“Otaspes, the documents about the contract closing with Sivert Koggner from Watthaven please.” a mellow, good-humored voice rang out.

“Very well, Master.” Otaspes replied. The lanky thirteen years old boy stood at the moment in the archive with shelves full of contact parchments and tick books that adjoined the study of his Lord and Master. The boy was a slave whom his Master had acquired quite spontaneously on one of the empire’s bigger slave markets six years ago. Since it became apparent soon afterwards that Otaspes was a clever fellow, his Master suddenly made him his assistant and taught him writing and calculating, accounting, and several languages among other things. The boy was extremely thankful to his buyer that he had released him from the hell of the slave cages and saved him from a worse fate. He was, since being exceedingly discrete, deployed even there where the Master of the house didn’t trust his apprentices or even his own sons. The Master was but one of the few who treated Otaspes normally too, for the panotian already extremely contrasted the people around him just with his appearance alone after all. Pale like a piece of chalk, the unruly curly hair as red as fire, eyes like two gleaming gold coins, that was his appearance. What distinguished him the most from others though – except for his extremely rare golden eyes – where his large ears, typical for a panotian but abnormal for people of this part of the world, that drooped down to his elbows and were so wide that he could have easily covered himself with them.

With the requested document in hands Otaspes returned to his Master’s study. The man expected him already, standing at a writing desk made of reddish beech wood. The slave boy’s Master was Rigaud Lunoir, the probably most significant long-distance merchant in the whole kingdom of Sucellie. Even the royal family regularly obtained his goods and also belonged to his debtors because Master Rigaud acted as moneylender too, since he possessed a significant fortune. And yet it was less a matter of receiving interest for the merchant but rather of establishing a web of contacts and connections that could be of use to him. For such an impressive personage Rigaud himself appeared hardly impressive – except for his corpulence because he was a big friend of delicacies. Dressed not too extravagant but also not too shoddy, he appeared like an ordinary, cheerful man in his late fifties, a big hazel mustache and a big bulbous nose in his face, with dwindling hairline and pleasurably narrowed green eyes.

“Here, Master.” Otaspes spoke as he handed his Master the required documents. The man received the parchment, looked at the flame of the beeswax candle illuminating the study, and then he said: “You can already retire, Otaspes. The sun has set long ago and I won’t take much longer too.”

“Thank you, Master.” the panotian replied and bowed. In doing so his big ears drooped from his head like two banners.

Master Rigaud generously smiled at the boy. He had never treated the young slave inhumanely, the more so as his helpfulness soon became apparent. Generally, the long-distance merchant belonged to those people who treated their servants well as long as they didn’t do anything wrong. That was nowhere near the standard though.

After he had pulled the door to the study shut, the red haired boy set off. As quietly as he could he walked on the creaking floorboards of the hallway. The moonlight falling through the little leaded windows of the merchant’s house shone on his lanky figure. Although a slave, Otaspes couldn’t say that he lacked anything. He wore simple trousers and tunic from woolen fabric as recommended for the month of February. His feet were in simple leather shoes. Food, drink, a place to sleep, what more do you want?

After a long day of work, the boy who was still too awake to lie down to sleep was drawn to his favorite place. There he was already expected. The rustling of straw beneath his feet, the gentle snorting of the horses in his ears, the panotian comfortably took a seat in a heap of straw.

“Well, are you here again?” a voice rang out from the fodder-loft. Then a small figure slid down the ladder bar. Illuminated by a blue shining lantern, a chubby little man no bigger than a rooster showed up. He was clad in red, had red hair, and a red beanie on his head. Of ugly appearance, he had fiery eyes, claws as hands, cloven hooves, and a long rat tail. This peculiar creature was Gossouin, a follet and the groom in Rigaud Lunoir’s house. Since Gossouin had little use for the money of humans, he was already satisfied with board and lodge. His bed stood in a corner of the fodder-loft and he also got his meals brought to the stable. In return he took great care of the animals entrusted to him which didn’t lack anything. Not anybody could rate such a capable stable spirit among his servants because the follet nonetheless had strict criteria regarding his lodging, sustenance, and also the lordship in general.

“Hello Gossouin.” Otaspes greeted. The slave boy was friends with the little groom and his protégés. In fact the slave boy was closer to the follet than anybody else in the long-distance merchant’s house, and was it the Master of the house himself.

“Will you play something today again?” Gossouin wanted to know.

“That I had planned.” The panotian confirmed. Then he took out his auloi from their hiding place in the stable. This double oboe was the only thing the boy could take along from his former home and former life. The aulos was a flute-like looking instrument that was played with both hands and in pairs. Otaspes put the auloi to his lips and began to play. While his fingers danced over the pitch holes, he coaxed sonorous timbres from the instrument which floated through the stable with a foreign melody. The mounts and pack animals didn’t let themselves be disturbed any further. They were used to the young slave’s music since long ago. The follet listened with half-closed eyes, letting himself be brought on a musical journey by the sounds of the auloi.

While the panotian still was playing music in the stable, somewhere else a figure clad completely in black and enveloped by a long hooded cloak gained entry to Master Rigaud’s house. The backdoor, which was leading to the backyard from the kitchen of the house now deserted by the Mistress of the house and her maids, quietly opened. Unseen, a shadow darted inside before the door closed as silently as it had opened before. The intruder had a mission. Beneath the dark cloak there was a young woman – although with over two hundred years the vampire only looked young. Dragomira, such she was called, was an assassin belonging to the famous and notorious assassin organization Night Dagger and she had come here for the accomplishment of her assignment. Client was a certain spendthrift lower noble called Payen de Grouville who had lent money from the long-distance merchant but was neither able nor willing to pay it back. Therefore he had payed Night Dagger an exorbitant sum to get rid of creditor and debts for good. Who was in the right didn’t mean stuff at all to Dragomira. She was only interested in executing the mission the leader of Night Dagger had given her as desired by the client.

What the client desired was a merciless massacre. The vampire intruded all rooms; no matter if maids or menials, handmaiden or apprentice, children and grandchildren too, even the Master and Mistress of the house were not spared. Not the poisoned dagger Dragomira carried with her was used though but a certain incense the scent of which had a deeply narcotic effect. Nobody who was fumigated with this incense mix only known to members of Night Dagger would be able to wake up in the next few hours. The vampire was protected against the effect of the drug by a scarf she wore over mouth and nose. Since she expected nobody there, the assassin didn’t resort to the somewhat outlying stables. That was Otaspes’ and Gossouin’s luck. At any rate she hadn’t heard the slave’s playing of the auloi. Then Dragomira set the merchant’s house on fire at several places, among them also the study and archive, and then she disappeared again in the darkness of the night. The next morning nothing more than ash would be left of the creditor, his potential heirs and the debt documents but also of his various and precious goods in stock.

Suddenly the smell of smoke penetrated the stables. The first to notice were the horses that were prancing up and down unsettled in their boxes. Soon afterwards Otaspes and Gossouin too noticed the menacing smell. The young panotian immediately stopped his playing of instruments.

“Fire?” he asked startled.

“Looks like it.” the follet replied “You go looking if you can somehow help with extinguishing the fire. In the meantime I will bring the horses to safety outside.” For the groom his animal protégés had priority, not the people. But that way of thinking wasn’t exactly uncommon for follets.

The slave boy nodded affirmatively, poached his auloi, and hurried out of the horse stable. On the other side of the backyard the main house was blazingly engulfed in flames and it was only a question of time when the flames would spread to the stables still spared. For a moment Otaspes thought about it if he should heroically plunge into the flames to save people trapped there but then saw reason though and stormed through the yard gate to the cobblestone street. Then he made a racket that it echoed in all alleys: “Help! It burns! Fire! Fire!”

Awakened by the warning cry, the neighbors, despite the late hour, stuck their heads out of the window. When they saw that the merchant Rigaud Lunoir’s house was aflame, they ran out of their houses and assiduously bucketed water at the wells to extinguish the fire. They were less worried about the trader and his family although he was well-liked in the neighborhood, but rather about preventing that the fire would spread to their own houses. On a nearby tower the fire bell was rung so that soon even more helpers flocked to them.

Gossouin brought the horses to safety like he had announced. The four steeds, two mounts and two pack animals, to the surprise of everybody stormed panicky out of the yard of the merchant’s house and along the alleys, throwing the crowd of fire fighters into disarray. From the back of a horse the tiny groom gave an apologetic smile to the panotian still busy with firefighting operations before he was carried into the distance by the scared animal. For a moment Otaspes blankly gazed after them before he addressed himself again to the more urgent task.

When the sun finally rose it became apparent that although the fire was successfully put an end to insofar it didn’t spread any further, that Master Rigaud’s house with all its greed-arousing riches, however, was burned down to the ground. The horse stables too were only a burnt-out ruin in danger of collapsing. Regarding the Master of the house, his relatives, and his servants, only the charred corpses could be retrieved. The silently carried out burial for the victims of this fire disaster was paid from the long-distance merchant’s own money deposited outside his house and the rest of the sum was used to settle receivables of the deceased. The young panotian found himself on the street from one day to the next, his life up to now a pile of shards. He hadn’t seen Gossouin and the horses again since the night of the fire. Who knew to where the ungulates had run away with the follet. The boy himself was free now. His Master was dead and there was nobody who would have wanted to claim him as his slave, the more so as the system of slavery widely spread in the empire wasn’t actually used in Sucellie. As a slave of the long-distance merchant he had actually been significantly better off than now, free indeed but without food, money, and a roof over his head, shunned because of his strange appearance bordering the monstrous. As such Otaspes involuntarily began a new life with uncertain future, with a new freedom that should taste him bitterer than his previous bondage.