Four years ago

  There comes a point in pretty much every man’s life when he realizes he’s not the hero in the story.

  Most realize they’re actually a supporting character in another hero’s story. A bit player who pops in to give the hero directions, or a warm bed and a hot meal.

  Aelfredd realized he was the villain in the story when he was cleaning the blood of an innocent man off of his knife blade. To be fair, the man had gotten in his way when he was trying to do a job.

  Until that moment though, he really did think he was the hero. He took another snort of the powder that powered the magic he used as what the gangs called a “quickman,” an assassin that risked the use of outlawed speed magic. Once you were breaking one law it didn’t seem like that much of an issue to break another.

  He inspected the fresh corpse in the alley and realized he somewhat recognized the man. A small time crewleader, Haylain or Jaylain… something like that. He’d met him at a tavern a few years back – a nice enough guy, if somewhat more drunk and boisterous than the type of person Aelfredd tended to befriend. Not an innocent, per se, Jaylain had in fact been a career criminal. But not someone Aelfredd wanted to murder either, there were enough deserving people who fit that description for him to seek Justice from.

  Well, shit.

  There was still a job to do tonight, and he couldn’t linger too long in this alley before he got on with it.

  The night’s work was supposed to have been his favorite kind of job – one that made use of his magically endowed abilities but didn’t actually require him to kill. That was botched now, but at least he wouldn’t have to do more killing tonight and the job still provided an opportunity to redistribute some wealth from the entrenched nobility to the working class scrabblers of Falkaria.

  His mission involved breaking into a minor noble’s villa in the city to swipe a book. The noble, a baron or count or something like that – on principle Aelfredd didn’t bother with or hold much stock in the ranks of the nobles – was supposed to be at his country estate and the villa should have a minimal guard posted tonight.

  His planned approach involved climbing onto the roof of a taller home across the street from the villa’s main entrance, launching a line from a crossbow to the roof of a three-story guard tower at the entrance and riding that across the street to breach the estate’s fenceline.

  Fortunately the estate fronted a street that was popular with wealthy merchants who built tall homes on the small lots they were allowed to purchase in the city. From this alley he should be able to scale the back of one of those homes easily and undetected.

  Unfortunately, when he arrived on the roof of one of those homes he discovered that the roof of the guard tower was occupied. He’d reconnoitered the estate every night for the past month, from this position and many others, and he had never seen a guard posted on the roof of the guard tower. The main guardhouse itself was always occupied by a lone guard who usually slept at this hour, but never the tower.

  Double shit.

  One guard was manageable though. Part of the edge he held over other quickmen was his mastery of another branch of magic that gave him access to potent illusion and charm magic as well. The required components of that magic weren’t quite as easy to ingest discretely though, so he always brought darts enchanted to induce sleep instantly on jobs. Other quickmen were able to purchase these sorts of tools as well, but the price was so steep as to be cost prohibitive for all but the most important missions.

  His first dart hit the mark, as they always did. The magic of the powder improved his distance vision and thus his aim; while also allowing him the ability to impart a slight guidance to the projectile in flight. As the guard slumped to the ground he lifted his crossbow and launched the line, guiding it easily to the guard tower’s roof. He secured the line on a chimney and quickly made his way across it.

  Climbing over the rail and into the guard’s nest he first checked on the sleeping guard, propping him up in a chair to make it look like he had just fallen asleep on duty. Without magical intervention it would be hours before he awoke. While positioning him, he noticed that the guard’s uniform wasn’t blue, as it should be for a member of this baron’s household guard. It was black, and not really a guard uniform so much as just clothing.

  What the…? If he found out that that worthless slimy fence Guerten knew anything about whatever was going on here there would need to be more killing tonight.

  Muffled voices drifted up to his amplified hearing from the hatch in the floor leading to the guardhouse below. Multiple guards in the guardhouse tonight too? Something was definitely wrong. Aelfredd moved closer to the hatch to listen to the conversation from below.

  “When d’ya suppose we’ll be pulling out of here?” one of the guards was asking another.

  “The boss said as soon as the deal’s done. Could be tomorrow, could be next week.”

  ‘The deal’? It would seem to be a mighty big coincidence if this ‘deal’ didn’t involve the book he’d been sent to recover. And Aelfredd didn’t believe in coincidences.

  For a moment, he considered pulling out. Certainly the circumstances of this whole affair had changed. Guerten had specified the job had to be done tonight or later, and now he understood why.

  One thought kept him there, and drove him forward towards the villa: the Red Death doesn’t give up. He hadn’t built his reputation as the best and longest operating quickman by turning back when things got hard.

  Quietly, to avoid alerting the guards in the guardhouse, Aelfredd made his way down the side of the tower. The powder magic was again helpful, adding a bit of extra stickiness to his grip so he didn’t have to rely entirely on his own strength. He would’ve been able to make the climb without the assistance of magic, but why make things more difficult than necessary? The magic also reduced the risk of making noise and being noticed by the guards.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Once on the ground he was able to find cover in a small stand of raspberry bushes being cultivated on the estate grounds. They were close to ripe, so he plucked a few and ate them while he pondered his situation.

  His careful planning and reconnaissance had been built on the clearly foolish assumption that the book he needed to steal would be located somewhere in the villa’s library, which was located towards the back on the second floor.

  New information, however, led him to believe the book had only recently arrived at the villa, with this band or crew of – what were they exactly? They could be part of a gang, but if so they weren’t from Falkaria City or he would’ve recognized them. They were probably Falkarians at least, having spoken the language without an accent when he overheard them earlier. If they were Summorian or Klaavan they would be expected to speak those languages instead.

  The three continental languages of the First Empire’s descendant kingdoms shared the same root, but had splintered considerably over the last millennium. A fluent speaker of Falkarian would be able to communicate with a native speaker of Summorian or Klaavan and vice versa and between the other two languages as well, but there would be a fair chance of some sort of misunderstanding. Of course, this risk would increase greatly the longer any given conversation or encounter continued, making the outcome fairly inevitable without a fluent speaker of both languages in question to translate.

  He was pretty sure they were native Falkarians, so probably from Fjaarlton up north or maybe Bonsur in the south, the only other two Falkarian cities with sizable crime syndicates. And yet… their accents had lacked both the distinct guttural tones of northern Fjaarlgard and the rhythm of Meritanian, the coastal duchy where Bonsur was located.

  It would have to remain a mystery for now. In general Aelfredd was a fan of mysteries, but mysteries that popped up during a job tended to turn into problems.

  Back to the task at hand. The book had likely arrived in Falkaria City with this crew, and he considered it unlikely that they would oblige both him and logic and stash a valuable book in the library. No, they would be guarding it.

  This job was turning into a Justice-dumped pile of shits.

  Was this book worth the price he was going to pay for it? The lives he would need to take?

  That wasn’t for him to decide. He’d taken the job and now he had to follow through. He could try to get a larger cut of the proceeds out of Guerten, but that would probably require literally cutting it out of the stingy fence. He wasn’t taking that option off the table yet, though.

  Where would the book be if they were guarding it? Somewhere easily defensible, with minimal entrances and exits.

  None of the windows visible from his current vantage point shed any light or gave any indication of occupancy. This crew did seem to be trying to lay low and trying not to be too obvious about occupying the villa. But they would want their guards to be stationed in an area with good lighting, so somewhere without exterior windows.

  During his month of reconnaissance he had on a few occasions even managed to make it into the villa proper under the guise of a porter delivering furniture and other household needs. He was fairly certain there were no above ground rooms without windows. The building’s architecture, with its long narrow wings, also made that a virtual impossibility.

  That left the building’s large cellar complex as the most likely location for the book. Of course, that was the one part of the villa he hadn’t been able to learn much about in his month of preparation. Based on the order logs he’d reviewed from local merchants he was pretty sure the cellar was not small. The volume of wine and other foodstuffs brought into the villa when the owner was in residence would require a decent amount of storage space.

  Hopefully it was just a regular storage cellar. Aelfredd had ceased being surprised at what he found in the basements of the city’s wealthy nobles long ago.

  His magic reserves had been depleted by the climb, so he took a fresh snort of the powder and made his way to the villa proper. Skulking across the yard proved uneventful. He did spot a few unexpected guards patrolling the grounds, but they were easily avoided and with the magic both boosting his speed and blurring his image he was much harder to spot.

  He had planned on entering the villa via the kitchen entrance, and saw little reason to change this plan: the kitchen had direct access to the cellar. The lock was simple, and he’d already confirmed he could pick it quickly when needed.

  If he had been stationing a troop of guards in the villa he would have put at least one in the kitchen, and so he was surprised to find the room empty when he slipped inside.

  Just inside the kitchen he melted into the shadow of a table and paused, amping his senses up a bit with magic before moving on. There it was: the sound of a man relieving himself in the kitchen privy. The guard stationed here had fortuitous timing. Well, fortunate for Aelfredd at least, this man would probably die for his mistake when his boss learned he had let a thief sneak by. But he would not die at Aelfredd’s hand.

  While the opportunity was there he quickly made his way to the kitchen’s cellar entrance and slipped inside, closing the door softly behind him.

  This was where things would get dicey. The layout of the cellar was a total unknown, which meant he also had no idea how many guards he’d have to deal with.

  On the plus side, he could hear voices and saw a bit of dim light coming from a crack under the door at the bottom of the long flight of stairs. He crept down to the door and listened to the conversation from the other side.

  “This is a prime hideout you scored for us Heggie, tell me again how you know the owner?” a gravelly voice was asking.

  “How many times do I have to remind you, Agathon. Don’t use my true name here, even when we’re alone,” a second, even deeper, voice chided the first.

  “Sorry, He- Hethon,” the first voice replied with what sounded to Aelfredd to be mocking obsequiousness. “Seriously though, this place has the best wine I’ve ever tasted, supplies to last us a week and it’s reasonably secure. So I’m curious – how do you know Baron Ko-athan?”

  That made sense – Ko-athan was known for its great wines, which explained the cellar stockpile and how a mere baron could afford such a palatial estate in the heart of the city.

  “He ain’t going to tell you how he knows the nobility, you moron,” a third voice. Damn, this just kept getting harder.

  He listened for a while longer as they argued but only identified the three voices. Three enemies was a lot for one man to face alone. But he had the element of surprise and the powder magic on his side.

  He took another quick bump before launching his attack – damn, he’d used more of his reserves listening to their banter than he had meant to – then he burst through the door and had dropped the first two before they even knew what hit them.

  Rows of wine casks and shelved bottles of wine filled a large space below the villa, possibly even larger than the footprint of the building above ground. These idiots had chosen to set up camp close to the entrance though, perhaps concerned about lighting the whole cellar properly. The far corners of the room were even now shrouded in shadow so deep even his enhanced vision wasn’t able to penetrate them.

  Seated facing the door, the stocky man, probably Heggie or Hethon, whatever his real name was, was not caught unawares like his companions but instead of staying to fight he jumped and bolted deeper into the cellar.

  On the abandoned table he had left behind an open bottle of expensive wine, two cracked clay cups and a book wrapped in cloth but matching the description of the object Aelfredd had originally been sent to retrieve.

  “You’re lucky,” Aelfredd whispered into the cellar before leaving, “I’ve had enough killing tonight.”