Three Assassins & A Rebel
Commissioner Oso insisted on bringing out each of the boys himself, and staying behind the glass for the duration of the interviews. Rannek had complained. Oso had listened to the complaints with an unchanged face. He had offered the alternative of his men supervising instead. Listening in.
It amused Rannek to think of what the head of the Watch might imagine him doing that needed intervention. He glanced back to the mirrored glass on occasion to throw off whoever sat across from him. Oso did not intervene, until Rannek started wondering if maybe not the safety of shackled children was at stake here, but his own.
The room was as drab as he had imagined it to be. There were no posters, only tiny holes, thousands and thousands of them, arrayed in a pattern that he couldn’t figure out. Were they captured in some encyclopedia somewhere, on some back shelf? It comforted him to think they were.
There had not been many people to try taking his life, and fewer to get to sit across from him afterward. Most were still alive, and if it had only been for him to decide, they’d all be. He could see the good in man better than the Allfather, his mother had always said that.
Kolo Kem made a fine case study of Rannek’s failures as prefect of Koeiji. An unhealed injury from childhood made him walk just on the wrong side of unremarkable. Rannek limped, but with time, he’d walk again. Kolo stumbled eternally. ‘A minor skip in his gait’, as Oso’s file told him. Like his foot kept hitting cracks in the pavement. It didn’t bear asking why his mother had not sought medical care when the injury had occurred; she likely had. Just like she likely had worked more than one job to keep him housed after his father had died in the Second War.
The school system supposed to prepare boys like Kolo for adult life was a mess of funding, staffing, and not lastly of purpose. Nowhere had Rannek fought harder against the Chancellor’s plans than on the curriculum. Grale was a beacon of the sciences and the arts. Its professors were renowned throughout the Empire. Tahor was not Grale, however, and it had always been his opinion that the people of any country should teach eventually teach themselves. Hesryk had put it best in his second term’s acceptance speech: “Man relates to his neighbor, not the unknown.”
Gralinn Chancellor Korush wasn’t a fan of his predecessor Hesryk. Rannek was beset with a mix of covert tourists and missionaries as a safeguard against “ideological corruption”, neither of which arrived speaking a lick of Tahori. Near half of the teachers working in the advanced schools looked nothing like the children themselves. They did not speak like them. The only thing more terrifying than to raise a generation of children with no ambitions was to meet those few students that took to their pale role models.
Kolo was not one of those few. He was an eager talker, and where his intellect lacked, his words sometimes made up for it. Rannek doubted the young man realized it, but there was an eloquence to his phrases, something that drew the listener in. Only to realize that this boy suffered from a chronic affliction.
He lied. Before Rannek gave up, he tried to sell him two differing, contradicting stories under the mantle of changing his mind about lying to him. He just couldn’t do it. He still tried, though. He was selling hard, using his limp even, but what he was selling, Ayalim had already disproven. There was no TLA activity in any of the buildings around the school.
Another mistake of Rannek’s: These boys knew they would live. Kolo left in tears, telling a third story. He may have made a fine actor, too.
Second came the silent one, Liem Oriyana. Rannek enjoyed his company more, as his flaws were more relatable to his own. Nineteen-year-old Rannek Lorne had been a conceited buffoon, and wondered often where an ideological mishap in his youth may have taken him. The boy’s face betrayed his youth when confronted with his future, but he bit his tongue. If he’d break, it would take time, more than Rannek could spare.
He sent Liem out and asked Oso for a cigarette. Smoking—another fear left down in the caves. The calm that followed was worth the raspy throat in the morning. He hadn’t done it in public yet, but was slowly losing the will to care. President Yut was a known maniac for cigars, so he reckoned he could have a smoke, too. Half of Tahor smoked. Perhaps he’d be the smoking prefect; every moniker was better than his current one.
The third boy announced himself with a cough, but Rannek stifled the urge to apologize. Oso connected Diaen Tibeile’s chains to the table and left the two of them alone in the interrogation room to scrutinize each other. Rannek had his hopes set high on this one. Diaen was a problem child of a different caliber than Kolo and Liem. One who belied his environment.
In the two times Rannek had met with them, the Haram and Tibeile families—family, they insisted—had convinced him that their shock was genuine, and that there was nothing in the home of Diaen that could have led him to turn assassin. Evening dinners. Friends sleeping over, wanting to stay. Carefully organized records of an entire childhood. Acceptable to awe-inspiring grades. Fathers that listened. Mothers that decided. A little sister and brother that looked up to him. Whatever had guided his hand to ram a knife into Rannek’s shoulder, it was as strong a dissent as he could have hoped for.
Yet he, too, waited until Rannek spoke first. “You tried to kill me.”
Diaen’s face contracted, but only for a breath.
“You’re not the first one.” Rannek smiled, glad to have Oso looking over his shoulder and not in his face. This was the room where the head of the Watch had most likely acquired his sober expression. It wasn’t a room for smiles. “Two tried to shoot me, my first year. One sits in a correctional facility in Uria, the other in Koeiji’s penitentiary, about five leagues from here. A group of five once tried rigging one of the vans the Guard uses to transport me. One is up for review soon, two others waiting in the penitentiary, one all the way down in Hen Le, and a fifth who went to…” He paused. Bitaab. The fifth one had been moved to Bitaab. “I must have forgotten. I don’t too often catch up with the crowd you’re in.”
“Not my crowd.”
Rannek put his elbows on the table and took a puff of his cigarette. “Because of what? You fit in quite nicely. You’re not even the youngest.”
But Diaen had gone silent again, eyes still bent on the table.
“My point is,” Rannek said, “they’re a good group to be in, because none of them received a death sentence. I was adamant about that.” If he wanted Diaen to engage, he had to gloat; still, it felt wrong to him. “I don’t condone the killing of defenseless people.”
Diaen chuckled. Rannek waited until the young man finally looked up at him. “Houndshit.”
“It’s the truth.”
“What about Nila Okoko? Gumen Rin? What defense did they have?”
“None. I was adamant about them, too. More so, even. But the Empire had its reasons to ignore my advice. Nila and Gumen did something different than you.”
“They tried to kill you.”
“They tried to poison me. That’s more than attempted murder, it’s a message.” Rannek paused. “I’m sure you know well about the poisoning of my predecessor, Elehi Rai.”
“Tahor knows about it.”
“It does. People know his name, the doctor’s name, they even know what was served that evening. The pheasant was supposed to have been lined the strongest. People also know the date.” Rannek inhaled the last of the smoke and, at a loss for an ashtray, put the cigarette out right on the metal table. “See, all the way over in Jaemeni, they’re still debating whether you were trying to kill me, or whether you were trying to send a message.”
Confusion showed on Diaen’s face, but he simply silenced, and crossed his arms wrapping them in chains.
Rannek folded his hands behind the slanted butt of the cigarette and watched the smoke rise. “A pardon is all I could give you. It won’t protect you if the Empire deems your being alive a threat, because nothing will. Pardons can be revoked by the same people that issued them, I’ve had to do it before. Being adamant didn’t—”
“It was a mistake.”
Rannek paused. “I’m listening.”
“Not trying to kill you. The day. That was the mistake, and it was their idea, not mine.”
“Kolo and Liem.” Rannek sunk back into his chair. “They admire doctor Kyetana?”
Diaen’s chains tightened around his forearms. “What? No. All kinds of people stir up shit on his memorial day. The Guard was sure to be preoccupied. I told ‘em it would only make people misunderstand, but they didn’t listen.”
“All of your own accord?”
“Whose else’s?”
Rannek swallowed, uncertain how to take this information. It didn’t fit the most fortunate profile, teenagers outsmarting the City Guard without a terrorist faction guiding them. But he wasn’t convinced Diaen was telling the truth.
If not, however, he was a far better liar than Kolo Kem. “The doctor had his reasons, we had ours,” Diaen said. “No message.”
To let the pause linger a while longer, Rannek lit himself another cigarette and blew smoke at the tiny holes above him, looking like he was pondering. He was, but not about Diaen. The tiny holes were just about to reveal their ordering principle to him.
“Does that…” Diaen sounded conflicted. “Do we keep our pardons?”
“It depends.” Rannek did not manage to make eye contact, but he caught glances of the boy that seemed to aim at his hand. “Want one?”
“… No.”
Rannek slid the half-full pack across the table. “I wouldn’t put it against you. Pardon or not, prison is a grim prospect in itself.” When Diaen finally took a cigarette between his fingers and held it out to him, he obliged with his lighter. “You’re clearly not stupid. Why’d you risk that to take my life? I’m old. I will die sooner than you think.”
Diaen took a deep puff. He held in the smoke until releasing it in a smooth stream from his puckered mouth, sighing long and with relish. “It’s how you die that matters.” A cold had crept into his voice. “One of ours becomes prefect. He gets killed. One of yours becomes prefect. He gets… What?” He looked up and shook a lock of hair from his forehead, a motion whose youthfulness he couldn’t be aware of. “What happens to you sets a precedent for our future.”
Rannek froze up for a breath as Diaen finished his cigarette and put it out on top of his first one, mashing the butt into the table. A precedent for our future. Had he heard that right? “Either I die, or no Tahori will be given the chance to become prefect of Koeiji. Is that it?”
Diaen crossed his arms again and shrugged. “For me. Kolo and Liem might say different things, but we didn’t have to agree on everything. It was the result that counted.” He smiled, grimly. “Would have counted. We only tried to, after all.”
Rannek smiled back and put his cigarette down on the table without putting it out. He felt nauseated. “I’m sorry,” he said, pinching his nose. “The tobacco, I’m… I only recently took it up again. We’re finished, I think.” He turned in his chair and tapped against the glass.
“We—“ Diaen faltered, then sunk back. “Whatever.”
When Rannek turned back, he found his second cigarette in Diaen’s hand, who finished it with hurried puffs. Shortly, he chuckled, and Rannek did, too, until Oso entered the room to usher the boy out.
Rannek stayed back looking at the remains of his squashed cigarette butt, and the victorious one sticking up straight from the table. Oso returned within the frag. He waited appropriately before speaking before his superior.
“We are finished?” Oso asked.
“Almost.” Rannek stood up. “Where’s the girl?”
Oso had to lead them down four flights of stairs and around a number of corners. The people they passed were Tahori, all shades of cinnamon, and each paid them respect by bowing. Some expressed their gratitude for Rannek’s return. He acknowledged their glances at his crutch and lied about falling during a social function in Yafa. The staff then grew sparse as they arrived in the cellars, and finally at the cell of Elea Buyee.
The bunk was dark and far too small for her, so small she lay on it with her lower legs dangling down the corridor-facing end, bobbing every now and then. At first, Rannek thought she was sleeping, until he noticed her breaths sounding softly from the bunk. They were short and tense.
“It’s only the prefect, Buyee,” Oso said.
The breath relaxed. Rannek turned to the commissioner. “Who else is she expecting?”
“There was an incident. All responsible parties have been suspended. We—“
“I told you to keep her safe, didn’t I?” Rannek looked for a reaction in Oso, but the man only bowed in apology with a bored face.
“It won’t happen again. I tend to her myself now. My men foster a special hatred for the Liberation, and I do encourage it. They call us watchmen ‘slaves’, sir.”
Rannek heard a forceful breath from the bunk. He walked closer to the thick metal bars and tried to discern the face lying there in the dark. Oso suddenly turned on the light inside.
One of Elea’s eyes was purple-black, as were multiple spots on her arms. Her hair was short in some and long in other places, cut by a blade that had left small wounds all around her scalp. She looked up. Spotted him. She turned and folded the pillow over her head.
“Leave,” Rannek said, grinding his teeth.
“Of course.”Commissioner Oso bowed and left.
Rannek turned off the light inside the cell and sank against the opposite wall of the corridor. They had beaten, sheared, and cut the girl. Now she would never trust him. A foolish act, and yet Rannek could understand Oso. The Watch was always the first to suffer from anti-Empire sentiment, as they enforced the Empire’s law, and did so against their own kin. There hadn’t been many attacks during Rannek’s tenure so far, but of those few, more than half targeted one of their stations, or worse, single officers out on the streets.
“They had no right,” Rannek said.
There was no response.
“If you’re in pain, I know a great doctor. You two might get along.”
No response.
“I…” He halted. “I apologize. I should leave.”
And yet, he didn’t. He sat there, opposite the cell, weighing Diaen Tibeile’s words, until after about five frags, the pillow unfolded. Elea rolled to her back and stayed there without acknowledging him.
There was an occasional flicker in the neon tubes lining the ceiling of the corridor. A couple of moths were trapped inside. He watched their dance until he grew bored of it, and cleared his throat. “I was going to ask you about the Ajan’s writing. I remembered something he said, something a bit redundant. ‘What happens in our lives sets a precedent for our future’.” He chuckled, solitarily. “As opposed to what, a precedent for our past?”
Diaen had caught him off-guard. The boy was lying through his teeth, yet why, Rannek couldn’t say. Something about him didn’t make sense.
“Why would the Liberation attempt an assassination and then not claim responsibility?” he asked. “You usually do, don’t you? Even the attempt is worth something, the display of power, the political currency. The terror.
“Yet I just listened to a boy of nineteen quote the Ajan to my face after claiming he had no affiliation. Do you have an answer for that? I assume you do, but I won’t ask you to speak. Probably hurts, from the looks of it…” The words were starting to stumble out of him unchecked, but he found it rather interesting to listen to himself. “The only thing I can come up with is division. Your siwe, Luor Nhi, spoke of another man than the Ajan. I assume there must be more like him. Leaders in their own right, with their own disciples. Their own goals. Their own—”
“There is no one like the Snake’s Head.” Her voice was meek, but defiant. It was also quivering.
“Snake’s Head, right. Reminds me of the names the Gwai would give their Cursed warlords, Tiger’s Tooth, Enophant’s Foot. Is that what he is? A Cursed?”
No response.
“On our side, we are told there are no Tahori Cursed, which is a bit hard to accept when you’ve seen one. I don’t suppose you remembered anything else you can tell me about the savage, do you?”
But there was no response, and none after that, either.
Rannek said his goodbyes only a few frags later. He found Oso two corridors down, waiting for him out of earshot. He led the way up the stairs, through Koeiji Main Watch station’s entrance, and into the care of his guards.
As his convoy left the car park, Rannek spotted two lowly Watch officers scrubbing a two-men-high jinoa off the side of the building. It consisted of flower petals stuck to the wall with a brown substance, arranged to portray a watchman swinging a baton. The man’s expression looked oddly sober doing it.
Martin Surga 