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Part 1: The Contest
Fog, smoke and mist mingled in the air to create a cloudy veil over everything, which the pale moonlight struggled to pierce through. A young woman stood in an alleyway, dressed from head to toe in black leather, two daggers at her waist with a band of smaller knives strapped across her chest. Slumped around her were assailants, unconscious and dressed like commoners but having knives of well-paid mercenaries. In the woman's left hand, she brandished one of those knives to the throat of its owner. "I know who sent you, and she’s starting to piss me off, tell her if she wants to settle this properly, she should just face me herself". She raised the blade and bashed the man in the head with the hilt and tossed it aside, and rifled through the coats and pockets of the attackers, a few coins here, a trinket or two there, nothing too surprising, but one thing, a small brooch shaped like a ring with three needles on top caught her eye, it wasn’t quite worth the effort, she pocketed her finds all the same and went on her way down the alley, pulling her hood tight around her pale face.
She wove through the streets that were too narrow for comfort pressed in on either side making her feel claustrophobic, looking up to buildings that stretched up and gave a sense of vertigo that never really went away but was better than feeling like she was in a tomb, the fog gave the cobblestone roads a thin layer of water that reflected the street lamps, whose magical orange flames were protected by spherical glass. Ducking into one of the filth-strewn alleyways, rounding a mossy corner and squeezing through a tight passageway she came to a clearing that was just big enough to hold out your arms, a place only known to vermin; or those who got themselves in far too much trouble. The only object in the clearing was a small stone shrine which cradled a statue of a forgotten god, whose features were worn by time and the dull green moss that seemed to coat everything. She placed her hand gently on the head of the statue and muttered "ill canem, tuluire moi." and pulled back her hand to watch the statue's eyes flicker a dull purple, and the shrine grated inaudibly revealing a space just large enough for her to crawl through. She ran her hand down the corridor that sloped and twisted into the cold stone and dirt of the earth, eventually coming to a grey stone room with no furnishings to be seen aside from a single wooden table with a couple of chairs, a lantern-burned overhead with the same magical flame as the streets above. She pulled out the closest chair and produced a small silver coin from her coat pocket with one side a regal-looking figure, and the other a hooded crow. She placed the coin on the table with the hooded figure face up and waited for five breaths before a deep voice echoed from an unseen entrance. "Aria Gaile… not seen you about for a while, thought you'd forgotten the password" The voice belonged to a hunched man with black slicked back hair that greyed at the temples, his face was framed by a well-kept goatee and eyes the colour of sapphires set deep in their sockets, he was dressed the same way as Aria, simple black leathers with no distinguishing adornments. “Me, Lanel? Forget the password? Never” she replied as the man sat down across from her and turned the coin to the other side, he leaned forward placing his elbows on the table. “You’ve been making quite a bit of trouble up top for a few people I hear, particularly Shedo Lynt.” “She’s been on my case ever since I silenced her last boy toy, she’ll get over it” Lanel rubbed the sides of his nose in frustration “She most certainly will not, in fact” he produced and then slid over a piece of black parchment with white ink that had Aria’s hooded face on it asking for her to be found and brought to the private residence of one miss Shedo Lynt, to the payment of two relics. “Posted this morning, I had to rush to the board before anyone was stupid enough to take the bait.” berating her. He then tore the parchment in half and it turned to dust. “We’ve given Miss Lynt a reasonable fee for dropping the contract” “So can I go now then or?” Aria replied, standing up before Lanel pointed for her to sit back down. “I have some information you might find interesting, you’re aware the Night Master has died and we’re currently searching for the next?” “I’ve heard, they are doing some kind of contest to pick the next one, whoever completes the most contracts, limited to Shadestalker and above, right?” Lanel nodded “I’m glad you were at least paying attention to that, you might want to check the current leaderboards, the top five are particularly intriguing.” He got up from his chair and motioned for Aria to follow through the door in the back of the room. They walked down a narrow tunnel that sloped down further into the bowels of the world, a perfect place to hold dark dealings. The tunnel terminated at a pair of large black doors carved with numerous skulls of different kinds; only some were familiar to Aira. Lanel went up to the door and tapped on various skulls in a seemingly random and chaotic order to unlock it, the eye sockets flashed dull purple and the doors swung open without a sound. Behind the door was a veil of pure darkness that hummed a deep note constantly; a shadowpath, a portal made of shadow that could transport anyone instantly across the world. Lanel stepped through the portal and Aria followed, it felt like walking through a cloud of coal dust that swallowed up all light, sound and smell. Through the dark cloud was The Nexus, an ancient hall connected to most assassins' guilds, and a select few other establishments from across Divadlo that felt like it could swallow up the town above with room to spare, rows upon rows of black stone
columns fled and blended into the high vaulted ceiling that looked like a dark pool of pitch, the only light down here was coming from more magical flames in wall sconces along the lower parts of the columns, and anchored at the centre of the hall the Moon Mirror, which was a piece of technology so old that no one remembers who created it or how it displayed the moon in its current phase so clearly even by current magic standards. The Nexus as always was busy with all kinds of assassins, traders and stewards going about their businesses, the Contest was in full swing, and had been for the last couple of months, it was a year-long event to choose who shall ascend to the rank of the guild master, or Night Master as they are known in the assassins guilds, a crowd was gathered around the leaderboards, where the shadow-names, names chosen when an assassin becomes a fully-fledged member of a guild were displayed with their ranks and a number which counted contract completions via simple tracking magic cast on the contract papers themselves. Aria made her way over and browsed the boards, looking for the top five as Lanel suggested, there she saw Shadestalker Gust, Nightblade Drown, Shadestalker Plea, Nightblade Fang and… it couldn’t be. Shadestalker Whisper. “Finally, after all this time you show yourself… Mentor.” The Moon Mirror was displayed as a half-moon as Aria and her mentor walked through the Nexus hall towards the training areas in the fourteenth section. They passed by a dozen merchants, gangs and necromantic cults. “Mentor, why do so many non-assassins gather here?” A younger Aria, her Mentor who was a lithe woman dressed in black, hood pulled up over her hair and face stopped and turned to Aria saying “The Nexus isn’t just a place for us to do our dealings, ever since the Age of Peace ten thousand years ago when the assassins, night merchants, necromancers, death smiths and all other kinds of living refuse decided that the only way to do business in a time of relative stability effectively was to band together and make trouble across the globe, we had the nexus, they had tools of dealing death.” Aria’s Mentor shrugged “seemed like a good trade to me,” she added before turning and continuing on the path she had before. When they arrived at the training section Aria was in awe of the sheer amount of weaponry available: dual blades, spears and halberds, crossbows, blowpipes and bows to name just a few. She always preferred the spear, unlike her mentor who chose to use daggers and hand crossbows the most, there were quite a few other pairs training in here, the guilds had grown fat lately with recruits or splinter groups of rogues, thieves or cartels forming guilds of their own. Aria quickly geared up in training armour and a blunt spear. “I see you’re still clinging to the spear, curious when I’ve humbled you many times already, remember Aria, an assassin must learn to wield any weapon efficiently.” Her Mentor said, brandishing a pair of daggers. Aria scoffed and readied herself, not falling to Her Mentor’s goading “I will win eventually Mentor.” The older woman rushed towards her almost too fast to react, just barely managing to spin her spear to block the daggers, sending tingles up her arms and making her stomach knot with adrenaline, if Aria hadn’t been training here for a few years now she’d most likely be on the floor retching up her lunch with that strike, unable to block; progress at the very least she thought to herself. Her Mentor continued the assault, low slash chained into a sweeping motion, a jump into a twirl with daggers flashing like polished silver jewellery adorning the body of an expert dancer, Aria just managed to block and attempt the odd parry while her Mentor flitted around her effortlessly, she had finally begun to be able to keep up for longer periods and was feeling particularly proud of herself before being promptly struck in the back of the shoulder by a well-placed pommel strike, that sent her toppling to her knee, out of breath now as the prolonged bout finally began to take its toll on her. “Good work today Aria, you have certainly improved since your days fumbling your weapon and tripping over the tiles.” Her Mentor said, offering her hand to the younger girl which she took gladly, smiling under her hood. A few years later Aria, her Mentor and a few other neophytes were on their first assignments in a large town by the name of Brudilt, she was to assassinate a gang leader to create a power vacuum for their client, the gang's second-in-command to take over. Assassination contracts are requested by finding an information broker who, after encrypting the contents with cyphers would post the letter via carrier bird to a receiver post usually kept by two or three caretakers, who didn’t know not what the letters contained, only that they were paid well for the simple task of caring for the birds, from there the caretaker rotating out would deliver letters to a drop off point for a collector to acquire and bring back to the guild front, they were usually some kind of mailroom, shrine or crypt, Aria had heard talk of a guild front in the far east that's inside of a noble lords manor house. The night air stank with the smell of booze and mischief, after tailing the men from the safety of the rooftops and dispatching the lieutenants who followed the gang boss, by way of luring them into an alley with promises of booze and carnal delight only to swiftly knock them out and leaving them in a lustful stupor. Aria and her Mentor finally cornered the target in the backroom of a butcher shop, one of the many establishments that paid protection money, he was a large bald man with maps tattooed all over his skin “Don’t know who you are girlies but you are picking the wrong fight” he said arms folded “but perhaps we can come to an arrangement that suits us both?” as he eyed them both and licked his lips. Aria’s Mentor walked over to the wall and leaned against it “You can start with her, if she doesn’t finish the job, you get me” The man smiled wide and dropped his arms to start to undo his shirt before Aria lunged with the grace of an alley cat and plunged a knife deep into the man's shoulder, the force of it pushing him down to one knee. “You bitch!” he roared, trying to pry the knife free with one hand as he rose to his feet, and went to grab Aria by the throat with the other, unfortunately for him Aria was faster and had many more knives, twisting and dancing around him while using him as a human knife block. She counted eight knives before he finally fell to the ground dead. Her mentor examined her handiwork “Good work Aira, now the contract.” “I know” Aria replied, producing a small scroll, and dipped the ends into the puddle growing beneath the former gang boss. The paper began to glow steadily, then crumble to dust leaving no trace. “You’ve done well today Aria” praised her mentor, placing her hand on her shoulder “Let's take a breather before heading back” They left the butcher shop, climbed up to the rooftops, and wove their way across the city to the highest point, a tall bell tower whose clock faces glinted with the moonlight, crowned with many gargoyles to keep evil spirits at bay. Perching over the ledge the two women stared across the cityscape, beautiful in the serenity of the night, torches flickered out one by one as long moments fluttered away, wordless between them. “You know I’m leaving don’t you, Aria” Her mentor, calm and collected as always, with a tone both not surprised and melancholy. Aria turned her head to face her and nodded “I’ve known for a while, you’ve been restless lately and I won’t stop you, but I would ask you to reconsider” turning to watch the sun begin to break through the moody night sky. “I’ll always hear your whispers guiding me” Turning to look back, she saw she spoke only to the gargoyles and the empty air.
Written By Luke Hauser
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