 |
Story |
Tuin I grew up on the streets. Hell, as far as I know I could have been born there. But despite being a completely shameful hive of scum and villainy, Nexus ain’t such a bad place for street kids. There’s a camaraderie there to protect the little ones. Sure there’s gang wars, and the older kids can get killed in the not-so-friendly feuds if they’re careless, but the little ones are always protected. My earliest memory is from an outing with the Sweeps, my first gang. We were called the Sweeps because we were a bunch of kids who used to sweep chimneys. That and indulging in a little petty larceny on the side, having the rooftops as our domain did have its advantages. I ‘joined’ when I was about two years old from what I’ve been told, apparently one of the older kids, Braith, found me wandering around in the gutters of some alley, no idea how I got there, and took me in. It was Braith that gave me my name, and taught me much of what I know. By the time I was four I was already earning my keep. My small size made me ideal for getting into small chimneys and through those tiny gaps in carelessly left open windows. And I was a natural at it, I could climb almost before I could walk and scaled walls like a cat. As I grew up I saw the world around me change, different gangs rose in power, and then fell just as quickly, but the Sweeps persisted. We did our best not to get to powerful, or too noticeable, though we still had our scuffles. When I was six, Braith got himself in too deep with one of the more powerful gangs, he was forced to leave Nexus, it was either that or cause trouble for the rest of us. I was sad to see him go, but life carried on and I travelled with it. Soon afterwards Crow joined, another toddler found wandering the streets with no one to look after her, so we took her in and the cycle continued. We soon became firm friends and often used to run off and get into trouble on our own, though somehow never more than we could handle. When I was eight I got caught. I was trying to break into the attic of a house in the Bastion district, when I got startled by a raven settling on the wall near me. I fell, but managed to catch on to a beam as I passed it. Moments later I was being hauled up by a big man, with powerful shoulders. I was later to wonder how someone so huge could possibly be sneaking around on the rooftops without me so much as noticing him – I never did find the answer. The man gave his name as Barton Oloc, and said he wanted me to come work for him. He was well spoken and obviously educated, which is something I wasn’t used to so I responded with something childish about my abilities to fall off roofs and turned to leave. He had other ideas though, grabbed my shoulder and roughly turned me round to face him. I was given a choice, either work for him or he would turn me in, not to the militia of the Bastion District, but to the owners of the house, and the residents of Bastion are particularly unpleasant to any thieves they manage to catch. So I worked for him. In return I got three hot meals a day and a warm bed. There were other kids working for him, ranging from my age up to about nineteen. The older kids made sure us younger ones were alright, but there was always a strained atmosphere, especially when Barton was around, it wasn’t the Sweeps. Some of the older girls were very distant, almost like they were off in another world. One day I asked one if they were okay. She just smiled, a cold smile, with sadness and pain behind her eyes, told me that everything was fine and I should just go and play with the others. I didn’t get it. I still used to hang out with the Sweeps when I could. I helped train new recruits as they came in, and still ran the occasional rooftop with them. I watched as Crow grew in the ranks, despite her young age, and was proud of the way she tried to get the current leaders to talk rather than fight with their rivals. I soon learnt that there was a definite hierarchy amongst the kids in Barton’s little troupe, not from our perspective so much, more from his. He had his favourites, those he would give the choice jobs too, and all the ‘secret jobs’. I don’t know who he was getting these jobs from, but occasionally he’d have a secret job that needed carrying out, and rather than tell everyone about it, he’d call whoever was going to be running it into his backroom and give them the details in private. More often than not it was one of the older girls that got chosen for these jobs, and more often than not they’d come out of the backroom with a blank expression on their faces and then disappear for a few hours. I thought the secret missions must be terribly important and couldn’t wait until I was good enough to run them myself. I miss those innocent, happy days of childhood. Barton gave me numerous rooftop jobs, starting out in fairly mediocre areas to test my skills, and then moving to the more lucrative heights of Bastion and then even into Brindel once I had proved myself. I soon became his number one cat burglar; I can’t imagine how much money I must have made him over the years, though I have this feeling that our attic wasn’t his only place of residence. Barton would spend what seemed like hours, praising my talent to the rest of the kids, I was worried it would cause the other kids to hate me, but it seemed they were used to it. I would get the occasional worried or concerned glance from the older girls, didn’t know why, I thought maybe they were afraid I would take their place as a secret mission operative. I still didn’t get it. And then I hit puberty. My body started changing shape, which completely screwed up my balance for a while, though I adapted quickly, more so than anyone else managed when it had happened to them Barton told me, and was soon back at the top end jobs. Soon after, Barton came up to the attic, said he had decided I was ready to run a secret mission for him, and called me into the backroom so he could tell me about it. I was overjoyed; with a big grin on my face I ran into the back room and bounced over on to the sofa, too caught up in myself to even notice the looks of terror on the older girls’ faces. Barton came in with a smug look on his face, closed the door behind him, turned to me and began to undo his belt. Time froze. The world shattered. And then I understood. * * * * *
I started having strange dreams around that time. Most were tinged red and involved me killing Barton in a lot of unpleasant ways. I didn’t sleep very soundly. Occasionally I would have a dream where a giant condor would come and carry me far away to its nest, where it would keep me safe. On those nights I slept better than I ever have done before. Over the next few years the ‘secret missions’ continued, on an almost weekly basis. I didn’t say anything to try and stop it, none of us did, we were far too afraid of Barton. I didn’t know it was possible to hate someone so much. But I would take myself away to the rooftops and daydream of my condor, and that made me feel like there was some hope left out there. As it happened the ‘secret missions’ did also turn out to be a job that needed doing. From what I could gather when I broke into his backroom when he wasn’t around one day, it was mainly merchants who wanted valuable goods ‘reacquisitioning’ from their competitors with the occasional random person wanting ‘x’ stealing from ‘y’. But generally this either went against the decrees of the Council, or fell into the ‘justifiable retribution’ category, hence the secrecy. I still hung out with the Sweeps, Crow could tell there was something wrong, but I would never tell her what it was, even though we were very close, I didn’t want them to get mixed up in something that was probably too big for them. During this time I met Fayz, a tomb raider with a good reputation in the Undercity. We got on well, and after a time he asked me to accompany him on some of his expeditions. He occasionally needed someone that could fit into the small spaces that he couldn’t manage, and I fit the bill perfectly. Barton found out about this when I disappeared off into the wilderness for a week with Fayz. He let me carry on with the expeditions on the understanding that he would get a cut of my loot. It was very profitable after all. I hated returning though. Barton always had a special ‘mission’ waiting for me on my return. He seemed to think it was some kind of reward. I realise now that if I had just said something to Fayz he would have protected me, should Barton have tried to hunt me down for not returning to him. But I found it very hard to trust anyone back then. I was approaching my seventeenth birthday, Crow was now leader of the Sweeps, despite being only fifteen, and I was still stuck in the hell of working for Barton. One night I wandered into the attic after a successful couple of hours on the rooftops, and overheard a couple of the little kids. They were play fighting, as kids do, but as I listened I realised they were pretending to be on a secret mission. They kept telling each other how cool it would be, and how they couldn’t wait until they were older and could run secret missions of their own. I walked in, they stopped what they were doing and stood looking at me. They had those expressions on their faces that only kids can manage properly that say, ‘we weren’t accidentally wrecking the place while we were playing, honest’. I grinned at them, or at least tried to, and wandered over to the window, they carried on with their game. The other kids in the attic, particularly the rest of the girls my age, pretended not to see anything. Then it hit me, how much I’d hated the older girls for not doing anything about this, how I’d sworn I’d do something about it when I was bigger and could stand up for myself. Yet I hadn’t, I’d become just like them. Scared of him. Terrified that one word out of place would either see me dead, or handed over to whatever authority Barton thought would be most unpleasant. And I hated myself. Barton walked in. I could see his reflection in the darkness beyond the window. I saw him leer at the kids and their little game. And what happened next is so indelibly marked on to my memory that I don’t think its memory will ever fade: “Tuin, I have a new job for you, top secret stuff.” He sneered. “Go wait for me in the backroom.” Everything faded into the background. The sound of the kids playing became a just a dull thud, the lights seemed to dim, and all I could see was Barton’s huge reflection in the glass. I pulled myself up to the full five feet of my height: “No.” A communal gasp came from the room. “What did you say?” “No.” I turned round to face him, and he rushed at me and grabbed me round the throat. With one arm he lifted me up. I could hardly breathe and my hands instinctively went to my throat to try and free myself. He laughed at my struggling. “Again. What did you say? Say it again, little sparrow, and we’ll see how well you fly.” I gritted my teeth and pulled his hand free enough for me to gasp a breath. Then I spat my answer. “No.” He tossed me like a rag doll across the room, slamming me hard against the wall where a group of kids had been stood moments. I could taste blood in my mouth, but it and the pain were nothing compared to the blood colouring my vision. I leapt at him, ready to kill, but he just batted me across the side of the head and out of the way. I heard the sound of breaking glass, seemingly distant, and my fall didn’t end where I thought the floor should be. Seconds later I hit the ground, in the distance I could just make out Barton glaring at me from the attic window, five floors up. Then the world faded to black. * * * * *
“Awake, my child.” He said. “You have seen the darkness in this world. You are to be my eyes when Creation cannot look upon my face. Go into the night and hunt the darkness where it lays, where it feels safest. Use the power I now bestow on you to bring fear to those that lurk in the dark places. Be the shadow that shadows fear. I exalt you, Tuin.” He disappeared, but the light emanating from me remained, as did the burning sensation on my forehead. I reached up to it, but it was cool to the touch. I felt a comforting presence near me, and turned to find a large dog looking at me with what I somehow recognised as a concerned expression. Instantly I recognised him as my condor, I didn’t stop to think about how much that didn’t make sense. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said. “There’s something I have to do.” With that I ran straight up the wall (another thing I didn’t stop to think about), and entered the attic window just in time to see Barton trying to drag one of the girls into the back room. Everyone else was either screaming in terror or lying unconscious on the floor. Barton’s little empire was falling around him, and all because I’d stood up to him. Even if I had died that night it looked unlikely that he would have been able to carry on any more. Barton was frantic, spitting with rage and struggling with the girl in his arms; so distracted, in fact, that he didn’t notice the room light up when I appeared at the window, he still had his back to me. “I said, no.” He turned to me with fire in his eyes, throwing the girl aside as he did so. His face dropped when he saw me, the kind of terror that only comes with the comprehension of what you are seeing. I leapt at him and knocked him to the ground, banging his head on a table on the way; a lucky shot but I wasn’t complaining. He tried to get up, but I kicked him solidly round the head, sending him skidding across the room. I strode over, ready to deal the killing blow, and then I heard a whimper behind me. I turned to see the other kids watching, a mixture of anticipation and blood lust in their eyes. I pulled back from Barton. “Leave now, and never come back. And if I ever hear of you doing this again I will personally hunt you down and kill you.” He pulled himself up, and staggered quickly out of the room. I turned to the kids; they were all looking at me, as if for leadership. I told them to take care of the injured, in the hope that I could think of something more constructive whilst they were doing that. I looked to the window, my condor, now actually looking like a condor, was sat there watching me. When I looked at him he flew into the room and turned into a handsome young man, there were some gasps from the kids, but I knew at once that I loved him. Weird. |
 |