he found was the old dilapidated house. Kian didn’t know if his mother and Tavantis were alive or dead.
He spent most of the day asking up and down the harbor if anyone remembered them or knew what had become of them. He had found no one who could help him. He had been a fool. Forty years had passed had he thought that time stood still outside the Blue Dagger Mountains? His family might have left the city long ago; there was just no way to know for sure. He hadn’t been able to communicate with them over the years and they never could have found him in the mountains without a map. They must have gone on with their lives perhaps they had thought he had done the same.
He stood with his hands on his hips looking out at the sea. The stench of the filthy harbor made him think of his childhood.
He and Tavantis had played in the filthy water of Grey Harbor almost every day. Skipping rocks or trying to catch fish for their supper. They loved to watch the smugglers and pirates come in and out of the harbor with their big ships and listen to them boast of their exploits to the women along the docks. The free city of Thieves Port offered safe harbor to any who could pay the city for the sanctuary of its port. It was an open invitation to every raider and marauder that sailed the western sea.
Kian’s brother Tavantis was his best friend they done everything together. The twins had little choice when it came to friends none of the other children of the city would play with them because they were half breeds. Kian didn’t mind having Tavantis as his only friend because most of the street children of Thieves Port were as treacherous as the city itself. He had seen children murder and steal no differently than their adult counterparts.
The city was awful for anyone to live in but it was a nightmare for the half Elven boys. By the age of seven he and his brother had been beaten and robbed several times. Humiliation became a part of their everyday lives. Kian stopped going out to play he could just never understand why the other children were mean to him when he tried so hard to be their friend.
The beatings and insults did not stop his brother Tavantis; he was not as sensitive as Kian. His brother was very stubborn and refused to be controlled by the ugly city. Tavantis started sneaking out at night. He told Kian that it was easier to hide from people at night and that very interesting things happen in the dark. Tavantis had tried to get him to go out with him several times, but Kian hated the dark; he always had he preferred to stay inside and listen to all the stories the men told while they waited for the ladies of the house to service them. It was how he had met his first master.
Kian’s stomach growled; he was getting hungry as he hadn’t eaten all day. The captain of the ship that had brought him across the sea had given him a few coppers because he had done a lot of extra work on the ship during the voyage over. He had worn a rag tied around his head to hide his Elven blood during fourteen days he had been at sea. He expected that he would not have gotten the extra coin or passage if the captain had known what he was. At least he hadn’t returned home with his pockets empty.
The gulls were everywhere screaming with excitement; the fishermen of the city had finished cleaning the day’s catch and were dumping what remained of the haul along the beach. The birds would eat well this evening. Kian began searching the street himself looking for a cheap place to fill his belly.
He recognized a building he remembered from his childhood. The One Eyed Eel was a small tavern that had served very good fish when he was a boy his mother had taken him and his brother to eat there on a few rare occasions. He would get a meal and think on what he should do next.
He pulled the hood up on the old cloak he had acquired after he left the ship. He had taken the worn out thing from a clothes line near the wharf. It wasn’t as heavy as the one Gildor