by Deck Davis
Three young boys darted in and out of crowds. To a casual observer, it looked like they were boys playing a game. Ethan’s trained eye cast a different perspective. One boy, the gangliest of the three, was deliberately annoying the drunks, drawing their attention while the other two snipped coin pouches from belts.
Amateurs. They’re being too conspicuous. He eyed the coin purses sagging from belts, and he felt restless. More than anything, he wanted to snag a few purses. It would be so easy…
His fingers twitched. He ached to pickpocket something. Over the years it had become not just a means of survival but a compulsion. Only soldiers and drug abusers could understand the instant rush he felt after swiping something and getting away with it. That explosion of happiness that shot through him, but getting shorter and shorter each time, until he was stealing five, six, seven purses a day. Until he started targeting people who didn’t deserve it…
He wouldn’t steal anything today. He clenched his fist to stop the twitching, and his scar burned. Uh oh. The black splodge had spread across more of his forearm. There was hostility in the Wolfpine air today.
The bounty hunters didn’t look as happy in their celebration. Some stood in groups, each of them wearing a different kind of mask from bird-like ones with protruding beaks, to black ones with glowing bat eyes. Their clothing was dark and dull to a man, all except for one hunter, who wore a white skull mask and had a rather fetching yellow shawl over his shoulder.
Bounty hunting was a profession every kid in the Fire Isles dreamed of, until they grew up and realized what it meant. There was no glory in it. It usually meant months of travelling from place to place, since the wanted criminals usually didn’t want to get caught, always alert, never being able to relax. The emperor constantly updated bounty hunter regulations, meaning that the hunters always needed to spend gold on new gear to keep their licenses. It was just a reason to tax people, of course, but hey, what could they do? Stop hunting murders, and become scribes instead?
In Wolfpine, the street vendors, with their portable stalls, had taken advantage of the latest bounty hunter fad – mana blades. These were normal daggers, except their blades were infused with spells, adding elemental damage to their attacks. Some of the vendors would be con merchant, and the layer of mana of their daggers would be thin and wear off after a single use. This seemed strange to Ethan; if you were gonna con someone, why con groups of people whose sole job it was to track people down?
At the far end of town, beyond the drunks, the stalls, the bounty hunters and the whores, was the Wolfpine black rock, rising from the ground like a craggy finger pointing up at the gods. Tributes lined its base, and amidst all the flowers and the hand-written notes, there was a tiny wicker statue of an alchemist. He was too far away to see it, but he knew it was there, because he and Dantis placed it there when they first got to Wolfpine. They weren’t superstitious – mum and dad brought them up to know bullshit when they saw it – but they hadn’t been able to help themselves leaving a tribute.
One man, a ragged, mud-covered elder tugging a goat along with him, saw the hero emblems on Ethan’s and Glen’s shirts. He smiled and walked over, dragging his animal. Up close, he spat on the ground, then tried to coax his goat to do the same. “Bastards,” he said.
“What’s his problem?” said Ethan.
“You heard about the folks going missing?” said Glen.
Ethan had, but he couldn’t remember where. “What’s that got to do with the guild?”
“The mayor commissioned Bander to find out what was happening. Paid two thousand gold up front. He put our best investigators on it, but they’ve turned up shit-all.”
“Kidnappers tend to do their best to make it a secret.”
“Yeah, but people don’t trust us no more, all the same. Works both ways. Since the old mage bastard got here, the mountain’s been a no-go for townsfolk. Bander said people can’t petition us for help directly anymore; they have to wait for our monthly appearances in town.”
“Isn’t the whole point of the guild to help people?”
Glen held up his hands, tipping them as if they were weighing scales. “Help…money…help…money.”
“Heroes? Pah,” said a passing woman, holding the hands of a chubby child.
“Didn’t I kill the roaches in your cellar, you ungrateful cow?” said Glen. He turned to Ethan. “Listen. I’ve got an errand to run, okay? I’ll be an hour. Can I trust you not to fuck off somewhere and leave me in the shit?”
“Where are you going?”
Glen tapped his nose. “Never you mind. Here’s the money for your scar, and extra for an ale. If I don’t see you back here in exactly an hour, I’m going to ram my scimitar up your arse.”
“It’s a date,” said Ethan.
Glen skipped away, heading across the main street of town, passed potions shops, smithies, a book store and a leatherworker, before disappearing down a side alley out of sight.
Weird. Where he’s going? He had half a mind to follow Glen and find out. Dantis always said information was power. He meant it a different way, of course, but Ethan took the point; know something other people don’t, and you had power over them. Glen was up to something.
Was that really a good idea? Here he was, left to his own devices in Wolfpine, with his senior chaperone gone on a personal errand, and gold in his pocket. Fate couldn’t have played him a kinder hand.
He could find Dantis. But how would he get there? No caravans went to the lava fields; what would be the point? Nobody in their right mind traded with the Brotherhood. He could buy food and try and make it on foot, but the journey would take weeks, and the guild were sure to catch him. They’d cast him out, and who knew what the justice system would do with him after that? He wasn’t so stupid he didn’t know he’d gotten an easy ride.
Damn it. Guilt was a new emotion for Ethan, but it hit him again and again lately. Dantis was in the lava fields, and Ethan was in Wolfpine. Dantis was going to go through a fire trial, and Ethan was going for a beer. If only he could get news about him. Even a scrap of a rumor would make him feel better.
He headed through town, approaching the throng of drunks. A group of men wearing dungarees danced in a circle, arms interlinked around each other, faces flushed from beer. One man’s gold pouch hung by the tiniest of threads. Steal me, it seemed to say, with each jingle as the man danced. Take me. If someone makes it so easy, it’s only fair you rob them!
It took every trace of self-control to steer away from the tantalizing pouch and toward the Last Giant, a Wolfpine tavern known for its crowd of gossipers. In the Last Giant, a beer would buy you all the rumors you could ask for. If anyone knew something about Dantis, it would be a drunk in the Last Giant.
The Last Giant was built in the hollowed-out belly of a long-dead giant, whose legs went deep below Wolfpine, and who’s head had been weathered by time until its skull had barely any shape to it.
Ethan remembered Dantis telling him about the giants. When man first came to the fire isles, there were giant corpses everywhere, a whole race wiped out by some cataclysmic event. Those were more superstitious times, and the first settlers ordered the giant bones to be buried out of respect until the isles were free of their corpses.
Wolfpine wasn’t founded until years later, and an industrious business man bought the plot of land the giant corpse was half-buried in, and he built a novelty tavern in its bleached stomach. Some people refused to go in out of respect for the last of the giants, but most visits to town couldn’t help it. It was so unusual, and everyone wanted to say they’d gone into the belly of a giant and lived to talk about it.
The aroma of wood-smoked meats drifted through the tavern, reminding Ethan he had the guild’s oat biscuit special to look forward to later. A long bar covered one wall, and a burly innkeeper was standing behind it, twisting the bottles of liquor on a counter so each label was aligned. Four middle-aged women crowded around a table, laughing and joking, and gulping from goblets.
“Hey” said a pock-marked drunk when he noticed Ethan. “It’s Axel Wunder! Give us a song!”
“That ain’t him. Too roughed-up. Look at ‘is face.”
“What happened to Axel, anyway?”
“He played here once,” said the innkeeper.
There was a poster behind the innkeeper. It was a pencil drawing of a young boy with bushy eyebrows and freckles, and below it was the word ‘MISSING.’ Part of the poster peeled away, and behind it lay a more aged one, showing a different boy who had vanished.
“Anyway,” said the innkeeper, “This fella’s no bard. He’s from the heroes’ guild.”
A man to his right was sitting at a table with Dablo cards spread in front of him and a mana sphere perched on the edge. Lacking a fellow player, the man had rigged his sphere to pump mana into what would have been his opponent’s deck, so the mana flipped the cards automatically. The guy really needed to make friends, but it was ingenious.
“Heroes guild?” he said, flipping over a card. “Can you call it a guild, anymore? More like a business these days.”
A barmaid crossed the room carrying a metal tray of glass full to the brim with amber liquid. She had a shaved head, and the multitude of cuts centered around a particular part of her right hand marked her as a hobbyist archer.
“Leave ‘em alone. Bander works hard.”
“Another broad in love with Bander. The guy needs to step down.”
“I’m not in love with him. He’s just a good man.”
“He’s out for gold like the rest of ‘em. Look. Bander’s a thieving scumbag, and so’s this kid here. All of ‘em are.”
Ethan bristled. He had no problem with being called a thief – it wasn’t a lie, was it? But Bander only had the guilds interests at heart. Money didn’t mean a thing to him; the guy had worn the same armor for what looked like thirty years, judging by how worn it was.
He wanted to say something, but he remembered Bander’s words. “The slightest hint of trouble…”
Ignoring the Dablo player, he looked at the other clientele of the Pony. It was your usual fare; guys drinking alone, guys looking to catch the barmaids eye, shadowy-looking guys whispering to each other….and then a hooded man sitting alone in the corner, covered in darkness.
I’ve found my man. It was a well-known fact that hooded men sitting in shadowy tavern corners were a rich source of information. It was their job; you slipped them gold, you asked them questions, and the transaction was completed without learning each other’s names. The hoods and the dark corners were all part of the act.
As he approached him, the tavern door opened. Three men clad in scorched metal armor entered, soot covering their faces. They looked like they’d been fighting a dragon. There was something familiar about one of them. He was short, squat, and his bald head had a tough look to it, as if he could charge through a wall.
He eyed Ethan with such intensity he felt uneasy. The man used a cloth to wipe away sweat from his face, taking the soot away with it. When Ethan saw his face, he gulped.
He’d stolen from this man years ago, in a town in the east called Rotterwell. The man was patrolling the seamstress sect, shaking the women down for money. Ethan swiped his pouch so he could give the gold back to the seamstress, after taking a coin or two for expenses, but his fingers weren’t as deft back then. The man had caught him. Surely he’s forgotten what I look like by now?
Not wanting to take the chance, he left the Giant. The streets thronged with drunks signing songs from their hometowns, and bounty hunters eyeing them, their eyes seething with anger behind their masks. Prostitutes and gigolos catcalled from tent openings, and tavern boys scurried back and forth with tankards so heavy it took them both hands to hold them.
Ethan blended into a crowd, threading in and out with the grace of someone used to sneaking through throngs of people. As he did, his eyes snapped in the direction of every purse, every hanging money pouch, every ring on every finger.
As he reached the edge, he saw what the crowd were looking at. A salesman was standing in front of a wooden table lined with strange looking implements; there was a needle on one side, and a small vial of red liquid on the other.
“Memory is such a fickle thing, my fine folks,” said the salesman. “A fleeting hint of time, slippery and always trying to get away. Who here has forgotten a name? A face? Who I the elder ones among us has felt cherished times slip from their skulls?”
The crowd murmured. Some said yes, others looked a little upset.
“Then fear no more,” he said, picking up one of his needles. “Simply think about what you need to remember, prick yourself with it, and then drink the liquid. The memory will come to you like a miracle.”
The murmurs grew. “How much?” said one man.
Th salesman waved him away. This time, he looked behind the Wolfpine residents in the crowd, and to the bounty hunters on the edge. “And that is not all,” he said. “Sometimes people want to share memories with us, and unfortunately are not always able to do that…verbally. Never fear! My needles work just as well on another. Speak to your loved one about the memory you need to see, prick them, and again, drink the fluid. It’s strawberry flavored.”
Wow. That sounded amazing. Ethan knew firsthand the wondrous things alchemists could do, but his dad would never have brewed something like this. The optional for misuse was astounding, and even the prospect of gold wouldn’t have changed his mind.
Scruples were great, but Ethan had misplaced his long ago. He left the crowd. As he did, he barged into a bounty hunter, knocking him to the ground. The crowd and the salesman turned to look at the hunter. As they did, Ethan pocketed a memory needle and went on his way.
A boy across the street delivered a tankard of beer to a drunk, took his money, and made to leave. When the man concentrated on his beer, the kid unwound his coin pouch from his belt, and crept away. As he ran passed, Ethan collared him.
“If you want a beer, mister, ooder at the bar and I’ll bring it oot.”
Ooder? Oot? Was the kid from across the black sea? What was he doing on the Fire Isles? Never mind, it didn’t matter right now.
“Do you know where Hulftim Chinwise is? The healer?”
“That way, oover there,” he said, pointing at an alleyway of shops, at the end of which was a wooden shed with smoke proofing from a chimney.
“Thanks, kid. And you need to pinch the pouch with one hand to stop the coins jingling. Work on untying the knots one handed.”
The boy, cheeks reddening, sped off toward a tavern called The Cabbage and Sickle.
Ethan set off toward Hulftim Chinwise’s shop. Before he got there, he saw an old beggar on the street, surrounded by four drunks.
“Want a beer, you old drunk? Want a beer?” said one, holding his tankard over the man’s head, so that drops fell out.
The man swatted him away. Another youth, a redhead wearing tight bracers, slapped him across the face.
Ethan’s cheeks reddened as if he was the one who had been slapped. He drew his sword, gritted his teeth, and it took every ounce of will not to charge at them. He strode over.
He gripped one drunk by the throat and shoved him to the ground. The other two turned his way, but Ethan lifted his sword in the Fensi-hyen pose Reck had drilled into him, perfect for quick counter blows. Not only that, but it looked awesome.
“This fucker wants his skull caved in,” said one youth.
The drunk got up off the floor. He eyed Ethan’s sword, and then the emblem on his shirt. “Leave it,” he said. “Not worth having the guild on our arses. Let’s go.”
Ethan kneeled beside the old man. He had quick, darting eyes. One his ri
ght hand, his little finger had been cut to a nub. It could have been any manner of accident, but Ethan’s mind reached one conclusion; punishment for theft. Whip lashes covered Ethan’s back, but he was lucky. In some places, reward for being caught stealing was the loss of a digit.
“Are you okay?”
“You’re from the guild, lad, aren’t ya?”
Ethan nodded.
The old man rolled his sleeve to show the guild emblem tattooed on his arm. “Guild brothers then, aren’t we?”
This gave him pause. This man had been in the heroes’ guild, yet he was living on the streets. How was that possible?
“The guild has a pension fund, doesn’t it?” said Ethan.
“Aye. Doesn’t apply when you’re kicked out.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t join the guild in the usual way,” said the man. “I was a thief, and the guild master took pity on me. Gave me a position as a guild scribe.”
“So why aren’t you on the mountain?”
“Couldn’t shake off the mentality,” the man said, tapping his temple. “Once a thief, always a thief. Couldn’t keep me hands to meself, could I? Got kicked out of the guild for thievin’, and by then I was too old to make it on the streets. My tit-ticklers aren’t what they used to be,” he said, holding up his hands.
The humid air made the man sweat. With each drip that trickled down his forehead, Ethan could smell the alcohol seeping out of his pores. A life of thieving, then a second chance in the guild, and this was what it amounted to.
This could be me. The thought stabbed him in the gut. Since joining the guild, the only thing Ethan focused on was escape. What if he was looking at this wrong? If he messed up and got kicked out of the guild, what waited for him?
A thief could only steal for as long as his hands remained dexterous. What happened with age hit him? When arthritis set in, when it hurt to curl his fingers? The only old thieves who prospered were the ones who hit a big score and retired, or those who turned to clever scams and con schemes. Ethan didn’t have the brains for that.