The dingy pulled into the fishmarket called Heraloon. Screaming gulls found their living in the scummy waters of the port's docks. The sun shone hot. Humidity was a live enemy. The stench astounded.
The Brandy Snifter had anchored and dropped off it's few anonymous passengers: two peasants, a small trader, a pilgrim. An acute observer (and none of the crew or other passengers had reason to be) would have noticed an anomoly: one of these lacked a noticable scent. That is if that observer's olfactory senses still functioned after three days aboard the 'Snifter. Strange.
The Sid jumped onto the rocky shore laden with smoked fish and cod oil. He scanned the wharf while seeming to retie his kit. Porters. Merchants. Wives. Whores. Sailors. Day laborers. Beggars. The Don. Not a bad disguise at that. The limp didn't seem affected. The eye seemed to actually ooze.
Actually, it was not much of a disguise at all. No. Not much of a disguise after all. The Sid's numbed heart thawed and chilled. Regret and anguish painted a pallid, translucent shadow across the future. Oh, Don, the Sid sighed with relief.
Oh, Don, his sickened stomach clenched.
Slowly, Borgia made his way along the length of the harbor. He stopped frequently as if to sight see. Sight see? He stopped frequently as if to rest.
Sid worked his way to the small wooden house that had served them a few weeks before: fewer eyes to pry, fewer tongues to be ferreted out and tell tales. The common room was empty except for a serving boy. For three coppers he served two bowls of sour stew and indolently drifted away.
The men ate in silence. Later, in the room, a small flask was pulled out and proffered. Opiated brandy.
The Sid took a long pull.
The Don nodded. "It will help some with the pain. Some, at least." The Sid took another pull.
"Can you talk about it?"
Time passed. "Yes. It actually isn't as bad as it looks. I think the eye will heal."
A black-haired head sank. Slowly. Heavily. Until it rested on the other's knee. "Oh, ghods. I'm sorry."
Time passed. A callused hand began an oddly gentle, comforting stroke. "I think the eye will heal. It was like this..."
REPRISE
The Don was only half surprised to regain consciousness. He was very surprised at the lack of pain. The sword and dagger wounds were a minor babble of misery instead of the crescendo such damage should have created. His sense was of very little time passing, which meant magic healing. That was rather grim news, since the only reason for such a move would be to make him last longer under torture.
Then he had a much more interesting thought. His last memory was lying in the back alley of the inn, staring up into the face of... Belcorn. Herod Belcorn. An accomplished assassin, he had trained them from time to time during his initiate training, as the Assassin’s Guild time honored tradition was to have instructors from the field break up the more standard classes.
But if he had been attacked by assassins, they knew he could not be broken. Breaking a sacred trust would be picked up by the psionic parasite, the Grettle worm, that was introduced into each assassin when they were initiated, and result in instant death. Unless he had been lied to, there was no way to remove or kill the worm without a similar fate for it’s host.
So why had they healed him?
He tried to sit up, and realized he was tied down to a table. He cautiously tried the bonds. They were tied well, struggling only making them tighten and become less comfortable.
"Awake, Don?" asked a voice out of the shadows. A familiar voice. A shadow moved into the torch light, became visible as a thin, almost anorexic man with thin, sand colored hair and goatee and mustache to match.
"Marlstone." Another initiate at Orbaal at the same time as him, and one he had never gotten along with. A man who’s pleasure in pain made him a glutton instead of a chef.
"So you remember. Well, very good, very good." He walked over and casually smacked the Don in the side of the head with a sap, just hard enough to make him wince with pain. "You know, it really pisses me off when someone makes a pickup I’m on go awry." SMACK. "Yes, yes, they blamed ME, thought I must have given myself away since I was the junior man on the team." SMACK. "You had to be so smart, so smart. Well, very good, very good, we’ll just have to demonstrate that sometimes smart is more trouble than it’s worth." The Don braced himself for another whack, but a voice interrupted.
"Initiate Marlstone. Enough. I am not pleased." Marlstone’s face blanched. Another figure arrived, another face the Don knew.
"Grandmaster Gunther" he said, voice carefully neutral. The man who had trained him in the art of interrogation.
"Don. I’m sorry to meet you under these conditions."
"Not as sorry as I am." Gunther turned and waved Marlstone out of the room. He scuttled quickly out of sight. Then Gunther moved over and untied the ropes around the Don’s arms and legs. The Don sat up rubbing his wrists.
"Thank you, Grandmaster." Gunther nodded. "Can you tell me why I am here?"
"Yes" replied Gunther. "But first, a question. Is your bond to El Sid such that you consider it an oath?" The Don nodded. "Good. Then, let us dispense with threats and the like, since we both know were we stand. I need information on El Sid’s whereabouts. You know I could break you within, say, a day at the outside. You know you would die at that point, telling me nothing. But suppose telling me was in El Sid’s best interests? Then you would not be violating an oath."
The Don nodded. "I am listening."
"It is simple. The woman you traveled with, the half elf... Krinn. She has escaped. Capturing El Sid is not even a contract situation, but simply a fee, albeit a large one, that the Guild hoped to collect for the capture. There is a smaller one for determining his location. There is also matter of pride; the Guild does not like to have public failures. We can reasonably claim that our only goal was to collect the smaller fee."
"Why would such a matter cause you to turn on one of the Guild?" asked the Don.
Gunther looked at him in surprise. "Why, Don, money is money, after all."
Dom digested this. "Grandmaster, you are asking me to divulge El Sid’s location so you can collect a fee. This is hardly in El Sid’s best interests."
Gunther smiled. "The local Guild master collects the fee, actually. Perhaps it is not in El Sid’s best interests. It depends on many factors. As I’ve said, the half elf escaped. I can reasonably claim it took two days to break you, and the information will take most of another to get to originator of the reward. How long for him to get it to those who can make a decision to pursue El Sid?"
Dom thought back to his Theory of Organizational Philosophy class and replied "At least four hours for a standard hold, assuming telepathic or other instantaneous communication. A day to a day and a half for a Major hold, two days for a great hold. Perhaps longer for a Great Hold representing Arketh Providence to the Kethem High Council."
"So, four, five days. Enough to reach, say, Cherifyr by sea. A light merchant left this evening, by the way, and your half elf friend is no longer in residence at the elvish embassy."
Don nodded thoughtfully.
Gunther continued "so, it is Bradford hold you are concerned about, and El Sid is in Cherifyr." The Don cursed himself as he realized he had given something away. There was a sudden pain in the back of his skull as the Grettle worm felt his self loathing and responded, but he hadn’t intentionally divulged information. The pain subsided. "As you must know, the Guide is interested in anything that holds such fascination with a powerful hold like Bradford that they would be willing to bend, if not break, the law."
Dom looked Gunther in the eyes. "Grandmaster, I do not know why they are after El Sid, only that they drove him out of Kethem."
Gunther paused, the continued. "Of course. In any case, the point is, if you have any faith in your half elf, El Sid will know well ahead of any possible pursuit that he is in danger."
Dom considered it, finally nodded, but added "That doesn’t make it in El Sid’s best interests."
"True. But suppose your survival was crucial to his. Then, taking some risk that he might be caught off guard would have to be weighed against the likelihood that he will die without you."
Dom followed the logic, frowning. "Conceded, Grandmaster. What would cause such a dependency between El Sid’s and my life?"
"Simple. I know El Sid is in Cherifyr. If you do not cooperate, I will inform Bradford hold of this immediately. If they want El Sid badly enough to put a thousand gold on his head, they want him badly enough to burn a teleport to get him. If you do cooperate, I give my word that I will wait the three days."
A thousand gold. The Don was stunned, but he managed to reply "I understand your logic and agree. El Sid is in Cherifyr." He closed his eyes for a moment, waited, then opened them. Still alive. He must actually believe Gunther.
"Very good. Swear to me that you will tell me the truth."
"I so swear."
"Why is Bradford hold after El Sid?"
"I don’t know."
Gunther looked nonplused for a moment, then smiled thinly and shook his head. "Always the sly one, El Sid." Then he continued "What is your relationship to the half elf and the Dwarf?"
The Don looked confused for a moment, then answered "they are friends and traveling companions."
The questioning went on and on, for hours, for what seemed like days. The Don carefully avoided any mention of the Blackheart gems, but otherwise gave a accurate rendition of their activities to date.
Finally Gunther stopped, satisfied. "Grandmaster?" asked the Don.
"Yes?"
"Who put out the contract?"
Gunther thought for a moment, then replied "it really doesn’t matter who the individual was. It traced back to Bradford hold. That is why I was called in."
The Don nodded. Gunther called for Marlstone, who appeared quickly. "Don, go, rest. You will need it."
While he didn’t like the sound of that, he realized he was close to collapse and followed Marlstone quietly.
The next two days he spent quietly, locked in a small but comfortable room. The morning after, however, Marlstone and another man came to collect him and set him once more before the Grandmaster. There were two tables in the room, one large enough to hold a person and one holding a number of instruments the Don recognized from this schooling.
"Dom."
"Grandmaster."
Gunther took a small flask and handed it to him. The Don sniffed. It smelled of mint and butter. Fenesal, a pain killer. He looked at Gunther questioningly.
"Dom, this has to look real. You know that. This will help with the pain."
The Don nodded and swallowed the potion. He walked over, feeling the numbness begin in his fingers and toes and rapidly spread to his limbs, took off his rob and laid on the table carefully. Marlstone and the other man tied his arms and legs down, and Gunther began.
A long time later, the Don was faintly aware of someone else entering the room. He didn’t have to pretend to moan in pain; even with the Fenesal, his entire body was screaming from every nerve ending. He must have blacked out, and when he regain consciousness, he was back in his locked room. Two days later, he had regained most of his gross motor skills.
Marlstone entered with a little smile, bearing a tray. "Last meal for the condemned man, very good, very good. You are out of here today, so eat well."
He left, the pleasant smell of herbed chicken and fresh greens wafting up from the tray left behind.
The Don was just finishing up when Marlstone returned. Dom caught a glimpse of two others just outside the door. He attempted to stand up, then sat down rather suddenly. "I’m... a little dizzy" he said with an uncharacteristic slur.
Marlstone just smiled. "Time to go, yes, yes. Let me give you a hand." He came over and helped Dom to his feet. Dom looked at him blearily.
"You know, Marls.. Marls.. Marly, you aren’t such a bad guy. When we hit the street, I’ll buy you a drink. Hell, I’ll buy everyone in Hediro a drink with what I brought back from Pranan."
"Really?" answered Marlstone smoothly, interest in his voice. "And what would that be?"
Dom shook his head. "No, no, no, can’t give away about the sword. El slid wold... would have my head."
"Come, come, you can trust me. A sword from Pranan, really. Magic?"
Dom smiled fishily. "Can’t fool me, Marly, El Sid wouldn’t like it if I told you that." He staggered for a moment, and Marlstone grabbed him to keep him from falling over. "Only hope it’s still back at the apartment..." he murmured.
Marlstone opened the door and made a sign to the two men out in the hallway. "We’ll help you back, since you are still not fully recovered, very good, very good."
It took about ten minutes to make it back to the inn the entire incident started at. Dom could barely walk by then.
"Swell hiddin" he said drunkenly.
"Can you show me, Dom?" asked Marlstone intently. The Don didn’t appear to notice, and Marlstone slapped him lightly across the face. "Can you show me the sword?"
Dom looked at the other two men. "Nots.. not in fron a strangers."
Marlstone nodded to the other men. "They can wait out here. Let’s get you to your room." With the Don’s somewhat incoherent directions, they climbed the back flight of stairs, walked down a short hallway, and entered Don’s room. He jerked free of Marlstone and staggered over to a small table, sinking to both knees, wavered for a second, then reached under the table and pulled out the Urakai weapon they had recovered from Pranan. He dropped it to the floor and almost fell over, clutching the table leg to keep his balance.
Marlstone came over to pick the sword up, bent over and grabbed it by the scabbard. Standing up straight, he looked at it in puzzlement, as if he had never seen a sword before.
"Oh, and Marly," said the Don, rising to his feet, "If you’re going to drug someone, check to make sure they didn’t dump it, say, under a pillow or something like that instead of eating it."
Marlstone didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at the hilt of the Urakai dagger sticking out just under his rib cage, while his beating heart rapidly shredded itself against the blade.
"Very good, very good" said the Don as Marlstone sank to his knees and fell over backwards, weakly clutching at the hilt. Then he stopped moving.
The Don gathered his things together, leaving anything large behind. He was belting the Urakai sword on in place of his regular sword, which had been left somewhere in the building where he had been held captive, when the air spoke to him.
"I suspected as much."
He stopped. "Grandmaster?" Gunther suddenly appeared in front of him, which made Dom jump.
"Yes, Dom?"
The Don just looked at him.
"Nothing to do with me, really. Marlstone was greedy. A number of junior assassins disappeared after our little chat... eight of them. I suspected he might have overheard us, by design or by chance, and sent them after El Sid. After all, a thousand gold is not an insignificant sum. I’ve been watching him since. I would have helped if I didn’t suspect you were play acting. I’m truly sorry about El Sid"
The Don nodded. "Thank you, Grandmaster, but I would feel sorry for the junior assassins if I were you."
Gunther looked at him quizzically, then just said "Good luck, Dom."
The Don nodded, then brushed past Gunther and left via the front door. He stopped long enough at a shop to sell the crystal bugs for twenty four gold; the shop owner could sense he was in a hurry, and he knew he had not done well in the bargaining, but it would due. He kept the Urakai sword; he needed one, and he knew he would not get a good price for it here.
That night, he shipped out for Ostenar.
EL SID
"You knew they could not give up so easily."
A space. Voices lowered to a barely audible whisper. Two heads drew close. "Gunther and Belcorn, eh? Marlestone. Never liked the prick. We'd of had to 'do' him some day anyway. Glad it was sooner than later."
"True. There aren't that many of our class left. We were a small group to begin with. And Gunther always did keep us apart from the others. We were select. How many of the Masters knew us?"
"Some, but not all. Certainly not all the current Masters would."
"How many of the GM's?"
"Probably half a dozen. There were no records. We used 'trade names'."
"Remember your's was 'The Monk'? Because you always figured out the deep problems? Found the solutions? You always helped the others. Explained so that they could understand. Did you know that they were going to stop you from doing that? They thought it was making us weak. Until they realized that you were improving us all."
"You exaggerate. You were called The Cat."
"My lithe good looks."
"Your prissy grooming habits. Gunther said he almost thought you were a girl."
"I like to be clean."
"You were the only initiate ever to return from four weeks of survival training in the badlands that couldn't be smelled coming."
"Breeding will tell."
"How did Gunther know where we were?"
"Who knows. Maybe they can track what's in here," tapping of head, "All I know is that he needed a convincing alibi for how he got the information before he could reveal it. It must be a very secretive method."
"How did the Elves know to protect Krinn?"
"Obviously a leak in the local guild organization."
"Wouldn't they be curious about why the Guild wanted Krinn?"
"Just as curious as the Guild is about why the Bradford's want us."
"Not good."
"No. *Not* good."
A pause.
"You know, we're going to have to find out what they might have put inside me."
A pause. A sigh.
"Yes. But I don't want to put you through it. You *know* I would spare you that if I could."
"I know. But you *can't*. *We* can't. We have to know."
"If it was Gunther, it could be very deep. He had you for three days. We'd need the psionic priests. Even they might not be able to root it out.
"True. But it's better that than to wait until it makes itself known. That always seems to happen at the most inopportune time, you know."
"What about the others? Marlestone?"
"Hmmm. Possible. He wouldn't be near as skilled. We might be able to find anything he put in using ESP while I'm under a hypnotic suggestion."
"Any others who might have placed one?"
"I don't believe so. But then I might not remember them at all. And they may not have done it with approval from higher authority."
The two men looked at each other in understanding. The Guild. Wheels within Wheels.
"You'll have to watch me closely until we can be sure."
"You know I don't want to have to do that."
"And we both know that you have no choice."
A resigned sigh. "Someday we'll find out for sure. Then things will be as they once were."
"I will wait patiently upon that day."
The two men looked deeply into each other's eyes. They knew that Sid could no longer fully trust the Don. The Don knew that he could no longer fully trust himself. Neither knew what lies might have been placed deep within the Don's head. They had always suspected that the Guild had placed post-hypnotic commands within them when they trained as youths on The Island. But these had never (that they were aware of) been triggered to date. Now they had to be extra-specially careful. Now they had the Guild's attention. Now they were in the Guild's eye.
Victor Borgia had once considered taking Sid to the Psionics for 'therapy'. When he was a boy. One fateful day Victor had returned from visiting outlaying Hold properties to find a small boy bathed in blood. A small boy who, from his boy-sized hiding place, had watched his brothers, cousins and trusted family retainers brutally slaughtered. A boy who had crawled from one dismembered body to another, tugging, pleading for them to move, to be alive. To be his family again. Who he found mute, blood-drenched, rocking back and forth, staring. Who he knelt to hold. Over whose head he whispered an oath to the boy, to himself, to any of the ghods who would hear: that he would forge this child into an instrument of vengeance, into an instrument of justice. And if, the next day, when some semblance of order had been restored and a small boy had roused from his stupor to insist on being bathed four times that day, that day and every day for weeks thereafter, well, Victor had let it pass unremarked upon. And if, ever after, that same small boy had always kept himself meticulously groomed, meticulous to the point of obsession, well, he had let that pass as well. And if that boy had grown into a youth who had killed two men before his fourteenth birthday, and six before his seventeenth, he had let that pass. And if Victor never told a youth who had grown into a man how proud he was that he was able to give loyalty and inspire it, be thoughtful yet incisive, be crafty yet resolute, and be cautious yet bold, and if Victor Borgia had never spoken of this with The Sid, well, maybe he thought it simply went without saying. And if he had ever considered taking this same small boy to the Psionic's for therapy, well, maybe he had concluded that it simply couldn't be afforded. For House Borgia fought for its life. And no sacrifice, even the life of a small boy, was too great, if it helped to defend House Borgia. And maybe this was why the Sid was the man he was today...
"Now that we know the Bradford's are gunning for us, we'll have to travel incognito. You need a disguise. Blonde hair?"
"Too flashy. And getting the eyes the right shade of blue is always so difficult."
"Red head?"
"I'm allergic to henna."
"It's a *beard*, then!"
"WHAT! NO WAY! THE ITCHING, THE FOOD SCUM, NO WAY I'LL--"
"A beard." Firmly. "And stink. You're going to have to stink."
"WHAT!--"
"No one who knows you would *ever* suspect you to be shaggy and stinky. It's the *perfect* disguise. *No* one will recognize you."
Silence. A grimace.
"Well, then we'd better make sure that eye heals so people won't recognize *you*!"
"Gunther did a good job. Had anyone else done it, I'd have lost it for sure. And the hip should mend. He *did* have to make it look realistic. So instead of a dandy and a one-eyed gimp, the world will see--"
"Just two more Kanday Asses."
"I think I know just the role model we need..."
Watchful eyes peered out from under a battered straw hat. Old Sam slowly swept the street in a never-ending, losing battle with the filth. Old Sam had swept the same street for thirty years. He was good at it. And despite those thirty years of practice, when two half-drunk, flea-infested, burping, farting plainsmen made their loud obnoxious way down his street, his watchful eyes never saw them for more than what they appeared to be. And if the barbarians had to pay extra to the skipper of the Brandy Grifter for their passage (as well as agree to stay downwind of all the other passengers and crew), well, that appeared to be just as it should have been as well...