Too long spent hiding like thieves among the shadows of the Taj building’s narrow corridors caused restlessness among the Honor Guard.

Mosi longed for no more nights away from the gentle eyes, full lips and loving arms of his wife Nadja.

A shriek from the baited bedchamber shattered the silence. The assassin had come.

"Take him," Mosi ordered. A dozen of the finest soldiers in Eridu swept through the room’s double doors. Battle greeted them.

Khopesh sword in hand, the captain followed.

A few steps inside, he encountered two wounded soldiers struggling to staunch a third’s carotid rupture.

The man who had played the role of the killer’s target lay supine on the bed, his twitching body entwined in scarlet soaked linens.

Moonlight poured through a single uncovered window, illuminating the assassin amidst the room’s exuberant splendor.

The villain was a wiry man whose black robes flowed around him like shadows. Only his eyes lay uncovered. They absorbed information about his remaining opponents with unearthly speed. Each precise strike of his wickedly curved daggers drew blood.

Though he bore the shape of a man, this assassin moved with the grace and assuredness of the djinn, easily dodging the guardsmen’s sickle swords.

When Mosi shouted, "The window," the assassin leapt for freedom without pause. The trap sealed shut just in time.

Secreted one floor above, several of Mosi’s men dropped nets over the baited bedroom’s escape. As the assassin vaulted out, the entangling strands bagged him neat as a fish.

The trappers sounded victorious ululations before swinging their bundle back into the room he'd fled from.

The waiting men stomped, kicked and bludgeoned any willfulness from the prisoner.

"We need him alive," Mosi said.

His men’s enthusiasm waned, but the blows continued to fall.

When they stripped the prisoner of concealing clothes and hidden weapons, a sudden hush descended over them.

One soldier looked up, confusion evident on his leathery face as he offered the startled revelation: "He’s a woman!"

Mosi pushed his way forward to see for himself.

Indeed, cutting white bindings around the killer’s torso had revealed a woman’s breasts.

"And what face belongs to these poisoned fruits?" Mosi ripped the headdress and cowl away.

Through running crimson and swelling bruises, Nadja returned his shocked stare with firm defiance.

~*~

Mosi maintained a calm façade but dreaded entering her cell.

He had told no one of their relationship. No man had ever seen his wife without her veil and robe, so the secret was momentarily secure.

In the long hours before he finally entered her mud brick cell, Mosi knew horrible heartache. They had been married a year before this betrayal. He still longed for her.

In a lamp's dancing flame, he studied her as a zoological curiosity.

Her arms stretched tight over her head, bound to a post near the ceiling. Her toes barely reached the floor. Cloth scraps hung over her feminine attributes. Her face betrayed no pain.

Mosi set a stool on the floor and used a pole to push it toward her. "Stand on this and rest your arms."

Her eyes opened, filled with an unspoken question: do you fear me? She made no motion to accept the stool.

Mosi said, "Rest while you can. There will be only hardship—"

"My road has already been difficult." Her reply came without a single note of malice. "I am inured of hardship." Her dainty foot kicked the stool over. "If you’ve come to question me, then you’ll need the seat. My answers are not easy."

Oppressive silence filled the space between them.

Who was this woman, really? How could she be so intimate and yet hide herself for a full year?

She claimed to be a third cousin by marriage and knew the names of his relations in distant Ur. Even behind a veil, her smiles were beautiful because her eyes lit up. Courtship had been a maddening blessing.

On their wedding night, when she smiled free of all barriers, Mosi felt as though a breath of the divine had filled his lungs. Was she divine or djinn?

He said, "Tell me why you’ve brought death to Eridu."

"This city had death long before I came, and that ‘visitor’ will remain well after I’ve gone."

"Who summoned you here?"

Her lips pressed tightly together.

"Powerful men," Mosi quipped, "to take precedence over your husband’s wishes." Even before he finished speaking, the taunt tasted rancid.

"They told me you might—" Nadja’s footing failed. Loud, bony cracks sounded in her shoulders. Agony twisted her lovely face.

Mosi came to her in an instant. Pure instinct.

Only after his hands brushed the bared skin of her sides did he realize he’d come too close. She did not attack, but he still retreated. "You are an exemplary seductress."

She frowned and bowed her head.

"You were sent to seduce me?"

"Yes." Her eyes found his. No longer aloof, those emerald depths were near to overflowing with tears. "They told me not to love you, but how can such words sway a heart? When I grew to know you—no. No more seductions." She closed her eyes, and when they opened once more, they were clear of tears. "Pry as you wish. On my honor, I won’t reveal my employer’s identity."

"Honor? You kill men in their beds—" A terrifying possibility struck him. "How many nights did you lay by my side, your dagger poised at my throat?"

"None," she whispered, "I defended you from three others’ blades and poisons." A single tear rolled down her cheek. "You claimed my heart. It was my honor to defend you. Just as it was my task to kill those others."

"A task given by men whose names you will not reveal?"

She shook her head. Firm defiance.

Mosi said, "Duty binds me. If you will not speak their names, then I will be forced to order a full interrogation. To hurt you…"

"Honor forbids," she said. Her lips trembled, restraining more words.

"Nadja."

"Do what you must," proved the last thing she offered, save screams.

~*~

After three days of torment, Nadja gave up her life but no information.

In sight of his men and occasional royal observers, Mosi maintained cool detachment. In long, lonely private hours, he wept at the deeds his tongue ordered and his hands performed.

On the morning of the fourth day, Mosi presented his report to the liege of Eridu, Ishtar’s Blessed Mouth and Eyes On Earth, the Divine Vessel Elu-asu Palusum.

Afterward, the Divine Vessel said, "Strong willed as Scheherazade. Have you suspicions as to her master?"

Mosi noticed acute attentiveness for a response to this. Not merely for words, but for physical language.

Why?

Mosi remained reserved. "Not as yet. Had the prisoner lasted longer, we might have more. I have rebuked those responsible for her early demise."

A sudden curiosity filled him with a cold dread:

Was the Divine Vessel himself aware of who commissioned Nadja? Was He—could He be a participant in these affairs?

That might explain Nadja’s silence. All who knew the Vessel’s complicity would die. As outlandish as the idea seemed, it carried the weight of truth.

In Ishtar’s name! Carrying her secret to the grave, Nadja saved my life…

~*~

That night, he built a small shrine of stones and Nadja’s favorite incense among the cushions and pillows of his sleeping chamber. Inhaling the sandalwood smoke, Mosi wept.

"Forgive me," he whispered, crushing her gold trimmed pillow against his chest. "Dearest Nadja, please forgive this fool." Rage made the tears hot in his eyes and boiled his lungs with every breath.

"A curse upon those who hired you," he spat. "May the djinn bring a hundred-hundred fearsome plagues upon their houses. Bring pain and misery on their children. Yet, do not kill the guilty, oh djinn. Their blood is mine to extract. Once I’m done, may their names be struck from man’s tongue and memory. May their souls return to you for one thousand and one more torments, but I lay claim to the end of their lives. By my hand, will they suffer. For justice. For her."

Silence, then.

He would wait. Fill his mouth with the salt of hatred until such time as he might spit it in the face of his enemy.

~*~

Rimi Shem’s dwelling lay among the cooler storage chambers beneath the Taj. It was a modest pair of rooms—one for sleeping and one for work—made colossal by sparse furnishings. Most prominent was his writing table covered with the scattered vials, pens and parchment.

Rimi Shem himself was a slender man, with wide eyes, and his robes were stained with oil and ink, befitting his station as royal scrivener.

He seemed ultimately surprised when Mosi walked through the doorway.

"Why, Captain," Rimi Shem said, standing from his worktable and bowing his head. "May Ishtar bring you hope and health on this and all the future days of your life."

Mosi wasted no words. "Who stands to gain the dead noblemen’s wealth?"

Rimi Shem’s eyes boggled to near comic proportions, but Mosi had no humor. "Why, an interesting question," he said, "but how would a modest scribe have answers to—"

"You are far more than that. Rimi Shem is the only man in The Blessed Mouth and Eyes’ court to have a head about monies," Mosi said. "A keen mind for the ways and means of wealth. Thus, you dwell down here, out of the sight of all but those who know your actual value."

"Am I in danger, then?"

"All the days of your life," Mosi said. "And none. For the Divine Vessel honors your value by keeping you secret."

"And yet you know of me?" If Rimi Shem sought an answer to how Mosi might have discovered this "secret," he was disappointed; the captain remained mute. "You seek the identity of he who hired the assassin?"

"I seek motive," Mosi said.

"Assassins are hired for personal reasons, yes?" Rimi Shem said. "For honor slurred and—"

Mosi grabbed Rimi Shem’s collar and pulled him close. "You think yourself immune to a Captain’s question? I am here on the Divine Vessel’s behalf."

"But only the Vessel stands to gain," Rimi Shem gasped for air. "The men were all nobles from foreign families. No one could lay claim to their properties without petition."

"And who has petitioned?"

"No one," Rimi Shem said. "The Vessel has distributed the wealth among his court."

"Equally?"

"Of course not! By station and—"

"What have you received?"

Rimi Shem shook his head wildly. "Nothing. I am but a scrivener, and were I to receive anything it would draw suspicion."

"I need to know who is receiving the strangers’ wealth."

"Why—?"

Mosi shook him until Rimi Shem showed his palms, surrendering.

From the shadows, a voice hissed, "Release your hold, Hazierd Mosi."

Mosi looked around to find a trio of men stepping out of the darkness. Their garments, like Nadja's, left only their eyes visible. They carried curved daggers.

"Come to kill me, then?" Mosi asked, "I expected you sooner."

One of the men, a leader perhaps though he looked no different than his fellows, said, "We’ve been following you since your capture. To witness your intentions."

"Did the Vessel hire you, as well?"

"Elu-asu Palusum knows nothing of our involvement," the lead assassin said. "We aid another."

"They, what of me?"

"If you pursue this, you forfeit everything." The cloaked man paused for a moment, allowing Mosi to understand this information. "For now, Elu-asu Palusum is content to observe you. He does not believe you are aware of His involvement."

Mosi said, "Yet, He knows I will follow through to unmask the assassin's employer."

"As you must. But let it be a man who is no threat. Let it be a man not of court."

"An innocent man, then?"

"You must finish the matter. If He senses you are not satisfied, He will kill you."

"And what of this man?" Mosi shook Rimi Shem, "How will you prevent his sharing what he’s heard in this chamber? You cannot simply—"

"These men are mine," Rimi Shem said.

"Is this true?"

The leader of the three mysteries nodded once. "We do not reveal our masters unless they reveal themselves first."

"You hired Nadja, then?" Mosi asked Rimi Shem.

"With the Vessel’s specific instructions," Rimi Shem said. "He wanted assassins close to all men in leadership positions of Eridu. At the slightest suspicions, He could slay any would be usurpers."

"Is he so terrified?"

"Even more than can be believed. That is why those men have all been slain. Whims of terror."

"Yet, why does—?"

"Enough questions," Rimi Shem said. "Do what I have said through these men. Find someone to blame for the assassin. Let the matter be settled, let the Vessel believe Himself free of you. Let overconfidence be His downfall.

"As He is paranoid, so are demands for his attention numerous. Once the matter is settled, the Vessel's attention will move elsewhere. You will return to the fold," Rimi Shem said. "And from there, you can strike."

~*~

Barusham Pravaati was not born to Eridu. His wife and son both were. The Pravaati family was being crushed under debts they could not afford to pay through their modest bazaar revenue. He made a fine scapegoat, especially since he owed two of the dead nobles.

The interrogation 'revealed' that Barusham was secretly indebted to each of the murdered men.

While the soldiers dragged him to the heart of the bazaar, to the executioner's stained chopping block, Pravaati professed his innocence. His words, however, were the quiet language of a broken soul.

Mosi managed to wear a smile when Pravaati’s head fell onto the sandstone. He wanted to vomit.

How much evil could a man perform without being corrupted?

The Pravaati family was stripped of all belongings and forced from Eridu. They might have died on the road, had Rimi Shem not secretly provided them enough money to make their way and lives in distant Ur.

Mosi accepted the hearty congratulations of Ishtar’s Blessed Mouth and Eyes on Earth, the Divine Vessel Elu-asu Palusum. He played the role so well he received a promotion.

Never had the adornments of office ever felt more crushing.

~*~

In four months time, Mosi returned to Rimi Shem’s chamber.

"How can I help you, General Guardian of Honor?"

"I have a plan to put an end to affairs."

"And you need my help?"

"I need a favor from you," Mosi said. "Actually from your hirelings."

"Yes?"

"They are trained in stealth and deception," Mosi said. "Could they steal the Scroll of Dynasty?"

Rimi Shem’s jaw dropped at the notion. "To say the Scroll is well guarded is to suggest elephants weigh little more than rats."

"But your men can accomplish this?"

"Possibly," he said. "But why?"

"Because if I were to report such a thing to the Vessel, I would have to do so alone."

Rimi Shem considered this for a long three minutes, and then he nodded. "It will be done."

And it was.

~*~

When Mosi reported the crime, Elu-asu Palusum of Eridu lost strength in his body. He slumped upon the golden cushions of his private audience chamber, wailing to the ceiling as though stone and timber were Ishtar's herself. The lone advisor worthy to listen to the news stood as though flash frozen.

"We suspect," Mosi said, "the thieves to be in league with one or more of your sons. Any of the seven who know themselves not named chief heir to Eridu might take dire action."

King Elu-asu Palusum waved his advisor close. "Fetch the scrivener. Now. We must draft a fresh Scroll before destruction reigns."

The advisor departed.

Elu-asu Palusum struggled to sit up again, before he said, "Our only chance lies in a new Scroll of—"

In one swift motion, Mosi drew his khopesh and ripped the sickle shaped blade across the Divine Vessel’s throat. Isthar’s Mouth On Earth fell silenced, but for gurgles and rasps.

Elu-asu’s lips shivered with what could have been a prayer.

"I know you used her," Mosi said. "My Nadja."

Ishtar’s Eyes On Earth widened with terror.

"I’ve known since the day of her death," Mosi said.

The Vessel shook his head, pleading.

"It was a hard road I chose, when I swore to the djinns to kill you. I have perpetrated great evil while traveling it. I wondered if justice could be worth such a price. Now, I find I am inured of hardship."

Rimi Shem and the Divine Vessel’s advisor arrived to find the old king flailing beneath Mosi’s sword.

Mosi waited for Shem's dagger to silence the advisor. Instead, the scrivner said "Assassin in the Blessed One’s chamber!"

The Honor Guard arrived in moments, as the last of the Divine Vessel's life soaked into his cushions and carpet.

"The General's ambitions lie uncloaked, but all is not lost," Rimi Shem assured them. "The Scroll of Dynasty is secure. There will be no war over succession."

Mosi stared at the scrivner without words. He saw the necessity of this, that an assassin be named and killed. Mosi's fate would be harsh.

Yet, the General Guardian of Honor did not try to escape. He threw down his blade and wept for joy. Soon, he would see his Nadja. Only all the torments of Hell upon earth lay between him and reunion. Soon.

"Do what you must," Mosi said as the men came for him. They proved to be the last words he offered.