Roger Taylor - Arash-Felloren

He walked over to the window and looked at the mark closely in the dust-filled sunlight. He was still shaking from his ordeal but, seen with his new vision, the mark looked quite innocuous. He blew out a relieved breath. It was fortunate he hadn’t made a bigger fool of himself in front of Lassner.

As he twisted and turned his hand, he fancied that the mark had a slightly green hue to it.

He flopped down on the crude mattress that served for a bed. He felt drained. It had been a bizarre and terrifying day. He needed to think, to rest.

He looked at the faint lines and patches of colour that were the surviving remnants of a painting that had once decorated the cracked and stained ceiling. A painting done presumably when the house had been part of a more salubrious area, though it had had many tenants since then. The shapes and patterns were reassuring in their familiarity. He was fortunate indeed just to have a roof over his head, let alone to be part of a Den, especially Lassner’s Den. But even as the thought came to him, so did another, provoked, perhaps, by the vision he had just had of the dismal, degraded future that might lie in front of him. He must never again allow anything to happen that might bring him to the head of that road, yet while he was out in the streets, snatching such things as he could, the risk would always be there.

‘Some of the best thieves in the city are heading trading houses or serving on the Council.’

Lassner’s words told Pinnatte nothing that he did not already know. Indeed, such ideas were an envious commonplace amongst all the city’s thieves. But Pinnatte saw them now as he had never seen them before.

It was not enough to be a stealer of purses.

True, he was good at it, and it would always make him a living. But what kind of a living? The cracked ceiling suddenly looked tawdry and squalid, exuding nothing but countless years of neglect. The question came again. What kind of a living? He sat up.

This was not enough.

He had been scared out of his wits today – for what? For a lousy room in a lousy house and a few coins to jingle in his pockets. The memory of the Kyrosdyn’s purse returned, bringing a new message this time. He could not have afforded such a purse with the proceeds of an entire year’s thieving. And if he had stolen the purse, what would he have sold it for? A mere fraction of its true worth. There would have been shaken heads and in-drawn breaths from even his most reliable buyers – ‘Difficult to sell quality stuff like this.’ But someone, somewhere, would sell it for something like its real price, and walk away with his money.

‘See things as they are.’

Pinnatte nodded to himself. Lassner’s advice was sound. He would do just that. And though it was not a conscious decision, he started with Lassner himself. Questions began to form such as had never occurred to him before. They were disturbing, but Pinnatte could do nothing to stop them. Who was this old man that so dominated his life, sitting in his dingy room all day and living little better than his Den charges? His Den Master was not only a respected man amongst the city’s thieves, he was, reputedly, a wealthy one. But surely no one would live like that if they had the wealth to live otherwise? And could even Lassner afford such a thing as that Kyrosdyn’s purse? Suddenly Pinnatte had no doubts about the answer. It was No. And with that realization, starker contrasts burst in upon him. This was only the man’s purse! His miserable purse, a trivial thing, a minor piece of property. Whatever its value, it was the least indication of the man’s true wealth. If he had a purse like that, what would be the worth of the rings on his fingers, or the clothes on his back? What possessions would he have back at the Vaskyros? What did it cost him to employ a bodyguard to follow him round all day? Was it likely that such a man would now be lying on an ancient, crushed mattress, staring up at a cracked and grimed ceiling?

Pinnatte ran his hand across his forehead. He was sweating with excitement. Whatever else had happened today, a new pathway had been opened for him. He looked at the mark on the back of his hand. It held no terrors now. It had been a stupid, petty gesture by a man embarrassed and angered by a mere thief. But it had unbound that thief. Turned him into someone entirely different.

Pinnatte lay back. Only minutes before he had been tired, but now he was wide awake. Now he must think. It was one thing to concoct grandiose ideas, but quite another to do something about them. For one thing, he was bound to Lassner for another year. Not by any written document, but by his word – the code which every thief in Arash-Felloren honoured. Well, nearly every thief. Those who were rich and powerful enough – or dangerous enough – to go their own way did so, accountable to no one, but that was not a choice available to Pinnatte. To break his word to Lassner would be to bring repercussions on his head which would leave him without any allies, and more concerned with saving his life than enriching it! Thus, Lassner must not learn of this new-found ambition. Care must be taken to see that he got no wind of it. He might not be able to read minds, but he read people well enough. Any hint of disloyalty or untrustworthiness and Pinnatte’s other future could yet come to pass.

A slight twinge of guilt intruded into Pinnatte’s exhilaration. Was he right to do this? Lassner was the nearest thing he had to a father. The old man had taken him in some five years ago when he had been changing from one of the city’s homeless waifs into a wild and unstable young man, destined to end his days on someone’s knife or under a hail of Weartan staffs in an alleyway somewhere. Lassner had given him a home, of sorts, and had also taught him many things, not least a modicum of discipline. Now he had taught him something else, albeit unintentionally.

The moment passed. His obligation to Lassner was based on necessity, not affection. And some of Lassner’s teaching had been brutal. The old man could use his stick for more than leaning on and Pinnatte had received many beatings in his early days until he had learned that Den Master really meant Master. And now, contrary to his constant protestations, the money he took by way of premiums was excessive. Pinnatte did something he had never done before other than to evaluate his day’s takings – he did a calculation. There were at least forty in this den; few of them earned as much as he did, but most of them would earn at least half as much…

He scowled with effort. Arithmetic was not his strongest suit but it was good enough to show him that Lassner would be making a great deal of money out of his charges – a great deal of money for which he did very little. In fact, he did nothing, Pinnatte decided, except sit in that damned room like a scavenging crow.

And what did Lassner do with all this money? Pinnatte was suddenly angry. Unlike the majority of his Den-Mates, he had a shrewd idea where much of Lassner’s money went – it disappeared into the pockets of the men who ran the gambling rings at the fighting pits.

On one occasion, quite by chance, Pinnatte had seen Lassner there. He had not recognized him until, at the height of the excitement, a hood had slipped to reveal the old man at the very edge of the pit, wild-eyed and frenzied like the rest of the spectators. Pinnatte was about to shout across to him when the fight came to a sudden and, apparently, unexpected end. The change of expression on Lassner’s face struck Pinnatte like a blow, seeming, as it did, to mingle in an obscene harmony with the final pitiful whimper from the pit. He felt the acrid stench of the place filling his entire being, and his greeting died before it formed. Whatever had happened, it was bad, and Lassner would no more want to be seen thus by one of his charges than be seen naked in the street. Pinnatte backed discreetly into the crowd, resolving to act with the utmost surprise if he chanced to bump into his Den Master before he had a chance to get away. Some imp, however, held him there. He had rarely seen Lassner outside the Den and was curious about what the old man was up to, particularly in view of his violent reaction at the end of the fight. Thus, against his better judgement, but keeping carefully out of sight, he had watched him for much of the evening. It proved to be an unsettling revelation as he saw Lassner part with substantial sums of money in predominantly unsuccessful wagers. When he finally left, Pinnatte had made a further resolution to say nothing to anyone about this insight. At the time, it had been out of a mixture of loyalty and fear for, though he had been uncomfortable about what he was seeing, he still presumed that Lassner would only act in the best interests of the Den – and who was he to question his Den Master about such a matter? Over time however, his assessment of Lassner’s altruism had gradually changed and, though his suspicions about the gambling were strengthened into certainty by his growing experience of the man, and such contacts as he had at the pits, he still remained silent. Nothing was to be gained by exposing Lassner’s folly to the others, and a great deal was to be lost.