Throughout her life, there were always moments when Lim could fall victim to lies and deceit, but she always had a sense of security and control over whatever happened around her. A kind of fulcrum which kept her calm. That was not the case anymore.
Kumar had prepared thoughtfully for their escape. She was sure that the three groups he readied were going to be successful. All had girls similar to his daughter and women with Lim’s complexion. He even commanded them to build new wheelchairs. All his efforts would be enough to fool Tampra soldiers and other groups hiding in the shadows, but to Lim’s surprise, it didn’t work.
The first group didn’t reach the corner of the street. Believing themselves safe with the darkness of the night, they went straight into the soldiers’ trap and the screams were heard throughout the street and palace. The second and third left together to fool the soldiers, and while one was caught up almost as quickly as the first, the other made it to the docks. No further. Days later, the news of their capture arrived. So did the whispers of many executions.
Just as Lim expected, Kumar did not give up and prepared many more parties to deceive the siege of his house. And as Lim foresaw, they were all ready to leave at once, together with the real group. Once again, she was wrong.
Against all odds, Kumar plans and Lim’s speculations, Papiku took them out in broad daylight and without hiding. Lim called it madness and yet, challenging all her calculations of success, it worked.
They reached an inn in the busy, crowded street of the beer-makers. Right in the middle of the city. No one stopped them in doing so and for the two days and nights they waited there, no gang-men or soldiers came to claim their prize.
To punish Lim’s stressed mind even more, Papiku greeted many visitors during the stay, all potential betrayers and sneakers, with not a hint of fear to be discovered. Each time the Krait had one of those meetings, it was not with enough quietness and shortness as she’d desire, and his disregard for not caring to go unnoticed made her blood boil to the point her health was taking a toll. Fortunatelly, the old time assassin was smart enough to keep a rather bussy stablishment, empty during the darker hours, and by the time it was dinner time, she could find ease surrounded only by her group.
The other four following Papiku were just as impatient and frustrated as she was, but unlike Lim, they were all people of servitude, and dedicated themselves fully to their tasks to keep their minds busy. Gotho, a man of formidable physique and little brain, was Alishee’s porter. Mostly he’d carry all commodities she needed, and when her chair was not of any good use, he’d be the one carrying the young lady personally.
Apart from him, there was Nora, a faithful hand servant of similar age as her master. She’d assist Alishee with her personal matters and, most importantly, she was in charge of easing the worries of the surrounding dangers with constant chatting of spiced topics, which delighted almost everyone. “Is lady Alishee in bed?” Papiku asked from his seat. Gotho nodded and grunted. “Nora with her?” The big reddish man repeated an animal-like answer and shook his head with extreme effusiveness.
Dualli, the sewing maid and the last of the five, reached the end of the wooden stairs with exhausted steps but showing with pride her unbreakable perseverance. She took a deep breath to regain the strength and courage with which she infused everyone’s hearts and spoke. “Lady Alishee is hungry, keeper.”
The inn owner stepped out of the bar with steaming bowls in both hands. “My wonderful lady, no more stew left but this little, but worry not! My Odda has made a fantastic feast for a person of her status, coming out in a minute!”
Papiku cleared his throat and sniffed as the innkeeper set the plates on the table. With the fragrance of a well-cooked meal, Lim’s belly did a little hop. When she was powered by the sphere, Lim didn’t really need to eat. Yes, from time to time it was a pleasure to indulge herself with a soup or any other liquids, but it was not strictly necessary. Now, with only an old tinny battery run by a windmill as a way to keep moving, it seemed that her body, which she had once doubted had any sort of humanity, was imploring with little noises to be fed. “Do not touch this,” Papiku whispered, pulling her share of stew aside. “Dualli, the time has come.”
The head maid gasped and fiddled before returning to the stairs. As she pulled up her skirt to ease her steps up, she mumbled words of prayer. Papiku turned towards Gotho, who was rushing for Alishee’s wheeled chair. “Leave it in the corner and sit on it. You won’t be moving from there unless I say so, understand? No matter what.” Papiku said. Gotho, as the submissive soul he was, obeyed without question and nailed his butt to the seat and his eyes to the floor.
With uncertainty and unease rising to the roof, Lim’s mouth opened to complain, only to be halted under the motion of a spoon and the hissing of a snake. “Not now. You move back to the wall and stay there. Quiet.”
When her wheels reached the end of the room, Lim fixed her attention towards the only person present who was nervous without apparent reason: The innkeeper, a man of extreme politeness and interminable smile, was sweating too much for the little work involved in wiping up a table. His eyes, whose narrowness could not hide his continuous glances at Papiku, parted wide as the Krait deepened the spoon into his bowl. As the old-time assassin filled his mouth with chunks of rabbit and carrot, the innkeeper’s hand slowed on its pretence of cleaning and his furtive glances became an obvious stare. “Who gave you the Madeena powder, innkeeper?” asked Papiku with his mouth full.
“Excuse me? I-I don’t know what you mean, my very good sir,” muttered the owner, too frightened to convince anyone of his innocence.
Little by little, Papiku licked the spoon clean and raised it towards the keeper, who, while wiping his sweat with an apron, tripped and fell on a chair. “Lie to me again, and I will use this to take your eyes out of their sockets. Did you hear me well?” With a tone that made Lim’s hair stand on end, Papiku repeated his threat and made the innkeeper’s lips move without making any sound. “Take a deep breath.” Munched the Krait. “I’ll make it easy for you. Soldiers don’t use poison. What gang is it?”
Unable to control a gasping breath, the innkeeper moved his palms uncontrollably. “Don’t... Don’t know. The Geckos, maybe. I swear I don’t..”
The Krait’s head tilted slightly towards Lim’s full, steaming plate. After a moment, it turned further to peer at her from over his shoulder. “Not the Geckos,” he murmured. “What have they told you to do after I fall prey to this?”
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“The lamp. I put it on that window and they come in.”
Papiku returned to his eating and spoke again only after his plate was empty. “You are going to put that lamp where it belongs and sit in that corner without a word. If you have lied to me, or if you move to warn them, I am going to noose you with a knot from the Ah Clan. You strike me as a fella from there so, I suppose you know what I’m talking about.”
Lim knew it well, and weakened and exhausted, she wished no one angered the Murderer so that she would not have to witness a torture that was very sure going to add nausea to her already deplorable state. With trembling legs, the keeper obeyed -to Lim’s ease of mind- and put the lamp on the table closest to the entrance. It didn’t take long for the wooden door to creak.
Five individuals of different ages and sizes entered one after the other. The men’s eyebrows rise in surprise or lower in disappointment. But one of them, the oldest and more intimidating, gasped at Papikus’ sight.
The less treathening and younger, a scrawny redhead with a face filled with pimples, spoke first with a cockiness not his youth or size could back up. “Ya’ll stupid Egor? Why he’s not eat the soup?”
Papiku filled his mouth with a chunk of potato from Lim’s bowl and chewed slowly. “You have made three mistakes, gentlemen.”
The little bully scratched a swollen pimple and snorted. “Is that so? Mindin’ tell me what?”
“First, you tried to kill a Krait with the coward’s weapon,” Papiku put aside his bowl and made the gesture to stand. “Second-”
“My name is Adaleen!” said the thug who gasped upon entering. He put his hand over the shoulder of the boy at his side. A younger, less scared version of himself. “And this is my Amal! We mean nothing, we saw nothing. I swear to my mother!”
The Krait rose and surrounded the table with enough calmness to keep his tensed adversaries away from attacking. Adaleen’s hand turned the soft touch into a clasping grip, pulling the shirt of his young boy. The kid, spurred on by the stupidity of the one who does not know better, motioned to free his shoulder.
“I’m not Ash’Kaniar,” Papiku leaned on the table and raised the spoon to delight his sight with the reflections of candles and lamps over the metal. “But if you go now and stay quiet, I swear you will never have to worry about me.”
“Son, let’s go!” Adaleen pulled, and to the resilience of his younger, he tightened his grip and closed face to face. “I-said-lets-go!” With hesitation, Amal surrendered and followed.
“Ye cowards!” shouted the pimple-faced man. “No share for ya!”
As the door closed, two daggers and a kitchen axe joined the reflections of the gloomy inn. The danger of the blades didn’t matter the sightless to Papiku. Only the spoon did.
The name Ash’Kaniar unburied a string of memories on Lim. Memories of the group of assassins and their cracks with the King of the Blue. A bunch of deadly rarities were all of them. The one Papiku mentioned was a snake who the legend said he’d never kill a person he knew the name of. It was a stupid myth, though. Like many of the stories surrounding the gang of slithers. Few privileged, such as her, were aware of the truth: Ash’Kaniar was deaf, and name calling didn’t save anyone from a certain death.
“You brought no firearms, that’s two.” Papiku said, still lost on the sight of the cutlery he was admiring as it was a piece of art. “And not enough men. That makes a three.”
The pimple-faced man chuckled. “We have blades, you don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Papiku mumbled softly. The motion of the metal piece in his hand brought another name to Lim’s mind: Der’Salar. The Krait they used to call Issanu, a world of the red people with no translation to the common. ‘Scout’ should be the closest meaning of it, but it truly meant ‘eyer’, as ‘someone who eyes’. Another misunderstanding, Lim remembered. Papiku’s first threat to the keeper was what gave him away, revealing his real self. An infamously earned legend which never had anything to do with scouting.
“Let’s kill him,” said the pimples. His companions, the two more tanned and beefy than he, took a step. Hell broke before Lim realised, and a chair flew between the two thugs. Both dodged, but the projectile of greased wood aimed at the redhead, who took it straight to his pimples and smashed a table at his fall.
Der’Salar shot out, pushing aside chairs and tables as if he was a battering ram. Axe cut and dagger stabbed, both reaching only but the air. The krait aimed to the closest knee, which bent unnaturally, and while its first victim fell with a cry of pain, the assassin seized the dagger trying in vain to pierce him, and bent so the last of the standing treats landed his weight over a shattered table.
Der’Salar picked up the dagger but didn’t use it on the man struggling to stand. Instead, Pimples attempt to get up was interrupted by a direct kick to the mouth, which returned the kid to the ground without a piece of his tongue.
Among a jumble of broken wood, three men lay. The Krait, with a coldness only someone without a soul could have, moved to the furthest one and crouched. The dagger reached direct and precise. A single stab that caused spurts of wild blood to splatter everywhere. Der’Salar, just as cold and soulless, went towards the second and stabbed him in the same manner, filling his face and shirt with the same redness as all his surroundings.
With the struggle, the candles had been blown out, and in what little gloom remained, the man’s face was the sight of a demon. No more Papiku. Only Der’Salar. The monster reached for the last of his prey and dropped to his knees.
The innkeeper squealed like a pig and Gotho muttered prayers with his eyes screwed shut. Lim didn’t blink. She was fixed in the slaughter with the certainty, even without any memory, she had seen worse. When the spoon reached an eye and the redhead screamed in agony, the shocking realisation she didn’t even flick smashed her like a hammer. She was not sorry or disgusted. ‘She’d lived much worse’, said a whisper from deep inside. ‘She was home’.
"I need to know which of my bribes hasn't worked. Tell me who sent you and maybe I'll leave you one-eyed instead of blind.”
“Nefer…” Pimples yell resounded loudly until it dissolved into the gurgling of a filling throat.
With the preceding silence, Lim witnessed the monster rise, proud and indulged in the carnage he unfolded. “My apologies. No good heart should be present for something like this. But it was … inevitable.” As he wiped himself with a rag, his face softened and unfolded a grin. It was the return of Papiku, and not knowing why, she greeted him with a timid smile. She was alive. And there were no more worries or fears. Madness surrounded. Death. Evil. But she was fine, and somehow, she was home.