Cultivating Plants

The air in the lair smelled of invigorating sweetness, pungent death, and acrid stagnation. If it hadn't been for the changes he had personally incorporated, the place would have rotten and collapsed a long time ago.

"Master Tareek." A voice materialized behind him. From the very shadows, a person covered in black crawled, not unlike how some newborn cattle escaped from the belly of their mothers.

That was to say, aesthetically unpleasing and perturbingly so.

"What is the news? Did we get her?" It was mostly courtesy; Tareek hadn't expected his agents to fail the mission.

"Ehrm…" The assassin hesitated.

"Hesitation is detection. Detection is death." Tareek recited one of his late master's sayings. "If you have to say something, say it proudly and without stuttering."

"I appreciate your understanding, Master Tareek." Even if he wasn't directly looking at the assassin, he knew he was bowing.

Master Tareek. He mused in his mind. His mentor had been a Grandmaster assassin, probably the greatest to ever exist, but he had yet to reach that milestone even if he was the head of the Sadina cell. Though being a Master assassin was more than surprising taking into account his young age. Most assassins here doubled him in age as they had once been trained by Umar, with himself being the offspring of one of those trainees.

Hashashid Tareek, Master assassin of the Sadina cell, was only twenty years old.

"Speak, Ahmed." He ordered his underling.

"The scribe has fled. And she has killed Shadow Jafar in her escape." As commanded, Ahmed didn't falter in his report, even if it wouldn't have been out of place doing so with such dreadful news.

Tareek took a puff out of his hashish pipe, his mind instantly refreshing. His hashashid genes made it so that if he wasn't constantly intoxicating himself, his senses and intellect would become dull, but even after filling his lungs with cannabis, Tareek was unable to process the words uttered by his assassin.

"Did I hear incorrectly by any chance?" The young master questioned.

"I don't believe so, Master Tareek." Ahmed politely replied.

"I see…" Tareek picked up a mortar and pestle, and without uttering a single word, he began to mash many herbs inside of the mortar until they were a fine dust. He then poured the dust on the desk, where he proceeded to snort it all in a single go. "Explain yourself." He talked as if he hadn't snorted a line of drugs powerful enough to collapse an elephant.

"There was no trace of the girl this morning." Ahmed started. "Shadow Jafar commanded me to be on standby and not approach the oasis as that could intimidate his 'niece' but after the sun came out, I found out that the plant master's greenhouse was burned to the ground, alongside Shadow Jafar's body."

"How did that happen?"

"I don't have the slightest idea. Master Tareek." He hastily added at the end. "It was no normal fire, that much I can say. Shadow Jafar was killed by the burns, and the only way to torch a person that fast is with oil or alike, which I didn't find in the scene."

"So you are implying Ayad uses vital arts?" Tareek arched his brow, which slightly twitched from the drugs.

"I cannot comprehend how Shadow Jafar would have died otherwise." Ahmed gave his honest opinion. "And whilst the plant master dealt with many curious plants I am unable to recognize, I'm not sure she was using Enlightenment. The only thing I found remotely resembling our drugs is this." He handed the master assassin a green and yellow pellet.

"Have you checked what effect it provides?"

"That's the problem, it provides none." The assassin admitted. "It looks like a drug, and I found some scattered on the ground of the dwelling, but after consuming them I couldn't take anything out of them."

"Hmm…" Tareek inspected the pellet and consumed it himself. "Perhaps it's a medicine, the scribe was known to have mobility impediments and pains. Which reminds me, how has she escaped? I saw her the other day and she was in a wheelchair. My contacts in the palace can confirm that is not a façade and the girl was truly disabled."

"That is one thing that baffles me the most," Ahmed said. "Shadow Jafar did kill the scribe's dweller. I actually found the Shadow's corpse next to the dweller's. Both were left to the elements, no grave dug."

"I expected that much if Ayad had to do such a hastily escape but finish your report."

"There were no wheelprints on the sand, but after searching for a while, I did find footprints."

"Where they hers?"

"Yes?"

"That answer doesn't inspire confidence," Tareek said nonplussed. "Is there a chance the footprints were yours or Jafar's?"

Assassins couldn't be trusted. The great part of their jobs was to be performed under the effects of hard drugs, meaning hallucinations were a given.

"None." Ahmed hinted at no doubt. "The footprints were small, as expected of a girl of her build, but…"

"But what? Finish your sentences, man."

"Each footprint was far apart from each other." The assassin continued. "If they were indeed hers, not only had she walked in her 'disabled' state but done so with long strides. I doubt I could even make such long strides; it was almost as if someone teleported from footprint to footprint. If they were hers, she was basically flying. They were also too deep for someone of her build."

"Hmm…" Tareek grunted in thought. "Were there a full set of footprints in each step, or only one?"

"One," Ahmed confirmed.

"Then it couldn't have been teleportation." The Master ruled that option out. "Unless Ayad was teleporting herself with a lame leg, she would have left a full set of footprints. Just in case, do you remember if the footprints alternated feet?"

"Yes." The assassin nodded. "Left-right, left-right. Nothing to hint against strides."

"How?" Tareek picked up his pipe again, filling his body with more drugs. Especially his mind. "I believe someone using the cultivator's Nurture and donning their 'speed stance' could have made those strides you are talking about, but the scribe was disabled. Was she hiding it? And why?"

As a matter of fact, Tareek had an idea. The girl wasn't in the best of accords with the sultanate, especially its rulers. If the scribe had run away and she hadn't shown up in Sadina yet, it was because their threat had worked. It hadn't been a bluff; they truly had revealed the scribe's identity – or rather forged the truth – to the Sultanah. Considering he had lost contact with his agent in the palace of Asina, they were either hiding or dead.

Knowing the natural disaster of a woman that was the Sultanah, Tareek bet for the latter.

It wasn't a sacrifice he was going to lament: losing an assassin for a new plant master. But that was only if he had secured said plant master.

What is she trying to manage? Tareek inquired about Ayad's trail of thought. Not only she has killed her uncle, and according to him, they had a very good relationship, but she also is now running from the very country of Ydaz. That was without considering his own order. She personally knows what it means to cross Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, why didn't she choose us?

Tareek's pragmatic mind fueled by drugs couldn't understand the hotheaded thoughts of a teenage girl fueled by her body's natural secretions. Mainly those that induced fear. But what he knew was that those secretions were sometimes more powerful than the hardest of drugs.

"Tell me more about that fire," Tareek questioned Ahmed. "Did she torch her own property?" Not that it mattered if she was on the run and would likely never again have the chance to come back.

"It seems like it." Ahmed nodded. "Both the dwelling and the greenhouse were razed, so this would appear to be a premeditated action so we wouldn't get our hands in anything the scribe couldn't carry in her arms."

"Us or them." The Master assassin added.

"Excuse me?" The Shadow blinked in confusion.

"She could have torched her property to keep secrets away from us, yes, but whilst we are a nuisance, there's someone who she hates and fears more."

"I see." Ahmed nodded in understanding. "I tried to rescue anything from the scorched places, but beyond the pellets, I couldn't find anything on the dwelling."

"How about the greenhouse? That's where Ayad must have kept her luminous drug." Tareek referenced the report he received weeks ago from Malik and peers about their 'lightspeed' substance.

"It was a greenhouse." The assassin taciturnly explained.

"Nothing, really?"

"Plants and fire don't fare well together, Master Tareek." He responded. "I could recognize the charred remains of cannabis and two trees, but nothing more. I tried to grab the only plant that seemed to survive the conflagration, but when I did so, it spontaneously combusted on me."

"Ahmed," Tareek sighed, "plants don't spontaneously combust. Especially on people."

"Well, it was alive before I touched it, and dead when I moved away."

"If the plant did genuinely become aflame by no fault of your own, then how is it that you aren't burned?"

"Umm…" Ahmed turned his gaze away. "Now that you say it, after the plant died, my mind became more focused and my Enlightenment went away."

"That's the answer then." Tareek offered. "You were on a high, and as soon as it was over, you came to your senses."

The Shadow gritted his teeth as to say that wasn't the case, but he knew better than to speak against his Master.

"So let me recap the events," said Master started, "Jafar is dead, the greenhouse is burned down – alongside whatever drugs Ayad stored – and the scribe is gone."

"Yes," Ahmed said with his head straight.

"Fuuuuck." Tareek groaned. "I've lost two assassins for nothing, not even getting my hands on whatever drug Ayad had. I sent Jafar specifically because he said that he would handle the situation, and he just dies to a little girl?"

The Master assassin grabbed his pipe but held himself from taking another shot. He was aware, that even as a hashashid, his body was extremely contaminated. And time was of the essence for him now to collapse.

"You have searched for her, right?"

"I've stalked her steps for a few minutes with teleportation jumps, but the trail was never-ending, so I came to report."

"Okay, you did well." Tareek truly believed so. Ayad was dangerous if she had managed to kill a Shadow. Even more so if that Shadow was an acquaintance. They weren't dealing with a scared little girl, but a heartless killer. "Send Malik's squad to follow the trail at once and then take a rest, hallucinations will only lead you to make more mistakes."

"And what about you, Master Tareek?"

"I?" The Master assassin grimly chuckled. "Ayad is going to try to flee the country, so it's the perfect opportunity to accept the deal of the assassins of Loyata. The world shall know the might of the Assassin States again."