like to stick a knife in my heart, but there was a good reason to help Shnyg . . . if, of course, he was willing to tell me about his client and about the mysterious Master.
“Quick!” I barked. “Speed up! Dawn’s almost here.”
There was despair written all over the thief’s simple face. With all his might, he forced himself to go faster.
“Now,” I said, honey dripping from my words. “All you have to do is tell me who your client is, and what you know about the Master. Then, my friend, I’ll quick pull you right over the wall.”
Shnyg stopped and wailed, “I can’t do that, Harold. He’ll kill me sure! Please! Help me over and we’ll make a deal!”
But then the pink dawn flooded the horizon, dispelling the darkness. I jumped back swiftly, sliding down off the wall onto the ground, and out of the corner of my eye I saw blinding-bright rays of crimson light come bursting out of the unfortunate thief in all directions. There was a muffled howl, and then silence. Oh well, I probably couldn’t have trusted anything he said, anyway.
I picked the heavy books up off the ground, hugged them against myself, and set off through the awakening neighborhoods of the Artisans’ City.
In this part of the city they got up very early. These hard workers left sleep behind when other people were still dozing. If you want to make money, get up early. Funny, the rich sleep late and they earn more than these poor slobs will ever see.
The baker had lit his stove long ago, and there was a pleasant smell of fresh bread and dough coming from his house. The milkman was hurrying on his rounds, pushing along a huge cart loaded with metal canisters. A tinsmith was on his way to the Port City. An old house painter yawned widely as he wandered along, still not fully awake.
“Go on, get out of it!” said a frail old woman, waving an equally old and tattered broom at a drunk lying on the ground. They don’t like idlers in the Artisans’ City.
I think that after the announcement that the demons of night had been driven out of Avendoom forever, the number of drunks who didn’t get home, but fell asleep on the way, increased sharply. The city went on living its life without paying any attention to what was hidden behind the white wall of the Forbidden Territory. In two hundred years people can get used to even more terrifying neighbors than that.
“Well, there’s evil there right beside us, but it stays on the other side of the wall, it doesn’t come out here and bother us. So that’s all right. Our grandfathers lived here, our fathers lived here, now we live here. And our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be all right, too!”
That’s the way almost every one of them thinks.
Sometimes when I hear these simpletons it makes me feel really angry. It’s just like sitting on a powder keg with a lighted fuse out in the open air and hoping for a shower of rain. I understand that there’s nothing that can be done with this ulcer on the body of the city, the mysterious Stain. But you can’t just close your eyes and hope that the gods will save you! Because . . .
Damn it! I was tired.
The Artisans’ City was behind me, there weren’t many people out on the streets, and I had no problems as I walked through a part of the city that was still half empty at this early hour of the morning. A few of the locals gave my tattered and dirty clothes a dubious sideways glance, but on this particular occasion, I really couldn’t care less about them. My less than joyful expression frightened off the most curious of them and I plodded on quite calmly all the way to Cathedral Square.
Here I was met by the familiar senior priests. It looked as if these old ruins had not even left their posts since the last time I’d seen them. Both of them regarded me with expressions of something less than delight. However, they hadn’t been put there to think but to carry out a very important and responsible assignment—to repeat the same phrase over and over again, like parrots from faraway places.
“Do you struggle with the Darkness within you?”
Oh, that’s exactly what I was just talking about!
“I exterminate the Darkness,” I replied wearily, keen to get the irrepressible cathedral staff’s idiotic and