The true assassin kills one to save many.

He had chosen the inn carefully. Just close enough to the caliph's palace to be in range, yet just far enough that no mortal man could possibly shoot into it.

He crossed the lobby, his stature carefully crafted to be just tall enough that he wasn’t too short, yet short enough to be not tall enough to be noticed.

Not a pair of eye tracked his weaving way through the rowdy crush and sweat of the inn’s floor. Not a man noticed him striding through the crowd of waving mugs and shuffling feet.

It was an art, being unseen. Sometimes a mystical one, but now was not one of those times. The key to mundane invisibility was to be moderate. But not to be too moderate, for even that had to be in moderation. Too invisible, and you were visible. Too visible, and not even invisibility could hide you.

One had to stand out just enough to not stand out--a truly delicate balance. Many years of experience and training had taught him thus.

Many famous assassins walked like predators--their gait perfectly balanced, each step perfectly even, each stride long and loping. That was why they were famous.

He walked like a merchant. His step was arched--to accommodate for the packet of gold hidden in his shoe. Just like a merchant’s step might be. His feet fast, yet his stride short, representative to any who had mastered the old arts of a small heart, a quick mind. Just as a merchant might have.

In many ways, Rasthen al-Carif was a merchant. His father had been a middling, slightly successful merchant. His mother had been a lowborn daughter of a clan of merchants--his surname had helped him many times throughout his life.

He had grown up amongst a caravan of Siraman traders. He knew how to count coins, how to haggle, how to find the best prices. He knew all the rules of being a merchant. In fact, he often traveled the world, peddling his wares to all he met.

But in many ways, he was not a merchant. He knew this, and so this identity, this merchant, was only almost perfect. His muscles were toned and hard, trained to the very pinnacle of the human potential... and beyond. No merchant’s muscles would be like his. His chest was tattooed with a curling, ringing circle of symbols, each crackling and whispering of dark powers, powers beyond what a mere mortal could hope to understand.

But he understood them. And so, of course, he was not a merchant.

When he arrived at the room’s door, the first thing he did was look around. First with his mortal eyes, then with his spirit. Nothing appeared in his vision. Perhaps the inn’s inhabitants were all down at the ground floor.

He knelt and checked the door. There, at the very crack between the door and the floor, sat a black hair. One of the oldest, but most effective, tricks in the book. It had been undisturbed.

He stood and traced a symbol on the center of the door with his finger. In the spiritual domain, it burned with a scarlet red and sank into the door, disappearing. Nothing spiritual had passed through the door or waited inside.

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a set of lockpicks. His tongue between his teeth, he carefully picked the locks, then opened the door.

He could have opened it with magic, but any working greater than a lesser scanning left a trace. Never leave a trace if you don’t have to--one of the few tenets of the assassin’s trade.

For the greater good.

He stepped into the room. It was empty--nobody was supposed to be here, not even him. The room was unbooked. It had been for several years. Another of the Order’s assets, he supposed. A fine film of dust lay over the furniture of the room. The fires in the hearth had long since gone out, leaving only dead, cold ashes behind.

He found himself wishing he could light another, to feel at least a little warmth once more. Rasthen could not understand the caliph’s decision in wanting to move the Sepulchre here. The cold would turn away many pilgrims--and kill even more.

He walked to the balcony doors. There was a dead insect on the latch. It had been there the last time he had come and was still there now. Rasthen drew a symbol on the window, a dark, shadowy mark following his finger. It flashed once, then sank into the door. Nobody had come.

He calmly walked to the fireplace, knelt down, and picked three charcoal colored branches from the ashes. He dusted them off, revealing a honey-brown wood beneath the ashes; revealing three pieces of a bow from the ashy grit.

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Rasthen did not like bows. His personal choice was a rifle. A long range, silenced magitech rifle, capable of pinpoint accuracy from nearly a mile away. He called it Alqatil--it meant slayer in the old language, the language from before the Empire.

Unfortunately, there were no buildings in the city higher than the caliph’s winter palace. As such, only a bow would do.

He removed two screws from his merchant’s robe, screwing the three pieces of the bow together. He strung it with a black string that seemed woven of shadows--and was.

He pulled an arrow from his robe. It was a long, black thing, shaft, feathers, and head all woven with countless workings until it practically thrummed with power. Gazing into the spiritual, runes seemed to take shape for a fleeting second before sinking back into the darkness that surrounded the arrow.

He set it aside, taking off his merchant’s robe. From an unseen pocket of space, he took a black cloak. Putting it on, he flipped the hood over his face, letting the shadows sink over him, concealing his features. Now, not even the most eagle-sighted of men could catch a glimpse of his face.

Only darkness resided in the cowl. Only the assassin was beneath the cloak.

The assassin stood, glancing at the time, and lit an incense stick. He sat, his legs settling into a lotus position, and meditated, clearing his mind of worldly passions and desires.

He sat this way for a while, waiting for the stick’s flame to go out. When it did, so would another, more metaphorical kind of flame.

The candle’s flame flickered. It was time. The assassin stood, picking up his bow, his single, shadowed arrow.

The caliph was a creature of habit--a very rare thing in his profession. Such people in positions of power did not tend to live very long. Perhaps the religious leader felt safe, shrouded in enough protective working and spells to protect a city.

He was not.

At this time, the assassin thought, the caliph would be walking as he always did, walking along the garden pathway, surrounded by a cloud of half-dressed women, rough, grizzled bodyguards, and every socialite in the city.

For all, one.

The assassin knew that the caliph had been issued a letter of warning--something the Order always did. The Order did not kill without reason, and they did not kill when there were other options available. Clearly, the caliph had not taken heed.

The assassin stepped out onto the room’s balcony, casually casting a minor illusion. Anyone who looked at the balcony would only see it empty--at least until it was too late.

The assassin wondered if the caliph truly understood the end he was sure to face--after all, the Order had not taken action in many years.

The flame touched the half-dried wax on the bottom of the stick.

The assassin raised his bow and nocked it. He gazed up into the stars and found one that shone especially bright. Its name was appropriate--the Star of War.

He pointed his bow at it, then turned three degrees, until he was facing the west end of the caliph’s gardens.

He drew it back until his arms trembled with the weight of the string. The crescent moon arc of the bow was perfectly still.

The flame went out.

With the deep-throated twang of a longbow, with the sighing whistle of a razor sharp object cutting through the air, the assassin released.

The arrow arced away through the air, carrying with a terrible darkness--a comet of translucent black fire streaked through the sky.

The assassin set his bow down, disassembled it, then hid it in his long, billowing robes. Then he cracked the door open and walked out.

We know of the price peace demands.

The assassin arrived at the ground floor of the inn--the restaurant. A deep, dark silence fell over the crowd, spreading like a plague, as each member, be they drunk or sober, young or old, turned to gaze at him. The shadows seemed drawn to him, eyes as well.

He strode forward and the crowd split before him, like the waving, fearful grasses of the prairie. Whispers abounded and fingers pointed. Somebody mentioned the Order’s symbol on his breast.

The assassin knew they would remember him. Before dawn, the whole city would know of his presence here. Even the caliph’s successor--especially him.

The assassin never did anything without purpose.

Someone shouted something at the assassin. He ignored it. A man stepped out into the open corridor of the crowd. He swayed a little on his feet, his face a flushed red. In his hand, he carried a glass bottle, mostly empty. A little week-old vomit stained his filthy clothes.

“Ay! AY! Ah’m talkin’ ta ya. Lissen up, you creepy bastard. Why don’ ya go back to whatever hole ya climbed out of? Huh?” He slurred at the assassin, his face leering. He preened with pride, evidently proud that he had acted when nobody else was stupid enough to.

A flash of amusement passed through the assassin’s face under his veil of shadows. Alcohol often made men do strange things--here evidently freeing the man from the grip of terror.

The assassin reached out and grabbed the drunk’s shoulder, his face under the veil returning to its expressionless equilibrium.

His other hand shot out of his loose robe in a blur of black, slamming into the man’s stomach. He doubled over. Gathering himself, the assassin spun and threw the drunk thirty feet across the room in a whirl of loose cloth, embedding him, spread-eagled, half an inch into the inn’s timber walls. The walls shook, tables shifting, drinks sloshing in their cups and bowls.

The inn’s patron and staff looked on in horror, paralyzed by terror--this time, true terror.

The assassin retracted his hands into his loose sleeves and strode away, his black robe flapping in the wind of his passage.

Walk in the shadow to serve the light.