Chapter 1 – Foundling
The satisfying click drew his attention away from the hulking man who was fast asleep on a chair next to him, his crossbow on his lap. While fumbling around in the lock, he had relied on his sensitive fingertips, feeling the right spots for setting the pins, keeping his eyes on the snoring guard barely two steps next to the safe in the wall. Carefully, he opened the safe, and there it was, House Casterling's famous heirloom, glittering blue and green with large sapphires and emeralds like the sea on a sunny day.
If the sea right behind the City's harbor was blue and green, that is, and not mud-brown, he thought.
The slender, black-clad man lifted the magnificent tiara gently from its velvet cushion, turned it a little to admire its beauty and let is disappear in a leather pocket. He closed the safe again, stood up and took a moment to relish the sight of the sleeping guard, standing barely a foot away from him. The man in leather bent down, now a silvery scalpel in his hand, sharp as a razor, and casually drew the blade across the guard's broad chest. A gilded badge dropped into a waiting hand. The guard snored.
Garrett bowed elegantly before his generous donor, turned on his heel and vanished through the window into the night.
The black sky slowly turned an inky blue, and a yellow tint was to be seen on the eastern horizon while the heavy rainclouds travelled on into the south. While the Thief weaved his way across the wet rooftops between wooden beams and chimneys like a stalking cat, he peeked down into the alleys from time to time. The raging fires of the Craven Revolution a few weeks past had left large districts of the City in smoldering ruins, but reconstruction was in full progress. The Gloom seemed to have stopped infecting new victims, and the existing ones were either dead or in a state of recovery. Townsfolk that had fled the City during the days of the crisis returned to their households, ships and carts of traders arrived again, shops were reopened. Technically a good development, Garrett mused. More people mean more to steal. On the other hand, the succession of the Baron was not clear yet, and he could only imagine the political squabble between the nobles and aristocrats going on behind the walls of Northcrest Manor right now. To be fair, he didn't really care. Whoever the successor was going to be, he would very unlikely be as insane as the old Baron and his dear little brother Orion, and rich enough to pay him a visit or two in any case.
Garrett, without stopping in his stride, took out his bow and shot a rope arrow into a beam above him, jumped and grabbed the rope to swing to the other side of the alley, taking a shortcut. His life went on as it had been for as long as he could think, as if nothing had happened a few weeks ago. Basso, Ector and a bunch of fences, dealers and other shady figures paid him to steal things, and he went about and did so, sticking to the shadows like he always had. Still, he often dreamed of the Dawn's Light, the ship on which he had lost Erin. Again.
The memory made him knit his brow, as always. Erin dangling above the abyss, only held by his hand, begging him to pull her up, slipping… The way this resembled the day when Erin fell in the vortex of Primal energy was almost ridiculous. History repeats itself, the Queen of Beggars would say. But this time, Garrett had managed to throw her the claw, had changed the outcome, changed the way of events. The more confused he was about her disappearance. He had seen the claw next to him. Apparently, Erin had made it to pull herself up, and according to her wet footprints close to him, she had survived, leaving his unconscious body behind. Why did Erin just leave? Was she angry? Determined to make a new start and forget everything she ever had to do with the City?
If so, Garrett could not blame her for it. The cruelties she had lived through could break any man. Judging by the way she had suffered, it was a miracle she had survived. He could also imagine that she was disappointed by him. Garrett hoped that Erin was alright, wherever she was, but still he regretted. He felt sorry for every harm that had come to her. For what he had done, what he had allowed to happen by stealing her claw and leaving her in the hands of those madmen for over a year.
He pined for a possibility to explain himself, to set his restless mind at ease. There was so much he wanted to sort out. After that he would be able to let her go, if she wished to do so.
But Erin was gone, Garrett was back in his place, and he had a job to do.
Focus on your job.
Pondering about this over and over again meant distraction, and distraction meant a crossbow bolt in his back. Garrett was not keen on that. He continued his way to Stonemarket to meet with Basso and deliver House Casterlings' tiara. A pity, he really would like to see it in his collection. But business was business. The Thief jumped over a gap between two buildings, grabbed a beam on the other side, swung himself over and landed smoothly in a cobblestone alleyway that would bring him to his destination. The shadow of the old clocktower loomed above him, a dark pinnacle against the sky that slowly turned the color of amber, the rainclouds vanishing. The heavy steps of guards made Garrett flinch, and he quickly slipped into a murky side street, pressing against the damp wall.
The guards, a man with a crossbow and a long feather on his hat and a sturdier fellow with a sword, patrolled by him without noticing the Thief's glowing blue eye. Even though the Primal powers were at balance again, or something similar annoyingly vague and mystical the Queen of Beggars had mentioned, Garrett's focus vision still worked. He didn't mind.
As the guards were gone, Garrett counted to ten under his breath, flexing his nimble fingers like a pianist doing a warm-up before his great overture. He got ready to keep going, already focusing on the ladder just across the road, ready to climb up quickly and unseen and continue his way towards…
"Garrett."
He almost jumped out of his armor. A quiet, quavering voice had called his name, barely a whisper, so softly he wasn't sure whether it was a trick of his own mind.
Slowly, cowered and ready to flee at any sign of danger, Garrett turned around, away from where the side street opened into the road and towards the darkness further in. He strained his eyes, but he couldn't see anything.
Opening his inner eye, the focus vision, he prowled into the darkness. There, at the end of the side street, on the wet cobblestones, lay a figure hulled in a dirty white mess of cloth, like a cluster of autumn leaves with a layer of frost on them. Garrett blinked. Either this was a dream or all his useless pondering had driven him mad.
Refusing to believe his eyes, Garrett bent over the bundle, which turned out to be a woman, just like expected, lying face down on the ground. Part of him didn't want to see her face, as there was still a tiny chance that this was not who he desperately hoped to be, but when he touched her thin wrists and felt how cold they were, he knew he had no choice if he didn't want to let her die.
He carefully turned the woman around.
It was Erin.
Garrett sighed deeply with relief, releasing the breath he had been holding for way too long. A heartbeat later, after checking her quickly for injuries, he was shocked by how cold she was. She was breathing, her chest rising slowly every now and then, but she was soaking wet and dripping with rain. Her slender, elegant limbs were covered with bruises and scratches, as far he could judge by what he could see under the dress. Her skin was pale like milk, her lips blue. Her eyes were closed.
"Erin…", Garrett whispered, lifting her into his arms. She didn't react. Whatever had happened to her, it seemed to have left her with just enough energy to drag herself back in the City to look for him, and now she was completely spent.
No time to lose.
His job forgotten, Garrett carried his load out of the side street, throwing quick glances left and right as he skittered towards his clocktower on soft, leather-padded feet. He briefly thought about bringing Erin to a doctor, but then remembered that the actual doctors had left the City when the Gloom went hopeless and the doctors that stayed were people that found it amusing to cut corpses in bits, so he dropped that idea.
Finally arriving at the market place at the foot of the tower, after having dodged a few sleepy patrols, Garrett somehow managed to carry her up to the secret entrance of the tower, the limp and lifeless Erin draped across his shoulder. He was out of his breath and his lungs felt like they were bursting when he was done climbing the countless stairs with his load.
Well, now what? I can't really recall ever having had a guest in here…, Garrett thought after reaching his apartment in the clockwork. He stood there a little lost with Erin in his arms, a grotesque parody of a newly-wed couple with her torn and formerly-white ceremonial dress and his black leather armor. Shaking his head at the absurdity, he eventually placed her on his own (and only) bed and pushed an iron fire basket right next to her. With one fluid motion, he drew his bow, nocked a fire arrow and sent it into the dry wood that immediately burst into flames. An aura of warmth radiated from the basket. He assumed getting her warm again would be the most important thing at the moment. Technically, getting rid of that damn wet ceremonial dress also seemed like a good thing to do, but since it was the only thing that prevented Erin from being naked, Garrett dropped that idea, slightly embarrassed by his own thoughts. Instead, he went upstairs, produced a more or less clean rag and returned to Erin to at least remove some of the dirt and dried blood from her feet, and, after short hesitation, from her sleek legs up to her knees. After that, he did the same for the arms, hands and slender neck. Tilting his head, he cupped Erin's face in his hands, ran them along her jaw line and cheekbones and took a close look at her features, gently combed his sensitive fingertips through her messy, short hair to feel for any injuries on her head. Though being wet and uncombed, her hair was soft, soft and pitch black like the plumes of a raven. Something deep inside him knotted when he saw her like this. It was part his fault. Garrett used his fingers to brush her hair from her damp forehead. Finally, he draped his warmest blanket over her, decided that it wasn't enough and added a second one.
Then he ran out of ideas, sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.
Outside, Garrett could hear the City's birds awakening, crows and pigeons and magpies, cawing and cooing. The crows that slept between the gears and rods of the clocktower woke up too, cawed and screamed and went for the window. Garrett yawned. It was almost six in the morning.
"Erin?" He grabbed her shoulder and shook her very gently. She didn't react, but Garrett's stomach did.
I should get some food. There really isn't anything else I can do as long as she sleeps, he thought to himself. The only storage food he had left was dried meat, and he was tired of dried meat. Probably not the kind of food that someone as spent as her needed anyway. Garrett wrapped half of his stock in three portions in linen napkins, placed another log in the fire and made his way out of the clocktower. He was lucky; some households were already starting to fire the hearths, with smoke curling out of the chimneys. Concerning the poor state the City was in still, a smart Thief would only steal things the townsfolk could not eat, and if he did he exchanged it against something else. Technically, this went a bit against his usual credo of never leaving any trace, but if the cooks died nobody would be there to cook for him, and he really didn't want to rely on raw fish from the harbor or roasted rats.
Garrett slipped through a kitchen window that belonged to a rich tradesman's manor. A portly woman with a bonnet and an apron, most probably a maid, rummaged around in a box in the opposite room. She didn't hear the Thief entering on soft soles, didn't hear him carefully pluck a bag from a shelf and casually filling it with some green apples, pears and carrots. Garrett left one of his dried meat rations in a corner and got ready to go again when he noticed a silvery glimmer on the maid.
Unable to resist, he prowled towards her and took a closer look. A magnificent silver cooking ladle peeked out from behind the knotted band that held the maid's apron in place, stuck there for later use. Garrett straightened from his crouched stance, standing behind her as she kept sorting through a box on the floor, oblivious to the man who kept staring on the precious ladle tied to her rear. Garrett carefully stretched out a hand, but pulled it back immediately, afraid the maid might feel his touch, taking into account the way her ample backside wiggled left and right. Frowning, Garrett tried again and almost got his fingers on a place he wouldn't prefer them to end up as the maid turned abruptly. Garrett made a silent step to the side and ducked out of her line of vision. The maid waddled towards the hearth with the Thief following closely behind. After two more failed trials to steal the ladle without getting in touch with her wide rear, Garrett sighed inaudibly, grabbed a nut from a basket and tossed it behind the maid. Alerted by the sound, she turned, bent down to pick up the nut and finally Garrett dared to make a grab. The maid seemed to have felt something fumbling on her backside, as she jumped up with a shriek, blushed and turned her head like a startled hen, but Garrett was long gone and the ladle with him.
The next raids were much less complicated. Garrett picked up a loaf of pretty freshly baked bread and a small kettle of broth, leaving his spare dried meat behind in exchange. Carefully balancing the kettle and his bag of food, he went up the clocktower again while the sun rose above the City.
Just in time.
He quickly checked Erin's state just to find her still sleeping deeply. Gently shaking her didn't help either, so he just placed the food on a table that was not covered in newspapers and tools and made himself some breakfast. As he thoughtfully chewed a chunk of bread, leaning against the wooden railing and watching Erin, Garrett decided to try and make her drink at least a little bit of water. He soon found out that he was quite bad at balancing a bowl of rainwater, a spoon and Erin's head at the same time while carefully tilting everything in an angle that hopefully allowed some drops of water run down her throat, but most it did was get the bed wet.
"Good thing I chose to be a Thief instead of a nurse…", he murmured as he brushed his thumb along her chin to clean up the mess he made.
Garrett really hoped she would wake up soon. He hoped she would wake up at all, as a start, and that his clumsy care didn't make it worse. There was so much to talk about. Thinking about this made him nervous.
Since he couldn't find anything else to do and staying awake only made his already racing mind even more uneasy, Garrett unlaced his leather armor bit by bit and tidily piled his gear on a shelf, placing his weapons and equipment next to it. Dressed only in black linen smallclothes and a thin shirt, he pulled a spare blanket and a pillow from the bed and lay down on the floor on the other side of the fire basket. The air outside had been frosty, and even though the sun was rising it was going to be a chilly day. Feeling the strains of the night take their toll, he drifted away.
