B3 Prelude (cont)

Here endeth the prelude!

“Are you sure about this, Lukas? Don’t you think Willhem’s favoured apprentice should be looking somewhere a little more… upmarket?”

Victor’s voice dripped with derision and he looked at the people who crammed the busy streets around them with open contempt. Lukas rolled his eyes. In some ways, he understood Victor’s attitude, he’d been born rich and had barely set a foot outside the walls of Kenmor his entire life.

That wall loomed behind them now, a massive, towering edifice that blocked out the morning sun, an effect which gave the community that had built itself up outside the western wall its name.

Shadetown.

Fifty metres high and twenty metres thick, the wall of Kenmor was designed to resist assault by the most powerful rift-kin out there. The sheer mass of it weighed down on Lukas whenever he stood nearby, a crushing presence that divided those able to afford a place within its boundary from those who could not.

Of Kenmor’s six million citizens, almost half of them lived outside the city itself.

“I’ve told you a thousand times what I’m looking for and you still won’t listen,” Lukas sighed. “I can’t tell if you’re deaf or thick at this point.”

“Hey. A lesser man would be offended by a comment like that.”

“Perhaps you should be.”

The two men stuck close to each other as they made their way through the crowds. Unplanned and haphazard in its design, Shadetown was a nightmare to navigate if you didn’t know where you were going.

“Stick close to me and keep a hand on your purse at all times,” Lukas warned his friend again. Victor nodded irritably.

“Surrounded by thieves and ne'er do wells,” he scowled. “In the name of the Five, I can’t understand why you like it out here so much.”

“It’s a little more… comfortable for me, I guess you could say. I understand these people. When survival isn’t guaranteed, when you have to fight for it, desperation will make people do questionable things. Look at you, for example. Have you ever been desperate in your entire life, Victor?”

The older apprentice stroked his chin for a moment.

“There was a time Lady Shan was throwing a garden party. I was besotted at the time, I would have done anything to get an invite.”

Lukas snorted.

“Your example goes quite a ways to making my point for me. At any rate, as long as you know where to go, there are areas of Shadetown that are as safe as can be. You just have to know where.”

“I don’t know how you learned any of this. All I’ve ever seen you do is work and sleep. In three years, I don’t think I managed to get you out for drinks once.”

“If you went out for drinks less and worked a little more, then perhaps you might be close to finishing your apprenticeship too.”

“I’m on schedule, thank you very much. It’s meant to be a six year apprenticeship, remember?”

“I took that as more of a suggestion….”

Victor shook his head, then bumped into a passerby and his hands immediately flew to his purse. He sighed with relief when he found it still in place.

“I keep telling you, this is a mistake. Willhem favours you, if you stuck around, you’d have a chance to inherit his entire business! How many years does the old goat have left? Four? Five? Why strike out on your own?”

“You keep repeating the same shit. This is what I’m doing Victor, if you want to tag along, then stop trying to argue for something I’ve explicitly told you I won’t do.”

Victor felt a chill as Lukas turned a cold glare on him. There were times the mild mannered, work obsessed apprentice acted like an entirely different person. One learned that there were red lines with Lukas if you were around him long enough.

He raised his hands.

“Okay, okay. I’ll keep my mouth shut. I just didn’t want you to regret your decision.”

“I won’t,” came the short reply and the two men moved through the crowd in silence.

Eventually they came to a small market square, teeming with stalls and sellers hawking their goods, along with a flurry of foot traffic.

“This looks like a good spot,” Victor observed, “cleaner than what I’ve seen so far.”

“You’ve just got to know the right places,” Lukas nodded, “but this is a little too noisy. The place I want to look at is back there.”

He pointed to a sidestreet and the two made their way over. Lukas walked with confidence as he approached a sweaty, nervous looking man in fine robes.

“Mr Finley, nice to see you again,” he said, extending a hand.

“Ah, Mr Almsfield. How are you?”

“I’m well. This is the building?”

“It is. Might need a little work, but its frame is sturdy and the location is among the finest in Shadetown.”

“You can’t be serious…” Victor muttered.

The building in question couldn’t quite be described as dilapidated, but it came close. Rotted panels of wood, broken windows, cracked timbers, crumbled masonry. Clearly, it had seen better days.

For all that, there was a certain majesty to it. Two stories high, a wide frontage and the remnants of an ornate, arched doorway gave the structure an element of gravitas.

“It’s as I told you at the office,” Finley said, “the building was once a fine edifice, and the bones of the place are sound. We can step inside if you like.”

“I would love to,” Lukas said, his eyes gleaming.

Victor looked as if he would very much like to object, but he sighed and fetched a scented cloth from his pocket. Covering his face, he braced himself and followed the others through the door.

Dark and musty, the interior didn’t do much to dissuade Victor of the poor nature of the building, but Tyron flicked his wrist, sending several glowing globes of light around the space to illuminate it. He then held out a palm and conjured a larger ball to take along with him.

The light revealed what had once been an office space, with several desks, a reception area and attached offices.

“This used to be an administration building for the area,” he told Victor conversationally. “Since this was a bit of a prosperous neighbourhood, they put together their own town hall of sorts and ran their own council out of here. Quite a bit of history in this building.”

His fellow apprentice looked a little green, but nodded politely, as if he was listening.

“Yes, quite. The people are quite proud of this place. The Market Council House it was called,” Finley enthused, one hand brushing at his robes compulsively.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Lukas remarked, “which is why it's been in disrepair for almost two decades. All that pride.”

He leaned closer to Victor, but didn’t lower his voice at all.

“The council was raided by the city guard for tax evasion. Half of them were thrown in prison, the other half executed. Nobody wanted to touch the place for a long time, and after that, nobody wanted to invest the kind of capital required to fix the place up. Too expensive for a building in Shadetown.”

“Ah… yes… quite,” Finley stuttered, a thin smile plastered to his face.

“I want to see the upstairs,” Lukas said and quickly jogged up the creaking staircase.

Victor and Mr Finley remained where they were. Lukas rejoined them a moment later.

“Looks good. I’ll need to renovate it, but it would make a spacious living quarters and workshop up there.”

He looked around.

“There’s supposed to be a basement level as well, isn’t there? I don’t see the entrance.”

“Oh,” Finley started. “Yes, there is, actually. The entrance is a little out of the way. I’m surprised you knew about it….”

Lukas gave him a broad smile.

“I read extensively about this property in preparation for today. As I understand it, Market Square was the first place in Shadetown to have a sewer system constructed. Records indicated that the workers operated out of this very building, so I assumed….”

“Well, you assumed correctly,” Finley said. “It’s this way.”

He led them into one of the back rooms, before he indicated a heavy wooden panel built into the floor.

“You gentlemen are a little younger than I am. If I could trouble you?”

“Come on, Vic.”

“I am not going down there,” Victor warned.

“You toddler.”

The two enchanters managed to lift the panel, revealing the stairs that descended down into darkness.

“Mr Finley?” Lukas invited.

“Oh, I, ah… will decline.”

“Suit yourself.”

In a flash, the young man vanished down the stairs, leaving the other two awkwardly avoiding glancing at each other for ten minutes. Just when Victor thought the silence couldn’t be any more unbearable, his friend emerged once more, covered in dust and what looked like webs.

“It’s a mess down there,” Lukas coughed, brushing at himself. “I’m surprised how much space there is though.”

“Enough room for a wine cellar?” Victor asked.

“You could fit four wine cellars down there, easily.”

“I’m not sure if I believe you. How much do you know about wine?”

“Not much. Regardless, I’ll most likely use it for storage. Perhaps as a cold room.”

Mr Finley fought to keep a smile from his face at his clients' words. He’d been trying to sell this place for almost eight years after picking it up for a pittance.

“I hope the building is to your satisfaction?” he said in his best ingratiating tone. “With so much space, three floors, effectively, and in such a prime location, this is a wonderful opportunity to purchase a true hidden gem.”

“I’ll spend just as much on repairs as I will to purchase the building… probably more,” Lukas stated, his eyes growing cold. Then he smiled. “But I am interested. I’ll have my agent get in touch with you to negotiate a price, Mr Finley. I must ask you to accommodate her unusual habits though, she is seldom awake during the day.”

To sell this damn place, I’ll walk through hot coals at midnight, the merchant thought fervently.

He smiled politely.

“I look forward to the pleasure.”

That got a slow grin out of Lukas.

“So does she,” he assured the man.

~~~

Filetta stalked down the passageway, keeping her cloak pulled tight around her shoulders. She understood it was sometimes necessary, in her line of work, to frequent the sewer, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

The dank tunnels offered many advantages, of course. There were no pesky patrols to worry about, no marshals, no slayers, no magisters, no nobles with their private armies to worry about. Other than the maintenance teams, who were pathetically easy to bribe and intimidate, almost nobody came down here at all.

Perfect for those who wanted to keep their business private. And Filetta very much wanted to keep her business private. Especially tonight.

Someone grunted behind her and she turned, a brow arched.

“Are you trying to be heard, you fucking cretins?” she drawled in a low tone.

“These things are fucking heavy,” someone complained. Probably Gavil.

“I don’t care if you’re bleeding your motherless guts out onto the ground, you don’t make a sound. All of you got it?”

Despite the darkness, her Feat enhanced vision allowed her to see each of the ten men nod, and she turned back to lead the way.

Fucking morons. Why are ninety-nine percent of all criminals so stupid? She lamented.

It was true that almost half a metre of stone separated the sewer tunnel they were in from the road above, but at regular intervals one could find gutter drains and street entrances and carried sound remarkably well. She absolutely didn’t trust these lackeys to recognise when they were likely to be heard and when they weren’t.

Just to emphasise her point, she slipped a blade from her belt and began to twirl it through her fingers, allowing the slivers of light from above to play across the metal.

Even the thugs weren’t so stupid they didn’t understand her message.

If only it didn’t smell so badly….

The place was well constructed, with a narrow path along one wall to allow passage without having to step in the shit, but the stink was something else.

Thank heavens for nose plugs.

A requirement to operate in the business, in her opinion. Eventually the group came to a junction that featured a wide, flat grating over the canals that ran beneath. Filetta gestured to her men to remain behind as she stepped forward.

A hooded figure emerged from across the junction.

“You’re late,” they said.

Filetta raised a finger and waggled it back and forth.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. No hoods, not in this game.”

After a moment of hesitation, the person opposite lifted their hands and pushed back the heavy cloth covering their head. A youngish man, with narrow features and sharp eyes was revealed, his raven black hair hanging shoulder length.

“What’s the point of revealing my features? There are a thousand ways to fake one’s face.”

“Of course. Do you think this is what I really look like?” Filetta smirked. “But it’s courtesy that we conduct our business eye to eye, so to speak.”

She gestured for the man to approach and they moved a few steps closer, until only two metres separated them. She looked him up and down, not bothering to conceal her interest.

“You aren’t exactly hard on the eyes, are you? There’s a certain air of danger about you. I can practically smell it.”

The man shuffled his feet a little uncomfortably and her grin widened.

“You’re Elten?” she said.

He nodded.

“Filetta?”

“The very same.”

“It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”

She laughed a full throated laugh.

“Manners? In my line of work, I don’t often get such a polite address. Fuck, I’d kill for a ‘hello’ most days.”

Elten shrugged.

“It never hurts to be polite. Though, now I fear I must be a little rude and ask that our transaction be completed quickly. Do you have what I asked for?”

Filetta snapped her fingers and her ten men came forward, each carrying a cumbersome burden wrapped in tight linen cloth. Elten eyed them warily, but didn’t appear afraid in the slightest, which she found interesting.

Her men laid the ‘goods’ down on the grating before they stepped back into the shadows.

“It’s surprisingly difficult to get these,” Filetta nudged the closest with one, booted foot. “Far more so than I expected. Making sure nobody notices them missing is the trick.”

“That’s a service you’re being well paid for.”

“Very true. Speaking of which…”

Elten removed a heavy pouch from one sleeve and lofted it toward her.

Filetta snagged it from the air with casual ease.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, before she unwound the knot and inspected the contents.

Gleaming gold caught her eye.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” she breathed.

With practised ease, she tied a quick knot and in a blink, the purse was gone. She glanced down.

“How are you…?” she trailed off.

“I’ll take care of them after you leave.”

For the first time during their interaction, Filetta hesitated.

“Obviously, you aren’t likely to answer, but I have to ask. What do you want with all these corpses?”

Elten shot her a look as if she were stupid.

“I figured,” she sighed.

“Next time, I hope you’ll be a little more prompt. I don’t much appreciate being made to wait down here.”

“Next time?”

The robed man folded his arms impatiently.

“Yes, that was the terms I negotiated. I need this many,” he pointed down, “every month.”

She stared at him.

“You are one sick puppy.”

“Okay?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I think I like it.”

“Okay?”

After a moment, Elten shook himself and folded his arms.

“Well, I hope we can enjoy friendly relations from this point on.”

Filetta tapped her chin with one finger as she eyed him frankly.

“I’m not sure I want to be friends,” she grinned.

Elten blinked. Then he went to speak, but closed his mouth. He blinked again.

“I’ll see you next month,” he said finally.

~~~~

Tyron let out a breath and he felt as if years worth of stress melted off him at once. He’d had to wait so long.

On stone slabs around the basement, twenty corpses lay in various states of decay, awaiting his ministrations.

Time to get back to work.