Amongst Thieves

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN- Politics

'Well you sure took your time,' Torren laughed as Callen cleared the narrow stairs, making his way towards the bar. 'The stories got here before you did. Did you honestly take on an entire town yourself and win?'

Callen gave a slight shrug. 'You never call tell with stories like that. How have things been back here?'

'Busy' Torren replied, exhaustion creeping into his voice. 'The other thieves will stay off your back for now, if only because requests for you have been streaming in since you left and I managed to send some their way.'

Callen raised an eyebrow at his friend. 'Bribery?' In the back of his mind he noted this as another advantage of his half mask, over the years he had become remarkably expressive with eyebrows alone.

'If that's how you want to see it,' Torren smiled back. 'But I wouldn't have to do it if you would just play nice. I was hoping the country women did something about that attitude of yours, though if they had I guess you would have stayed there.'

Callen grunted beneath his mask. 'To be honest I think I actually missed this place.'

Haver laughed, long and loud as Callen looked on confused. 'Maybe we should send you out to the wilderness more often. That's the most human thing you have said since you started wearing that mask of yours. It's a nice change.' Torren limped across the bar as he spoke, retrieving a loose stack of papers from beneath it.

'I'm assuming you want work now that you're back? Something worthy of a legendary thief such as yourself?'

Callen nodded, still feeling a twinge of guilt at the man's words.

'What did you have in mind? These days' people mostly want you for uptown jobs, documents and the like, so I'm guessing you want the best paying of those?'

Callen nodded again as Torren held up the top paper from the stack.

'I'll be honest with you, I was hoping you would want this one. Remember that last job you did down here? I get the feeling this is related. The guy is being clever so I didn't notice for a long time but he's become quite the regular in the dens, always with a different go-between and always after documents from someone with ties to the castle. Take that and the fact that some of those same nobles had their houses burned down around them soon after and it starts to look like someone is planning something.'

'Who cares?' Callen mumbled at the ceiling. 'People kill each other all the time.'

'Not like this, when men with this much power start dropping it's for a reason. There are reports of similarly suspect fires linked to guild thefts since we left training but not this many this close together. This is big, maybe as big as it gets and I figure if anyone's going to get wrapped up in it, it should be someone who can handle themselves.'

'You want me to save some entitled old men from some other entitled old men? Thanks, but no thanks.' Callen said bluntly. Torren opened his mouth to respond but Callen snatched the paper from his hand, still shaking his head. 'But you know I will take any job that pays well. If I stumble on anything I'll tell you, but I'm not getting involved in some government conspiracy. Good enough?'

Torren beamed at him. 'Good enough.'

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Callen strode confidently through the darkening streets, despite the bundle of documents in the tube held tightly against his back. The job itself was easier that he had imagined. Evidently the target thought the public job placed against his property was nothing more than an empty threat and hadn't even increased his security, save for Ape who had found his way into the mix as always. It had been simple enough to scale the wall and slip through an upper window and within minutes he had his prize in hand. The documents themselves were what caught his interest, implicating the man he had stolen them from in all manner of underhanded and black-market dealings. For one so close to the king controlling those documents would be as good as controlling the man himself and Callen could only wonder if Torren was right to give them to whoever was targeting the upper circle. It was enough to make him curious, which is why he found himself wandering around Uptown in the late afternoon sun.