Bargain

by Riley S. Keene

  Coming July 2018!

  Meanwhile...

  Regrets had always interested him.

  Everyone had regrets, even if they said they didn’t. Even if they lived their lives to the fullest potential.

  Regrets were just part of being human.

  Currently there was an unconscious man in a privy three blocks away who was regretting who he challenged to a drinking contest. There was a woman in a tavern nearby who regretted ordering a Cave Pepper Beer instead of a blander drink after it spilled all over her. Somewhere in Lublis, his father’s wife was probably still regretting hiring his mother. His employer upstairs was probably starting to regret coming to Jalova in the first place. And across the street, there was a man stumbling around his own home, regretting that he hadn’t lit his own lights.

  In the last man’s defense, he couldn’t have known that the beacon of the Temple would ever go completely dark.

  Detlev regretted that he hadn’t changed identities yet.

  He loved being Detlev, simply because Detlev was no-nonsense, but also mischievous at the same time, and the duality was fun to explore. But after what he did in Auernheim, the authorities would move Grunith and Neuges to find him. Unfortunately, he met his current employer as Detlev, and he couldn’t very well show up with an entirely different name, face, and personality and hope to get paid. And if anyone living could connect Detlev to his new identity, it was only a matter of time before Detlev’s crimes caught up to the new guy.

  He blew out a long breath.

  It was almost time.

  He pushed away from the wall of the Temple he leaned against, crossed his arms with a scowl, and set his feet.

  His employer sprinted out of the entrance to the Temple and slammed into Detlev at full speed. The younger man was not very sturdy, but he had been prepared, and his employer bounced off, almost falling to the ground. The old man was panting heavily, and while the illusionary images around him made it difficult to tell by sight, Detlev could smell that he was drenched in his own blood.

  “So Ibeyar,” Detlev said conversationally, “did that go as well as you planned?”

  “I didn’t hire you for your sense of humor,” Ibeyar snarled. The old man straightened up and winced, grabbing his shoulder. “I hired you to get me out of here if things went poorly.”

  “You’re the one who said ‘if things went poorly’.” Detlev grinned. The blurring afterimages around Ibeyar hurt his eyes, so he stopped using them, instead focusing on his other senses to ignore the illusion. “My words, which is what we mutually agreed to, said ‘when’.”

  Ibeyar pressed his lips into a firm line. Focused on his other senses as he was, Detlev could almost hear the man’s internal monologue. Ibeyar believed himself so high and mighty. He believed that the crime of being mildly irritating was one punishable by death. But the old man just kept reminding himself that he had to leave Jalova as quickly as possible, and without Detlev, he would be rooted out by the Overseers and killed. Ibeyar told himself that he couldn’t kill Detlev while he was still useful. Detlev was absolutely tickled by the thought, and his grin only grew wider.

  If this poor fool couldn’t deal with the adventurers he just fled from, what hope could he possibly have against him?

  “Conscripts saw me leaving,” Ibeyar said at last. “We don’t have time for this.”

  As if on cue, the sound of rattling armor and pounding boots began to approach from the direction Ibeyar appeared from.

  “I would tell you that you’re paying extra for me having to deal with them,” Detlev said with a sigh as he started away from the Temple. “But that implies that I ever believed I was getting paid more than the deposit you already gave me.”

  “You will be paid,” Ibeyar snapped, “as long as you prove that you’re worth the money.”

  Detlev was no fool. The old man would have fled Jalova without paying him if his plan had gone as expected. Detlev was a backup plan, and you didn’t pay for a backup you didn’t use. Regardless, Detlev had asked for a deposit large enough to establish his next identity without the other half of the payment Ibeyar owed. It wasn’t worth arguing about.

  The pair ran through the streets of the city. Detlev led them on a zig-zagging path to try and shake the Conscripts chasing them, but Ibeyar was slow. Too slow. The injury on his shoulder was bloody, but superficial. The real damage was to his hip. A glancing blow had given the old man a limp. It would likely be gone by morning, but until then, it meant the clattering of Conscript armor was gaining on them instead of dropping away.

  “We’ll need to fight them,” Detlev warned. Ibeyar looked at him like he was crazy. “You’re not fast enough to outrun them, and they won’t stop.”

  “What are,” Ibeyar gasped, clearly pushing himself to his physical limit to keep up with what Detlev considered a sluggish pace, “you talking... about?”

  “You’re too slow.” Detlev shrugged as he pulled the crossbow from the harness on his back, still easily keeping pace with the old man. “They saw you flee the scene after their God vanished. They want answers and revenge. The only way they stop chasing you is if we make them.”

  Ibeyar ducked around a corner and stopped running, almost collapsing against a wall. He grabbed at his bleeding shoulder again, wincing. He would be useless in a fight. Detlev stopped next to him and grimaced.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Detlev said with a dramatic sigh. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter if he wasn’t going to get paid. Ibeyar needed to get out of the city. There was still more for him to do.

  “There are,” Ibeyar gasped for breath like a fish flung from the river, “too many of them.”

  Detlev wanted to say so many things. He was at the end of his time as Detlev at last, so it wouldn’t matter if he broke character to yell at the man about underestimating him. Or over-dramatizing his superficial injuries. Or for making the boneheaded choices that led him to being collapsed in a bloody mess in a Jalovan back alley.

  Instead, he just grinned. Grinned that big, eerie, un-Detlev grin that no one still alive ever got to see.

  The way he grinned before he danced.

  Detlev ducked out of the alley with his crossbow up. The first bolt left the crossbow before his eyes fell to the target, driven by raw instinct into the eye of a Conscript of Teis. The weapon was reloaded before the body hit the ground. Detlev lowered the weapon, hands deftly drawing the bow back to cock it, and when it came back up the next quarrel leapt from it and into another eye socket in a flash.

  There had been eight Conscripts.

  Now there were six.

  They were still a full block away, so the crossbow went down, the bow drew back, and the crossbow came up again. There was a soft click and a thrum of the string.

  Now there were five.

  The remaining Conscripts descended on him. Three of them had swords, and two wielded maces. All wore their tabards over chainmail.

  Detlev himself was entirely unarmored, and besides his crossbow, he only had a token dagger at his hip. They thought he was as good as dead as soon as they closed. Beside him, Ibeyar struggled to get back to his feet to start running. Such little faith for a man who demanded so much of his employees.

  The crossbow bounced twice on the cobbled stones after Detlev tossed it away. It was sturdy and didn’t break, and for that he was grateful. Those things could be expensive. He drew his dagger smoothly and was ready when the Conscripts closed with him.

  He danced.

  His body contorted and twisted as the first Conscript swiped their sword at his throat. The weapon passed a hair’s breadth from his skin, and he leaned in after it passed. Detlev looked the Conscript right in the eye as he leaned in close to him. He could see the reflection of his own maniac grin in those eyes for just a moment. And as he stepped around the man, blood fountained from three wounds that seemed to just appear. With his throat a criss-crossed ruin and a puncture wound collapsing his lung, he didn’t even scream. The Conscript just floppe
d down face-first and died.

  A mace came down at his head, and he spun around the blow, letting it pass through his hair as he swept in close to its wielder. This time he saw the fear in his eyes as he met them. Was that terror for his oncoming death? Or was he afraid for the fate of Jalova at the loss of Teis? Detlev almost let the man live to ask him. But it was probably fear of death. He was in combat with Detlev Scherer. What was the point of fearing for a future you would never see?

  Detlev drove his dagger first into the Conscript’s elbow, and then into his armpit, where the armor was weak. He danced around the man and drove a final blow into the back of his neck, the point of his long dagger poking out of the front of the man’s throat. The damaged artery dumped blood directly down the Conscript’s windpipe. This one had enough breath to scream, but the sound was a gurgling mess as he began to drown in his own blood.

  Two more Conscripts approached at once, shouting their fury at him for their fallen comrades. He danced circles around them. A dozen tiny cuts opened on each one. A slice across the knuckles sending a mace to tumble across the street. A deep wound on the forehead dropping a blinding curtain of blood.

  Detlev made fools of them before they died.

  In their last moments he enjoyed looking into their eyes and seeing desperation. Fear. Understanding. This was their end. They had lived their lives only to die here. And there was no other possible outcome. They could never have survived this fight. And they knew it as they fell to the ground, bleeding out.

  He expected the last one to run.

  She charged instead.

  Detlev admired her bravery, however useless it was.

  Her sword grazed his sleeve, not even a solid enough hit to cut the fabric, and he was inside her guard. She stepped into him, pressing her body against his to keep him from bringing his dagger in at her chest or throat, and raising her armored arm to try and intercept his stabs at her side or head.

  It was a noble effort. She had seen enough of him fighting to try and use his own tricks against him. He would have loved to get to know her better. Perhaps as his next identity. Someone to show a newcomer around Jalova, help them establish contacts, find a place to live, and someday even call him a friend. Her eyes were such a beautiful shade of blue, and there was no fear, no desperation, no terror. There was strength there. Determination. He could grow to like this woman, not just as a tool to establish his identity, but as himself. As he stared into her eyes, he could see her bared soul, and it was a rare treasure.

  It was a shame he was already dancing.

  He let her free hand close around his wrist, holding his dagger at bay. He locked his other arm around her sword arm and shoved forward. He slammed her into a wall, and his forehead met her nose. Her head snapped back against the wall, stunning her. The Conscript’s grip on his dagger hand loosened and his blade plunged into her side through her splint mail armor, the tip finding a gap every time, plunging deeply into innards over and over again. He stepped away as blood appeared on her lips, and his dagger flashed back and forth. Her throat opened, and then the wound opened again, deeper. She swiped her sword at him as she fell, and he whirled away from the blow, not even giving her the satisfaction of landing a single cut.

  The last thing she saw was that maniac grin finally starting to fade.

  Detlev turned back to Ibeyar as he drew out a cloth to wipe his bloodied dagger clean. He frowned at the hand holding it. There was blood spattered across it halfway up to his elbow. Cleaning the blade was then only for the blade’s sake. It wouldn’t make him less conspicuous.

  Ibeyar was sitting on the ground, looking both lost and afraid. It was a good look for him. The old man got control of himself quickly, clearing his throat and putting back on his usual thin veneer of confidence as he struggled back to his feet.

  “Do you think they’ll follow you?” Detlev asked conversationally as he sheathed his dagger.

  “Not anymore, it seems.” Ibeyar tipped his head back and looked down his nose at the bloody corpses in the street. The fool was probably telling himself that he did the deed. It made it easier to tell the lie to others when you started telling it to yourself as early as possible.

  “Not them,” Detlev said as he bent to retrieve his crossbow, gingerly returning it to the harness on his back, trying not to get any blood on the wood. “Ydia’s lot.”

  Ibeyar flinched, and Detlev appreciated the long moment the man paused to decide if he wanted to deny their existence or say something high-and-mighty about how they were no threat.

  “I already have plans in place if they do,” Ibeyar said at last.

  “There you go again.” Detlev allowed himself to smirk. “You could learn a lot from the people around you if you didn’t think them so far below you. Take this lesson from me: don’t plan for if they follow you.” He narrowed his eyes. “Plan for when they follow you.”

  “Yes, of course.” Ibeyar waved a hand dismissively. “Please, continue to argue semantics of my word choice.”

  Detlev offered only a shrug. He wanted to pick a fight, to try and peel away the narcissistic attitude the man had cloaked himself in and make him truly think about his actions and grow as a person. But he didn’t need to. It was a waste of time, so he kept his mouth shut.

  “Regardless,” Ibeyar continued, straightening his robe, as if he could erase his blood all over it through pure decorum, “you have proved yourself to be a worthy underling. If you continue to be useful, I may allow you to join my inner circle. Your skills would be useful in my current endeavor.”

  “Oh boy!” Detlev said, laying sarcasm so thickly into his words that he could almost feel it physically dripping from his lips. “Could I?” He batted his eyes like a love-struck child and then scoffed. “I’m not interested. At all. But what I am interested in is getting paid for the work I’ve already done for you.”

  “You will get your money,” Ibeyar said, stepping closer to Detlev. Did he think he looked menacing? “You will get all of it and more, if you join me. I have bodyguards in plenty, but none of them have your other skills. Join me, and you will be rewarded.”

  “Rewarded?” Detlev arched an eyebrow. “Will it be the same reward the Overseers received? Or perhaps that of your lackeys from Auernheim? Maybe even whoever you have waiting for you in Jirda?”

  Ibeyar snapped out the words to his blur spell again, weaving the words quickly. Detlev could have interrupted it with a quick kick, but decided against it. It was trivial to lean on his other senses and ignore the illusion. The older man’s sword swept through an over complicated path to leave afterimages to obscure its motion, but it was useless against Detlev. He reached through the illusion and his hand snapped up, catching Ibeyar’s wrist and twisting.

  The sword fell to the ground and Ibeyar leaped back, leaving his afterimage face-to-face with Detlev as he scrambled for the knife hidden in his boot. Embracing his other senses as he was, Detlev could almost hear the panic running through the old man’s mind. Detlev knew too much. He knew about Ibeyar’s operations, and he knew where he was going. He obviously couldn’t be allowed to live.

  How boring.

  Ibeyar lunged forward, trying to thrust his boot knife through the illusion he left behind to catch Detlev by surprise. Detlev only had to bring his hand up to catch the blow again, closing his fist around Ibeyar’s hand and stopping the dagger a bare rhen from his throat.

  “You don’t want to dance with me,” Detlev said slowly. He let the grin spread across his face slowly, letting it grow from a smirk to a smile, to a toothy grin, and finally to a rictus that revealed his teeth all the way back to his molars. “It won’t go your way, no matter what tricks you try.”

  Ibeyar ripped his hand out of Detlev’s grip. The confidence was gone now, and there was fear plastered across his face as Ibeyar waved his arms and made a bizarre zig-zagging motion intended to create an obscuring blur of afterimages.

  Detlev almost moved in right then.

  He’d grab the man b
y the throat to hold him still, to look him in the eyes. To show him the truth.

  And then he’d kill him.

  But Ibeyar was supposed to survive this night. No matter how frustrating his attitude was.

  Detlev’s bloody right hand snapped around in a vicious hook that landed on Ibeyar’s temple. The impact threw the man to his hands and knees, and stunned him hard enough to scatter his concentration, little motes of magic dancing across the ground as the illusions dispersed.

  “When trying to make someone your pawn,” Detlev said, letting his maniac grin soften all the way back down to a much more Detlev-like sardonic smirk, “find someone who is actually below you. They have something to gain from you. Think of the sort of person you would submit to being a pawn of. I would bet it would not be the coward you’re showing yourself to be right now.”

  “Everyone is below me,” Ibeyar snapped, though his statement was somewhat undercut by him trying to scramble away from Detlev on all fours. “And I will never be anyone else’s pawn!”

  “Every man is always a pawn in someone else’s game.” Detlev laughed, leaning forward to loom over Ibeyar—but careful not to meet his eyes. “Even if it’s to the gods themselves. You are never too smart or too clever to be useful to—and used by—someone else.” With a curl of his upper lip, Detlev turned and walked away, leaving Ibeyar to find his own way out of Jalova. He’d make it. Eventually.

  “I will not be used,” Ibeyar said scornfully to Detlev’s back. “The Gods have no power over me. No one is above me! No one can use me!”

  Detlev didn’t look back. He only shook his head.

  He had estimated right—Ibeyar would deny it to his dying day that he could be used. The same quickness of wit and tongue that he thought made him immune to it only made him a more valuable tool. And thinking him immune only made him more vulnerable. At least Elise was willing to look up and see the strings Ydia had her dancing on.

  And that was why she would win in the end.