Drinking was a rather precarious task, if anything. It involved a metal straw, and supervision. Couldn't have me poke an eye out or pierce my tongue with the drinking implements, after all.
Then again, that wouldn't necessarily be my fault. It was dark most of the time, looking down was quite difficult, and the edges on that thing were sharp. Annoyingly so, in fact. It would be unavoidable to scrape my mouth's roof every time I went for another sip.
Nevertheless, I had water. My thirst was quenched. For that, at least, I was grateful. The Admiral had ordered the drink, alongside one of his own - a steaming cup of coffee. "The past." I stated, grammatically in certainty, yet intoned in reluctance. "Where to begin?" I asked musingly, yet the question felt so rhetorical that it almost warranted no answer.
In reply, the Admiral continued his steely stare. Exceedingly cold, I repeated in my head. Brittle, perhaps. Like glass. No, ice. Like pig iron. Failed steel. Or steel that was once sharp, yet dulled and became useless. No, not useless - just different, perhaps.
"Ah, my first kill. It was exhilarating. Although one might say the same for other initiating events, I do believe there isn't anything in the world that can provide a thrill quite like that special moment in which you first remove a man's soul from this world. What do you say, Admiral? Did you enjoy your first kill? Do you remember it? Bah, of course you do." I paused, and looked. He made no comments, and moved his cup to his lips to sip, his eyes constantly fixated at an unseen point - no, not me, they went through me, like any good interrogator's eyes should. It was as if he was trying to convey him investigating my very flesh as I went on about my history. And to what matter is it - he's been assigned to ask and listen, yet he poses no purpose other than curiosity and interest. What could one possibly wish to know from a dead man who's biggest secrets have been lain bare? I knew, of course, what he wanted - but I wasn't going to give it to him - at least not without a little bit of fun.
So I continued. "Many things in life are exciting when they happen for the first time, don't you think? Even if you may have been too young to witness it, imagine the excitement of your first steps, the excitement surrounding your first word, the excitement you felt on your first trip. Your first fight, your first kiss, your first woman... So many things in life to look forward to for the first time.
"But nothing is quite like the first kill. Did yours scream? Were you in combat? In a war? Was it an act of passion, or duty?" I tried my best to lean in as I asked: "Did you relish in his death?"
After a moment of silence, he answered. "Don't forget who asks the questions here. Who was your first kill?"
"I didn't know him very well." I admitted, leaning back again. "He was in my way, and I had to get rid of him. A classic moment of kill-or-be-killed. Truth be told, I didn't feel very good afterwards, but the moment - oh, that moment was worth anything. With each blow, his head gave way just a little bit more - each blow sent a spray of warm red towards me." To be honest, I did enjoy killing. But it wasn't the violence I relished, nor the blood or the screaming. It was the finality. When faced with death, you show your true colors - whoever you are. And I enjoyed seeing truth in people, even if I had to find it in they flayed veins.
The Admiral spoke up again. "When was this? How did you come to cross paths with him?"
"Some fifteen years ago." I replied. "I was born here, in the city, a son to a well-to-do couple, until my parents died when I was a boy yet. My uncle took me in for a good year or so - I can't tell why. Maybe it was because I was his brother's son, maybe it was because he secretly loved my mother - or maybe I am being presumptuously cynical, and he did in fact love me. Then again, at a certain point he couldn't take the grief, and tried to kill me for some strange reason. The man fancied his drink a bit too much, perhaps. Maybe I reminded him too much of her. I saved myself, but the remorse of his attempted murder drove him to suicide.
"I was twelve then - no, thirteen. I had no immediate relatives, save my dying grandparents. The police was stumped in its investigation, and my grandparents were sadistic aristocrats who had nothing but contempt for the 'unclean witch-spawn' that I had been, given my mother's heritage, so I only saw one way - the running way.
"Being a street urchin is not hard. Especially when you lack scruple. I did anything, as long as it filled my belly enough to last a night. Most of the time, I ended up stealing. Food, or something else. I was quite good at getting around, and there were men in need of good little boys like me. A cut-purse here, an ear there, I was part of rather large network of little spies, you see. It's no different today, and it was no different then - tragedies happen, and children become fatherless, motherless, desperate for purpose. And praise.
"We're so easy. We know what we need. Children don't seek glory, or vengeance - a roof over our heads and a meal in our stomachs, and we'll love you. Or at least, normal children. I was no normal child. Few of us were, given what we had been through. And I grew up to become even less normal in the earlier days of my manhood. I don't remember quite how old I was - in fact, I don't know how old I am now. I do know, however, that its only under his guidance that I lived through those years." I finished talking, sipping from the cold water.
"His guidance?" the Admiral asked predictably. "A man took you in?"
"No." I countered. "He gave me no food. He gave me no home." I looked up from the straw, slowly panning my gaze towards my opponent. My enemy. The only friend I have left. "He gave me something... better. A purpose. A reason to go on.
"I surmised that my parents died due to incompetence, that my uncle died due to incompetence, and that I myself am a failure. A byproduct of dead relationships and passed-on souls, and that I, too, should pass on." I said coolly. The Admiral made no notion of a comment, nor did he seem to truly listen. Yet something made me think that, despite the airy look he was giving me, he wasn't missing anything. "I was a coward, and suicide was not my way. I lived, yet I would strive not too - I wanted to die, but not by my hand. Trouble was what I sought, and I oft found it. He must have had his share of wayward souls, because one night, beat and bloody and in a gutter, he passed me by and dropped a note. Not sure why he presumed I could read, but I could, so it's not a detail of great import. The note was simple - it didn't tell me to cheer up, or to live life happily, or to let go of the past - it gave me a name, a description, and an order to kill."
"Name?" noted the Admiral. His eyes fleeted over the papers, then back onto me. I leaned as far as I could before going on.
"Yes. A name, my dearest Admiral. Marion Grenchhawk, a local apothecary. Small business, yet incredibly fraudulent. Also a distribution point for dangerous toxins - our competitor's number one supplier of poisons. Back then, I was a conflicted youth, driven to do what a piece of paper told me to, despite the lack of sense in that, but today, I know that it was the first of many phases in a great plan.
"Assassins, murderers, men like you and I who carry swords and fight with bullets, its our wit and our strength that molds humanity. We murder each other, cutting away at those with different beliefs, different ideals, differences. We kill them, we hack at their bones and saw at their flesh, we consume their legacies and fill the voids we leave with our seeds, seeds of all kind. Look at Khooma, that miserable, blistering pile of shit. Today, it's the prime example of human savagery. Yet savagery is what the propaganda said we would be fighting. What you would be fighting.
"We're the men with the blades, who shape this world to our will, yet our will is not our own, after all. We're told what we want to hear, so we may stow our blades, or we're intimidated with threats of death and famine, so we may draw them. Tools, tools like hammers and chisels, first to clear away the pestilence, and then to replace it with brick and stone and -"
"Make a point." the Admiral demanded abruptly. He had no patience for games, it would seem.
"My point is that he who owns the blades, wins the game."
"Game?" the Admiral asked. A man of so many words, truly.
"Yes, my dearest Admiral. The game. The game that decides everything. Not the game of monarchy, or the game of economy - the game of control. Blades shape the world, and when you can shape the world, do you not own it? Control it? Is control not success, not the ultimate power? The game, my Admiral, for total dominance."
"Was that your group's intent?" he asked.
"No." I admitted. "We sought not to shape the world by our ideals, but to end the game. Yet even if you wish to end it, you have to play. Furthermore, you have to win it. And you cannot win the game without swords. Without control. Without men like you and I."
"Chaos." the Admiral surmised. "Is that what you sought?"
"Is that your way of combatting the alternative to totalitarian control? Is this imperial monarchy, and its tirade of politics a system you prefer to freedom?" I asked.
"Freedom." the Admiral said. His voice carried no smirk nor snort, yet contempt was unheard as well. It was a monotone statement, a repetition of the obvious. "What was the first phase?"
I smiled. "Why, control, of course. Assassins shape this world, and there are so many, working for so many. By taking out the competition, wiping out our fellow players, we could ensure to move swiftly against the reigning champion of the game." I looked at the Admiral, watching him choose his next question.
"Your group sought to overthrow the Empire." he stated. It wasn't a question, after all, nor a realization. It was more like a clarification for the purposes of an invisible, and rather daft, third party. "And the first step to doing so, was by eliminating everyone else who sought to do the same."
I smiled again. "You're beginning to get it, my dear Admiral. Most games would have had us form together to remove the primary threat, but when you're playing the game, you eliminate who you can, whenever you can. There is no room for allies, especially when your goal is to end the game, not win it for yourself. Once the primary threat is eliminated, nothing can untangle the mess and the chaos that ensues once the equal players begin to wage war. When you seek to end the game without a struggle, you don't run into it headlong - you remove all potential threats in the order of their respective hierarchial positions. The first phase, Admiral, was to become the only other threat to the reigning champion itself."
"And your target?" the Admiral asked. "Who was she, in this game?"
"An ally to a potential threat. Eliminating her was just one element to a long list of elements that eventually ended that threat, yet I was one lowly and only potential recruit, tasked with a rather indifferent element whose existence was non-essential, and whose death made little difference. It was a test, yet it was still an effectual action towards the ultimate goal."
"An apothecary, you said?"
"Yes." I replied. "She supplied a private army with forbidden toxins, derived from smuggled plants, from faraway lands. Eliminating her would remove one thorn from an enemy rose bush, and could potentially help us grow another on our own. After all, she was just the conduit between the supplies and the enemy - replacing her once she was gone would grant us access to her secret wares. Free of charge." I smirked. "She didn't put up much of a fight. A grizzled woman, in the later stages of her middle-life - she stank of incense, and her teeth were ivory, and large. Very large. As if they were not her own. Her eyes seemed glazed, and her fingers were blackened with resin and dried ingredients. A strong medicinal smell dominated her shop, and the humidity was not helped by the spilling of her life's blood. I remember it quite well."
***
It was a particularly warm night. Rain was falling heavily, and the humidity mixed with the strange heat made me almost feverish. Perhaps all that was just the strange anticipation in my body.
Why? Why did I decide to do this? Well, what else are you supposed to do. Why, though? Why kill her? Should I report this? Report? Don't be a fool. What exactly would the authorities do, you naive soul. They'd probably lock you up, you damned vagrant. No reason to kill her. I don't know her. A piece of paper is telling me to do it! That piece of paper is the only thing to have acknowledged your miserable existence, you ingrate. It's a piece of paper.
I've decided. I'm going- Home? What home? D'you like to call that shit-splattered gutter your place of residence? You don't exist. You've been on the run and useless for years. No one wants you, you can't even find a job in this city. Even the dock workers laugh at you. You have no purpose, no use. This piece of paper is giving you what you need.
Your parents died. Your uncle killed himself because of you. Your grandparents hate you. You've spent the last, fuck, you don't even know how long being nothing but a shitstain on the street, hated and spurned, used and abused. Why are you still here? Why aren't you gone? Gone. GONE.
Why did you stab that boy?
Suddenly, I felt tired. I didn't want to argue any more. I was sick of fighting, of getting hurt, of seeing no end. The bloodied knife still hung loosely from my fingers. The warm blood, dry and blackened on my hand, but still fresh in memory, was being washed away by the warm rain. The boy to whom it belonged was hardly older than I, yet his face when I stuck the knife in him was terror: child-like - no, infant-like terror. Like a grown man, who suddenly came to a realization that struck all intelligence from his face. His mind. His soul. He had seen death, an end, real importance in my eyes. Suddenly, his entire life was at my privy. Written in the corners of his eyes. I could see what no one else ever would.
He didn't die. His friends muttered something, then all I remember was pain, and screaming. And blood. So much blood. It tasted good, despite the pain. I was happy. And when the rain came and washed my face, I felt clean. My hair was damp with sweat, blood and soot, my skin was stained with dirt, and my clothes were stiff with fluids of all kinds, yet for the first time in a long time, I felt... Absolved. At peace. Like I knew what to do.
Oh good. The voice stopped. Let's go kill her, then.
The all-too strange euphoria that spread throughout my veins, at first like a trickling poison, and now as though my own blood, had seeped into my muscles, envigorating me with newfound strength. My vision; still blurred, still dimmed, and still a pain to my head that I scarce wish to put to words. My cognition; weak and slow, yet functioning. I could feel my mind working, my body trying its best to keep up. Hope, I repeated, as though to spurn me on to my demonic cause. Hope. I had been chosen to make a choice between a woman I did not know, and myself. I chose myself.
I can’t truly recall how long I walked. It must’ve been quite a distance though, for I once found myself stranded near the market district, but was now standing in the middle of a road, shadowed by the might of several electrical lanterns shining upon a barbed gate of monstrous proportions. The upper-class residential area, heavily guarded and maintained, a paradise within a bustling hive of shit and spit.
My fingers, somewhat numbed, lingered over my pocket, until I remembered the address on the paper. I pulled the flimsy thing out, examining it in strange curiosity. I had never felt this good in my life: this free, this, powerful. It didn’t feel natural, but I bothered not to question or wait for answers.
I had something to do, and I was going to go and do it. The address was quite a stretch through town, but it didn’t matter. My legs were numbed now, yet they still did as I commanded. Something told me, once this strange feeling wears off, I’d be in the worst pain I could ever fathom, but I cared little. After all, I felt like living in the moment more than I had ever done.
I turned to face an alley off the road with the electric lanterns, and as the yellow lights shone powerfully against beautifully patterned setts, a strange memory resurfaced from whence it had slumbered for innumerable years. A shortcut, over an unsightly squat home, past an abandoned manor, through a set of stairs at the end of a dark alley passing the back of a public eatery, and onto a winding road that led down to another alley, whence the address led to. Pain had left my body, and was replaced my indifference and numbness. I took advantage of my unfeeling muscles, and began ascending and descending, precariously clawing my way up the side of a misshapen building, before leaping onto the next top. On one of the jumps, my ankle must’ve sprained itself, but there was no pain.
Eventually, the salty air made its way through the sharp night, and I looked up from one of the rooftops. The moon was full, and shining powerfully in the last hours of the night. It’s silver light, unshrouded by the usual clouds, reflected off the calmly ebbing waters. Figures of boats and men on them rose and fell among the slow waves, as the early fishermen sent nets into the black and silver flow of the island’s surrounding waters.
For a second, I forgot what I had set out to do. For a second, all I wanted to do was watch the water rise and fall; watch the boats head out and pull in; watch the fishermen at their work.
Yet as they began reeling in the nets, slowly, I felt a dragging force pulling me back into my choice. Pulling me back to face up to the decision I had so adamantly made.
It was almost as though this decision worked separately from me, and sought to preserve itself against my own wishes. If such a thing were even a possibility. It did not bother me. Gutless, yet following naught but my gut, my gaze glazed over before I finally tore myself drom the scenery.
Getting to the address on the paper from then on was no difficult task. The streets were as empty as they could be, as the hours before sunrise began to wane. The pavement, broken slabs of granite arranged years past, and the road, now a rough cobblestone smeared with the occasional bit of manure, and slick with dirt and electrical oils, shone in the dim lights of the oil-light lanterns that lit up the more remote parts of the city.
This is what much of the city looked like. Aside from the places of higher class, and the shore-side market district, most of the city was a network of slums – old buildings stacked upon each other, stone after stone after stone, covered in grime and cold mud and other, less savory things. The drainage system here was fairly archaic, and the aqueduct that ran underneath the roads rumbled as the waters hit each successive underground step. The people were simple, each minding their own. The poor, wherever they hid, were shunned by each and everyone, even those that had barely any more than the homeless could call their own.
Treading lightly across the nearly nonexistant sidewalk of this neglected path was near serene, especially when coupled with the freezing numbness that traveled through me. I took the expected turn to another alley, behind which would lay my destination. A strange anticipation should have enveloped me, but instead I was filled with uncanny calmness, the likes of which would chill me in hindsight for quite some time.
The view of the crammed storefront was one I’d never forget. A leaky chimney along the side of the building had hot steam rise and escape through numerous vents – holes where the concrete for the cobble must’ve eroded, and the stones departed. An unmistaking odor of sulfur and several herbs accompanied the heavy steam, masking the usual stench of the streets with another far more peculiar set of odors. My eyes, unaccostomed to the heavy fumes, began to water, but I didn’t mind the sting that much. Nor did I mind the unpleasant scents. The rest of the front was built in dark green wood, a corroding silver font headlining the apothecary’s name in bold writing. A sign hung from above the dilapidating door – a potion glass, filled with the same green color, and labeled with the same silver writing.
From beside the door hung a chain, to which was attached an archaic bronze bell. I pulled the chain, and laid my hand on the handle, noticing only know the blood-crusted knife that had been in my hand all this time. I can’t even remember how I climbed with it. Did I stow the blade, then pull it out through some strange unconscious reflex?
The door opened to the unsightly visage of a monstrous man. He took a look at me, his face twisted in what he might’ve believed to be an accomodating smile – although why anyone would enjoy the company of a client at an hour such as this was beyond me – yet as he saw the knife in my hand, and looked upon my eyes, his stare turned strange, fearful, and then understanding.
The next few minutes went by in a strange flash. I remember only bits and pieces, as I couldn’t think very clearly. I remember being in the main room of the apothecary, the floor covered in dried leaves from exotic plants and bloody shards of glass and pottery, the air thick with the scent of a thousand herbs, colors blurring in my eyes like the pigments on a canvas after a fresh painting is splashed with water.
The central focus of the portrait my mind had painted was a large shadowy figure, much like the man who had opened the door to me. My right arm was throbbing with heat, and I glanced over to see a glistening scarlet line across my forearm, and an empty hand. I must’ve lost my knife. As the man stomped towards me, the lamp light from outside shone onto a fragment of glass and onto his face, illuminating his now far less accommodating grimace. A crazed look of duty and a frightening shadow of dispair loomed across his molten features, his impressively large hands reaching out to grab me, for what I assumed was not the first time.
In a frightening state of self-preservation, and an unbeknownst to me bewildering moment of fear, I grasped the nearest thing I could find, and swung at his strange visage, catching the side of his head in a wide arc. The impact of whatever I had in my hand hitting his cheek shattered the object to shards, some of them impregnating themselves deep within the folds in my palm and fingers. The other pieces fell to the floor, broken. The clear sound, however, was drowned out by the agonizing wails coming from the now stumbling man, who, from the blow, had shifted to the side and fallen into the unlit shadows, smashing against an entire wall of flasks. One came down from above and cracked open over his head like an egg, a shower of musky green flowing over his patched hair and down his bloody shoulders. On his knees, leaning against the wall, a sudden groan came from the man as he began to sway on the spot.
I took my chance, and snatched a wooden rod from the counter opposite to the man. It was hooked, probably for an extended reach to some of the higher hanging dried leaves that were strung up to the ceiling of the shop. I gripped firmly, my hand beginning to throb and blaze in agony as the shards dug deeper into them. Warm blood seeped from between my knuckles and washed over and around the fingers of my right hand, crawling down the rod as I held it. I swung upwards, and with a single strike, knocked the man completely to the floor. A grunt of effort escaped my lips, and my vision began returning to me as I felt a soft mist of sanguine red cover my face, like a warm hug, licking away the frosting wounds of the cold darkness.
It felt strangely liberating, beating him to death. It didn’t take long for him to stop moving, or responding at all – but I kept hitting him, again and again, no longer paying attention to the blood, or his open head, or anything. All I wanted was that sweet embrace of blood. But after a while, it didn’t come anymore. Slowly waking from what felt like a trance, I ached. I glared around to analyse the situation as the colors softly began to sharpen into individuality.
Suddenly, a shuffling sound from further within the shop startled me. The shop wasn’t very large, although it was quite high. The entire place was built on cobblestone foundations, and was furnished with wooden fixtures. Wooden beams and wooden displays, hanging wooden constructions for the display of various alchemical and apothetical ingredients – from the entrance, one would see naught but a square room, stretching up a ways, yet furnished simply.
Although lanterns and various fixtures for light were there, they weren’t lit; probably because they weren’t supposed to be at this time. The left side of the shop was dominated mostly by the large counter, and the various now-shattered exemplaries of healing salves and dried mixtures that it boasted. The right side was a wall-sized display of various labelled and intricately sorted leaves, herbs, fruits, flowers, mushrooms and roots, most of them dried, others preserved in a strange solution.
Opposite to the storefront was a wall much like the right one, but with the sole exception of another door. I strode to it, at first cautiously, my shaggy and oversized boots giving way to the sharp glass and ceramic that littered the bloody mess of a floor this place now had to boast.
The handle to the door was non-existant – I pushed, and it gave way in a creak to a pitch black staircase leading down. “Hullo?” I called, realizing the ineffectiveness of such a request. I took a tentative step down into the darkness.
Another step. And another. It took a few more, but eventually I found myself steeped within an indominable darkness.
Suddenly, a soft flame flared into existence some distance away. Its bright orange color attracted me, made me want to come closer, and by some hypnotic magic, I did.
The flame flickered feebly, its trailing tentacles of light clawing at the darkness on the walls of the corner in which it was lit, like a frightened child against a horde of monsters. The orange burned vividly in my eyes against the rest of the room, and I began to feel an uncomfortable sensitivity embrace my skin and overwhelm my senses.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood starkly straight in intuition, and my eyes twitched nervously in anticipation as my ears awaited the slightest audible sign of a trap.
Yet a trap didn’t come. The flame stood flickering on a candle, the blackened string revealed underneath the melting ivory. Evidently, the flame had been burning for a while. The handle, a dirty and greyed silver, stood upon a rough and unpolished wooden table in the corner of the cellar, which seemed to contain rows and columns of further supplies. Nearly submerged in the wax was a letter placed underneath the candle.
Dearest Harod,
Your shipment awaits you at the docks. Gerald has prepared a carriage to come at dawn, so sit comfortably until then. I’ve doubled the amount of dried elven locks, as asked, and I’ve added a supply of Unicorpia flowers for your 12-hour paralysis poisons, to replace the low-yielding mushrooms. Be careful with the dosages, for the petals are quite weak, but the toxins in the stems provide for a very potent effect. The apothecary, Marion, is out for the night; she’ll be back soon after you leave.
Try not to be unseen. I’ll be waiting by the usual ship.
The letter was stained, and the paper rough - the handwriting was elegant, and despite the ill shape of the paper, its scent was that of lovelier things than could be found in this shop.
The apothecary, it mentioned. That would imply that the author was not the person I sought. And, it also implied that the man with a bashed in head upstairs was Gerald.
So who was Harod? The sound of the floorboards creaking above snapped me out of my speculations, and I hastily put the candle out with my filthy fingers. A sudden cry erupted from above, following rapid breathing. I thought quickly, remembering back to the words on the now unseen letter. The apothecary, Marion, is out for the night; she’ll be back soon after you leave.
Could dawn have come and passed? I don’t remember. If it was her, however, my path was clear.
I stormed upwards, clutching what I knew to be the wooden rod drenched in blood, and saw her. She was wizened and short, her hair unkempt and her clothes mottled in different colors. Her skin was leathery, and her face, barely visible in the light of the early morning, was sunken.
Yet her whimpering and staring still conveyed the shock she so obviously felt.
I charged at her, swinging deftly. An agility unbecoming of a woman in such an apparently advanced age overwhelmed my senses as she whirled about and dodged the blow. The next, however, was not so easily dodged, as I knocked upwards from behind in an effort to recover the previous swing. The tip of the rod’s hook caught her deftly on her chin, and the impact made her rise and fall back onto the floor, her neck twisted and contorted, her eyes and mouth gaping wide open, staring into an unapparent nothingness.
The rod split in the middle now, bloodied and retired like most everything else on the scene. I turned slowly, coming upon a hesitant, yet uplifting realization of completion, letting everything hurt and ache as I almost too confidently strolled out through the front door.
Then it hit me. I had just bluntly murdered two people, strangers nonetheless – people who had done nothing to hurt me prior to my attempts of butchery. Behind me were laid down two bodies – one bashed open, the other’s neck broken – amidst a sea of destruction. A contradictorily peacefully sound tone of chaos resonated over the shards of glass and ceramic, tainted with blood.
And I never felt better.