From The Collections Of Rhye

the sins of Rhys

The wisp lights bounced off the ivory towers of Rhys. Catching the indistinct moments when a gust of silent wind roiled these minute creatures, catching them in a whirlwind. The sweet smells of mud apples and salted cashew nuts were being carried along the stone walk-ways that lead into the market place. The taste of brine and prawns crept around the hinges of city dwellings, wisked into the city from the eastern ports and naval surrogates.

The gods were to begin their wailing soon, it would be a dark night of temperamental rains and abhorrent gusts; a storm was brewing across the oceans.

To this, a figure perched atop the *ceriemass* tower of Rhys,sighed. The melancholy of the city's ignorance of the coming dark, made her innards churn. The city went about its business of whoring, gluteeny and ignoring the street rats that cannot be used to fuel its mechanics.
It made her sick.
Alas, it wasn't the time to rise to the taunts of an depraved society. She had better appointments to keep.
The figure, clad in mourning black, her face covered by a raider mask, crouched along the laterite edge of the tower peering into the street below.
'Empty' she mused to herself.
'About time now'.
With that the clock tower stuck 12 times in a monotonous clang. Midnight.
Taking the abhorrent noise of the clock tower to be her cue, she slid off the edge, free falling, until she gracefully caught hold of an ornate balcony, 2 levels below.
As she climbed into the occupancy of the room ahead of her, she heard doors click and keys turn in their holds.
'Good, the guards are leaving to whore with the maid in waiting, again. Clock work; the dalliance of men.' She smiled to herself.
The archway that sprawled into the balcony from the room had been left unguarded.
Stupid move.
The assassin moved silent and calculating into the room, her target was the heiress of Rhys.
Her brother had paid a king's ransom for her death, and 'the hands Veta' readily complied.
She approached a figure, presently sleeping on the devan, snoring loudly. One would think she made an ungodly row for a lady of her station, but death saw no station of course, nor did the assassins of the 'the hands of Veta'.
The winds began to lash against the stained glass, clattering wisps against it, causing light to timidly illuminate the scene within the room.

*thunder clap*

The storm had reached the city, fading into the cleaved moments of darkness, the assassin surgically punctured her target's voice box. Holding her still, against the cushions,while blood seeped through velvet pillows and Tasminian rugs.

*tap, tap, tap, tap*

The rain had come!
A certain tinge of satisfaction ebbed at her senses, the feel of warmth in the red as it ran down her fingers calmed her breathing; like gutting a fowl for the Spring Odessa.

*thunder clap*

The assassin inched closer to the dying woman, and whispered to the scared eyes with the extinguishing light -
' a gift, my lady! Compliments of your brother.'

As it was customary, she pulled free her mask and let the woman see her true self. The glint of green that reached out from the centre of her eyes, stark with each passing moment. Yes,she wanted them to know their death; their fate.

*Pitter, patter, tap, tap, tap*

When the pitiful woman finally choked on her own blood and pain, satisfied with her handiwork, the assassin moved away to search for her trophy.
She always kept a piece of her kill, it made her more, human.
She lazily rummaged through desks and drawers, searching for a personal artifact, something that resonated with her warm kill against the cold storm outside.

*pitter, patter, tap, moan, tap, moan, tap*

The maid was being exceptionally gracious with her sex tonight.

The assassin contorted at the sounds of raspy breaths and vile annotations to the gods. She remembered  her first days at the hands of her fellowship. She was barely a girl, when she was sold to her guild. The survival was brutal.
she was raped, by the teachers along with the brokers first, then the younger runts, and finally by the older girls that she was forced to survive with.
All this until she learned to be her own. Then she broke bones, slit throats and poisoned wine as remittance; time had been her friend.
She finally dawned onto an ornate closet space, marked by its ebony frame and clandestine etchings. Curious, she hinged the doors open with her wolf-bane dagger.

*thunder clap*

The rain lashed against the tower and lighting struck its summit illuminating the innards of the magnanimous structure. But the assassin, did not see it all, for she had pike sticking through her neck, blood and bile, guzzling through her mouth.

*thunder clap*

Light illuminated the room again, reflecting off the blood splatter glass, as the assassin lay pinned to a pike, gasping, her dagger still hinged into the closet.
In the final moments of this odd theatre, as she lost her strength, the closet creaked open, and in it, tied and drained of blood and parlor, was her contractor, the heir of Rhys.

*pitter,patter, tap, tap, thunder clap*

The pike twisted round, snapping the assassin's neck while she turned to face her attacker, the petite woman she had just bled out, her visage soaked in her blood and some of her own.

*pitter,patter, tap, tap, thunder clap*

A rabid smile danced upon the woman's face as the punctures on her neck began to fill in flesh and bone. As darkness filled into the room, the storm raged on and light came no more, but only a gasp from the dying soul
  ' Necromancer'

*pitter,patter, tap, tap, thunder clap*

And then it all went still and cold.