The Shadow's Ward

by Eric Angers

  “Valrissa, this is an old friend, Jaerr,” Vastian said by way of introduction. “And Jaerr, this is the lady Synnove.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, my lady.”

  “Of course.”

  “Vastian, you should come by my place to catch up, you’ve forgotten a letter there that belongs to you,” Jaerr reminded him. “But I’ll be on my way.” He bowed to Val and ducked into the tavern.

  It wasn’t what Vastian wanted at that moment, his partner reminding him of his secret life and of the jobs he left unfinished. Or maybe his life with Val was his secret life. He would have to talk to him, though, Jaerr needed to know that he wanted to get out of the life. Val needed to know.

  Vastian found himself atop a watchtower in Asunder looking out over the city at a sprawling manor that was to be one of his ex-student’s targets. It seemed to be a difficult task that Norgaard had attempted more than once already, failing each time without getting caught, but it would have been easy if the boy would just remember his training. He observed the manor’s operation for a while when a sound caught his attention and he whirled around.

  Chapter XIII.

  Norgaard

  The job was to get into a safe, which was right up Norgaard’s alley, but getting to the safe was the real test. The manor was too well-guarded! He had tried several times to just get in but the safe room itself had only one entrance which was well lit and always had two men in the room, on opposite sides. It was unassailable without killing one or the other or both and he was not a killer. Neither did the guild want him to use violence. His failures had only hurt him, doubling the guard, and there was precious little time before the item was moved. His hopelessness had led him to back off and get a new perspective. There was an Asunder city guard tower nearby that would allow him to get a bird’s eye view and maybe see something that he missed.

  Sneaking passed the singular guard along the wall was nothing but when he reached the top he realized there was someone else there. Another guard? Unlikely. They did not normally ascend the towers unless there was something going on, and he’d already seen the man who would use this tower. Perhaps it was someone from the guild looking over the mark in case Norgaard failed. He decided to find out, no one he had seen in the guild could spot him when he was trying. Suddenly, the body spun and looked directly at him, blades in hand. It was Vastian.

  “What are you doing here?” was all he could think to say.

  “I guess I was looking in on the job,” he said, replacing the daggers on his belt.

  “I wouldn’t be having so much trouble on this one if you would have taught me to knock people out, but you never knew any of that to begin with.”

  His former master rounded on him, eyes burning, jaw clenched, incensed. “You’re the one who left! You gave up your training for greed. You couldn’t see that the path to what you wanted was through what you learned and now here I am, cleaning up your mess on a job you can’t complete.”

  “You’re out of your mind you buffoon. Have you been following me? Is that it? If you have then you’re better than I thought, but I still say you’re a crackpot swindler just trying to use my skill to earn your next meal.”

  Vastian burst out laughing, hardly able to contain himself to respond. “Is that what you think? That’s really it? You really didn’t believe me. Well I will tell you something, boy, every penny you earned I kept..”

  “I knew it!”

  “..locked away in a safe to give to you when I could no longer teach you.”

  Norgaard stared incredulously. “You lie.”

  “I still have it. I have homes in every major city, estates in every country, and safehouses just about anywhere you can imagine. I have my own army, navy, and spy network, I have more gold than I know what to do with or care to count, I was once on the council of thieves and at one time next in line for the brother’s mantle. I don’t have need of your skills, boy; I don’t have need of the petty trinkets you brought in on training that I could have done in my sleep. I was giving you a gift and you failed to realize it.”

  Norgaard stood there, unable to speak for a moment, until finally, “you are him, then. You’re the Shade, master thief, the greatest thief of all time. You’re the bloody legend..”

  “I am, urchin, now begone from my sight. You have proven my faith in you was misplaced.” Vastian turned his back to Norgaard, folding his arms.

  Norgaard turned to go, to leave Shade to finish the job the thieves guild had given to him but he was unable to finish. His failure, and all because he abandoned his master. His master, the legendary Shade who apparently had faith in him.

  “You had faith in me?” he asked.

  “I did, once. I have had students before, but you were to be my successor. You were to tell my story, that I may be remembered as Vastian, not Shade, when I am gone.”

  “If you had that much faith in me,” Norgaard turned around to face Vastian who had turned around himself, “why did you continue to put me through trials and drills on the most basic skills? I wanted to learn, to go on a real job!”

  “Because you were not ready. Each of those skills is necessary to accomplish any job. Pickpocketing coin practices your nimble fingers that you may lift a key from a guard to get into a locked safe room. The simple act of crossing from one end of the city to the other, unseen, while trivial to you, keeps your senses attuned and your step light, you must always be stealthy. Picking the locks of random homes and gates keeps your mind sharp and ready for anything. The three basic skills, stealth, lockpicking, and pickpocketing, honed to perfection and kept that way, will see you through almost any situation. You have to remember, there is always someone better. But it is up to you how many there are.”

  Norgaard knew he was right. He had been using everything he had learned on Torsten’s fetch list. “It sounds like you still have more to teach me, master.”

  “Indeed. Now go complete your job. No student of mine will let the guild down.”

  “I can’t, there’s a guard outside the safe, and you forbid me to practice with knives.”

  “Only part of that is true. I did forbid you to practice with blades, but only because there is always another way. You can avoid fighting if you think it through. Once you resort to killing, it is a path you can not come back from, and it is not the way of the thieves guild. However, you can finish this job. I have taught you to be faster, stealthier, and smarter. Use what you have learned.” With that, Vastian leapt from the bell tower, seemingly to his death, but not 10 feet down he caught a thick rope anchored into the stone and slid down to a nearby rooftop.

  Norgaard was left to study the compound he intended to enter for the second time in as many nights. The last person he expected to see was his old master sitting in the same tower, studying the same compound, ready to move and finish the very job he himself failed to accomplish. He watched the guard patrols again; he’d had no trouble bypassing them the previous night, but he was looking for any changes in their behavior.

  The compound was the home of the 7th Earl of whatever and he was protecting something. Something that the guild knew was here in the compound and would only be here a short amount of time. Norgaard had no idea what exactly it was, but he knew he was looking for some document or other, something important, something the Earl was making sure no one could get to by doubling his guard and keeping one outside his safe room door. Same basic guard patrols, same problem of getting through a locked safe with a guard standing on top of it. What do I know? He knew he was the best lockpick in the Northlands, possibly this side of the spine, so he wouldn’t need much time on the door. In and out. He just needed the guard out of the way. Knock him out. No, too risky. He scanned the compound again. Outer wall, semi permanent wooden wall with a catwalk for guards and crossbowmen. A courtyard with stables for visitors and around the back shacks for the servants. Inner wall, again wooden with a catwalk. Inside there were gardens and around back, guest houses and his own forge, likely for repairs, tools,
and horseshoes. Nothing useful.

  Norgaard looked it over again, this time for more minor details that he might have missed. The stable, there were horses within. Visitors. The guest houses would be occupied. All he needed was a little misdirection.

  Vastian stood by and watched Norgaard go to work; the boy had promise and he intended to bring it out of him. His student stalked silently to the compounds outer wall, near the stables and stood in the shadows, seeming to hesitate, but Vastian knew he would be counting. The guard atop the wall passed and took 10 steps away from where Norgaard was hiding and then he climbed carefully up the wall and slipped over, on to the stable roof, then slid down the side. Vastian could not see what he was doing there, but he trusted Norgaard knew what he was doing. Minutes passed and then he spotted his student skulking about near the forge. Soon after, he caught a glimpse of him scaling the wall to the main structure and in through a window. He heard a crash and the whinnying of horses from the stable. Four of the beasts ran loose into the courtyard wildly, the guards in the area rushing to get control. Soon after Vastian could see the smoke coming from the guest houses; the smithy caught fire and spread to the houses and inner compound wall. It would be out of control in just minutes. Guards rushed to fight the blaze and sounded the alarm for fire to summon more help. Every able bodied man and woman was being called to aid them, the last of which was a single guard coming out of the second story of the main structure.

  The Earl made his way out after a time and took in the situation, he pulled one of his men aside and said something. The man spoke quickly and confidently, he must have been the captain. Then the Earl shouted and even Vastian could hear him. “You fools! They’re here! They’re after my safe!”

  It would be too late, Vastian knew. Norgaard was already gone.

  Norgaard’s master waited for him in the moonlit safe house, sitting in the corner on an old wooden stool that creaked when he shifted. “I knew you could do it.”

  “So is it over? Am I on my own now?” Norgaard asked.

  Vastian placed rested his fingers on his chin and thought about it. He let loose a defeated sigh and began to let his apprentice in on the truth. “I thought to keep you in the dark awhile longer, but it’s no use now, I think you’ve earned some truth before we continue your training.’

  The older man stood and began pacing about the room, gesturing extravagantly with his hands where his tale called for it. “My name is Honnor Wishblade. At least it is to the folks of Adahar. Down south in Kador I go by another name, but in Phelan I go by my real name Vastian Klensbane. I am an old drunk here, and out east I am a minor foreign lord with lands there. In Kador I am an adventurer! And in Phelandir I am a noble in the royal court. But in all of these places, I am a member of the Guild.”

  Norgaard sat, listening intently, but a thought occurred to him. “You said you were Shade.”

  “Aye, yes I did. Now, I suppose that was a lie. I am not Shade. That is to say, no one is Shade. He or she does not exist. There is no single master thief who has perpetrated all of the greatest jobs. Although if you look at the history, I do have claim to the majority of them. I know many of the thieves who committed the acts, and I am one who committed many of them. But, sadly, I cannot claim to be Shade, not and be truthful to myself.” Vastian’s shoulders slumped slightly here, but he continued. “That is why I sought out an apprentice, someone who could learn what I know, someone who could surpass me. My legacy cannot die with me, it must live on, in you. And I’m not done teaching you, boy. You’ve much to learn, including patience, especially with your Master. You have to understand, I’m not an old drunk, but at the moment, I’m playing at being an old drunk because it’s too hard to stay in one false life for too long. Nobles will bore you, even adventuring gets boring. Sometimes you just need to drink and be merry!”

  That was it, it was the truth. It was all Norgaard was looking for and this time he actually believed it.

  Chapter XIV.

  Vastian

  It was not the truth. But the truth was perhaps too much to lay on Norgaard all at once. Perhaps when things calmed down a bit. His student was back, and in some ways, they understood each other better, if not fully. But some truth was just what he needed to bring himself out from the bottom of the bottle.

  Vastian roamed the streets with his hood down, but with his head up, and maybe even a little pride in his heart. Bouncing from drop site to drop site he was finding very little in the way of communications from his contacts. His thoughts returned to Norgaard, who would be waiting at the safe house for him, and who was hopefully cleaning it up. Vastian would turn over a new leaf, change the way the two of them communicated. No longer master and apprentice, but colleague to colleague, perhaps even friends. His young friend had indeed proven himself, and it was up to Vastian to show him all the little things that would make him great. He let himself start to smile, pleased that they had not severed their relationship completely. His hand had found its way into a pocket where he was idly fingering a rough folded parchment. The note Jaerr had sent him. The message that drove Vastian back into despair and caused the rift with Norgaard when the note was first delivered. It could not be ignored any longer, but first he needed a drink.

  He awoke in a cold sweat, breathing heavily, the eyes of his student studying him through the darkness. He rolled over, then stopped, smelling his own vomit that he left behind not long ago. Rolling the other way, he had no choice but to face Norgaard. He was sitting in the worn down old chair, hands clasped together, staring intently. After awhile, he spoke.

  “You were tossing for almost an hour. Then you spilled your guts there and woke up a few minutes later. I thought you were just playing at this, doing it for a change of scenery and company?”

  Vastian sat up and away from the mess. “It’s a nightmare I keep having.” And when his friend said nothing, “maybe I should explain.”

  There, sitting in a musty pile of hay that was his bed, smelling of wine and vomit, Vastian delved deep into his past and exposed a piece of himself to the only one left he could call his friend.

  It had been years since he had first met her in that ballroom where they danced and she dared him to be either more rich or more interesting than her date. Vastian had chosen to be both and from then on he had visited her often, going out of his way to be in Phelandir more than usual. There was not much that he could say to her, she being an actual noble in the court of Phelan, not an imposter and infamous thief like himself, but he felt different when he was with her. Valrissa Synnove was slowly taming the beast.

  They were spending an increasingly large amount of time together recently, and Vastian had several jobs piling up, even one in the capital itself, yet it sat untouched in the study of his ill-gotten manor. His friend and partner, Jaerr, was growing frustrated, understandably, with Vastian shirking his responsibilities to the guild. They could wait or find someone else, he thought. He had half a mind to leave that life behind anyway, and start a new one with Val. It was a thought constantly running through his head these days, right beside the one telling him he was making a mistake, throwing away all that work and risking exposure. It could all fall apart too quickly, he realized, and yet it was still in serious consideration.

  He went to her one morning, climbed the wall to her second story window and let himself in to join her in her bedchamber before the sun rose. He did enjoy beginning his day with a workout. After, he snuck out and approached the normal way, calling on her like a gentleman.

  The two of them walked arm in arm down to the docks and watched as a Navy ship returned bearing its men home from their month long patrol at sea. “Do you ever wonder why we keep the watch?” she had asked while they leaned on a short stone wall overlooking the ocean.

  “No, never,” he had said smartly, receiving an elbow to the ribs.

  “Honestly Vastian, why do we send young boys out to sea for months at a time. Think of the cost. Why I imagine we could halve the patrols for the Watch and not
miss a thing.”

  “I don’t think about it Val. It was someone else’s war, and someone else’s decision, and someone else is upholding it. As long as I don’t have to go out there, I don’t see what there is to talk about.”

  “I could have that arranged,” she said, hitting him again. “You really should think of such things on occasion. You are a member of the court, your opinions can change this country, the world.”

  “I don’t know. Kings change the world, what is one man compared to a King?” he said, rubbing the sore spot on his side. “Besides, I have my hands full thinking of you. Just what are we doing, Lady Synnove?”

  It might have been the first time Vastian had sought a definitive answer as to their status and if there was perhaps a hint at the future. The Lady would not be broken so quickly, he knew, but with time he might even ask her the unthinkable.