Maldyn
The first mistake was asking where Maldyn slept.
The second was asking loudly.
“Why?” said Cerran.
The newly raised Forsaken looked from one face to another around the table, suddenly less certain that the question had been innocent.
“I only asked.”
“You asked where Maldyn lives,” said Cerran.
“Yes.”
“And I asked why.”
The newcomer frowned. One of his ears had not survived resurrection particularly well, and the expression pulled the stitched skin along his cheek into an uneven crease.
“I don’t know. I saw him upstairs. Then yesterday I saw him near the western lift. Then this morning he was sitting outside the Deathstalkers’ hall.”
“Ah,” said Orvis.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Orvis took a slow drink from a battered tin cup. Whatever was in it had ceased being beer several owners ago.
“Means you saw Maldyn.”
There were five of them gathered around the corner table of a tavern that had never quite decided whether it was open or abandoned. Two were old enough to remember the Undercity before the Wrathgate. One had been raised during the war in Northrend. Cerran had awakened only six years ago. The newest, Pell, had been dead less than three months.
Pell looked increasingly irritated.
“Does he have quarters or not?”
“No,” said Orvis.
“Yes,” said Cerran at the same time.
Across the table, Velka laughed through teeth blackened with old decay.
“There. Settled.”
Pell stared at them.
Orvis pointed at Cerran. “He heard Maldyn has a room under the old canal works.”
“I heard he had a room there.”
“You heard Drex say he saw him come out of a service passage.”
“Which leads under the canal works.”
“It leads to six places.”
“Seven.”
“One collapsed.”
“Then six.”
Velka leaned toward Pell.
“He’s got a room in the Apothecarium.”
Cerran groaned.
“He does not.”
“My cousin saw him there.”
“Your cousin saw him walking out of the Apothecarium.”
“At four in the morning.”
“That does not mean he sleeps there.”
“Nothing sleeps there.”
Orvis lifted his cup.
“Exactly.”
Pell rubbed his forehead.
“So nobody knows.”
“Leadership knows,” said Cerran.
“Leadership might know,” Velka corrected.
“Deathstalkers know.”
“Deathstalkers say leadership knows.”
“Same thing.”
“It is absolutely not the same thing.”
Pell glanced toward the tavern entrance.
“What about him?”
For a moment nobody answered.
“What about him?” Cerran said.
“Ask him.”
That got a laugh.
Not a loud one.
Pell looked between them.
“What?”
Orvis lowered his cup.
“You ask Maldyn personal questions?”
“I’ve spoken to him.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I have.”
“What did he say?”
Pell hesitated.
“He told me to move.”
Velka nodded solemnly.
“Deep conversation.”
“He was carrying a body.”
“Was it yours?”
“No.”
“Then he liked you.”
Pell scowled.
“I mean a real question.”
“Go ahead,” said Cerran. “Ask him where he lives.”
“And he’ll tell me?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“You’ll have asked.”
Pell leaned back and folded his arms.
“You all talk about him like he’s some ghost.”
“We’re all ghosts,” said Orvis.
“We’re corpses,” Velka said.
“Some of us are trying to enjoy ourselves.”
“Some of us stink.”
“That was one time.”
Cerran ignored them.
“The thing about Maldyn is nobody remembers him.”
Pell looked at him.
“From before?”
“From anything.”
That quieted the table.
Cerran rested both elbows on the wood.
“When Sylvanas broke us free, he was there.”
“You were there?” Pell asked.
“No. Orvis is old, not me.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’ve heard it from people who were. Maldyn was just among them. One of the freed undead.”
Pell waited.
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“He had to come from somewhere.”
“Of course.”
“He was Scourge.”
“Obviously.”
“What did he do?”
Cerran shrugged.
“Nobody knows.”
“Soldier?”
“Maybe.”
“Scout?”
“Maybe.”
“Assassin?”
Velka grinned.
“Would explain a few things.”
“Was he called Maldyn then?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Was he Maldyn when he was alive?”
“Nobody knows.”
Pell stared at them.
“How does nobody know?”
“Because nobody remembers him.”
“Someone must.”
“Find them.”
Pell started to speak, then stopped.
Orvis tapped a yellowed fingernail against his cup.
“He got his freedom. Then he got work.”
“Just like that?” Pell said.
“As far as anyone can tell.”
“What kind of work?”
Cerran looked at him.
“What kind do you think?”
The answer came from Velka.
“The kind where the other fellow doesn’t get to complain afterward.”
Pell glanced again toward the door.
“He never seems worked up.”
All four of them looked at him.
Pell shifted.
“I mean it. He can be standing there dressed like a walking execution and still look bored.”
“That’s generally considered useful,” Orvis said.
Velka leaned back.
“I saw him kill a man once.”
“We’ve heard this story.”
“Pell hasn’t.”
“It gets worse every time.”
“It gets more accurate.”
“You said last time there were three men.”
“There were.”
“You just said a man.”
“I’m simplifying.”
“For accuracy.”
Velka ignored him.
“He was waiting outside Brill. Didn’t move for an hour. Thought maybe he was dead.”
“He is dead.”
“More dead.”
Pell sighed.
“And then?”
“Then somebody came down the road. Maldyn stood up. They spoke for maybe ten seconds.”
“What did they say?”
“Couldn’t hear.”
“And then?”
Velka smiled.
“The fellow fell over.”
Pell blinked.
“How?”
“No idea.”
“Knife?”
“Probably.”
“Poison?”
“Probably.”
“Magic?”
“Probably not.”
“What did Maldyn do?”
“Walked away.”
Cerran shook his head.
“You don’t even know that was an assignment.”
“Of course it was an assignment.”
“How?”
“Because Maldyn was doing it.”
Pell frowned.
“Maybe he just murdered someone.”
Orvis shrugged.
“Then somebody probably needed murdering.”
“That’s a terrible way to run a government.”
“You’re new.”
Pell opened his mouth, thought better of it, and reached for the bottle in the middle of the table.
After a moment he said, “Has anyone actually followed him?”
Cerran and Orvis exchanged a glance.
Velka’s grin returned.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The question.”
“What question?”
“The one everybody asks eventually.”
Pell poured.
“So someone has.”
“Several someones,” said Cerran.
“And?”
“Depends which story you believe.”
“Tell me one.”
Velka pointed toward Orvis.
“His is best.”
“It is not my story.”
“You knew the man.”
“I knew a man who claimed to know the man.”
“Good enough.”
Orvis stared into his cup for a while before speaking.
“There was a fellow named Harren. Quiet sort. Not Deathstalker, but curious. Had too much time.”
“That’s dangerous,” said Cerran.
“One evening he sees Maldyn leave the old military quarter. Decides he’s finally going to find out where he goes.”
Pell leaned forward.
“He followed him?”
“For twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. Maldyn walks through the Undercity like he’s going nowhere special. Doesn’t hurry. Doesn’t look back.”
“He knew.”
“Probably.”
“How?”
Orvis looked at Pell.
“Because he’s Maldyn.”
Velka rapped her knuckles on the table.
“Continue.”
“Harren follows him down through one of the lower corridors. Maldyn turns a corner.”
“And?”
“Harren turns the same corner.”
Orvis paused.
“Nobody there.”
Pell waited.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“There was a door.”
“No.”
“Side passage?”
“No.”
“Vent?”
“No.”
“Shadow magic?”
“Maybe.”
“You just said there were ways.”
“There are.”
“Exactly,” said Cerran.
Pell shook his head.
“So he lost him.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not mysterious. He just got outmaneuvered.”
“Correct.”
Velka pointed at him.
“Now you’re learning.”
“Then why tell the story like he vanished?”
“Because ‘Harren was outsmarted by a better rogue’ isn’t worth repeating.”
Pell laughed despite himself.
“Did Harren ever try again?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Orvis looked toward the tavern entrance.
“Maldyn asked him the next morning if he’d enjoyed his walk.”
Silence held for half a second.
Then Cerran laughed.
Pell did not.
“You’re lying.”
“Probably,” Orvis said.
“Which part?”
“I don’t know.”
Pell stared at him.
Velka raised her cup.
“That’s Maldyn.”
The tavern door opened.
Conversation continued for perhaps two words before dying all at once.
Maldyn stepped inside.
He was still in his field gear: black and deep purple armor edged in tarnished gold, hood drawn low over a masked face, a skull ornament at his belt glowing faintly green. A small black coffin was strapped upright across his back like a pack, its upper frame crowned with narrow spikes. His weapons were still on him.
None of it was subtle. Deathstalker field gear rarely was.
Maldyn himself was.
On someone else, the armor might have looked theatrical. On him it looked like equipment he had not yet bothered to take off.
His gaze crossed the room once.
Pell went very still.
Maldyn walked past their table.
No one spoke.
He stopped beside a narrow doorway at the back of the tavern. It led only to a storage room.
The proprietor looked up.
“You’re early.”
Maldyn gave the smallest shrug.
“Was nearby.”
He stepped through the doorway.
Pell waited.
Then waited longer.
Finally he leaned across the table.
“What’s back there?”
“Crates,” said Velka.
“Another exit?”
“No.”
Pell stood.
Cerran grabbed his sleeve.
“Oh, don’t.”
“I just want to see.”
“That sentence has killed better men.”
Pell pulled free.
“It’s a storage room.”
He crossed the tavern.
The others watched.
Pell opened the door.
Crates.
Barrels.
A broken chair.
A dead rat that had presumably never been fortunate enough to rise again.
No Maldyn.
Pell stepped inside.
He checked behind the door.
Behind the barrels.
He looked upward.
Nothing.
When he returned to the table, nobody said anything.
He sat down.
Orvis poured him another drink.
Pell took it.
After a while he said, “There’s probably a passage.”
“Probably,” said Cerran.
“Hidden door.”
“Probably.”
“He knew I was going to look.”
“Probably.”
Pell drank.
Velka smiled.
“So where does he live?”
Pell stared into his cup.
“I don’t care.”
From somewhere behind him came a low, dry voice.
“Good.”
Pell spun around.
There was nobody there.
The table erupted.
Orvis nearly dropped his cup. Velka folded over laughing. Even Cerran had to brace himself against the wall.
Pell stared at all of them.
“You bastards.”
Velka wiped at one eye.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Which one of you said that?”
Nobody answered.
And by morning, three different versions of the story were already circulating.