Touch of Fate

On a street corner on the third level of Gildusi, two individuals were meeting. To the casual observer they might seem to be merely a fruit seller and a customer, but there was something far more sinister going on. For you see, the customer was an agent meeting up with his handler, passing off information and receiving his next mission.

"Wait a minute, all that guy did was buy a few apples and pay for them. How did you get all that from a two minute exchange?" Julia asked dryly, interrupting Dorn's narrative. She was lazily sipping from her mug of Chalis Tea while reclining in the chair of the cafe they were currently sitting in.

With her tall, stocky body forged by a childhood spent on a farm and her round, plain featured face, it would have been hard to call her a beauty. Nevertheless, she had a cheerful and pleasant personality that had made her fairly popular, and by extension had given her bakery a decent measure of success.

The man sitting across from her could not have been more different. Short, skinny, and sickly looking, he had the pale skin and ink-stained fingers of a scribe. Were it not for the obvious caking of dirt on his cheaply made clothes, one could easily think him some low level functionary in a guild or counting house. And that would not be far from the truth. If not for a recent career change, the man would have likely still been working in candlelit depths of the Merchant's Guild.

Dorn scowled and looked over at his old friend. "That's exactly what they want you to think. Obviously, they've developed a series of coded phrases to better disguise their messages. Like if the agent asks if the Fulinti Pears are ripe this season, he really means something like, are the authorities on to me? Then the handler will respond yes or no depending on the situation."

"I could see that working for simple things, I suppose, but how is the agent supposed to pass along his intelligence, then? Are you telling me they have different phrases memorized for all eventualities? Seems like it would be pretty hard to keep them straight."

Carefully setting down his quill so that it wouldn't stain his meticulously kept notes, he growled back in response. "Of course they wouldn't use code words for everything. That would be ridiculous."

"...Oh, THAT'S ridiculous." She murmured in response, but he chose to ignore it.

"The real information would get passed along in ciphered letters that the agent gives to the handler along with the money he's using to buy the fruit. Maybe they would even go so far as to etch the message onto the coins themselves. The only way to know for sure would be to drag them in for questioning."

Dorn stared at the fruit seller as if willing the man to give himself up, but the only thing the merchant did was sit back down on his stool and return to casually watching for his next customer. "I still don't see why the White Lions won't take my investigation seriously. Surely they of all people should be concerned about the nefarious presence worming its way into the fabric of our society."

Julia snickered softly, but maintained a straight face when he turned to glare at her again.

"I'm being serious here. There is a very real threat to our city, and the powers that be are willfully ignoring it!"

"Yes, yes. You are Gildusi's last bastion of resistance against the horrors of...what was it again?"

Dorn stood suddenly, almost overturning the flimsy wooden table they were sitting at. "The Shadow Council! Or so I've taken to calling them, anyway. Those nefarious fiends are seeking to destroy this city!."

Julia nodded along, she knew that she probably shouldn't be humoring his delusions, but she couldn't think of a better way to handle them. "Right, right. That's the one. Out of curiosity, how much longer are you planning on watching this fruit seller? I have to be back at the store pretty soon."

"While I would gladly spend all day to uncover their evil plots," He started before gradually deflating, "I'll need to head to the garrison soon as well."

"Are they still having you dig latrines?" She asked, a hint of sympathy entering her voice.

He nodded, the volume of his voice falling. "For now, but any day...any day now the Lions will surely…"

Julia patted his shoulder comfortingly. "Well, who knows? If you keep working at it, and don't complain, maybe they'll reconsider the assignment and put you to work doing something more in line with your skills."

"Yeah." He agreed hesitantly. Clearly he didn't fully believe her.

"Just give it some more time."

"Yeah…" He mumbled lamely. "If only I could get a lead on this spy ring. Maybe then they would take me seriously."

She doubted it, since the Lions were famous for their prejudice towards anyone without a combat related class, but she didn't think it was time to shake him of his delusions just yet. A part of her was afraid of what might happen to him when he finally realized that his dreams were impossible. Considering his personality, Dorn could very well collapse.

[Maybe I should try to get him to go back to his old job?]

"You know, I bet the guild would still take you-"

"My gods! It's really starting!" He exclaimed while standing, cutting her off in mid-sentence.

"What? What is it?" She asked, alarmed by the intensity of the emotions that were playing out across his face.

"The war! The battle for the soul of the city! It's finally starting!" He yelled excitedly, although no amount of bravado could hide the tremor running through his limbs. One shaking hand was thrown out to point in the direction of the fruit seller.

For a moment, Julia thought he must have finally started hallucinating, but then she realized that the man was slumped over in a very unnatural position and a large amount of what looked like blood was pouring down his chest from his slit throat.

"When...when did that happen?" She whispered absently, the full horror of the situation not quite taking hold of her yet.

"Just now. A hooded figure slipped past him, just barely brushing his neck with a blade, before moving on calmly and without any hurry." He replied earnestly. Something about his manner of speech made him sound awed, almost respectful of the murderer, but she hoped that was merely her imagination.

"Guards...we need to call the...Guards!" She raised her voice, drawing attention to herself from the few passersby that were still out during the heat of the day. "Murder! There's been a murder!"

The cry was quickly taken up by others, and Julia saw a few people running in the direction of the nearest White Lion guardhouse.

"Good thinking. With this we can establish ourselves as witnesses and eliminate the chance of being considered in league with the perpetrator. Now we can take a look at the crime scene and not have to worry about being treated like criminals when the guards show up." Dorn said cheerfully before waving for her to follow. "Come on. I'd like to get my hands on the handler's secret messages if I can."

She looked at him like he was crazy, and had every intention of telling him as much, but felt the words die in her throat as she saw just how livly he looked. How intense the passion displayed in his features. Could she really hold him back from this? Even if it was dangerous, she realized, he would charge into this situation headfirst without any fear.

Besides, a small part of her was beginning to worry that his delusions might not be far fetched after all.

[No, that can't be the case. Surely it's something unrelated. A jealous husband or former business rival that wanted to have him killed...in broad daylight...in front of several witnesses.]

"Are you sure that's a good idea? Shouldn't we let the Lions do the investigation?" She asked, suddenly terrified of getting involved. Reflexively, she grabbed onto his sleeve as if attempting to hold him in place.

He scoffed. "They don't have anyone that could break a cipher, let alone one devised by such a nefarious group. No, they need the assistance of a trained scholar like myself if they ever hope to head off the coming devastation. And yet, in their pride, they would never accept my help until it is too late."

"But…"

"Julia, I need to go." Came his quiet, but emphatic, reply.

He pulled away from her flimsy grasp and was halfway across the street before she mustered up the courage to follow. When she reached the cart, she did her best to look away from the corpse of the fruit seller. This was the first time she'd seen the body of another human, and every instinct was yelling at her to run away or vomit or both.

"No...no...come on. It's got to be…" Dorn was muttering as he dug through the miscellaneous materials stored within the cart.

Swallowing hard to suppress the bile in her throat, Julia thought to ask, "Would a spy handler keep his codebook with him? Wouldn't he try to hide it somewhere else?"

[Somewhere there isn't a dead body staring at me with lifeless eyes, hopefully.]

"That would make sense. A good spy would probably have a number of safe locations where they could stash their materials." He murmured while moving over to check the fruit seller's pockets. "However, if they are as close to accomplishing their mission as I believe them to be, then they'll want to be ready to act as soon as the message arrives...Ah ha!"

He pulled a small, leather bound book out of the dead man's apron, briefly examining its contents. Julia could just barely see the tiny handwritten symbols, in neat rows that seemed to fill the pages.

Dorn quickly pocketed the book and began searching the body again. "Now I just need to find the message and we'll be good to go."

She didn't respond, since she was unable to speak as the scent of feces suddenly entered her nose, and it took all of her willpower not to begin gagging.

Evidently, her distress was apparent enough that it caused him to look back at her. After a few seconds of curious staring he nodded in realization. "Ah. Sorry, I should have warned you. It's not uncommon for people to release their bowels on death. The smell can be quite overpowering."

"*Cough*....Oh gods...How are you alright with this?! Ah, my eyes are watering!"

He went back to searching while he explained. "If you recall, I was apprenticed at the Healer's Guild for a time. Apparently I managed to offend my sponsor there, since I was assigned to the morgue shortly after my arrival. I spent about a year dealing with dead bodies before I'd decided I'd had enough, and left to join the Merchant's Guild. While it is not a very productive period of my life, it did leave me a bit desensitized to corpses, so I guess there is an upside."

"Hurk...haaa…" Julia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, feeling relieved that nothing had leaked out. "You told me that you left when you got tired of dealing with terrible patients and didn't think you could tolerate working as a healer."

He shrugged. "I didn't want you to worry. Besides, it wasn't a complete lie. My patients were the worst part of my job there. They just also happened to be dead."

A commotion down the street got her attention, and she saw the glint of armored figures approaching at a jog. The Lions seemed to have sprung into action a lot faster than they normally did.

"Dorn! The guards are coming! We should probably stop hanging around the site of a recent murder."

"Just another...got it!" He announced excitedly, holding up a small roll of parchment. "Can you believe he was hiding this in a secret compartment in his boot? It's downright impressive how he managed to slip it in there-"

Knowing that he would probably continue in this line for a while, Julia decided to take matters into her own hands. Literally in this case. Picking up her friend bodily, she slung him over one shoulder, and while ignoring his protests began quickly walking away from the crime scene.

She only looked back after a few blocks, and then only to confirm that they'd escaped notice. Nevertheless, she didn't put Dorn down until she'd reached the safety of her shop.

-------------------------------------------------

A hooded man watched the strange couple leave, taking note of their faces. He slipped back into the alley he was hiding in as the Lions finally showed up and began cordoning off the area.

The intruders had complicated what should have been a simple situation. Local law enforcement should have recovered the fruit seller's code book, which in turn would have led them to the spy ring operating in this city. Unfortunately, the intervention of the pair had made such a scenario unlikely. Now he would need to use another way to spark the chaos he needed.

As he walked through the shadowed alleys, the light from the afternoon sun briefly penetrated the gloom of his hood, revealing the mangled horror of his face and its weeping, permanent smile.

The sight went unnoticed and the figure himself soon vanished into a dilapidated doorway.