Chapter 2

She followed the cobbled road down the narrow line of buildings. Further out the layout of the town expanded and became lined with little homes bustling with burdened yet content families, little shops and restaurants. Along the sides of the narrow cobbled path leading to the center of the town there were booths selling exquisite and exotic handcrafted items. She wandered among the stalls and surveyed their interactions with one another. They seemed plain and placid.

Her eyes caught a glinting pendant at a stall near me. The sun made it difficult to see its full beauty but, at closer inspection the mixing shades of dark honey were mesmerizing. The pendant was small and threaded on a gold chain, locking her gaze. She walked up to the stall and picked up the small pendant. Her face reflected on the shining surface.

Her mother had never worn jewelry, not even her wedding ring after father pawned it off in the bar for a few more pints of beer. Mum had hid in the cellar and cried that night, nursing a swollen, blueing cheekbone. That was where she died.

"You have a good eye," she slightly started against her will out of her memories in response to the voice coming from behind the booth.

"That is a honey chalcedony pendant. It matches your eyes too." He said with a kind smile.

"I'll give you a good deal if you'll answer a question." Regaining her composure she looked at the small kindly man.

"Alright, let's hear it," She replied, smiling slightly at the little old man. He reminded her of what she imagined her Great Grandfather would have looked like if he had been permitted to grow old, a kind smile and a gentle leisure about him. When Father wasn't drunk, he would tell stories of the Grandfather he never met, her Great Grandfather that was murdered. His murder destroyed their family, causing them to become outcasts, chased away by the cowardly East King himself and into the West. If he had grown old...

"You're investigating the merchant's missing apples, right? "

"Yes, I am. How did you know?" She asked, taken aback.

"Well, word travels fast around here. What's yer name?" he winked at her, causing her to smile fully and forget the lingering sad thought.

"Annemie Ellis," she said softly.

"Have you ever heard the tale of the cursed thief of the east, Miss Ellis?"

"No, I haven't. Is it a legend in this area?"

"Yes, a bit of a legend you might say. Do you have some time for a little story?" His face was slightly comical as he looked up at me with slight mischief creased in his face from a long life.

"Well, sure," she said, relaxing to lean against his booth. He nodded and leaned forward,

"The story goes that there was once a poor boy living on the streets." His story continued for a long while as he explained with detail the tragedy of the thief and the events leading to his fall in the east kingdom.

The thief was abandoned at a young age. His mother despised the very sight of him. She drove him from her house and onto the streets. When he was forced to make a decision, steal or die, he chose to live.

He quickly developed and became increasingly adept. His stealing was an art, always changing, perfecting his skills to avoid capture. To outwit death. But death came lurking at his door, under the guise of an unruly band of misfits and good deal. They made the contract with the clever thief.

The seemingly inauspicious gang of men devised the deal and the boy signed away his old life for promises of a better one. Despite the trials, he miraculously remained alive though with nothing to show for his struggles except his life. For consistent food and a roof over his head to call his own he would work for these people. He let a single crack form on the mirror of his life, but it was small, insignificant, manageable. He began stealing for them and for a time lived in relative peace. He never knew what he stole or why he stole it and he didn't particularly care. The job was simple enough, seemingly straightforward. With his skills and his brilliance he had no trouble retrieving the items the group asked for.

One night, however, he was given a different sort of assignment. He wasn't to steal an item or object but a man's life. He was to commit murder. He refused.

Stealing a life went too far. He believed he could never do anything as terrible as this, he was incapable.

When he refused he was drug into a pit in the ground where no light could enter and no prisoner could escape. Slowly, they wore him down. They first took away all food and only gave him the necessary water to stay just barely alive. The hunger gnawed at his mind until it was all he could think about but he continued to refuse. He would not debase himself any further.

When they saw that hunger and thirst were insufficient motivators, they began to break down his body and mind, chipping away at the single crack.

They beat him till he could be heard from above ground and then again until he fell unconscious. As soon as he came to, they would drag him out again to continue. Every waking moment was agony and he hated his torturers more and more. He wanted them to hurt, he wanted to hurt them. He abandoned all reason, letting his rage strengthen him until his opportunity. He broke free and with every bit of malice he had stored in his body, he slaughtered his torturers. He didn't know it but it was all according to the plan of the mastermind, the man pulling the strings from the shadows. Amidst the blood he sat and he felt nothing. He shattered into billions of pieces in his hands. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. If his suffering would end he would do the job.

Everyone dies eventually, he thought. What's one man's life anyways?

He did the job. No one mattered. If anyone got in his way he would kill them without hesitation. Soon everyone in the East knew his name and they all feared him more than anything. But his suffering did not end.

"So, what happened after that?" she asked, curious to know more. He continued,

"Well, a certain powerful sorcerer known as Leif De Windt was tasked by the king of the east to kill the thief and murderer."

When the sorcerer was summoned by the king, the entire kingdom was in shambles. The damage was too great. The infamous thief and murderer was irredeemable in the eyes of the kingdom.

The sorcerer agreed that something must be done and began searching for the thief. When he was finally able to locate him, his employers were already finished with him. With the king's decision to bring in Leif De Windt, the most powerful of all five known sorcerers as executor, they knew it was time to cut their ties. He had outlived his usefulness.

When the sorcerer found the boy in an abandoned alleyway, he was about 17 years old, really just a child still. He was wearing nothing but rags now, tattered and filthy. He was starving, dying. His eyes were dark and clouded, hair caked with mud, his cheeks were hollow, and his lips were dry, cracked and bleeding. He was staring down at the ground, fixated on something as if he could see his shattered life in billions of shards, reflecting fragments of his face, all distorted. He wanted to die.

When the sorcerer approached him he lifted his eyes reluctantly, as if too tired. And as the sorcerer pointed his staff at the boy and revealed his mission, he simply smiled, closing his eyes and waiting for the end.

The sorcerer stopped. He knelt in front of the boy and pressed his staff to the boy's chest and began to speak. "Pains you have caused, pains you have given lurk deep for times ahead. As death slunk into you with crafty resolve, he lays in wait for them. For this, you shall not gain rest till you atone." The sorcerer chose to give the boy a second chance. He would be unable to die or find rest until he could atone for what he had done. Legend says that the sorcerer never told the boy how to atone for his sins.

He was given an impossible task, something that he, himself alone, could not accomplish. In all of his pain and misery the sorcerer forced him to stand and find a way to live, to atone for his crimes if he ever wanted to die and rest in peace, to end his suffering. And he truly, desperately wanted to die, to disappear, to stop existing.

After 100 years or so he is still alive and searching. Now he only ever steals food and just enough to get by. He went west after being cursed by the sorcerer. He finished his tale with this,

"I believe that he is the thief," the old man said, his eyes were almost sad, but serious.

"Why, do you think this?" She asked skeptical once more. It was a lot to take in.

"Well, for starters, the merchant isn't the only one who has been stolen from. For the past few months, small quantities of food have gone missing from almost all of our homes. Secondly, nobody around here would dare steal from that merchant. When he first came here, a man tried to rob him and he was caught. He was an old man, desperate and thin. The merchant demanded that he have his fingers cut off on his right hand and that same day it was done. He died a few days later."

"That's terrible," She muttered.She still felt skeptical of the cursed thief but it was definitely an interesting legend. She straightened and the little old man leaned back,

"Well, I've blathered on enough. I will sell you the pendent for two coppers." His face was soft and joyful once more.

"Are you sure? That is awfully generous." Taken aback. Two coppers were essentially worthless, in fact they were nearly more of a burden and more often than not thrown away. She stared at the man confused.

"Well, I did force you to hear me out and you listened very well. So it is a special deal. Plus, I want you to have the pendent. It may come in use." He smiled again, his eyes disappearing into his wrinkles.

She smiled back and gave him the two coppers, "Thank you for the story and the pendent," she said with a half bow, uncertain of how to show her true gratitude.

"Of course, my dear. Good luck catching him, our thief I mean."

She walked away grinning despite herself and puzzling over the story and the recent robberies. Other townspeople confirmed the stolen food.

It seemed a bit far fetched, the sorcerer and the immortal thief. But she was beginning to think that there was a very skilled thief staying in the town and that this thief was almost certainly a foreigner.

She couldn't figure out where this thief would be staying though. There were no new guests that arrived in the town or at least they weren't staying at any of the town's inns. The sun was high now and she was sure Markus had returned with the documents by now. She headed back to the merchant's facility and started looking over the list of employees. The closer she looked the more certain she became that the thief was not an employee and not from the town, which left her uncertain of where to go next.

She sat back in my chair and couldn't help but think of the immortal thief from the old man's tale. The tale of the old man that died trying to rob the merchant also weighed heavy on my mind. She understood thieves needed to be brought to justice but was cutting off the old man's fingers really justice? This thief had only taken a few apples from the merchant and some scraps from the town but they didn't want to press charges, only the merchant. She scowled. Still, she needed to catch the thief, those were her orders.