But by then Jim was fully ensconced in the intrigue and politics of the nation, an agent for the King working in the darkest alleys as well as on the roofs and in the sewers of the cities of the Western Realm. To everyone he met he was either James Dasher Jamison, only son of Lord Carlstone of Rillanon, grandson of the Duke, or he was Jim Dasher, a member of the Mockers, the apparently roughly – but in reality very well-organized criminal underground of the city.
By the time he was taken into the Conclave at the age of twenty-seven, he was a practised thief, assassin, and spy for the crown, considered their finest operative and perhaps the most dangerous man not a magician in the Kingdom. Jim cared nothing for his reputation, for most part being ignorant of it, but he did take pride in doing whatever he did well. For it was here, in the darkest hours of the night when he was alone with himself that he truly understood himself: he was the great-great-grandson of Jimmy the Hand, the most legendary thief in the history of the Mockers. One-time street urchin, servant to Prince Arutha, advisor to kings and princes, at his death he had been the most powerful Duke in the Kingdom. Jim was less clear about his own personal ambitions – he had no desire to be a duke; he loved adventure too much to be cooped up in a palace in meetings all day. He enjoyed the intrigue, murder, skulking in shadows, and being faster than the other man, that much luckier than the fellow trying to kill him, more intelligent than his opponent. He relished the constant sense of danger and the incredible sense of accomplishment he got from his missions. At the end of one, he welcomed the hot baths and clean sheets, the company of willing women, the wine and food, but after a few days he wanted nothing more to be back in the alleys, running silently across rooftops or slogging through the sewers, one hand on his knife hilt, waiting for an attack he was certain was around the next corner.
But there were moments, like the one he was experiencing now, sitting cold and alone in the dark on the top of a distant ridge of mountains, when he judged himself quite mad. To himself he muttered, ‘No sane man could want this life.’
But he knew he did want it, even needed it. He had made up the Jimmyhand story as a blind, a way to make his relationship with Jimmy the Hand of Krondor a seemingly false claim, thereby heading off any possible suspicion that he was, indeed, that worthy’s great-great-grandson, and therefore the son of nobility. Too many people still lived who might connect the grandson of Lord James of Rillanon with his own grandfather, the legendary former thief-turned-noble, Lord James of Krondor.
No, he admitted to himself, Jim loved this life, even the bloody-handed work, for he knew he belonged to something larger than himself, and he was certain that every man whose life he had taken had deserved it. That sense of serving something more important than his own petty desires had taken what had been little more than a collection of rash impulses, a self-indulgent desire for danger and thrills, and turned it into something useful, even noble at times, and in that, Jim had discovered a balance to his life.
Then things had changed and he experienced a set of feelings that were new to him. He had met a woman.
As he sat on top of a peak in a distant land, waiting for the sun to rise so that he could find his way safely to ships at anchor in shark-infested waters to carry word to a band of magicians about some creatures from the darkest pit of hell and a band of elves no one had ever heard of, all he could think of was would he ever see Michele again?
The sun had begun to light the eastern sky and the solid mass of darkness below him was now resolving itself into defined shapes. He pushed aside thoughts of his new love, and his constant concern that having someone to care for was perhaps the worst idea he had ever considered, and looked deep into the gloom. At first the still-impenetrable shadows confounded his eye, but after a while he began to discern a way down. What he had at first thought might be a tiny rivulet formed by ice melt or rain, looked promising, and he started moving towards it. After reaching the head of the small gully, he decided to venture slowly downwards and made a silent prayer to Ban-ath, God of Thieves, who also was considered the God of Misadventures: if there was every an undertaking worthy of being called that, this was it, thought Jim Dasher.