Author: Wad up, people? Alright, so this is the ramblings of one of my characters in a story my friend and I are doing. I am hoping to one day put the story up on FP, but that has yet to be accomplished. Anway, enjoy and please review. Constructive criticism accepted and loved.

The Ramblings of a Killer

1-25-06 --- 1-26-06

The ambassador falls to the grass, crushing a small patch of flowers with his large body. His eyes dilate and his body begins to thrash violently. I step from the bushes where I had lay moments before and walk carefully over to the dying man. There is no recognition in his eyes as they meet mine. I smile, not a smile of compassion, but of utter assurance that within the next few seconds the ambassador will no longer be with us.

And I am right. As soon as my smile fades, the man falls limp. I glimpse him over for a moment, admiring the silk fabric patterned in a bright red and soft gold. This ambassador came form a neighboring country to the north. It is a small country, but one containing many valuable resources the King wants. He was here to sign a treaty of some kind, but unfortunately he never had the chance.

I kick his body. The dead man rolls to his side but comes back towards me. I catch his back with my foot and continue to push him forward. Once he is on his stomach I have a clear view of the flowers that he crushed. They are small purple flowers that grow in little clumps of about five or six. All of the flowers are crushed and a few petals fall a very short distance to the grass below. My eyes follow the petals then trail back to the ambassador.

Suddenly enraged, I kick his body again, feeling a few ribs break in the process. In the back of my mind I know that this will prove the ambassador’s death a murder. My other works were put off as suspicious deaths; the particular poison I use dissolves in the blood stream and is basically untraceable. But I suppose on this victim it will be even more obvious that someone is behind the murders.

I sigh softly, feeling guilty for what I’ve done. After a few more seconds of staring at the ambassador, I turn away, my mind full of conjured images. He could have had a family, a loving wife and three children, parents to take care of. A million pictures flash before me, a hundred different scenarios of what could happen and what might have been.

I hate how I do this; I do my job and then regret it. My mind always creates fictional truths that I somehow begin to believe. No matter how many times I tell myself, “What I am thinking isn’t real,” no matter how many times I say, “Tavi Ere, stop deceiving yourself. This is your duty, your job,” no matter how many times, I still have nightmares. I still lie awake at night, left to simply stare at the stars. And somehow, even though I vow to not kill again, to stop this and continue my life as a simple, poor gardener, I always find myself with more nightmares, with more faces and more fictional lives on my hands.

When I was little, my parents beat me. They were not my biological parents, just a family that adopted me, took me in after they found me wandering the streets. They were just poor farmers, like everyone else in those days. But they taught me how to take care of the land, how to watch the weather for signs of rain or draught, to watch nature. For a while, things went well.

But something changed. Suddenly the loving adults I had once considered my parents became cold and hard. When I messed up, they hit me, yelled at me, locked me in my room. If I cried, they hit harder; if I fought back, they would take away my food, make me work double in the fields, and beat me later. And even though resentment built up within my heart, as I look back, I can’t help but feel sorry---sorry that such good people could be corrupted, and I never even discovered why.

After my parents’ death I left my home. They had already hired me off as a gardener to the King, under the service of a stable hand named Goriin Dar’hith. He had been younger then, but he was still ancient; especially to a ten year old child. He found me buried within the hay, shivering in the cold of the night. “Tavi Ere.” He had said. “Tavi Ere Tali’ain, why are you crying?”

“My parents are dead, sir,” Was my pitiful reply. My voice was hoarse, my throat dry, stomach empty, and body bruised. Every person was a threat to me. The only things I knew I could trust were the horses, the flowers, and the woodland creatures I found within the castle grounds.

“Crying isn’t any way to be celebrating, boy.” He pulled me from the hay, as gently as he could, and steered me towards the lofts. “I suppose you’ll be living with me now. You can sleep in the lofts but make sure you don’t disturb the horses. You wake at dawn to begin your chores, understand me, boy?”

I nodded and rushed up the ladder, taking refuge once again in the hay. Over the years Goriin had become somewhat of an uncle to me. He was rude, short-tempered, and stubborn but he could be a patient, kind, and calm man if you learned to read the signs right. He was the only person in the whole world I felt comfortable to open up to, though I never did.

I am a shy person. I don’t like making human contact; I’d rather be left alone to tend the flowers or horses. The slightest things can amuse me for hours. I don’t pretend to not know how the nobles think. They pass by in the garden and see me whispering to a butterfly or some other insect and they say things. Even the castle hands, ones that have known me for years, think that I am crazy. And perhaps I am. It is very possible. I won’t deny it. There is a side to me that no one knows.

I had only a few possessions to my name: a small blowpipe and two hundred darts that had belonged to my real father and a small leather satchel from my mother. Being a gardener, I naturally had to learn which plants were poisonous and which were not. Occasionally I would tuck away the poisonous plants into my satchel to save for another day. I’m not sure what possessed me to begin to mix poisons and practicing with my blowpipe, but I would almost every night.

The first night I used my blowpipe and poisons was for a noble cause. Surely no man can be condemned for trying to protect a woman in danger. After ten years of secrecy and happiness, the darkness of humanity had once again shown itself to me. There in the gardens I watched the King and his wife. There within the shadows I heard her screaming and crying as he beat her. I remember how horrified I had felt. Hadn’t someone else heard her scream? Couldn’t they hear her crying? My hand had reached into the satchel and pulled out the blowpipe before I had a chance to think about it. The wood touched my lips and I blew.

The King had not died that night, of course. He had only become very sick under mysterious circumstances. The one who died was the Queen. A week later she disappeared. Even though it hadn’t been my fault, I felt terribly weak. I worked harder at my poisons, harder at my shot. All of me became determined to repay the King, not only for what I had seen that night in the garden, but for what he did to my people. And though I didn’t communicate with the world beyond my flowers, I felt that somehow, I had a job to perform.

---

I sigh softly and sit on my bed. It is after my nightly chores and shower, so I am left alone by other people. Even Goriin ignores me as I sit and watch them from the loft. It is fine by me. I am left to my thoughts and it isn’t long until my mind wanders back to the ambassador. His body was found an hour or so after I did the job. He was found by a young archer named Jan whom I have talked to once or twice. He is a nice boy, devoted to serving justice as best he can. He would be loved by all, if he didn’t work for the King.

The ambassador was moved into the castle to be checked over by healers and already the rumours were spreading through the castle hands that someone had beaten the ambassador and poisoned him. I cringe again at my foolish mistake. But there is nothing I can do now.

I notice that my hair has grown out to my shoulders. For a moment I try to decide whether or not to leave my loft and cut it quickly or to stay away from everyone else. But most of the workers have dispersed and gone to their respective homes or beds. Slowly I begin to creep down the ladder. I move like a sloth down the wooden steps to make sure none creak. As soon as my feet touch the stable floor I glance around. No one is in sight.

I make my way over to the mirror. After rubbing away dirt and dust, I can finally see my reflection. I truly am a pathetic sight. Just as I thought, my brown hair has grown to my shoulders and it is caked with dirt and hay. I stare at it for a minute before reaching up and trying to dislodge some of the dirt. My fingers quickly come across a knot which I can’t seem to work out. With many grunts and pulls, the knot comes free along with a few strands of hair. I sigh and decide to forsake this mission.

My eyes return to the mirror and even I am surprised to see how much I have changed. I look devastatingly calm, which is not what I feel inside. I’m not sure how I became so good at hiding my emotions from the world, but I am sure it started that night. Everything seemed to have started that night. With a sigh, I turn away from the mirror and head to the doors.

I don’t remember my age. I know that I was ten when I came to live with Goriin. If I had to make an assumption I would say that was at least ten to twelve years ago. I guess that I am around twenty and two years---twenty and two years of a lonely life. I am a normal man; I am not immune to the desires of love or friendship. Often I feel jealous of the lovers I see, careless as they take a small walk through the gardens; even so, I have never met a woman that I felt right for me. Perhaps because all the women I could meet are nobles and wouldn’t think twice of getting to know a lowly gardener.

Even if I could meet a woman, and so attempt to woo her, the problem of my murders would eventually arise. Perhaps this is why I stay clear of the opposite sex. Because I am a murderer and my job is not yet done. My plan is beginning to take shape, though. With so many ambassadors mysteriously dying within our borders, it won’t be long until other countries ignore the King’s words completely and launch an attack. I do not want my people to die, but I do want the King dead.

So many of the King’s forces are busy with the Rebellion and the kidnapping of his son that there wouldn’t be so many left if two or three countries attacked together. This is what I wish to happen. And if it does not play out the way I planned, I could always find my way to the King and kill him myself. It would be harder this way, but perhaps the best. His son would be much more adept for the throne than him.

Sometimes I consider the possibility of two Tavi Ere Tali’ains. One minute I stand here, regretting my plotting against the throne and the next I have killed again, sometimes a high ranking general, sometimes an ambassador. I’m not sure what causes me to make the transformation from gardener to murderer and I’m not quite sure what happens to the time between my random transformations. All I know is that they happen, and sometimes it seems like I am powerless to stop them.

---

It is an unnaturally warm night. No wind is blowing. Crickets are strumming their symphonies off to my left and a rabbit darts towards its home to my right. The castle is laid before me like a picture. It all seems so serene. As I walk along the paths towards the large maze that I myself helped build, my eyes wander to a patch of garden. There amidst the flowers is the King and his brother. The two are conversing quietly and urgently, no doubt about the dead ambassador. I can feel my hand stray to my satchel, slipping in and taking hold of the small blowpipe.

I could kill them right now, if only I had the courage. And why shouldn’t I kill them? After what they have done to my people, to their subjects, after all the people they have killed and all the innocent fathers locked within their dungeon waiting to die, I have the right to take them out, don’t I?

But then, after all the people I have killed, do I really have this right? Do I have any right left at all? How much better am I than the King? I sigh and the King and his brother glance in my direction. I bow slowly and deliberately. I can barely hear the King say something; it sounds like, “That’s just the gardener. Pay no mind to him.”

I turn and head back to the stables. Part of me is angry at the other for not killing the King when I had the chance. But that cannot be helped now as I climb up the wooden ladder to the lofts. After all, there would have been Enforcers around somewhere. I sit quietly on my bed and begin to think. Am I in the right? What really am I supposed to do now? I collapse back onto the bed and stare up at the ceiling. Somehow I have to quit this. Somehow I have to stop killing, to stop being this murderer, to find myself a woman, to start a family, to take over Goriin’s position after he is gone, to just… live normally. And, though I know my word means nothing, I say my vows and slip into unconsciousness.