Assassin No More.
The bells of the cathedral toll their monotone song to our right. Below us, Brazen City spreads, its stench reaching my nostrils. It stinks of mendacity and hypocrisy.
The Duchal Palace, to my left, seems to be the source of the stench. Small wonder that. My intimate knowledge of the Duchess leaves me no doubt about it. That heartless pretense of a woman is possibly the most dangerous human being I’ve ever faced.
I recall when I first met her, I still a novice in the Order, she still a beautiful young lady. Beautiful yes, young yes, but a lady she has never been, I can swear that. Even for an assassin, her commands were always harsh and beyond cruelty.
Alas, that the assassin was me. But then, what else could I have done with my life, being the bastard that I am? For years I counted my blessings whenever I thought of how the Order accepted me, when I was a hopeless reject. What Master Wong saw in me, to this day I cannot discern.
But he was right in his assessment of me: I was probably one of the best pupils the Order had ever had, and his best student ever in particular. But an assassin? I’d never be one of the best.
“What do I lack, Master?” I remember me asking.
“It’s not what you lack,” he answered me, as if I was still the child of many years ago and not the man before him. “It’s what you possess.
“A conscience.”
Stupid me, the Duchess saw through me from the moment she laid eyes on me. And, evil as she is, she enjoyed torturing me. I recall the faces of every single person I murdered under her orders. How could I not, if every night they haunt my dreams? I am convinced she knew that would happen.
What I guess she didn’t expect was my defection. Something unheard of, quite possibly because it had never happened before. The Order paid dearly for it, an insult added to my already injured soul, and now my head has a price put on it. Several prices, in fact.
I didn’t leave in a hurry, however. If there’s one skill we learn at the Order, it’s patience. I know many novices only apply it to the job, but I soon learned patience is useful everywhere. Defection had not been a spur of the moment decision, but a meditated resolution. And thus I hoarded my resources for months, then for years.
And then I left. When the Duchess was distracted with foreign affairs most urgent, I decided the time had come and took my leave. The ship captain was a friend if I ever had one, but even so, I doubt he recognized me in the old passenger who came aboard that night and only left his cabin when we reached our destination, three weeks later.
I found the Monastery where I had been told, and spent two years there, learning new skills, but above all, trying to learn how to quell my conscience. Exactly two years to the day I arrived, the High Priest summoned me and talked to me. He read me like an open book: he told me my story, the real one I had never told anyone at the Monastery. He wasn’t mad or angry; he just told me this: “Every man has to choose his path.” And he bid me to go.
I bent my head and left. I carried less belongings than I had with me when I arrived.
In my return to Brazen City, I brought two differences: a new face, courtesy of the skills learned at the Monastery, and a fortune, earned on purpose in a series of detours I took in my way back home.
And thus I fulfilled the role I had forged for myself, treading my own path as the High Priest had foretold. I was a city potentate by day, and a vigilante by night. And if the Order has any suspicion that the Spectre could be me, my methods and skills have become too different to theirs that they have to be in constant doubt. I know them: it befits them. They believe themselves to be the apex of efficiency: what else would anyone expect from an Order of Assassins? Humility is one of the hardest lessons to learn, and one finds very little of it at the Order.
And still…
And still doubt gnaws at me. Still those dead faces look at me whenever I close my eyes, and they point accusing fingers at me. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. I killed them all. And no matter my effort, no matter who pays, I’ll never atone for what I did.
And I consider other options. Up here, watching the city lights below me, feeling the wind on my skin, I can’t help but think how sweet and short it would be. All I’d need to do is letting go, and it’d be all over.
I look down.
Ahana, bless her soul, touches my shoulder, lightly as she ever does. Letting me know she’s there, but barely, as befits her race.
And then comes the scream. Female, panic in the pitch. One of many that are left unheard in the city night.
Perhaps I can keep trying to atone. Tonight this scream won’t be left unheard.
I leap. The hunt is on.
~~~~
There has been no writing exercise this week, so I decided to write a short story anyway.
And yes, this is Batman. Only he isn’t.
