I had expected anything except the murder of that well-dressed and seemingly kind-hearted lad. Robbery? Yes, I was quite confident in that… but murder? However, here he was, gasping for air. His legs twitching, he looked like a fish on dry land, which wasn’t surprising. How else would somebody react to being strangled with a garrote?

“Just relax lad,” Fat Go advised the poor lad. He was watching the execution with a trace of professional interest. “Simply relax and it all will be over.”

”It’s almost over anyway,” grumbled Bruiser who was the one using the garrote, showing his professional skills. “He’s gonna shit himself! Look at how his stomach is strained.”

Holy Miralina, as soon as they were done finish with him I’d probably be the next person they’ll send to the Gods. What did they need a witness for? It didn’t matter if that person lived in the Sixteen Men block, which meant that they knew to keep quiet about what they saw anyway.

“Huush, that guy is still struggling to survive. His eyes are popping out of their sockets so hard that he’s starting to look like a deep sea fish. His tongue is hanging out, but he is still trying to put his fingers under the rope.”

“Seven demons of Zarkhu,” said Fat Go and grimaced, “finish him off Bruiser, I wanna have a drink.”

“BANG!”

Bruiser was sent flying into the wall of the barn in which we were standing. There were plenty of such barns around and all of them looked like they were copies of each other. Almost the entire old dock storage area was consisted of such barns, which had been used to store the goods that seamen brought from the Yellow Islands. Back then, the place was bustling with life and joy. However, that was a long time ago. Now it was quiet and the place, decrepit and eerie, was always deserted. They say that during the Great Plague, the Royal mortician

brought corpses and stacked them here, but I believed that it was nothing but rubbish. What was the point of bringing them here only to transfer them to another place for burning? It would’ve been simpler to burn them along with the barn instead.

It was to that very place that the young lord was brought. I had told them the place would be quiet and deserted.

“What the…?!” shrieked Caterpillar, Fat Go’s girlfriend. ”What is that?”

“Not what but who,” said somebody in a low voice. The girl with the brightly painted face and half-shaven head, which was the current fashion trend of the Dock block, yelled and gripped her head. Immediately, two fountains of sparks erupted from her eyes. It was a horrible but, at the same time, fascinating scene.

“The wizard,” faintly groaned Dreven, Go’s right-hand man, and pulled out his huge knife. “Gonna be a blood fest.”

“To hell with all of you,” said Fat Go and looked at the almost strangled young man who, despite the torture, not only remained conscious, but was now getting rid of the garrote and trying get to his feet.

“What the ‘ell is up with today?”

Although Fat Go wasn’t a slim man, as his nickname confirmed, no one could deny that he was rather agile.

It only took him three nimble steps to get to the young lord and grab him from behind.

I didn’t catch when Go took his dagger out but in a split second the young man’s innards were visible to everyone.. Fat Go had gutted him rather skillfully, and now not even the most skilled doctors could save his life..

The noble gurgled as thick blood gushed from his mouth, and was now desperately trying to push the horrible mess of bloody innards back into his body.

”Agrippa,” moaned a small and fairly old man who had rushed into the barn.

”We are late, Agrippa!”

Dreven was right, the old man was holding a wizard crosier in his hand and. I knew that my days were numbered. It seemed that this lad was his son and the

wizard would be taking revenge by killing everyone who was involved in his murder. If I died quickly, I’d consider myself lucky, since there was no chance I’d make it out alive.

“The crosier!” Fat Go roared. “Take the crosier away from him, you idiots!”

Three of his flunkies jumped towards the wizard even though they really didn’t want to. A bolt of lightning blasted one of them into the wall and made a fist-size hole in his chest. The second thug’s belt turned into a disgusting snake, which immediately sank its crooked fangs into his stomach and ripped a huge hole in it. As for the third one, the wizard simply smashed his head open with the knob of his crosier.

It was obvious that Go didn’t care about his henchmen or his dying friends, as he decided to ditch them and run towards the door. However, his luck had already run out. He only managed to make a few steps before he impaled himself on the tip of the long heavy sword, the owner of which had just entered the fight.

“Aghh!” Go hissed as he pointlessly tried to grip the blade of the elderly battle-scarred swordsman.

“What did you do that for, Agrippa? He could have told us who hired him,” the wizard said and looked over at Caterpillar with annoyance. The girl was still alive and was rolling on the floor, clutching her face and shrieking in agony. “What an awful noise,” the wizard said with disgust in his voice.

Immediately after that blue and white sparks flew out of the crosier and hit the girl’s chest. She twitched a couple more times and then went limp.

“Who?” the wizard cried out and ran up to Go whom the man called Agrippa had flung off his sword and onto the floor. “Who hired you?”

“Boo,” uttered the ruffian, still unwilling to yield. It was obvious that he understood what was happening and what they were asking, but he knew he was dying. Because of that he decided to ignore their question and rudely stick out his tongue. “Go to hell you geezer.”

“Who?” the wizard demanded as he grabbed Go’s head and shook it. “Tell me and I shall send your soul to the Altar of the Eternal Rest.”

“Who’s waiting for me there?” Go laughed but his laugh immediately turned into coughing and he spat blood on the wizard’s face. “I’ve killed so many people that I can’t even couuun−”

His words turned into blood filled gurgling and then his body twitched one last time before he died. At the same time the young man, who was the source of this whole mess, bent down and passed on.

“How frustrating,” the wizard said and flung his arms up. “You see, Agrippa, I never would have thought that I could lose almost everything at once. The baron is dead and I don’t know who wanted to take his life. It’s clear why, but who?”

“Anybody could’ve done it” Agrippa replied nonchalantly while piercing the throat of the ruffian that had been attacked by the snake. “He would’ve died pretty soon anyway. What was the point of doing all this? You have plenty of enemies, don’t you?”

“Any wizard has plenty of them,” the old man said and stomped his foot. “However, nobody could’ve predicted that I’d be here today. Nobody. I made up my mind to drop into that town just yesterday and you know that perfectly well.”

“To predict and to calculate are two different things you know,” Agrippa said and looked around. “You’re rather a wise man, Master, and you could count the people equal to you in power in this whole world on one hand. But that doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t calculate your actions somehow. You remember that I managed to do that once. Why wouldn’t someone else be able to do the same?

“Perhaps you are right,” the wizard admitted as he bent down over the young man’s body lying in a puddle of blood. “If that’s true, then we can conclude out that the one who is behind the murder is a man who plays a large-scale game. Imagine the number of all the outcomes they thought of. Unless they hired a pack of ruffians like this in every town, which would’ve been rather expensive.“

“Such things only require organization skills. When you have a couple of good and skillful assistants and enough funds any issue can be solved quickly and efficiently,” Agrippa said and headed to the pile of garbage in the corner of the

barn in which I was currently hiding. “And besides, Master, it could be a she, not a he. You have to take Magistress Evangelina and Magistress Vitalia into account.”

“They would do things differently,” the wizard said with a grin on his face. “They are ladies and they cannot stand such primitive violence. Poison or a snake in the bed, that I could believe. But ruffians, the scum of the earth? No.

”“Prejudice,” Agrippa said as he stood still next to the pile of garbage, so close that I could see the sole of his high boots. They were high-quality boots made of ox leather with heel plates. They were rather expensive boots and probably cost around fifty gold coins. “Times are changing, Master, and so are traditions and habits. We have to understand, to admit, and to accept all that. Note that Magistress Evangelina understood this several years ago and could easily make use of the sexist assumptions. She’s a strong rival and, besides, she hates you like no one else in the world.”

“Well, should I raise him from the dead,” the wizard began and looked at Fat Go’s body, “and question him?”

“It’s a forbidden ritual,” Agrippa replied. “On one hand, you’re above the law and I’ve become used to it, but on the other we’re in a town that’s rather densely populated and we have to consider that. It means that there’s probably a consulate of the Order of Truth here. We’re very likely to face a fully-authorized group. Would you like to deal with them?”

Agrippa was right about the Order of Truth. There was a fully-authorized group located in our town of Raymille. They were led by Father Prior and three father preceptors, and they had two dozens of bother sleuths and a dozen of brother executors in their ranks. Raymille was the capital of the kingdom after all and the Order imposed certain obligations even there. I visited their consulate several times as they arrange free lunches for the poor every week to show that “the Order is for the people and not the people for the Order”. Formalities were in their blood, which wasn’t surprising, especially when you learned about their history. I know it well, as during the free lunches one of the father preceptors would tell it to let the

people know whom they were visiting. Besides that, I learned a lot about the wizards from them too.

The Order of Truth was established about three hundred years ago. Later those days were renamed to the Century of Troubles or the Century of Changes. The historic event had changed the world from the Icy Islands in the North to the Ragellon Ocean in the South. Sometimes, Ragellon would be called a continent for some strange reason, I have no idea why, but it sounded nice anyway.

Three hundred years ago, for some mysterious reason pretty much all of the representatives of Ragellon noble families, including the royal ones, drew their last breath almost simultaneously. It took only a year or two for them to die off. The plague had wiped out up to five generations. It was hardly a coincidence but nobody found the cause of this. Nobody made a thorough investigation though, as there was something else to deal with −there were too many empty thrones to fill, with even more contenders, of course. Each of the them, including the most pathetic one had an army of followers whose task was to promote their candidate sa much as possible. Meanwhile the shrewdest adventurers began to change the borders of kingdoms without a second thought or any particular plan.

As a result, the world was plunged into a war. Everybody killed whoever they could get their hands on, all the dirtiest means and methods were used and people became mad from blood and violence.

It was no wonder that steel soon became the only means of strengthening positions for normal folk and while others used black magic for those means, as white magic could not be used in wars.

It is still unknown who of the ones in charge was the first to allow and adopt the old-age practice of Night and Death magic but after that, having ignored the old bans and taboos of the wizard Council, all of the kingdoms started using them officially, not caring about possible repercussions. Or, perhaps, the black wizards had simply decided to recover their rights themselves.

The tombs in cemeteries began to move and the dead rose to torture the living. Wooden idols, whose mouths were generously smeared with fresh blood, appeared

in pagan temples again. Violet fog began to swirl in the gorges of the Cold Mountains. When people inhaled even the slightest amount of it they forgot everything they knew and, like in the old times, peasants started putting up thorny plant wraths on the doors of their huts to ward away hexes and black souls.

Anarchy gave birth to violence, the violence called forth evil which cared for nobody, save for its own goals.

Black wizards, warlocks and witches, all those who seemed to have been long-forgotten, turned out not to be gone at all. They had simply been in hiding somewhere, waiting for their time to come. And it had.

Pretty quickly those who had granted them freedom regretted it. The Disciples of Darkness weren’t going to fight for any throne, as all they were interested in was their own fate and the power they could gain over people. They could easily get someone to a throne, but only under the conditions and rules that heavily favored them. The newly appointed governor, or whatever title they’d get, had to forget about their own interests, thus becoming a puppet in their hands.

The servants of evil made a mistake that cost them many lives. Unlike those who followed the magic of Light and Life, they were unable to unite and work together like they had planned.

It was known that the wizards from different branches and schools never fought each other without a serious reason. They managed to coexist peacefully, establishing a kind of symbiosis; they had nothing to share with each other as their methods were too different. However, when it was a matter of their personal interests, something like power or money, the situation became rather unpredictable. Even though both wizards and regular people shared this trait, it was uncertain who was fiercer about it. The white wizards were either ignoring the problem or were late to notice it, patiently waiting for the people to come to them with their heads bowed, asking for help. The Wizard Council had even prepared a list of requirements and requests as the price for their assistance.

However, it turned out that their help wasn’t needed. For the first time in the history of Ragellon the humans solved a magical problem without help.

It all started in Miklite, the largest town and the capital of Iront Kingdom. And, as these things always go, a single snowflake triggered the avalanche.

Having came back home, Diord, the captain of the Royal Guard, found his wife in hysterical tears and pretty soon found out why. It turned out that an hour before his arrival and without any explanation their six –year-old daughter was taken by a black wizard of the Cup of Night Order. It was the very order that had placed their puppet the king on the throne a couple of years ago and had been doing whichever vile act they wanted since.

Diord rushed to the Orders palace, but he was too late. His child had already been sacrificed during a terrible ritual. All that was left of her was a little dress and a braid of her fair hair. These two things were given back to the grief stricken officer by two young and insolent order novices as if to humiliate him.

They should not have done it at all.