by Deck Davis
“And all the message birds are okay, so it wasn’t some random act of violence. I don’t think so, at least. Maybe a cock imp got in here or something.”
“I don’t get it, Faei. I know what we heard in the tavern, but my gut tells me Cason’s…gone. I mean, his runes have failed. Surely that’s a sign?”
“He could have run out of mana. Maybe there’s a reason his mana isn’t regenerating. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s work with what we know.”
“Which is precisely nothing, apart from some rumors we heard from people too scared to speak them in the open. We might as well go ask the cock imps if they know what happened to him.”
Faei stood up. “He’s alive, Jake. I’ll prove it to you.”
He didn’t see how she could do that, but he waited all the same. Faei strode across the shack and into Cason’s bedroom. She came out holding a book. It was a thick tome with a battered cover with stains and splotches all over it. She handed it to him.
Jake studied the cover. He knew what it was.
“His recipe book,” he said.
“His name’s still on it. If he’d died, it would be blank so that another alchemist can use it as his book. Like when you got yours from the old alchemist. So he must be alive.”
“Fine. What do we do?”
“The rumor said he’d been taken to the Widow Leaf forest. I don’t like it, but that’s where we need to go.”
He remembered seeing the forest way in the distance when he’d climbed the tree on the dead plains. It looked like a dark place, the kind of forest where nasty critters creeped around. Still, he wasn’t going to let that stop him.
“Let’s go then,” he said.
“Not so fast. You’re not strong enough yet.”
“Strong enough? It’s a forest. I can handle walking through a bunch of trees.”
She shook her head. “Nobody goes there, Jake, and for good reason. It’s not the sort of place you go for a stroll. Ask about Widow Leaf in Smoke and Rumors, and you’ll hear some horrible stuff.”
“We can’t just wait around.”
“Who said anything about that? You just need to get better at alchemy before we go. I wanna be prepared. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not leaving Cason to fester, but we’re gonna need some high-level weaponry here. What can you make?”
“Brittle bone potions. Dissolve potions. That’s all I know on the attacking side, anyway.”
“No offense, but I don’t trust your aim.” She held up her bandaged hand. “And while this heals, I’m gonna have to practice shooting with my other hand, so there’s another reason to hold off a little.”
“No problem. I’ll just whip up a few healing potions, and we’ll sort your hand out.”
“Only a master potion is going to heal this. Until you somehow become an alchemical god, we’re gonna have to let nature take its course. We need to prepare. Even Cason would struggle in Widow Leaf. There must be something else you know that could help us.”
“Well, I can make bombs. I’ve never actually made one, but when I levelled up my alchemist rank, I earned bomb making as a skill. If we had the stuff, then I could practice bomb making.”
“Better than a vial of nasty dissolving stuff. What do you need?”
“Erm…bomb cases. Fuses. Oh, and explosive powder, obviously.”
“Great. We have none of those things. Damn it all to the crack of G’ydor’s hairy crevices. We’re gonna have to summon Fast fingers.”
“Who’s he?”
“Cason’s trader. Okay…Let’s do another inventory and see what we have. We need gonils, solils and anything else we can trade. You check Cason’s room, I’ll look around in here.”
They gave the shack on last going through. This time, Jake looked for anything that could be valuable. After a thorough search, he found a few hidden bottles of moonshine, two blank rune sheets, and some alchemist tools bundled up in a rag. Faei found Cason’s stash of gonils, though there were only four of the gonil coins. Added to their own totals, this made seven.
“I’ll summon Fast Fingers,” she said. “Doubt we have enough gonils, though. The guy’s a weasel and he’ll hike up his prices if Cason isn’t here. Still, not much else we can do.”
Faei went outside. Jake stood in the shack doorway and watched her, unsure of how she’d summon the trader. Did she need to blow a trumpet, or something?
She climbed onto the roof of the shack. She bent down and grabbed something, and Jake saw her pull up a long, metal pole with a flag on the end. When the pole reached full height the flag started glowing a maroon color, and then a ball of light shot into the air and exploded like a fire work.
“He’ll be here in a few hours,” she called down. “You find anything else?”
Jake hadn’t told Faei, but when he’d been searching Cason’s room, he’d found a letter sewn into the bedding. It had dozens of creases in it, as though it had been unfolded and folded repeatedly. He started to read it, and got as far as ‘My dearest love Cason,’ when he deiced it was just too private. Just as he went to fold it, he saw that it was signed by the initials ‘JS.’ He put the letter back where he’d found it.
“Just some old alchemy stuff,” said Jake.
With a few hours to kill, he spent his time collecting herbs and then practicing alchemy. His potion repertoire was limited, so despite Faei’s dislike for them, he brewed up a few batches of brittle bone and dissolve potions. When he was done, he was pleased to see some progress on his stats. It wasn’t much, but it was a silver lining in one hell of a dreary day.
*Preparation upgraded to level 4*
- Cut accuracy inc to 6/50
- Steady Hands inc to 7/50
- Butchery inc to 2/50
*Brewing upgraded to level 6 *
- Brewing Speed inc to 7/50
- Potion Quality to 12/50
When he was done, he lined up his new potion vials on the alchemy counter. The liquid consistency looked okay. It wasn’t the finest display of alchemy ever, but he was getting better at it. Small steps, he told himself.
Faei had busied herself by collecting wood and then using her knife to strip it into small pieces, which she used to make bolts for her bow. After that, she headed outside to practice shooting with her weaker hand. Every time he heard the thwack of the bow string and heard Faei curse at a missed shot, he felt a flicker of guilt for splashing her with dissolve potion. He hoped to God that her hand healed properly.
It was late afternoon when Faei finally came back inside. She threw her bow across the room. This was the starkest sign possible that she was angry, since she usually cradled her weapon like it was a baby.
“Don’t ask,” she told him.
Don’t worry, he thought. I wasn’t going to.
It was then that they heard the sound of hooves clomping on the grass outside. Faei walked over to the doorway.
“Fast Fingers is here,” she said. “Let me do the talking. The minute you open your mouth he’ll realize that you’re greener than a cock imp’s ball sack, and he’ll charge us emperor prices.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Fast Fingers arrived walking beside a giant two-wheeled wagon that was pulled by horses. When he called the horses to a stop, Jake saw that as well as a bundle of items covered by a sheet of cloth, he had a menagerie of animals with him. At first, Jake thought they might have been ones that he planned on selling, but rather than having them caged, Fast Fingers let them roam free. As such, ferrets, squirrels, mice and hares all leapt and crawled and bounded along the cart, over the horses backs and along the grass surrounding the shack.
Fast fingers reached into a sack tied to the side of the cart, grabbed a handful of something that looked like seed, and scattered it on the ground.
“Come on Fibber, Dusty, Green Jake, Worzil, Alan, Big Paws. Get yer scran,” he said.
It was only after he’d tended to his animals that he even glanced at Jake.
“How do,” he said, and nodded at him.
Fast Fingers was a tall man with dark brown skin and a greying beard. His hair was shaved, and his eyes seemed like they were almost entirely white. In just a few seconds, Jake decided that Fast Fingers was a suspicious man. He had a shifty way of looking around him, glancing at several different directions in quick succession as though he expected to be accosted by some brigands at any moment. When he wasn’t checking for danger, he blinked a lot. Between blinks, Jake looked for any sign of color in his eyes but saw nothing except a milky white.
“Yeldarb,” called Fast fingers, glancing at his cart. “Get your cheeky rump down here.”
On the back of the cart, a head popped up from underneath the cloth. Straight away, Jake recognized it as a cock imp. His instincts told him to reach of his dagger, but he waited.
Fast Fingers must have seen how tense Jake was.
“Don’t twist yer undergarments. I modified his behavior; he won’t trouble you. Watch this trick.”
Fast Fingers stared and the cock imp and then said in a booming voice, “Yeldarb…AND!”
With that, the cock imp leapt from the cart and landed gracefully on the grass. It started swaying its hips in the hypnotic dance that reminded Jake of a belly dancer. It swiveled and gyrated its hips as though it heard a tune in the air.
It kept going on and going, looking at Fast fingers every so often. Finally, when the trader threw a brown treat toward it, the cock imp stopped its ridiculous swaying.
“Happy?” said Fast Fingers.
“Did you just use the word ‘and’ to get him to dance?”
As soon as Jake said ‘and’, Yeldarb began to swivel his hips again like a Spanish lothario trying to seduce a bunch of drunk English tourists in a bar. The cock imp had moves, no denying that.
“I did.”
“Doesn’t that seem a little…unsuitable for a command? I don’t know, like he might do his dance every goddamn minute? Couldn’t you have chosen a word that was a little less common?”
The trader shrugged. “I kind of stumbled on the trick by accident, and before I knew it, the bugger danced every time I said ‘and’.”
Once again, the cock imp began its graceful hip dance.
“I’m new to animal husbandry,” said Fast Fingers.
“Obviously,” said Jake.
The trader stuck a hand out toward Jake.
“Anyway, call me Fingers,” he said.
Jake noticed that Fingers didn’t have a thumb on his outstretched hand. His four fingers were fine, but there was a sore-looking scar where his thumb should have been. He glanced at the trader’s left hand, and saw that it was the same.
“Used to be a pick pocket,” said Fingers. “Got caught, got the axe. Makes picking stuff up difficult, given most bloody things are designed for people with thumbs. Still, I never let misfortune get its ugly boot near my delicate parts. It took years, but I practiced until I could do most things that you regular two-thumbed folks can do.”
“So your name is ironic, then?”
“Lots of nicknames are ironic,” said Faei. “That’s why I heard they call you Jake, the Swordmaster Warrior.”
“And they call you sweet Faei,” he answered.
“Let’s get inside,” said Faei. “But Yeldarb stays near the cart. I’m not having a repeat of last time, unless you’ve house-trained the damn thing.”
“And I don’t want him dancing a damn salsa every time I cough” added Jake.
Fingers sighed. “Yeldarb, guard the cart.”
They went inside the shack. Faei sat down, and Jake offered the remaining chair to Fingers. The trader sat down and let out a sigh like a deflating balloon.
“Mind if I take my boots off?”
“Yeah, I mind,” said Faei. “Think Cason would let you do that? Would you even ask if he was here?”
“Where is the old Whisperin’ Carver, anyway?” asked Fingers.
“Taking a break. He’s gone to lake Sweeping Tide to get in touch with himself and find inner calm,” said Faei.
Interesting, thought Jake. She’s lying. That meant that she didn’t entirely trust Fingers. Although the trader had a likable quality about him, Jake was wary, too. One of his rules was that if you met a man who’d lost both thumbs for stealing, you kept an eye on him.
Fingers, for his part, seemed cautious too. His suspicious expression came back. He glanced from Faei to Jake, then back again. It was like he was trying to bore through both their skills and find out their secrets.
“I told you my name, but I didn’t get much of an introduction back from you, lad,” he said, eyeing Jake. “And-”
As soon as he’d uttered the word ‘and’, he slapped his forehead and groaned. Then, a second later, Yeldarb the cock imp pushed open the shack door and appeared in the doorway. He swiveled his snake hips to inaudible, but obviously sexy, music.
“Enough, Yeldarb,” said Fingers. Then he looked at Jake. “Where are you from?”
This time, he was ready for the question. Earlier, he and Faei had sat in front of Cason’s map and concocted a believable backstory. He wasn’t getting caught out again like he had with Eric Cratter.
“I’m from Bronze Spear,” Jake answered. “Near Steel Pike. My dad and Cason go way back, and Cason owed him a favor. Took me on as his apprentice. I was also junior spearman champion in my village growing up.”
At this, Faei glared at him. She’d made him insist not to add that bit of vain backstory, but he couldn’t resist. It sounded cool to be a spear thrower.
“Bronze Spear, eh?” said Fingers. “What’s your Spear name, then?”
“Tippoint.”
“I’ve heard of the Tippoints. Your dad’s called Greyund, right?” said Fingers.
There was no catching Jake out this time. Bronze Spear was a real village not far from Faei’s hometown of Steel Pike. They chose the Tippoints to be Jake’s pretend family, because Faei knew them. She used to be friends with the youngest son. She’d made Jake memorize the names of all the family members.
“Think you must have the wrong people,” said Jake. “Dad’s called Rerung. Rerung Tippoint.”
“My mistake,” said Fingers.
There were two possibilities here. Either Fingers had genuinely gotten mixed up, or he was trying to catch Jake in a lie. He didn’t blame him for being suspicious; Cason was gone, and his shack was emptier than usual. Eric had also tried catching Jake out, but he didn’t pick up a nasty vibe from Fingers.
Fingers cleared his throat. “Well, the introductions are done and we’re all firm friends now,” he said. “How about you two youngsters tell me what you need?”
Faei looked at Jake, ands nodded. Jake answered.
“Bomb casings, fuses, and explosive powder.”
Fingers shot to his feet. “It’s been good meeting you. Now I must be off,” he said.
Faei grabbed his sleeve. “Hey, what gives, Fingers?”
Fingers smiled at her. “Listen, my beautiful archer whose hair has recently been cut, I just noticed. I like it, by the way.”
Faei grunted.
“I’ve got a family,” said Fingers. “You know that. And you also know that I almost got expelled from the trader’s guild a couple of months ago. I don’t have any other skills, so if I lose my trade license, I’m gonna be knocking on your door demanding you feed me, Helga, and my two growing children.”
“That never stopped you trading stuff before.”
“I told you, I was a whisker away from getting expelled. Explosives and bomb cases aren’t tradable unless you have the right permit, and I don’t have anywhere near the amount of gonils I’d need to bribe the fat-rumped emperor bureaucrats into issuing me one.”
“But you can still get casings and stuff, right?”
“Can isn’t the same as will. Besides, I’m making a killing trading metal bars now. Y’know, the type they use in dungeon cells? I cut them down to size and sell them to folks looking to secure their children’s windows. Apparently, some bloody guy calle
d the Watcher is taking children.”
“C’mon Fingers,” said Jake. “Cut the crap. We both know you’re going to sell to me.”
“Take a look at my cart. What does it say on the side?”
Jake went to the doorway and had a look. “It says undergarments and jerkins, barely worn, three for five gonils.”
“No, on the other side. Oh, forget it. It says, ‘Boyle and Co Trading.’ Does that sound like a back-alley explosive dealer, or does it sound legitimate?”
