The Nameless Assassins

Pride and Preservation

In the end, it took a professional Slide to extract Inspector Sarnai's tea habits. After developing a rapport with the shop girls at her usual purveyor, Ash found out that Sarnai was quite knowledgeable about tea. She always walked through the door knowing exactly what she wanted, purchased it, and left, politely but firmly declining any recommendations. Although she wasn't consistent about the type, she did seem to favor high-quality Dagger Isles black tea.

"Ugh!" Ash complained to Faith and me. "She's so...delightful." Lips curled with disgust, he spat out the word like moldy eel pie.

The more I learned about Candra Sarnai, the more I respected her as the one truly decent human being I'd met in U'Duasha or Doskvol. To test his resolve, I hinted, "Are you sure we have to do this?"

"Yes!" Any doubts Ash harbored about the score concerned the difficulty of preying on the vices of someone who didn't have any. "Despite all the nice novels she reads, she's not going to say, 'Oh, these Poets are such kind people, and even though they murdered Admiral Strangford, we should lightly pat them on the wrist and tell them, please don't do it again'." Then, as if afraid that I might actually believe that, he shook his head emphatically. "No, Isha, she's not going to do that!"

"I know," I admitted. "It just seems like such a waste...."

"We could try to convert her, but I don't think that's realistic."

Regrettably, I agreed. "It seems unlikely given what we know of her and the Inspectors in general."

"Yes," pronounced Ash, putting his own unique spin on things, "I have yet to hear of a single Inspector who has suddenly developed a conscience and rejected the cruelty of the Imperium. Although I suppose if there were such examples, the Emperor would suppress them."

He was probably right, but I was still thinking about our Inspector – our poor, innocent, honorable Inspector who was going to die for her integrity. "I hate this," I announced, somewhat at random, to the room at large. "I'm going to state for the record: I hate this."

Interrupting his rant against the culpability of everyone who played a role, however miniscule, in upholding the Imperial system, Ash told me, "I'll have the scribe add it to the meeting minutes."

I gave him a sarcastic, "Thank you, Ash," which was all that his promise deserved.

Turning to our other crewmate, who'd spent the duration of this meeting staring blankly at the stack of romance novels on the common room table, Ash inquired, "Faith, I don't suppose you've read any of these?"

Faith jolted upright, her eyes refocusing on the spines. "Oh!" she exclaimed, as if shocked by the coincidence. "That was all required reading for the orphans!"

"What?" Ash yelped, toppling headfirst into her trap. "What's so special about this book?" He held up the top one, whose cover featured a pair of lovers gazing earnestly into each other's eyes while roses bloomed in the background.

"It's a classic!" Faith snatched the book so she could flip through it and quote illustrative passages, and started raving about the author's profound impact on Akorosian literature. Although the first five minutes might have been plausible, the rest sounded preposterous. At last, she tired of her own voice and our glassy eyes and wrapped up with a wry, "I've read a couple romance novels in my day. I had lots of time and very little responsibility."

Somehow, I doubted that of someone who'd risen so high in the Church of Ecstasy that she'd Ascended, and Ash didn't bother to acknowledge it. "Any ideas for how to proceed?" he asked instead.