The Fly Guild (12 page)

“A word of advice,” he said. “Never
bring bad news to Master Fist if you can help it. More often than not, he
smashes the messenger against the wall to vent his frustration. Today, you were
lucky.”

Quinton nodded in response. “Thank
you, Master Sands, I will be more careful.”

The man turned and walked after the
others without responding, and Quinton quickly followed. After meandering
through the guild’s mazelike corridors, he turned to follow Huck, but Sands
called out to him.

“No, maggot, you will be with me
for the rest of the day. I may have need of you.”

Quinton looked down the hall at
Huck, who didn’t even turn around as he followed Red eye down the corridor.
“Yes, master.”

Sands led him up another set of
stairs to a door. “My chamber. Never forget which one it is.”

Quinton quickly glanced around to
try to establish some sort of mark that he could remember, but all the doors
looked like the others. He noticed a small smudge on one of the pine
floorboards in front of the door and hoped that would be enough.

“Entering the wrong master’s
chamber is punishable by death.”

“Isn’t everything?” Quinton thought
to himself.

The two entered the room. Quinton
had expected a luxurious suite but was surprised to find a rather spartan room.
There was a fireplace with a small stack of wood next to it on one wall, a cot,
a small table and a chair. The furniture took up almost the entire room.

“You’ll sleep over there,” Sands
said, pointing to the corner of the room.

“Yes, master,” Quinton replied.
“Thank you.” Anything was an improvement over the stale urine smell of the
maggot pit.

Sands sat heavily down on the
chair, his arms and legs sprawling every which way. He let out a deep breath
before speaking.

“This murder greatly complicates
things,” Sands said in a soft voice. “Years of negotiations and bribes lost
because of this. Someone will pay dearly, and despite Fist’s confidence, I have
great fear that it will be us in one way or another.” He stared at the floor
and ran one hand through his hair before continuing. “We need to increase the
speed of your training if you are to have any hope of surviving.”

Quinton stared quizzically at him,
unsure what he was talking about.

Sands looked up at him, his eyes
tired and heavy. He broke half a smile and laughed to himself. “After all, you
want to survive so that some day you can have all of this,” he waved his arm
around the barren room, “for yourself.” The man sighed, the slight smile
disappeared and he looked down at the floor. “There’s more to life than this,
and some day, I’m going to find it,” he said in a quiet voice, barely audible.

Quinton watched the man’s eyes
close as he sat in deep thought. “May I ask a question, master?”

The man didn’t say anything for a
moment, then his hand raised up slightly and he said, “What is it?”

Quinton took a moment to muster his
courage before continuing. “Mistress Glitter said that one day we would rise up
and take our rightful place among the people. Do you believe that, too?”

Sands looked at him for several
moments, then burst out laughing. “That is her dream, maggot. Everyone has a
dream that keeps them going through the days until death comes and whisks them
away to whatever fate lies beyond. That is Glitter’s dream, and may she one day
live to see it.”

“What is your dream, master?”

Sands’ tone changed immediately. He
stood upright from his chair, knocking it aside in the process. His eyes
narrowed. “You will never ask this question of me again,” he hissed. “Do you
understand?”

Quinton nodded his head and said,
“Yes, master, forgive me.” He looked down at the floor, expecting to be beaten.

Sands turned, walked over to the
cot and sat down, regaining his composure. “We must rest now,” he said, his
voice returning to its normal tone. “There will be much to do tomorrow.” And
with that, he lay on the bed, rolled over, and fell asleep.

Quinton wasn’t sure what time it
was but knew it was still daylight, even though there was no window in the
room. He stood up and extinguished the three small candles on the table, went
to his corner and lay down. The boards were hard on his head, but still softer
than the stones of the maggot pit. The stench wasn’t nearly as bad here, and he
didn’t have to listen to all the other boys tossing and turning, snoring and
crying out in their sleep. It was actually quite peaceful here, and he liked
it. He took one more deep breath, thought briefly about his mother, then fell
asleep.

***

Quinton awoke with a start to a
sharp pain in his ribs. He gasped for air and searched for the source. He could
see a shadow standing over him. Whoever it was had just kicked him hard in the
ribs.

“You sleep too deeply, maggot,” said
a voice. It was Sands. “Sleep deep, and you’ll sleep permanently. The world
could have ended, and you would have slept through it.”

“Master Sands, if the world ended,
I would be more than happy to sleep through it,” said Quinton, touching his
tender ribs.

The man laughed and tossed him
something in the faint light that the one candle now burning on the table
provided. It was a small chunk of bread.

“Eat up,” he said. “We have much to
do.”

Quinton hungrily gobbled down the
bread and chased it down with a few swigs of water Sands offered from a small
leather flask hanging near the door. Sands led him out of the guild and into
the dark streets of the city. Based on the amount of activity, or lack thereof
in the various brothels and taverns they passed, Quinton figured it was near
dawn. They wound their way through the mostly deserted streets, flanked on
either side by two- and three-story houses that were fairly well maintained but
mostly lost in the deep shadows of the pre-dawn hour. They stopped near a
section of wall that ringed the outer part of the city. The stones were
partially falling out and covered in moss. Weeds grew here and there in the
cracks and as the early light of the day started to spread across the sky,
Quinton could even make out shapes that must be small trees growing out of the
wall in places.

Sands stopped momentarily, reached
up with two hands and began ascending the wall in a rapid fashion. Quinton
watched in amazement at the fluidity of Sands’ movements. Most wall climbers
were choppy, carefully moving one limb at a time, but Sands was different.
Sands moved the way a squirrel moves up a wide old oak tree. His mind had
decided where to go long before his limbs ever actually got there. The man
disappeared into the darkness above before the boy decided it was time to
follow. The wall was an easy climb because of its state of disrepair, but
Quinton had to slow himself several times to make sure he wasn’t going to fall.
Sands was either a master climber or had scaled that particular section of wall
a thousand times.

When he reached the top, Sands
wasn’t there. He could see a faint shadow of a figure below on the outside of
the wall and felt a cool morning breeze blowing inland off the ocean from the
far side of the city. He took a deep breath of the clean air before starting
his descent. As he made his way down, he realized he was leaving the confines
of the city for the first time since he had arrived what seemed like decades
ago. He let go with his hands and dropped the last few feet, landing with a
soft thud on the ground below.

Sands grabbed him around the neck
and pressed him against the wall. In the cool morning air, he hissed, “Never
drop yourself like that on a descent. Finish the climb until you reach the
ground. That little jump at the end can be heard for some distance. Stealth is
your cloak of invisibility.” The man released him and turned without further
comment, disappearing into the darkness. Quinton gathered himself, then
scurried to catch up.

Sands led him down a narrow path
through waist-high grass toward the looming shadows of the scrub trees that
bordered the swamp that surrounded the city on three sides. Part of the reason
the wall had been left to decay was the feeling of security the endless swamp
provided to the inhabitants. The only practical way into the city was by sea,
or the one road that ran through the swamp that was narrow, treacherous and
seldom traveled by those without a heavy guard. Brigands, murderers and those
who feed on the edges of society inhabited the distant parts of the swamp.
Quinton wondered whether the walls were to keep evil out, or evil in.

The path led into the trees, which
were still sparse by most standards. The ground was already starting to squish
underfoot, the grass was head high now, and insects and birds were chirping and
singing to the lightening sky. Within a half hour, the path was a narrow strip
of mostly dry land weaving through water-soaked ground that had several inches
of standing water on it in places. As the sun climbed into the sky, Quinton saw
that the water looked black, clouds of small insects swarmed around each other
in small balls floating here and there across the surface and strange sounds
emanated from every direction.

“The swamp is a dangerous place,”
said Sands over his shoulder as he walked. “Stay on the road and you’ll be
taken down by murderous thieves; stay on the trails and you’ll be eaten alive
by insects and legartos. Quite a choice.”

“What’s a legarto, master?”

Sands looked back and broke into a
slight smile. “A legarto is a lizard that’s slightly longer than a man is tall
and usually looks like a crusty old log floating in the water. The only give
away is its narrow, yellow-green, reptilian eyes. If they’re not hungry, you
can practically walk across them. If they are ready for lunch, you’ll be hard
pressed to get away from them. Out of the water, they look like their smaller
lizard cousins, but with a mouthful of teeth and claws as long as your hand.”

“Are they dragons?” Quinton asked.

“No, not nearly that big, but just
about as dangerous.”

“What should I do if I see one?”

“Hope that he’s not hungry,” said
Sands. “Otherwise, know that they will work together. One will try to chase you
into a spot where two or three others await. Never run away from one. Instead,
run toward him, hope you make it past him with all your limbs still attached
and keep on going. If you get past the chaser, usually he just gives up, unless
he’s really hungry.”

“What do you do then?”

“Pray that it is a quick end.”

After some time meandering through
the swamp, the trail turned onto what looked like a small island. The trees
were evergreen and thicker and the ground was higher and dry. Quinton noticed
as they made their way through the outskirts of the island, cut stones were in
piles along the trail.

“What was this place?” he asked.

Sands said nothing, continuing to
walk. After a few more moments, he stopped and motioned him forward. “Look,” he
said.

Before him were eight large stones,
rectangular in shape, covered in vines, moss and other vegetation. In between
the stones was a large area made of six-sided chunks of granite worn smooth by
the passage of a thousand feet. Sands looked at him and grinned. Whatever the
place was, it had been built by someone a long, long time ago.

“Step to the middle, boy, and you
shall see for yourself.”

Quinton looked at him, then
cautiously stepped forward, not sure what to expect. When he reached the middle
of the obelisks, he became dizzy and nearly fell before catching himself.

“Behold, the glory of an ancient
civilization and the power that mankind once wielded,” said Sands, but his
voice was distant and barely audible.

Quinton turned to look at him to
ask what was happening, but he was gone. When he turned back, there was a
large, muscled man wearing a helmet with a full visor. There was no other
armor, and his muscled frame showed that he was a trained warrior.

“What do you seek?” the man asked.

Quinton wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Tell him the sword,” came a
whispered voice. It sounded like Sands but a quick glance showed no one around
him.

“The sword,” Quinton stammered.

The warrior nodded in approval.
“Choose which,” he said, motioning with his right arm to a nearby weapons rack
that Quinton hadn’t noticed before. There was every shape and size of sword on
the rack. Some were as tall as he was, some were straight and some were curved.

“Choose the short gladius,”
whispered the unseen voice again.

He walked over to the rack and
pulled a sword that was shorter than some, but seemed to fit his own size and
strength well.

The warrior again nodded in
approval and placed his hand on the hilt of his own sword, drawing it from the
scabbard. It was the same sword Quinton had chosen.

“What is your skill?” he asked.

The whispered voice said,
“Beginner,” and so Quinton said the same thing. The warrior nodded.

“You have chosen a gladius, or
short sword,” he said, his voice booming from behind the mask. “It has
advantages and disadvantages, and I shall teach you both.”

Quinton nodded, not sure what to
make of the man behind the mask.

“We will start with the positioning
of your feet and the issues of balance.”

The man showed him how to place his
feet to better balance himself and then demonstrated some basic moves with the
sword from that position. He then had Quinton do the moves, commenting on what
he was doing right and wrong, complimenting him when he did something right.

After several hours of instruction,
Quinton paused and said, “What is your name?”

The man paused and the mask, its
worked metal in the shape of a human face, staring blankly back at him. “I am
your trainer. Master is my name.”

Quinton frowned. He was afraid to
push the matter, but the arms master didn’t seem the same as the leaders of the
thieves’ guild. There was something odd about him. “Very well. Shall we
continue, master?”