Wyln, Rogue

Note

Unlike some of the other characer origins, this is pretty much "raceless", so play Wyln as whatever you want. For more on the various peoples one can find in the world of Antire, see Peoples of Antire

Deget and Creier looked at one another and laughed at the teen as he ran by them. They lost sight of him as he ducked behind a cart and assumed he found some hiding spot or a drain that would lead into the sewer. Wyln was good at that. They made sure he had practice.

Four men-at-arms ran around the corner and into the narrow street in hot pursuit. Deget and Creier stopped laughing, made sure they looked bewildered, and backed out of the way. The soldiers, reaching the end and not seeing their quarry in the next street, started looking in the nooks between buildings and turning over the barrels, crates, and other clutter that had accumulated in the back street.

The leader, already half-way down the street, stalked towards the two men.

"Where did it go?"

"It?" answered Deget, doing a good job of acting confused.

"Don't pretend you didn't see someone just dash through here." Deget didn't need to read his mind to know this brute thought little of anyone who could be found in a back alley of the Jos. Once beyond the docks and warehouses at the river's edge, the Jos quarter turned into the slums of Maande.

"Oh, sure. Some kid, ya?" Creier offered.

"Yes." The soldier said the word slowly, making sure Deget and Creier heard the contempt he had for people who would be lazy enough to say "ya" instead of "yes."

Creier played into the soldier's contempt. "'E jus' tore thru here like a coney runnin' from a dog."

"It would have to be rabbit to run through this alley that fast with all the trash here."

"Trash?" Deget asked, pretending offense. "All these goods people store?" Deget made a point of looking at one of the other soldiers carelessly tossing a bundle that clearly belonged to someone. The sound of shutters opening and closing just as soon as the building's occupants saw who was making the noise in the street adding to the soldier's noise.

"Do not avoid the question. Where did it go?" The soldier stood close enough that Creier could smell the perfume the man-at-arms used. The perfume reminded Creier that men-at-arms were part of the army's upper echelon, not common city watch. He decided to not push his luck.

"I guess I got distracted when you came around the corner. Last I saw, he was about at that cart there." Creier pointed at the cart Wyln ducked behind, now flipped over, one wheel slowly spinning in the air.

"That's about where I saw him last too." Deget agreed, looking up to see a hippogriff and its rider passing close overhead. Seeing the soldier's attention moving elsewhere, Deget nudged Creier and with a jerk of his head let Creier know it was time to go.

Wyln waited an hour and more for the noise in the street to die down before pushing open the attic's shutter. He thanked himself for planning this bolt hole long ago. The attic looked out over the roof of the adjacent, shorter building. Drainpipes and the rough building walls all but made a ladder up to that lower roof. The difference in how much the smaller building stuck out into the back street gave him just enough time to scamper up in hiding before the soldiers came through.

The other novices and the initiates ridiculed more diligent students like him for their constant planning and attention to Sef's teaching. Older initiates like Deget and Creier also schemed to cause as much trouble as possible for the younger novices like Wyln. His latest predicament came from their latest scheme. What they presented as a simple burglary of a small gold statue that, once fenced, would net a nice offering to the Syndicate turned out to be a favored and well-guarded possession of Dom Adrieu. Wyln still went through with it --- pride winning out over sense.

Before finding this hideout, he deposited the gold statue that caused this head ache in one of the Syndicate's disguised drops in one of the many back streets of the Jos. Even now, he assumed, it moved further and further away from him, transported by one oblivious courier after another. Even if he was collared, they wouldn't get the gold --- no, gold plated plaster --- statue. Plaster. That's why the persistence of the pursuit bothered him. The statue was nice, it was moderately valuable to a street kid, but it should be worth nothing to someone of Dom Adrieu's wealth. Pursued by hippogriffs? Over a statue that stood less than a hand tall and looked like half the cheap votive statues sold in the grand square?

The pursuit didn't make sense, but he heard no nearby noise to worry about. The Syndicate taught patience and focus. A hurried student makes mistakes and Wyln never hurried out of one of his holes. He let the heat of the pursuit turn to embers and then ashes before moving rather than risk fanning the flames back up. Afternoon turned to dusk and dusk turned to night before he emerged from his bolt hole.

Little of the mess in the street had been cleaned up by the time Wyln climbed back down. In the Jos, no one left anything of value unattended. Even an empty barrel would disappear. This was all junk. Even the cart was a broken down mess. He moved as quietly as he could, not wanting to make any noise that would cause someone to open a shutter. Walking out onto the road at the end of the street, he carefully, nonchalantly scanned his surroundings. If they suspected he hid somewhere along the backstreet, surely they would leave a lookout. None of the passersby paid him much mind, so he walked a circuitous path to his next hide. With the level of pursuit, he'd be unwelcome at any of the Syndicate houses for a few days.

The next hide was more comfortable, but only to someone used to living on the streets. The shanty perched precariously on top of another shanty in turn built on top of another shanty in the poorest part of the Jos, kept from becoming even a slum by the year-round muck and mire. He checked the battered board that hid an escape route that ran down to the river, making sure no one had built another shanty that blocked it since the last time he was here. Satisfied he could leave out the hidden back door if needed, he stretched out on the pile of old rags that made up the only pretense of comfort in the tiny one room shack. The constant damp made these even moldier than his last visit.

Hunger forced him to leave the hideout the next morning. The city watch rarely entered the Jos, leaving it to the Syndicate and other unofficial organizations to keep the mass of discontent from exploding into riot. Today, city watch and more men-at-arms moved through the quarter, harassing and intimidating the locals. With their presence, he didn't risk helping himself to any food, he bought it squarely with the few coins he carried. The brown loaf and sausage would see him through a day or two, but he'd need to figure out what to do pretty quickly. Not wanting to be on the street any longer than he had to be, he headed to another pre-planned hide near the docks.

Two blocks away, he saw one of the Syndicate's journeymen. The journeymen rarely gave the novices any grief. They rarely interacted with them at all because spent their time on the Syndicate's real business. The instruction of novices was in the hands of the older members of the upper ranks --- those skilled enough to be a master, but too far past their prime to remain in field work. Getting that old in the Syndicate took real skill.

The journeyman Prieten gave the subtle hand wave that only another Syndicate member would recognize as a signal to talk. Sure that Wyln had seen it, Prieten entered a small, but noisy, tavern. Wyln followed him a couple of minutes later. After using his last coin to buy at small beer, Wyln found a seat at a common table next to him.

"The heat's too high. It's not going to settle down." Prieten didn't look at him, sipping from his own mug. "Those two were not making the grade, you were making them look bad. They set you up good, they were trying to get rid of you. You weren't the first. Now we know who it was, Sef took care of it."

"Why's the heat still up?" Wyln didn't bother to ask how Sef took care of Deget and Creier. He didn't doubt anything but that they were alive and in a condition to feel regret for a very long time. Prieten's tone said Wyln was going to regret what came next for a long time too.

"This is too big. I don't know why, so I can't tell you. But there's a mark on you. You need to leave. Adrieu's on the warpath."

"Leave?"

"Leave Maande. Just go. Good news: council met and you're an initiate now. We can't do the ceremony. The Syndicate is still the Syndicate though. Get somewhere else. I need to be the last person you talk to in Maande."

"If the heat's this hot, any idea on how I get out?"

"You know the barge Drunken Pike. It's tied up at it's usual dock. You know the barge master is paid to ignore the empty crate on the stern. There are a few supplies waiting inside it's big enough to fit a thin kid for a day or so while the barge makes its way downstream. You know how to do the rest, initiate."

"The Syndicate is still the Syndicate," said Wyln. The common phrase . The Syndicate took care of its own as long as they played by its rules.

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

Prieten finished his drink with practiced calm and left. Wyln followed a minute later.