Quest of the Five Clans

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

In which a surprise awaits the hero beyond the third door.

I dislike violence. I dislike describing violence. If I swim in blood as a fish in water, still I cherish each day without a scream. Excepting the rare cry of laughter. Why can't I labor at something with regular screams of joy? The barker at a fair, perhaps, selling chances to win a prize for a sweetheart. I would rig the fortune-wheel, letting all lovers win. Not a practical plan, I would become impoverished. Alas that violence pays so well.

But walk through a fair and note: the barkers wear pained grins, sad scowls. Their hearts are unmoved by laughing children, cuddling couples. Happy smiles give them toothache, shouts of joy give them earache. No, they stare beyond the throng, dreaming of being heroic burglar-assassins. Fair-workers long for the adventure of fog-shrouded nights, running across rooftops, falling upon the guard to a villain's lair. Crossing blades with brigands who gasp to recognize the deadly blade they face. They want my life as I want theirs. The old conundrum: one values most, what one lacks.

Well, to work. I leaped the roof-gap to the warehouse, descended mist-slippery bricks, waited spider-like for the first guard to pass beneath. I did not kill; merely dropped behind, stunned with a blow. I left him tied in a corner, feeling the usual remorse. I don't count it a casual thing to be knocked senseless. Nor to awaken in pain, bound like a sack of meal. Nor to face one's employer, explain how one failed in the task. Nor return home, explain the loss of one's employment to a hungry family. Alas; fortune in battle is a wheel I cannot rig for the joy of others.

I used his key to enter the door. Walked with confident step down a lantern-lit hall, to unlock another door. Within I faced a second guard. He stood foil drawn, dueling a target-dummy. A flourish, a lunge, and he ran the poor straw heart through. Then repeated. At each strike, he struggled to position his left hand to finger-scratch the top of his head. A peculiar style. Perhaps his hair itched? He glanced at me, but as I stood in shadow wearing the outer guards' cloak and helm, he took little notice.

"Like this," I said, moving beside him. I lunged, letting the motion unfold slowly as a flower in morning light. "Hold your center of balance like a cat. The free arm becomes your tail, not your hat."

He tried it so, holding the left arm more sensibly. "Better," I said. He repeated the move in a more sensible flow. He nodded pleased, then turned. His eyes widened. "Ha. You're the -"

I thumped his exposed nape. I left him tied. More remorse. I comforted my conscience that I did not cut the man's throat. No doubt the carnival-barker day-dreaming of being me would have sliced away, shaking his head at life's need for death, trying not to grin.

One guard left twixt me and the inner office, according to my informant. Therein a closet held a hidden cabinet with ledger books the Magisterium needed to prove that Alderman Black was a traitorous, slave-dealing smuggling pirate-prince in league with devils. Or at least a tax embezzler. Hanging a pirate-prince for embezzlement would not appeal to an adventure-dreaming carnival barker. He'd want something dramatic; perhaps a duel atop a racing carriage. I have fought three such duels. Once the carriage careened in flames. Give me a quiet hanging any day. To watch, I mean.

Back to work. I unlocked the third door, entered the warehouse proper. A dark Aladdin's cavern of boxes and sheeted goods, barrels and chests. Ladders leading to higher levels. Smells of spices, cloths, food-stuffs, rat-shit, coffee-beans. Twenty steps beyond waited a table, lantern-lit. A single guard sat facing the light, back to me. I thought little of him for that. He should face the door, not stare in the light. And a bottle too? He did not turn at my confident boot-steps. He sipped the bottle, vandalized his employer's table with a dagger.