03-28-2020, 01:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-28-2020, 01:05 AM by Jay Carpenter.)
When Jai spoke of fishing with Antony Sadiq, he never described the type of bait he intended to use. As far as metaphors about fishing went, that was the extent of Jai’s awareness on the subject. Maybe he could have said something about the pole, or the fisherman, or the string or hook or any variety of angler-oriented vocabulary. Sadiq saw to it that good clandestine men, the sort of shady characters that fit right in with highly treasonous plots to assassinate the king, carried the letters Jai penned into the right hands. If the Asha’man was going to offer his services to assassinate said-king, there was no better knife in the dark. Course, he couldn’t quite give away his identity yet. Most everyone thought the king was in danger by keeping the insane, taint-riddled company of Asha’man Kojima, but he anticipated the trap would be too obvious. So he kept his identity a secret and instead enclosed a small momento of the vulnerable proximity of the king he held. It proved his availability. When paired with the ink of a master-code-writer, well, Jai could have deceived his mother – wait, bad phrasing there – could have deceived the Lord Dragon himself.
Several weeks passed before a return note was received. To be safe, it was delivered by Sadiq, just to be sure. They both swore to say nothing to the king, who would likely do something rash like halt the entire operation. Jai nearly ripped the letter apart in order to devour its contents, but better sense stayed his hand. Even the tiniest detail on the exterior of a note may prove valuable to its meaning. He tucked the letter safely into his jacket and told Sadiq to be ready when the time came. Yet in Jai’s mind, Imaad Suaya was already condemned. It was obvious the Lord Merchant thought to usurp the king’s loyalty, power, and now his throne. All he had to do was prove the man’s guilt.
His heart raced as fast as the pen in his hands. Everything about the note was dissected with surgical precision. The writer was clever, but Jai was infinitely the superior. The author knew enough about clandestine operations to play the game with amateur hands, but Jai counted the cards. He knew how to win the game even if by losing a few chips now and then. He let himself fall into the trap that the author – presumably Lord Suaya – thought to purchase the sword of a royal assassin. He didn’t want to be too obvious. A sell-sword was adept, but they weren’t brilliant masterminds of strategy.
He held up the image of a gold bar. It had been split in two, each half lay on the plates of a perfectly balanced scale. It meant that the assassin would receive half of the payment before the kill, and half after the deed was done. Jai agreed to the terms, signed it by pseudonym – no good assassin allowed their real name to be known – and several hours after receiving it, delivered the return to Antony Sadiq to squirrel away through the eyes and ears at his disposal.
It was with smug anticipation that he waited for the night he was to meet his new benefactor.
Several weeks passed before a return note was received. To be safe, it was delivered by Sadiq, just to be sure. They both swore to say nothing to the king, who would likely do something rash like halt the entire operation. Jai nearly ripped the letter apart in order to devour its contents, but better sense stayed his hand. Even the tiniest detail on the exterior of a note may prove valuable to its meaning. He tucked the letter safely into his jacket and told Sadiq to be ready when the time came. Yet in Jai’s mind, Imaad Suaya was already condemned. It was obvious the Lord Merchant thought to usurp the king’s loyalty, power, and now his throne. All he had to do was prove the man’s guilt.
His heart raced as fast as the pen in his hands. Everything about the note was dissected with surgical precision. The writer was clever, but Jai was infinitely the superior. The author knew enough about clandestine operations to play the game with amateur hands, but Jai counted the cards. He knew how to win the game even if by losing a few chips now and then. He let himself fall into the trap that the author – presumably Lord Suaya – thought to purchase the sword of a royal assassin. He didn’t want to be too obvious. A sell-sword was adept, but they weren’t brilliant masterminds of strategy.
He held up the image of a gold bar. It had been split in two, each half lay on the plates of a perfectly balanced scale. It meant that the assassin would receive half of the payment before the kill, and half after the deed was done. Jai agreed to the terms, signed it by pseudonym – no good assassin allowed their real name to be known – and several hours after receiving it, delivered the return to Antony Sadiq to squirrel away through the eyes and ears at his disposal.
It was with smug anticipation that he waited for the night he was to meet his new benefactor.
Only darkness shows you the light.