Journeyman Assassin

by Brian Keller

  Cooper always felt grateful for breakfast, particularly the meal that the Guild cooks prepared every day. Less than eighteen months ago, Cooper was stealing to put food in his belly. Even on mornings when he’d been especially successful, he never managed a meal as tasty or fulfilling as what he now piled on his plate. Birt and Aden joined them at the table, followed within a few minutes by Kolrem. Cooper winked at Kolrem, “Late morning for you? You’re usually finishing your first helping of breakfast by now.” Kolrem was well known amongst his peers for his dietary enthusiasm. Kolrem half grunted-half chuckled and managed to reply between mouthfuls, “No shame in that. It takes a lot of food to look this good!”. In the last month or so, Kolrem had gained at least an inch in height and probably gained another fifteen pounds. He was almost the largest boy in the class, probably second only to Boyd, except that Kolrem was muscular. Boyd was just big. These thoughts brought Cooper back to the question that had been nagging at him. He asked, to no one in particular, “Has anyone seen Boyd around? I’ve grown used to looking over my shoulder to see him glaring at me, but he hasn’t been there lately.” Habbon had just joined the table at the far end. He replied, “He Manifested a few days ago and he got re-assigned to the Enforcers. I heard that he hadn’t been doing all that well in a few of his classes. When he Manifested the event was powerful enough that he damaged several pieces of furniture. He came through with a strong Earth Talent and I heard he got a quite a touch of Nature as well. I suppose the Enforcers will either fix him or ruin him.” Cooper gave Habbon a nod of appreciation. At least that was one question answered, and it hadn’t hurt at all.

  Later in Master Darius’ class, he’d been shown the formula for calculating force requirements, but Master Darius had added an additional wrinkle by pointing out that the needles in the trap would be propelled by the force of the flaps being flung open, not by the springs themselves. The flaps would be opening on a hinge, so there were other factors to consider. Cooper spent the entire period trying to stack equations and formulae and come up with a solution. The period ended with considerable frustration and Cooper was still no closer to an answer.

  Etiquette class continued to be a source of entertainment, if not outright humor. In one scenario Cooper had drawn the ‘X’ card, so he was the mark. The event took place in a mockup of the public square in the Trade Quarter. In the actual public square there was a gallows and three sets of stocks. In the classroom, however, there was a table with a rope hanging above it to symbolize the gallows. To their credit, there was an actual set of stocks, but the posts were nailed to braces not sunk into the ground. The scenario was a simple one. The thief was to take advantage of the crowd and steal a pouch while the criminal was being locked in the stocks. The Sergeant of the Guard always proclaimed the criminal’s list of offenses before placing them in the stocks. The thief needed to steal the pouch before the crowd dispersed. Mister Ysel was playing the part of the Sergeant of the Guard. Apparently Birt had drawn the dagger card for this scenario. As he drew alongside Cooper and started to make his grab, Cooper shifted and grunted at him. He then muttered under his breath, “The other pouch, knucklehead. That one has woven metal strings.” When Cooper first entered the Guild, Master Loril had given him that pouch to help protect the token that Felis had given him. A token from Felis was a dangerous and valuable item. Birt chuckled as he shifted to Cooper’s other hip and slipped away with his pouch.

  In Miss Camilla’s Apothecary class, Cooper learned of her latest discovery. Once the students were seated and had begun their assignments, Miss Camilla began making her rounds. She paused for a few minutes at Aden’s workstation and they conversed in hushed voices. As she straightened to leave she placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a nod. She paused briefly at the workstations of several other students, giving each a cursory glance as she passed. She stopped at Cooper’s desk and asked, “Have you ever heard of a Cicero pepper?” Cooper didn’t even have to think about it. “No, miss.”, he replied. She smiled, “I’m not surprised. It’s a fairly mild pepper, but it has some particular qualities. It only grows in Caldori, from what I understand. In all honesty, it probably grows in other places but it might not have the same properties growing away from its native soil.” After she had paused longer than conventionally required, Cooper urged her to continue, “Miss, I can only assume you are either preparing to inform me of its properties or you’re planning to leave me in mental anguish.” Miss Camilla stifled a chuckle, “Of course, but I had assumed that you’d just make the connection that this was the primary element that has been blended with the Talgrit root to make the poison I’ve been researching. The most common usage for the Cicero pepper is quite amusing, however. Among its short list of peculiar qualities, it causes excessive salivation. Caldori nobles will sometimes add it to a dish to be served to a visitor that they are obligated to host but with whom they have no desire to converse. In the same way that it stimulates salivation, it also stimulates absorption. When ingested, it makes for an interesting combination of effects. Mercifully, as I mentioned before, it is a mild pepper.” Cooper pondered that for a moment before he replied, “If that’s the case, then chopping and blending a Cicero pepper with one of those torturously hot peppers from Lukasi could choke someone that was unprepared…?” Miss Camilla wrinkled her nose and then awarded him with a smile, “You know, I didn’t always like you, but I confess that you’re starting to grow on me.”

  In Combat class, Mister Skran had begun to push them almost to the point of injuring each other. This was in direct contradiction to how he’d started them out with dual hand sparring. Initially, he expressed that his primary concern was to minimize their chance of harming one another, but now their instructor continued to press them to increase their speed. Mister Skran made several partner changes during the course of the class. He was now matching them up according to speed rather than actual technique. Over the last few days Rukle had been paired with Habbon and Cooper had been partnered with Aden, which helped him focus on making his technique more precise. Now Mister Skran had paired him back with Kolrem. Kolrem hadn’t been paired with anyone since he’d Manifested. He was capable of bursts of incredible speed but could not maintain them for more than a few seconds at a time. Cooper felt certain that he’d been paired with Kolrem in order to encourage the larger boy to increase his focus. As a result. Kolrem was caught between losing concentration and brief blasts of speed that he couldn’t yet control. Cooper had to remain cautious, he was free to attack but always needed to limit how much to commit since Kolrem’s counterattack could be augmented by his Talent. Cooper also had to divide his concentration while sparring, to assure that he consciously avoided his desire to Channel. Class ended with both boys earning a few minor bumps and bruises. Kolrem’s control was improving and once he managed complete control of his Talent, Cooper wondered what would be in store for him.

  Immediately following dinner Cooper went straight back to his bed for a nap. With an active day starting early and Master Brais’ Stealth and Movement class going far into the night, sometimes to the pre-dawn hours; the pace was starting to have an effect on him. A few hours of sleep should put him right.

  About an hour later, Cooper felt movement on his bed. He opened his eyes and saw Treanna smiling at him. Cooper wiped sleep from his eyes as he asked, “Hiya Trea. What’s going on?” She put on a mock pouty face, “You’re out every night now. You don’t have any time for me.” She tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t and ended up smiling at him. Cooper squinted at her, “What time is it?” She replied, “A little after seven, I think.” He sat up and turned to hang his legs over the side of his bed. “I suppose I’d just as well get up then. I need to be in class at eight. Did you want to talk about anything in particular?” She nodded, “Well, it seems to me that you’ve got a solid persona from Temidan, but that won’t get you everywhere. You need another one from somewhere else. I’ve missed working with you, but if you don’t have time to work on it now, it can ce
rtainly wait.” He thought about it. He would’ve preferred to sleep another thirty minutes, but it was difficult to be irritated with Trea. She had a valid point, but he wouldn’t need working personas for a couple years. It was still a good idea to develop them soon so he could become comfortable ‘wearing’ them. He figured that she’d already given it some thought and had come up with an idea, otherwise she wouldn’t have awakened him. He turned his head to look at her, “So. Who do you plan for me to be?” She shrugged as she replied, “Who said I had any ideas?” The smug look on her face betrayed her words, however. He raised an eyebrow as he spoke, “Do you mean to tell me that you woke me just to tell me that I needed another persona? You’ve put no further thought into this?”. She gave him a playful nudge, “Of course I have! You should be a sellsword from Kalistos!” She paused to give him a moment to think about it but continued before he had a chance to reply. “This way you’ve got a Temidan silver merchant for traveling and for some society functions but you can use a sellsword to round you out and grant you access almost anywhere. You hear of them going everywhere looking for employment. You just have to be good enough to walk the talk.” As she said this last, she gave him a wink. Cooper rolled his shoulders to loosen up his neck and to help wake himself up. “Ok. A sellsword from Kalistos. We have the same customs and views, and they share a border with us here in Rhychevel. I need to be anonymous but still have a plausible, impressive, yet ambiguous background.” Trea gave him a knowing smile, “I’m way ahead of you. We still need to research a suitable name but there have been several Kalistan merchant vessels that have been attacked by pirates and Lukasi raider ships. Merchants from Kalistos typically hire local mercenaries to ride along to protect any of their ocean-going cargo. This is typically a high-risk but high-paying duty. Merchants seldom hire what would be considered an imposing force, but hopefully enough to discourage an attack. There are several stories of pirates being forced to withdraw but the majority of pirate attacks end up with most of the crew dead and pirates sailing away with the loot. We just need to build a persona based on a sellsword who has been part of a crew that has successfully fought off a few of these attacks. A fighter like that should be able to get hired by any family that can afford him.” Cooper was nodding, “All this makes sense but in order to make it believable I’ll need details. I’ll need to find records of some recent attacks when the pirates got forced back, the names of the merchants that would’ve hired me and the type of ships and cargo. I think the rest of it could be fictional, but those facts would be essential. Any employer would certainly ask for that information before hiring me.” Treanna was still smiling, “I have a few documents here. They are copies of shipping manifests for some vessels that survived pirate attacks. These are what gave me this idea. All that information you specified appears on a shipping manifest. We just need to find a few that we can use, and if we don’t have enough here, then we’ll just need to acquire a few more.” Cooper nodded as Trea continued to speak, “Of course, you’ll need to learn to use a sword in the meantime.” She punched him lightly in the arm as she added, “Blunt daggers aren’t likely to scare pirates away or impress prospective employers.” She chuckled as Cooper rolled his eyes while replying “I’ll be sure to take the matter up with Mister Skran. He’ll surely adjust his curriculum in order to cater to your plans.” They shared a chuckle and Cooper spoke again, “Anyway, it’s a good idea, Trea. I’ll need to build a personality for him, but right now I need to get ready for my next class.”

  Cooper met Rukle on the way to the Arena. They said little as they made the ascent to the roof of the Guild to meet Evan. Once they were there, Evan told them that he wanted them to work on some rooftop movement but they still had instructions to patrol Batter’s Field. They’d move along the tops of the buildings until they reached the river, then they’d drop down to ground level to cross it. Evan set the pace and they moved very quickly. They made a little noise but if anyone inside the buildings heard anything they did not call out as they passed.

  Once in Batter’s Field they resumed their nightly patrols. By this time, each of them had become comfortable moving through the darkness. Four hours of patrolling revealed nothing they hadn’t seen before except on a couple of occasions Cooper was pretty sure he’d spotted a classmate studying under another Master that was also out on patrol. The three boys met back up and compared notes. Cooper told Evan of his sighting of a couple of his classmates. Evan just nodded as he replied, “We might expect to hear from Master Brais tonight or tomorrow, or I will at least. One of the other Masters that was leading a patrol spotted me and gave me a quick wave. I wouldn’t have seen him except that he made himself seen. He shouldn’t have seen me, and that’s the problem. He caught me at a moment when I was concerned with concealing myself from the person that I was following, and had neglected to make sure I was concealed from all directions. This is the kind of error that Master Brais does not ignore. It was my mistake. I won’t share the blame.” Evan took a deep breath and sighed, “Alright. Another hour of patrolling and then we’ll meet up at the river’s edge and then we’ll go back together by the rooftops.” Cooper had been focusing most of his attention to the north side of Batter’s Field, near where a House Father had recently died from poisoning. He wasn’t sure he could get there and back within an hour, so he moved over to the edge of the neighborhood near the Waterfront. He witnessed nothing out of the ordinary for the next forty minutes and decided to make his way to the edge of the river to meet with Evan and Rukle. This time when they met up, Rukle reported that he’d seen a few of their peers gathered in one spot but hadn’t approached close enough to see why. Evan said that he would speak with Master Hefli during breakfast, or after, and see what he might learn explaining that, “Master Hefli is leading the students that we’ve been seeing. Let us return. Follow me and keep up.”

  Chapter 6

  The preparations that Garoth needed to make were simple and he had fulfilled his requirements well in advance of his projected timeline. By the time he’d gathered what he needed it was still several hours before dinner. There was little else to be done so he went to the Training Room. Mister Skran was instructing a class of first and second year students. It looked like he had recently introduced them to dual handed practice. Garoth had intended to make some use of a training dummy but knew that he would simply be a distractor in the classroom. He’d come back after dinner to loosen up and then sleep for a few hours before breaking into the Baron’s property and concealing himself within. He planned to depart the Guildhouse after midnight and be inside the Baron’s home before three a.m. There was no use in arriving too early. It would only extend the length of time he’d need to remain unseen.

  Hours later, everything had gone exactly as he’d planned. Garoth, or Slim now that he was on the job, had hoisted himself up to the hooks that held the heavy, woven curtains in the Baron’s study. The hooks were robust enough to hold ship’s rigging, and he suspected they might even be the same type of hooks. He made sure he was well concealed and then secured himself to one of them and resigned himself to a long wait. Fortunately, the Baron took some meetings in his study so Slim didn’t have to wait until evening for his first opportunity. Around lunchtime the Baron met with one of his visitors. Slim muttered an almost silent curse as they entered through a side door that was not quite directly behind him, but almost. By tucking his chin and turning his head slightly he could see enough to know that the Baron had a guest. The Baron was a barrel chested man with broad shoulders. With his thick, grey hair clipped short and his proud, defined features, he looked truly impressive while seated at his desk. Slim couldn’t help but notice that when he stood up, he was much less so. The Baron’s girth did not include his legs. To say that the man had ‘chicken legs’ would be unfair, and inaccurate, but only slightly so. The Baron’s guest was turned in such a way that Slim couldn’t see him fully. He could get the impression that he was a man of medium build, dark hair and tapered sideburns ending in a
line of beard that followed his jaw. He could see enough to observe that the man’s complexion made him look a little sickly, but he moved with a certain grace. He couldn’t see enough of his face enough to identify his features. The Baron sat at his desk, which put his back to Slim. The baron’s guest had crossed the small room to examine a few of the books on the shelves.