Chapter 1 - 1. the whisperer and muderer

The Company















Tuesday, evening, somewhere in sector 34



”Tell me again why we are here,” asked a man sitting in a little, not to clean room. He talked to the man next to him. It was a man with a rather untrustworthy look to him. Many say that you shouldn't judge the book by the cover but in this case you could. Seeing it the other way, maybe he wasn't the most honest man but he was loyal and that is all you need, really. Everybody both require the noble men that will kill you for an insult, and the men to do the dirty work. This was the second kind of men.

“You know it as well as I do, we are recognising the area.” Answered the man with the untrustworthy look.

“Yeah I know what they said to us to do, but why?” Asked the first man. Now he leaned forward and in the flame of a torch you could see that he was a rather lean and almost handsome looking man. Even in the light it was hard to see anything more because he was a long way from clean and the shadows seemed to love to play over him.

The second man shrugged as to show that you couldn't know how a lord or lady thinks. Much less a king. “We are here `cause we was ordered to be here and we do what we do `cause we are ordered to do it.”

Some men don't need any more answer, but some do and the lean man wasn't satisfied. “And the orders come direct from the prince, I know that. That is all good and well but it doesn't explain anything.”

“It is king now, not prince… some may say that you just committed treason my friend.” The man said this with a calm even voice. It was clear that if it had been someone else he had been talking to, he would have been one of the men he talked about.

“Dell is still a prince in my mind. Troy the short had his crown on his head longer that our have had,” the king he mentioned had lived over two hundred years ago. He had also been decapitated on his own coronation. So the statement wasn't completely true, but Deliam Haroldes the second was still young. He had just been king in two months and many still saw him as a prince.

“You are just a year older than he, aren't you? You surly look that way.”

“Very funny,” the first man answered dryly. They both knew his age, as if it mattered.

“You still haven't answered my question; surely you have some idea what this is all about. So I ask you one more time, why are we in this dump recognising, as you call it, in the heart of the damn capital? Not even Dell is going to lose himself in his own city!”

Now the other man also leaned forward and in the light you could se that he was several years older that his friend. How many years it was was a later question. It could be anything in between five and fifteen. “Hush boy, if someone find us they will cut our throats no matter how powerful our friends are so calm down.”

The younger one settle again and his whole body seemed to relax. “Sorry I know better. I just hate to sit still like this. I am used to be in mortal danger, fighting it, yes. Run from it, absolutely. But just wait? It doesn't go very well with my personality.” He smiled disarmingly and the older man couldn't help but to smile back. Slowly he shook his head. Think to have that kind of smile, with that he could have stolen the world and the gods would just be smiling back at him as he took it.

“But you still haven't answered me,” now the younger man could have been talking about the market price for rice.

The older man nodded. “You are getting better on controlling your feelings; but still? Maybe we should have waited with this. If someone of the guards had been less that a block away they would have felt it. They are damnable but they know their job.” He talked about the mindreaders, or mind leeches as the common people called them. They couldn't really read your mind, just receive strong feelings. From people that haven't trained their mind they could also recognize a lie from a truth. That was the thing that made them good guards. Right now the men wished that the system wasn't working as well as it was. After some silence the older man picked up where he had left of. “And you don't have to ask me again `cause I don't know anything except that we are to meet some people tonight. They didn't trust me on this one and usually it is you that know anything and everything before me; if it is to any comfort I feel the same as you on the matter of just sitting here and lurk in the dark until the moon is up.”

“And our wants and needs don't matter to anyone anymore,” said the younger looking man with a sad smile.

“You are beginning to get it.”

“Started getting it a long time ago, now I am starting to accept it.”

A long quiet followed when they starring in to the flame. In the end the younger man spoke again. “At least it beats doing paperwork, eh?”

The older looking man let out a grunt of agreement.

In the following hours they slept a bit. They sat up in almost the same instant thought nothing apparent had changed they could both feel a difference in the air, and what kind of hunters would they be if they hadn't? The moon was up.

They didn't need to talk to know what to do now. Routine had set the drill. The older one put out the torch in the sand on the floor while the younger one got their cloaks. As the men swept the cloaks over their shoulders they opened a trapdoor in the ceiling. First the younger one heaved himself up and soon the older man followed. They opened a little door and they where out on the street. The cloaks seemed to warp themselves around them. The material that the cloaks were made of was called shadowspun and no one could deny the impression that especially the younger looking man was more shadow than man. The older one seemed somewhat more real and because of that all the more dangerous. They where both protected in their own way, the dangerous and the invisible one. No one would bother them tonight.

“Where are we going to meet this people?” The young ones voice was no more that a whisper in the winds between the roofs.

“In the old clock tower.” The old ones voice was dangerous; it was a voice that sliced throats.

“I see you there then,” the young one answered and without any more words he effortlessly climbed up on the roof on the nearest house. He was soon gone but the old one knew that he was moving over the roofs and that he would get to the clock tower first.

With a sigh the old one started to move along to street in the right direction. He would be there soon enough, there was no hurry.

The young one was already half way. Moving swift over the roofs he felt that he was in his right element again. As he felt the wind under and around him when he jumped between two houses that was especially far from each other he felt for laughing out aloud. He landed as well as any cat would have and continued. Sometimes it was almost like flying.

The older one walked the streets, felling each stone under his boots and felt that he was home after all. Surly he liked the palace well enough but while walking the streets during the night he felt a sense of rightness. He let the cloak blow behind him so that a thief that was closing in on him could see the great sword that hung on his hip. The scabbard was well worn but the blade was still sharp. He could soon see the clock tower on the other side on the square in front of him.

The younger one sat on the windowsill in a window halfway up on the huge tower. His position was indolent and when the older one walked over the square the younger one almost threw himself over the sill. It was all a game to him and he could with ease catch himself long before hitting the ground. After that he climbed down fast.

Soon they entered the clock tower together. The invisible and the warrior. They walked up the stairs together, even if the younger one glided more that anything else, his steps were soundless on the floor. The older one walked as if he owned the place and his steps echoed up to the top long before they got there.

The top floor was as big as many halls the two men had seen and now five persons were waiting on them there. The younger one drifted without thinking on it into the shadows as the older looking man continued strait ahead. The people meet him halfway through the great room. The man saw that of the people that had come to meet them three where men and two where women. One of them stepped forward as to speak for them all.

“We where said to be meeting two men,” even if they where more to the number it was obvious that the man was scared.

When the younger man of the two that had come stepped forward so that they could see him they all jumped visible and took one step back from the two men they had come to meet.

“Hey, we aren't going to hurt you if you don't hurt us,” said the younger one and smiled against them. Even if it was hard to see anything in the all but clear light they seemed to relax a bit. Think what good a simple smile can do in a tense situation. Once again the one that looked older that the other wished that he could smile like that. If he had smiled they might have fled, somehow his smiles encouraged fear instead of anything else. At least with any other that the friend that now was smiling so calmingly and friendly against the people they had come to meet.

“Wh.. what are your names?”

“Thinking that maybe someone other than us should have gotten lost and by chance wandered up an abandoned clock tower in the middle in the night? Very well. My name is Caleb Silvers and my friend is Derek o' the Sword I guess we don't need your names, guys and gals.” All this the younger looking man said with a smile and now we have a name to call him by, Caleb. The little group begun to whisper and Caleb understood that their reputations had gone before them, just as he had expected.

The older looking man that now was called Derek also had expected the persons they where to meet to know their names but not to accept it so easily. It was after all almost twenty years since he and his friend had gotten their reputation and fame.

Now it was a woman that stepped forward. “We where said to give you this and then leave, they said no one would hurt us,” after this the two men that hadn't spoken stepped forward and you could see that both of them was carrying a heavy package in their arms. Derek nodded and took one of the packages. Caleb now had a net in his hands and Derek couldn't stop to be amazed by his ability to hid things on his body.

Caleb easily took the package and put it in the net and swung in over his shoulder. He was remarkably strong for a so slender built man. “Going back?” Caleb asked with a slight raise of his eyebrows. Derek wasn't sure that anyone else would have noticed it but his friend was indignant and it was on him he was mad. Well, he had known that it would be like that and it wasn't much to do about it right now anyway.

“Yeah back, see you there,” Derek and Caleb begun to walk down the stairs but by the first window they got to Caleb jumped out and continued his own way down. Derek stopped a while looking after his friend and wondered what he should do. Anything to regain the little part of trust he had just lost he guessed. It had been a necessity that Caleb didn't know about what they where to do, he is just too emotional, as all his people are.



Tuesday, night, moving over the roofs



Caleb was a real cat burglar and was soon on the rooftops of the city again. He didn't know what to think so he just continued towards the palace that had become his home. In twenty-five years he and Derek had done anything and everything together, there had been an absolute trust between them and if it hadn't been like that they both would have been long dead now. They had been like brothers but now something was happening and Caleb didn't know what. The problem was that he was sure Derek knew. When he was climbing up the façade of the royal palace he wondered over how easy it was to avoid the guards and as to prove this he decided to pay a little visit to his royal highness. Caleb climbed to a place where he was over the kings' balcony and jumped down. He landed softly without a sound and pulled open the long silk drapery that showed where the balcony ended and the room begun. The prince, no the king now, sat in a divan and ate a late diner. When he saw the dark figure that was Caleb gliding towards him he almost spilled his wine all over the floor. The newly crowned king Deliam had a bit of a puffy look to him and was nearly as tall as Caleb when he stood up. He was dressed in a crimson robe that was stiff with golden embroidery, Caleb couldn't even imagine what the thing had cost to make. The prince was seventeen and two months old, something that he was very proud of. As if it was a merit and he somehow had something to do with it. Caleb didn't really dislike Dell that much; the poor boy couldn't help what he had become. It had been all those court people that looked after his every need and watched out so that he wouldn't hurt himself some way.

When Deliam recognized who the dark person that was walking towards him was, he got up quickly as to greet him. Caleb just dumped the package that he had been carrying in front of his king and then sat down on his heels. He took an apple from a fruit bowl and silently begun to eat it. Caleb watched as Dell tried to lift the box and then gave up. When Caleb was finished with the apple he got up again.

“I hope you know what you and your councilmen are doing my loving king. `Cuz if Derek so much as spills a drop of blood doing your graces dirty work I am going to spill yours. With all respect for you person of course Deliam. I have watched you during much of your upbringing but don't trust that it will stop my hand if it comes to that. We will talk tomorrow and then about more pleasant things I trust. I will never say anything more about this for I trust that you now are old enough to remember it, `cuz you better do that.” With does words Caleb gave a short bow to the chocked king and leaved. He went strait to his room only to find Derek already there.

“They have filled up two baths in there, come, we both need it.” That was all he said as he turned to a door in the room and Caleb couldn't think of an answer so he followed. Just as Derek had said it would be it was and Caleb was just too glad to slip out of the dirty clothes and sink down in the hot water.

Derek stood and folded his clothes as Caleb threw his on the floor. When Derek at the last got into the bath Caleb was already lying with closed eyes and you could see that he was enjoying it greatly. To Derek bathing always just had been an other duty, nothing special. That was only one of the many differences between the two of them. Derek was watching his friend and wondered if he would dare to disturb him, it looked as if he was almost asleep.

Just when Derek decided not to say anything for now, Caleb opened his eyes and looked at him. The eyes were deep blue right now but Caleb's eyes were one of the things that Derek never had seen on any other living being. The eyes changed colour between blue, black and a deep brown, orange colour, like good whisky. In the beginning of their friendship Derek had been scared to death of those eyes; but not now.

“I am sorry Cal but it wasn't my choice, it was the way it had to be, has to be.” Nothing in Caleb's eyes or position showed that he had heard and for the longest while he just starred at Derek.

It had always been his Derek and he couldn't be mad at his Derek, never could. When they had met it had been Derek that was the little scared boy. He hadn't known how to survive in the world and Caleb had helped him. Now it seemed it was the other was around.

“I can't be angry on you. Just promise me that you never will leave me, that you never will let anything happen to me and thus not happen to you, `cuz I don't know if I can live with out you, friend… brother.”

“I won't let anything happen to you but you will live with out me some day,” Derek smiled at him; how to make this man that looked like a nineteen year old kid understand something like this. “You know that you will over live me, we both know that Cal. I will die some day.”

“Everybody dies some day,” Caleb smiled and Derek knew that he tried to avoid the thing that made them so very different from each other.

“Yes but some before others. I will die and Deliam will die, even if we become one hundred years old, we will die. Your kind's lifespan are more that three times ours. You will live.”

You could see that Caleb didn't want to hear it. Derek was often surprised how immature Cal sometimes acted. Derek didn't know his friends age but was sure that he were more that seventy. Age didn't seem to mater; nowadays Derek was always been the older, the grownup.

“… much can happen, I never desired a long life, I would have been happier if I was a real human.” Now Caleb smiled and Derek could see it glimmer in those strange eyes. ”Maybe I would be better of believing in your god. One god for everything, isn't that what your priests say, eh?”

“Yes one god, the God. He created the world and all living,” Derek wasn't a very firm believer but he had like most kids hear all the tales at his mothers breast.

“He created it out of nothing? How do you do that?” Cal seemed sincerely confused by this.

“I don't know, he is God and almighty.” That was the only thing Derek could think of answering to this sudden change of subject.

“But he must have used something; you can create something out of nothing!”

Caleb was indignant by this and Derek wondered what kind of answer would satisfy him. Maybe a question… “Cal, how did your gods create the world then?” This seemed to stop him in his track and think for a second.

“Well to me you are Brother so I guess that the gods don't mind if I tell you of them.”

First he was quiet, then he started to talk and his voice was enchanting, like as if he was more reading a poem than telling a story.

“Long years before the earth existed, Niflheim was created, the fog-country. In the midst of it lay Hverglemir. It was from there the ten ice-cold venomous streams Elivagar had their origin.

Niflheim lay in the north, but southward there was a place called Muspell. There it was light and hot, always glowing and burning. At Muspell's border sat Surt with a great flaming sword as the defender of the country. This was the fire-world. Midway between the fog-country and the fire-world there was a yawning gulf, Ginnungagap.

Soon the frost and the warm air from Muspell met and from this the primitive giant Ymir was created. Once when Ymir fell asleep a man and a woman came froth from under his left arm and one of his feet got a son with the other. This son had in his turn a son named Bergelmir. The hot and the cold air continued to meet and from this the cow Authumla stood forth. From her utters there came four streams of milk, from this Ymir got his nourishment. The cow herself lived by licking the salt, frost-covered stones. After she had licked a day you could see a man's hair. By the third day the whole man stood there. He was named Buri, and was fair, tall, and mighty to look upon.

Later he had a son named Bor, who married the giant Bolthorn's daughter Bestla. Their sons where Odin, Vili and Ve. Odin was to be the first god.

The three sons of Bor killed Ymir, there was so much blood that all his descendants was drowned in it, with exception for his son Bergelmir and his wife that saved themselves in a boat made of a tree-trunk. And thus the race of the giants survived.

Bor's sons took the body of Ymir and brought it out into the midst of the yawing gulf, and formed heaven and earth from it.” Caleb silenced, but then he sang softly.



~ From Ymir's flesh the earth was shaped

and from his blood the sea,

the mountains from his bones trees from his hair,

and from his skull the sky. ~



~ And from his eyelashes the kindly gods made

Mithgarath for the sons of men,

And from his brain were the forbidding

clouds all shaped. ~



“Of course there is much more to tell but this is how my gods tell of the creation of the world.”

Now Caleb used his usual voice and that seemed to break the spell and Derek came back to himself. He wondered how long they had sat there. The bathwater was cold and the candles were burning low. They got up from the baths and dried themselves on towels that the servants had brought up the same time as the bath. They said their goodnights to each other, Derek's mind was still on the strange story he had heard so he didn't notice that Caleb was rather absent too. Derek left for his own rooms and bed. It was soon dawn and whatever he had on his mind it disappeared as soon as he laid his head on the feather pillow.

Caleb's sleep escaped him for he couldn't take his mind of what he had just told Derek. Had he now deceived his own kind in some new way? Deceived his mother's heritage? But why should he care, really? He who had been betrayed by them as just a seven year old, what could a seven year old do to deserve that kind of treatment? The answer didn't escape him now as it had then, he could be born. It was with this thought that sleep finally caught up with him. As he fell asleep the sun as coming up.

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