by Eric Angers
“You don’t understand yet, do you, negotiator? I am not looking for a contract. I am an assassin, and I need to speak to one of our contractors. If you do not comply I will force compliance.”
Before his very eyes, the white robes of the negotiator turned black like the void and the glow of two red eyes emanated from within the cowl. So Vastian lunged and tackled the thing to the ground, only mildly afraid it might not be a creature of this world. It shrieked something sick and wordless, it even sounded fearful, not defensive or aggressive. He tore the cowl from its face and placed his belt knife on its neck. Hidden underneath was the face of a human child with large frightened eyes, blue as the ocean. His mouth worked uselessly, but his expression showed fear. It was just a boy. Young and malformed, too tall by far, obviously mute and trained by the guild for this simple task. He assessed this quickly and softened slightly.
“Alright. I understand now. I’m not going to hurt you, child,” he said, retracting the knife and releasing the boy. “I do need to find a contractor, so you will lead me to him. I will sign the contract and then I’m going to follow you. That way you cannot get in trouble. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded and stood, awkward joints creaking. Vastian signed a V on the contract and handed it back over. The negotiator’s robes changed to a drab gray and he relaxed into a hunched figure, walking no differently than an old beggar. He would be entirely unremarkable moving about the city. As he left, Vastian followed.
The contractor was a treasurer for the Kingdom of Phelandir, his office set just outside the palace walls in a district made up entirely of city government officials. When the negotiator finally left, Vastian walked in, casually closing the outside door, then silently locking it. The treasurer sat at a desk full of parchments and barely looked up at the intrusion. His office was used often enough that a person entering was not out of the ordinary. But Vastian was on him in an instant.
“Tell me who ordered the kill on Sevirs!” he shouted with as much force as he could muster.
The contractor said nothing but struggled and made a move for his own weapon on his waist. Vastian snapped his arm at the elbow.
Over the screaming Vastian offered a brief explanation. “You’d do well to stop resisting me. I hardly believe the guild puts better trained men in the office than in the field. One of you dropped the kill order for me to kill the best swordsman to ever live, and I want to know where it came from.”
The man feigned surprise, but slowly he began to realize what was happening and his eyes widened in true horror.
“You’re.. one of .. us..” the smaller man struggled over the words. “You’re breaking every rule, they’ll... they’ll find you..”
“Let them.” he said, moving the knife from the man’s throat and down to his belly. “Tell me what I want to know.”
The body beneath him quivered and he relented, “Ok, ok.. I don’t know where it came from,” the blade pressed harder and the words came out in a rush, “.. I’m telling you everything! It was a setup.. meant to send you to your death. I don’t know who or why!” The contractor’s eyes shifted uneasily.
Vastian pondered the explanation for a moment before poking his knife into the contractor’s belly, driving it in the width of a thumb. He cried out in agony and pleaded in a flurry of hasty words. “Shut up. You lied to me, contractor. You know what I wish to know. Whoever told you to lie is not here, and if he were you’d still have more to worry about from me than him. Last chance.”
He let the truth slip from his lips at last. The contract was a fake, meant only to make Vastian think someone was trying to get him and possibly others out of the way. They knew Vastian would never take it, but would instead be suspicious of it. The contractor had fallen in league with this unknown agent and they were to usher in a new era for the guild. Vastian believed the man did not know who the agent was, so he finished his cut, slicing across the abdomen, opening him as easily as a hunter dresses a deer.
“If you’re lucky you’ll die. But if you insist on clinging to life, when you scream for help, hold in your bowels,” Vastian, the assassin, spoke evenly to the dying man as he rose. “I finished the cut because you betrayed the dead men.” There was his strange need to tell his victims why they were dying.
More pressing was who had concocted such a plan. Why would they need Vastian out of the way, and where had he heard it before. Didn’t Jaerr tell him someone had infiltrated the Dead Men? Yes, he had tried to get his help while he was still in Asunder. What did Jaerr know of this plot? There was only one way to find out.
Chapter XX
Norgaard
Norgaard was sure that what he had done and what he was doing was a mistake. His master, Vastian Klensbane, was a trained killer, who indeed had just killed, or near enough. He was kind enough to train Norgaard at no cost and the man’s business was his own, but he just could not snuff out his curiosity. If, indeed, the two had become friends and his friend was in trouble, then it was Norgaard’s duty to get involved. The manor was empty and cold, dark save for the single oil lamp he burned within the open study. He chose the room because it was adjacent to the entryway that Vastian would use, and it was wide open so that when he passed he notice Norgaard waiting. Norgaard sat in a simple birchwood chair at a round reading table near the far wall. The wall was lined with shelves and covered with leather bound tomes of all kinds. They were in no particular order and contained subjects such as history of the various realms, anatomy, physics, botany, ancient myths, works of fiction. If you could think of it, Vastian probably had a book about it, and if he had the book he had already read it. Vastian was fond of saying, “Knowledge is the most powerful weapon.” A quote which he had read in a book. So Norgaard waited there in the dark, trying to decide how he wanted to sit to present the best effect. He just could not figure out what to do with his hands. He settled on fingers interlaced in front of him. Perhaps it was a bit too ominous. Too late.
The door only clicked at Vastian’s entry, something he allowed to happen only as a courtesy, he could just as easily have entered in silence. He stopped as he was about to pass by the study, then turned in to see Norgaard. Oh, right, now he had to actually bring it up!
“I know what you did, master.” Maybe he could have done that better.
“Oh?” Vastian said, stopping in his tracks and turning to Norgaard.
“He died.” Norgaard looked away as he spoke, as if that would take the image from his mind. The poor fool tried to stand and scream for help, his insides drooled out onto the floor in front of him like stew from a ladle before he made two steps. The pain and the shock were too much. He collapsed there in his blood, guts, and shit.
Vastian raised a hand to his chin pausing for the slightest of moments. “Ah. Yes, that is fortunate for him.”
Norgaard thought carefully before asking, “so you’re working again?”
“Not exactly,” the old assassin replied. He shifted the weight from one foot to the other. “If I ask you to let this one go, will you?”
“No,” Norgaard said, pouncing immediately. He had to be forceful and clear with this man, his master. “I need to know what’s going on. If there’s some trouble I can help. If it’s just business, I’d like to know that much.”
The old assassin was just as quick to respond. “You cannot help me with this. It is guild business and I don’t know what is going on yet. Someone is playing with things they should not be, and that man I killed was the first lead I had. He was working with someone else to subvert the guild. If I find out more I will tell you but you must promise NOT to get involved. It’s far too dangerous.” Vastian was pacing a short distance by the time he was done laying it all out.
“Ok, don’t get all serious on me now, I won’t help you. Your guild seems far too dramatic anyway,” Norgaard said, cracking a smile.
Vastian did not share his levity. “Focus on your training. You must become at least passable with the sword. But in the meantime, I have a number
of other weapons for you to try. They are in the courtyard. I hired a sparring partner, he will work with you until you are ready to work with me. And before you ask. Yes, this is because I’ll be busy trying to bring down this traitor.”
Norgaard allowed his master to leave and made his way out to the courtyard to find this ‘sparring partner.’ He would have to accept Vastian’s wishes on the matter, but it seemed to Norgaard if it were that dangerous then he would absolutely need some help. His master had just gutted a man like yesterday’s fish and left him bleeding out on the ground and Norgaard was contemplating how he could help in such an affair. This was assassin business, and Norgaard was no assassin. Yet, Vastian was, and he had no desire to see his master die. Was this bravery or foolishness? A cudgel narrowly missed Norgaard’s nose as he stepped around the corner to the practice yard. He reacted by leaning back but was soon flat on his back as his new practice partner stepped forward and pushed him over.
“Eh, scrap, if that’s how ye fight, ye’r gonna get dirty,” the man said, offering a hand up. Norgaard took it and got to his feet. “Name’s Ega, I done work fer yer master before, and I’ll probably do some again.”
Norgaard assessed the man called Ega, he was tall, not as tall as a Northman but tall for a Phelandrite. His grip confirmed the strength that the cords of muscle around his neck belied. He was not a handsome man, not that Norgaard normally took note of that, but for some reason it was relevant, the broken nose, scarred jaw, and drooping left eyelid. He had at least a day’s worth of growth on his beard and his hair was mostly gray. All of it together spoke of a man who had seen hard days and survived, maybe even thrived.
“Norgaard.” he replied walking away by then, toward the racks with wooden weapons.
“Wouldn’t bother with those there, scrap, I don’t think yer ready.” Ega said, dropping his own cudgel. He rounded on Norgaard and held up his fists, ready to fight. Norgaard responded in kind. “See, yer prolly used to fightin’ like this. Smalltown brawls, fist fights. We all start there.”
As he spoke they exchanged blows, but there was something more practiced about Ega’s. He had done this for many years, it was not just easy for him, it was not just his job, it was fun. Norgaard’s head rang as the chiseled gray-haired older mercenary opened his hands before striking him on the temple, over and over.
“Ya may have won, too, more’n ya lost for sure. But they ain’t fighters. I can teach ya ta move, teach ya ta control yer fists, but you have ta control yer feelings, scrap. Don’t get mad when ya fight.”
He could somewhat make out what Ega was trying to say between getting slapped into submission, but it was all easy for him to say when he wasn’t getting beaten. Norgaard finally slipped one of Ega’s punches and managed to land one of his own.
“That’s it! Now what I’m tryin’ ta tell ya is that whether a weapon is in yer hand or just yer hand, it ain’t no different. So let’s begin.”
The sparring quickly turned to grappling as Ega took one of Norgaard’s punches and wrapped him up in it, bringing him to the ground. For the next hour Ega turned different strikes into new holds, throws, and submissions. He explained but Norgaard did not understand that everything should flow, it was not a struggle of two bodies against one another but the redirection of energy into a desirable outcome. He explained that either person could be armed or unarmed, it did not matter, and each turn could be used to disarm, maim, or kill. They were concepts Norgaard was not accustomed to and he knew it would take him a lifetime to master, though he was beginning to fear that he did not have a lifetime before he would need them. He landed hard on his back, the wind leaving his lungs.
“You’re not with me, scrap. Ya gotta keep yer mind here and now or yer gonna get hurt. That’s enough for t’day, rest up, we start again in the morning.”
Chapter XXI
Vastian
Jaerr Skule was the only other guild member Vastian had ever known. He always thought of him as an excellent assassin but more so, as a brother. They had had hundreds of discussions about their craft and the world in one place, and Jaerr being a rather predictable creature, never straying too far from the familiar, Vastian would find him there. The Seer and Howl, their old haunt in the docks district of Phelandir. The only respectable people inside would be trying to avoid seeing other respectable people, and that way everyone knew no one was paying any attention to anything but their own drinks. Doing otherwise might get you killed.
He had thought about it the whole way over. Jaerr might be the only person he trustworthy enough to help him set the guild’s troubles right. And yet, trust was not a luxury he could afford, and Vastian was able to afford a good many things. He would have to play only to what Jaerr told him personally and what the infiltrator had wanted him to know, that someone was trying to eliminate certain brothers. After he was satisfied, the two could get to the business of finding the true perpetrator of this shadowy business.
Throwing open the door to the dim, damp establishment he did not hesitate to move for the bar, even before his eyes fully adjusted. The place would not have changed a bit in the intervening years. An ale waited for him as he reached the bar, but the owner recognized him without a word or a nod and snatched it away, replacing it with wine. Two silvers took the place of the goblet and Vastian was already on his way to the usual place. There, a muscular, black robed male sat in a stool facing away from him, dwarfing a tin tankard in his massive hands, tapping it with his index finger. And while he was not looking over his shoulders nervously, for a man like him, and for Vastian, he may as well have been. This was his friend, and his friend was nervous about something.
Vastian slipped into his familiar stool across from Jaerr saying, “what’s wrong, they trying to kill you, too?”
Jaerr had stiffened suddenly then relaxed, “Finally, it’s you.. I’ve been waiting since..”
“I know, brother,” Vastian said, extending his hand. They clasped arms briefly, muscles tensing testing one another’s grip. Jaerr’s was much stronger, due to his size, and, Vastian noted, his palms were a little damp. “Look, we should get right to business. Someone tried to get me out of the way, I had to kill a contractor to discover that much. You sent me a note, you got my attention, so what’s going on?”
“Sorry I had to bring that up again. I knew I needed to do something to get your mind right. It’s not the first time I’ve needed to do that.” Jaerr said, spinning his tankard in his hands. “So I needed you here because something is wrong in the Brotherhood and I intend to correct it.” He paused, staring into his cup, searching for words Vastian knew were already prepared. His brother was just deciding whether he wanted to say them.
“I need the mantle to change this guild, and I’m tired of being passed up for it. I see great things ahead for us, but we need a leader to take us there.”
Vastian listened, but inside his heart was hardening, or sinking, or both. He remained motionless.
“I’ve spent a great deal of time waiting for it to happen, so instead, I went through the effort of discovering our agents and talking to them. Some are with me. The rest.. “ he looked up at Vastian for the first time. His eyes were all but mad, too serious by half. “The rest are sacrifices to progress. We must take the mantle, Vastian, I will lead us.
“And do what with it Jaerr?” Vastian’s whisper threatened to become a yell, and he left his wine on the table, untouched.
“I have it all planned out. I will remove the barriers within the guild. We will work as an organization, go East and take over the great empire by force. With assassins at my side we will have it in a night. I will be the new emperor and we will rule as assassins. Who could unseat me? We would have armies, then, and the world will bend to our will. Then we would finally have peace, our mission would be complete.”
His brother truly believed the rubbish he was spitting. It was ridiculous.
“Jaerr, my friend.. brother.. this is exactly what the Dead Men fight. Too much power in one place is the
very -seed- of chaos. We are secret even from each other because we hold great power. We are not meant to use it as a group.”
“That is exactly the problem, Vas! We are held back from our true destiny! As rulers this world will have peace if they just obey. We have seen what so many others have become, so we can be sure that never happens. Help me take the Mantle. With you by my side the others will submit, I won’t have to sacrifice them.” Jaerr was speaking too loudly by far, becoming more animated, punctuating his words with his fists on the table. Patrons were taking notice.
“No, Jaerr. You’re not making any sense. If you could just hear yourself. Power corrupts, it doesn’t matter who you are. And I’m afraid it has already gotten to you.” Vastian tried to get through to him, whispering urgently, half-standing and motioning for Jaerr to calm down.
“So you are jealous. The one who denied the Mantle, the Mantle that should have been MINE!” Jaerr shouted where everyone could hear, slamming his fist down on the table. “You are so self absorbed you are jealous when I finally have the chance to have what is rightfully mine. It should have been mine back then! I saved your skin so you could make that kill. Pray you do not forget what fate has befallen those who have already denied me.”