by Macronomicon
“You’ll report to your usual handler for instructions. You may yet earn your title of Enforcer back, but in the meantime, I've got a few odd jobs that the empire needs done.”
“Of course,” the girl said, hiding the smoking letter behind her back as she bowed.
“Oh, and Ms. Tekalis?”
“Yes?”
“Keep a very close eye on your deputy for me, would you?” Pikaku asked.
She stiffened. “Of course, my lord.”
“My thanks.”
Pikaku turned away and walked through the dim light, his talons clicking against the stone floor as he traveled. The light gradually grew warmer as he transitioned between the dungeon and the living quarters, where he housed his true prize.
The servant standing in front of the door bowed and opened the door for him as he strode into the nursery, where a human woman of middling age was cooing over Casey the Third.
“Good evening, Casey,” Pikaku said, nodding to the frowning baby as he entered, taking off his imposing mantle and hanging it on the rack by the door. The little one watched him with a level of focus that was unnatural for any sapient child of her age.
“Your mother has instructed me to read this to you today,” he said, retrieving Green Eggs and Ham from the nearby shelf and sitting down beside the wet nurse. The woman passed the baby over to him, and he allowed the wriggling sack of chub to settle on his lap, facing the book.
“According to your mother, Doctor Seuss is an important part of human development, followed by Garfield, and Calvin and Hobbes, in that order.”
Pikaku cleared his throat and opened the book, reading aloud the first odd picture of the book.
“I am Sam. I am Sam. Sam I—ack!” A tiny baby hand shoved fingers into his nostril as the child tried to treat his beak like a handhold, crawling up his front.
“Please, Casey. Kitri noses are sensitive, and while uncle Pikaku’s is quite tough, other kitri would find this terribly uncomfortable.”
Casey clumsily hauled herself up on his beak, until the two were eye-to-eye. The baby looked at him intently for a moment, before pointing to the upper shelf, where the Mystery novels were.
“Nope, not reading Sherlock. You had bad dreams for days last time your mom read those murder mysteries for you.”
Casey the Third started bawling, her voice ringing in Pikaku’s ears. While it was tolerable, it was also annoying, but he had to have patience. Raising a proper child was an endurance game.
“I can take her for you, sire,” the wet nurse said, reaching for the baby.
“No, these are crocodile tears,” Pikaku said, picking Casey up and staring her in the eyes. “You want me to tell your mom you misbehaved while she was gone? Because I will. Green Eggs and Ham takes less than five minutes to read, and if you can suffer through, I will move on to a selection from Calvin and Hobbes. The vocabulary in those is much better. Sound good?”
Spoiling a child with limitless potential was a good way to invite ruin upon yourself. Casey had other things she needed to learn, above and beyond reading comprehension: patience and compromise, for example.
Casey scowled at him for a moment, considering his offer before nodding.
“Very good,” Pikaku said, settling the infant on his lap and reopening the slender book. “I am Sam. I am Sam. Sam-I-Am…”
***Kol Rejan, level 57 Courier***
Kol glanced up at the sun above as he walked across the spine of the mountain. About ten o’clock, I suppose, he thought idly, his feet crunching through the thin layer of faradan as he walked. The Roil hadn’t lingered too long, so the coating was still too thin to support a keegan’s weight. It simply pushed back against his foot a bit as it descended, then cracked underfoot once he put his full weight down.
A strange sensation, a bit like walking on the mantle of a mother peruha without it trying to tear you apart or drown you.
The Roil hadn’t stayed in one spot long enough for a thick crust of the blueish off-white mineral to form. Mining it wouldn’t be particularly profitable, but the Roil chasers were obligated to remove the stuff anyway.
You know what else isn’t profitable? Trying to kill that human. Kol had been in the process of purchasing a new weapon specifically to help him murder the man when he’d seen the broadcast with the emperor shaking the human’s hand.
Kol drew the line right there. The human had become too powerful, too well-known, and too connected to murder. Far too risky. Especially not for a lousy two hundred bulbs.
Still, that left Kol’s spotless assassination record somewhat tainted. The most logical way to solve this problem would be to head back to Kalfath and put Garland Grenore out of his misery before the man could do too much damage to Kol’s reputation.
I suppose I might need to have a client who has a legitimate reason to want the slimeball dead. I need a plausible reason to kill him, or the people in the know will ask uncomfortable questions. That shouldn’t be too hard.
Actually no, everyone will assume someone else hired me. The man’s positively reviled by those who know him.
Kol was pulled from his thoughts by a keegan standing on the mountain in front of him. The man was wearing traditional keegan garb: a flowing robe that didn’t allow the desert heat to enter. He was sipping a cup of tea as he overlooked the city of Solmnath, which was just a smudge on the horizon.
Kol hadn’t seen him appear.
“Terrible weather we’re having here,” the man said before his round tongue darted out and sucked up a sip of tea. “Gonna ruin my decade, I imagine.”
“I suppose,” Kol said, putting his hand on his sword and beginning to walk around the keegan. The sudden appearance put him on edge, and he’d much rather put some distance between them.
“Come, take a seat.” The keegan patted a boulder beside him.
Kol felt a moment of confusion, his brows furrowing for an instant. Why would this man want to share tea with a stranger, especially one as armed as I? That doesn’t… Kol’s critical thought process was shoved aside by a wave of trust and familiarity. Alarmed, he reflexively gripped his sword for an instant before complacency overwhelmed him.
“Okay,” Kol said. He felt as though they’d known each other for years...although Kol didn’t really know the man’s name. My mysterious friend, he thought to himself, a faint bit of humor touching his face.
Kol sat down, whereupon the man offered him a cup of tea. He accepted the cup with his left hand, his right hand stubbornly affixed to the handle of his sword. Kol tried to make himself let go, but his grip refused to loosen.
“Tough nut to crack, aren’t you?” the well-dressed keegan asked, gold thread shimmering in his robe.
“I’m sorry, I’m being rude,” Kol said, trying once again to let go of his sword. If anything, his hand managed to draw the blade an inch or two, which was even ruder. Stop it, he’s a friend!
“Nonsense.” The keegan waved him off. “I like my experiments to have a certain amount of manliness, a sort of...mental fortitude,” he said, pounding himself on the chest. “I must say, you’re doing quite well.” He eyed Kol’s trembling fist as the sword scraped another inch out of the scabbard.
“So, my friend,” the keegan said, gathering his robe and sitting across from Kol. “Do you have anyone that will come looking for you?”
“No, I’m an orphan, and I have no lovers,” Kol said, a faint screaming echoing in the back of his mind, almost distracting him.
“That’s sad, albeit convenient.”
“Don’t be sad. My father died when I was in my twenties, so it’s not that bad. I’ve never been homeless or anything.”
The sword scraped a bit further out.
“Oh?” the man asked, taking another sip of his tea. “What do you do for a living?”
“Kill people, professionally. Although I take side jobs.”
Scrape.
“Well, I suppose that explains why you’re struggling so hard.” The keegan fell into thought, tap
ping the side of his teacup. Something seemed to occur to him when Kol’s sword was about halfway unsheathed.
“What kind of side jobs?”
“Finding people, usually. I sometimes run recovery missions for the government or nobles whose children have gotten lost in the Death Wilds, that sort of thing.”
“How do you find people? Do you have some kind of divination variant Core?”
Kol shook his head. “I’m a courier above level fifty. I can find anyone if I have a letter addressed to them.”
Scrape.
The keegan laughed and clapped his hands together. “Courier!? That’s fantastic. I’ve never heard of a courier getting past level forty. Well, that does it. I think you’ve got the solution to both our problems. What’s your name, son?”
“Kol.”
Scrape. The sword was almost all the way out of its sheath now. Once it was, he would...do something with it? Kol wasn’t entirely sure.
The keegan leaned forward and put his finger on Kol’s pommel, pushing the blade back into the sheath. Internally, the screaming grew louder, and Kol’s other hand began to misbehave, grabbing his friend’s wrist.
They sat there like that, hands locked as Kol’s trembling hands tried to dislodge the keegan from his blade, staring into each other's eyes with an intensity Kol hadn’t felt in years. Not since his father had passed away.
“Nice to meet you, Kol. My name’s Xen, and your skillset just saved your life. I’d like to hire you to find some people, and possibly kill them, then bring something they owe back to me.”
“It’s fifty bulbs for a rescue, two hundred for a kill—unless they’re noble or well-connected. Then it’s five hundred, non-negotiable.” Kol’s mouth spat out his standard rates on reflex.
“How about I let you live?” the wizard asked, raising a brow.
“Not…good…enough,” Kol forced himself to say, the faint screaming buried in his subconscious bubbling up for a desperate instant and blowing off the keegan’s control over… The placid expression returned to Kol’s face unbidden.
Xen cocked his head before amusement flooded his expression.
“You know what? I think I like you, Kol. We could be good friends.”
“We are friends, though?” Kol said, frowning, his right hand trying to gouge out the man’s eyes, albeit at an eighth his usual speed.
Xen batted the hand aside with an amused look. “I’m going to give you control of your body back. Don’t freak out.”
Suddenly the dopy, trusting personality that had dominated his mind was gone, Kol was sharp again, and he was aware of exactly how dangerous this man was. His arm twitched for a moment as he suppressed the impulse to lash out. The likelihood of catching the wizard off guard with a quick-draw was too slim.
He would wait until the odds were in his favor. Preferably from a mile away, with a human fifty caliber sniper rifle. Kol’s fingers slowly unclasped from his blade, but they never strayed far from the handle.
“Cool as a desert cucumber,” the keegan said, leaning back. “I like that.”
“Xen, the sindio?” Kol asked to clarify, recalling the bedtime stories, the tales of horror, death and destruction that spanned thousands of years. Emptied cities, slain kings worn as trophies, foolish heroes turned into wandering abominations.
“That’s me.”
Kol stuffed the mindless terror urging him to escape way down and focused on the trait that the monster had found endearing. That was the path to survival.
“Good. You should be able to afford my rates.”
A Word From the Author
Hi there! If you’re reading this, chances are good that you just finished this whole book! I’m a simple guy who likes writing protagonists who use their brainmeats to solve their problems instead of wrapping their fists in ever-more-ridiculous ‘techniques’ and punching harder.
Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you like reading about wizards that behave like proper wizards instead of DBZ clones.
If that’s the case, I cordially invite you to visit Macronomicon’s Patreon page, where I’ve always got something going on, whether it be the sequel to this book, the sequel to that book, or something entirely different.
Chapters hot off the presses, available as soon as they’re written, often months ahead of public releases like this one.
If you liked my style, but not enough for that kind of commitment, I’ve got several series available to binge on RoyalRoad.
Go there.
Read for free.
Enjoy the craziness.
