Part One

Freyan stands atop a hill looking at the tomb of her family. It is a big tomb, her family is very rich and can afford such things. It stands high over the rest of the graveyard, the angels carved into it looking out over the dead. The sun sets in the distance and Freyan waits for her mother to emerge as she did last night. She doesn’t.

Freyan is disappointed and unlocks the tomb. She enters it and holds her lantern high casting its dim light over the rows of coffins. She finds her mother’s one, it is close to the front and the spiderwebs and dust that permeates the tomb hasn’t covered it yet. The coffin is not nailed shut. It was once, but the nails have been torn out as though from the outside. Freyan puts the lantern on another coffin and lifts the heavy lid off, peering inside. Her mother lies there, dead. Her eyes are closed and her hands are folded onto her chest. She does not breathe. Freyan feels for a heartbeat but there isn’t one. She puts the coffin lid back down and picks up the lantern. She looks out across the rest of the tomb, nothing stirs save for some loose cobwebs waving in the wind.

She walks out of the tomb and closes the door, locking it behind her. Then she walks off into the night thinking over what she has learnt. Her mother is dead, she has been dead for two days. That’s what the doctors have said. But last night Freyan heard her mother, and then she followed her voice to the tomb where she saw her and talked with her again. When everyone said she was dead her mother had emerged to tell her one last thing.

She had told her to kill her father.

Freyan arrived home later that night and went to bed thinking of all that she knew. She had never seen a time when her mother and father got along. They had always argued and screamed and fought with each other. Then her mother had got sick and then gotten sicker and sicker while all the doctors her father bought for her could do nothing to fix it. Then he’d gotten angry with them as well and argued and screamed with them too.

But he didn’t argue and scream with her. He was always so kind and gentle with her, and he was the same with all the other children in the family and with all the uncles and aunts and cousins and other relatives. The rest of the family had always taken his side in whatever argument him and her mother had gotten into. Freyan hadn’t though, she’d always been scared of him. Ever since she’d followed him out one night to see where he went. He went to a fighting arena and watched women kill each other with their bare hands. Freyan had been scared of a lot of things after that.

So she’d talked to her mother a lot, she still felt safe with her. But her mother had been less and less responsive for a while now and eventually she’d died. So Freyan had had no one to talk to. And now it seemed like she really was dead. She wouldn’t be talking to her anymore. But now she had to kill her father. She didn’t know how to do that. She’d never done anything like that before. Her mother had given her instructions though. Very specific instructions. She thought about those instructions for a long time and didn’t sleep much that night.

The next day everyone was bustling about as they always did. Freyan had to go to class and follow old mistress Bartha around all day learning about history and sewing and the history of sewing. Then she came home and went up to her room to read a book while the rest of her siblings and cousins went to play in the garden. She didn’t much like playing in the garden, she always sneezed and got puffy eyes from all the plants. She much preferred going around town looking at old statues and reading the inscriptions, or the graves at the graveyard. But none of the other children ever wanted to do that. They said the statues were boring and the graves were scary. Freyan didn’t think the graves were very scary, they were interesting. And dead people all the way underground were a lot less scary than live people walking about in the world. So she stayed in her room and read her book, and thought about her instructions.

Then she went down to dinner and ate it at the big long table with the rest of the family and listened as they all talked about different things. The adults all talked about money and property and how much of it they’d gained or could gain. The children talked about fights they’d had in the garden or people who’d kissed other people in the town. Freyan didn’t talk to anyone about anything. She just ate her dinner and tried not to be noticed.

That night she went back to the graveyard and waited again as the sun set on the tomb. Except this time she wasn’t alone.

“Freyan,” her father said from behind her making her jump in fright. “It really isn’t okay for you to be sneaking out here every night.”

She looked down the hill at him, she didn’t say anything.

“It’s dark and you could get hurt, or lost, and who knows what dangerous things are around here.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“Come on, let’s go inside, get back to bed.” He beckoned for her to come to him.

She stood there for a while then eventually decided to go with him and went down the hill. He put his arm around her and she felt herself feel afraid as they walked out of the graveyard. As they left she looked back at the tomb and sure enough her mother hadn’t emerged like she had the first night.

Her father noticed her looking back. “I know you miss her but she’s gone now Freyan, you have to accept that. And don’t worry, she’ll live on forever in our hearts.”

“Did you love her then?” she asked as they walked.

“Well... yes,” he replied, slightly surprised. He’d paused when he said it, he always paused when he lied.

“Then why were you always shouting at her before she got sick?”

Her father smiled. “Love is complicated Freyan, there’s a lot you don’t understand about the world. But you will, someday.”

Freyan walked on, that didn’t seem like a very good answer. As she walked she thought about what she’d been told to do. She was right next to him now, if she had a sharp knife she could maybe stab him in the stomach, or his throat if she got lucky. Then she could run away and leave him to die far away from anyone who could tell who’d done it. But he was much bigger and stronger than she was. Much better at fighting too probably. He could easily overpower her and then everything would be ruined. Besides that wasn’t part of her instructions. And she needed to follow the instructions.

The next day old mistress Bartha was sick so her class was cancelled. That was the first part of the instructions. Freyan began to follow the rest.

She went out of the house and down into the town. She didn’t go there very often and it was always interesting to see all the people bustling about and talking to each other. They were very loud though. So Freyan much preferred to watch them from some far off distance. That wasn’t going to work this time though. This time she needed to go through the town to get what she needed.

She walked past the blacksmith who was hammering away at something. Past a pair of old men sitting on a porch laughing at each other with harsh cackling laughs. Past a group of crying toddlers being herded by a stressed young woman. There were so many noises and so much chaos. Freyan ignored it though, she needed to get to the river.

As she was pushing her way through the crowds she saw a lot of people sitting out on the streets asking for money. She saw a lot of thin dirty thieves lurking around the backs of stalls trying to knick people’s purses. She saw a lot of old houses being worked on by workmen who were tearing them all down. She knew who those workmen were. They worked for her father, getting him all his money and property that her family was so desperate to have. She didn’t really see why they needed it. They already had plenty and it seemed that other people didn’t have much.

The town wasn’t all bad though. She did see some people moving through the beggars, giving them money and food. There was Rathom, the baker with his huge belly dispensing bread from a basket and making sure everyone got their fair share. There was old mistress Naya the apothecary treating their injuries and illnesses. And there was Osimond, the pretty young son of the local lord giving out some of his father’s money. Freyan knew a lot about Osimond, her older cousin Linley would not shut up about him.

She eventually made it through the town and arrived at the river. She followed it to the old willow that leaned all the way down into the water and dug under the mud at the big root to the west. Sure enough there was a sack and sure enough in the sack were bottles of different coloured liquids. She took the black one with the circle on the stopper and put the rest back. That had been the first part of her instructions. Now for the second part, the hard part.

She returned home with her bottle hidden away in her bag. She knew what it did and she didn’t want to spill any or let anyone see it. So she went back to her room and hid it under her bed then went downstairs for dinner. She had instructions on how to administer the poison. She was supposed to creep into her father’s room at night and drip some on his lips. But that was dangerous, very dangerous, she thought. What if he woke up, what if someone else saw her, what if she couldn’t get into his room and they took away the poison? She had a much better idea.

After dinner, she went back to her room and waited until the sun was nearly setting before once again she snuck out and went to the tomb on the hill.

Sure enough her father followed her and as she walked up to it he spoke to her so she turned around. But this time he was not alone. That hadn’t been part of her plan.

Standing there next to him was her aunt and uncle as well as the head of their family guard. There was some young woman she didn’t recognise but who had been hanging around her father a lot lately.

She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything as they all beckoned to her and told her all the reasons she shouldn’t be out here. So she looked back at the tomb and went down to them. Went into her hated father’s arms. She wasn’t wearing much, just a nightgown that left her arms and shoulders bare. So when he put his hand on her shoulder he touched her skin where she’d lathered the poison just like she’d planned, based on how he’d done it last night.

They got a few steps home before he noticed. Before he collapsed to the ground screaming in pain. She just stood there unsure of what to do while her relatives yelled and shouted in alarm.

But he knew what had caused it, he could feel it on the hand that had touched her, and he wasted little time in telling everyone else that it was her fault. He called her demon and monster and all sorts of horrible things and they believed him. Of course they’d believe him, everyone always believed him.

So she ran, ran away into the night with the screams of her dying father still echoing in her ears. They tried to save him but she knew he’d die. There was no antidote for Tears of the Widow poison.

Part Two

Nayras had once been a master ninja. She could climb sheer buildings and infiltrate the nobility. She’d once fired a crossbow bolt attached to a string from one castle to another and then walked along it to get to her next victim. That had been a long time ago though. Now she was old and worked in an apothecary. She still had all her ninja equipment. Her sword, her masks, even the crossbow she’d used. It was all fairly useless to her now though. Her back ached and her legs trembled and her arms sent shivers of fear up her body whenever she thought about climbing so much as a ladder. She’d really let herself go. She knew some ninjas had joined ancient monk temples high in the mountains and mastered their mind and body so this sort of thing never happened to them. She hadn’t gotten to that point, she’d been hit by a spear in the hip and ever since then her body had never really been the same.

There was one thing she could still do though. One thing she’d always been good at. And that was poisons.

Back at her dojo she’d learned of every poison her master had known of and then she’d spent a long period of her life discovering more. She’d always been the best of the best and now that she was an apothecary her talent had only grown stronger.

Sadly it was much easier to kill people than it was to save them and she was still getting the hang of being an apothecary. People didn’t respect you the same way. They didn’t tend to bow in awe or tremble in fear at your mere presence. They didn’t send emissaries to speak with you for fear of coming themselves. They didn’t see you as a perfect example of human skill and experience just waiting to be unleashed on a new unsuspecting victim.

No as an apothecary she tended to just talk to people for a long time about the goings on in the town. It was actually very nice she thought.

But there were some people who knew of her past. To be fair she didn’t really keep it a secret and happily told anyone who asked that she had once been legendary ninja but most people didn’t believe her. She didn’t mind, she quite enjoyed being thought of as the mad old lady in the town, it had a very nice ring to it. But some people believed her.

She’d been asked up to treat the Lady Astair at the Astair manor as she was horribly sick and dying and with her knowledge of poisons had easily deduced she was being poisoned and quickly came up with a cure for it too. Sadly, she’d happily given the cure to her husband who had turned out to be the one poisoning her so of course he’d gotten rid of it and threatened to have her killed if she spoke of this to anyone. It was damn tricky this apothecary business.

So she sat in her cottage by the river knitting a scarf and thinking about all the drama up at the Astair manor. She felt she should be trying to help but she wasn’t sure what she should do. Back in her ninja days she worked for her lord and never questioned his judgement. As an apothecary she usually just helped whoever needed helping but she’d never faced any opposition before. She was also fairly confident that with her old tired body she wouldn’t be able to get past the opposition if she had wanted to. So she knitted her scarf.

It was a nice scarf, it had a picture of a ninja beheading a fat man on it. It was a very red scarf.

There was a knock at the door. That was strange, people in this town didn’t usually do business at midnight as far as she knew. Just another of the things that was different about being a ninja. She put down her scarf and opened the door. Standing on the doorstep was the Lady Astair, looking terribly sick and about to fall over.

Naya quickly led her inside and let her collapse onto a soft chair. Then she bustled away to prepare some hot drinks. That was what you always fell back on in the apothecary business.

“Well I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she said as she made the drinks.

“No,” the Lady replied. “No I don’t suppose you were.”

“I’m afraid you’re being poisoned, by your husband. Adderworm Poison, very nasty stuff.” Naya had found that calling any symptom, disease or affliction, very nasty stuff was expected of apothecaries.

The Lady Astair looked off into the distance. “I know, I know. Can you save me?”

“Well I could always give it a go, doesn’t seem likely though, you’ve been being poisoned for a long time.” She bustled over with the drinks and sat across from her. “By all rights you should be dead by now, can only blame the poisoner, clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Astair sipped her drink. “You know a lot about that do you? You told us you were some sort of assassin?”

“Ninja.”

“Yes ninja. And you know a lot about poisons.”

“All sorts.”

“Do you still do that? Are you still a ninja?”

“Well I’ve still got all my old things, don’t have a lord anymore though.”

“How does that work, do you have contracts or something?”

“No no, I’m a ninja not an assassin,” Naya shook her head incredulously.

“Right, but could I hire you?”

“What for? Fixing you up? You certainly could, probably wouldn’t save you though.”

“No, no, I want you to kill my husband.”

Naya smiled over her drink. “Oh, I see. I’m afraid that might be difficult too.”

“Could you not just poison him or something?”

“People who know the old apothecary is a master ninja aren’t likely to accept anything from them, ‘specially if they know the old apothecary knows about their secret wife poisoning habit.”

“Well could you give the poison to someone else?”

“Do you have someone in mind?”

Astair thought about it. “Yes I have someone in mind.”

“Good I’ll get one of my poisons and you send them to me.”

“It won’t be that simple.”

Naya smiled again. “It never is is it? Don’t worry I’m much better at this than at medicine and I’m very good at medicine.”

“You gave the antidote for my poison to my poisoner.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Naya sipped her drink.

The Astair manor was guarded by guards of all kinds. Lady Astair was found at the apothecary house and brought back to the manor within an hour of her leaving which meant the treatment Naya applied soon wore off. At the manor she was watched day and night by someone and there was always someone listening whenever she spoke with any of her children. Her husband never came near her giving her no opportunity to poison him even if she’d had a poison to kill him with. She didn’t though, she had Shadow of the Dream Orchid, a poison that put her into a sleep as still as death.

They held a funeral for her, a very sad and touching affair and of course Naya attended. That would have been a perfect chance to kill the husband there and then but of course he wouldn’t let her get near him which she’d known would happen. Instead she’d found Freyan who’d been quietly standing at the back and given her a hug and a kiss on the cheek to cheer her up. It didn’t work, in fact it probably made her more upset. That was okay though, Naya was still learning the ways of caring about other people’s emotions and the real reason for the kiss had been to plant the Mindshatter Poison on her skin, a powerful insomniac which was sure to have her wandering the halls of the manor at night.

She didn’t actually expect that to work. The backup plan was to just wait until she could somehow contact the girl herself and give her the poison but it was nice to be able to flex her poisoning muscles again.

Luckily, it had worked. Just as the Lady Astair had said, when Freyan couldn’t sleep she wandered the manor and often left it to go see the statues around the outside. So, in her sickly dying state, after Naya had opened up her coffin and treated her as best she could, the Lady had lured her daughter away to the tomb where she’d given her the plan while Naya watched from behind a tree. Her body was old and couldn’t move very fast but stealth was all about moving slowly and she was even better at that now.

Then she’d eventually managed to poison Freyan’s teacher, old mistress Bartha and make her too sick to teach, giving Freyan the day off. That part hadn’t been particularly easy and in the meantime the Lady Astair had actually died. Naya had tried to save her but the poison had just progressed too far. Luckily though, after her death Naya had managed to make acquaintance with one of Bartha’s friends who came in to see about a wart on her foot. Naya had told her Bartha was looking unhealthy lately and used a lot of big scary apothecary words and sure enough the friend had told Bartha and she’d come running. She had of course been fine but Naya gave her some Essence of Brackenfowl and she’d been harmlessly ill for a few days.

Then Naya had to admire the next part. Astair had assured her that despite being timid and quiet Freyan got things done when she set her mind to them. Admittedly Naya may have misremembered just how easy it actually was to break into a locked room, drug the occupants, and escape without being seen but Freyan rose to the challenge. Luring her father out into the graveyard and poisoning him there with Tears of the Widow. Very impressive. Tears of the Widow was a powerful poison, very difficult to prepare and Naya was happy to see it being used to its full effect. There was also Tears of the Warlock which only killed women and worked roughly the same way but Naya didn’t have much of that. In the words of an apothecary, it was very nasty stuff, for her at least.

Then everything went wrong. Naya had been hiding behind her tree watching the proceedings and then everyone started shouting and screaming and cursing the girl. She turned away to hobble her way off when she noticed that the girl was running straight toward her.

She looked around for a way out, somewhere to hide other than behind this tree. But there wasn’t anywhere that her old legs and her walking stick could get her to in time.

She turned back around and the girl stopped in front of her, looking up in alarm.

“Evening,” Naya said to her. Then she looked up to see a big guard looking man with a sword bearing down on them. Naya shook her head, disappointed. She never understood why people hired big guards like that, they never worked.

She shuffled the girl behind her and then walked out from behind the tree to greet the guard. He stopped in surprise and looked down at this old woman who had suddenly appeared.

“Hello, beautiful weather we’re having isn’t it,” she said and gestured arbitrarily at the sky. Confused, the guard glanced vaguely upward.

She swung her walking stick, flicked the secret lever and the secret blade sliced through his neck. Then she turned back and hobbled away under the tree, gathering Freyan up in her skirts as she went.

“Come on, let’s go. Say do you have any interest in being an apothecary?”

Freyan was silent.

“Ninja?”