The Walls of Anamoor

The hideout was, as one might expect, very well hidden. As we reached the lowest level, commonly called the slate plains, he led me through twisting, cramped streets with houses that appeared to have been expanded upon dozens of times each. The place was a mess, and in dire need of civil planning and a large number of bulldozers.

We lost our tail long before we got close to the safehouse, but apparently to be certain the mage hadn’t tailed us with other means, we took a long and circuitous route through the maze that was also a city. The thief’s reasoning was that the mage could tag along ethereally all he wanted, but if the dude got lost and forgot all the twists and turns we made, it wouldn’t make a damned sight bit of difference.

I took the guy at his word on the magic stuff, I had no fucking clue. It was magic, that shit hadn’t existed on Earth, at least as far as I had known. Wow, that actually raised a great many questions about my now former home world.

“Alright, I think we’ve gone and lost any magical shenaniganry that they might have tagged us with, so we’re free to head homeward,” the thief said with a grin, moving to take an alleyway just ahead.

“Hey, hold on,” I blurted, my hand flicking up to bar him from moving ahead. “I don’t even know your name. I think if you’re asking me to trust you, it might be good for us to each know the other’s name, don’t you think?”

He didn’t seem worried by my stopping him, but more perplexed at the question itself. “Why you wanna know names? It ain’t gonna stop me from putting a knife in you if I were so inclined, which I can assure you I am most certainly not. You look like you could take on five of me and walk off without a scratch!”

“Nah, you’re wrong,” I told him, shaking my head. “First rule of keeping yourself alive with a stranger, humanise and create empathy between you and them. Names stick in a head, they curse someone if you die. Sure, a real shithead might be able to shrug it off, but it’s something.”

He grunted, looking at me as though he was seeing me in a new light. “You learn some interesting things out there in the wastes, huh? I can see the point though.” With that, he extended a hand. “Name’s Whistle, at least, that’s the only name that matters ‘round here. No idea what me mam called me, since I never met her.”

“Uh, why Whistle?” I asked, curious now.

He laughed. “You just saw the reason! I ain’t never left a little window teasing job without my chorus followin’ me home! Don’t intend to break my streak now. Lean into the jibes they say, and they run off you like water!”

I felt a smile pull at my lips, then extend to my eyes. With a laugh, I extended my own hand and shook.

“And your’s, lass?” he asked, then coughed and corrected himself, “Uh, I mean, lad.”

Ugh. Now I needed to think of a good street name. I couldn’t go rocking up to the thieves guild like, hey my name is Daniel! That just wasn’t cool. Crap, I was so bad with names.

At my hesitation, he frowned and leaned forward slightly. “You… do have a name, right?”

I sighed, my all too slim shoulders slumping under my own sense of defeat. “Not one I can use here.”

“Aye, common problem in our line of profession,” he said with sympathy. Then he perked up, giving me another wide grin. “Alright then, let’s be doing things the proper streets way, eh? Since I’m the first member of the crew to meet you, I get to name ya!”

“Whoa, hold on,” I blurted, alarmed now. What kind of wild bullshit name was he going— 

“I’m reckoning you’re a… a Mist,” he said nodding slowly to himself as a satisfied smile wormed its way onto his annoying mug.

Wait… that wasn’t half bad. I could be Mist. It was kinda cool, but not full on edgy like something a rogue from a game might have been named.

“Why Mist?” I asked, still being cautious. I was aware I was speaking a language that wasn’t english, and it might have different connotations here.

“You fade in and out of sight, you’re silent as the mist too, and you both come from the wastes, mysterious, possibly full of opportunity, or possibly just death,” he said with a wild smile, his eyes glinting in the dark.

Nevermind, it was totally edgy. Sounds like whatever these wastes were, they were full of mist that concealed enemies or monsters or danger. Ah well, I still liked it. I nodded. “Alright, yeah. Mist is good. A little uh, intense… but I can roll with it.”

“Like ya rolled across those buildings, eh?” he chuckled, elbowing me in the ribs before he took a few steps forward. “You coming? We got a ways to go yet, Mist.”

God, what a fucking comedian I had on my hands here. “Oh yeah, righto Whistle,” I said with a display of amusement that was one hundred percent a chuckle, and not anything else.

We moved into the alleyway he’d been making for earlier and I quickly found myself even more lost than I already had been. We turned corner after corner, some of them seemingly invisible until we were right on top of them. Strangely enough, given what I knew of city hygiene during the medieval era, this place was oddly clean.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was still gross and there was still nasty shit you had to avoid stepping on, but it wasn’t completely rank. When I asked Whistle why this was, he shrugged, saying they all just chucked their refuse down into the ruins below, where waterways whisked it off to who knew where.

When we finally reached the entrance to Whistle’s thieve’s guild chapter house, it turned out to be an entrance down into that same ruin. We dipped into a crack in the ground, where the dirt and cobble of the city had caved in to reveal a small room.

Stepping carefully down into the hole, Whistle pulled out a small glowing crystal from his many pockets and held it up so we could see. Off to the side, a passage led off into the darkness, and without a second thought, my companion moved in.

What followed was a short series of twists and turns through ancient passageways, until we came to a steel door that was most definitely not from the same age as the stone it was bolted to.

He moved up to it and knocked three times in quick succession, calling, “Whistle here, back from a job. Found an aspirant.”

I don’t know how they verified, I couldn’t see any little spyhole open or anything, but it was only a moment before the door opened. Whistle didn’t move to enter though, and put out a hand to keep me from trying too.

A large man stood behind that door, and a few meters beyond him, a wooden staircase leading back up above ground. Their hideout must still be up in the buildings of the city, but the entrance was from underneath. Smart.

“You vouch for them?” the large man asked with a voice that did not match his build. Still low, but with a sweet singsong cadence to it that was at odds with his thuggish appearance.

“Heya there, how’s the night been eh Dancer?” Whistle asked with an easy smile, leaning against the wall so the big man could get a look at me. “His name’s Mist, a wastelander, just arrived in Anamoor too. Mighty quiet, good on the slate. Scary good too.”

“Not many wastelanders make it to Anamoor these days,” Dancer hummed, his voice sounding almost like he was speaking with three voices in harmony. “They say the mists are getting thicker, the monsters deadlier. That true?”

I shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “In my experience, but I’m just one guy. There’s a whole lot of land out there, and not a whole lot of eyes to see it.” I was totally lying through my teeth, but hey… sounds like not many people knew much about things in these wastes. Just had to keep being vague about it.

“Too right. My Da was with the pathfinders, the stories he came back with were different every time,” the large man agreed, then a smile twitched his expression into joviality. “Aight, you seem like a good man. Plus, and this part’s much more important, Singer ain’t found anything suspicious about you with her magic. You’re both clean.”

Huh, I’d thought they were being a bit lax about security for a second there, but I guess not. Whistle led the way through the door, and when I stepped past the threshold, I saw with some surprise that there was a much larger room behind her than I’d thought. The entry hall back through the door jutted into it, with multiple little peek holes along its length.

Out of sight of the doorway, a woman sat at a rough wooden table on a chair that had also seen better days. She was slight, thin and beautiful in an almost ethereal way, white blond hair gently piled in an elaborate design on her head. She wore simple robes, clinched tight against her body by a multitude of belts, each holding little vials, daggers and all other sorts. Around her neck dangled a small pendant, glowing with strange light.

As our eyes met, she smiled and gave both Whistle and I a little finger-wiggling wave, and an extra wink for me. Oh goodness.

When I turned away from her, feeling a little off kilter, Dancer laughed. “She’s taken, boy. Flirt, but no more.”

“Dude, I wouldn’t have the slightest clue what to do if it got any further than flirting,” I said honestly and a little sheepishly.

“Interesting…” Singer murmured playfully, her voice just as at odds with her appearance as Dancer’s had been. Rather than a voice like wind chimes, as I’d been expecting, it was rough and low. It still retained a ton of femininity and sexuality, but it was still… unexpected.

“Leave the poor boy alone, you damned bullies,” Whistle interjected, taking me by the forearm and pulling me towards the stairs. “He needs some meat left on his bones if he’s going to meet Basilisk.”

The couple just laughed as we ascended the stairs. Oh no, who was Basilisk? That did not sound promising. What the hell had I just stepped into?