Gleb was on his way to collect a payment for the day's wanton butchery. He'd stuck around with the rest of the beggars just long enough to hear about his heinous and brazen acts. Then, with the rest of them, he looked worried and made himself scarce.

No one questioned him on his smell. All the beggars smelled.

No one stopped him as a new face. All the beggars were faceless rabble.

No one suspected the strange man with skin black as ink. He was too dim-witted to kill a man, clearly.

When the beggars abandoned the neighborhood like rats from a sinking ship, Gleb headed back to his lair in a building he had purchased years ago, long before he had taken his assassin act on the road. It was still his when he returned, but it was in far greater disrepair than he had anticipated.

Now, however, he had a steady string of backers and there was plenty to be paid for getting his hands dirty. And, if things ever turned messy in a way he didn't like, he could always turn in information on all of them. He was in no ways above shopping around for the best deal for his life.

And if things got very messy, he could always return home to his native Indalla, provided he could find a ship to get there. Well, he could convince one if he absolutely needed to.

But now he was on his way to pick up his payment. He heard a commotion out on the main street. Normally, he would have avoided meddling, but as he glanced into the street out of sheer curiosity, he recognized the storyteller backed against the wall.

Well. This just would not do. The man told stories the likes of which Gleb had not heard ever before. It would be a shame, even a tragedy to lose this man to a common mugging. Not only that, Gleb was feeling generous.

"What bein' th' problem?" he asked as he sauntered into the street.

Everyone froze, and the two assailants turned toward him. The storyteller, blind or never breaking character, cocked his head a little, but not much.

"'S offensible, pure, t' bein' pickening on a man of such miraculous words. Ye'd best be havin' a good an' plausible excuse."

"And who are you to judge that?" demanded a thin man holding one hend of the storyteller's staff.

"Jus' a man," Gleb answered calmly, "who'd lay ye out for crows t' be feastin' 'pon. Be weighin' your thoughts heavy and well, lest ye step unwiseful."

The woman stared at him for a long moment. "Clearly," she said, stepping around the man and favoring her leg, "you're an idiot. I've no time for you. Go run along home, now."

Gleb watched her carefully.

She watched Gleb carefully.

The storyteller began creeping down the wall, away from this whole mess. Gleb didn't much blame him, but the woman did.

She wrenched the staff from the man's hand and swung it at the storyteller in a very clumsy manner.

The old man was quick on his feet enough to duck with plenty of time. He avoided the blow, and he scrambled to his feet. On his way up, the storyteller grabbed the pole and ran along its length to the woman, who was still regaining her balance, and punched her in the gut.

Gleb, meanwhile, rushed the man. WIth surgical precision and practiced speed, he slit a tendon in the man's arm. The man went down screaming, and the storyteller gathered his staff and started to bolt.

The woman drew a knife and took aim at the storyteller's back. Gleb tackled her around the middle and choked her just enough to put her under, even as the man screamed his head off and woke the entire street.

Gleb had no reason to kill either of them. He certainly wasn't getting paid to off petty crooks. So, he hurried after the storyteller and pulled him down an alley. The old man started to cry out in astonishment, but Gleb clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Ye'd best be quiet enough t' be bein' dead," Gleb hissed in his ear.

The storyteller nodded in acquiesce, and Gleb released him.

"There was no need for that," the storyteller said indignantly, dusting his ragged clothing straight and clean as he could get it. The man was nearly as filthy as Gleb was.

Nearly.

"Ye be comin' with," Gleb told him.

The storyteller stared at him. "Why?"

"For th' losin' of so beautiful stories be puttin' my heart to pain. An' all a'cause you be protectorin' your own self? Nay, I could be standin' for it only with mine own hands bein' nailed to a post, an' even then, mayhaps not."

The storyteller simply stared and said nothing, possibly listening to the sounds of the crowd rushing into the street.

"I'll not be hurtin' ye, nor be lettin' hurt come t' ye."

When the storyteller still did not acknowledge him, Gleb sighed, grabbed his wrist, and pulled the old man along.

He had pay to collect.

Her sandals were tied tightly, but it didn't help against the dust in the wind. Her face and neck were covered with a fine mesh, thin enough to see through, but not to allow in the sand and grit, and not enough to let others see her twin. But that didn't help the dirt under her hands as she held tight, scrambling for purchase against the wind. Her long gloves reached up under her long sleeves.

Those helped.

Little whispers crept between her toes as she struggled to rise against the wind. It wasn't dust storm season. That wasn't for a few more weeks.

All around her, Janice saw people crouched, like she, behind heavy stone structures, struggling to their feet to make their ways inside. This storm had completely snuck up on them, blowing sand from the desert, dust from the plains far to the North. They were all staggering to their feet, trying to beat the gale to the nearest building, in case the storm started blowing in stones from the little desert of rocks to the North-west.

The wind tugged at her veils, and someone tugged her to her feet and hurried her inside a doorway, shoving it closed behind them.

As they regained their breaths, she pulled her veils away, shaking off the dirt and dust and memories. As the dust fell off in a fine shower, he pulled back his heavy hood, revealing a man the likes of which she had never seen before. He had hair like fire, and eyes like the leaves of the highest olive tree in autumn. Feathered rings hung from his ears, his skin was like rich bronze, and he gave her an absolutely bone-chilling grin.

"You all right?" he asked, a voice light but strong, like the winds were they to take on a voice, like the memories of the earth beneath her feet.

Janice stared openly. "I'm fine."

"Good. My Lady, deaf and dark and silent, wishes well for you. I have been charged with your protection until such time as she says otherwise."

Janice blinked and tapped the dust from her sandals, forcing herself not to hear the memories as the grains of dirt brushed by her skin.

She had certainly heard stranger things said, though none in this lifetime.