Prologue

My past. Gobin taught me not to look in that direction, but even when I do, all I see are the faded shadows of my childhood memories. Besides, I don't have a childhood. At least not the kind most people think of when they hear the word. Both my parents died when I was less than six years old. I have few memories of them, I'm not sad when I think of them, and I don't miss them. Since their death, I have only had Uncle Gobin. One of my greatest prohibitions was to speak or ask anything about them. He looked after my life alone, in secret from everyone else, and there were things he didn't share, even with me. 

He and I traveled a lot, almost constantly. Even if we stayed in one city for more than a week, we never slept in the same place. During the ten or so years I lived with my uncle, he taught me more than anyone else in my entire life. He taught me how to read, write, and count. He taught me courtesy and good manners, which were later changed by the rudeness of life on the streets, though I always had them on hand when I needed them.

But that was not all. He made me his apprentice, teaching me how to fight, how to use weapons, how to sneak around unseen, how to climb like a cat, and much, much more. I trained under him every day, and long before I was ten years old, he began to take me on missions, giving me small surveillance tasks and asking for my help. Gobin was a true professional who did the job he was paid to do, whether it was spying, stealing, or even assassination. 

He didn't talk much about the Dark Brotherhood, but I knew he was one of its most skilled members, and though the number of people in that milieu who knew his face could be counted on the fingers of one hand, there were even fewer who had never heard of him.

Although he was reserved and strict, he treated me respectfully, like an adult. He never used anger or violence to teach me. In return, he had my devotion, my respect and, even though he tried to eradicate such a feeling in me, my love. Even though I'd been trained in a ruthless and murderous profession, I was still a small child, and Gobin was all I had: idol, family, friend, and teacher. 

The more I grew up, the more he took me along on his missions. The tasks he gave me were varied: to mislead, to make someone talk or follow targets, to steal an object, to sneak into a house. He'd come up with ingenious plans, and I'd execute them flawlessly, following his instructions to the letter. I participated in dozens of his missions, and they gave me immense pleasure, as if they were a game. A game that ended about five years ago. 

I'll never forget that day. On our last mission, he snuck into the house of an experienced mage. I don't know what his specific objective was, as Gobin never told me more than was necessary. I only had to wait a few minutes for him, but he didn't return. The instructions he had left me in case of a similar situation were very precise, and as always I followed them scrupulously, no matter how much it weighed on me.

I waited a little longer in front of the house, as he had instructed, then spent a day at the inn before finally leaving town. Aimless and directionless, I ended up in Karcep, where I joined a gang of kids who lived on the streets like me. We often stole or performed small tasks of little importance for various people. Of all the boys, the one I got along best with was Chrissam. We were much more talented than the others. He gave me the nickname Cat right away after a mission where I sneaked past a dozen guards into the house of Karcep's richest magistrate. Tano The Shrimp owned a tavern near the sea, but he was also involved in all kinds of business and often needed our services. He took us under his wing, helping us when we had money problems or acting as our protector when we were in trouble, and regularly found us work. It was a pleasant existence until the mission with the Black Narcissus...