Chapter 3

They climbed to the top of the hill, and a flower-filled valley opened before their eyes. Cliffs that seemed to prop up the sky, several villages scattered apart along a small river.

“You know, even though I’ve been to hundreds of different worlds, Existence never ceases to amaze me,” Yan remarked, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand.

The knights glanced sideways at him in unison.

“What?” the rogue asked in surprise. “Even people like me have a heart that isn’t indifferent to beauty.”

Sovt sighed heavily, shaking his head.

“Let’s go already, famous Yan Di Wonderwalk. We’ll spend the night in some local tavern and head straight for the capital of the world in the morning.”

“What, on foot again?!” Yan protested.

“Well, we’ll hire horses, or a wagon if there’s one around,” Sovt shrugged.

They began descending along the road and soon entered the first village, which, as it turned out later, wasn’t one of three at all, but the only one. Everything else was merely a peculiarity of the local architecture, an attempt to place the houses beneath the shadows of enormous flat rocks to hide them from the scorching sun.

The village was called Magnol. It was quite lively: children ran about here and there, while merchants drove their wagons through the streets.

The four came out to a small church with a sharp, cone-shaped spire. A beautiful old building. A shame it wasn’t a tavern, as Yan put it.

They continued along the crowded street, past two-story wooden houses.

“Hm, we’re being watched,” Sovt rasped quietly, suddenly leaning toward Yan and nodding somewhere off to the side.

“I know,” Yan smiled, surprising the knights quite a bit with that answer. The rogue pretended to study the sign of the nearest shop selling all kinds of little things. “The Jesters of Archbishop Kont Dyu.”

“What?” Sovt couldn’t believe his ears, grabbing Yan by the shoulder. “Are you serious?”

“Hey, hey, relax,” Yan replied calmly, patting the knight’s hand. “They came for my soul, not yours.”

“But that’s… the famous Assassins’ Guild, known across dozens of worlds in Existence!”

“You should have known what risks you were taking when you hired me,” Yan shrugged. “I have a lot of enemies.”

Sovt sighed heavily, lowering his hand.

“And what do we do now?”

“Nothing. When we find a tavern, you go inside, and I’ll have a word with the fellow,” Yan replied. “It’s not your concern.”

Sovt grimaced, but then let it go and nodded.

They continued on.

“Hm, they really did find me quickly,” Yan thought to himself, lazily looking over the scenery around him. “Apparently, Kont really is angry about what I pulled the last time I was roaming the reaches of the Universe. Angry enough to station assassins in every damn village. Though maybe I just got incredibly lucky? After all, I spent quite a long time at Degemon’s. And time in his dimension moves much more slowly.”

The four reached the central street, where the houses were three stories tall. A little farther on, they came to a small square, where the village town hall stood alongside several other rather notable buildings, one of which was a tavern.

“Not bad,” Sovt remarked, examining the tavern: its dark stone facade, wooden inserts, balconies, and clean whitewashed walls. “So what now?” He looked at Yan.

“Go inside, and I’ll have a word with our friend,” the rogue replied. “And if possible, I’d prefer a room on the ground floor. I have no desire to run from assassins by jumping from the second or third.”

“Got it,” Sovt replied, opening the door.

His two companions nodded to Yan in agreement and disappeared inside after their commander.

“Yeah! And you two… good luck…” the rogue said, turning to face the square. “I’ll have to come up with names for them. Otherwise, this is getting kind of strange. How about Mekh and Lekh? No, no, Bukh and Mukh!”

Thinking about stupid nicknames and the blueness of the sky, Yan walked a little farther down the street and abruptly turned into a dark alley, disappearing into it like a stone into water.

The assassin who had been watching him naturally followed at once, considering it an excellent opportunity.

Although the Jesters of Archbishop Kont Dyu were famous in many worlds, that did not mean that all of them were equally intelligent. Many members of the famous Assassins’ Guild—especially those who wandered through worlds in search of easy money—were not particularly bright.

They did stand out in appearance, though. Every member of the guild wore a mask resembling the mask of a jester or a scarecrow—simple, white or beige, flat, with large black eyeholes and a mouth stretched from ear to ear. Sometimes a hood decorated with white feathers was added to it.

Exactly such a character appeared after Yan in the dark alley. Wiry, with two daggers in his hands and dressed in an unremarkable leather outfit.

He appeared—and froze in surprise.

There was no one in the alley.

“Damn it, where did he go?” the assassin cursed, taking several quick steps into the shadows. “Damn rogue, vanished into thin air!” The jester took another step forward, putting his back against the wall of the nearest house.

And then a hand in a white sleeve suddenly emerged straight out of it.

It grabbed the assassin by the throat, pinning him against the cold stone and beginning to strangle him. The jester tried to stab his attacker with his daggers, but both blades merely bounced off the stone facade.

“Man, what amateurs they make these days,” came a voice somewhere beside the assassin’s ear as he kicked helplessly.

Yan’s head emerged from the wall, the small ponytail visible at the back of his head. The assassin continued helplessly swinging his weapons.

“Easy, idiot. You could cut yourself with those,” the rogue said, spreading his lips into a cold smile.

That smile was the last thing the assassin saw before his death.

When his body went limp and dropped lifelessly onto the cold ground, the rest of Yan emerged from the wall. He dusted himself off and caught his breath.

“Well, I think I’ll keep these,” the rogue said, taking the assassin’s daggers and hiding the weapons inside his jacket. “May Death keep you.”

Yan walked out of the alley.

It was getting dark.

Time to have a proper dinner and go to bed.