The Nameless Assassins

Kender Morland

"Isha! Slow down! We need to talk about logistics."

Ash's tone was one big eye roll, while Faith's voice held only compassion and empathy. "She can't slow down, Ash. If she delays, a drove of demons might depart the clinic and devour her."

I didn't bother to turn, but I did decelerate to a rapid trot so they could catch up. Together, we wound through the open-air market with its clutter of wooden stalls. "So what are the logistics?" I asked without looking at either one. "How much time do we have until the next Church holiday?"

With a shrug, Ash tipped his head at our resident Ecstatic expert. "Faith? You seem to know more about the Church than the rest of us."

Faith's green eyes widened in injured innocence. "Would an assiduous ascetic like myself be able to ascertain the details of church holidays, especially since none of their assemblies ever ascend to match that assignation?" she cried energetically.

Oh dear. She was in one of those moods.

Ash widened his eyes too, meaningfully.

"Oh, very well." Capitulating with surprising speed, she darted over to a stall that sold fresh cut flowers and pretended to admire some pink floral arrangements. "Next week is, of course, Ascension Day." She sneezed noisily and jerked back from a particularly foul-smelling bouquet.

"Which is a holiday, yes?" Ash clarified patiently. "It's important to the Church and hence a Tycherosi might vanish around that time?"

Regretfully shaking her head at the stall owner, Faith sighed, "That is the Church's assessment."

"All right," decided Ash as we continued on our way. "Then I propose that I question the Tycherosi community in Charhallow about the disappearances. They're more likely to talk to me than either of you. Isha – "

Before he could suggest any unpalatable activities, I preempted him: "I'll survey Morland." No matter his extracurriculars, the curate, at least, was entirely human. Human with unsavory hobbies, I could handle.

"Faith?" The third member of our crew had once again stopped by a stall, this time to admire a selection of silks. Ash called her to order. "Can you identify candidates for the next disappearance?"

In between buying enough pink ribbon to trim a dozen ballgowns, she assured him, "I assent to the task assigned."

Charhallow, which my archivist so disdained, was a roughly triangular district that huddled directly south of Crow's Foot and to the northwest of Coalridge. To an even greater extent than Crow's Foot, it was crammed with buildings – tenements that teetered like stacks of children's blocks, taverns that sagged in the most alarming way. As if unaware that they might get crushed by a collapsing wall at any moment, packs of skinny, dirty children streaked through the twisty alleys, shrieking as they played hunt-and-peek and catch-the-ghost. After the dislocations of the Unity War, the population was heavily refugee, meaning that the district endured both Hutton's anarchic pro-Skovlander-rights revolutionaries and the racists who vandalized bars and shouted catchy slogans such as "No Skovs!" and "Skovs go home!" In the midst of this seethe of poverty and racial tension, a small group of Tycherosi hunkered down and labored in the stockyards and eeleries.

Following the directions of a heavily-muscled laundress, I found Morland's church in the middle of the Sheets, a neighborhood of washers, tailors, and seamstresses. His tiny, crumbling wooden shack bore no family resemblance whatsoever to the Sanctorium, that voluptuous cathedral in Brightstone. If Charhallow's house of worship had any curves, they came from warped wood, not avant-garde architectural design. Disguised as an unsuccessful seamstress, I loitered in its vicinity and casually questioned street sweepers about any strange doings. While I was chatting with a Skovlander beggar, the side door creaked open, and out shuffled a disheveled, middle-aged Akorosian man garbed in a shabby black cassock that fit him about as well as a burlap sack.