PART 2: The Beginning of a Story

To begin with, I don’t come from this world. Or this plane of existence, to be technical about it, but another dimension. You don’t know about all that, and it doesn’t matter much to the story. The point is, in my own dimension, in the folly of my youth, I stole and consumed an elixir of long life. Not immortality; for hundreds of years I could have been killed by a falling safe or a particularly high fever like anyone else. But long life certainly.

For one reason or another, this eventually led me to become a wanderer through dimensions, the various parallel universes which are all connected but separate like the beads on a string or dewdrops on a spider’s web. I’ve known many people throughout the worlds. Most of them are long since dead now, or on some dimension far away. I don’t often expect to meet someone from one dimension living in another. So I was surprised to find Charles Feltman here on this planet. You know him as Chuck, but when his name was a little longer and more refined he wasn’t on this world, or a rancher. He was the lead man of a gang in another dimension and was often known simply as 'Breaker’.

A little down on my luck, and mostly bored, I got mixed up with his gang during a curious incident in which they needed an expert poisoner...but that’s another story. The point is, I worked for him once in another world, left it for a time, then ran into Chuck again in this dimension. He had done his stint as your predecessor’s deputy by then, but quit to go 'gold mining’. In this instance, it meant stealing the gold from other people.

“Leaflow, have a drink with me,” Chuck said, shrugging his shoulder towards the door of the saloon. “We need to talk.”

“Indeed.” I gave him a long look. Meeting him on the streets of a tiny frontier town in another dimension was not what I had expected. “Confessions, or offers of work?”

“The latter, of course.” Chuck’s red face smiled unpleasantly. “We don’t do much of the former in this line of work.”

“Ah, still the Breaker, after all this time?”

With another shrug, Chuck led the way towards the saloon. Or, shall I say? He walked sideways towards it, making sure that I was never truly behind him but always following.

Inside, he ordered drinks. Having worked as a poisoner before, I always assume the worst about a strong drink, especially one with a faint color to it. I didn’t drink. He quaffed his, then leaned an elbow on the counter and bent his head close to mine.

“Ever heard of a man they simply call, 'the Duke’?”

I shook my head. I had not been in this part of the universe long at that point. If I had, I certainly would have heard of the eccentric, fantastically rich fellow living in a tower on a mountain alone. The rumors of his riches were only matched by the tales of his supposed sorcery.

Chuck outlined this to me, though he downplayed the stories of magic and, I knew even then, exaggerated the Duke’s wealth.

“Enough to make us all rich,” Chuck whispered hoarsely. It was unpleasant having his ruddy, alcoholic face so close to mine, but I simply blinked at him mildly.

“And why do you need me?” I asked, “can’t your thugs get into the tower and beat the snot out of him by themselves?”

Chuck shook his head. “That’s just the thing. We don’t want to do anything so obvious. See...”

His voice dropped another few decibels. “The duke is in good with the local law enforcement. And rumor has it that he has guards. Native thugs. One way or the other, he has to be good at defending himself, or else he couldn’t sit on his hoard out there in the wilderness like he has. I don’t want to get a bad name around here, see, 'cause I’m looking to settle down once I make my pile. So we need to use more subtle methods.”

More people were coming in the saloon then, so we moved to a dim corner which we could have to ourselves. You know, it is the sort of place that has dim corners, where the ill-fit boards will creak if anyone tries to disturb you. And few windows to let in curious looks, especially as they are all covered in grime.

Well, to condense our conversation, Chuck wished me to use stealth in order to enter the Duke’s tower, poison him and 'doctor’ his papers. Chuck already had official-looking paperwork stating that, for 'past services’ he was the Duke’s sole heir. As the Duke was a solitary fellow and there were no known relatives, he hoped to get away with this blatant outrage.

Well, it may have been foolish of me, but I agreed to aid him in his plans. I was curious about this Duke’s supposed magic, and you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.

The outline of the plan was almost ridiculously simple. The carrying out, I knew, would be much more difficult. I have done some jobs involving stealth and house breaking in my time and know that things rarely go according to plan ‘A’. Especially when you think they should.

It was a dry, fine evening when Chuck took me to look over the Duke’s tower for the first time. There were clouds on the horizon, distantly, tinted orange with the impending sunset. The sagebrush on either side of the road was silvery, sending up a fuzzy aroma. You know the rolling hills and sudden cliffy ravines of the country too well for me to describe them in detail.

We rode a pair of horses rented in town, skinny beasts all bone and sinew. Horseback isn’t my favorite way to travel; it bunches the cloak funny. Chuck sneered at me sideways for it, though he knew better than to say anything.

Well, twilight was coming down when we reached the steep hills in which the Duke lived. My eyes, which glowed even before my death, can pierce the dark better than most men’s. From a vantage point in the road, we could see the tower looming against the velvet sky above us. It stood up tall and straight, made of stone with an overhung, battlemented lookout space on top. You know, the sort one would find on an ancient castle’s tower. In fact, this was much like a tower taken from a castle, made of stone and octagonal in floor plan. But because of the native stone shade, it was a dull, dusty red rather than a romantic gray.

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There had been an addition to the bottom of this tower, a sort of small blockhouse built onto one side. In the shadows of the evening, the Duke’s residence could have been a lighthouse, except for that the only light burning was a small one in a tiny upper window.

Chuck tied our horses off in the brush and we crept through the sage and ravines until we were on a slight slope above the tower. It sat on the edge of a steep cliff, which looked down into a narrow, rocky stream bed, only full of water in the wet season. The slope we were on made a gentle incline down to the tower on the other side. Down below us, across the stream bed, the road wound through the hills and away towards whatever town lies on the horizon.

I canvassed the tower silently for flaws in its defense, ways to get in. The obvious route was a door in the blockhouse wall. This was stout, made of wood and spiked in steel. I had the instinctive feeling that this was a poor route for thieves and murderers, and was probably guarded on the inside.

After looking it over carefully from a distance, I decided the best thing would be to get quietly to the blockhouse roof and slip into a tower window from there. Though built as a pseudo-fortress, the tower was also a house and not as carefully made to prevent entry as a defensive castle would be.

Our spying mission over, Chuck and I returned to town and thence to a small place he had out on the plains, near where his ranch is now. We guessed that the next night would be overcast, and therefore a better time for the break-in. As it was, a half-moon rose slowly into the sky while a few of Chuck’s 'friends,’ or thugs, dropped by to discuss our plan and give their advice. We went to bed late, but I did not sleep much. Not through fear of the next night, but simply because one who has seen hundreds of years through the dimensions does not close their eyes often, or for long.

The next day passed quietly, with a little preparation to fill it in. Chuck gave me some simple breaking tools, such as a crowbar and length of rope. He also entrusted me with the falsified will, carefully sealed in an envelope. When evening came on, I went back to town for the horse, which was as little happy to see me as I was him. Chuck stayed at his house to await my hoped-for success. He was that sort. If I had been killed in the attempt, he would have been frustrated at my failure but shrugged his shoulders at my death. As it was, it turned out much the worse for me.

The horse I left glowering at me in another patch of brush beside the road. I think he would have whinnied in delight if I had ended up dead in there, as long as he could slip his harness.

Moving with slow care, I made my way through the sage brush and rocky ravines until I was once again just above the Duke’s tower. As we had hoped, clouds had come up over the sky, shutting out the light of stars and moon. Everything was dark, gray and somber. Once again, the only light in the place was a small one in an equally minuscule window near the top of the tower. I waited patiently until that light went out, spending my time in taking in the lay of the land and the build of the blockhouse roof.

A small tongue of brush ran down towards the tower on the right-hand side, near the edge of the cliff. Wagon tracks went away from the tower on my left, winding down and crossing the stream bed at a ford to reach the road. I chose to creep down through the brush, fighting the prickly branches and pulling twigs from my hood until I was near the building. This had to be done slowly, so as not to make too much noise. Also, to save my cloak, so that it was not in rags by the time I reached the open.

Windows looked out from the blockhouse towards the wagon tracks and up the slope, but there were none on the brushy side. It almost seemed made for burglers to come at it this way. Taking advantage of the dark, which I knew others could not see as clearly in as I, I flitted across to the angle between the blockhouse and the tower. The stone, rough but well-cut, gave few purchases for climbing. I wedged the crowbar into a slight crack below a gutter. Between the two, I somehow managed to pull myself to teh roof, though the crowbar fell to the ground as soon as I was off it. I lay still for a long moment on the tiled roof, flat and dark as a dead buzzard. Nothing stirred down below or in the house. Apparently, no one had heard the crowbar fall.

From there it was a simple matter to get in one of the windows, which had nice, simple shutters and easy to open windows. The glass was not latched in the inside, only the shutters were, and those with a pin that could be flipped out of the way with a knife.

The darkness inside the tower was even deeper than that outside. I slid into the gloom, feeling a wood floor under my feet. Dimly, I could make out a narrow hall which I stood in, and which had a spiral stairway at each end. Nearby was an inner doorway, leading in to what I found was a dining room and kitchen. After exploring these, I came back out and started up the steps towards the chambers above. Though I could have poisoned everything in the place, there were the guards to think of. They probably ate of the same supplies, and I did not wish to kill them as well as the Duke. It would have aroused suspicions.

It was my guess that the light I had seen from outside the previous two evenings was in the Duke’s bedchamber, which was where he should be as well.

The next story held two rooms, one of which the stairs led directly into. This was what looked like a library, with comfortable leather chairs and a few book cases. There was also a neat wooden desk, with quills and paper laid out on it. The drawers in it were locked, but I had brought tools for that. Quietly, listening for footsteps or movement above, I picked one of the drawers and opened it. As I had hoped, there was a bit of paperwork inside. It was too dark for even my eyes to read it in there, but that suited me. I slipped the false will into the drawer and locked it again before looking around me. There was a door in the library, leading, as I have said, into a second room. It was an odd door, made of dark wood with brass embellishments on the corners and in the center. Wondering what could be within, I stepped up and looked at the knob. It was in the shape of a skull, made of brass like the other door ornaments. There was no lock, as far as I could tell, so I put my hand to the knob.

My gloved fingers touched the cool metal and a strange feeling came over me. I felt like I was being watched, or as if another mind had tried to look into mine briefly. I am not unfamiliar with various forms of mental magic and instantly closed my thoughts to outsiders. But the feeling persisted until I let go of the handle to look around the room. There was no one else with me, and when I was not touching the knob the watched feeling vanished.

Judging it best to leave the room alone, guarded as it was by a skull and what felt like a spell, I turned back to the stairs. It seemed that the Duke had more magic in him than Chuck had given him credit for. For some reason, this didn’t surprise me. I only hoped that the knob had not warned him directly of my presence, and that he was still asleep in the room upstairs. I was glad, as I stepped up those wooden stairs in the gloom of the tower, that I was only acting as a poisoner and would not have to face his magic directly. How strangely our emotions play cat-and-mouse with us, lying about the near future as if they did not know better.

The boards on the stair did not creak. They were too new and well-built to make more than soft groaning noises now and then. My steps were quiet, making only light tapping sound if I took an in-careful step. Everything was in darkness, except for when I caught the reflection of my own eyes on glass windows or a nearby wall. They can be a danger sometimes, eyes that glow in the dark. Now and then I wear tinted glasses to mute them.

The top of the stairs came out in a short hall with a door at the end. There was silence behind it, the sort of stillness which only exists when people are present. Present and either asleep...or holding themselves very still. I sensed at least one person on the other side, but my sense of them was vague, dulled by some sort of magic. I could not tell if they were merely unconscious or laying in wait. I turned the knob, which was of a normal round shape, and entered into the room.