by Eric Ugland
I thought about asking if this was an hourly type gig, but considering the rather lackadaisical approach to clocks, I had a feeling I already knew the answer.
We did some quick cleaning up of the site, which was largely pushing brooms around trying to get some of the dried mud back into the pit, and then we set up some chairs on the edge of it.
About twenty minutes later, a carriage rolled up to the gate. It wasn’t a posh thing. Instead, it had a utilitarian almost military feel to it. Something highlighted by the soldiers driving the thing and riding on the back of it.
More soldiers got out, leading three men who had chains leading to metal collars around their necks and metal bracelets on their wrists. They looked very much like an Alabama prison chain-gang. Though these guys wore nice robes, not striped or orange jumpsuits.
“What is this?” I whispered to Matthew.
He patted me on the shoulder, then got up and walked across the pit area. He and the head guard spoke, there were some papers signed, and then the chains were removed from the men with robes. The men with robes stretched and made jokes, even with their guards. It was a strange sight. Matthew walked around the pit with the robed men, pointing to the walls, and making comments we couldn’t hear.
“What’s going on?” I asked Nadya.
She looked almost bored at the goings-on.
“Have you never seen Mancers before?” she asked, arching one perfect eyebrow up in disbelief.
“No. I haven’t.”
“Now you have.”
I blinked, then looked at the robed men. I suppose they looked like wizards. In some fashion. They were all middle-aged men, slim builds, little facial hair. The robes were completely different than any other fashion choices I’d seen, but they lacked the mystical or arcane flair I think I was expecting to see. After their tour of the pit, the robed men huddled together and did some talking. I looked over to see Matthew again chatting with the guards, guards who were now lounging about the carriage as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
“This is all really strange,” I said out loud, though I hadn’t really intended to do so.
“Strange?” Nadya asked. “Why?”
“Why all the guards? Why the chains?”
“Where are you from that you don’t know this?”
“Small town. Hamlet. My uncle killed my father and married my mother?”
“Really? That’s messed up.”
“I know, it’s a tragic story, but it consumed my life until now, so, you know, I’m a bit ignorant of your big city ways.”
She gave me the look that made it clear she thought I was full of it, and I was, so, she was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
“The Mancers have to be chained. Keeps them from accessing their mana. And the guards are there to strike the Mancers down if the Mancers do anything against orders.”
“Okay, now that’s messed up.”
She shrugged. “Keeps the magic users from starting a fourth war.”
“Maybe if we treated them like people instead of keeping them chained up, they’d stop starting wars.”
“They were treated like people,” Matthew said, sitting back down next to us, “and that’s why they started wars. They got too much power and thought they should control everyone and everything. They were particularly cruel, more so in each attempt at conquering the Empire. That’s why they wear chains like that today. That’s why they have people willing to kill them for the slightest breach of protocol. It is always difficult to have a regular ol’ mortal person have the power the arcane arts is able to grant, almost always winds up destroying the person and making a monster. That said these guys are quite nice, not looking to cause problems, they’re here to rebuild the pit.”
“What do you mean, rebuild the—”
He waved my question away. “Just watch.”
Naturally skeptical, I did what he suggested, and I watched. What I saw made my brain hurt.
Chapter 49
Magic was wild. Obviously, I’d seen it done before, but only from my own perspective, and then the spells I’d been doing were mostly internal. The three Mancers, I mean they’re wizards, but you know, the language of the realm, spaced themselves equally around the circle, taking more than a few minutes to get it so they were all happy. Arms went up, all three men raising them at the same time. One of them started chanting softly, then a second, and finally, the third. It sounded a bit like they were chanting a round, like an occult row row row your boat.
Small glowing things started to drift out of their hands, a bizarre and fantastic mix of iridescent colors.
The three streams of light motes met in the middle and started swirling around as if they were gathering in power.
A pulse of energy came out of the three men, zipping up to the center mass that seemed to go into overdrive. It was a roiling mass of energy that lasted only a second before it shot a beam down into the ground.
I couldn’t help myself, I stood up so I could get a clear view of the bottom of the pit.
The spot the beam hit was building up stone. These men were making stone! The beam moved around in a rough circle, and after about fifteen minutes, there was a layer of stone all across the bottom, and the pit was significantly shallower.
The men stopped what they were doing, breathing hard and sweating profusely. They walked away from the pit, shaking their hands, doing all the things someone would after a hard run or something.
“Break time,” Matthew said.
“For them or for us?” I asked.
“If you need a break from sitting in the chair, then sure, for you.”
“Are they making stone or pulling it from somewhere?”
“They are making stone. Using magic to pull it from, well, who knows. Maybe an elemental plane of earth where stone is created. I honestly don’t know. I haven’t tried to figure it out.”
It was incredibly tempting to hop into the pit and look at the stone. I wanted to know what kind of stone it was. It looked very regular, very smooth. Like someone was trying to describe the concept of stone, and it was nothing but generic stone. Smooth grey.
Things resumed after about twenty minutes, and the wizards made another layer of stone. It went on and on throughout the day, a cycle of magic and breaks. Magic and break. The breaks kept getting longer and the magic shorter until it was nearly an hour of break and five minutes of stone.
Right about dinner time, the wizards stopped, each drank a large bottle filled with a deep blue liquid, and then built out the walls of the pit during a long stretch of spells, nearly thirty minutes straight.
One of the wizards collapsed. A second threw up. But the third just seemed winded.
The guards came over and helped the two fallen Mancers, while the third hopped into the pit, but literally: this guy just hops off the edge, and then gently floats to the bottom. He walked around, his hands out in front of him, chanting. A blue glow was about him, and as he moved his hands, the stone smoothed out around him. He was doing the finishing work. He kept going for quite a while, finally taking a break when one of the other wizards went to work. Then the third. They kept trading off until the pit was done. A perfectly smooth cylinder going down fifty feet into the ground. The walls were straight up and down. It was incredible.
The last thing that happened was a mancer/wizard dude making two holes on the surface, about a foot apart, about two to three inches wide.
Then there was some more paperwork for Matthew to fill out, and the guards put chains back on the Mancers, got them into the carriage, and rolled out.
Matthew had a ladder that fit perfectly in the surface holes, and as soon as he had it in place, we were done. Pit restored.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We move on to a new pit,” Matthew said.
“What happens to this one?”
“Someone else moves in.”
“Does someone own this? Do pit masters lease them or something?”
&nbs
p; “Are you asking about the economic modality of The Pits?”
“Just curious about it.”
“Someone owns this pit, yes. That person pays me to renovate it. Part of my payment is the things left behind. Once this is cleaned, the owner will likely bring a new pit beast into this hole here. Decides what the creature is going to eat, then feeds the creature waste until the pit looks like it did when we started. Rinse and repeat.”
“Oh. Where is the pit beast now?”
“The breeder's place, I imagine. Or another pit. Hard to tell really.”
“What are pit beasts?”
“Disgusting, primarily. And before you ask for more information about it, I don’t know specifics.”
“It’s actually an umbrella term,” Nadya said, stretching. She’d been napping on and off during the course of the day, seemed like magic wasn’t exactly an interest of hers. “There are a number of creatures people consider and call Pit Beasts.”
“Are you a pitbeast expert?” Matthew asked, somewhere between surprised she’d woken up to say something and irritated he’d been corrected.
“Not an expert, no,” she replied, getting to her feet. “But I’ve looked at more than a few of them.”
“I think it’s a family of creatures,” Matthew said, “but I really only clean up after them. I’d rather not have to deal with them.”
“Supposedly, some of them are a little psychic.”
“What are these creatures?” I asked.
“Pit Beasts,” Matthew said.
He left the conversation and walked into the stone cottage.
“If you want,” Nadya said, “I know a place we can meet one. See it up close and stuff.”
“That would be super cool.”
She nodded, and I think she was about to work out a date to do the thing, but that’s when Matthew came back and tossed a small pouch at me.
I caught it from the air, and it clinked.
“Pay for the work here,” he said. “You did well.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But am I—”
“You want to come to the next job, you can. I’d be happy to have you.”
“He offered me continued employment last night,” Nadya said with a smirk, I think trying to rub it in that she was first. “You coming back?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“I like to hear that,” Matthew said. “Take whatever you need from here, once those gates are closed, I can’t open them anymore.”
“Can’t you just climb over?” I asked.
“Enchanted walls. A key factor to the pits being the pits. If the gate is closed, nothing can go over the walls. And I’m turning the key over tonight.”
Mild hypocrisy to use magic items and the like, but hate on the casters. I didn’t say anything out loud, I didn’t think I’d get much in the way of sympathy.
Nadya watched me for a minute, then she stood up.
“Tomorrow then,” she said. “At the new site.”
Then she strode out like she had a place to be.
“Never learn, do you?” Matthew asked.
“What?”
He just shook his head.
Chapter 50
Matthew and I walked out together, and I gave him the abbreviated version of my interaction with the Biscuits Union. He nodded along as he listened, and barely asked any questions. When I was done, though, he stopped walking and looked at me.
“That’s just odd,” he said. “And doesn’t sound much like Rowland.”
“You know him?”
“I knew him. He and I weren’t ever close. Not really. Friends, but only just. He’s a goof, a nobleman who started stealing things because he liked the challenge, but then realized he was good at it and liked the people in the business. I know, after I left, he had a thing happen, we’re talking years back. Ten at least. He went after something big. The whole team was taken down. Three killed in the attempt, one in the escape, two are hung, and one rotted in prison. No one gave him up. Or the union. But I think a lot of people thought twice about joining, and if I remember hearing correctly, Rowland was never really the same. Could be, he just doesn’t want to bring anyone new aboard, doesn’t want to take the chance something bad’ll happen again.”
“Might have been good information to have, like, you know, yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, I told you to talk to them. To ask about things. Not join up.”
“You have a point there.”
He raised his eyebrows and sent a smug smile my way, and he started walking again.
“I won’t say you’re screwed,” he said, “but this won’t end well.”
“Nobles as enemies?”
“That presumes you are successful, and that’s the best-case scenario. You might muck this thing all the way up, wind up swinging from a rope. You rob a bakery or a cobbler, when you get caught, you’ll get tossed in the clink for a spell. Have to pay a fine, do a little time. But you rob a noble, hanging will be the lightest sentence you get. They’re a different level than our lot.”
“And Rowland is one of them?”
“He is. Has a name and a title and land. He’s not the head of his family, or in line to inherit anything magnificent, but he still gets the privileges afforded to the high and mighty.”
“Like death to those who cross him?”
“There is still law in the Empire. But once you break that law…”
This was not the way I thought this conversation was going to go, and I felt a certain level of disturbed that I was with this group now.
“I can leave them, right?” I asked.
“The Biscuit’s Union? Yes,” he said. “But should you? I don’t think so.”
“Wait—”
“There’s a reason behind this. You need someone to watch your back. I might be able to give you some more training, I know I can, but I can’t watch out for you. Nor can I do things like steer you to a fence who won’t perpetually screw you. Or get you jobs when you need more money than digging shit out of holes will net you.”
“How much money did I earn for this?” I asked.
“We did ridiculously well,” he replied, “so ten gold.”
“What would a normal job be?”
“For a week and a half of work? Gold and a half.”
“One gold a week?”
“Thereabouts. But it depends on what we find and what we harvest.”
I really wanted to ask how much he was being paid, but I didn’t think it polite to ask that, not of the guy who was technically my boss and actually my mentor/trainer.
“You’re cleared to continue training with me?” Matthew asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I can also talk to you about the challenge. Or test. Whatever you want to call it.”
“It’s a washout mission.”
“Impossible?”
“Nothing is impossible. Highly improbable, but not impossible. I might be wrong about it. I don’t know this Tollendahl. Or his family. He might have glaring weaknesses in his security. Before you tell Rowland to piss off, make a walk around of the lord’s estate. Find ways in, and, more importantly, out. See where you can exit not just the estate, but the neighborhood. If you don’t do things perfectly, it’ll be like stomping on a hornet’s nest in a closet.”
“Can do,” I said. “And what are we training tomorrow?”
“Depends on what we find at the pit,” Matthew replied with a smile. “Hopefully more than shoveling shit.”
We parted ways at the edge of the Pits neighborhood, he was heading uptown, and I was heading towards Old Town. I needed to talk to Titus in the bar, see if he knew where I might find ol’ Lord Fancypants.
Chapter 51
He did. He even drew a small map for me. The estate in question was in one of the poshest neighborhoods, on the eastern border of the Imperial Palace. It was another of the occasions where I had to talk to Titus in the back of the bar, and we had an even shorter conversation than before, as his wife’s patience
levels seemed to be at an all-time low. We’d barely spoken for five minutes before she came barging in, yelling at Titus. She smiled at me though, so that was nice.
I told Titus to hire another bartender or two, and he waved me off, saying he’d already hired two cooks. I can attest to the cooks being worth it, I ate a big meal of meat and some noodles, and it was absolutely delicious. A bit spicy, but in the way where you just feel warm afterward, not full of heartburn.
Leaving the bar when it was dark, I debated on my destination before deciding to go check out Tollendahl’s estate. It was definitely a long walk, but I wasn’t sure of the local detectives’ abilities, and I didn’t want to leave a paper trail by taking a carriage. I mean, I was reasonably certain there was no CSI Glaton edition, but you never knew. Besides, taking a carriage that far was going to eat up multiple days pay. Seemed wasteful. I took the time to do a little sightseeing on the way, though, passing through the Forum and looking at the beautiful buildings there, and going all the way up to the walls around the Imperial Palace. It was an incredible group of structures, truly immense and, as far as I could tell, the apex of modern Glatonese architecture. All sorts of columns, flying buttresses, stained glass windows, clever uses of different rocks to give the place style and texture. It was magnificent.
The Senate building was also kind of cool, it was a big dome. Like, a really big dome. And that was neat, but it definitely lacked the raw charm and overwhelming presence of the palace. There were lots of very nice, but small, homes around the Senate building, and from the looks of them, they were city homes for nobles in the Senate. Single-family townhouses mostly.
It wasn’t until I walked much further north and a little to the east, that I came across the estates. The places where there was a wall, and then grass and trees and the like before the house. These were the homes of the truly rich and famous of Glaton. The buildings were massive, and the grounds surrounding the estates seemed more like parks than, well, yards.
