One night, in the winter of his thirteenth year, Kyrwan shivered and drew closer to the fire. He'd moved most of his bedding to the hearth. Some punks had put a hole in the window at some point in the last week. If he were being honest with himself, he'd realize it was probably Fray Trovo, or him. They'd stolen some single malt Ruathym whiskey from his mother's stash and thought it would be a good idea to play catch with a football inside the flat. They'd woken up in his bed, shivering, four inches of snow having blown in the broken window and covered them in a blanket of cold. And now, no money to fix it, he made his bed by the hearth and Kyla stayed in the inn. He turned this way and that, finding no angle at which the frigid winds didn't bother him. With a grunt, he rose, and walked down the street to the Cuckoo's Nest. Kyla had started letting him sit in there on some nights, though she'd given strict instructions that he was to drink no more than three ales - he was still a boy after all.
Kyla wasn't there. The place was nearly empty, a few customers here and there. Kath, who let him sit in the warmth and drink the allotted number of ales so long as he behaved himself, handed him a mug and put a blanket around his shoulders. The little barmaid, Addie, was there, barely sober enough to keep herself perched on her stool in the corner. Her hands, though, were dexterous enough to strum out chords on her lute.
He sat there until the feeling returned to his limbs, and felt his eyelids start to go heavy.
Landlady's count the lawin'
The day is near the dawnin'
Yer all blind drunk me boys
And I'm a jolly fool…
His eyes fluttered open. The moon had gone down. He must have dozed for hours. Addie was where he had left her, still in that strange lopsided posture. Her yellow eyes were slits, and he had no idea how she kept herself propped up, singing the closing-time song.
Hey ta tee tay tee
How ta tee tay tee
Hey ta tee tay tee
Wha's a fool now?
The other customers began to gather their things in preparation to leave. He shook his head, feeling a little more alert. She took a lusty breath and drawled out, the words slurred, but her brassy alto still in tune.
The bottle n' you were always full
The bottle n' you were always full
I would sit and sing to you
If my bottle were still full
Hey ta tee tay tee
How ta tee tay tee
Hey ta tee tay tee
Wha's a fool now?
He silently folded the blanket and handed back to Kath. She didn't take it, "Take it back with you, son, you need it more'n I." He thanked her, and headed for the door.
Well may ye always be
Hell may you never see
God bless the Lords
And their company…
He left the bar as the last words rang out against the beams. He made his way home. The fire was still burning, but barely a memory. He added the last of the wood, too tired to think much beyond the next morning. He covered himself in all of blankets in the house, and closed his eyes.
He dreamed that night of the bar, the closing-time song ringing through his head again and again, taking on haunting harmonies, at first beautiful, but each time becoming stronger, until they were so janglingly dissonant that his eyes popped open, his brain searching for a way to make the music stop.
To his astonishment, he saw Addie sitting across the room from him. The dream's not over. She's going to sit and sing that godsdamn song again, over and over with the voices of demons until…
He lept to his feet, casting the blankets this way an that, "What are you doing here?" he demanded. Then the smell of the docks hit him in the nose and he realized he was not in the Cuckoo's Nest of his nightmare, but back in the flat. This was not a shade of Addie come to haunt him in his dream, but the actual woman, looking better than she'd been the night before.
"Lad," she said, her voice husky with more than the smoke and whiskey that usually clotted it. Something was wrong, "It's me, Addie. You remember me, right?"
"Where's Kyla?" he asked, though the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him he'd rather not know.
"Lad, you're going to want to sit down."
It's true then. It's finally… "No!" he howled.
My sister's been killed.
"Your sister's been killed."
He felt his bottom hit the cold stones of the hearth but didn't remember sitting. His knees had buckled beneath him, and all he could do was sit there. He felt tears spring to his eyes. You knew, you knew this could happen. You knew this could happen and you didn't make her stop, you didn't make her…
"By who?" he asked. By whom, the voice of Schoolmaster echoed in his head, "Where is he?"
"I don't know," she replied.
She doesn't know now. But she'll find out. The whores always find out who kills one of their own. But I don't want them to kill him, I want to kill him.
"Who did it?" he asked again, "You have to tell me!"
"I told you i don't know," she said again.
The howl rose in his throat. As long as he was angry, he could not be sad. As long as his was rageful, the shameful tears would not fall. "Damn you!" He looked around the room. A broken bottle, a knife, something, to make her tell him. "You have to tell me!" Finding nothing, he lunged at her, springing forward, pulling his fist back to punch her in the face, to blacken her eyes, to make her hurt… to make her hurt like the bastard who'd beaten her had. She flinched, involuntarily. He drove through the momentary pang of pity and let it fly. Don't ever let some bitch boss you around, not ever, not your sister, not your boss, not your girl if you ever get one. The assassin Dayven's voice echoed through his head, driving his reluctance away.
To his surprise, she reacted quickly, the terror in her eye turning to annoyance. She caught his fist in her hand and pushed him back without hurting him. He stumbled, but stayed stnading.
"It was a bad man that she worked for, and don't worry, I'll make sure he's taken care of," she said. He didn't doubt that she would. The whores took care of their own.
I don't want the whores to take care of him. I want to take care of him. "Don't fucking patronize me," he said. A few stray tears leaked from his eyes. Don't cry. You're angry. You're furious. And he was, "Tell me his name." He remembered Edrick Falringer, twitching in his own piss and blood. He will wish that I killed him so quick.
"I'm not going to tell you," snapped Addie, "Because if I do then you'll do what all men do and try to run him through with a sword in broad daylight in full view of the city guards! I told her that if anything happened, I'd make sure you were taken care of, and having you rot away in a Luskan dungeon wouldn't exactly be fulfilling my promise."
So you do think I'm a man, he thought. Well, there's no use in fighting with her. Not yet.
Dayven came in off the back porch, which he had left open.
"He knows?"
"Yeah," Addie replied.
"I'm so sorry for your loss, lad," Dayven said, laying his hand on his shoulder.
"Go fuck yourself,he retorted, finding it to be easier to be angry with the assassin in the room, "Who did this to her? Who killed my sister?"
"You've got quite a mouth oh you," Dayven commented, "How old are you?"
"I'll be fourteen in the Spring," he replied.
"Can you stay here by yourself for now?" Dayven asked, "I can have Addie stay here with you."
Kyrwan started to protest, but the thought of sitting alone in the freezing flat cooled his anger. And, at the end of rage, was despair. Dayven hurried out again, and he sat down on the hearth again, two of them staring at each other.
"You know who did it, don't you," he asked again. Keep the rage alive. He stoked it like a fire. He wouldn't let it go out, like the fire in the hearth had. Don't think about Kyla. Think about what he did to her.
Addie didn't say anything, but stared out the window. She knows. I saw her that night, I saw her throw the bottle. She thinks me a child now, but she'll see. I won't be this big forever. If'n the rest of me ever catches up to my feet, I'll be a sizeable man. Then she'll tell me. If the whores don't get to him first.
"What do I do now?" he asked. Comply now. Come back later. She'll tell me. Do what she says for now. Then you'll show her, you'll show her you can do it.
"You'll get an apprenticeship, and you'll learn a trade. Something respectable, so you don't wind up like me," Adahni said.
He scrunched up his nose, thinking of the rancid smell of blood in his father's workshop. "I don't want to be a butcher."
"So be a weaver. Or you can sign on with the guard, or one of the militias."
"I'll go back to Barnslow," he said. Throw her off. Make her think you've left. Then come back and kill him.
"Have you been under a rock, kid?" she asked brusquely, "There's a war going on. Believe me, there's nothing I'd like better than to go home, but the roads are blocked. It's too dangerous."
"I could do it. I'm good at hiding, and I walk real quiet." Your drunk ass didn't even notice me in the bar last night.
"Well you do whatever you want, since you're such a big man," she said.
Oh fuck. There it goes. The hot tears stung his eyes, and flowed over. Fourteen years, fourteen years of protecting him, teaching him, comforting him. Years of lying on her back with her legs spread to see him fed and clothed. And now… "It's not fair," he cried, "She takes me to this godsforsaken town… and then she leaves me here."
"She took you away for your own good," Adahni said gently, "She loved you."
Anger! Rage! Think of your father, that rat bastard… "My da wasn't so bad," he said, "I could take him now, I know I could. And now she's gone, and I'm stuck here in Luskan of all places."
"You and I aren't so different," she said. And she did a strange thing then, something he didn't think she'd be capable of, and she sat down next to him, putting her arms around them. She was skinny where Kyla had been soft, but they were women's arms. He leaned his head into his shoulder, feeling the rough cloth of her dress absorb his tears.
"I don't want to stay here."
"Listen," she said, "I'm going to make you a promise, just like I made her a promise."
"Promise me you'll let me kill him," Kyrwan said.
"It's not that simple, lad," she replied.
"Why not?" he asked, "He didn't have any reason to kill her. He'll do it again."
"No he won't," she said, "I'm going to make sure of that."
What about Edrick Falringer?! "What about the assassin's guild?" he asked, "You said that I should get an apprenticeship, what if I join up with the Circle of Blades? Then I'd be really good at killing, and nobody could catch me."
"Even assassins sometimes get caught," she replied.
"I want to be an assassin," he repeated.
I'll take on the black cloak of the Circle of Blades, and I will melt into the shadows. I will melt out of the shadows then. And kill him. Then back in.
"Listen," she said when his noisy sobs had abated, "The man who was just here was also a friend of your sister's."
"Yeah, Dayven," he sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of one pale hand, "I know him. He brought me to the Assassin's Guild once. They had to blindfold me on the way there."
"He's my husband," she said, "I'll put in a good word with you, but you can't let him see you crying. He hates that, even in me, and I'm a girl."
"All right," he said, wiping his cheeks, "Time to move on. Time to change."
"There's a good lad," she said, taking her thumb and drying the wet spots under his eyes, "Grimace and bear it, things will get better eventually."
He nodded, and sniffled, but kept his head up. You will be an assassin. You will be twice the assassin Dayven ever was. You will hide your face in black. You will move with the shadows. And then you will take off into the wilds, never to be seen again.
Dayven returned within the hour, two of his black-hooded compatriots flanking weren't the same as the ones that had taken him to the murder of Edrick Falringer. He wondered how many of them there would be.
"I want to be an assassin," said Kyrwan, looking Dayven in the eye. He looked gaunt, older than his years. Was this the life he was signing up for? No matter. I have a purpose.
"I was hoping you'd say something like that," Dayven said, "We've been watching you for some time now. I had hoped this day would come later, and under better circumstances, but as of right now you need a home, someone to watch your back, and that's what I can offer you...what's your name again?"
"Kyrwan," he replied, concentrating hard to keep his voice from breaking. Time to move on, time to change, "I don't like it, it sounds like a girl's name."
"That's all right," Dayven said, "What's your last name?"
"Bishop."
"Very well then, young Master Bishop, come with us. You'll be taken care of."
He fought back another torrent of tears as he glanced back on the flat for the last time. Keep your rage. It is the only thing that will feed you from now on.
Time to move on.
Time to change.
Time to be a man.