Luck

“No, no, no, no, no!” Jack cried, the panicked desperation in his voice rising with each word as the train chugged out of the station in great white clouds of billowing steam. He ran along the platform, arms outstretched as if he might catch hold with his fingertips, but it was already out of reach. “No!” he screamed once more, this time in anger, and pulled up short where the platform dropped away. He snatched the hat off his head and twisted it in both fists as he watched the train disappear around a bend, taking with it all of his dreams. That was just his luck - which was no luck at all. “Gods dammit!” he swore.

“Take it easy, son,” a man’s voice came from behind him.

“Another’ll be along before long.”

Jack shifted his bag from his right shoulder to his left and

turned his back to the desolate tracks. His only companion on the platform was

a weathered old man in an oversized coat who huddled on a bench against the

station wall. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that looked to have long since left

behind any semblance of shape in a past life.

“Yeah, when?” Jack asked, not bothering to keep the irritation

from his voice. 

The man appeared to shrug, although buried as he was in his

heavy coat, it was hard to tell. “No way to know. Gets here when it gets here.”

Just my luck. Jack’s

shoulders slumped, and he hung his head with a forlorn sigh. His bag slipped

from his shoulder and landed at his feet with a thud beside his broken heart.

Dragging the bag by its strap, he trudged over to the bench, dropped heavily

into the seat beside the old man, and buried his face in his hands.

“I’m a dead man,” he groaned into his palms.

“Oh, come now,” the old man chuckled. “It can’t be bad as all

that. What’s so important about that train?”

“I need to get to Trent,” Jack replied without looking up. 

“Trent? Well, it’s not going anywhere. The next train’ll get you

there just as well."

Jack made no response, just pressed the heels of his hands

against his eyes so hard that lights burst across the inside of his eyelids.

Just when he’d thought his luck was beginning to change…

"What’s in Trent that’s so important, then?” the old man

pressed.

“A job,” Jack snapped. He wished the old man would stop with the

questions so he could think. The others would have been on that train, so they

were already one step ahead of him. He had

to get to Trent. 

“Ah. Well, lucky for you, jobs are a lot like trains,” the old

man prattled on. “There’s always another one down the tracks; you just need to

be in the right place at the right time.”

“You don’t understand,” Jack growled through clenched teeth. “It

was my guild test.” He pounded on his leg with his fist to

emphasize the words.

“Ah, it’s like that, is it? Then I reckon you shoulda been on

that train,” the old man scolded. “No second chances with the guilds – at least

that’s what I hear.”

Jack glared at the old man. “That’s what I’ve been trying to-” 

“Don’t much put in for the guilds myself,” the old man went on

as if Jack hadn’t spoken. “I’m a self-made man, myself; my own boss. No

bureaucrat’s gonna tell me how to do my job. Nor take one bit of what I earn,

no sir. What guild did you say it was?”

“I didn’t,” Jack said flatly. He didn’t dare reveal the truth.

You didn’t advertise your candidacy for the Assassins’ Guild – at least not if

you wanted to keep breathing. Officially, the Guild didn’t exist. But

unofficially - well, unofficially nobody worked outside the Guild – not the

clients and certainly not the assassins. Every contract went through the Guild,

every mark was sanctioned by the guild, and every job was assigned by the

guild. 

That’s precisely why Jack was here. Some fool had got it in his

head to part ways with the Guild – try to make it on his own. Stopped paying

his dues and everything but kept on taking jobs directly from the clients. That

was something the Guild just couldn’t let stand. 

It also meant there was an opening in the Guild – a rare stroke

of luck for young hopefuls like Jack. The Guild didn’t let just anybody in. In

fact, it was the one guild that money couldn’t buy your way into. Skill was too

important; a bad assassin put not just himself at risk, but the entire Guild.

No, a place in the Assassin’s Guild had to be earned in trade, and only when

there was an opening. Now there was an opening, and they had issued a test –

any man or woman who brought in the head of the deserter, Gerrin Barhold, would

earn the right to take his place. 

And Jack had determined it would be him. He reached down to

touch the bag that lay at his feet, reassuring himself it was still there. It

held all the information he’d need to locate Barhold – including a likeness of

the man himself. He’d paid good money for that information - the last of his

hard-earned wages from the pickpockets’ guild, which wasn’t really a guild at all,

just a bunch of street rats led by a brute named Big Gus. Big Gus liked to

think of himself as a guild master, but all he really did was take what the

rats pick-pocketed and divvy out payments at his discretion, the largest shares

going to his cronies. Jack had spent the better part of the last year kissing

up to the overgrown toad - getting on his good side to increase his own share.

He’d spent every last penny of it to enter the guild test and receive a copy of

the dossier on Gerrin Barhold.  

Jack hadn’t opened it yet; there hadn’t been time if he was to

catch the train. All he knew was that Barhold was in Trent, so right now

getting there was all that mattered.  

“Well, that’s your business then. I don’t mean to pry,” the old

man beside him on the bench was saying. “But you look like a good lad,” the man

eyed him up and down. “If a bit underfed. How’d you like to come work for me?” 

“What?” Jack’s mind was occupied with his predicament, so he

wasn’t sure he’d heard right. People didn’t just offer jobs to strangers at the

train station. 

“I’ve always been a good judge of character,” the old man went

on. “Give me a few minutes with somebody, and I can tell you what kind of

person they are.”

“And what kind of person am I?” Jack wasn’t really sure he

wanted to know. 

“Like I said, you’re a good lad. You just need someone to give

you a chance.”

Jack sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“So how about it?”

“How about what?” Jack studied his shoes and played dumb. He was

good at that. He used the time to study the man from the corner of his eye.

Beneath the shapeless hat was a lined, rugged face with a pronounced jaw that

hadn’t seen a razor in days. Wire-framed spectacles perched crookedly on a

prominent nose, and behind them the eyes were downcast, the lids half-closed. 

Jack, too, considered himself a good judge of people, and from

what he could see of this disheveled old man, he didn’t want anything to do

with whatever job he had to offer. He was probably a shopkeeper, and from the

looks of that coat, not a successful one. To Jack’s way of thinking, the only

thing worse than having no job was having a boring job; and what could be more

boring than minding a shop, spending your days bowing and scraping for

customers? Might as well be a beggar - at least then the hours were better. 

The old man arched a bushy eyebrow. “The job, son. Not too

bright, are we?” he remarked.

“Uh, thanks,” Jack stammered. “But my way’s with the guild.”

“Suit yourself,” the old man replied. He leaned his head back

against the wall. “Shoulda been on that train, though,” he mumbled as he pulled

his hat down low over his eyes.

Jack took that as a sign his rambling was at an end and sighed

in relief. He wished the next train would hurry up and get here, but he knew it

was hopeless. Maybe in a big city like Trent there were trains always coming

and going, but in a backwater town like this he doubted there were more than

one or two a day, and it was already past well mid-day. There wouldn’t be

another train by here before tomorrow, no matter what the crazy old man said.

It was thirty miles to Trent. If he started walking now, he could probably be

there by morning. And who knows? Maybe his luck would finally come in and some

passerby with a wagon would give him a ride. 

Resolved, he stood abruptly and stumbled over the bag that lay

forgotten at his feet. The bag tipped over, spilling its contents, including a

plain brown envelope. The envelope’s flap was opened, and a sheaf of papers

slipped out onto the platform. Jack snatched up the papers and hurriedly

stuffed them back into the envelope. 

“Missed one,” the old man murmured from beneath his hat.

Jack looked around and located the rogue paper by the edge of

the tracks, blank side up. He picked it up and turned it over. It was a

likeness of a man’s face, hand drawn but realistic in every detail, right down

to the hawklike nose and wire-framed spectacles. And Jack knew that if he was

to turn around right now, he would see the eyes behind those very glasses

watching him from beneath a shapeless, wide-brimmed hat.

Calling on every skill learned from two decades of living on the

streets, Jack forced his body to remain calm - not to show any hint of the

alarm - or excitement he felt. 

How about that for luck? he thought. All the other hopefuls were off hunting Barhold in

Trent, and here Jack was within steps of the mark himself. If that wasn’t good

luck, he didn’t know what was. Surely it was a sign the fates were looking out

for him - had made him miss that train on purpose. He smiled as his hand slid

to the knife in his belt. One day, he would look back on this day as the day

his luck finally changed. 

He crumpled the paper in his hand as he turned casually back

toward the unsuspecting assassin…and froze. Jack’s mind barely had time to

register the vacant bench when the knife slid expertly under his shoulder blade

to pierce his heart. 

“You really should have caught that train,” the voice whispered

into his ear.