Assassin In The Walls

– Disciple Medeia, Sand Castle –

Medeia was the ghost behind their walls. Carefully, oh so carefully, she had tunneled her way into the mesa surrounding Sand Castle while keeping her spirit firmly stuffed inside her. From her network of tunnels, she spied on their meetings, penetrated their secret places, and filched food and water to keep going. She couldn't reach the freestanding buildings this way, but the cliff-face dwellings were open to her. Medeia put her eye against a peephole into her target's refuge, waiting for them to arrive. Nights and days of careful silence would finally pay off. Today, she would take the first of many lives.

When the deans ordered her to slip into Sand Castle and sow some mayhem, she thought the assignment would be much easier. Medeia was, by Enclave standards, a superior disciple. She could sense and shape spirit better than the current deans and had worked hard to extend her strength, both physical and spiritual. She could measure and control enhancements and, unlike most disciples, she had weapon skills. Whenever Leadership needed someone removed quietly, Medeia was their preferred tool. She was under no illusions about the relationship between Enclave and the First Families: too many of her targets had been commercial in nature rather than political.

She wanted to kill Phillip the Younger, but Dean Golonzo and Guardian Paraskevi chose to send her into the soft belly of the heretic's base instead. Too many disciples had died at his hands already, and the dean felt that trapping him with an army stood a better chance of success than sending a lone practitioner. Instead, Medeia was to gather information and wait for orders to eliminate specific targets. So she had shaped her way through tons of rock until she could spy on a selection of doyennes and spears in their private spaces and even read through written reports when they were all abed.

Phillip was careful about what he told doyennes: he only reported accomplishments after they were in hand and told them little about his current position. It was obvious to Medeia that the war was going poorly for Kashmar and Enclave. The 'secret' Riverlands route had been compromised since the beginning, and Phillip had trapped two full regiments in those canyons with ease. He didn't even have to fight, because monstrous plants were doing that job for him, feeding and thriving on the invaders. The biggest concern wasn't if Kashmar could be stopped there, but how to control the plants after the war. When it came to the mercenaries, Nexus had conspired to raise the Grand Company's prices by inciting an armed rebellion in Hyskos and was confident in their ability to repel the five thousand elites Enclave had managed to hire. Medeia didn't know their plan (she didn't dare tunnel under the headquarters building) but the fact they weren't worried felt like something Princeps Zaid should know.

Medeia possessed valuable intelligence, but she was unable to reach anyone with Speak On The Wind. She spoke to Golonzo often, making him the easiest to reach, but she should have been able to reach out to half a dozen others. Suddenly, they were all gone. Last night, a crawling sense of desperation had driven her to try the hierarch. But, it was pointless: Medeia didn't know her well enough. She didn't know what Noora looked like, or her voice, or her personality. There was no sense of her to grab onto, so Medeia couldn't warn her Enclave might be in danger. She couldn't warn anyone. She couldn't tell them what she alone seemed to know: Nexus talked openly among themselves about a post-Enclave future, and had the power to make that future a reality.

Medeia's Overlook was as good as anyone's, but it didn't help her in Sand Castle. Every Nexus disciple was trained to sense spirit, so it was impossible to use prayers without drawing their attention. She could have worked around that problem by avoiding enemy disciples if it weren't for the cursed goggles. They looked like typical desert eyewear, but the local patrols had special ones that let them see spirit with their eyes. The first time Medeia tried to use Overlook in Sand Castle, she had been chased into the public arcs of the city. When she realized only men with goggles were leading the pursuit she wised up, dropped the prayer, and slipped into the crowded exchange.

The more she looked, the more the goggles seemed to be everywhere. Curious, she stole one. She lifted it from a hunter who'd set it aside to eat and flirt with a woman from some distant garden. Medeia took the stolen eyewear to her inn, tried them on in secret, and was amazed. Even working a tiny light prayer caused her spirit to visibly flare. This must be how the Nexus disciples trained themselves so thoroughly. She intended to keep them, but a patrol entered her inn: apparently, they had some means of tracing the devices, and the patrol had come looking for a pickpocket. Medeia rushed to her room's window and threw the miraculous device into a passing cart, and watched it roll away with regret.

After the goggles incident, Medeia knew she wasn't getting far in Sand Castle with her usual techniques. That was when the tunneling project began.

And here was where her patience would be rewarded, in an office in the doyennes' arc. Medeia had peepholes into several, but this one was loaned out to Red Tower's doyenne so she wouldn't have to shuffle back and forth between Red Tower headquarters and the doyennes' arc multiple times a day. Any information that flowed between Red Tower and the other gardens did so through this room.

The spot had paid off handsomely. This was where Medeia learned the eastern nations weren't just being unhelpful to Enclave but were secretly working together to back Nexus. They sent bronze, paper, and charcoal. They encouraged Nexus to operate in their borders, collecting faith and coin that rightfully belonged to Enclave. They looked aside while dozens of healers and priests defected, making Nexus stronger and Enclave weaker. Lavradio had gone so far as to give a second princess to the cause, possibly in hopes of marrying her to the new hierarch as soon as he was old enough.

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Medeia barely dared to breathe as the princess-doyenne entered the small room. Her guards today were led by a former healer from Ullidia, whom Anisca excused.

"Leave one bulwark at the door and go eat lunch," she commanded them, "I'll eat later at headquarters." This was their usual arrangement. Nobody liked being watched every minute of every day, not even people who grew up being watched, and Princess Francisca was no exception. One well-enhanced bulwark at the door was more than enough to handle any problem in the safest zone of the city. Unless you had an assassin hiding in your walls.

Anisca celebrated her moment of solitude with the tea she made over a spirit-driven cooking plate, another Nexus invention. As she settled in with her back to Medeia, the assassin wrapped her spirit carefully around herself and whispered the words to Overlook. When nobody came charging through the door, she let the zone extend beyond her body by almost a meter, then shaped an opening in the wall and let herself into the room. Her target, just outside the zone of Overlook, was still unaware of Medeia's presence.

It was worth savoring the moment, knowing someone important would die at her hand. Someone of consequence. She would kill her target, peek at her latest notes, and then leave the way she came without a trace. The mystery of it would put fear into the apostates. Then she'd work through her list of important people to kill and locations to set on fire until the city was in chaos. With nobody to report to or give her orders, she was falling back to her strategic goal of destroying rebel army's support.

The assassin pulled a long black dagger of enhanced monster bone and approached, but the moment was spoiled by the target. As soon as the Overlook touched her, Anisca spun suddenly. The fear in her eyes satisfied some deep need in Medeia, who stayed her hand, for just a moment, to see what would happen. This was her favorite way to do it, eye-to-eye. It was better this way, weightier.

Anisca's fear was replaced with resignation and regret. "So this is how it's going to be. Do I have time to finish my tea? It's a shame to waste it." She knew a disciple's power well, and she had given up on escape.

The princess-doyenne downed the tiny cup in a single go and poured herself another. Then she set another cup upright and poured a second serving. The cups were fragile-looking things in different colors. Anisca's was blue, while the one she offered her killer was jade. They were unlike any pottery the assassin had ever seen, thin and light enough to be translucent, with straight sides that curved outward at the lip just enough to give the fingers purchase. More Nexus inventions.

Medeia reached for the cup and, while Anisca's eyes followed the motion toward the tea, struck out with the dagger in her other hand. She prided herself on her skill: the arts-sharpened blade moved so quickly the princess didn't know at first she'd been cut. Hot blood gushed from her neck and over her clothes. She raised a hand to feel the wound, to try and hold it closed, but the gesture was futile. The red flow escaped through her fingers.

The surprise on their faces was the best part. Medeia expected her to plead as the life drained away. That's what they normally did, and that's why Medeia left the windpipe intact: so she could hear their last words. It was an important moment, and she didn't want to miss anything. They were both inside of Overlook, so they couldn't be overheard.

"So sharp!" The whispered praise escaped her golden lips as she dropped the delicate cup and flailed with that hand, searching for anything that might hold off death. She paled under her Red Tower colors and fell over. A princess to the last, her fall was more like fainting than dying, and she landed conveniently away from the pool of blood to lay in a pretty splay of Calique winter robes.

Satisfied, Medeia raised the jade cup to her prey. "To the end of Nexus," she toasted and swallowed it in a gulp. The princess didn't lie: the brew was superb, with aged black tea at its base, and layers of ripe berry and citrus, with a hint of leather. Medeia found the latest papers Anisca had carried in with her and started to read, but she couldn't take too long. Finding nothing new, Medeia contented herself with the box of tea. She almost took the cooking plate but decided it would be too obvious. Working quickly, she performed a quick search of Anisca's bag and then returned everything as she had found it.

The first sign of trouble was the doyenne's bag: it slipped through Medeia's fingers and spilled papers all around. When she tried to pick up the papers, she couldn't feel them. The assassin stared at her hands, confused. She could move them, somewhat, but they felt like they were far away, not directly attached to her body.

The tea. It had to be poisoned. Did Anisca poison them both, knowing she would die anyway? Or did she keep a poisoned cup around just in case she needed to kill someone unexpectedly? Either course required determination and discipline. She had underestimated her target.

Medeia's condition worsened but, in spite of her laboring heart, shallow breathing, and drifting limbs, she refused to panic. She had been in bad spots before and this one was easy to fix: there was a prayer for poison.

She mouthed the words, but no sound came out. Her lips and tongue seemed distant, but they should have made some kind of noise, even unintelligible grunts, but she couldn't summon so much as a whisper. She turned, or tried to, and fell on the floor hard enough to hurt herself if she could feel pain.

Medeia discovered she had fallen next to Anisca, facing her.

The princess' eyes were open, starling under ruby lids set in a nearly bloodless face.

"It was the cup," she said, startling Medeia.

Medeia looked for the cut she'd given to the woman. She could see where the blood had flowed from, but the flesh underneath was whole.

"A gift from our dear Hierarch," her golden lips whispered, as she showed a ring of gray metal on one finger. It held a stone that shifted colors in the light. "Constant regeneration. It makes you itch constantly, too. But you get used to it."

Medeia's body ached for air her failing chest couldn't supply. Anisca reached a languid hand to the assassin's belt and retrieved the dagger of black monster bone, then put the tip under her assassin's chin. Medeia had known, for a long time now, that this was her most probable end: killed by one of her targets. But, the princess' hand didn't move.

"Interesing." Anisca sounded distant, tired. Blood loss would do that to a person. "I always thought Taylor was a little squeamish because he doesn't like killing. Now that I have an enemy in my hands, I understand."

For a moment, Medeia dared to hope.

"But, I can't let him know I've been carrying around a disciple-killing poison. That would be … complicated. There's history. So … "

Her face showed distaste, like she had picked up something gross off of the ground before realizing what it was, as the knife slid easily through Medeia's flesh, bone, and brain.