[RiddleRose]: 298.Stories.Untitled- Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Friends

Ali leaped from one rooftop to another as lightly and silently as a bird. Her dull, shadow-colored clothes let her blend in seamlessly with the night. Despite the copious amounts of weaponry she carried, no clink of metal was heard. Her soft-soled leather boots made no sound on the shingles, and when she dropped to her belly to avoid being seen by a passing watchman, there was only the slightest rustle.

The added advantage of her night-black skin gave her an edge most assassins didn't have, and the grace learned in the craggy Barathi mountain range let her run, where most had to balance carefully to avoid falling. The roofs of Corta were a highway to her and to the many thieves and assassins who lived there. 

She usually met at least two of the professional thieves when she ran the roofs, and tonight was no exception. The Rat and the Weasel were working one of the wealthier shops in the district. She stopped to greet them, although they didn't speak in words. Instead they used an intricate system of gestures and expressions that took years to perfect. Only the Thieves' Guild, the Pirates' Guild, and the Guild of Assassins taught it to their members, so it was a means of recognising a fellow rogue as well as of talking. 

The Rat told her that the Watch was being especially vigilant tonight for some reason, especially in the Shartor District. She thanked him, and signed that she had to go, business to attend to. The Rat gave her a feral smile, and wished her good luck. She returned it, then flitted silently away.

She stopped for a snack in one of the taverns at the edge of the Murk. She often came here, and the barmaid, a small fiery redheaded elf named Twig was one of her closest friends. Besides being a barmaid, Twig was an accomplished thief, and on her off nights she and Ali sometimes amused themselves by dressing as highborn ladies and working some of the wealthiest inns and taverns in the city. 

Although Ali was an assassin, and Twig a thief, the two professions were often interchangeable, and the teaching of both included elements of the other, so the two girls often helped each other out of difficulties. Once, when Ali had two jobs in one night, and she knew she couldn't do them both, Twig took care of one of them for her. In return, Ali helped her clean out the strongbox of a wealthy businessman the next week. The job could not have been done without two people. It was a mutually useful relationship.

Of course, among the complicated society of the rogues of Corta, Ali was known only as the Cat, and Twig was known as Red. Even Twig and Ali were nicknames, although closer to the reality than the others. When one might need to change identities at a moment's notice, it was foolish to retain your true name, or even to let it be known. Names were only words after all, and if the name you took had no real power over you, so much the better. 

Every thief and every assassin received a name from their respective guild after they had completed three successful missions. The name would almost always be an animal whose qualities were seen in the young initiate. Thus Ali was the Cat for her grace, balance, and ability to move silently, while Twig was Red for her hair and temper. The Weasel was small and flexible and able to get through impossibly tight spaces, and the Rat was quick, suspicious, and could survive anywhere.

Now, sitting at the bar, and, to all appearances staring gloomily into her mug, Ali's fingers asked, How's business tonight? You've got quite a crowd in here.

Twig flipped her hair and darted out of the reach of a man who tried to pinch her bottom, neatly pocketing the contents of his belt pouch in the process. Not bad, she replied, I've got a group of visitors from Ta Inli over there in the corner. By their clothes, I might get something good out of 'em.

Ali nearly laughed. The group in the corner was looking with wide-eyed innocence at the tavern's bouncer, an immense man called the Ox, who had just waded into the beginnings of a fight and tossed two men out on the street. He nodded to her politely before taking up his station by the door again. He was a retired thief in name, but he still practiced occasionally.

Where're you headed tonight? asked Twig, into the Murk?

Yep, replied Ali, still glaring at her mug, but not on a job exactly. I'm supposed to be keeping tabs on someone. I don't suppose you've seen a man, a little older than us, tall, dark hair, moves like a snake, or, she grinned slightly, like a cat?

Nope, sorry, replied Twig, haven't seen him. If I do though, I'll let you know.

Thanks. I should probably be going. See you! Ali drained her mug, and stood up.

Bye, Twig signed, and went to serve someone. To the casual observer, there had been no interaction at all between the two girls. In any case, most of the patrons of the Boar's Head Tavern were too drunk to notice anything but where their next drink was coming from.

Ali slipped out into the night, nodding to the Ox as she passed him, and walking off sedately the way she had come. However, the moment she was out of sight around a corner, she became the Cat again. She climbed to the roof of a lodging house using windowsills and protruding bricks, and was off into the night. 

Five minutes later she was in the Murk, the section of the city where the Watch didn't even bother to go. It was never quite quiet in the Murk, nor was it at all still. When the daytime inhabitants went to bed, the nighttime ones got up, and vice versa.

The roofs of the Murk were the easiest to run across in some ways, and the hardest in others. So many of them were no more than a sheet of metal tacked up in the tiny space between buildings that you had to watch where you stepped, for fear of falling through. However, many of the roofs were flat, with outcroppings that were perfect for concealment, and there were frequent staircases that led down to the streets below. 

Ali liked the Murk. It was predictably dangerous. You had to be constantly alert, always watching and listening for someone sneaking up behind you. Soft female voices called from down dark alleys, promising forbidden pleasures, but when you got there your throat was slit, and your body thrown in the river. No one was what or who they appeared. If you slept in the wrong place, you would wake up in the afterlife. Murder and theft were so common in the Murk that no one really owned anything, it was pointless. 

In the daytime it was a bit safer, and a bit more reputable. People actually bought things, and had legitimate paying jobs in the daytime. Of course, they lost all their money by night, but that was just part of what passed for life in the Murk. At night, the only honest jobs were whoring and tavern-keeping. 

Gangs roamed the streets by night and day. There were four main gangs, the Thunderbolts, the Kings, the Skulls, and the Cobras, and they divided the Murk into four parts. The Kings had the east, the Skulls had the west, the Thunderbolts the north, and the Cobras the south. Gang wars were a constant phenomenon, and they added to the general roiling mass of life that was the essence of the Murk. 

Ali flitted across the rooftops. She knew them well, and had never misstepped once in the two years she had been a full member of her guild. She sharpened her sight a little, wary and alert. The gold band around her black eyes dilated slightly. Ali had the Sight, a magical ability that let her see things far off, and see in the dark like a cat. She could tell when someone was lying, and sometimes she could see a flickering aura around someone's head. She could also see magic, and see through illusions or invisibility.

So now she sharpened her eyes, piercing the gloom. It was just past eleven o' clock, and the night was just beginning. Everywhere she saw people, fighting, talking, killing, eating, drinking, fighting more, stealing, kissing... through windows she saw them arguing, fighting, talking, making love... every race, and every gender, every color of skin, every style of clothes. Ali didn't stand out at all here, even with her dark skin, which was unusual anywhere else. 

When she reached the heart of the Murk it was eleven thirty, and she had only been attacked twice. Both times she had easily dispatched her attacker of course, most of the inhabitants of the Murk had no real knowledge of the finer points of street brawling, especially when one of those finer points was the tip of a poisoned dagger. She had only to nick them with it, and they would be dead in minutes. The beautiful thing about this poison was that it left no traces. The victim knew no pain, (Ali hated unnecessary pain. Better to kill clean and quick.) but simply became unconscious, and then died as the poison circulated throughout the bloodstream.

What worried her was not that she had been attacked, but that she had only been attacked twice. Usually a visit to the heart of the Murk included, at the very least, five such scuffles. Something was worrying the prowlers of the rooftops, and what in the Murk passed for a little worry usually counted as full-scale panic on the part of anyone outside. Ali decided to visit a friend.

Ten minutes later she was knocking politely on the door of a small cottage near the heart of the Murk. Incongruously, there was a garden in front of it, and the whole thing had a neat appearance that was completely out of character with it's surroundings. A sign on the door said simply HEALER, NO CHARGE, and for those who couldn't read, the universal healer's sign, a bunch of white roses, was painted on the wall.

In the Murk, only a few people were really respected. The king, the queen, the heads of the thieves' and assassins' guilds, a few mercenaries, a few tavern-keepers, a few Madames, and all healers. Any healer could feel safer in the Murk than almost anywhere else, provided she or he helped anyone who asked and was honest. Well, relatively so anyway.

The door opened, and Ali found herself facing a tall girl of her own age, with wisps of reddish-brown hair escaping her tight braid, which reached down to her waist. She looked tired, with large circles under her eyes, but she smiled brightly at Ali, leading her inside in silence and putting a finger to her lips. She gestured that they should go upstairs to avoid waking her patients.

Once upstairs she collapsed on a couch, gesturing to Ali to sit where she willed, “Ye gods Ali, I'm going crazy! Have ye heard the rumors?”

Ali grinned. Only Misty. “No, actually I came for that reason. I was wondering if something was wrong. I only got jumped twice on my way here, and you know how rare that is. What's up?”

The interesting upshot of being a healer in the Murk was that people confided in you. One of the jobs of a Murk healer was to listen to the woes of the patients, and the better a listener you were, the more you got told. Misty had taken this a step further, and had actually managed to establish a kind of spy network which told her everything that went on, from rumors to murders, and disease to kidnapping. She was one of Ali's most reliable sources of information, and one of her close friends. 

Misty was from Sael, and had arrived two years ago. She hadn't known anything about cities, and Ali, finding her, had set her up in the Murk. Normally she wouldn't have done that to someone so naïve, but Misty was a highly skilled healer, so Ali knew she would be very safe. The denizens of the Murk actually went so far as to protect their healers – the good ones anyway. 

Misty had quickly established herself, young as she was, and had acclimated quickly to life in the Murk. She didn't like the rest of the city much, but in the Murk she felt at home. The people loved her, for being kind, for listening to them, for being young even. Although she didn't know it, her home was guarded at all times by a strictly disciplined band of the Cobras, whose territory she lived in. 

“Well,” said Misty, leaning forward conspiratorially, her soft lilting accent thickening with excitement, “what they say is – and mind ye, I donna say I believe it – what they say is that there's a vampire a-preying on the Murk! They say he's just come into town, and some folks are saying, some folks think he's an old old man, with a long white beard, and some say it's not a man at all, but a woman disguised as a man!” she broke off, too excited to go on, “Think of it Ali! A real vampire! I've always wanted to meet one! D'ye think he might talk to me?”

Ali laughed, “And of course, you give no thought to the fact that he'd probably kill you as soon as chat with you...”

“Och, don't be silly now! Why would he want to kill me?” she batted her eyes charmingly, “I'd befuddle him with my feminine wiles. Anyway, where was I?”

“You were telling me what people thought he looked like.”

“Right. Well, some people think he's a great tall man, with black hair, and a voice like chocolate. They say he moves like a snake in the grass, and ye donna even see him 'til he's on ye! What d'ye think of that, eh?” she leaned back expectantly, grinning at Ali's thunderstruck expression, “And now, don' tell anyone I told ye, but I've seen one of the bodies o' the folk they say he killed, and I tell ye! She had a great wide smile on her mouth like ye wouldn't believe! But Ali – she hadn't a drop o' blood left in her! Not a drop! Drained dry she was, just like a vampire might do it.”

Ali gasped appreciatively, but her mind was whirling. Misty had just described to her the man she was supposed to be tracking, even down to her own description of him as moving like a snake. “Misty, could you do me a favour? Find out as much as you can about this fellow, how often he kills, for example, and where. Anything, even the most insignificant little details. I want to find him.”

Misty nodded, “And if ye do, and he doesn't mind, can ye ask him if he'll speak with me? I ken it may be impossible, but...” she trailed off hopefully.

Ali grinned, imitating her accent, “I ken, ye want me to arrange a meeting with one o' the most dangerous critters o' history,” she laughed lightly, “I'll do my best. D'you know where he was last seen? Or where the last body was found?”

Misty laughed too, and gave her a location in Skull territory, about five blocks away. Ali took her leave of her friend, after making her promise to get some rest, and was at the spot before the clocks in the city struck one. It was curiously deserted, but there wasn't anything to see. Ali poked about for a bit, but gave it up as a bad job, and went back to the Guild building, where she had a room. 

She climbed in through the window, as was her habit. When you lived in a building full of assassins, you could never be too careful. Even if it was against Guild law to kill another member, “accidents” had been known to happen. After checking her room thoroughly, she washed, and went to bed.