The Perfect Assassin by K. A. Doore

Author:K. A. Doore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

18

This night was thicker than the last, the air laced with just enough moisture to be uncomfortable while still remaining as hot as an ember. The stickiness was a promise: this season would end. But relief from the escalating heat could still be days or weeks away. For the first time since the drum chiefs had dropped this whole mess on him, Amastan hoped for the former. Salt crusted at his elbows and neck where the sweat had dried from the effort of crossing several neighborhoods and a dozen rooftops to arrive here, now.

Here: crouched beside a glasshouse crowded with desiccated stalks on a roof just that much higher than the next.

Now: hours past midnight but still long before dawn, that sliver of time when the markets had finally closed but the caravans—were there any—hadn’t yet set out, when Ghadid was at its quietest.

The new glass charms felt reassuringly cool against his neck even as his heart pounded with nerves and anticipation. From here he could see Menna’s small form on the adjacent rooftop. She’d only just arrived and was busy setting up for the night. She dropped a bag and rifled through it. She retrieved a length of rope and a piece of telescoping glass. Her fingers glittered as she moved, the moon catching her rings.

Menna tied the rope around her waist, checked the placement of her knives, and palmed the glass. She slid to the edge of the roof and gazed across, putting the piece of glass up to one eye. The buildings obscured Amastan’s view, but he knew what she saw. He’d walked the street below earlier.

A smattering of windows, some open in a desperate attempt to find a breeze, some locked tight, some lit from within, most as dark as a staring eye. Three stories up and five from the right was the mark’s window, its glass tinted blue like every other, a dull gray curtain the only distinction.

The mark lived in a bigger, older home with several other families. The contract had been drawn up on behalf of one of those other families. Wasting your own water was a moral offense. Wasting another’s was criminal, even if it was accidental. And purposefully, maliciously wasting another’s water was a capital offense.

While such crimes were few and far between, the drum chiefs traditionally dealt with water misuse. But sajaam lived in the details, and the details had brought the mark’s offense to Kaseem instead.

Detail one: timing. Every end of season was a headlong race between water rationing and shortage. A season could end early or it could linger for weeks. Some years, the water easily lasted until the rain came. Some years, the least fortunate—beggars and slaves and, rarely, free people who’d run into one too many misfortunes—died of thirst, for want of healing. When you stole water from one person, you stole from everyone.

This year’s season was particularly bad. The previous season’s storms had been thin, barely filling the aquifers and leading to a slow market year with a shortage of baats.

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