Guilds & Glaives

by David Farland

  “Pfft,” Angela snorted. “If we’re unlucky.”

  “Wait, sneaking in undetected, grabbing what you need, and sneaking out are the hallmarks of a thieving job well done.”

  “Boring.”

  “But that’s what you are supposed to do! As your mentor, I—”

  Angela whirled around, whipping Ralph out and pointing it a quarter inch from Potluck’s eye. Potluck cried out and staggered backwards, falling on his butt. “Dear me! What was that for?”

  “Look, halfing—”

  “I’m not a halfing.”

  “—I, wait, what?”

  “I’m not a halfing. I’m just short.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, my mom was short, my dad was short, pretty much my whole family is on the short—”

  “Nevermind,” Angela waved her dagger, “doesn’t matter. Potluck, I know we have to steal stuff and all that, and I’m fine doing it because if I don’t I’ll get stabbed in the ass and end up on some guy’s wall—”

  “Wha—?” Potluck started.

  “—but I’m not going to skulk around someplace keeping to the shadows and evading people if I don’t get to plunge a blade into some pulsating arteries before it’s all over. I mean, what a waste of time! If you’re going to go through all the trouble you at least need to get the money spurt at the end.”

  “Ah …”

  “So when we get in there you just keep out of the way. If you get lost, follow the blood splatters. All blood splatters lead to me, got it?”

  “But, I don’t—”

  “What? It’s simple. When I stab people I like to feel a lot of blood—hot, gushing—all over me. Preferably on my face and down my shirt. But a lot of it still gets on the floor, the walls, sometimes on the ceiling, so you just have to find those splatter spots and/or the trail of bodies and they’ll lead to me. If you see a bunch of corpses and aren’t sure which way to go, just start feeling them: the warmer they are the closer you are to me—”

  “But I don’t like killing!” Potluck shouted, face stricken.

  Angela stopped. Her brow furrowed. “Wha—what did you just say?”

  “I. Don’t. Like. Killing.”

  Angela’s mind churned. A cog ground forward then slipped a belt. The whole thing spun out without gaining any traction. “What?”

  Potluck clasped his hands in front of his chest. “Please, I can’t stand the sight of blood. We have to do this without killing anybody!”

  “Okay, you’re speaking Common, but I can’t understand you. Let’s just leave it at this: stay out of my way and try not to slip in the gore.” Angela whirled around and strode down the path. Ten minutes of whimpering and pleading later she stopped and squinted into the light at the edge of the woods. “Wow. That is some orphanage.”

  Rising above hectares of fine hops and grape vines, the main tower of Saint Innocence’s Loving School for Unloved Children gleamed in the afternoon sun. Impeccably white, its plaster inlaid with golden vines hugging smiling cherubs, Angela had to squint just to look at it.

  “Are you crying?” Potluck asked.

  Angela turned to him, tears running down her cheeks. “No. It’s just too bright. I never cry, actually. Except that one time, when my daggers were stuck in someone’s face and I had to chop off another guy’s head with his own broadsword and both his arteries gushed blood all over me in a Crimson Shower …” Angela’s eyes misted up for real at the memory. “I did cry for that. Tears of joy. Pure joy …”

  Potluck gagged a bit and turned away.

  Angela, not noticing, shook herself from her reverie and plunged through the underbrush. A few minutes of stealthy crab-walking through hops rows brought them to the edge of the idyllic grounds surrounding the orphanage. Angela scanned the cascading flower gardens, bubbling fountains, and hand-crafted café tables for any sign of guards or sentry gargoyles.

  “Oh, hello!”

  Angela whipped around, daggers swinging out and back in a classic corn-cob-holder-your-skull move. Liquid splashed all over her and she opened her mouth in ecstatic surprise, until she got a whiff of it.

  “Ack! What the hells!” She looked down at her dripping wet clothes and then up at the towering forms of Potluck and a smiling, rosy-cheeked boy holding a water pitcher.

  “Wow, that was neat!” the boy boomed.

  Angela yanked her daggers from where they had buried themselves in the toe of the boy’s sandal and whirled on Potluck. “What did you do to me, Potluck?! And why does it stink so bad?”

  Potluck frowned and looked at the empty vial in his hand. “I threw a potion of shrinking on you, I think. Oh, wait, this is Stinkin’ Shrinkin’. Somebody must have pranked me back at the guild.”

  Angela shook with rage and pent up almost-had-a-kill energy. She needed blood all over her, bad. Then she had a vision. “Wait, if I slit your throat now, your blood will spurt all over me like a tidal wave! I could swim in it!” She started climbing Potluck’s leg in a mad frenzy.

  “Wait, wait, wait! Hold on!” Potluck shook his leg violently, hopping around, but Angela would not come off.

  “Oh, my gods, this is going to feel so good!” Bloody red fire filled Angela’s eyes as she dodged Potluck’s frantically brushing hands. She gained purchase on his chest with a fistful of linsey-woolsey and leapt, Throat Slitter swinging in a beautiful arc that would open Potluck’s neck from ear to ear.

  “Innocencias Ninety-percent-us!” Potluck cried.

  Angela’s muscles suddenly froze, Throat Slitter slicing a single piece of stubble under Potluck’s left ear. Then Angela fell like a collectible assassin figurine to the ground.

  “Ow,” she said from the corner of her mouth.

  Potluck fanned himself with his hand and braced himself against a nearby café chair, breathing hard.

  “Water, sir?” the boy asked.

  Potluck nodded and accepted the cup the boy pulled from under his tunic thankfully. He drank deeply once the pouring was done.

  Angela’s muscles slowly relaxed. She stood up—all five inches of her. “Okay, Potluck, what the hell was that?”

  Potluck smiled at the boy and answered her. “Compliance Command. Now you can’t kill anyone who is more than 90% innocent. Don’t worry, that’s not a lot of people.”

  Angela tapped her dagger on her leg, putting two and two together and coming up with three. Then she frowned and made it to four. “Wait, no thief is ninety-percent innocent, so I should have been able to kill you just now. Spill it, Potluck. Who are you?”

  Potluck patted the boy on the head. “My name is the same—”

  “Who cares!”

  Potluck ignored her and forged ahead. “But I’m from the Guild Guild, not the Thieves’ Guild.”

  Angela threw up her hands and shook her head. “Oh, great. An even more useless guild than the Thieves’ Guild, if that is even possible. You guys don’t even do anything except check documentation for Interkingdom Standards Organization compliance. I mean, how boring!”

  “Actually, we have broad powers over almost all the guilds, including yours—or at least the one you are supposed to belong to.”

  Angela glared. “Are you going to put me back to my regular size?”

  “Ah …”

  Angela smirked. “Obviously you are over 90% innocent so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Yeah, but the rest of the populace …”

  “Can die! I just need to get this Magufin and be done with this stupid job!”

  “The Magufin! We have it in our basement. It’s really cool! Seigfried caught a heckle-gnome in it and it couldn’t get out. Then he let it out and it started yelling at all the brothers, which was funny, and it made Jaden pee himself, then it ran away. So, the brothers took the Magufin from us, very gently and kindly, of course, and locked it up. Do you want to see it?”

  Angela and Potluck both turned to the boy as he spoke. Angela’s eyes narrowed in mistrust and Potluck’s widened in surprise. />
  “Why, yes, young man. We would very much like to see it,” Potluck said.

  “What are you talking about?! We can’t trust this kid! He’s way too innocent to be real. Probably got a whole Cacofiend stuffed up his ass.”

  Potluck shook his head. “I think we can trust him—”

  “One way to find out!” Angela leaped with both daggers at the kid’s tender neck. She froze a hairsbreadth from his delicate skin and fell to the ground, rigid.

  “Fine. We can trust him,” she managed from the corner of her mouth.

  Potluck nodded and pulled another vial from under his shirt, dripping a few drops on Angela. She waited to regrow. Nothing happened.

  “What gives, Potluck?”

  “Oh, that was some ginger deodorizer. Here’s the Unshrinker.”

  Splash!

  Angela sputtered and shook her head. “Ah, freakin’ a’ Potluck, that got in my mouth!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Ack. It tastes like fairy piss.”

  “How do you know—”

  “Shut up, Potluck!”

  “Wow, that was neat!” the boy beamed. Then he hefted his water pitcher and said, “Follow me!”

  * * *

  The chamber the orphan led them to was just as ornate as the rest of the place, filled with gold leaf and vibrant frescos showing happy orphans playing in a parentless wonderland.

  “Man, the Gilding Guild must love this place,” Potluck remarked.

  Angela didn’t hear him; her eyes were locked on the back of the person tip-toeing out the door opposite them.

  “Hey, you! Stop right there!”

  The figure whirled, a hair clip spinning from his lustrous hair and clattering onto the floor.

  “King Finehair?!” Angela gasped. Normally she would have already leapt and opened an artery or two, but the king’s hair had stunned her. It swung back and forth around the king’s head as if alive, shining, full-bodied, without a single split end despite its wondrous length. When the king finally succeeded in shaking it from in front of his eyes, it streamed back on a phantom breeze, vivacious and free, offsetting his partially opened mouth and flared, inviting eyes perfectly.

  “Holy fairy tits, that is some fine hair.” For a moment nothing in the world mattered except for the continued sight of that magnificent, unsurpassed, man-mane. Potluck sighed beside her, pants bulging. Water dribbled out of the orphan’s forgotten pitcher.

  “Assassins, attack!” King Finehair bellowed.

  Angela’s mind instantly shifted into Cut and Cover mode as black clad figures leapt out from behind every pillar and decorative pot in the room.

  “Guilds preserve us!” Potluck shouted in terror.

  The orphan boy dropped his pitcher and ran from the room shouting, “Peace out, people! You are on your own!”

  Angela just flared her eyes and leapt, slicing the first assassin from navel to sternum with barely contained glee, noting, blandly, that it was Stacey “Cut Your Facey” Lambert.

  “Get that sack, Potluck!” Angela shouted as she sunk Ralph deep into Melissa “Murder Mom” Kirkpatrick’s sternum.

  Potluck scrambled from the room, dodging blood gushes and leaping assassins, focusing on the immaculate ends of beautiful hair as they slipped around a corner in the hall.

  Angela’s world shrunk to flashing blades and bloody sprays, her body wracked with waves of ecstasy from every warm, wet hit of the red stuff on her skin. She began slipping in the pools of blood on the floor, eyes flaring wide in sheer pleasure with each lost footing, blades digging deeper as the killing orgy reached its climax. And just when she thought she couldn’t contain herself any longer, that her body would give out in sheer spent exhaustion, her blades were stopped simultaneously with a single metallic ring. She looked past them, chest heaving, heart pounding, into the eyes of her ex-BAFE Candace.

  “Oh, my gods, Angela. I knew you liked killing and all, but this is pretty sick.”

  “Candace!” Angela gasped. “You betraying little bi—”

  “Hold on, Angie! I didn’t betray anyone. That guy had us, hands down. There was nothing I could do.”

  “You could have thrown your dagger!”

  “And what, have him whack it down with his magic sword while his guards shoved pikes through my head?”

  “He was probably bluffing!”

  “Nah ah, I saw him block Ralph and that sword of his is totally legit. Danced like a Bardish circus monkey in his hand, all on its own.”

  “Hmpf. You could have done something.”

  “I did. I escaped to kill another day. I just didn’t think I’d be killing you.”

  “Pshaaa!” Angela shook her head. “As if you could kill me.”

  Candace’s eyes flared. “Oh, don’t even go there. I could totally kill you.”

  “No. No way. I’d slit you open like a plum pie, Candy.”

  Candace shook her head. “You know what your problem is Angela? You’re fey.”

  “What?” Angela jerked her head back in shock.

  “Yep, you are totally fey, and you don’t even know it.”

  “I am not gay! I totally love big nobleman cock!”

  “Yeah, severed and in your hand.”

  “That was one time!”

  “Anyway, I said fey, and that’s not the point, Angela! You get off on spilling the blood of mortals. You might as well join MORKANON and work on that first step. You know, ‘Hi, my name’s Angela and I have a MORtal Killing problem.’ Admission is the first stage of healing, honey.”

  “The only thing I’m going to admit to is to stabbing you in your hoo-ha!” Angela shoved herself back to get some room and then lunged forward. Candace sidestepped and brought Rat Bastard up for a deep gut-spilling slash, but Angela blocked it with Ralph.

  “I’ve got it!” Potluck yelled, puffing back into the room on his short legs.

  “Later! Busy!” Angela yelled.

  Candace swung her leg over in a neat round kick that tagged Angela on the temple, sending her sprawling onto the blood-smeared floor. Angela rolled, blocked Candace’s leaping death plunge with her crossed daggers, and kneed Candace where the Willow-O-Wisps don’t shine. Candace grimaced, her arms weakening. Angela shoved her off and brought Ralph down in a wide, friend-pinning arc.

  Splash!

  Ralph’s point pinged off of fine marble.

  Angela drew back in surprise, Ralph rising high again for another strike, but Potluck dropped the Magufin over the miniaturized body of Candace and drew the top tightly closed.

  “There! All done.”

  Angela glared, shaking with missed-kill energy. “Stop stealing kills from me, damn it! She was mine!”

  Potluck gestured around the room, “Looks like you’ve had enough—”

  Potluck finally realized what he was standing in. He fell on his knees and started retching. After the first wave, he noticed he was retching onto the steaming guts of a disemboweled corpse and retched some more. When his stomach lining had finally come out, he fell to his side and muttered, “Isn’t killing a room full of assassins enough for you?”

  “No.” Angela looked around at the massacre. Blood dripped from the ceiling, filled urns, rolled down walls, and oozed across the floor. It was impressive. “Well, maybe.”

  “Good. Can we go now?”

  Angela sighed. There was no one else to kill. “Fine.”

  * * *

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Potluck asked for the fifth time. He and Angela crouched in the shadows of the alley near Handoff Square, waiting for King Noway to show up to collect the magical nutsack that Candace still struggled inside of.

  “You said I was all clear, right?” Angela whispered back.

  “Yes, amazingly there is not a single infraction I can write you up on, since I technically stole the Magufin, King Finehair planted his own hairpin, and the assassins you killed were all contracted to kill you, so you were just defending yourself. Still, I feel as if this entire affair sh
ouldn’t somehow warrant an entire new category of noncompliance, like Willful Trading of Function or something.”

  “Yeah, about that ‘you stole the Magufin’ part—how did you get it from King Finehair?”

  “Oh, that was easy, as a member of the Guild Guild I have broad powers over—”

  “Stuff it, Pot o’Luck. Finehair was personally stealing that thing from an orphanage in a rival kingdom; he wasn’t going to give it up over some fancy Guild mumbo-jumbo.”

  “Um, well, yes, he was rather reluctant …”

  “Potluck …”

  “Okay, I pulled his hair!”

  “You touched it!”

  “Yes, and it was fabulous! Like a fistful of Angora rabbit mixed with unicorn down. I almost soiled myself it felt so good.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He shrieked, like really loud. Took me to my knees actually. But I rallied and yanked hard and he just dropped the sack and grabbed his hair, wailing. I think I broke a few strands.” Potluck grimaced at the thought, eyes flaring with regret.

  “Oh, my gods, Potluck. You are a heartless bastard.”

  “There was no other way!”

  “Um …” Angela pointed to the dagger at his waist.

  “Oh, that’s a pen.” Potluck pulled it out and held it by the blade, scribbling in the air. “You know, for filling out noncompliance forms and stuff. It’s got ink in the hilt so it, like, never runs out. It’s pretty awesome.” Potluck beamed with pride, fawning over the dagger-pen.

  Angela opened and closed her mouth a few times, then just shook her head slowly. Movement from the square caught her eye.

  “Here he comes! You ready?” she called.

  Potluck sheathed his pen and squatted, wriggling Magufin in hand. “Yes. So it’s splash, dump, swish, right?”

  “You got it.”

  King Noway poked his head into the square in the most conspicuous manner Angela had ever seen. Slowly he tiptoed to the center, using Assassin’s Ass In like a shiny, double-edge cane. “Helloooo? … Miss Assassin? …”

  Angela shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Gods, that guy is an ass,” Potluck said beside her.