A few trees began to appear on both sides of the road; trees with odd off-white bark, high branches, and almost round leaves. They grew more frequent and were joined by occasional samples of more familiar oak and rednut, until I was walking in woods rather than farmlands. I wondered if this area would be cleared someday, when the islanders needed more land. Would they ever? How much farming did they do, compared to fishing? Who cared? I kept walking, checking my map every now and then just to make sure.
We stayed to the side as we walked. We caught glimpses of travelers on the road, mostly on foot, a few riding on ox-drawn wagons with wheels with square bracing. Birds sang tunes I'd never heard before. The sky above was the same continuous overcast of the Empire, but it seemed higher, as it were, and it looked like there could be times here when the sky was clear, as it was in the East.
It was late afternoon when another road joined the one we paralleled. I found the road on the map, which told me the city was near, and the map was right. It wasn't much of a city by Dragaeran standards, and was quite strange by Eastern standards. There were patches of cottage and there: structures made of canvas on wooden frames, or even stone frames, which seemed very odd; and a couple of structures, open on two sides with tables in front of them, that could be places of worship or something else entirely. I never did find out. It looked like the sort of town that would be empty at night. Maybe it was; now was not the time to check. There weren't many people near us, in any case.
I hid in a garbage pit while Loiosh flew around and found me a better hiding place, and a safe path to it. Loiosh did some more exploring, and found one grey stone building, three stories high, set back from the road and surrounded by a small garden. There were no walls around the garden, and a path of stones and shells of various bright colors led to the unimposing doorway. It matched the location of the Palace, and the description we'd been given for it. There you have it.
Lesson Three
THE PERFECT ASSASSINATION
There are millions of ways for people to die, if you number each vital organ, each way it can fail, all of the poisons from the earth and the sea which can cause these failures, all the diseases to which a man, Dragaeran or human, is subject, all the animals, all the tricks of nature, all the mischances from daily life, and all the ways of killing on purpose. In fact, looked at this way, it is odd that an assassin is ever called upon, or that anyone lives long enough to accomplish anything. Yet the Dragaerans, who expect to live two thousand years or more, generally do not die until their bodies fail, weak with age, just as we do, though not quite so soon.
But never mind that. I had taken the task of seeing to it that a particular person died, and that meant that I couldn't just take the chance of him choking on a fish bone, I had to make sure he died. All right. There are thousands of ways to kill a man deliberately, if you number each sorcery spell, each means of dispensing every poison, each curse a witch can throw, each means of arranging an accidental death, each blow from every sort of weapon.
I've never made a serious study of poisons, accidents-are complicated and tricky to arrange, sorcery is too easy to defend against, and the arts of the witch are unpredictable at best, so let us limit discussion to means of killing by the blade. There are still hundreds of possibilities, some easier but less reliable, some certain but difficult to arrange. For example, cutting someone's throat is relatively easy, and certainly fatal, but it will be some seconds before the individual goes into shock. Are you certain he isn't a sorcerer skilled enough to heal himself? Getting the heart will actually produce shock more quickly, but it is harder to hit, with all those ribs in the way.
There are other complications, too: such as, does he have friends who could revivify him? If so, do you want to allow this, or do you have to make sure the wound is not only fatal but impossible to repair after death? If so, you probably want to destroy his brain, or at least his spine. Of course, you can do this after your victim is dead or helpless, but those few seconds can make the difference between getting away and being spotted. As long as the Empire is so fussy about under what circumstances one is allowed to do away with another, not being spotted will remain an important consideration. You do the job, then you get away from there, ideally without teleporting, because you're helpless during the two or three seconds while the teleport is taking place, and you can be not only identified but even traced if you get really unlucky.
So the key is to make sure all the factors are on your side: You know your victim's routine, you have the weapon ready, and you know exactly where you're going to do it and where you're going to go and how you're going to dispose of the murder weapon after you're done.
You'll notice that these methods have little in common with wandering into a strange kingdom, with no knowledge of the culture or the physical layout, and trying to kill someone whose features you don't even know, much less what sort of physical, magical, or divine protection he might have.
It was still fully night, and the darkness here was considerably darker than in Adrilankha, where there were always a few lights spilling out onto the street from inn doors or the higher windows of flats, or the lanterns of the Phoenix Guards as they made their rounds. In the East there might be a few stars—twinkling points of light that can't be seen in the Empire because they are higher than the orange-red overcast. But here, nothing, save for the tiniest sparkles that came from curtained windows high in the Palace, and a thin line from the doorway in the front. We waited there, at the edge of the city, for several long, dull hours. Four Dragaerans left the building, all holding lanterns, and one arrived. The light on the third story of the Palace went out, and we waited another hour. I wondered what time it was, but dared not do anything even as simple as reaching out to the Orb.
We returned to our hiding place before dawn. I spent most of the day sleeping, while Loiosh made sure I wasn't disturbed, scrounged for food to supplement the salted kethna, and observed the Palace and the city for me. Yes, the town was pretty much deserted at night.
After dark had fallen, I went in to town and got a better picture of the Palace and looked for guards. There weren't any that I could see. I checked the place over for windows, found a few, and then looked for various possible escape routes. This was starting to look like it might be easier than I had thought, but I know better than to get cocky.
The next night I moved into town once more, this time to sneak into the Palace so I could get the layout of the place. I sent Loiosh to look around the building once, just in case there was something interesting that he could hear or see. He returned and reported no open windows with rope ladders descending, no large doors with signs saying, "Assassins enter here," and no guards. He took his place on my shoulder and I stepped up to the door. I'm used to casting a small and easy spell at such times, to see if there is any protection on the door, but Verra had said it wouldn't work, and for all I knew it might even alert someone.
This was the first time I'd ever gone into someone s house in order to kill him. In the Organization you don't do that. But this guy wasn't in the Organization. Come to think of it, this was also the first time I'd shined someone who wasn't one of us. It felt, all in all, distinctly odd. I gently pulled on the doors. They weren't locked. They groaned quietly, but didn't squeak. It was completely dark inside, too. I risked half a step forward, didn't stumble across anything, and carefully shut the door behind me. It felt like a large room, though by what sense I knew that I couldn't say.