Creation Mage 4

by Dante King

  Either way, I intended to sit back and watch whatever happened happen with great interest.

  So, that was how Odette Scaleblade, Mortimer Chaosbane, and I found ourselves sitting in our corner, sipping our drinks and waiting for our chicken and vegetable pie to arrive.

  Mortimer fingered the smoky green skull that dangled from my wrist as I took a swig from my tankard and pursed his lips in studious concentration as he examined it.

  “So,” the Chaos Mage assassin said, “that is a soul. A curious thing.”

  “Curious?” I asked. “Curious how?”

  “Curious in the way that it appears no more substantial than a…”

  “Than a particularly noxious fart?” I suggested.

  Odette chuckled throatily.

  “Than gas certainly,” Mortimer said. “And yet, this thing is—though it defies any tool or method of measurement that we have yet fabricated—the most powerful, devastating, rewarding, spectacular force in the universe… Or so people would have you believe.”

  I watched the delicate glow of the green skull reflecting in Mortimer’s characteristically dark Chaosbane eyes.

  The whole family, I thought. The whole family is completely off their rockers, but goddamn they’re handy when shit goes down.

  I realized then that I hadn’t actually seen Mortimer perform any Chaos Magic during the entirety of the brawl at The Shark Bait Tavern.

  “Why didn’t you resort to spell work back at Buccaneer’s Finger?” I asked, speaking my thoughts aloud.

  Mortimer’s eyes moved lazily from the diamond skull on my wrist to my face. I lowered my hand where I had left it raised so that he could examine the diamond skull.

  “Now, why would a lad like you ask a funny little question like that?” he asked.

  “Well, I didn’t see you blow anyone’s legs off or make anyone’s arms disappear—not that I noticed anyway,” I replied.

  “Ah,” Mortimer said, placing a hand on my forearm briefly and nodding politely, “that is the thing, isn’t it, Justin? Just because you don’t see something, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. With me, in my profession, seeing isn’t always believing… you see. What you do and what you get caught doing are two entirely different things.”

  That sent a shiver through me, from the base of my skull to the small of my back. Mortimer’s words made me speculate as to how many pirate brawlers would be setting out shopping tomorrow, looking for a new pegleg or a hook.

  I switched my gaze from Mortimer to Odette and moved slightly to my left so that I was out of arm-patting range of the worryingly serene Chaosbane. “So, does anyone know where this Ratfink is located? I guess that after we’ve eaten we should make a move. It would be great if we could get two of these crims knocked off the list in one day. Then it just leaves this Priestess Entwistle to deal with.”

  “I am well aware of where we will find Ratfink the Thief,” Odette said. “Like a rat, ’e does not stray far from ’is nest in search of food, prey, or mates.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “That’s a pretty fucking gross comparison, and I assume you mean mates as in the sexual partner way, not the buddies way?”

  Odette nodded.

  “So, where is this ratty bastard?” I asked.

  “I imagine that my old acquaintance here is about to tell you that the Thief can be found at the Luminous Bazaar,” Mortimer said in his quiet voice. He took a careful and dainty sip of his cider, barely wetting his lips. “That is, I assume, the place that she is referring to when she speaks of his nest.”

  Odette grinned at Mortimer. Her dragon tail twitched and flicked behind her head.

  “You are correct, of course, Mortimer,” she said. “It does not surprise me that you know where Ratfink is to be found, though ‘e makes little secret of the place that ‘e considers to be ‘is territory.”

  “This Luminous Bazaar is our man’s stomping ground, is it?” I asked.

  “It is indeed,” Odette said.

  “Will we be going through the portal stones again?” I asked.

  Odette nodded. “Yes. The Luminous Bazaar is one of—if not the—largest outdoor marketplace in all of Avalonia. It covers an area of about sixty acres, and isn’t so much a market as a small village made up of tents. Us popping up through one of the five sets of portal stones there will arouse absolutely no suspicion whatsoever. We’ll just be another bunch of shoppers come to ‘aggle and deal.”

  “What can you buy there?” I asked.

  Odette cocked her head to one side. “Everything,” she said, in her low sultry voice.

  Our food arrived just then, carried by a red-cheeked, rotund halfling who could have been the poster boy for good country living. He had a short stemmed pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth—violating every food regulation and health and safety rule that Earth had to offer—and a flat cap perched on the back of his big fat head. His beard and eyebrows flowed freely from his face.

  The innkeeper plonked the steaming pie dish and three platters on the table, along with a handful of cutlery and a large spoon. With a smile and a grunted farewell, he departed.

  I dug into the pie and served a portion each to Odette and Mortimer before getting one for myself. It was delicious; creamy, packed with vegetables and chicken. The pie had so much flavor that you just knew it had to have been running around the inn yard only the other day.

  As I masticated gratefully, I realized just how hungry I was. Skipping breakfast, apparently, was a big no-no when it came to assassination runs. I liked to think that I was a man that learned from my mistakes, and I was adamant that I would learn from this one; hence the pie I was shoveling diligently into my mouth with Rick Hammersmith enthusiasm.

  “So, you said that you can buy anything from this market?” I asked. “So, like, what? Knock-off broomsticks? Fake designer witches hats?”

  Odette swallowed and dabbed her lips daintily with a silk handkerchief that she pulled from one of her skirts.

  “They sell so many things that I don’t know where to begin,” she said. “Anything you want, you can get it at the Luminous Bazaar. You just ‘ave to know who to ask. Yes, there are spices, ’erbs, candy, fruit, carved toys, clothes, potions ingredients, magical artifacts, gold, silver, jade, and vectors, but there are also disgraced Inscribers working in back rooms, fenced merchandise of all descriptions being bought and sold, ‘ome-cooked drugs that claim to boost magical prowess up for sale, slaves of all races and sex available to those immoral scoundrels who are willing to pay for them.”

  “And our mark, Ratfink the Thief,” I said, through a mouthful of pie crust. “He’s obviously the kind of enterprising individual who facilitates people in acquiring the slightly less savoury products, is he?”

  Odette rocked her hand from side to side in the universal sign of someone saying ‘sort of’ and said, “He will find anyone the thing they are looking for, whether it means stealing it from regular shop and stall keepers or other criminals.”

  “The name Ratfink is synonymous, within the Luminous Market, with being able to find absolutely anything for anyone,” Mortimer said. “There is no job, or so I have heard, that is too small for him. Nor, conversely, too big.”

  The Chaos Mage assassin had systematically pulled his pie apart and was eating the chicken in tiny bites, wiping his mouth on his napkin after every miniscule morsel. The way he pulled each scrap of meat apart reminded me of how a bird of prey eats, stripping strands of flesh away from a carcass one at a time. It made me feel quite uncomfortable, not to mention glad that I had wolfed mine down so swiftly.

  “Are you telling me that the dude just loves getting his Winona Ryder on and stealing anything and everything?” I asked.

  Odette frowned slightly at the reference. “I’m illustrating that Ratfink the Thief is an individual driven by an addiction to stealing.”

  “A kleptomaniac,” I said, trying casually to sound like a smartiepants.

  This little nugget of wisdom fell flat on its ass when
Odette said, “If that’s what they call it on Earth, then yes…”

  “Well, yeah, it is,” I said, a little defensively. “I think it’s Greek.”

  “What’s Greek?” Mortimer asked with mild interest.

  I waved a hand. “Ah, forget it.”

  Odette chuckled. “As I was saying, Ratfink started off driven by this compulsion to steal anything that anyone asked and paid ‘im to do. As ’e became more and more successful, the pressure to never fail and to maintain his impeccable reputation goaded ‘im on further. Eventually, ‘e became wealthy enough and well-connected enough to run a gang that ‘as swept the bazaar like locusts ever since.”

  “Why hasn’t anyone ever killed him, if he steals from all and sundry?” I asked.

  “I believe it is because he is so successful that killing him would be detrimental to the criminal fraternity as a whole,” Mortimer said.

  “That is what I believe as well,” Odette said.

  “And he’s never failed? Ever?” I asked dubiously.

  “‘is rule is a simple one: never fail in acquiring the client what they ask for,” Odette said. “Once ‘is gang—the Peculators—accept a client’s fee, it is up to the individual thief designated to the task to fulfill it. If that thief fails then ‘e is killed and another takes ‘is place and so on, until the job is completed.”

  “And they use every method necessary to get what they need,” Mortimer said. “I myself have actually been subcontracted to help them on two separate occasions. The Peculators are not adverse, when it comes to bigger jobs, to resorting to subterfuge, torture, kidnap, and murder.”

  “And you know that how?” I asked.

  “I did say that I had been subcontracted,” Mortimer said in his incessantly polite tone. “Did you not hear me?”

  I turned to Odette. “Well, it sounds like the scrubbing out of Ratfink the Thief is not going to be much of a loss to society. All we need to do is keep our eyes peeled for any sign of any of his crew—these Peculators, as you call them.”

  “I would like to raise a question, if I may,” Mortimer said, dabbing at his pale lips for the thousandth time.

  “Go right ahead, Silas,” I muttered, suddenly cottoning on to who this Chaosbane reminded me of—that psychotic monk in the Da Vinci Code.

  “In so large an area,” Mortimer said, “full as it will no doubt be with every race of peoples under the sun, packed and bustling and swirling and ever changing, how do you propose that we find the individual that we seek?”

  He speared one last fragment of chicken off of his plate with his fork and popped it tenderly into this mouth. There was a mound of pastry and untouched vegetables on the edge of his plate. Mortimer patted his stomach and sighed contentedly.

  Odette put her knife and fork down. As she did so, the sound of the heavy front door to the tavern creaking open made her look up. She did a small double-take. Then she grinned.

  “The answer to your query,” she said, “‘as just walked through the door.”

  I swiveled in my seat.

  Cecilia Chillgrave was strutting her way through the gloomy, cosy confines of the Cock and Bull Tavern. Her slim, elegant figure swayed this way and that, her hips moving from one side to another with feline grace. Her light golden hair was tied back in an elaborate braid and seemed to emit a glow all of its own. In the poorly lit tavern, with its too-small windows, her head was crowned in a dim halo of golden light. She was dressed in casual garb; loose trousers tucked into perfectly fitted and, no doubt, hand-made leather riding boots, a white shirt, a vest that looked almost like the female version of a waistcoat, and a silk scarf tied at the throat.

  Every male head in the tavern taproom turned at her presence. I was sure that one old codger in the corner cricked his neck, his head whipped about so fast when Cecilia strolled past his table.

  “Darlings,” Cecilia said brightly in greeting when she reached us. “Enwyn told me that I’d be able to find you lot here if I hurried. I thought I might come by and see how everything went.” She put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Excuse me,” Mortimer said, raising one large, pale hand and stroking his mutton chops with the other. “Am I right in assuming that you were also including me in your greeting, when you called us ‘darlings’?”

  To her credit, Cecilia remained as cool as a cucumber that’d just taken the Ice Bucket Challenge.

  “Oh, um, why yes, I suppose that you can include yourself… If you must,” she said, with a bland smile.

  “Splendid,” Mortimer said. He stroked the other mutton chop. “Splendid. Would you care for the rest of my pie?”

  Cecilia looked at the mess of pastry crust and vegetables on Mortimer’s plate.

  “Tempting,” she said, “but I think I’ll give it a miss just this once. Pastry is a girl’s arch nemesis, you know. A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

  Mortimer gave her a penetrating look.

  “We were actually about to shoot off, sugar,” I said.

  “Yes, we were,” Odette said in her husky voice, “and we still are. Now that you’re ‘ere though, perhaps you might like to ‘elp us?”

  I looked over at Odette.

  “Of course, Madame Scaleblade,” Cecilia said teasingly—we all knew how Odette didn't like being called by her more formal Academy teaching name. “You know that I’m here for whatever you, Justin, or the headmaster need me for. What did you need?”

  Odette smiled. When I saw her next to Cecilia, each of the two women somehow emphasized how attractive the other was.

  Cecilia was blonde and willowy and graceful as a beam of sunlight piercing down through a forest canopy, whereas Odette Scaleblade was dark-haired, sultry, and mysterious as a panther.

  The gleam of the gypsy-looking dragonkin highlighted the smoldering darkness of her eyes. The rings on her fingers flashed and sparkled as she reached out to take Cecilia by the arm and draw her closer to where she sat.

  “I need you, Cecilia Chillgrave to be just as aristocratic, austere, beautiful, and commanding as ever you ‘ave been,” Odette said. “I need you to come with us to the Luminous Bazaar. I need you to be bait.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Oi oi, Petram, you hunk of spunk,” I said. “We’re off to the Luminous Bazaar. Pop us through, will you?”

  Petram waved us up the path to the portal station without a word this time, though he did snap off a little salute. Clearly, the lure of more time with the nuns that he so adored was enough for the old dwarf to disregard even the wrath of the Arcane Council.

  Cecilia, Odette, Mortimer, and I stepped into the circle of portal stones. I gave the bearded dwarf porter the nod to get things started and send us spinning through the void.

  This time, it was heat that hit me after I regained my equilibrium. Raw, dry heat that could only come with an exceptionally dry climate. It must have been all of ninety-five degrees.

  My brain was inundated with mental images of camels and coconuts, date trees and oases, roasting meats smeared with honey and cobras, which was surprising because I had never been in a country that included any of those things.

  “Holy shiitake mushrooms, Batman!” I said, squinting in the glare of a sun that seemed intent on roasting my brain with waves of straight heat.

  Odette fiddled with the gypsy bandana that she had wrapped around her head, and a moment later it had folded out into a loose shawl. “Yes,” she said, “it’s quite warm here. Loose, billowy layers are the key to dealing with the heat.”

  I glanced over at Cecilia. She was still, obviously, dressed in the exact same get-up that she had been wearing at the pub. In spite of the vest, which was fairly thick, the aristocratic elf looked singularly unmoved by the heat.

  She caught me looking at her, then raised her head to stare up, unblinking, with her bright blue eyes at the barbaric sun.

  “I’m a Frost Mage, darling,” she said, lowering her head to gaze at me, with more than a little smugness, I thought. “I can cool mysel
f as needed. One of the perks, you might say.”

  Mortimer had drawn the hood of his billowing cloak over his pale head and was staring at me from out of the heavy shadows the cowl provided.

  I wasn’t surprised that he had ducked into cover as soon as our feet had touched sand. If there was anyone who’d catch a serious case of sunburn, it was the man with the mutton chop sideburns. He was so pale that, in this weather, he’d be a Zoidberg lookalike in about four minutes flat.

  Speaking of which, I needed to change my wardrobe.

  Thankfully, the cloak Igor had given me could change into any outfit you cared to imagine.

  Not totally sure what you’d wear in a desert climate, I did what any guy who’d grown up in the 90s would do. I envisioned that Medjay warrior dude from The Mummy.

  In an instant, I was wrapped from the tops of my boots to my neck in looseish black robes, although they weren’t so loose that they would get in the way during a skirmish. A long black scarf was wrapped around my neck and continued over the top of my head to form a loose cowl.

  After summoning my black crystal staff in my hand, I sighed with satisfaction. One more item ticked off the bucket list. If I were going to spend any more time at the Academy, I’d have to create a new bucket list.

  I caught Odette’s eye, and the Death Mage smiled approvingly at me.

  “You certainly look the part,” she said.

  “Now, you just have to act it,” Cecilia said teasingly, sticking her tongue between her teeth.

  I grinned back at her.

  My eyes had become accustomed to the harsh brightness of the sun that lit our surroundings like a giant interrogation lamp. The portal stones were a bleached, marble white shot with gold and brown. The alley ahead of us was enclosed by high white walls with the bright, ultramarine sky above running like a perfect blue ribbon above our heads. Hundreds of feet above, a lone eagle drifted on the thermals.