The Needle

The Needle looked up at the Harbor Master and did his best to appear interested. The old blowhard was recounting another adventure from his glory days, one involving the severing of monstrous tentacles and the rescue of grateful damsels. The damsels were invariably beautiful, and always described as extraordinarily grateful to their rescuer.

Beyond the glass windows of the small tower that housed the Harbor Master’s office, the piers faded into fog. Waves broke against the shore below.

The Harbor Master droned on, his voice seeming to rise and fall with the surf. The Needle sighed and nodded at suitable intervals. With any luck, the windbag would soon run out of steam and wander off to the local tavern, as he usually did.

Not for the first time, The Needle imagined drawing one of the poisoned pins concealed in his clothing and driving it into the old fool’s Adam’s apple.

Perhaps the Abenthian Fire Salamander poison.

His fingers found a pin in his pocket and lovingly rolled its handmade, cylindrical head. The point remained safely sheathed. The head was his own invention, designed so the pin could be attached to a dart or set into a hole where someone might step. A versatile little device. It also kept him from grabbing the wrong end, which would be unpleasant.

There was a reason he was known as The Needle rather than The Pin. A few strong-arm types had once used that name to mock him in front of their mutual employer. He had disposed of them. Their gruesome deaths had ensured that those who employed him took his preferred name seriously.

He smiled at the memory, and at the thought of the Harbor Master trying to continue his story with a tongue swollen to the size of a small melon.

Unfortunately, the Harbor Master took the smile as encouragement. He launched into an even more extravagant tale, in which the monsters had three heads and the grateful damsels all had grateful sisters.

The Harbor Master—Manthion, to his friends—knew nothing of The Needle. To him, and to everyone else in town, the quiet newcomer was simply Mister Gray. He had arrived one day to replace Manthion’s previous assistant, who had apparently died of some sort of spider bite.

Very unfortunate.

As Manthion talked, The Needle noticed beads of sweat gathering on his brow. Perhaps the endless chatter was not merely vanity. Perhaps the old man sensed something dangerous in the small, wiry fellow standing before him and was trying to ingratiate himself.

That would be unfortunate, too, if he ever learned who his taciturn assistant really was.

For the second time that day, Mister Gray gave Harbor Master Manthion a small smile. His dark eyes registered four fresh drops of sweat forming on the old man’s forehead.