lessen his credentials. In his former days in Calimport, Entreri's talents had been reserved for the killing of guildmasters or wizards, noblemen, and captains of the guard. Of course, if Gordeon and the other two lieutenants gave him any such difficult tasks and he proved successful, his standing would grow among the community and they would fear his quick ascension through the ranks.
No matter, he decided.
He took one last look at the listed address-a region of Calimport that he knew well-and went to retrieve his tools.
He heard the children crying nearby, for the hovel had only two rooms, and those separated by only a thick drapery. A very homely young woman-Entreri noted as he spied on her from around the edge of the drapery-tended to the children. She begged them to settle down and be quiet, threatening that their father would soon be home.
She came out of the back room a moment later, oblivious to the assassin as he crouched behind another curtain under a side window. Entreri cut a small hole in the drape and watched her movements as she went about her work. Everything was brisk and efficient; she was on edge, he knew.
The door, yet another drape, pushed aside and a young, skinny man entered, his face appearing haggard, eyes sunken back in his skull, several days of beard on his chin and cheeks.
"Did you find it?" the woman asked sharply.
The man shook his head, and it seemed to Entreri that his eyes drooped just a bit more.
"I begged you not to work with them!" the woman scolded. "I knew that no good-"
She stopped short as his eyes widened in horror. He saw, looking over her shoulder, the assassin emerging from behind the draperies. He turned as if to flee, but the woman looked back and cried out.
The man froze in place; he would not leave her.
Entreri watched it all calmly. Had the man continued his retreat, the assassin would have cut him down with a dagger throw before he ever got outside.
"Not my family," the man begged, turning back and walking toward Entreri, his hands out wide, palms open. "And not here."
"You know why I have come?" the assassin asked.
The woman began to cry, muttering for mercy, but her husband grabbed her gently but firmly and pulled her back, angling her for the children's room, then pushing her along.
"It was not my fault," the man said quietly when she was gone. "I begged Kadran Gordeon. I told him that I would somehow find the money."
The old Artemis Entreri would not have been intrigued at that point. The old Artemis Entreri would never even have listened to the words. The old Artemis Entreri would have just finished the task and walked out. But now he found that he was interested, mildly, and, as he had no other pressing business, he was in no hurry to finish.
"I will cause no trouble for you if you promise that you will not hurt my family," the man said.
"You believe that you could me cause trouble?" Entreri asked.
The helpless, pitiful man shook his head. "Please," he begged. "I only wished to show them a better life. I agreed to, even welcomed, the job of moving money from Docker's Street to the drop only because in those easy tasks I earned more than a month of labor can bring me in honest work."
Entreri had heard it all before, of course. So many times, fools-camels, they were called-joined into a guild, performing delivery tasks for what seemed to the simple peasants huge amounts of money. The guilds only hired the camels so that rival guilds would not know who was transporting the money. Eventually, though, the other guilds would figure out the routes and the camels, and would steal the shipment. Then the poor camels, if they survived the ambush, would be quickly eliminated by the guild that had hired them.
"You understood the danger of the company you kept," Entreri remarked.
The man nodded. "Only a few deliveries," he replied. "Only a few, and then I would quit."
Entreri laughed and shook his head, considering the fool's absurd plan. One could not "quit" as a camel. Anyone accepting the position would immediately learn too much to ever be allowed out of the guild. There were only two possibilities: first, that the camel would perform well enough and be lucky enough to earn a higher, more permanent position within the guild structure, and second, that the man or woman (for women were often used) would be