Roger Taylor - Arash-Felloren

How would he know? He, who had never travelled more than half a day from the Den! He had heard of the Thlosgaral to the east, where the crystals came from – and of the Wilde Ports beyond, though he had no idea what they were – but in every other direction…?

And there were other tales, more foolish still – yet they were tales that even drunkards whispered. There were more tunnels and caves beneath the city than streets and buildings above it. There were more people beneath the city than above it. And there were other things beneath the city, in the caves… ancient and terrifying things. And buildings that just vanished, to be replaced by different buildings and strange people speaking unintelligible tongues, or that reappeared elsewhere in the city, the inhabitants seemingly unaware of any change. It was even said that there were places where a single thoughtless stride would carry a man into the past or the future.

Pinnatte shook his head to break free of the city’s unexpected grip. He was only partially successful. The immensity of Arash-Felloren was not so lightly set aside. But his perspective had changed. Still he was as nothing in such a city, but what did that mean for him? It meant that there were countless places where he had never been, countless places where he could find another home, countless people who did not know him, countless opportunities. All he had to do was look for them, and then reach out and take them.

Slowly his mind spiralled back to some semblance of calmness. Now he must think. He sat down on the ridge and leaned back against the chimney-stack. His problem was starkly simple – he needed more money. A great deal of it. The solution was less clear – where was it to be found, and how might he go about acquiring it? He was good at what he did, of course, very good. But that knowledge merely heightened the need for him to look to other than purse-cutting to serve the needs of his new ambition. He was one of the best in Lassner’s Den, but even if he paid no premium, the money he made would not be sufficient for him to live much better than he did at present. And it was a risky business. Many a purse contained little or nothing, while all held danger. And how much better could he become at this craft? He could not take many more purses each day than he already did, and twice the number would not bring him anywhere near the realm where he might sport a purse such as the Kyrosdyn had casually taunted him with.

And too, seeping into all these thoughts was the presence of Lassner. Another realization came to Pinnatte as he sat gazing at the dimming western sky. He still had a great deal to learn from the old man. He smiled to himself. Wasn’t it Lassner after all who had taught him to smile and make a friend rather than an enemy?

‘Won’t stop you robbing him in the end, will it? But there’s no need to be unpleasant about it.’ Pinnatte’s smile turned into a chuckle and he felt an unexpected surge of affection for his mentor. Thoughts of Lassner brought his mind back to where much of his premium was spent, thanks to the good offices of his Den Master: the fighting pits.

When Pinnatte had gone there originally, it was to see what opportunities the crowds offered for easy pickings. He had learned two things very quickly. One was that there was a great deal of money to be found there; the other was that he was unlikely to be able to make off with any of it. He relied on his ability to move quickly through crowds to save him when things went amiss, but that would be out of the question around the pits where the crowd was so packed that it was sometimes impossible to move at all. Adding to this assessment of his chances was the fact that the typical pit crowd was not one he would wish to antagonize. This too, was immediately apparent. The air stank of bloodlust and savagery, and it needed little sensitivity to see that there was more cruelty and viciousness around the pit than in it. Subsequently he had had a dream in which he was seized in the act of taking a purse and hurled bodily into the pits to be torn apart while his eager-eyed captors slowly passed money to and fro, waging on the nearness and the manner of his end and discussing in leisurely terms the techniques of the raging animals. The dream had recurred several times after his first visit and each time he had lurched out of sleep, bolt upright, gasping and covered in sweat. It came less frequently after he forced himself to go to the pits again, hands firmly tucked in his belt and knife tightly sheathed, and it had stopped altogether after he had learned about Lassner’s gambling.

Also deterring him from trying to pursue his trade at the pits was the fact that many of those present were from the darker fringes of Arash-Felloren’s criminal fraternity: those who earned their money by bludgeoning people in the street, or even in their homes; those who kidnapped and extorted; those who even preyed on their own kind and who killed at the behest of others. He, and most of the Guild, affected to despise such as these for their brutality and lack of skill or finesse, but the scorn was always carefully hidden. Fates worse than being thrown into a fighting pit were waiting for those who needlessly provoked such individuals.

Yet the pits were the only place that Pinnatte knew of where substantial sums of money were conspicuously available. True, there were banking and credit houses, and there were the larger shops and market stalls, but it was beyond him to attempt to rob any of those. They invariably had their own guards who would watch the likes of him constantly from the instant he appeared. He looked down at his clothes to confirm this. Perhaps he could smarten himself up a little? He imagined himself preened and elegant. ‘Some of the best thieves in the city are heading trading houses or serving on the Council.’ But Lassner’s words only reminded him where he stood in the city’s social and criminal hierarchy. He hadn’t the faintest idea how such people did their thieving; he was lacking far more than decent clothes. With a twinge of regret, he let the peacock image fade.

Yet, incongruous though it seemed, he knew that he should be working to acquire that knowledge; he should be thinking about how he could take money from these people. Just because it was difficult did not mean that it could not be done, even by him. He placed the notion carefully to one side, quietly resolving to think about it from time to time.

He could always resort to burglary, of course, but that held even less charm than cutting purses. True, he was a good climber, but he liked to have several avenues of escape available at all times and the prospect of encountering an enraged householder while clambering through a window high above the street gave him vertigo.

Inexorably his thoughts gravitated back to the pits. Was there anything more for him there than anywhere else? Purse-taking was out of the question and he had no money for placing wagers – not that that would have earned him much in view of what happened to Lassner’s money, and he, presumably, knew something about the business. Besides, it had not taken Pinnatte very long to realize that the people who made money out of wagers were those who set the odds – the men who ran the pits – and they were very jealous of anyone attempting to usurp their rights. But even as he reviewed his prospects at the pits he realized that they offered opportunities not found elsewhere in the city; they brought together people from the highest to the lowest. They were places of levelling.

‘We’re all blood-lusting brothers under the skin,’ Pinnatte had once heard someone say, with a grim, knowing laugh, when all eyes had been temporarily drawn away from the conflict to look at a group of smartly dressed young women whose frenzied shrieking was overtopping that of the blood-soaked animals.