2. Kiren

Kiren slid down to the edge of the slanted roof and caught himself with one hand. He looked down off the side of the three-story building at the square below.

Those too rich to be concerned with the world’s shortfalls lounged there, shopping from the luxurious stands. Guards paraded around in their branded gambesons, too oblivious to take notice of him.

Kiren tightened the mask covering the lower half of his face. The building next in line along the street was his target—a mansion in Goldbrand’s South Side, facing Sunpeak Square. The mansion was the home of a man named Ren Ludenhaas, a lesser member of one of Goldbrand’s five noble families. From what Mug told him, he maintained his lifestyle by squandering his family’s money.

He was the kind of man you could rob and still feel good about yourself at the end of the day.

Two meters of dead air separated him from the window he needed to get to. There was no balcony below the window, only a thin stone ledge.

This better be worth it.

He looked once more to make sure no guards were watching. He backed up to give himself some room and sprinted towards the edge of the roof.

He leapt and the opposite wall hurtled towards him. He smashed into the glass pane and rolled across a wooden floor.

Shit. Overshot it.

Pain stung him in little slivers all over his body. He got up. Glass stuck out of the front of his tunic. He picked out the red shards and flicked them away. There was something hard in his mouth. He felt around with his tongue, and upon cutting himself he realized that a piece of glass had pierced his cheek. He drew it out with a long groan and worked his jaw until it felt alright.

His regeneration immediately kicked in, slowly knitting together the wounds he had sustained. Within a minute or two, it’d be as if they were never there.

Kiren was in an office, walls hung with expensive-looking paintings, floor draped with a thick rug. A desk, a few bookcases, and some chairs made up most of the furniture.

The thick door to the office was closed. He checked the handle. Locked. Good.

Kiren scanned the bookcases but didn’t spy what he had come for. He couldn’t read, but he had memorized the series of symbols that would be present on the spine of the book.

A copy of The Creator’s Last Living Will, bound and written by the man they called Sage, Paragon’s right hand. Worth a fortune to the right person. Mug seemed to think so, anyway.

I guess he won’t keep something like that just lying around. I’ll have to dig deeper.

“Did you hear that sound earlier?” a muffled voice called. “You drop something?”

“Wasn’t me!” another answered. “Sounded like something fell—maybe check it out!”

Kiren set to work. He checked the desk drawers, but they were all locked. They were made of sturdy wood and kept closed with iron locks. He wouldn’t be able to kick that open. He rustled the drawers, but the hollow, metallic rattles suggested there was nothing large inside.

He looked around the room. If he didn’t find this damned book soon, the opportunity would pass. He couldn’t afford to draw an entire household down on himself.

Nothing in the bookcases. Nothing in the desk. What’s left…?

He took the paintings off the wall. Nothing. Bare.

Footsteps scuffled outside and Kiren stopped cold. Someone rustled the handle, but the door remained closed.

“I think it’s in the master’s office!” a man shouted. “Do we have a key?”

“Fuck,” Kiren whispered.

Okay, what’s left? What’s… left…?

Kiren looked at the rug.

“That’ll do it.”

He rolled up the heavy rug, picked it up and threw it aside. The floor underneath looked smooth, but when he went over it with his hand he felt a seam in the planks, just barely visible when he squinted.

Another set of footsteps sounded down the hall.

“This should be it?” the second man said. “Let’s see if that does it. Master Ludenhaas will be furious if something’s out of place in his office when he gets back.”

Kiren clawed at the trap door with his nails, but the seam was too fine. He couldn’t get a grip on it.

A key jimmied in the lock.

“Damn, that’s not the one,” muttered the voice on the other side.

Kiren looked at the desk for something to help him. He spotted a letter opener, hurried over and grabbed it, and slid back down to his knees. He stuck the slender knife into the crack in the floorboards and pried until the whole thing popped open. He slid the square piece aside and revealed a hollow section in the floor. A book lay inside, half wrapped in a velvet cloth.

The symbols on the spine matched the ones he had memorized. It was plainer than he had expected, bound in rich leather with a clasp to keep it shut. The thick tome was heavy in his hands.

Kiren stood and tucked the book under his arm so he could replace the false floor panel.

The lock clicked.

“Ah! There!”

The door came open. A servant walked in, dressed in black and white. His eyes widened when he saw Kiren standing in the middle of the trashed office.

Kiren took two long steps and brought the book down on his head. The servant stumbled back and fell out the door, leaving his comrade stunned in the hallway.

Kiren leapt over the first servant, and once he had regained his footing he kicked the second between his legs. The man went down on his hands and knees, and Kiren stomped on the back of his head. He collapsed with a low groan and didn’t try to get back up.

Not ideal, but it can’t be helped.

As soon as the servants had been dealt with, Kiren left the mansion the same way he had got in. The guards were probably called at some point, but by then he was long gone.

He traveled on rooftops for a few minutes to avoid any roaming patrols, then dropped down to street level. He stuck the book inside his tunic, removed his mask and merged with the crowds.

He left the inner city and returned to the district known as the Slog, Goldbrand’s largest slum.

Rats, stray dogs, and vagrants picked at garbage. Gangs of emaciated young men roamed the streets, looking for anyone weak enough to pounce on. Desperate women sold their bodies for a few coppers, crying out their services through gap teeth and split lips.

Rows and rows of haphazardly constructed hovels made up narrow, winding streets. There existed no true maps of the Slog, as its layout was always changing, and if you were foolish enough to get lost, you were unlikely to make it out with both your life and your coin intact.

Kiren knew exactly what paths to take. He had to. Show a little hesitation, and neighbors would turn predators. Only the strong survived in the Slog.

He headed to a building that was larger than most. It only had one floor and ended in a tall, pointed roof.

Xander’s Curiosities had seen better days. It had once been a trinket shop for the superstitious, and the new owner had kept the name after renovating it into a bar. Now it was a gathering place for all kinds of business. All perfectly illegitimate, of course. Ratfoot made sure the place never got too good for its roots.

Kiren walked up to the door and reached for the handle when it swung open. He stepped aside just in time before a large man was thrown out of the establishment. In the doorway stood a woman with bright red hair, reaching perhaps a little above Kiren’s belly button. Hands on her hips, she shouted at the drunkard groveling in the dirt to leave and never come back.

Her name was Tryss. Ratfoot’s hired muscle. Although she didn’t look it, Tryss’s Power allowed her the strength of a man twice his own size.

“Mind getting out of the way?” Kiren asked. “I've got a thing inside.”

“Absolutely, dear,” Tryss said. She adjusted the tight-laced bodice that held back her heavy bosoms. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Terribly unpleasant, that one. He tried to bite me, you know.” She stood aside.

Kiren walked through and entered the dark, smoky bar.

“Oh, and watch the blood!” Tryss called after him.

Twenty pairs of eyes watched him as he crossed the floor, which consisted of dirt strewn with hay. There was indeed a pool of blood near the counter, soaking into the hay. He spotted a pair of teeth in there as well.

“Hoi!” Ratfoot called from behind the counter. He was short and slim, with short, dark hair slicked down and parted in the middle. He was missing both of his front teeth.

“Hey, boss-man,” Kiren said with just the right amount of irony.

Mug wasn’t hard to find. He sat in a corner of the bar, speaking with a young man. The fence was bald, his face marred by a scar that went over his eye all the way down to his cleft chin, drawing his face into a permanent scowl.

The young man sitting at his table handed over a purse and received a small bottle filled with pink liquid. He stood and hurried towards the exit.

Kiren sat down in the empty chair.

“Pretty boy, you’re back,” Mug said in a hoarse whisper. “Any luck with that thing I asked of you?”

Kiren withdrew the book from his tunic and thumped it onto the rough-hewn table. “I got it. Pay up.”

Mug curled his big sausage fingers. “Ooh. You really came by it, huh? I thought you’d get done in for sure.”

Kiren frowned. “Then why’d you send me to do it?”

Mug smiled, showing teeth on one side while managing only a few twitches on the scarred side. “My overflowing belief in humanity, I suppose.”

Mug took the book gently and lifted it to his side of the table. He checked the spine, ran his fingers over the gold lettering, and flipped through the pages. He put it down and pursed his lips.

“It’s the real deal,” he said. “There’s a dent, though.” He flipped it around and tapped the leather-bound backside of the book.

Kiren squinted at it. Indeed, there was a small dent in the leather that hadn’t been there before.

“It got a bit hairy at the mansion. What does it matter, though? Won’t hurt the person reading it.”

Mug shook his head. “It’s a collector’s item, idiot. That’ll bump down the value. Which means I’ll pay you less. Fifty coppers.”

Kiren spluttered out a laugh. “You’re joking, I hope?” He didn’t know what the book was worth, but he knew it was a lot. “We’ll start at five hundred.”

“Seventy.”

“Three hundred-fifty.”

“A hundred. Don’t be cheeky, pretty boy. Just try to flog this someplace else. Guards’ll have you within the day.”

“Two hundred.” Kiren put a finger on the book. “Or I’ll use this fucking thing to wipe my ass.”

Mug crossed his arms. “Go ahead, then.”

Kiren slid the book over to his side of the table, opened it, and took a handful of pages between thumb and forefinger.

“Okay, fine!” Mug said. “Two hundred.”

He dug through his purse and placed two large silver coins on the table.

“How do you expect me to break silver in the Slog?” Kiren asked. “It’s not like any inner city merchant will spot me the difference.”

“Do you really want to walk around with two hundred coppers? Powered or not, you’re still not invulnerable to a good old-fashioned mugging.”

Kiren sighed, took the coins, and stuck them up one of his gloves. He handed Mug the book. The fence eyed the collection of scholarly gibberish like a hungry wolf frothing over a lamb shank.

Damn. Maybe I sold it too cheap.

“Pleasure doing business,” Mug said.

“Yeah, fuck you too,” Kiren said as he stood.

Xander’s Curiosities technically didn’t have any rooms, but Kiren had managed to talk Ratfoot into letting him use the attic. Being a Power user of rare value, he served as an extra deterrent to anyone who would consider making trouble at the bar. With both him and Tryss keeping things somewhat orderly, not many tried. Those that did tended to leave some blood and teeth behind, as evidenced by tonight’s leftovers.

Kiren climbed the ladder to the attic, closed the trap door behind him and dragged an old wood beam on top to keep anyone from opening it.

The slanted walls nearly brushed his shoulders and he couldn’t stand at his full height. Ruined furniture and boxes of dry food supplies lay stacked on one side of the room. The other side was Kiren’s corner. A blanket and a pair of pilfered pillows lay surrounded by one-hundred-and-twelve wooden figurines no larger than the length of his hand. A knife was buried in the wall next to them.

Kiren got down on his pillows, took the knife out of the wall, and picked up an unfinished figurine.

He whittled the grainy wood, letting the repetitive movements carry his mind afar.

Once the Heroes’ Guild takes me in, I’ll be that much closer.

He split chunks off the wood, going finer and finer as he got the rough shape down and moved onto the detail work. The sculpture took shape as a headless man with embellished, brutish proportions, arms as wide as his torso and knuckles dragging at his feet.

Once the body was finished, Kiren pricked a finger with the tip of the knife. A fat bead of dark blood swelled on the apex of his finger and he smeared it down the neck of the figurine.

He put it down next to the others, his work completed.

I will gain the strength I need to kill you, Father. After that, I will find you and put an end to your wretched life.

Kiren slid down onto his back and curled up in a tight ball.

The old scars—the ones his body could never heal—flared up.

He trembled, red-hot rage setting his blood to boil.

You will have justice, Mother.