Post by Sire Halfblack on Jun 11, 2015 18:19:46 GMT
Mid Sunner IM 1015
A hot day and hard work, and a man deserved a drink. There had been little dust on the trail, an event unique in Jander’s experience but that was no excuse not to clump through the swing doors and settle along the familiar bar. Holding up three fingers, he rapped them on the counter as the tapman fetched up a tin cup.
“Traveller,” said a voice from across the silent tavern. “You don’t look faithful to me.”
Jander did not turn. He had seen the three toughs on entering and paid them no more notice now than he had then.
“Traveller, you don’t look like you’ve paid your respects to golden balls to me.”
Jander took his drink and paused only for a moment before knocking it back in one. Only then did he care to answer, “Yes, about that…”
Only one person in the Cart & Hammer had Jander recognised. The faces were all new, which was not completely surprising given the nature of the town. But it had been a long time since anyone of note and name had been here and there were plenty of people that wouldn’t have been considered heroes even had they saved a hundred days, and they saw opportunity too. There was a lot of wealth nowadays in the Badlands. Jander knew well that most of that was less tangible than simple grulls, but in Forgetown grulls however simple were the reason for that to be true. The people here if they were unshaved were better dressed than he remembered. Their clothes were garish. Stripes and well cut coats. They were traders, and a lot had settled here. Others had come from far away. Forgetown was a place to do business, business often away from the eyes of people for whom a bastard sword was justice, and injustice might be not taking a crate of chickens to market.
Jander wasn’t sure what to make of it all. His first thought, his oldest thought, was that there was smiting to be done. His second was that no one was actually getting murdered, or no more than anywhere, and people were getting on by; getting on by well at that. His third thought was that that was a good thing, but did they have to be so… rude about it? So villainous somehow? Couldn’t they all be a bit poorer, and get a proper mine disease of the lungs for the good of their souls? His second to last thought was that it was only villainous if Anath, Troy and all the rest of them were villainous too; it was a question of scale. His last thought was to punch the closest of the roughs so hard he staggered back, arms cartwheeling for ten paces before sliding down the wall.
“I’m Jander…” he announced, then to frowns, “Sunstar? The Forge? Golden balls!”
Ah, they nodded. Some looked a little worried.
“Stop this, this taking my name in vain. Stop all this… making sure people worship me, and only worshippers trade here, or those that can afford to. It stops, this… all stops.”
“What about…” one of the women in the tavern raised a hand.
“Anyone get hurt?”
“Depends on what you mean, god?”
“Dead, broken bones?”
“No more than usual,” she admitted, “Less than many.”
“Right then,” he didn’t have the time to put on the tin badge and clear up the town. Hell, there was someone that did that already and all this bunco, this flummery, it wasn’t good, but Forgetown needed to be told. “Be told!” he told it.
And it was.
*
The wells had been improved. That was nice, thought Troy, but he hadn’t been aware of anyone overseeing that sort of thing. Whilst they looked very much the same as they ever had in shape at least, there were lines of ornate silverwork across the surfaces, and especially the doors. Unused to having to knock Troy waited until those doors opened, these were beggars after all and it was right and proper that they remembered that.
*
He needed better ears out on the streets. There were a lot of streets after all and only so many ears. That wasn’t entirely true; there were at least as many ears in Deci as there were people, doubtless more, but they didn’t all talk to the right people. He had for a week now passed so unseen amongst the city that many people only noticed him when he had left their immediate vicinity, and then they didn’t really notice that they had noticed at all. He needed somewhere to start, some thread, some clue, some nail upon which to hang his nosiest hat.
People did talk and it was in Hightown that they were talking now because Master Blackwood of the Hound Fetters had been killed. The Fetters weren’t a very important guild, but their master by complete contrast was. Blackwood had belonged to other guilds before this, he had a place in Hightown that he called home, and if it wasn’t so very high in the rising quarter then still that was a good address. It was likely that Blackwood had bought his place in the guild, it happened with the smaller ones, and didn’t have much to do with it otherwise other than keep everyone happy with the right amount of folding treasure. People died in Deci often, and Blackwood had been assassinated or murdered, and was dead. One of those inspecting the scene was so dreadfully ordinary that he was very likely something important in the assassins. He looked irritated, because it looked like assassination and they had certainly not done it.
“What’s to be done!” Blackwood’s neighbour, Mrs Alberoy (owner of several bakers) demanded to know.
“I shall send for the governor, ma’am,” said the probably-an-assassin. The proper assassins regarded themselves as much a part of the city as the scribes, but more likely to actually have to do some work. This city, the other one, either way. They consequently treated everyone with respect. It didn’t do to offend the custom, the custom hereabouts could afford their services.
“Hello,” said Selgard, having counted to one hundred he now appeared in answer to the promised summons. It didn’t hurt his reputation one bit. “Sorry about the delay,” he reached for an egg to add to the pudding, “cart crash in tinstink lane. What appears to have happened?”
*
“Trapped dreams, young master? A spider that bites a lie? Here, a knife that will never fail you?” The bazaar spread over many streets, and the alleyways were not always the same one day to the next. Shops piled on shops and stalls even made little bridges so that people frequented the crowded lanes in the Invisible Quarter as much to look as they ever might to buy. Not so far away a great bear boasting curling horns sat before an anvil and hammered flat rusted metal to leave it clean. Inside a curtained stall nearby a dark elf woman was spinning fortunes. Here between a shop selling silvered glassware and another in which were hung a thousand pots a man without a nose sat between cages and packs and all upon a worn carpet. It was hot, gaspingly hot in a season that had turned like a teased bull and beneath the poison smog of Deci an ice elemental might melt.
“No, none of that,” said Xanion. It was important for him not to be seen as being too curious. He was a Majius, and that was important, for what he did here reflected on the whole of that House. He affected insouciance in the face of so many wonders, petty, colourful and doubtless somewhere true. “In fact I’m looking for someone.”
“Someone that might want a fish that changes colour when danger threatens?” the curiosity peddler held up a bowl in which there was indeed a fish, and one as white as a boiled cod.
“What colour does it go?” Xanion asked despite himself.
“White, young master.”
“Is there then danger nearby?”
“It’s Deci, young master,” Noseless laughed, “when isn’t that the case?”
“Avental…”
“Bless you,” Noseless barked.
“I want to speak to Avental.”
Noseless beckoned the young man closer, “I might know where she can be found,” he whispered. “But she definitely would be more pleased to see you if you had,” he picked up a rotten little skullcap, “a zucccheto from a priest of a dead god.”
Xanion raised an eyebrow, “How much?”
“Two hundred grulls, and all yours master.”
“That had better include directions…”
*
“Do I know you?” asked Selgard.
“I hope not, governor,” the probably-assassin said politely.
“Then for convenience I shall call you Stinky?”
The probably-assassin spared Selgard a wearisome look, “Cottle will suffice, governor,” it wasn’t his name, they both knew that. Selgard didn’t actually recognise him, but conversely absolutely did recognise what he was. Quite an important one too. More than that, so very much guilded that Selgard had rarely known a fellow to be able to wear so many patches. That was interesting. “Guild Master, my business, governor? That does not mean I wish you to go away, indeed quite the opposite. Good day to you.”
“Ha ha,” Selgard said the words, it was not a laugh. “Stay here. Let’s see what we see, and then see what the other has not.”
*
Adjusting the cushions beneath her, Berina luxuriated in a return home. The servants were notably better here, they knew how to treat someone born to be better, and if there was a cold soul of fear sat hard within them then that was just the sign of people who were aware of their duties.
“Did you enjoy your visit?” Troy wanted to know.
“Like a snake biting its own tail,” Berina said, less cryptically than confusingly.
*
“Cake?” the old woman did not look especially draconic. Nor dangerous either, but then Xanion hadn’t the fish to tell that. The shop, like many, was small. It crowded amongst others that even in the terrible heat of the day had to be lit. A squat toad of a thing fanned them with a woven leaf but the effort barely moved the air, and its sweet fug of rot and incense. Xanion having never had to work a day in his life could not understand why the bazaar bustled best during the day. The day though was when people did not; Deci was a nocturnal employer.
“No,” said Xanion, then because he didn’t want to show any fear, and because it did look like a pretty decent sort of cake, changed his mind with a curt, “Oh, very well.”
She was called Latmis and in bags big, and bags small she sold forgotten thing. People came here, Xanion had learned, because when someone simply mislaid anything she might be able to find it for them. Not if they were thieved, just genuinely lost. The bags all looked full but it seemed that there was nothing in any of them until someone paid to have found what they had lost. This talent was called avental, and it was Ishmaic, though the old lady didn’t look to be that with her peeled turnip Deci pallor and the mop of red-grey hair that acted as a halo. Xanion explained what he wanted.
“It is more difficult to find something someone had lost,” she explained. “They had to have forgotten they ever had it at all.”
“By difficult, do you mean ‘more expensive’?”
“This is why I am such a supporter of the king,” Litmas beamed. “The blood are so much more supporting of the little trader.”
“That and the king always provides for his family from the profits of the estate,” Xanion smiled thinly. He blinked, stilling further words. It was considerably easier to pay someone for something if that was possible than quest for it instead. Besides which, this was a shop. If coming here Xanion did not offer to pay for something then Anath would let Troy know, and there would be words. Worse, less treasure come next gift day. “I will pay.”
“You do not wish to haggle?”
“Would it do any good?”
“This is Deci, my lord. I am always happy to haggle, I get a better price.”
“Then no,” said Xanion, “I do not wish to haggle, oh and there is this,” he produced the skullcap.
Litmas whistled. “That’s nice, genuine too.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Is that a gift for me?”
“No,” said Xanion quickly, “I just thought it polite to show.”
*
The steel cooled rapidly after being placed in the oil. Jander recalled when a new apprentice at the warsmiths had been set to fill the bucket anew one morning, and not knowing anything regarding the craft had used lamp oil. He winced at the thought. For a day now he had been pondering, thinking, letting his mind roam. There came a knock on the open side of the forge and he looked up to see a handsome fellow, crop-headed but with an uneven smile looking in.
“Hello? I’m sorry to disturb you but I thought you could tell me where the poorest hamlet in the land can be found,” he held up a few hundreds as if that explained everything.
“You wish to make a donation?”
“Very much, in a manner of speaking. I’m a robber, but I’m trying to do the other thing too. It was when Bell was murder-killed by heroes for being a folk hero, you see? He robbed from the rich, well, the mostly rich. I’m a robber, as I say. I realised that the moment he died. But I’ve been away. You’re a primal god too aren’t you? I was tortured, mostly,” he beamed.
Jander closed his mouth, left gaping after the verbal assault. “If you’re a robber I’m going to kick your arse. I warn you, I’ve been kicking arse for days now and it’s always only practise.”
The stranger laughed. “No, no. I’m doing the other part. I used to be bad, now I’m not. They took all that from me, killed me. But I’m still me, you see. New body, taken me all this time to get good again. And I have to be good, they took the bad you see. Those you are thinking so loud about. Should I go and find Asa and Tsu-Ling? I can probably help. I run away a lot now though. It’s great being back, this is what I used to be before all that curses and armour and horror and loss, and…” he paused, “I don’t know, that was taken too. Anyway, look, where’s the poorest place in the Badlands?”
Jander had to ask. An hour later he returned to find the man again, “There’s an awful old place some distance from here. It’s just called Awful.”
“That’s good enough, a name is all I need,” with which the man walked out. Jander poked his head through the doorway but the fellow was gone. For a time Jander walked up and down, limping, then hopping, then altogether working in a mysterious way.
*
On the banks of a dry dust river stood a collection of horrible huts. The people here had been brigands, but they had reformed quickly exactly two days ahead of wherever Siren had gone a good ten or fifteen years before. It had been hard on them. Nothing here to mine, little grew, and they had never been farmers anyway. Every year they died a little more. Forty in number still they huddled together when the nice man stepped from the other side of their sole and solitary tree.
“I hear tell,” he said, “That the hamlet of Awful is the poorest, most wretched place in the whole of the Badlands?” no one disagreed, the man nodded. “In that case then, who wants to sleep with me for a grull?”
By Alan Morgan