Words are Unnecessary

Part 1

Author’s note: Okay, so Golodhros belonged to Iron Crown Enterprises, but they went bankrupt. Besides, he didn’t really have a personality. Think of this as sort of an alternate universe/reincarnation type of fic. Anyway, this is based on the world of FieryMud (telnet://fierymud.org:4000) and even though Angorost is not a part of Fiery, think of it as an unexplored area. Golodhros on Fiery is significantly older than he is in this fic—he’s 15 here and he’s 21 on Fiery. Anarin will come into the picture next chapter. (Oh, and I hope Tanle doesn’t mind being the patron god of the Academy!)

So this is the Academy.

Golodhros looked around himself, impressed despite his misgivings. The cavern itself was dark, but the various light sources on its walls highlighted its features—carved niches, huge stalactites, jeweled veins of a lighter-colored rock running through the dark stone, and entrances to other passageways. He never would have guessed that a system of caves lay beneath the city, or that it was inhabited by Angorost’s deadliest citizens.

Well, it can’t be any worse than what I left behind.

Shrugging to himself, Golodhros followed his softly smiling guide.

****

“These are your quarters. If you improve, you’ll get better ones. Until then, you can stay here.”

Left unsaid was the simple fact that if he got worse, Golodhros would be killed as thoughtlessly as his guide had stomped a cave cricket earlier.

The other man bowed out wordlessly. Golodhros took some time to examine his new home. The furnishings were simple, yet much better than some he had experienced. The bed was firm but not too hard or soft, and the room itself seemed to be free of vermin. A small chest was provided for his personal belongings—not that I have any—and a small closet was provided for his clothes. There was already one outfit hanging up: simple blacks for his assignments, no doubt. In the smaller connecting chamber, there were surprisingly nice sanitary facilities. A small shelf of rock stood for a toilet, and, judging from the sounds, it dropped straight down into the underground river that fed into the Rigan somewhere downstream. Through a thickly woven curtain that hung open was the thing that really made Golodhros happy he had decided to come here: a spring of hot water swirling into a bath that also accounted for the warmth in the usually cold cave.

Unpacking his meager belongings into the chest, Golodhros idly twisted his black insignia ring. A month ago, he never would have thought that he would want to become an assassin, much less have the opportunity….

****

Bastard, thought Golodhros, but he dared not say it aloud. There wasn’t anything he could do, anyway. Slaves had no right to defy their masters.

He had been sold at the auction block when he was five years old, crying hot tears and wondering why someone he trusted would just let go of him like that. Ten years later, he still wondered, but he no longer had the emotion left to cry. Anger was his only companion now—sweet, hot anger that came in bursts and lingered for days. He savored the determination it gave him, determination to do the only thing he could. He had to kill his master.

He concealed his feelings easily enough, though it was difficult when the cold-eyed man—I don’t respect you enough to think of your name, old man—looked at him in that way. There was nothing there, in his eyes. Nothing except the painful cruelty he showed his charges on a daily basis. His skin had a pale, sickly yellow tint to it, and his blank eyes were ringed by the dark aura common to kemjac smokers that also marked his teeth. Though his features were straight and even, Golodhros couldn’t imagine anyone more ugly. However much you try to hide it behind your dirty silks and gaudy jewelry, your soul is surely no better than my own, thought the younger man as the older one gave him his next assignment.

Golodhros glanced at his next “client” and groaned inwardly. Kerf was a rough and uncaring as he was rich—but then, you had to be rich to even be in this place, and the gentle ones didn’t much care for fifteen-year-olds like him. Before long, if he didn’t take action, he would be considered too old for the houses of pleasure and he would be killed without a thought. The thought brought only emptiness.

Later, aching inwardly even though it long ago ceased to hurt physically, Golodhros ran through his plan one more time. His whole plan rested on the old man’s nightly “check-in”. He had carefully used his shoes to break the mirror in such a way that he had one long, sharp fragment, and he had used his gaudy sleeves to wrap a handle so he wouldn’t cut himself as he wielded his makeshift dagger. He practiced a swipe with it, glad for once that he had followed the old man’s orders to exercise every day—his clients preferred the boys lean and Golodhros refused to let his reflexes be blunted by his useless “career”. Left over from his barely remembered childhood was the supple strength of his finely tuned muscles and the feline grace that had kept him useful for so long.

Though he truly believed he would be put to death for killing his master, Golodhros didn’t mind. I would rather take him with me than die having accomplished nothing. It was almost too easy when the old man walked in. Like a dream, it worked perfectly, the only hitch coming when his dagger shattered in the man’s throat. Still, the deed was done, and for the first time in years, a kind of relief swept through the young man’s body. The dead body of his former master lying underneath him, Golodhros felt an emotion akin to ecstasy that wouldn’t dispel for hours, even when the local guards hauled him off to jail.

****

Golodhros smiled as he finished remembering the events that had led to this point in his life. His bail had been paid, he learned later, by the Academy of Tanle—the proper name for the infamous Rogue’s Guild. So here he was, no longer a slave to any man’s desire but his own, doing the one thing for which he felt he was truly fit.

Being an assassin.

Golodhros smiled to the stone walls.

This will be fun.

End part 1

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