The Thief Maker (ON HOLD)

The Count's Clock

The Count's Clock 

          The man’s eyes were green. They were very green.

“Don’t worry about them,” the man said, gesturing to the locals at the bar. “They can’t see me. They can’t even see you. It’s a little trick of mine. Do you like it?”

Garen reached into his pocket as he looked around at the tavern, his fingers grasping the cool leather handle. The people were frozen still as stone.

“You won’t be needing that, Garen,” the man said. “You can try, but I guarantee you it won’t work.”

Garen dismissed the man’s comment. It was not wise.

Before the dagger was even out of his pocket, the blade flicked from his hands, slicing a thin rip across his pant leg.

“What do you want?” Garen finally said, feeling the subtle stinging at his waist. “Come to steal my dagger have you? Kill me?”

“Blunt,” grunted the man. “Well I guess I’ll return the favor and keep it nice and short.” The man turned sharply through the shadows. “What I want is for you to stop whatever you think you’re doing.”

         The shadows thickened.

         “The Count has grown paranoid, Garen,” said the man. “I can’t help but think you’ve noticed too. The Count’s Watch patrolling the streets at night, the riots, the boycotting. These are not common coincidences. That escape tonight proved it. You were lucky, facing the Watch is not an easy task.”

         “What of it?” asked Garen, trying to think of other ways to kill this man.

         “The Count is not only tightening his guard,” said the cloaked man. “He’s tightening his grasp on the city.”

         “If it wasn’t already tight,” said Garen.

         “Exactly the point,” said the man. “In which, you will be dead, just like the rest of them. The nobles, the dockworkers, the tailors, the traders, the merchants, the thieves. The city will fall.”

         “And so will you,” said Garen. “Don’t think that you have an easy way out of this.”

         “Oh I don’t think so,” said the man, swirling a cloak of shadow about him so he vanished behind it. “The Count doesn’t even know I exist, yet I have caused more a pestilence than you have caused your whole life. I have terrorized the Watch, stolen gems of wealth, and robbed the mighty Iron Bank dry. Yet I have never been caught. I have never been seen. I am the true Count of this city!” The man revealed himself sitting at the bar, drinking an ale from a wood mug. He whispered, “I am Shadow, Garen, and shadow does not disperse after it is kicked about.” The shadows closed in about them again. “It endures.”

         Garen stepped backwards. “You devil!” he screamed as he felt the shadows grip his back.

         “I am no such devil,” Garen,” said the man. “If I was a devil, I’d have been burned at the stake some fifty years ago. But that is besides the point. I am something much less sinister, less evil, so to say. I am a thief; which makes you just like me.”

         “You are no thief,” said Garen. “I am the Master Thief of Lamorr! And I survive to steal, and steal to survive.”

         “And that is the very reason you are not the Master Thief of Lamorr.” The man smirked. “Everybody knows you, Garen. Your damn picture is on every street corner. The Count wants you, personally, dead. He has your picture in his bloody room; he has his guards wait for you in the square. A thief must be a ghost, striking like lighting and disappearing without a moments notice.”