Chapter 70 - The Three Assassins (2)

I nodded and went up to the second floor, Kal, Gwen, and Ilana closely following me up the stairs, which creaked a little from our combined weight. I had known that the old man dark merchant also specialized in slave binding marks, but I had never purchased it before in my past human life.

One slave had been enough for me and I did not wanted another after she had died. After Rhea had died.

The second floor of the shop was filled with shelves upon shelves of thick leather-bound tomes and books, jars with many strange things, and bottles that were filled with what looked to be the hearts and livers of animals. There were also some eyeballs in the liquid-filled jars.

“This does not seem safe,” Kal said weakly, a hint of nervousness in his voice.

It was strange that the male assassin would find this place a little nerve-wracking when he had done worse deeds, such as murdering his human targets outright cold with his collection of daggers. I had seen the brutal ways he had killed those guards in the underground facility.

Gwen and Ilana were murmuring softly to each other, their voices low enough that I could not hear them. I ignored the three assassins, or rather the soon-to-be three slaves.

A few more steps brought me in front of the lady of the second floor. She was sitting behind a desk on a comfortable, cushioned chair. On top of the desk, various papers with writing that looked like a goat had shat and piss all over it were seen in a disarray. There was also a bottle of ink with multiple quills lying beside it.

The second floor lady was deep in concentration, her lips slightly pursed, and writing furiously on a white sheet of paper. Her black hair was tied into a bun and her glasses were slightly crooked.

“I have come here for three slave binding marks, basic ones.”

The woman looked up from her desk, showing a startled face with a few loose hair to the sides. She had not been expecting my voice. When the woman finally took notice of my face, she became a little dazed. “Ah, right, right. Wait just one moment, sir,” the woman said, quickly snapping back into attention, no longer mesmerized by my pair of strange, red eyes.

The woman got up from her chair and disappeared behind a room, bringing back a small bottle the size of a child's fist. In her other hand, she held three small plates neatly stacked on top of one another. On top of the stack of plate was a small black knife with a wooden hilt. She laid them all down on her desk, before turning to look at me.

Her face was of absolute discretion, the attitude of a dark merchant. “Where would you like me to place the marks, good sir?” she asked in a neutral voice.

“On their hearts,” I said.

This gave the second floor lady a small pause, which she quickly hid. The location I had chosen was instant death. If the binding magic mark was not smeared with a little of my blood every two days, or forty-eight hours, the mark would explode inwardly, instantly killing the slave. It would cause an explosion inside the slave's heart.

“Very well. I shall need the three to remove their clothing so that I may draw the mark on them.”

I felt a little curiosity eat at me—my counterpart's influence, no doubt. “Tell me, do you know of the slave institution at Milgard Outpost?”

“Ah yes, I do. Why do you ask?”

“There is someone I know there. A mage who can heal.”

“Oh, that guy,” the second floor lady said. “He is an acquaintance of mine, a fellow mage who studied with me.” She picked up the small black knife and held it steady in her left hand, which made me think that she was most likely left-handed. “I shall need some of your blood now.”

I stopped her before she could take my hand to cut at my finger. From the pockets of my brown vest, which underneath it was a grey tunic, I pulled out a small vial of my blood. I had been prepared, not wanting to look suspicious if the woman had tried to cut me. She would have found, to her surprise, that I was very, very hard to cut.

“Oh, you came prepared, I see.” She raised a thin eyebrow at that. “Quite experienced, eh?”

“Discretion is the better part of trade,” I replied to her comment. It quickly made her speechless.

“I suppose I deserve that, eh?” the woman said, taking the vial of blood I held out to her. She uncorked the bottle and spilled the contents evenly into each of the three ceramic plates. Then she drew some blood from the three assassins, putting each of their blood into separate plates, one for each.

The second floor lady opened the small bottle next and poured a small amount of its black liquid into each plate. My blood, which had mixed with the respective blood of the assassins, turned a dark, jet-black color as the black liquid mixed with the red. Soon, the contents of each plate turned entirely black.

I knew the process of how the slave binding mark was created, as I had seen it once before and from my conversations with the old man dark merchant. The only thing I was unsure of was the highly regarded secret—the bottle of black liquid, which was the most important part of the process. It was an alchemy secret of the mages who worked with slaves.

“Ah, there we go. It has finished mixing,” the woman said.

She grabbed a clean quill from her desk and dipped it inside the plate which held Kal's blood and mine. Then she proceeded to create intricate marks on the chest of the half naked Kal, relying on her years of experience to make the drawing process quicker. I could sense her feeding magic into the black ink as she drew the intricate marks.

It took barely five minutes before the intricate, basic slave binding mark was finished upon Kal's chest, at the place where his heart was located. Kal's steadfast stillness and the second floor lady's experience had made the process quicker.

The second floor lady raised her eyebrows when she saw the two female assassins getting undressed, despite the two male still present. She made no comments about it though. My retort about “discretion being the better part of trade,” had made her wary. She had also not made any remarks about the small scars on their bodies.

The woman quickly drew the basic slave binding marks near the left breast of each woman. The bodies of the two female assassins, I could observe, were tanned and lithe, their breasts firm and perky. Not too large, not too small.

“I am finished,” the second floor lady, the female mage, said.

After thanking the mage for her service, I left the shop with my three slaves following behind me, the expressions on their faces unreadable.

Exiting, I stepped out into a blast of sunlight, my eyes adjusting from the dim lighting of the shop. The sky above was a brilliant blue with a carpet of grey clouds mixed in, their movement barely perceptible. The warm heat of late afternoon was felt.

After finding a nice-looking nearby inn, we paid two days worth for two double rooms, one room solely for me, and the other room for the three of them. The day was about to change into night and I had plans.

“Wait for me here,” I said to the three assassins. Then I headed out to the Silk District once more, but not before putting on a black cloak and a hood.

I was dressed in all black.

It was a garment suitable for a nightly murder; an assassination.

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The most expensive brothel in the Silk District.

Sins of Love.

It was one of Merchant Zafer's favorite places to spend his free time. I knew of this habit because father and Zafer had been rivals, though father had never particularly cared much about this relationship. It had annoyed Zafer very much, though he put up a friendly facade.

The one and only thing Falin Mead, my father, had cared about was mother. But since she had died giving birth to me, father had lost his one true care. It was thus that he invested all his time into work, and taking care of the constant and living reminder of his dead love—me.

And though more than two years and a half had passed, the Silk District had remained almost the same. Likewise, I assumed that the habits of Merchant Zafer had remain unchanged.

While I had been asking around for information and observing the city, the twin moons, Seli and Vali, had replaced the sun. Day had turned into night, and the city was now lit by metal lanterns and magic stones.

Instead of patiently asking around about the Council of Merchants and Zafer, I would have liked to kill and eradicate the human pests, but self-preservation dictated the wiser choice. I had no choice but to continue in this fashion.

Sure, I could have taken on a city or two, or even three, but I could not take on a whole kingdom. The eldest, I must also admit, was an opponent whom I could not match, even though I had my Flames of Interitum.

I entered through the double doors of the Sins of Love, a large, white stone building with brown woodwork painted black. The building's structure had many windows and was simple, but elegant looking to the eyes.

I found myself inside the first floor room of the building. The room was dimly lit, the windows covered by thick, black curtains which allowed no light in. The only light to be shed into the room came from the magic stones that gave out weak light; they were attached near the ceiling by a chandelier. On the walls of the room which was divided into sections by heavy, pink drapes, there were life-size paintings of naked women.

And near the door from where I came in from, there was a slim, older looking woman that gave out a mature feeling. She had blood-colored painted nails and was dressed in clothing that barely covered her legs and shoulders. Lying down on a long, red couch with multiple embroidered cushions, she crossed her pale legs, smoking a long pipe.

Behind her, there were four guards, two to each of her sides. All four of them were male and looked overly muscular, their bulging muscles shown off by the sleeveless shirt they wore. Their heads were clean shaven and they had thick mustaches. They were the eunuch guards of the brothel.

“Welcome, handsome. What can I do for you today?” the woman said softly, her tone making each word sound suggestive.

My garment, despite being all black, was not considered out of place here. I took three steps, crossing the heavy carpeted and rug-decorated floor to reach her. We were almost eye-level due to the height of the furniture she was lying down on.

“Is Merchant Zafer here?” I asked.

“We do not give out such information, darling,” the woman said in a lazy voice, her tone no longer suggestive. She had assumed that I was not a customer from my question.

I took two steps closer to the woman, our faces close enough to touch each other. Her brown eyes met my own pair of eyes, which glowed intensely red. They were eyes which valued the lives of human no higher than the dirt on the ground. “I shall not ask you again, woman. Is he here?” My words came out from a deep and inhuman voice. A dragon's voice.

The human woman visibly moved back a little, frightened by the change in me. A guard came forward, putting a large, meaty hand on my shoulder. “You should leave now, sir...before we smash your face in.”

I summoned a sphere of fire near the space where the guard had put his hand on my shoulder. The ball of fire instantly appeared, burning his hand. The hand caught fire, acting as a fuel source for the fire which was no longer fed by magic.

“A mage!” the woman said in a surprised voice, knowing that mages were rare and few in between.

The shrieks of the guard became louder and louder, until he finally managed to put the fire out with the help of another guard who had frantically returned with a pitcher of water. Patches of the skin on his hand had turned into a bloody mess, blood welling up from the torn and livid red skin.

Determination set into the woman's face as she saw that her guards were unwilling to confront me. “You win, mage. I do not want your sort of troubles here, so I shall tell you that Merchant Zafer is currently busy with a woman. I shall, however, have to call the city guards if you give our place further troubles. Leave now before I change my mind.”

I nodded at the human woman and turned my back toward her, leaving the building quickly. I had obtained what I wanted. I had confirmed that Merchant Zafer was indeed in this city and was most likely fucking an expensive harlot right now.

I could already imagine the boss woman sending a warning to Merchant Zafer, whose fat self must have been under a woman at the moment.

Back on the cobbled streets, I walked further and further away from the brothel, forming a good amount of distance before I finally decided on an alley where there were no humans around. Then I jumped up more than twenty feet into the air, landing lightly on the roof of the two floor house, its height no less than eighteen feet. It was most likely a house where a well-off family lived in.

With a firm footing on the steeper, more vertical side of the roof made of four large slopes, I watched the Sins of Love from four streets away. The distance was perhaps more than sixty feet from the spot where the brothel was. On top of this house, which was relatively taller than the other common houses, my view was unimpeded. I had a good vision of where the brothel was.

The night, the dimly lit streets, and the all-black garment I was wearing made me blend into the darkness. Any observer would have been hard-pressed to see my shadowy figure on top of the roof. I was wearing a black hood that shadowed my face and a black cloak that shadowed my body.

I summoned my night-colored magic, knowing that none could see its path unless they were mages of the same level as I was, or was sensitive toward magic. The magic quickly traveled across the sixty feet distance, spreading and surrounding the Sins of Love brothel. It took only a few more seconds until my magic had formed a square perimeter that was more than forty feet on each of its side.

Then I turned the magic into fire.

A square pillar of fire shot off from the ground, burning and surrounding the brothel. The nearby buildings instantly caught on fire due to the flames that licked at them. The heat from the pillar of fire was also no laughing matter, causing the people to run away screaming in warning.

I fed the fire some more of my magic for a few more seconds, willing it to grow larger. Then I stopped, knowing that the fire would continue burning on its own, now that it had a whole street of houses to use as its source of fuel.

I watched for a few more minutes until I was certain that everything and everyone in the brothel had died. Before long, I could see a few of the city's hired mages using water magic to douse the fire, which had already spread into multiple buildings.

Many city guards serving the Council of Merchant directed the people away from the fire. Most of them, however, were busy helping the mages put out the fire. Only a few were actively leading the people and trying to save the people trapped in the nearby burning buildings.

The flames on the brothel, I could see, were beginning to die down. But it was too late. A few minutes too late to save the screaming and burning people in the building. Too late to save their charred corpses. Their Sins of Love had forever been scorched by the fire, a cleansing flame for their deprivation.

No longer caring about the scorching scenery a distance away from me, I jumped them from the roof and disappeared into the night, knowing that the guards would soon set up a perimeter to find the cause of the fire.

I found out later that the end result of the fire was ten completely destroyed buildings, eight damaged buildings, and an unknown amount of casualties which was estimated to be more than fifty. The ruling council, scribes, and guard had not been too sure of the casualties, because it was very hard to keep track of people in the famed Silk District.

Though I should say infamous now that the fire had spread panic and fearful notions into the people.

A few things to note after I had arrived back into the privacy of the inn rooms were the remarks I had received from the three assassins / slaves, who had already heard the quickly spreading news.

Gwen: “Welcome back. Finished with your small task?”

Ilana: “Well, you are certainly a monster among monsters. Ironically true even though you look human...even more than us assassins whose profession is to kill people.” There was a small, palpable silence before she continued. “You would certainly make a wonderful assassin.”

I am not too sure, but I believe Ilana had said that in a sarcastic and cynical voice.

Kal: “...”

Kal. Well, he was speechless, only staring at me with a dumbfounded expression.