by Eric Angers
“My Lord Klensbane, I hardly know you!” she exclaimed dramatically. “Seriously, Vastian, there is so much about you I don’t know or understand. A start would be getting an actual opinion out of you.”
She was right, there was so much more to him than she knew or could know. He played it off. “What? My opinion on the Watch is that I have no opinion. I think that’s perfectly valid, and that is my opinion, who are you to say it’s wrong?”
A storm cloud brewed in her eyes, passing quickly as she said, “This isn’t over, my Lord. I shall race you back to my bedchamber where we can argue further.”
This was not uncommon in their interactions together. And the thing he loved most about her, was that he did not always win. As he stood there staring after her, he realized he would not win this time either if he did not get moving.
Vastian victoriously threw open the door to the Seer and Howl, a tough looking tavern with tough looking customers. Some looked to see who entered, the rest had looked as well but were better at hiding it, and all of them tended their own business when they saw who it was. Normally a noble of Vastian’s stature would not set foot in a place like the Seer, but Vastian was not exactly noble. He joined his friend Jaerr who sat waiting with a mug of ale and a glass of wine at a table.
“It’s about time you show up, dammit,” he said, then leaned in. “Do you have any idea what they were going to do to you if you didn’t finish this job?”
Vastian sipped on his glass of wine, not holding back the smile that had taken grip of his face for half the day. “I understand Jaerr. I really think this may be the one, I could give up the life for her, you know?”
Jaerr sat back in his chair, eyes widening. “No, I don’t know! You’re gonna get us both killed you keep talking like that. What could be so different from every other whore on the street that you’d risk everything? No, don’t answer that. You’ve made up your mind, I can see that. So when are you gonna tell her, you know, the truth?”
“The truth? Never. I can’t tell her everything, she’d leave me for sure, Jaerr. What Lady in the high court of Phelan could be..” he leaned in and whispered, “could be with the bloody scourge of nobility?”
Jaerr downed the rest of his mug of ale before replying. “Vas, you can’t just drop everything to be with this woman and her not know what you do or did. If you don’t tell her, she’d be in danger, you never know when your past would creep back up on you.”
His oldest friend, not that Vastian had ever had many, was right. If he was to be with her, she had to know him, or she would not love him, but this persona he invented. And if he did not tell her, she would be in danger from his past lives, perhaps the guild itself. A thought occurred to him, “Dammit Jaerr, you know if I tell her, she’s just as vulnerable, maybe more so! You know the rules.”
Jaerr stood and dropped a few silvers on the table to pay for their drinks. He left Vastian with a final thought before walking out. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, my friend, but do us a favor and finish that damn job before you bring me down into this shit with you.”
He could not allow himself to risk her safety. Should he tell her, she may leave him, but in any case should someone find out, both of their lives would be forfeit. If he did not tell her, and something from this life came back to haunt him for whatever reason, she could get hurt or killed. The only way he could see now, thanks to his friend, was to break it off with her and disappear. He would deny contracts to Phelandir in the future so he would not have to get too close to her again.
He had two stops to make. Leaving the tavern, he found the coded note in a bookbinding in his study, then he found himself standing outside Valrissa’s window as night fell around him. Finally, he climbed up and tapped on the glass. She let him in.
“You never knock,” she said, confused.
He remained silent for a long time remaining still, not daring to step too far into her room or too close to her. “I was thinking about today,” he began. “You’re right, there are things you do not know about me still.”
“Is that what this is about? Don’t worry, Vastian, I don’t have to know everything, I was teasing you. You can have your secrets,” she tried to assure him, but his mind was made up.
“I’m sorry. I am afraid we cannot be together.” Without waiting for her protests, he leapt from the window and ran off into the night.
He had a job to do, he reminded himself, steeling his emotions once again. It was something he had neglected to do for so long. He had left himself vulnerable, weak, and it affected his performance. Reading the coded message, he moved on, silent and invisible in the night, the tears evaporating away leaving him cold.
The job had taken all night, and somewhere along the way, as his steel flashed and men fell, the lone hunter felt that emptiness, the void that had disappeared for a few short years. It returned and he knew that he was wrong and that there had to be another way. It would be easier than he had thought earlier that day. He was the best, if they came for him, he would make them pay. They would pay so dearly that it would no longer be worth it to find him. He would finish this job, tell Jaerr that he was done and to let the guild know and then he would go to her. He would tell her of his mistake and tell her of his life up to now. It was the hardest and easiest decision he ever had to make in his life, but now that he had, he was glad he decided to jump.
He felt as if in a free fall from the top of that cliff as he returned from his very last job. His knives were hidden beneath his cloak and he walked confidently down the main streets, something he never did while on contract. It was a regular looking building nestled between a flower shop and a bakery, the safe-house that he and Jaerr shared on occasion. Jaerr was already waiting outside and when he saw Vastian coming, he ran to him.
“Vastian, it’s.. she must have been out alone.. some thugs.. I’m sorry..”
“Is she alright!?” he demanded.
“I.. I fear the worst.”
Vastian’s lip quivered involuntarily, his eyes, already bloodshot from staying up all night, began to water. “Wha..” He had no words, he staggered back.
“When I heard, I did some digging, I found the crew responsible,” his friend was saying, but Vastian did not hear him.
Vastian would not believe it, he set off at a sprint. The street just two blocks from her home was crawling with marshalls, so he stood there unable to approach, but he could see her lying still and silent on the cobbles, a single stab wound in her side. The bastards hit a damned artery near the kidneys. Looking at the ground around her, bloody coins littered the area, left behind in their rush to get away after she put up a fight or called for help. They had stabbed her to get at her purse, it dropped, they retrieved what they could and ran. The marshals would piece that together in a day or so and by then the trail would be cold. Her perfect form lay still and cold, the world around seemed silent and gray. He stared after her for awhile, watching the wind catch her hair and dance with it as they had when they met.
Wordless, his friend Norgaard listened in the dark, and when Vastian could speak no more, he lay back down, unable to cry, unable to sleep. He lay there, wrestling with the thought of telling Norgaard the rest of the truth, the very thing he had feared to tell her.
Chapter XV.
Vastian
He had been over it again and again in his mind, knowing the man needed to be told, but not knowing precisely when or how, or if he could handle it. He could not know what his friend would do or say, so he had to be careful in his wording. This time he refused to keep the person closest to him in the dark. It had been days since Vastian confessed his humanity to his student in the middle of the night and neither of them brought it up. They just kept to their routine of master and apprentice, Norgaard practicing daily and nightly and Vastian keeping him busy, however, he no longer did so while intoxicated. Wine was no longer a help to him.
It was late on a cold, windless night, and Norgaard was out practicing stealth techniques, snea
king around guards, stealing harmless objects and moving them about. Talk around the city was of ghosts in the night, perhaps Dorlanis’ curse returned.
Tonight Vastian would tell him, lay his options out on the table and hope he would stay with him to continue his education. The door to the safehouse swung open and snow trailed in behind Norgaard, mixing with the dust stirred up into the air. He was laughing and holding his arms spread out in front of him in a grand gesture.
“You should have seen it, Master, the guards from the North to the South walls were sure the ghosts of the nine rose to torment them,” Norgaard said, closing the door. He turned back to his master, the legendary master thief, there he saw the look on his face remained serious. “What is it, has something happened?”
Vastian tried to soften his worried expression and failed but assured his apprentice he had done nothing wrong. “No, but we have to talk. There is more that you need to know about me, before we go on. It is something no one else knows, outside of one or two others.” Vastian sat and motioned for Norgaard to do the same. He did so and remained silent.
“The skill set you have learned, and are practicing can be used for many purposes.” Vastian began, and continued without his traditional grandiose gesturing. Instead he was very calm and very serious. “It is of use to armies as a scout, to artifact hunters, among other perfectly legal enterprises. In the underground you will be highly valued in the Guild or to yourself if you choose to work without them. But there is another use, one you need to know about.” He paused gauging the boys reaction, and he saw that he understood and the lines of his forehead told him he might even be piecing together where this was going.
“I left the Guild some years ago. I was on the council and I had accomplished many of the most intricate burglaries in history, with and without a team.” A smile touched his lips at the memory, but he knew he was looking back on those days through a rose tinted window. “I’m not entirely what you think I am, Nor. I’m a lot more. And that more is something you need to consider, because the Guild and I have not seen eye to eye in a long time. I was an assassin. I once belonged to the Brotherhood of Dead Men, an alternate guild for people who share our skill set and have no qualms about killing. I have no qualms about killing.”
Norgaard stood, backing away and holding his hands out distancing himself from Vastian. “Oh no no no, you wouldn’t even allow me to practice with blades,” Norgaard responded, incredulous.
“That is because I was teaching you according to the Guild of Thieves, and they do not shed blood except under extreme circumstances. I still believe in that for them, just not for me. It is entirely possible to shed no blood and accomplish the job, and a thief must always be able to think on his feet, solving the puzzles before him. But for me, and the Dead Men, we go into a job knowing we will kill and why. Of course, because I tend to stick to my old habits and steal while I’m on a job, the Guild disapproves, but they are unable to do much about it.”
Norgaard silently studied his master and Vastian could not read his feelings. He had known he could alienate the man with this news. Finding out your mentor was a bloodthirsty killer could not be easy. Equally as dangerous, his apprentice might wish to become an assassin, with or without Vastian’s help, and he was not prepared to give it, not yet. His only hope now, was that he would remain on his current path and learn the ways of the Guild, ways that would serve him well whichever way he may choose to go in the future.
“Norgaard, I tell you this not to recruit you and not to end our arrangement. I tell you this so that you may know the truth about me, because the truth you have earned. I will not tell you to join the Guild, and I will not tell you to join the Dead Men, I can’t decide that for you. I am telling you, the best path is to learn how to be a great thief and make your own decisions about who you want to work for or not work for. You can make the decision when you are ready, and when you are ready you shouldn’t need me anymore. I will be teaching you the blades in the coming months, not to groom you to kill, but to give you some defense, keep that in mind, but when you are done, you will be deadly. So.. anything to say?”
His apprentice stopped studying him then and looked around. “I think I need a drink. Don’t you have any more wine?” Vastian howled with laughter then, realizing he had nothing left in the cellar. “No, no I suppose I don’t. I drank it all while you were away.”
“Well I think I’m beginning to see why,” Norgaard winked and let his grin overcome his face before he burst into laughter as well. They laughed together for an obscenely long time considering the joke, but it felt good for both of them. It wasn’t often the two were able to put aside the serious master apprentice relationship and laugh as friends. It was not as if either of them had any other friends in the area, in fact that was the whole reason Vastian came to the Northlands.
“Norgaard,” Vastian said after a time, between breaths, “I want you to pack your things, or leave them here, it doesn’t matter, but pack some gear. I’ve decided we are going to take the rest of your training somewhere warmer, and more populated. It should make your other practice a lot more interesting.”
The young man caught his breath enough to ask, “so where are we going?”
“Phelandir, my boy, we’re going to live like kings,” Vastian said, “but I do have one question: How the hell did you get that bloody painting out of the manor?”
Norgaard smirked and shook his head silently before breaking into laughter and Vastian joined him.
Chapter XVI.
Vastian
There was not much for Norgaard to pack; he owned what he wore and not much beyond that. All of the goods they had stolen over the last four months had either been fenced or stored in hidden basements beneath his master’s safe houses, some of which he still did not know the location of. With just a pack containing his journal, pen, an extra set of underclothes and some foodstuffs, Norgaard had gone to the docks on the West end of Asunder.
The arrow that his master had leveled at him the night before and fired had pierced Norgaard deep. As was often his reaction, he had resorted to a joke and laughter to give him time to let the information sink in. He did not know how he should react. Certainly he could not be hurt as if he had thought he knew who this person was. He had never known. In the process of getting to know this man, this was just one more thing he learned as they grew to be friends. It was a surprise, sure, to learn someone close to you had killed many men with his own hand and went about his day as if he had merely baked a cake. And women too, he could not avoid that fact. But just what did that change from then to now? The man, Vastian, was the same before Norgaard knew as after. All that changed was that he knew this thing. The question was, could Norgaard abide this? He was not sure.
Ships of all sizes moved about the harbor, bringing in goods from the south and shipping out with loads of lumber and furs. A large, expensive looking Carrack bobbed with the waves, tied to a pier, his master standing beside it shouting orders to the men aboard. The thing was garish, painted crimson and gold, with brightly dyed blue sailcloth. From a distance it even seemed that the gold trim around the rails and windows actually was gold, and on closer inspection, it proved true. It was a beautiful, if ostentatious vessel and passage on it likely cost them all of the money from the valuables they had fenced.
He strolled up next to his master. “Nice ship,” he said.
“Thanks, I didn’t even steal it.” Vastian replied.
“What’s this? Vastian Klensbane, master thief had to purchase passage like a regular person?”
Vastian looked back at his apprentice, a little hurt, “no, it’s mine. I bought the Windrake. Rather, I commissioned the build. Cost me a damn fortune, or at least someone’s fortune.”
“I should have guessed.” Norgaard said, and boarded when Vastian ushered him forward.
Norgaard made his way to the bow and away from the bustling activity of sailors making the ship ready. He ran his fingers over the banister, mahogany, smoothed
to a polish then painted. Thief, assassin, teacher, drunk, noble. So many masks to wear, he could not be defined by any single one, and Norgaard found it difficult to judge him for just one flaw, if it even was a flaw. It seemed he had justification for those he killed, and while he could not give details, he had assured Norgaard that the Brotherhood’s end goals were noble and each kill justified, every man or woman deserving. Whether Norgaard believed it did not matter, because Vastian believed it. Violence was not Norgaard’s answer; violence had been forced on him, sure, and he learned to deal with it, but it was not his first resort. He preferred words to weapons, and yet he had not run away when his closest companion had told him that he was a cold blooded murderer. What does that say about me?
The ship had pulled away from the dock and they turned it round to face the Gale Cliffs, the high natural walls that surrounded the mouth of Bryggia Hallmar. The cliffs extended into the bay forming a narrow channel that ships must pass through to get to Asunder. Their height and proximity to the city meant that even if an enemy managed to slip through, they would be under fire from the cliffs and the city. Vastian appeared beside him without a sound and they stood together staring up at the two hundred foot granite walls, stone battlements atop them protecting the catapults, ballista and archers. Norgaard found himself surprised that even someone like Vastian, who had traveled the world, seen it all, stood motionless, awestruck at the beauty and power that nature provoked.