The Ambassador's Mission

Cery nodded. I agree. But times have changed. The city has changed. It’s like living in a foreign country, sometimes. Or what I’d imagine living in some other city would be like, since I’ve never left Imardin. Unfamiliar. Different rules. Dangers where you don’t expect them. Can’t be too paranoid. And I am, after all, about to meet the most feared Thief in Imardin.

“You there!” a voice called. Two guards strode toward them, one holding up his lantern. Cery considered the distance to the other side of the road, then sighed and stopped.

“Me?” he asked, turning to face the guards. Gol said nothing.

The taller of the guards stopped a step closer than his stocky companion. He did not answer, but after looking from Gol to Cery and back again a few times he settled on staring at Cery.

“State your address and name,” he ordered.

“Cery of River Road, Northside,” Cery replied.

“Both of you?”

“Yes. Gol is my servant. And bodyguard.”

The guard nodded, barely glancing at Gol. “Your destination?”

“A meeting with the king.”

The quieter guard’s indrawn breath earned a glance from his superior. Cery watched the men, amused to find them both trying – and failing – to hide their dismay and fear. He’d been told to give them this information, and though it was a ridiculous claim the guard appeared to believe him. Or, more likely, understood that it was a coded message.

The taller guard straightened. “On your way then. And … safe journey.”

Cery turned away and, with Gol following a step behind, continued across the street. He wondered if the message had told them exactly who Cery was meeting, or if it only told the guard that whoever spoke the phrase wasn’t to be detained or delayed.

Either way, he doubted he and Gol had chanced upon the only corrupted guard on the street. There had always been guards willing to work with the Thieves, but now the layers of corruption were stronger and more pervasive than ever. There were honest, ethical men in the Guard who strove to expose and punish offenders in their ranks, but it was a battle they had been losing for some time now.

Everyone is caught up in infighting of one form or another. The Guard is fighting corruption, the Houses are feuding, the rich and poor novices and magicians in the Guild bicker constantly, the Allied Lands can’t agree on what to do about Sachaka, and the Thieves are at war with each other. Faren would have found it all very entertaining.

But Faren was dead. Unlike the rest of the Thieves, he had died of a perfectly normal lung infection during winter five years ago. Cery hadn’t spoken to him for years before that. The man Faren had been grooming to replace him had taken the reins of his criminal empire with no contest or bloodshed. The man known as Skellin.

The man Cery was meeting tonight.

As Cery made his way through the smaller, lingering portion of the split Wildways neighbourhood, ignoring the calls of whores and betting boys, he considered what he knew of Skellin. Faren had taken in his successor’s mother when Skellin was only a child, but whether the woman had been Faren’s lover or wife, or had worked for him, was unknown. The old Thief had kept them close and secret, as most Thieves had to do with loved ones. Skellin had proven himself a talented man. He had taken over many underworld enterprises, and started more than a few of his own, with few failures. He had a reputation for being clever and uncompromising. Cery did not think Faren would have approved of Skellin’s utter ruthlessness. Yet the stories most likely had been embellished during retellings, so there was no guessing how deserving the man’s reputation was.

There was no animal Cery knew of called a “Skellin”. Faren’s successor had been the first new Thief to break with the tradition of using animal names. It didn’t necessarily mean “Skellin” was his real name, of course. Those who believed it was thought him brave for revealing it. Those who didn’t, didn’t care.