Chapter 4

“Well, finally you’ve shown up,” Sovt grunted, addressing Yan.

The knights of the Blue Paths were sitting at the farthest table in the tavern, with a view of the entire hall.

“Here.” The knight tossed the rogue the key to his room. “Just as you asked, on the ground floor. Though the owner warned me that Kvogens might wander around the village at night.”

“And who are those supposed to be?” Yan asked in surprise, sitting down at the table with the knights and asking a waiter to bring him a beer.

“Some kind of local fauna, apparently. Probably harmless. How did your meeting with the jester go?”

“Well, I got myself a couple of brand-new daggers,” Yan smiled, showing the knights the inside of his jacket.

Lekh and Mekh nodded in unison. The adepts never changed. They sat there in their helmets, even indoors, with gigantic two-handed flamberges behind their backs.

“I can’t imagine what you could possibly have done to make Kont Dyu himself hold a grudge against you,” Sovt remarked, examining the daggers.

“Oh, nothing much, really. It wasn’t even that bad. Kont just has an overly inflated and delicate ego,” Yan remarked.

At that very moment, a mug was placed in front of him.

“Your beer,” came a honey-sweet female voice.

“Thank you, darling!” Yan replied cheerfully, looking up at the waitress—and involuntarily flinched.

The girl’s long black hair, her agate-colored, almost pink, half-drunken gaze.

The rogue quickly squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again.

No. He had imagined it after all. Just an ordinary waitress.

“If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call!” she said, heading back toward the bar.

Yan watched her leave with a languid gaze.

“Man, I’m getting old,” the rogue thought, shaking his head and looking back at his companions. Thankfully, they hadn’t noticed anything. Or at least pretended they hadn’t.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. And just as Sovt was about to break the awkward silence with some question, the local goblin orchestra began to play, so there was no longer any need for conversation at all.

Soon Sovt admitted that he wanted to sleep. He got up from his chair and left. Lekh and Mekh, realizing that they were unlikely to get much of a conversation going with the rogue, bowed and also went off to their rooms, leaving Yan alone with himself.

“Hm, maybe not Lekh and Mekh after all. And not even Bukh and Mukh. What about Dran and Kran? Sounds good, doesn’t it? I’ll have to ask them later what they think of that one.”

Yan reached for his mug of beer and realized it was empty.

Yan looked around to call the waitress, but she was nowhere nearby. He had to drag himself over to the bar.

The bartender was a goblin. Now it was clear where the goblin orchestra had come from in the first place. Those short green-skinned creatures had a very strong sense of the “pack,” if one could put it that way.

Yan plopped down onto a high stool and ordered himself another two pints of beer.

“Well, well, well. Could this really be the famous Yan Di Wonderwalk himself?” came a voice from his left.

The rogue lazily turned around.

Beside him sat a tall, thin man dressed entirely in gray, his skin pale as the moon. His fingers were wrapped in bandages, he wore a high-collared cloak, and he had white hair and red scars across his face.

“Oh, long time no see, Lacilius,” Yan said cheerfully as he accepted his beer from the bartender. “How’s life, youngster?”

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, boy,” came the quiet hiss in reply. “I’m much older than you.”

“By that much?” Yan smirked, tossing some of the free bar snacks into his mouth.

“Much,” Lacilius replied with a grimace, taking a sip from his glass of wine. “Ugh, what disgusting stuff.”

“Then give it to me. I drink pretty much anything.”

“Not a chance,” Lacilius snapped, adjusting the large wooden staff standing beside him, its tip twisted into a spiral.

“Well, to hell with you then,” Yan spread his arms, taking a sip of beer. “So… what is a sorcerer of Mraskanzas doing in a dump like this?”

“Apparently, the same thing as you, Yan,” Lacilius replied coldly.

“Well, I dragged myself here to find some fugitive mage who, apparently, is hiding among the mages of the local capital.”

“So are we.”

“We?” Yan was surprised at first, but then remembered that the sorcerers of Mraskanzas never worked alone and decided not to pursue the question. “So who hired you?”

“The Spectre Empire,” Lacilius replied, and Yan nearly choked on his own beer.

“Ah—ugh—what? An entire Empire? What the hell did that damned Zolotoros learn? No wonder he burned his whole office to the ground.”

“I have no... idea what he learned there or why,” the sorcerer replied evasively. “Our job… is only to find him and deliver him to the Empire,” he said. Then he glanced sideways at Yan, and his gaze turned cold. “And therefore, don’t stand in our way, Yan.”

“Oh, I can’t promise that. They’re paying me far too well this time.” The rogue shrugged.

“I warned you,” Lacilius said.

“Hah, then I’ll warn you too,” Yan smiled, suddenly driving one of the brand-new daggers he had taken from the jester-assassin into the table in front of him.

“You can’t kill me with something like that,” the mage remarked condescendingly. “Usually, if my enemies want to get rid of me, they turn my body into a handful of ash. And even then, the effect doesn’t last long.”

“I understand,” the rogue smiled back. “But you never know what an ordinary dagger might turn into. Who knows, maybe even an immortal necromancer could be finished off with one. Or something else immortal.”

Yan looked at the mage.

He said nothing. He merely finished his wine, rose from his stool, took his staff, and headed for the exit.

“I warned you, Yan!” he threw over his shoulder. “If you don’t abandon this venture, we’ll be enemies.”

“As always, Lacilius!” Yan called back.

“Good night.”

The mage slammed the door behind him.

Now Yan was truly alone.