Ishàmae sighed. “I cannot.” he decreed, his voice dripping with doom. “I am an insult to my own cuisine. My creations are worthless. It is not the myriapoda which keeps the customers away. Look at this!” His briefly animated arm swept in a fierce arc, indicating some small, bun-like confections still sitting in a muffin pan. “Plumeshire puddings. Collapsed Plumeshire puddings!” Ishàmae sat back again, snarling in disgust.
Ramsey nodded solemnly. I got the impression this was some sort of ritual with them. “Would you like me to get rid of them for you?”
The elf sighed deeply. “Please-would-you. Throw them out. Bury my shame. Tell no one.”
Ramsey went over and carefully brought back the cooling muffin pan. “Shall I take them over to the compost heap?”
Alarmed, I opened my mouth to say something, but Ramsey made a quick hushing motion with his hand, hidden from Isha.
“No. Such worthlessness will poison even the compost.”
Ramsey nodded, very formally, and we retreated out the gate, leaving the brooding elf to his gloom.
“You’re not really going to throw those away, are you?” I asked incredulously.
“No way!” Ramsey confirmed. “Isha’s a genius. Even his rejects are better than anything else to eat in this whole city. His restaurant would be a brilliant success, if only he’d stop being such a diva and just sell his food instead of critique it.”
Ramsey sat down on a low stone wall out of sight of the restaurant, pulled one of the puddings from the tray and handed it to me, and then helped himself to a second. It tasted better than anything I had ever eaten in my entire life.
“Not everyone is grounded enough to put up with Isha all of the time anyway, but he’s really been in a mood lately. His cat ran away, you see. And not just any cat, of course, but some special breed the elves made, that lives for like ever. Not that I can tell. It looked just like any other cat to me.”
I was pretty full, but there were still some puddings left in the tray, so I had another. So did Ramsey.
He waved his arms around, full of pastry, and elaborated. “Elves, I’m telling you. I’m not saying they’re not good at what they do, but they gotta be such snobs about everything. But I guess he had this cat since he was a boy, or something. Which was probably back before the Rise of the Leon Empire. Or like, before they invented dirt.”
We contemplated the remaining puddings. My tongue wanted more, but my stomach protested.
[Food bestowed: 2 Hit Points]
[Hit Points: 8/8]
“Anyway. It’s no use getting him another kitten, I already tried. He wouldn’t take it.”
I had no answer to this, but Ramsey didn’t seem to expect one. Sure enough, in less than a minute, his train of thought was away and running down a different set of tracks. “I know what we can do with the rest of these puddings! Follow me, Sam.”
I did, and we gave away three puddings to friends of Ramsey’s, all seemingly a bit down on their luck. It turned out to be fun to give things to people. The last we traded to human girl, half my age but much taller than either of us. She gave us a small fish in return, which disappeared into one of Ramsey’s many pockets.
Rising out of the afternoon air came the sound of trumpets. I turned my face downslope towards the brassy blare.
“Must be Saturday.” said Ramsey. “That’ll be the Black Bladesmen, saving the city. Again.”
“Who are the Black Bladesmen?”
Voice sounded unimpressed.
“They’re this guild. To join, you have to be like the most badass adventurer ever, and really rich, and it’s still by invite only. I heard a rumor once that the price of admission into the Bladesmen’s hall is the intact fire sack of an elder red dragon, dried, cured, and filled to the brim with enchanted rubies.”
I considered this.
Ramsey grinned. “Further rumors,” he continued, “say they then use them as bean bags, which they sit on while dancing dryads dressed as slave girls serve them large amounts of rare alcohol, and braziers taken from the gods’ own temples burn sparq throughout like it’s cheap incense.”
“What do you think?”
“Personally, I doubt it, from a practical perspective if nothing else. Whatever else you can say about them, the Bladesmen don’t sit around much. They may be elitist pricks, but they’re really driven elitist pricks.”
Ramsey looked like he might relay some more spicy rumors, but then had a better idea. “Cummon, let’s go and see them off.”
Downslope turned out to be the market district we had skirted on our earlier adventure. Well dressed people were coming and going via a large, impressive gate. Ramsey instead led me around a side street, then over to a rusty rain pipe which looked like it might collapse at any minute. “They know me,” he explained, shimmying up the pipe, his light weight bringing down nothing but a few flakes of rust, “but I don’t have the clout to bring in guests. We’ll have to introduce you to the City Guard, have you do them a few favors, then you won’t have to sneak in.”
“Is this the same City Guard we ran from earlier?” I asked, following him up.
“Yep. That was a close call. If they’d caught us, my reputation would really have been in the hole. That’s why it’s important that if they’re chasing you, never let them see more than the back of your head. And keep a generic haircut, that’s my motto.”
We stepped lightly across a clay roof tiled in the southern fashion, and on the other side was a huge open area, much like the small market Ramsey and I had met in. Gathering in the middle was the strangest group of people I’d ever seen.
One was dressed in shining platemail. I don’t mean her armor was very highly polished (though it was, as sharp as a mirror, and I couldn’t imagine the workmanship that kept it from scratching), I mean it actually shone. Like a small sun. She carried a gem encrusted shield, and even I could see every sparking stone on there was enchanted.
Next to her was a wizard, dressed in red. His robes swirled and moved around him as if he were standing in the middle of an invisible fire, and a dozen flying rubies orbited his head like a swarm of tame bees.
Ten more adventurers, each more exotically dressed, arrived by even more exotic means. A giant eagle flew by, causing me to instinctively duck, and while still a hundred feet in the air, dropped off a leather clad man carrying a bone bow. His cape spread out behind him as he fell, and he landed as lightly as a feather.
<10th level adventurers.> sighed Voice in envy.
“But what are they all doing?”
Ramsey expanded further. “Well, what happened was there was this wizard, who, for being as smart as wizards are supposed to be, was kind of dumbass. You know pocket dimensions?”
“No.”
“Pocket dimensions are like, well, they are like extra space, little or big, which doesn’t take up any space in this dimension. So you could have a handbag, for example, that could hold a whole cow, but it wouldn’t weigh anything, and no one would see the cow. Assuming you could get it through the opening of your handbag, that’s always a problem. The openings of pocket dimensions have to be fixed, or else you’re in real trouble, and if your magic handbag only implodes and sucks in the entire neighborhood, that’s actually quite lucky. But anyway, there was this wizard who made himself a portable doorway with a whole giant huge mansion in it so he could go in there and hang out whenever he wanted, maybe do some illegal magic experiments, whatever.”
Ramsey sat back on the edge of the rooftop, legs swinging over the rain gutter. Seeing no further giant eagles, I relaxed and sat down too, cross legged.
“Then one day, this dumb wizard managed to summon some demons inside his mansion. They all ran
amok and ate him and then came boiling out of the pocket dimension, killing people all over the market district. Luckily for the city, several of the big adventuring guilds mobilized in time to close up the doorway and kill off the escaping demons. This was, oh, a year or so ago.”
“The problem is,” Ramsey continued, oblivious to the dubiously sane voice inside my head, “they never managed to figure out how to close the doorway permanently. So it opens once a week, regular as clockwork, and someone has to go inside and fight through all the demons to shut it down. The Bladesmen usually volunteer.”
“That’s pretty nice of them.” It sounded very brave to me, to fight hordes of demons every week, just to keep the city and everyone in it safe.
“Ha, they don’t do it for the sake of kindness! I hear the demons have some pretty crazy stuff. Soul eating swords, armor made from the bones of dead gods, piles and piles of money. The Bladesmen come back with some great loot, sometimes.”
The brigade below us seemed to be waiting on something. I was just wondering what it was when the shadows to my right seemed to coalesce, then boil over. I jumped to my feet, pulling Ramsey with me, and a figure stepped out of the darkness.
His skin was pale, his eyes glowed red, and he wore robes of velvet, dark as night. Darker. The night has stars in it, sometimes. I pulled out my dagger, trying to push Ramsey behind me, and brandished it at the thing in front of me that had once been a man. “Wait, Sam!” Ramsey fought my arm, trying to get me to lower my weapon. “He’s one of them!”
The shadowed figure didn’t seem to notice me. Or rather, he affected not to notice me, as pointedly as a cat.
“Oh.” he said, his voice a bored drawl. “Has it started yet? I suppose I should join in. How tedious. I already have everything I want out of that mansion.” The figure then turned his glowing stare on me and my little dagger. “Still, we have to go and save the noobs from all the scary demons, don’t we?” He sneered at the crowds below us, grandly, and even managed to have some sneer left over for me.
“Ramsey, run! This thing is a vampire!” I managed to get my arm free of Ramsey and raised up my dagger. “And I am not a noob!” Whatever that meant.
The pale skinned thing laughed. “Aren’t you?” I had his attention now, the same way a limping mouse has the attention of a cat. He then gave me what I suppose he thought was a nice smile. He wasn’t any good at it. “Why don’t you come with us? You can take your little, what is that thing, a weapon? Well, you can take your little weapon, and you can try and use it! Do you even know which end to stick in someone?”
“I’ll stick it in you, monster.”
“Sam shut up. Please!” Ramsey begged, from behind me. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, he’s one of them. He’s a Bladesman.”
The vampire opened his robes, exposing a pale, white torso, with a brand seared above the heart; two wicked looking crossed swords. “Go ahead.” he mocked me. “Stab me with your little dagger. I’m sure it’s very magic. I’m sure it will hurt a lot. Oh, someone save me from the little noob halfling!”
“Just ignore him.” Ramsey finally succeeded in capturing my free hand. “That’s Keenfang, everyone knows he’s mean, but he’s not allowed to start anything in the city, or he’ll get banned. So will you, if you attack him.”
Yeah? I thought. How about outside the city?
“As if they could ban me.” Keenfang gave Ramsey a look of contempt. “I’d like to see them try.”
Below us there was another trumpet call, and the searing, tinkling sound of lots of magic escaping something extradimensional.
Keenfang gave us a smile that didn’t even try to pretend to be nice, and turned towards the opening demon doorway. “So long, noobs.” He dropped off the edge of the rooftop, unconcerned with the fall.
Vampires are stupid.
Ramsey sighed in relief and stuck his hands in his pockets. Then his ever-buoyant grin resurfaced, and he shook his head. “I think you might be the bravest person I’ve ever met, Sam. Not the smartest, mind you, I mean, Keenfang would’ve made mincemeat of us both, but I can’t remember the last time someone mouthed off to him. And lived.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t allowed to fight anyone in the city.” My adrenaline was slowly coming down, though not my annoyance level with smug vampires.
“In the city, no, he’s not. Unless it’s a sanctioned duel, of course.”
“Dueling’s allowed?”
“Sanctioned ones are. You know, if you can prove you have at least a Silver Level insurance policy with Cerulia Life and Casualty, the Temple will host fights sometimes. Keen has a long standing offer that he’ll pay the arena fees for anyone who wants to fight him. Then he rips them to pieces. So far he hasn’t crossed the line and failed to leave enough remains for the Temple to resurrect. Yet.”
“So everyone’s cool with a vampire just running around the city? It seems like, I don’t know, a health hazard. Or something.”
Ramsey shrugged. “The problem is, Keen got turned into a vampire while fighting the Hordes of Night, this sort of overgrown army that hangs out up in the Stormshades. At least, they used to hang out there, until they met the Black Bladesmen. The Bladesmen saved the city from them, again, and so the Council of Triport granted special dispensation to them and anyone who helped mop up the Horde. That’s why you’ll see half-orks and other monstrous races running around sometimes, working with one of the guilds until they can save up and purchase citizenship.”
My brain churned this over for a minute, while down below us the demon gate opened, and the Bladesmen rushed in. It closed behind them in a flash of light.
“What’s this insurance thing you mentioned earlier?” I asked as we climbed back down the drainpipe.
“Oh, the CLC? They’re really big here in Triport. Adventurers make good customers, I guess. Anyway, you can pay them a monthly due, and then if you get sick or hurt or die, they’ll drag your body back to the Great Temple and pay a high level cleric to resurrect you. Assuming they can find your body. And, you know, assuming you aren’t a vampire. You can’t resurrect undead.”
“That sounds like a good deal.”
“Yeah, but be careful of anything that sounds like too good of a deal; I’ve heard some of the smaller cults are trying to get in on the business, and there are some real horror stories about what happens when they cut corners on a Resurrection. For something like that, you want one of Triport’s big three: Abastier, Draemurial or Delilah. The pantheon shares the Great Temple and gets along with each other about as well as you can expect of gods. Anyway, the last thing you want is to be dedicated to some little fly-by-night deity whose followers don’t have the juice to heal you when you need it.”
“How much do you think Ishàmae will pay to have those centipedes taken care of?” I asked.
Ramsey shrugged. “Maybe a gold piece or two. Don’t take less than one, for sure. Hey,” Ramsey touched the pocket with the fish in it, as if remembering somewhere he had to be, “do you remember where we stashed the muffin tin?”
[Intelligence check: Success]
“Yes.”
“Make sure to bring it back to him, or else he’ll find some way to make me pay for a new one. But, uh, good luck with the centipedes, ok?”
“Thanks.” I said.
“And, umm, maybe I could come by tomorrow? And see you again? I mean,” Ramsey looked suddenly shy, “see how things are going. In case you need anything else.”
“Sure.” I replied, bemused by his shuffling feet. “Do you want to come right now?”
“Nah, I got to get home.” He gave a great theatrical sigh. “It seems I have
this new kitten to feed.”
Chapter Three
I recognized the restaurant right away, but I almost didn’t recognize the tall pillar of nearly manic energy, dressed in white with an even taller white hat on his head, as the same dour elf from an hour before.
“Scrub the prep table again! More soap! More water! Gah, gluten allergy indeed! Do you know what I said to her? Do you know?”
This question was addressed to a solid woman also dressed in white, who mildly wrung out a hand rag into a bucket next to a gleaming marble countertop.
“I said to her, Madame, this is a southern bakery. Do you even know what a croissant is? It is nothing BUT gluten, held together with butter and sugar!”
“Yes, chef.” The woman agreed, unruffled by Ishàmaes wildly waving arms.
“Gluten free bread! Gah! It is an oxymoron, an insult, it does not exist!”
“Yes, chef.” The woman tossed the bucket of water out the back door, nearly splashing me. “I’ll send a runner to the senator then, and tell her we can’t accommodate her tonight.”
“You shall do no such thing!” Ishàmae reached over her and armed himself with a large mixing bowl, into which he began whisking various powders. “The senator can have galettes, made from buckwheat. Filled with wilted spinach, and hard boiled quail eggs. And bacon, yes! And soft boaroxen feta. Marrisa! Fetch me the small tomatoes!”
“Um, hi.” I said, holding the muffin tin front of me. “I’m Sam. From earlier. Ramsey brought me by.”
Marrisa gave me a quickly controlled look of alarm, but came close enough to relieve me of the tin. “You poor child!” she said. “Have you had anything to eat at all today? Or, this year?”
“Marrisa!” bellowed a voice from behind a hanging wall of pots. “Begin the poblano sauce!”
“Yes, chef!” she replied. “One moment! One of Ramsey’s friends is here to eat.”
A Fist Full of Sand: A Book of Cerulea (Sam's Song 1) Page 5
