Lorie clenched her jaw. “You know what I meant.”
Randall shook his head. “No, I really don’t,” he said in exasperation. “How am I supposed to be proud of what I am when that’s exactly what I have to hide in order to keep from being dragged off in the middle of the night like Ellie and Yordan!?”
“Randall, I really don’t have time for this right now,” Lorie snapped. “Here’s the morning list; I want you back here before second bell. But first,” she held out her hand expectantly.
He furrowed his brow. “What?” he asked after a pregnant pause.
“The trick,” she tilted her head toward the door which Shannon the soldier had left through. “House gets its cut, most of which we kick up to the magistrate to avoid a shutdown—or did you forget?”
“She didn’t have any coin,” he muttered.
Lorie feigned shock. “Are you running a charity now? She gave you some sob story about how she’s going off to war, like never to return to these shores? I thought you knew better than to be taken in by a line like that,” she scoffed.
“I said she didn’t have any coin, not that she didn’t pay,” he snapped, pulling the earring from his pocket and showing it to Lorie.
She stepped forward as she shook her head in disgust. “A trinket…a tiny bauble made of cheap brass, no doubt—“
Lorie stopped when she took the piece of jewelry in her hand. She turned it over and examined it more closely, blinking her eyes as she did so. “Tell me you didn’t steal this,” she said in a dire tone.
Randall shook his head. “She said it was part of a pair she and her sister split before they went to war. I guess it brought her too much pain to look at when she suspects her sister’s already gone.”
Lorie gave him a piercing look, but after a moment she handed it back. “It has the ring of truth,” she admitted. “But why would she pay you with a piece that’s worth more than a year’s salary for a lowly ‘pounder like her?”
Randall’s eyes seemed to want to bulge out of his head. “How can it be worth that much?” he asked after a moment.
“That’s Godstone,” she explained, “no mistaking it once you’ve seen enough pieces in person—especially for those of us with Ghaevlian blood, which the stone seems to almost call out to…” she trailed off before shaking her head. “It’s bad fortune to sell a piece of Godstone in any form; best you keep it.”
Randall turned the small earring over in his hands. It appeared to be a tiny sliver of jagged, green and white stone set in a dainty, gold wire frame attached to a stud by a pair of tiny chain links. “You mean you really believe in that old stuff?” he asked. “Seems like a bunch of superstition to me.”
Lorie shook her head seriously. “It might be nothing but superstition to these Federals,” she jerked her thumb toward the empty barroom, “but to those of us with the blood it’s got more than a little pull. You’d be wise not to cross that from which we all came, regardless of how little you believe in it. Because trust me,” she added in a warning tone, “unlike the newer forms of magic, like those used by the ‘purebloods,’ the old magics don’t care how much you believe in them—they demand respect and obedience.”
Randall was far from convinced, but he had never seen Lorie quite so serious about matters of their ancestry. He knew that Ghaevlians were tightly intertwined with the forces of magic, and some of that bond passed on to their offspring with humans. In truth, he suspected that he had a stronger bond with those forces than most of his half-elven kin.
Most of the time he could explain his inklings and urges as nothing more than simple intuition, but there were a handful of occasions when he was certain that something—or perhaps someone—had nudged him in a certain direction. Such instances had invariably averted some sort of crisis, like avoiding a runaway carriage. Or once, an oil house exploded just as he was about to pass by but he crossed the street before it had when the skin of his scalp turned numb. He came to understand that particular sensation as heralding imminent misfortune, and he had learned to grudgingly rely on it for guidance when it occurred.
But he knew that he could never learn to control it. The older half-elves called it ‘Blood Whispers,’ and the only way to control them was to enroll in an apprenticeship at a very young age. If that window of opportunity was missed, then the inklings would never become more than vague urges like those he had experienced.
“Alright,” he said, taking the list from Lorie and scanning it briefly. “I’ll be back.”
After putting in orders for fresh vegetables, fruits, and grains at the local marketeers, Randall proceeded to the port where the mid-morning catch was just now being brought up for perusal.
The day’s catch was underwhelming, but he managed to secure a few dozen freshwater cod and a pair of large squid, which were always favorites among the Federation soldiers. He paid a little more than he would have liked for the squid, but there was still plenty of profit to be had for The Last Coin’s coffers.
He had hoped to see Ellie or Yordan at the fish market, and though he waited an extra few minutes in hopes they might show, they never did. As Randall trudged back to the inn with the day’s catch slung over his shoulder, his scalp suddenly turned numb—a sure sign that his blood was warning him of impending danger.
He ducked off into an alley and placed the burlap sack on the ground. It was illegal for a non-Federation citizen—meaning, a pureblood human—to carry weaponry of any kind within the city limits, and it was outright forbidden for those with any measure of Ghaevlian blood to even own a weapon of their own. But, despite having absolutely no weapons training, Randall looked about for something to use in his own defense should the need arise.
He found a small piece of wood that appeared to be a spent torch, which he took up and clenched firmly in his hands as he waited. It was likely a futile gesture, since he had never trained to fight with anything larger than a kitchen knife—and even then only with self-defense against a belligerent drunk in mind.
Just a few seconds after he had gathered up the pathetic excuse of a weapon, he heard a commotion down the street. It sounded like at least three pairs of metal-shod boots, and they were in hot pursuit of something—or someone.
Randall waited as the boots came nearer and nearer until they passed by the alley in which he was hiding. The three soldiers were not the ordinary Federation peacekeeping variety; neither were they run-of-the-mill infantry like the soldiers who frequented The Last Coin.
These soldiers’ matching armor was exquisitely crafted out of white steel—a rare, lightweight, super-strong alloy for which the method of manufacture was a closely-guarded Federation secret—and bore the emblem of the Senatorial Guard, which was an elite order of agents answerable only to the Senators themselves.
One of the soldiers spotted him as he ran by and Randall dropped the pathetic piece of wood he had been holding behind himself, hoping the Guardsman didn’t notice him do so.
“Did you see one of your kind running this way, half-elf?” asked the soldier. His helmet was almost completely closed, making his facial features impossible to discern and his voice sounded as though it was echoing through a long, winding tunnel made of thin metal. Clearly the soldier was ensorcelled by some enchantment to create such a bizarre distortion of his voice, and for a moment Randall could barely believe what he was seeing.
The soldier stomped toward him and grabbed Randall by the collar, which he used to lift him from his feet and slam him into the brick wall. “Did you see one of your kind come this way!?” demanded the soldier, and his voice was nearly deafening at this close range.
Randall froze in place, and for a moment all he could do was stare at the soldier’s helmet, the top and sides of which were stylized in the shape of an eagle or hawk with its wings spread wide to either side.
The soldier slammed a fist into Randall’s gut, taking every last bit of air from his lungs as his abdomen seemed to explode in a spasm of agony. Before he knew what happened, the sold
ier’s metal gauntlet smashed into his nose and Randall heard a sound somewhere between a ‘crunch’ and a ‘pop’ as his face erupted into white-hot pain. “Speak or die, filth!” the soldier bellowed, and at the edge of his vision Randall saw the man draw a short, slender blade from his belt.
“N-n-n…no!” Randall finally managed to gasp, and the soldier unceremoniously dropped him to the ground where he collapsed in a heap. The armored man immediately turned to rejoin his companions in their pursuit, leaving Randall gasping for air on the dusty ground.
After the sound of their metal boots had faded into the distance, Randall gingerly pulled himself back to his feet. He had taken more than a few beatings in his life at the hands of the Federals, but those two punches hurt more than anything he had ever experienced. He had always been a quick healer, and relatively durable as well, but he carefully guarded his now-tender belly as he gathered the sack of fish and resumed his walk back to The Last Coin. His nose leaked blood down the front of his shirt as he did so, but he was more concerned with returning indoors than saving his shirt from bloodstains.
Wincing with nearly every step, it was a huge relief when he finally arrived at the swinging, saloon-style doors of the inn’s main room. Once inside, he set the sack of fish down on the floor just inside.
“Took your sweet time, did you?” he heard Lorie call from behind the bar.
Randall sat himself down on a nearby chair and tilted his head back as he gingerly assessed his nose with his hand. He concluded that it was bleeding into his throat as well as all over his face and the warm, tickling sensation made it difficult to resist the urge to cough. He knew it was unlikely to stop of its own accord—Ghaevlian/human hybrid blood did not clot well, and deep wounds invariably required alchemical assistance to heal.
“Randy?” he heard Lorie call from behind the bar.
“I’m okay,” he tried to say, but it came out closer to ‘I’b ogay,’ and he heard her footsteps as she approached.
“What happened?” she asked, a rare note of concern entering her voice.
He shook his head. “Senatorial Guards were chasing someone,” he explained, wincing as he leaned forward. He realized he must have received a couple broken ribs in addition to a hellacious bruise forming in the center of his torso.
“Senatorial Guards?” she breathed as her hand went to her mouth. “What did you do?” she asked tightly as she took a clean rag from her work apron and handed it to him.
Randall shot her a look as he placed the rag beneath his nose and squeezed to hopefully stop the bleeding. “I didn’t do anything,” he grumbled. “They were chasing someone—another half-elf, from what they said—and I wasn’t quick enough to answer their questions.”
Lorie nodded slowly, and the look of concern left her face. “It could have been worse,” she said evenly as she turned back to the bar.
“Worse?!” he blurted, the anger at his predicament threatening to overwhelm him as he made to get to his feet. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it—his ribs exploded in pain and stopped him before he was able to rise from the chair. “How could it be worse?” he growled as he leaned back in the chair, careful not to aggravate his wounds.
“You could be dead,” she said simply. “I try to warn you, Randall; I try to warn you about the dangers of nonconformity. Yet you still manage to get yourself in trouble on a simple run to the fish market!”
Randall could barely believe what he was hearing. “Oh, so this is somehow my fault?!” he demanded angrily. “Some belligerent guard decides to abuse me and I’m the one who’s to blame?”
“You know to avoid the main streets,” she snapped as she began to furiously wipe the countertop. “At the very least you were in the wrong place at the wrong time—that is absolutely your fault.”
There were a dozen hateful, cruel things he could have said at that moment but Randall held his tongue as he tended his still-bleeding nose.
“Did you see the insignia on their breastplates?” she asked after a lengthy pause.
Randall was still fuming, but he tried to remember if he had seen a logo or image of some kind. He shook his head after a moment’s recollection. “I don’t remember,” he snapped. “Why?”
Lorie looked at him sternly. “Senatorial Guards always accompany Senators,” she replied in a biting tone of her own, “I was unaware of a Federation Senator’s presence in Three Rivers. Were you?” she asked pointedly.
He shook his head as he realized the purpose of her inquiry. If a Federation Senator was in town, the local Magisters and other authorities would be on their best behavior—which meant increasing their pressure on establishments like The Last Coin in an effort to avoid overmuch scrutiny from such a high-ranking official.
“I’ll fetch some Redroot from the alchemy shop,” Lorie said as she untied her apron and grabbed her cloak from its hook behind the bar. “That wound might not stop bleeding on its own if it hasn’t by now.”
Randall nodded as he stood slowly from the chair. “I can do it,” he replied as he turned to leave the inn.
“No, you most certainly cannot,” she snapped. “You will get behind the bar and start cleaning; I don’t want to see you move one inch from it before I get back!”
Randall set his jaw defiantly, but nodded stiffly and did as she ordered, going behind the bar while Lorie headed out onto the street to do as she had said.
After she was gone, he took up her cloth and continued to wipe down the bar as she had been doing upon his entry to the common room. His thoughts turned to the increasing oppression which he and those like him were suffering under Federation rule, but the truth was that he had little recourse. First his friends were rounded up for ‘suspicious activity’ down on the docks, and now he was brutally attacked in broad daylight by the very people who were supposed to protect him.
It was unfair, it was unjust, and he would like to say it was unacceptable. But there was little choice; either he could try to adjust to life under Federation rule, or he may as well walk straight to the morning gallows to save everyone the trouble of chasing him down and forcing it on him later.
He heard the door swing open and glanced up to see a relatively short human walk into the bar carrying a loosely wrapped bundle under his arm. He wore an absurdly broad, asymmetrical hat with a feather sticking up from one side.
“Kitchen’s closed ‘til third bell,” Randall said as the man approached the bar.
“It’s quite alright,” the man replied as he approached the bar and removed his hat. “Food’s not my pleasure of the moment, anyway.” The man slung the bundle up over the bar and set it gently down in front of himself before placing his hat beside it. “A tankard of your finest?” he requested as he sat on the stool opposite Randall.
Randall nodded as he reached beneath the bar for a clean tankard, which he wiped with a clean cloth before unstopping the small keg atop the counter and filling the clay container. When finished, he re-corked the keg and slid the tankard over to the man. “That’s a quarter copper, but we’ve got a house minimum of one full penny per customer,” he said shortly.
“Of course,” the man replied as he reached into his purse and produced a shiny, Federation-stamp copper coin, which he placed on the countertop. Randall took it with a nod and placed the coin in a clay jar beneath the bar.
The man took a long draw from the tankard and Randall resumed his task of wiping down the countertop.
“That is quite good,” said the customer, who inhaled deeply of the drink’s aroma. “Mmm…do I detect summer capers mixed with…” he mused as he sloshed the liquid gently in the tankard, smelling its contents once again, “a dash of not-quite-ripe, southern blue fruit zest?”
Randall was surprised at the man’s deduction. No ordinary human’s sense of smell should have been keen enough to detect the subtle fragrances in The Last Coin’s secret recipe, but it was possible this man had some experience at brewing. “Let me guess,” Randall said dryly, “you
spend your summers at Uncle Whatever-his-name-is’ grain farm, sampling various recipes during your yearly sabbaticals where you went to live like the rest of us for a change. Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“Ooh,” the man said in mock surprise. “Do I detect a hint of spite in your voice…or is that,” he cocked his head in mock concentration, “envy?”
Randall couldn’t help from laughing bitterly at the man’s suggestion. “Me, envious of you?” he asked sarcastically. “Now why would you think that?”
The man’s eyes locked with Randall’s, and the two engaged in a silent battle of wills for several long moments before the customer broke eye contact, cracked a smug grin as he downed the rest of his tankard’s contents. “Refill, if you please, boy,” he said in an overly polite tone as he slid the tankard across the bar.
Ignoring the ‘boy’ barb, Randall complied and the man took a long draw from the re-filled mug. Randall appraised the man’s clothing, which was nondescript enough save for the fine condition of it. The threads were neatly trimmed and there was very little wear on the hems, which seemed at odds with the apparently advanced age and outdated style of the material.
“Yes, I do believe it was made with summer capers,” the man said with a note of triumph in his voice after he had finished swallowing the first half of the tankard, “and more blue fruit than I initially suspected, as well.”
Randall shook his head as he went back to wiping the counter, doing his best to hide his disdain for the man and his verbal jabs. This was precisely the kind of Federation citizen who made his life, and the lives of those like him, so much harder than necessary.
Suddenly, Randall felt the skin of his scalp go numb and he paused his wiping of the countertop mid-motion as his heart skipped a beat.
“Something wrong?” asked the man a little too blithely, and Randall narrowed his eyes. When nothing happened for several seconds—the normal period of time between his danger sense and the arrival of the event—Randall set down the cloth and took another hard look at the man.
Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1) Page 4
