Cultivating Plants

"This is not working out, man," Zayyan protested behind him.

"I hate to agree with that fucking moron," Dareen started, always the eloquent woman, "but we've got no trail left to follow, Malik."

Malik sighed and rubbed his eyes. It had been a few days since they had been following the trail left by the fugitive scribe, but no matter how hard they pushed themselves, they never reached the end of it.

And to make matters worse, a sandstorm hit this part of the Qiraji yesternight, making any previous footsteps totally gone. It was currently very early in the morning; they had stopped for the night to weather the sandstorm but continued trekking as soon as it stopped.

"I know," he admitted. "But there's not much we can do. Our orders are to find the scribe. And I haven't felt anything with my tremor sense besides rodents in hours."

"Should we go back and tell the boss man to…"

"Wait!" Dareen's words were cut out as Zayyan shouted. "Holy heavens!"

"What?" Malik turned to face the other male assassin, only to find his eyes bloodshot. "What has happened, Zayyan?" He asked with a shade of worry.

"I've just gotten a distress signal," he revealed.

"From whom?" His squad leader questioned.

"Old Ibrahim."

"From whom?" The female assassin reiterated, unacquainted with the person in question.

"Old Ibrahim, a retired Shadow." Malik elaborated. "If I remember correctly, he was acting as a watchman in Jotel. Anyhow, Zayyan, what are the contents of the distress signal?"

"Uhm…" He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, trying to make sense of it. "I can't tell."

"Fucking useless," Dareen swore.

"Dareen, now's not the time," Malik scolded her. "Try it, Zayyan."

"Uhh…" Unable to focus on the telepathic signal, Zayyan got some tobacco leaves and chewed on them. It was normally recommended to smoke them for better telepathic quality, but they were pressed for time. "Nince-damned hells!" He swore with a mighty shout, and yet he was still tamer than Dareen's foul mouth.

"What?" Malik inquired calmly.

"Signal's dead." He explained. "It suddenly cut off."

"Damn." The leader replied in kind.

"So that fella y'all were talking about has bitten the dust?" Malik sighed at Dareen's informality.

"Yes," he added. "Distress signals don't cut suddenly unless they are either intercepted or the sender perishes." And considering only assassins could intercept telepathic signals, the answer was clear for all of them.

"Isn't this good, tho?" Dareen said and Malik frowned at her. "Now, think about it. You said the fella was stationed at Jotel, which is in the same direction of the trail we were following, so…"

"Perhaps it was Ayad who killed him." Malik continued her sentence. "That's very much possible, yes. Comrades, we have a destination now."

Dareen jumped in excitement at having a clear objective, though Zayyan put a horizontal palm in front of his nose to pray for the old man. A traditional Ydazi prayer that divided the eyes, one side representing the land and the other side representing the heavens. Zayyan wasn't a religious person, no assassin really was, but they could still be respectful to the deceased.

With reinvigorated spirits, the trio of assassins dashed for the town of Jotel, their bodies becoming mists of shadow.

The problem of shadow-stepping, or teleportation as some others called it, was that it was very drug-intensive, especially over long distances. The range limit was sight, so even if they could move tens of kilometers in a blink if they got on top of mountains, their drug reserves would be decimated and their minds would take an equivalent punishment.

"Oof…" Zayyan grunted next to them after many shadow steps. "I need a smoke."

The assassin wasn't asking for a breather – though it was implied – but to restore his reserves. Malik followed suit by taking his pipe and lighting a fire with a snap of his fingers. Pyrokinesis looked impressive, but the amount of fire an assassin could create was minuscule, even for Grandmasters.

One thing he had discovered after practicing Enlightenment for years was that the less physical the ability was, the more powerful it would be and less drugs it would take to perform.

"Men. Can’t last for more than a few rounds." Dareen protested but the woman took her pipe out too.

Malik didn't scold her, for she was true. Women did seem to handle the psychological trauma of Enlightenment quite better than men, but at the same time, women couldn't handle as much physical mistreatment as men.

That was why most Grandmasters were men even if women were technically more competent by default with Enlightenment. The late Grandmaster Umar of Sadina could take enough drugs to run a hospital.

That made Malik question if there was a magic that was more inclined toward men. He was aware that Nurture, the magic of the imperials, benefited women more in a way, and Enlightenment was balanced by both genders – women had it easier at the start, and men at the end – so perhaps there was a third magic that men had the advantage in.

Of course, these were just ramblings of his drugged mind.

By focusing their shadow steps on elevated spots, they were able to traverse hundreds of kilometers in just a handful of hours, but they had taken a toll by doing so. Especially Dareen, who wasn't used to consuming this much hashish.

"Ugh, can't we stop?" The woman groaned, too tired to even curse.

"We should see Jotel in a few more steps, hold on until then," Malik ordered.

And sure enough, after teleporting themselves a bit more, the small town of Jotel entered their line of sight, where they instantly shadow-stepped into to avoid any guards.

"Zayyan, locate where Old Ibrahim has died, I'll wait with Dareen."

The assassin nodded, but he didn't move from the spot, instead, he inspected the surroundings with his mind. Whilst the astral form the assassins could assume was useful for exploration, it was useless for everything else. The astral form couldn't interact with the physical world, and it didn't have eyes, so it saw through what objects should be.

Malik didn't fully understand how astral sight worked, as everything lost its physicality and color, turning into a monochromatic and translucent mush with a slight cyan tinge, but some enlightened assassins could guide through it with ease like Zayyan.

"Found it," Zayyan said a few minutes later.

Dareen stood up with a groan and they displaced themselves to the location of Ibrahim's demise. They found the corpse of an old man with finger marks on his neck and a pool of vomit in front of him.

"Do you think he puked to death?" Dareen suggested, but they all knew that wasn't the case. Those fingerprints were too deep, meaning he was choked.

Now that he had the corpse in front of him, Malik placed his palm horizontally in front of his face to pay respect to the old man.

"It has been only a few hours, let us push to find Ayad, she must be close."

The female assassin grunted, but she knew it would be worse if they stopped to rest. The more they closed the distance the better.

Soon it became clear that wasn't enough.

"Why haven't we found her yet?" Dareen screamed at the top of her lungs and knelt on the ground, her body finally collapsing from exhaustion.

"Something's wrong here," Malik caressed his forming beard after days of being unable to shave.

"Definitely," Zayyan added with a hint of sarcasm.

"I'm being serious here," the leader countered. "Ayad couldn't have moved this fast by any means. And not only between the span that Ibrahim died and we made it to Jotel, but also the whole journey. We are weeks away from Sadina right now."

"How then?" Zayyan didn't portray as much exhaustion as Dareen, but the assassin was quite defeated too. "Are you suggesting that Ayad is a cultivator? But that doesn't make sense, if that was the case, she would have run toward the sultanah instead of away from her."

"But what other alternative is there?" The Shadow questioned. "We have only found footsteps, human ones. There is no trace of camel tracks nor dweller ones, how would she be able to get this far in a handful of hours otherwise."

"So we are dealing with a cultivator that can apparently outrun shadow stepping, just wonderful…" Dareen protested as she rolled on the sand. "Can we give up?"

"No," Malik instantly refuted, but then an idea struck his mind. "Zayyan map, quick."

The subordinate assassin didn't protest and wordlessly gave him the map from his backpack. It was actually a handful of maps. One with ciphers that hinted at some assassin outposts without actually giving the definitive solution, as who knew when an assassin could be captured. Another bunch was a more general map of Ydaz, one of them of only Sadina, and finally one of the whole mainland.

"Look at her path," Malik put the map on the ground and pressed it against the sand. "She could try to go to Loyata, but she has predicted that the border will be carefully watched, so instead she's going full east. Almost in a straight line."

"So?" Zayyan asked. "If she's going in a straight line, it doesn't change anything. We can't outrun her."

"Except we can." Malik smiled. "No matter how fast she is, she will need to stop at some point, I don't care if it's to rest or restock. Her objective is clear, the easternmost border with Loyata. I fear she wants to catch a boat on the fjords."

"Intercept?" The male assassin guessed.

"Intercept." The Shadow replied. "Send a message to the nearest outpost to the border when you can. There are way more assassins in Loyata that we can ask for help than here. As for us…"

Dareen preemptively groaned as she guessed what Malik's next words were.

"We are going to rush for Selen," he pointed it out on the map. "This is the last Ydazi bastion until the fjords, so she's bound to stop there or at least pass nearby as it is in the middle of her path."

"And this is your idea to outran her?" Zayyan commented after analyzing the map.

"What do you think?"

"I mean, the terrain is certainly unfavorable for anyone who has to trek it normally, if we moved in a zig-zag, disregarding completely Ayad's known location, then we could shadow-step from mountain peak to mountain peak if we avoid the Whistling Sands."

Such a location was a dead spot for assassin shadow-stepping as the place was unusually flat. They wouldn't be able to teleport more than a kilometer at a time. He also doubted the scribe would go through that place as it was a hotspot for monsters and devoid of traveler's safe houses.

Now that they had a destination in mind, they allowed themselves to rest. These coming days would be trying.