner. You are family.”
The family thing was a cheap tactic and it didn’t work on me. I relented with a sigh and put my hand on his shoulder. “Master Jukahn, family was why Kael started this path. Juik has nothing because I am nothing until I need to be. Even when I must become something, I am never anything for very long. This is what you created, Master. Empty as the void”
He removed his hand at the same time I removed mine. “I had such high hopes for you, Juik,” he admitted. “There had always been a fire inside you that could have lit the whole world but now I see the tragedy in what I’ve done. Instead of setting you to the path of light, I set you to the path of darkness and now that spark I saw in you is all but snuffed out.” So much for being proud.
I wasn’t sure where this was coming from. I had never heard him talk like this. I had never seen him look so defeated. “I thought this is exactly what you wanted from me.”
Jukahn shook his head again. “We’ll speak more about this when you return.” That was the end of it. He pulled his rucksack up onto his shoulder and began his journey down the road.
I went my own way, walking the few miles it took to find a town where I could rent a taxi. Technology had made drastic leaps and bounds out of necessity. There was no denying that when the kingdoms fell, it ushered in an Age of Advancement. That is what people were beginning to call this new period but only time would tell if the name would stick. Some say it was technology that ended the war; that South Embre was brought down by an army of machines made to look like men and fight like demons. The automobile was probably one of the more beneficial fruit of this new age. For me, it meant missions could be completed within the span of a day if they were close enough.
The mission was pretty cut and dry with nothing notably interesting about it. When I arrived in the city, the sun was still lazily drooping over the skyline and the ominously tall buildings reached up against the orange horizon like fingers trying to grasp it before it faded. I didn’t need a disguise or pretense to enter the building. All I needed was my black garb and a half-mask to hide everything between my chin and nose. I had my hair dyed black and knotted in a taut ponytail so it wouldn’t obstruct my vision. A small quiver full of throwing knives was holstered to each of my thighs. Twin short and thin swords were tied to my belt horizontally behind me while the rest of my belt was decorated in pouches with assorted items of use. Once I was prepared, I set to work.
The building had its lights turned off and had already been locked up for the evening when I approached the back door that served as an emergency exit. Buildings of this size need a box to serve as a hub regulating all electrical activity. I had found that hub next to the emergency exit and severed its connection to the building, cutting what power was still alive in there. The door made an audible click after I disabled the electricity and I tried the knob. It opened without alarm nor the need to pick at the lock. As I assume, it was mechanically locked. The idea seemed foolish to me but I could see how, in an emergency, you’d need a door to unlock itself lest you be burnt alive or trapped with some other cruel fate.
The door lead to a stairwell that I scaled in the dark. My steps had been made a whisper by my cloth wrapped feet and just enough light was left in the building that I could see where I was going. When the stairs would flatten out briefly, it would be at the doors that lead to the interior of each floor. Each door was numbered with the floor it corresponded with and when I made it to number ten, I tried at the knob. It took some work with a metal pick, but I got it open and I was able to slip inside. I’m not sure why the door to the stairwell that served as the emergency exit needed to be locked but then again I wasn’t the owner of an office building. I was just breaking in.
I ended up halfway down a hallway with several more doors on either side. While the stairwell door was metal, all the other doors were wood. Before I began my mission, I had oriented myself with the details of the building’s schematics. I was able to make my I way directly down the hall to the most prestigious looking door. It belonged to the office of Lei-Gan and it was in this office that I would find the coveted plans.
It took the same finesse I gave the previous door to get this one open, but once I was inside, it was only a matter of minutes before I pried open the desk and found the documents I was looking for. I carefully tucked them into the front of my clothing, keeping them close to my chest while I made my exit. After that, all I had left was to complete the drop-off and I could head back to Shinohari.
Something gnawed at me while I was on the road towards the mountains. It was a feeling I had not been familiar with in more than a decade. I kept looking to the horizon, watching the stars rest in the night sky as if any moment one or all of them may explode and take the sky with them. It put fire to my feet and I hurried back towards the village with more vigor than I had left it with.
I was rounding the hill, being careful of the poorly lit way to the valley, when I saw part of the sky had been blotted out by ominous black clouds. They curled up from beyond the hill’s crest and I knew what it was and where it was coming from. The closer I got, the more I could see a foul light blossoming into the sky. The moment I reached the valley, all the fears left unspoken came to light by the illumination of a brilliantly cataclysmic fire. It marked the hidden village for even the creators to see. For the second time in such a short lifetime, my home was burning.
I was in a full sprint when I saw the fires eating at the tops of the trees, no longer content to simply consume the village itself. I raced down into the valley and made it to that archway where the sounds of screams were being stopped short by swords cutting through tender, innocent flesh. I had strength this time. I had swords of my own. I could stop it this time. This time, it would be different.
I rushed through the gate and I was immediately met with resistance. One of the invaders saw me run past the threshold and didn’t recognize me as his own. He brought an iron sword down on me, screaming war and murder only to have me side-step the blade and jab one of my own into his lungs. His warcry faded and his body collapsed only to be replaced by two more strangers with swords.
They began to recognize me as a bigger threat than the villagers but that wasn’t to say the villagers themselves were completely defenseless. Many of them had taken up weapons themselves and attempted to put up a fight. They chose to die for the chance of saving some than run with the chance of losing them all. Swords, scythes, pitchforks, and whatever else could wound someone clashed in the violence of the night.
I took a moment to study the invaders while they studied me. Tthey were wrapped in blue and red. Each chose to keep the lower half of their faces covered. The thing that stood out the most was that no matter how many of them I examined, no two shared the same sword. Their weapons didn’t share the same style, the same length, and some did not even share the same material. I knew who our invaders were. Bandits. We were being slaughtered by bandits.
I didn’t have the time to figure out how they found us. By the indiscriminate way they hacked at man, woman, and child I could only guess that they wanted us all dead. Shinohari Village drew in a considerable amount of wealth each time they sent Jukahn or I out on a mission but it was never horded. It would only be used to fund the village so that we could survive the seasons and nothing further. The only things we kept were the things no one would pay money for. Artifacts with terrible reputations such as curses or possessions so coveted that they would be a danger to anyone who owned it. Perhaps that is what they were after.
As I said, I didn’t have time to mull it over. The two bandits were rushing me, swords held aloft and ready to come at me from either side. I don’t think either of them was expecting my speed because there was a lingering moment after I dashed past them and let my blades bite through parts of their midsections where they didn’t seem to realize they were dead. They stood still for an agonizing, unreal eterity before they fell on their faces in the dirt. Time stood still for them while I moved on.
Try as I might to cut a path through the bandits coming at me from all sides, I couldn’t kill enough of them to have any sort of effect. For each one of them I would cut down, two or three villagers would be killed somewhere I could not get. With all my remarkable, inhuman speed I was still not fast enough. The only option I could think of was to find the leader of this assault. Cut off the head and the body will collapse. I’m not sure it that applied to bandits but if I could at least take out the one who was giving commands, they would without anyone keeping them in order.
I found a shed and some crates I could use as stepping stones to get up a roof. Above all the din, I was able to move over the chaos that consumed Shinohari. As long as I avoided the shelters that were being eaten away by fire, I could make my way to the head of the massacre without being slowed down by nearly endless ranks of thieves. It was at the end of the village, where the training hall was, that I found the start of all this. I leaped from the roof I was on and came down hard on a stray bandit, knocking him to the ground and confusing him just long enough to pierce his heart with my sword. I pushed off of him and back onto my feet.
When I arrived at the training hall, I could see the silhouettes of two figures clashing with one another in front of an intense living wall of yellow and red rage, breathing heat to all who stared upon it. The fire was so much more intimidating here than it was for the rest of the village. So much so that I couldn’t make out who was fighting at first. I had to get closer and closer to the inferno before I could see who I needed to lend aid.
As I got close enough, the two parted from having swords locked and looked upon me. One of them looked at me with a demonic mask, speaking in the voice of my master. “Help me Juik,” he said to me. “Kill her,” came the command from that demon’s unmoving lips.
The other stared at me from one single eye and it said only one word to me. “Run.”