It rained that morning. While the citizens of Alderbridge dragged themselves to work, wrapped in their raincoats and covered by their umbrellas, the Faceless Man was thankful for the rain. When it rained, nobody looked twice at yet another man with a hood pulled down over his face. On days like this, everyone was faceless.

  Bartholomew Crane had a reputation throughout Alderbridge. As owner of Crane’s Landing, one of the largest dockyards in the capital, he had his fingers in the flow of farm goods and livestock from the Northern provinces, spices from the colonies, and fine luxury goods from the continent. He had contacts in all levels of city life and was known for his insatiable greed and business acumen.

  Crane got his start in the shadows of the dockyard, working both as a docker and a smuggler as the need arose. With a keen eye for opportunity and a complete disregard for the rules when it suited him, Crane soon realized that the real wealth lay not in loading or unloading, legally or otherwise, ships, but in controlling where they berth and what they carried. Using a mixture of shrewd investments, underhanded deals, and not infrequent intimidation, he gradually bought out or undercut his competition, gradually consolidating his hold over the stretch of Alderbridge waterfront now known as Crane’s Landing. Poised perfectly where the Varn River met the Sea of Eldara, Crane’s Landing was known for its sprawling expanse of warehouses, bustling wharves, and the incessant clatter and clang of cargo being loaded and unloaded at all hours. Bartholomew himself was rarely seen these days, preferring to oversee his empire from his office overlooking the docks. From this vantage point, he could watch the ebb and flow of his wealth with the piercing gaze of a man who valued each coin more than the life of any man working for him.

  Although his rags-to-riches story would qualify him to be held up as one of Alderbridge’s success stories, Crane was known throughout the city primarily for his greed. He charges exorbitant fees for dock use and storage, squeezing merchants and shipowners for every last coin. He was also notorious for underpaying his workers, leading to small strikes and skirmishes over the years, but none that were able to break his iron grip on the industry. With several of the city’s authorities in his pocket and his own network of dockyard bruisers and informants, all efforts at reform had fallen flat.

  Today, the Faceless Man was searching for his target, someone who could bring him within Crane’s inner circle and give him the opportunity to figure out just what Crane’s connection to his family was. Over the last few days, his gaze had settled on several potential victims, each marked by their vulnerability and the proximity to Bartholomew Crane, the owner of the dockyard.

  The first target was a young sailor who had visited the dockyard several times and, on each occasion, had been welcomed directly up to the dockyard offices. The first time he had seen Crane was actually in this man’s presence, as the two had left the dockyard together, Crane’s arm over the youth’s shoulder in a paternal gesture as they got into one of Crane’s carriages. After asking around discreetly, the Faceless Man learned the youth’s name was Aaron Crane. Aaron was the son of Bartholomew’s sister and one of the few family members still in Bartholomew’s good graces.

  Aaron was one of the few people with such unrestricted access to Crane. However, the Faceless Man soon learned that Aaron was apprenticed to a ship Captain, an old acquaintance of Crane’s, and would soon be setting off on his first voyage to the northern reaches of the continent. Aaron would be gone for at least two months on this journey and would not have any communication with his uncle in that time. Despite his proximity to Crane, the Faceless Man decided it would be too much time away and too difficult to investigate anything related to the church or his family from that vantage point.

  The second possible target was an aged merchant by the name of Oswald Fitzwilliam. Oswald was the son of a middle-class merchant. Rumor had it he was the least liked by the father of four, and received little in the way of inheritance or support. Spurned from youth, Fitzwilliam used that as motivation to make his own way in life, and spent the next forty years growing himself into one of the wealthiest merchants in Alderbridge.

  “I think he might be a good target,” the Faceless Man said to Jacques, thinking of the resources that would be at his disposal if he were successful. Jacques laughed at him.

  “And if my old dog could have talked, he could have been the star attraction at the circus. That’s a Syagrian bodyguard, my friend. You are years of me knocking you to your rear in our little knife fights before you’re ready to face one of them. Unless you can find a way to discreetly murder Mr. Fitzwilliam, I suggest you find a more manageable target.”

  Despite the unexpected rebuff from Jacques, the Faceless Man had kept up his pursuit for a few more days. While loitering outside Crane’s Landing as usual one day, he saw Fitzwilliam storming out just a few minutes after entering for a meeting with Crane, his bodyguard trailing just behind, eyes scanning the area for potential threats. The bodyguard’s eyes locked on the Faceless Man’s. His hand rested gently on the hilt of the Syagrian’s trademark shortsword. He made a motion with his head for the Faceless Man to get lost. Needless to say, he did so.

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  Later that night, as the Faceless Man nursed an ale in the corner of the local pub did he hear the dockers discuss the news.

  “Did you hear old Fitzwilliam and Crane had another one of their fallings out?”

  “Again? I swear those two are like an old married couple.”

  “I’d like to see them two in bed. Like something out of a nightmare.”

  “Yuck. I’d rather kiss a phossy girl.”

  “What’d they fight over this time anyway? With the amount of money they have it, would take something pretty serious for me to give half a shit.”

  “I heard they were discussing plans to extend the landing. With Fitzwilliam’s capital and Crane’s influence, they could buy up a couple of the smaller neighboring ports and nearly double the size of Crane’s Landing.”

  “Them boys at Donald’s don’t know how lucky they are. If Crane got his claws in ‘em, their salary’d be docked fore they could say Bartholomew.”

  The dockers clank their glasses to a few nasty words toward Crane before changing subjects. The Faceless Man had heard enough and lost interest. Finishing his drink and dropping the empty glass off at the bar on his way out, he carefully made his way past the drunks, taking care not to jostle the hood that was keeping his disfigured face out of view. Outside, he looked up once at the night sky. It was going to rain again. This time, there was no joy in his heart for the rain, only a week’s worth of frustration welling up inside.

  Elisia. Elisia.

  He walked through the streets back in the direction of the Church of the Faceless God. He was back to step one. Perhaps Jacques was right, he thought. Maybe he did need to lower his standards. With his level of ability, he needed to start with someone much lower profile and work his way into a position closer to Crane. The time required would be significantly longer, and there was a chance he might never be able to make a connection where one had never previously existed, but it was undoubtedly safer.

  He made his way back to the Chapel of the Faceless God without incident. Lying in his bed, he called to mind Elisia’s face. Going through every feature slowly so as not to lose it. After he was sure he had everything solidified in his memory, he shifted his attention to his breathing, inhaling slowly, and exhaling even slower, feeling his body calm and the faint whispers slowly become inaudible.

  After a few more days of searching and stakeouts, the Faceless Man finally decided on his target. His name was Martin, a former sailor turned dockyard worker. He had come back from his service in the colonies a changed man, and now he was known for his violent temper and penchant for heavy drinking. The Faceless Man had first noticed Martin in a bar, throwing punches after several rounds of dice failed to go his way. The next day, he noticed Martin stumbling into Crane’s Landing, sporting a black eye and particularly irritable due to his hangover. The Faceless Man soon learned Martin was a veteran stevedore, and despite his alcoholism and temper, was given the choice assignments at the dockyard due to his physical strength and his knack for balance when loading and unloading cargo.

  At first, The Faceless man had dismissed Martin as his target as he had no direct contact with Crane, but now with his expectations lowered for his own safety, he started to see Martin’s appeal. Martin’s role gave him steady access to the dockyard. His mood swings and drinking gave him a convenient excuse to keep people at a distance, and explain any behavior that might be inconsistent with Martin’s usual course of action. After running the idea by Jacques, the Faceless Man shifted his entire attention to Martin, shadowing him for nearly a fortnight. During this time, he observed Martin coming and going from the dockyard. In the shadows, he mimicked the way Martin carried himself, shook hands, and made rude gestures when the foreman wasn’t looking. When not stalking Martin, he was with one of Jacques’ contacts, learning the trade of a stevedore. He practiced knots until his fingers bled and learned to use the pole to manipulate heavy boxes. On some nights, Jacques would substitute their usual hand to hand and knife combat for the use of the dockers poles. Jacques claimed this was a good experience for him, but the Faceless Man wondered if he just enjoyed knocking the Faceless Man to the ground from a distance. The contact even arranged some boxes from a rival shipyard, rearranging the contents and making the Faceless Man stack them in such a way they wouldn’t fall while at sea. The Faceless Man particularly enjoyed this part of his training. During those moments of using his brain and body together to solve a puzzle, the rest of his grief and sorrow seemed to fade away.

  After all this training, he was just about ready to make his move. Tonight, he found himself in the alley just beside the house Martin shared with a woman named Boudica. The two had been married by common law, but as Boudica had not been able to bear children, their marriage was not yet fully recognized by the Church. According to the intelligence obtained by some of Jacques' little birds, this was just one of many sources of conflict between the two. The noise of that conflict could be heard as he squatted in the shadows outside their little house. The paper-thin walls did little to muffle the shouting currently resounding within, nor the brief sounds of violence that soon followed.

  A door slammed and Martin stormed off into the night. The nearby buildings maintained a state of stillness, punctuated only by the quiet sobs of a woman trapped in an awful situation no one seemed to care enough to do anything about. As the Faceless Man watched Martin’s silhouette disappear into the foggy night, he thought that maybe human beings were the cause of far more pain than the Cosmics the church cautioned about. In his heart, he decided this was a man who deserved death, and although the role of the Faceless was to seamlessly take the place of their chosen targets, there were a few things he need not imitate.