13Chapter Six: An Assignment
Inside the carriage, all was silent. Kal'lari had put her book away, placing it carefully in a compartment under the seat, and had made no attempt to strike up a conversation. She was perfectly content sitting in the peace and quiet, not a word breathed between her and the other occupant. But the youth sitting opposite her had other ideas.
"Excuse me, but why am I here?" Devar asked quietly, his voice very nearly a whisper. Kal'lari ignored him, looking for all the world that she hadn't heard him speak in the first place.
Devar sighed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat before turning to stare out the window once more. Obviously he wasn't going to get a single useful word out of the woman.
Oh well, he could always catch up on sleep.
E'daril sighed, letting his head flop onto the table, and hissing when it hit a little too hard. Skulls and wood really don't do too well together, he mused, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that was screaming 'idiot' at him. That little voice happened to be shut out quite a lot lately, mostly when he was doing something stupidly risky, with a high chance he would get caught, yet he couldn't seem to help himself. He was a thief simply for the thrill; the feeling when he slipped an item off of its rightful owner's hand, or from around their neck. Sometimes he spent days planning in advance major heists, investigating households under many different guises, be it a servant, nobleman or magician.
The profit was nice too, of course. He wasn't exactly swimming in riches, but he wasn't living on the streets either. Homelessness was a problem that had plagued E'daril ever since he had been banished from his House and before he had taken up a life of crime. The elf hadn't always been a criminal – when he had first been kicked out of his home, he had tried looking for honest work, but he always seemed to end up accidentally taking something that his employers were particularly fond of, or that was especially expensive, and that always ended up with E'daril being fired and thrown back out onto the streets. Or, even worse, pursued by a mob of villagers with pitchforks and flaming torches demanding their belongings back, or his head, whichever came more easily.
E'daril loved cities for that reason, whichever plane of being they happened to be in, though he did prefer Illianis. It was so much easier to steal things when he was surrounded by thousands of people he could potentially heap the blame on if caught. There were also more hiding spots, escape routes and things to pilfer in the first place.
However, there was also a higher chance that he'd get into a fight. That seems to happen all too much lately. I really do get into too much trouble, E'daril sighed.
Maybe one day that will change.
Note to self: Do not mess with Ranaril's hair again. It's a bad idea, Lynia mused as she swung from a lamp fixture, the blood rushing uncomfortably to her head. Her ankles were bound by a coarse length of rope that would now anchored to the ceiling – the same rope she was currently hanging from. Her hands had been tied behind her back, but she'd otherwise been left alone.
The culprit was currently standing in front of her, upside-down due to Lynia's predicament. He grinned, skin back to a normal colour, though his hair was still a remarkable shade of blue. Lynia gulped. She'd never been on the receiving end of Ranaril's revenge, though she'd heard some downright frightening stories from Kashvar.
"Do you have any idea how long it took to get even my skin back to a normal colour?" Ranaril asked cheerfully, examining his fingernails.
"No, I do not, and I don't happen to care, either," Lynia responded sullenly, wishing she had enough mobility to even cross her arms.
"Six hours, girl, six whole hours spent in a panic, trying to find out if I would ever look the same again," he hissed, all traces of good humor suddenly vanished. "And now you'll know how it feels to have six hours of your life taken away from you in such a manner. You won't be able to eat, or sleep, or do anything but hang there. The enchantments I put on you will make sure of that." He grinned again, though this time it was more a barring of teeth and a twisted grimace. "Have a lovely evening, darling."
Lynia sighed, attempting to swing herself upright, hands grasping desperately at the rope. After a few attempts she caught hold of it, flicking a knife out of a hidden pocket in her sleeve. Lynia cut through the rope, swinging wildly when her legs came free before dropping to the ground with a dull thud, landing uncomfortably on her side. She hissed at the sudden flash of pain before it faded.
Ranaril is going to pay for that.
Lynia sighed, brushing her hands through her long hair before sweeping out of the room with as much elegance as she could manage while her side was on fire. She headed in the direction of the Guardian's chambers, for she had been meaning to pick up a new assignment for a couple of days now, before that awful mess with Ranaril had started.
She paused before the heavy oak door of the Guardian's chamber, taking a deep breath. Lynia felt oddly nervous, not knowing what to expect. Sometimes the Guardian could be a wonderful friend, but at other times he was simply her employer, her watcher and superior. She never knew which side of him she would run into, and that made her a little worried.
Come on, girl, you have more bones than this, she told herself, pushing the door open.
"Ah, Miss Niallo, you're just the person I wanted to see. I need you to find a certain high elf...and try and bring him over to our cause."
"Come now, gentlemen, isn't there any way we can work things out peacefully?" wheedled E'daril, his hands up in a gesture of surrender. He was surrounded by three tough-looking men that had been guarding a jewelery store that E'daril had swiped a pair of earrings and several bracelets from, and unfortunately they had seen him.
"There's no mercy for thieving scum," one of them growled. The other two nodded, closing in and grabbing E'daril's arms, restraining him. The first blow smashed into his nose, whipping his head backwards. E'daril felt a warm liquid running down over his lips, and he knew his nose was bleeding. The second blow sailed into his stomach with a thud, driving the breath from him. He hung limply from his captors' arms, giving up on the possibility of escape.
That was when I knife swept cleaning into the back of the main man's neck. His eyes bulged, and his throat worked with a futile effort to say something, anything, before the light faded from his eyes. E'daril stared, trying to make sense of the situation. Just as he noticed the shadowy figure on the top of the building another one fell, freeing his right arm. The shadow crawled down the roof a little, parallel to the alley. A spark flared, highlighting the features of a petite young woman for just a moment, but that moment was enough for E'daril to recognise her.
That assassin. She tried to kill me once before. What is she doing here?
A/N: Short chapter is short. Sorry it's been so long, life has been giving me hell and I've been very short of inspiration. I'm afraid to say I have no idea when the next chapter will come out, but I shall point you in the direction of a short bit of fanfiction a friend wrote for this story. It's called The First of Many Failures, and it's by Astarel on FanFiction . net.
I hope to have the next chapter up soon. Thanks for reading.