"I rule here," said Prince Wo.
"And greatly," said the assassin. "But I must be paid."
Prince Wo flicked his fingers and guards came forward to remove the assassin who had the effrontery to use the word "must" in front of his royal highness.
But the assassin moved as smooth as a stream through their arms and without guidance left the throne room.
In the morning, the prince's favorite concubine was found dead from a fall. The court physician felt the bones and said that indeed she must have fallen a hundred feet. Yet she had been found lying on the floor alongside the king's bed.
The message was clear. There was not the slightest possibility that the prince's brother had fallen accidentally. The assassin had sent his message. He wanted to be paid.
Unfortunately, the entire court now knew what had happened because falling from a bed and breaking every bone in one's body was not something that could be kept secret, especially when it was the prince's favorite concubine and it was the prince's bed she fell from. They all knew now what the prince knew. His brother had not died by accident and the assassin had demanded payment.
The prince sent a discreet courier to the assassin with not only the payment, but double the payment. Inside the bag was a note:
"O Great Assassin. I cannot allow my throne to be disgraced by seeming to be forced to pay you. If I am forced to do anything, then how can I be said to rule? Find double the agreed-upon payment. The first part is for your service; the second to kill the courier, keeping his silence and yours."
The courier returned alive with the sacks empty and with the assassin's demand. Payment must be made to him publicly.
"Never," said Prince Wo. "If I am afraid of any man in my kingdom, then I do not rule. He does." He called his war council together and explained what the problem was. The greatest general among them pointed out that they were used to fighting armies, not assassins. Each army had its own special weakness. But none knew the weakness of this assassin.
The general devised what he called the seven-sided death. Each way of death would be inscribed on a stone. The first stone called for the sword; the second for poison; the third for treachery, and so on, until the seventh stone. If all the first six failed, then and only would the seventh stone be used.
"Why not use it first?" asked the prince.
Now the general was old and had fought many battles even before the prince was born. Unlike other warriors, he did not lead his men just by jumping on a horse before them, but was known to think. He would spend weeks and months alone, thinking about the ways of war, and while he was a frail man, he had never lost a battle. Even the most fearsome warriors bowed to the wisdom of his mind.
When he answered, he spoke slowly because everything he knew came from the work his mind had done.
"For every strength," he said, "there is a weakness. If the six ways fail, then the seventh will tell you the weakness of your enemy. The problem with most battles is that the general comes in with only one plan and if that fails, he fails. The seventh stone will be the invincible way, but must only be used should the other six fail."
* * *
As a precaution, the prince and his lords and his army moved out of the city into an encampment on a flat plain where no enemy could hide. Every soldier was issued a sword, for the sword was the way of the first stone. The general himself stood guard outside Prince Wo's tent.
In the morning, the general was found dead with every bone in his body broken.
The first stone was shattered and Prince Wo and his army and lords moved off into a valley where food was scarce. He ordered his men to poison every berry, every bush and well and grain, keeping their own foods safe, hidden inside their clothing. There they waited for the assassin, with the knowledge that in just a few days, he would be dead and they would be returning to the palace.
In the morning, Prince Wo's pet falcon was found dead at the base of his perch with every bone in his body broken.
Through the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth stones they fled. Baghdad, Rome, the land of the barbaric Scythians with strange yellow hair. Even the favorite mount of the Scythian king was killed in the same manner, every bone broken.
They were down to the last stone when Prince Wo with his remaining warriors ordered all the royal barks to provision and they sailed westward, carrying the stone sealed beneath his very bed. When they were a month out of sight of land, he ordered all the standards thrown overboard and the embroidered crossed swords on the sails removed, stitch by stitch, from existence.
It was then that the navigator began to weep and drink and could not be stopped. When finally they sailed into the turquoise-blue sea, the prince ordered the little fleet to anchor, and when it was shown no living thing was on the island, the prince ordered the navigator to come to shore with all the maps.
"Can anyone find this island or this sea?" Prince Wo asked.
"Your Majesty," weeped the navigator. "No one will ever find this island or this sea. We have sailed off the very maps of the world."
"Good," said the prince. "Bring the seventh stone and bury it here." He ordered the men to take off their burning helmets and throw them into the sea. When the stone, with its inscription on the seventh way to kill the assassin, arrived wrapped in silk, he ordered the ships to be burned where they were anchored.
"Your Majesty, why didn't you try the seventh way? Why didn't we at least try the seventh stone before we threw away our standards and shamefully removed the sign of the royal swords from your sails?"
Prince Wo said softly, "Is not the seventh stone the strongest way to overcome our enemy?"
"Then why not use it, your Majesty? Swords failed, poisons failed. The great pit near Rome failed. Do you think, your Majesty, that the seventh way will fail?"
"No," said Prince Wo and looked out on those who had come with him so many thousands of miles, who would never see the palace again. "It will not fail. This will be the way to kill the assassin. This was the way to be used when the others failed. It is the most brilliant way."
"Why didn't we use it? Why didn't we use it first?" he was asked.
Prince Wo smiled. "Would you all have come with me, in boats shorn of emblems, with standards surrendered to the sea like a retreating navy? Would you have sailed willingly off the maps of civilized men to an island like this where we rule only birds and lizards? Would you have done any of those things at the outset, willingly at the outset?"
Everyone heard the waves, soft and steady, breaking on the pure white beach.
"But, your Majesty. If we had tried the method of the seventh stone, at the beginning, we would not have had to flee."
Wo smiled again.
"Son," he said, addressing his subject warmly. "This is the seventh way and I promise you will destroy that house of assassins."
"When will he come?"
"Ah, that is the secret of the seventh stone," said the prince and kicked off his brocaded slippers and wore only a cloth around his loins as was most comfortable in this strange winter without snow.
Some thought that the summer would have snow, but it didn't. It got even hotter. Their skins browned and the years passed and wandering Carib Indians came and then the British and with them slaves to harvest the salt from flats flooded by the turquoise sea. And the islands became known as the Bahamas.
And one day, a steam shovel, cracking the coral ground for a condominium development, lifted up a smooth pink marble stone with engraving.
Shreds of tattered silk fell from it as it saw light for the first time in almost two thousand years. No one could make out the writing, not even the owner of Del Ray Promotions Inc. of Little Exuma.