Papercuts
Crow traced the ink on the parchment, his fingertips drifting over the signatures. He wasn’t reading names. He was feeling the pressure of the quill, weighing the intent and the force behind each stroke. It was a dark habit of his to find the man within the ink. Yet, as he traced the lines, his thoughts drifted to the voids on the page. Sometimes, the ink that isn’t there carries the most weight.
Taog’s signature was missing. A pity. Crow would have preferred him here, not out of sentiment Taog. He understood the gears of the Castes, and Crow had always held a sharp, jagged respect for a mind that could navigate the laws of Gor as cleanly as a his dagger navigates a ribcage.
Then there was Scar. His absence was predictable, tedious even. Crow had spent years pouring his blood into the man’s cup, only to realize the vessel was bottomless and ungrateful. Scar operated on a deluded sense of entitlement, demanding a loyalty he had never truly bought. A mistake Crow wouldn’t let him make again.
But Solomon… Solomon was the complicated one.
Solomon hadn’t signed, and Crow suspected it was born of a newfound caution. They had been mentor and student once, a dynamic of clear horizons. But the shadows had grown long. With the secrets Crow now carried. This knowledge that could unmake better men and with it the balance had shifted.
Solomon wasn’t an enemy; he was a brother-in-arms, but a brother who now realized the whelp he had raised was fully grown. There was a new, sharp edge to their silence. Crow didn’t resent him for it. He knew better than most that very few people truly saw the man beneath the “Charming Killer.” They saw the flirtatious grin and the easy humour, the polished façade he maintained. They didn’t see the dark depths where his true thoughts lay coiled and hidden. That man in the mirror could never be fooled. “Back to business.” He mused as he rolled up the scroll and stored it in his chest , the lock clicking like a final word..
Important matters were piling up, and Crow could feel the weight of them. This assignment had dragged him across every godforsaken corner of Gor, and as the Tahari sand stung his skin, he realized the people who actually held the answers were likely long gone.
Whispers. That’s all he had. But the air felt different here—he was close. The problem was the distance; he couldn’t be in two places at once, and the clock was running out.
He needed a messenger. “Find the one called Vesper at the Loom,” he told the runner, his voice raspy from the heat. “Or Erebus. You’ll likely find them both there. They’ve known of this business for a long time.”
He sat to write, his hand moving with a precision that felt out of place in the desert. The elegant sweep of the letters betrayed him—it was the handwriting of a man raised in the High Castes, a remnant of his years spent hiding behind the robes of a Scribe and a High Magistrate. This time, he didn’t have the luxury of being cryptic.
I am in the Tahari. I narrowly missed the ‘physicians’ carrying the vial we discussed. Word is they are headed for Ar’s Station. I cannot say if they serve the light or the dark. Whatever you do, do not let that vial be opened—not unless you are certain the light prevails. — Crow
He kept it brief. If the scroll was intercepted, a few vague words might save his life. Now, it was out of his hands. It all depended on whether they were clever enough to read between the lines.
Crows Murder 
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