I came to the shores of the riverbed. Long after midday, the sun already starting it’s slow descent into night. The streets were clearing out and the rooftops were marked with fires a top their edges. The alley rats kept fun, rolling dice in the dusty streets or making circles where they shot colored marbles out. Some played cards. Old men sat by the front of closing shops, eating seeds and passing time with stories. Mothers brought in their laundry. Fathers brought in the days labors; food or money or what have you, in little bags strapped to their shoulders. The colored rose pedals of celebration blew against my legs and stuck to my boots. I was still wearing the robes, still very much in that mummied disguise. Black shrouded, loose wrappings sticking out from my arms and my neck.

There I stood watching the river. Watching it stretch underneath the rounded cliff, watching it expand out to a horizon seeped in dark. Shops a top the boats were closing. Guards lifted their torches up against the bodies of the boats, or the kayaks.

Some were collecting taxes.

I leaned back and hid behind a collection of boxes in a small lot next to a seafood shop. A young boy came out the back door with a metal plate. He threw scraps into the streets where a flood of cats came out to eat. I kept close to the wall, my palms touching the soft stone. He looked up, out to the moon. I was ready to suffocate him then and there. But a cat hissed. He turned away and retreated back to the store, a draft of something sweet following him.

I breathed easy and went back to the front of the stack of boxes. Loose fruits and fishes sticking out from their cracks, I looked around them waiting for the guards to pass and made my way to the main street. Out to a boat. It was dark now. Dark enough for no one to notice, not that there were many.

Shoring the boat, a long metal chain wrapped and stuck around a wooden post. I yanked it. Taut enough. And I stepped on it, balancing at first, before sprinting up the boat.

This was a particular boat. This was a particular place. More of a commercial spot for the selling of foodstuff, hosting platforms for magicians and thespians. Plenty of seating for hungry visitors. But this spot in particular had something else special, out at the front on a ribbon - on the sides of the boat - on beams along the edge of the shore were the words, Lucius and Co.

I ran up the chain onto the large boat. A behemoth of a vehicle. A dozen men walked, yawning as they lifted boxes here and there. Some scraped off fish from the surface of the boat out to the river. I went to the front, to the captains room or what I presumed was the captains room. Large stacks lined the front, barrels tied together. I used them, keeping my profile low and moving swift between cover. My footsteps so soft that you couldn’t even here the splosh against the wet floor, against the fish heads and guts lining the edges of the boat. I came to, my body against the wall and I listened inside. Two people talking.

I waited and someone came out the front. A burly man counting coins in his palms, he kept his head low and mouthed the numbers, drifting out into the rest of the deck. I held the door and the bell noised off again. The man was looking down on a table, both palms sprawled. A simple office, a few books and a candle. Dozens of maps. Dozens of stamps and five times the amount of ink on shelves along the walls. Pictures too, of a small blond child and a young woman and him besides them with a grin.

I took out my knife and came up behind him. A plank sounded off as I stepped down. I ran up and pressed it against his neck.

“If you say anything I don’t like, I’ll slit your throat.” I said.

He raised both hands slowly.

“I am not the man to steal from.” He said. “I promise you.”

“I promise you that I am a man to not threaten.” I said.

“Who are you?”

I pressed the knife against his neck.

“What’d I say about saying stuff I don’t like?”

Truth is, I couldn’t come in as a Crow. As Virgil. Call it intuition, but with dangerous questions, anonymity is the best tool for protection.

“I don’t need your cargo. I don’t need your money.” I said.

“I figured.” He said. “All we sell is fish here.”

“That right? That’s not what I think.” I said.

“What do you think?”

I pushed his head down pressed the blunt of my blade, cold, against the back of his neck.

“You have weapons here, don’t you?”

He stayed quiet. His eyes slowly shutting.

“Yeah. I figured as much.” I said. On the shelves a lonely candle flickered, a small warping of that fiery tongue.

“How’d you find out?”

“I took a wild guess.”

“A bit too wild for any guess. Is that what you’re after, the supply?”

“No. Where the hell would I put it. Hmm?” I asked. “Do I look like a pirate to you?”

He swallowed his throat.

“I want to know who you’re selling to. For what reason.” I said. “And I want to know who Lucius is.”

He looked for a moment, his head tilted to the side. He grinned and chuckled and I had to put the knife closer to his throat to get him to shut up.

“Fella, you must have jumped out of the looney bin.” He said. “They let the asylum doors open?”

I pressed my weight and grabbed his arm and lifted it until it cracked at the hinge. His mouth opened and he started for a shout but I drew blood on his lower chin and he hushed fast.

“I am a bit crazy, that’s for sure. Now what’s so funny about what I said?”

“Lucius is in prison. He’s gonna get executed. That’s what makes you sound so crazy.” He said. “To be so smart to know we have weapons, but to not know such a simple fact? You can’t be anyone in the game.”

“In the game?” I asked. “What’s your fucking name?”

“Harvey.” Harvey said.

“Alright Harvey. Who the hell do you sell for?”

“What is it exactly that you’re looking for? Why are you asking so many stupid questions?” He asked. “What are you? You part of the rose knights? I heard he’s mounting a response. Maybe you’re up with those wind-talking crazies in the-”

“I am with myself.” I smashed his face in with my elbow. It cut him along the upper eye. I put my palm against his mouth before he could shout and faced him to me. There he remained, one hand on his mouth and my other holding the knife, seeing the reflection against his eyes.

“I don’t know much. Nothing at all. So do consider me someone new to the game. And do tell me the rules.” I said. “Tell me who the players are. Tell me what’s going on. Who are you selling these weapons to? Where is Lucius?”

“I cain’t tell you a thing. ‘Cause I don’t know a thing you fucking fool. Lucius used ta come around, now he don’t.” Harvey said. “I figure ‘cause they have him in prison. So if you want answers, go fucking ask him.”

“You don’t get answers anymore?”

“Some fucking bird-crow-thing comes around. Has a letter wrapped around his feet.” Harvey said. “The money keeps money, and the deal resumes with Lucius. We go down the river and unload to some desert crawlers who put the shit on their camels and go away. That’s it. We’re just carriers. That’s all we’ve ever been.”

“Fuck.” I said.

“And you want some advice, about the game? Stop asking so many fucking questions. That’s how I’ve kept alive.” Harvey said. His hand reached underneath his desk. I sighed and gave him another punch in the face. A knife dropped from beneath the table and so did his body, limp, eyes spinning.

“In prison, huh.” I said. “That’s a lot of trouble for a ship driver.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. A little window in the back of the room was propped open, a draft coming from the small bevel. I turned the knife and the window opened. It led to the back, to a collection of ropes from which the ship remained mounted along the shoreline. A few passerbyers here and there, in their little carts, cleaning up shop. But so thick the night that even their forms seemed invisible, I could only hear their muffled yawning from beyond the ruminations of a bitter river water. A rushing that kept to, from those purple upstreams, clashing against the boat. As if angered, anxious perhaps.

Harvey bemoaned and whispered something, his palm struggling against the flat of his desk. He pulled himself up, a knife in hand, spinning in that dazed manner drunkards do. Looking for me.

But I was already gone.