Tabini and Damiri’s Escape

Tabini and Damiri’s escape turned an attempted coup into a prolonged contest over who could claim authority in the Aishidi’tat. After surviving an attack at Taiben, they refused the safer-seeming route to an allied estate and disappeared into the conspirators’ own territory, remaining beyond contact for a year while their enemies searched for them.

Coup and Flight

The conspirators intended to assassinate Tabini at his residence, but found that he was absent. They correctly suspected he might be at Taiben and strengthened their assault there. Their operation extended beyond the attempt on Tabini: they moved simultaneously to control access to the heavens, seizing shuttles under repair, the radio station, Shejidan’s airport, and the dish at Mogari-nai. They believed that taking Mogari-nai would prevent communication with the heavens and that Lord Geigi could neither replace the shuttles nor threaten their regime.

At Taiben, Tabini and Damiri narrowly escaped. Their bodyguards did not survive. The couple’s escape therefore came at an immediate and devastating cost, even as it denied the conspirators their principal target.

A Year in Hiding

Rather than go to the neighboring Atageini estate and expose Lord Tatiseigi to danger, Tabini and Damiri crossed Kadagidi territory. Tabini relied on skills he had learned at Malguri to hunt and survive. They made no contacts at all for a year, forgoing communication rather than lead their pursuers to themselves or endanger others through an attempt to seek help.

The choice inverted the conspirators’ expectations. They searched everywhere they thought Tabini might be, but the last place they expected him to be was on their own borders. His survival depended not on holding a public position or securing a line of communication, but on remaining hidden in hostile territory.

Survival and the Struggle to Restore Order

The escape left the conspirators without the certainty of Tabini’s death. Their seizure of communications and transport infrastructure was intended to isolate the world and consolidate Murini’s claim, but Tabini remained alive and beyond their reach. The flight thus preserved a political alternative to Murini’s rule even while the couple could not openly act on it.

The wider restoration also depended on resistance within the Assassins’ Guild. Some senior members had gone underground when Murini took power; some who were officially listed as dead were alive, and members of this network had helped bring Tabini back. The exiled Guild members had worked with humans on Mospheira to restore the law, despite their reservations about Tabini’s association with humans. They later pledged to return, leave their identities behind again, and help reclaim the Guild and its records.

The effort to retake Guild Headquarters carried its own cost: Shishogi died in a fire apparently caused by an incendiary, the records were damaged but not destroyed, and one man was intercepted with notebooks taken from the Office of Assignments. Two resistance members were dead, sixteen people were arrested for sorting and testimony, and 147 voluntarily stood down pending a resolution. The restored leadership began interviewing Guild members, examining assignments, loyalties, kinship, past service, and references. In this way, the restoration sought more than a change of leadership: it aimed to establish what had happened and demonstrate that the law, rather than decree alone, could support Tabini’s return.