door.
"Ehren," he snapped, the name viciously snarled. "By the bloody crows I didn't buy you to sit around staring out a window."
Ehren's frayed temper made the thought of breaking the fool's neck rather tempting-but a Cursor did not allow such personal matters to interfere in his duties. His job was to remain invisible in the Sunset Isles, watching and listening and sending reports back to the mainland. He picked up the pen again, ducked his head, and said in a meek voice, "Yes, Master Ullus. Sorry. Just resting my fingers."
"You'll rest them in a gibbet if I see you lazing about again," the man said, and stalked over to a low cabinet stocked with dirty glasses and bottles of cheap rum. Ullus immediately set about the task of making the glasses dirtier and the rum more worthless, as he did most days, while Ehren continued to labor on the impossibly incomplete accounts ledger.
Sometime later, a man came into the room. He was not large, but had the lean, seedy look Ehren had come to associate with the pirates who would terrorize merchant shipping before slipping back into the myriad hiding places in the Sunset Isles. His clothing showed much wear and exposure to salt and wind and sun, and he wore mismatched bits of finery, the decorative trophies of a successful pirate.
And yet... Ehren frowned and kept his eyes on the ledger. The man didn't carry himself like a pirate at all. Most of them tended to be as ragged, undisciplined, and unkempt in mannerism as in appearance. This man looked cautious and sober. He moved like the best professional fighters, all relaxed awareness and restraint. Ehren judged that he was no pirate at all, but a cutter-an assassin who would trade death for gold if the price was right.
Ullus rose to his feet and rocked unsteadily back and forth on his heels. "Sir..." he began. "Welcome to Westmiston. My name is Ullus, and I am the senior trade manag-"
"You are a fence," the man said in a quiet voice.
Ullus dropped his mouth open in a facade that would not have convinced an intelligent child. "Good sir!" he exclaimed. "I do not know where you have heard this slander, but-"
The man tilted his head slightly and focused his eyes on Ullus. Ehren's master was a drunken fool, but neither too drunk nor too foolish to recognize the danger glinting in the man's eyes. He stopped talking, shut his mouth, and swallowed nervously.
"You are a fence," the stranger continued in the same quiet tone. "I am Captain Demos. I have goods to liquidate."
"Certainly," Ullus said, slurring the word. "Why, just bring them here, and I should be glad to give you fair value for them."
"I don't care to be cheated," the man said. He drew a piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it at Ullus's feet. "This is a listing. You will sell them at my price or buy them yourself before I return in three weeks. I will pay you a tithe as commission. Cheat me a single copper ram, and I'll cut your throat."
Ullus swallowed. "I see."
"I thought you would," the man said.
Ullus picked up the list and read it. He winced. "Captain," he said, his tone cautious, "you'll get a better price for these farther east."
"I do not sail east," the man said.
Ehren sighed and dipped his quill, focusing on looking bored, miserable, and surly in order to disguise his sudden excitement and interest. Westmiston was the westernmost human settlement in the Sunset Isles. The only civilization west of here all belonged to the Canim. Their main trade port was ten days sailing from Westmiston, and at this time of year, about eleven days back.
Three weeks.
Captain Demos was carrying something to the Canim.
"Come," Captain Demos said. "Bring your slave and a cart. I sail within the hour."
Chapter 1
Tavi pulled on the rope until he thought his spine would snap from the strain. "Hurry!" he said through gritted teeth.
"You can't rush true learning, my boy," said the old man from where he knelt at the mechanism's release pin. Magnus fussed and grunted over the device for a moment, then crudely forged metal scraped on metal. "Research is the essence of academia."
Sweat broke out over Tavi's whole body. "If you don't get that pin in soon, the arm is going to slip and throw you halfway across the Vale," Tavi growled.
"Nonsense, my boy. I'm well out of the way. It will shatter like the last one." He grunted.