The top leaders of the Regenstein family were having a meeting. The family had made the catacombs deep below the city of Hushma—a comfortable abode, although the rooms could be frigid in the winter. The walls were lined by tapestries of all types and colors, stolen from the best shops and homes of all the Empire. Some items were hard to sell, but it was not a problem for them as the items just ended up decorating their own accommodations.
“If Tuan thinks this organization is one where he could just up and quit when he feels like having an itch with a girl, he is sadly mistaken. It’s time we pay him a visit. I’m not sure why you let him follow this path!” said Deborah.
“It was a test,” said Raamah. “I wanted to see how well they worked as a team under pressure and dealt with distasteful or ambiguous orders. Apparently, Tuan has the mind of a stratagem. Although young, he will be most useful planning intricate and complicated marks. On the other hand, Keme is childish and unreliable. He simply walks away from a problem if he can’t solve it, which makes him only useful for hit-and-run projects.”
“Keme will not react well to his brother being promoted.” Lastos looked at his cousin and still couldn’t believe he had recruited all three of his own children as assassins for the Regenstein family.
“What will you make of Taima?” asked Lastos.
“Her venoms and potions are the best in all the Empire. She has an ordered mind and she is beautiful. If I were you, I would keep her back and only send her to the field for special missions,” said Deborah, perhaps revealing too much of her attachment to her goddaughter, Taima, in the process.
“They are your Vanyan team. But you must find Tuan and do it fast. I don’t care what you do with the girl. Leave her alive if you want. If she makes Tuan a better professional, then so be it,” said Deborah.
“We can’t have any attachments that may compromise our positions,” said Lastos.
Standing by the fireplace, Lastos looked at Deborah, his nephew’s widow, and to Raamah, his nephew but twenty years his junior, the youngest son of his youngest sister. Lastos knew how they’d messed up their lives so badly, they were born or married into the Falesto family. And evil hunted Falestos and it had a first name and a last name: Klastos Falesto. The Emperor had successfully killed, imprisoned or made into Hagos all of the members of the Royal Family who could take the throne from him.
All three of them were part of the Falesto Royal Family either by birth or marriage. However, now all three were considered traitors or believed dead.
“Taima, Keme and Tuan need cover stories and a budget. Taima with a healer’s shop, or a store of herbs and spices, and Tuan as a traveling merchant will be a great cover for them. The Regenstein family must stay secret and separated from our true identities. You know if Klastos finds out where we are it will be challenging to hide all our assets. We must keep our cover stories,” said Raamah.
“I know, and I agree we need better cover stories for your team,” said Lastos. “But Tuan has been away for too long. Send Taima to him and remind him his family needs him. Raamah, we know Tuan is your youngest kid, but he has plenty of overdue work. This is the family business and he knew what he was getting into when he agreed to join.”
“Bah! I better go get him myself and have a talk with the new team leader,” said Raamah. “Who knows? He may just be infatuated. You know what is like when there is a beautiful wench lifting her skirts. This girl is a pleasure slave. This is mostly likely simply him sowing his oats!”
“Fine, he’s your kid—do it your way,” said Deborah. “But if this girl gets in the way of Tuan doing his job, you must fix it. We love Tuan. He is your son, a member of this family and in line for the royal throne, but we all, including him, need to be ready. Klastos is going to encounter our professional services soon. There is more than just us chipping away at Klastos’s control of the throne.”
“We must position all our assets to ensure my dear nephew Klastos gets more to deal with than Gaston and his spawns from Hell,” said Lastos. “You must make sure to be done with all your extra projects. I understand your youngest may want to have a healthy life, but that wouldn’t be wise now.”
“Having a regular counter-life can help us maintain an alibi if the case requires it,” countered Raamah.
“You have a point about the cover stories, but having attachments complicates things. It can make us weak even though it can also help with motivation,” said Lastos, looking somber and tired.
“Klastos needs to be dethroned—we all know that—but until we find a leader to replace him, we have our hands tied,” said Raamah. “We can’t leave Quetza without a head or the body will collapse. In the meantime, Deborah, we must stay the course. Maybe it is time to give Klastos a morsel of the whereabouts of Tholomee.”
“My daughter will not be used as a pawn for this monster of an Emperor,” said Deborah. “I will not have it. She can never rule. She is an innocent and I will not allow her to go near the place. That is final! Our primary goal must be to help find a leader, preferably one without Falesto blood. The big problem will be identifying someone suitable. My Tholom was the only sane one in the bunch of brothers and the monster Klastos had him murdered. He would have made a better king even though he was the youngest Falesto.”
“For now, I’m counting on the rumors that the King’s Legion may be rebelling,” said Lastos. “If they are the Judges of the past, we may have a chance. The Judges, together with the Gift-Vessels, used to be the ones to gather the nominated names of the leaders. It must happen again. But at the same time, there needs to be a leader of the people, one without any Falesto blood, but with all the Falesto influence. We must ensure a king from the people gets selected, a human with a heart for the people. It no longer matters we are part of the Royal Family and in line for the throne. This way of ruling must end; we must make sure it ends.
“Changing the subject, Raamah, we have a unique contract. We are called to kill none other than my nephew. Not the Emperor; we haven’t said yes to the contract already. Don’t say anything! The contract is on the table. The coin we garnered for this job is substantial. I took the last three contracts in place of Tuan, Keme, and Taima; it is only fair your team take this one.” With these words, Raamah stood up from his chair and walked out of the room, taking with him the contract for the next job.
The Regenstein family took one new contract on none other than Duke Yang Laine. The contract was paid in full and to be carried out as soon as possible.
Three weeks later, fear walked in through the gates of the city of Hushma, with the promise of evil for those who couldn’t pay their taxes. Rows of Hagos slowly made their way into the city. Hagos were the shells of people who no longer had hope. Hagos had an ashen color to their face and a slightly pained expression. They walked with their heads tilted sideways and their backs straight. Cold, bitter and freezing, hot, humid, sticky and horrid, or any other climate quality; it made no difference to them. Each and every day, Hagos were cursed to do, to be and to feel the same.
Hagos were well aware of the goodness, passion and beauty each day could bring, but were cursed to live in filth and decay, to have no hope for tomorrow and yet wake up and start their painful existence again and again. They felt compelled to hear the squealing and screaming of men, followed by a gasp and all the feelings of terror it added to the taste of squishy, bloodied organs that made life flow. Somehow, only that gave the Hagos satisfaction in their miserable lives. Yum!
Humans had no understanding of a Hagos’s nature imposed on them by the one being that made decisions for them: The Destroyer. The punishment of being made a Hagos was reserved for capital crimes or, very occasionally, for a transgression that was invented or falsified.
If given a choice, they would choose death or a different type of physical punishment, but not this putrid none-life, not this end. Only a mind full of horror and injustice could think up this kind of torture. The Hagos were cursed to live and walk along the paths of the living with the purpose of gathering what belonged to others. But all the while, they did it with the hidden purpose of hoping to find non-compliance from a citizen, to extract the alternate price of a squeal, followed by the mushy, soft substance that gives them their only pleasure by eating the soft inside of a belly full of guts.
One, two, three and then another man walks up, and again one, two, three to complete the precision of the numbers, without which our price would be denied. The citizens rarely have it wrong. They know the price for a mistake. But behind our almost expressionless faces, we frantically look for those errors that allow us to extract our price. And when we find such an error, we shriek with delight. We can’t help it. Our price is our only way of soothing our pain. But it is never enough.
We never get enough. And yet, we always follow orders, just to have the chance to extract our price once more. The laws must be followed, else we suffer the consequences by way of magic, by losing a piece of ourselves. First a nail, or it could be a patch of hair. Associated with the loss comes pain that lessens and will never go away.
We all have the omnipresent pain because we all try to go against orders at least once. I’m now a Hago, but I was human. I didn’thing but anger the King. To have no hope and yet to have to keep on living is the worst punishment … or perhaps it’s not the living; maybe it’s the compulsion to hear the screams of men, thought a Hago.
The Hagos walked into Hushma and fear blanketed the city. They were promised a gift. “Find an error and a gift will be yours,” said Klastos. It was time to find a mistake, but the King would feed them regardless in some locations, and Hushma was the chosen location.
“Remy, wake up! Come on, get up,” said Troy.
Remy woke up tired and sore. He had deep, dark circles under his eyes; his gray, almost white eyes made him look like a ghost. He’d had a late night, cooking, cleaning, moving and carrying heavy things—like he did every night. But that was his life. It didn’t matter how much, how hard or how long he worked; the end result was going to be the same.
He knew living this life would be the end of him and his sister. In a few years, his youth and strength would diminish and he would end up as an old beggar and his sister a cheap prostitute. Troy was nothing but a scrawny young woman, while he was the skinniest of boys in the service of Jericho, but it mattered not at all.
Remy and Troy were slaves and for now Jericho owned him and his sister. They were obliged to do Jericho’s bidding, but his and Troy’s secrets were still hidden, despite their slavery.
“You must come see this; check out these Hagos,” said Troy. Troy’s voice sounded very nervous.
It was tax collection day. The Hagos had arrived early and all was set up for them to start collecting the city’s business and personal taxes. Today, however, there was something else. Remy could tell there was a danger that made the presence of the Hagos nerve-wracking. Hagos caused a significant degree of stress, but today they came with an agenda. Today’s behavior was different. It made no sense. Not wanting to feed into his sister’s fear, Remy kept his emotions to himself.
“Troy, calm down—you’ve seen Hagos before. Go back to sleep.”
“I know you can feel them. There is something different with these Hagos. I feel happiness coming from them. Remy, this is scary.”
“I know. I feel it too, but we can’t do anything about it. Let’s try to sleep. Regardless of the Hagos, you know Jericho will make us work tonight.”
Although Remy had told Troy to go back to bed, he couldn’t relax enough to fall back to sleep. Life was basket full of horse’s manure. All about Remy’s life was unfair. No one good ever went anywhere and kindness was dead.
There, in the coastal city of Hushma, were ten different inns and taverns. The Ramble Joy was just one of the inns, but it was one of the better ones in town, with its own bard and musicians. Remy could sing every song the bard ever sang and, just by the sound the coin made when it fell into the coin bag, he could count every bronze, silver and gold coin Jericho would make in a night. But they were slaves and any coin in his hands was a dream.
It had been a long time since Remy had last seen his twin sister, Lace, but Remy’s dream was to somehow steal Jericho’s bag of coins and go find Lace. He knew his mother had been captured and sold to a noble. He would go find his mother, but Lace came first. She was near. He hadn’t felt his twin’s presence in years, but she was hurt. It was time for him and Troy to escape. The presence of these different Hagos might be the distraction they needed.
Remy could tell when someone was telling the truth or if a person was embracing evil. He could tell if someone wanted to kill him and he could even hear some thoughts, though not all. He could calm an angry person or drive another to anger. He had learned to be discrete about what he could do, to avoid revealing his secret to anyone.
It was fortuitous his father had made a tattoo of a scar over his, Lace’s and Troy’s Gift mark and a tattoo around his and Lace’s Vessel mark. The best part was that his Vessel mark was under his right arm, covered by body hair. He needed to escape and take Troy with him. If it wasn’t for old Pop Chaim Tolenko, Remy wouldn’t know what he was and that he needed to watch out for a tall, black person who would come rescue him.
Pop tried to buy Troy and Remy, but Jericho wouldn’t sell his slaves. However, Remy couldn’t wait for the black man. He needed to escape, now. Lace was near and these Hagos were dangerous. Remy was going to use his Gift by merging it with Troy’s Gift. He needed a big distraction, a commotion so large that no one wouldn’tice him, or Troy had gone missing for days.