Haven - Part 3 - Dreams

Mathis was almost too excited to do his job sweeping and picking up trash in the Trade District this morning, he had been dreaming about this day for most of his pitiful life. Pushing his broom with quick strokes that threw clouds of dust into the air he imagined what his life would be like now. The first thing he would do after getting off of work today was head down to the stables where the dragons were housed which he did everyday to ogle the dragons and dream of one day owning a dragon so he could fight it in the arena. Then people would know his name, would scream his name, as he stood on the side of the Arena shouting commands to his dragon. That had been Mathis’s dream for so long that he almost started to believe that it was just that, a dream but last night his fortune had changed as it so often can in the city of Haven. Dragon fighting was a lucrative sport that brought in people from distant lands to watch these marvelous creatures battle for blood and glory. Most fights were not deadly but the losing dragon always went away bloodied; most came back after a few weeks healing to fight in the Arena again. Dragons weren’t exactly seen like property such as a horse, cow, or other animal; it was the dragons that decided where they went and when. Every spring it was an annual festival called The March of the Dragons, to watch the dragons leave Haven in large groups heading for their breeding grounds in the north. On those rocky shores they mated and mingled with the wild dragons and at the end of summer they would fly back with their young in tow. The trainers who had dragons come back with young got to sell that baby dragon and make a tidy some doing so, this of course was fine with the dragons because they were all housed in the same stables. Mathis swept the street methodically going over in his head what he would say when he went to buy his dragon. Since he went to the stables everyday most of the trainers knew him and offered him odd jobs to do for them. The stables were actually a series of caves nearby that offered protection from the elements and a source of freshwater. Having housed dragons for many generations the rocks had become smooth, so smooth that the caves appeared to have been man made. I wonder what they will think of me now Mathis thought finally I’ll be one of them.
Mathis made his way down one of the alleys pulling his wooden cart behind him where a pile of garbage had been left to rot and stink up the city. He kicked at the pile to get any rats to scurry off because he was always afraid of being bitten by those vile creatures. Suddenly he was reminded of what happened to him last night while he was sleeping soundly on his pile of rugs. Someone had kicked him awake probably the man that slept in the next room and always complained of his snoring, maybe he had finally come to make due on his promise to kill him if he didn’t stop the hideous noise. Instead his eye bulged from his head when a gloved hand enveloped the better part of his face making it impossible to scream. He started to struggle against his attacker biting into his gloved hand and getting a mouth full of leather.
“Stop that or I’ll shove this right in your throat!” a mans voice hissed in his ear. Mathis looked up and saw a dagger gleaming in his hand from the soft glow of the moons outside and he immediately stopped trying to fight back. Taking in the mans garb he could think of only one profession in the city where people dressed in all black and went around masked and those people were not strangers to death.
“You scream, you die”, the man stated it as fact then removed his hand from Mathis’s mouth. Gulping air in big breaths he tried to calm himself wishing that his dead mother was here to comfort him. The man unhooked something from his belt and held it in the opposite hand that was holding the stiletto.
“Here are your options Mathis”, the man started, “You can either take this pouch full of gold coins here or you can take this dagger to the heart.”
“The coins, the coins”, Mathis was quick to answer the things he could buy with a purse of gold racing through his mind.
“And for these coins you will do me a favor”, the man went on, “You work as a street sweep in the Trade District, this I know, tomorrow you will ignore anything out of the ordinary and not have a care in the world for what you see. Do you understand? It’s all garbage anyway kid.”
“Yes”, what else could he say to man that offered no alternative?
The man dropped the pouch of gold at Mathis’s feet and turned to leave but stopped a few steps from the door and turned to back to him.
“If you fail at this, you will not see me again before you die”, the man said casually.
Mathis got the message and the image of him being stabbed to death by twenty street children in broad daylight suddenly gave him the chills.
Snapping back to the task at hand Mathis focused on what originally threw him into that daydream a hand sticking out from under the pile of rubbish. He quickly looked behind him to make sure no one was watching as if anyone ever paid attention to a lowly street sweep. Mathis grabbed the stiff hand and quickly yanked the body out of the pile and as it came loose the pile scattered to reveal two more bodies. The first man looked like a noble but he had a large gash across the throat and a puncture wound in the shoulder. The other men looked like guards of some sort, but that was not for Mathis to worry about. He started whistling a tune that he had heard recently at the tavern while he loaded all three bodies into his wooden garbage cart. After piling garbage on top of the bodies he pushed the cart to the end of the alley peeked out into the street making his way to outside of the city where he always dumped his trash daily.
“It’s all garbage anyway”, Mathis said to reassure himself that he had done the right thing. Today his luck had changed and tomorrow he would have a new life, things had never looked better for Mathis.