by Cory Herndon
And when a member of the Haazda got out of hand, it was much easier to slip them Kos’s dindin special than to lay into one of them simply because the Haazda was frustrated and drunk. One glass of juice, liberally mixed with a narcotic sleeping powder. Harmless, but it knocked them out and let them sober up somewhere Kos didn’t have to look at them.
As if on cue, the argumentative deputy’s head slumped against Kos’s shoulder, and the Haazda started to snore loudly.
“Checking out for the night, boss,” Kos said. Pivlic nodded and whispered he’d lock up, careful not to wake the slumbering drunk on Kos’s shoulder. The imp still had preparations to make for the incoming Orzhov bigwigs, no doubt, and Kos expected he wanted time to hatch his plans and perhaps a few poisonous spiders. That was to say nothing of the new décor that would no doubt be in place an hour before dawn.
Kos half-carried, half-dragged the snoozing man past several sets of empty tables, around the presently unoccupied fighting pit—a lone echo of Pivlic’s old arena-eatery establishment in the city but one that didn’t see much use in the small township—and heaved Vodotro across his shoulders with no small amount of popping joints. Kos pushed one of the swinging double doors open with his foot.
“Ooof!” the door said, and Kos blinked. No, it wasn’t the door but a tall, bald man covered in tattoos and wearing a black and gold Orzhov-tailored suit. The man grabbed the edge of the door before it could swing back. Behind the man’s right shoulder stood another Orzhov, a young woman with striking features who momentarily reminded Kos of his second ex-wife and also reminded him of just how old he was getting. The woman stood at the head of three thrulls that supported a huge, fat, apparently dead man between them. All of them were covered in fresh blood, and the thrulls displayed fresh patches of necrotized skin that still had a silvery sheen.
The fat man was a patriarch. Kos had never been so close to one before, but he didn’t even have to ask. The clothing, the almost palpable aura of power, and the corpulence said it all. The blood-covered corpse sat atop a floating chair of some kind or the thrulls would never have been able to get him this far.
From the look of the patriarch and the enormous sigil that adorned his vile robes, this wasn’t just any patriarch, either. This was Pivlic’s patriarch, the one Kos’s boss had been expecting to arrive the next day. The ouroboros symbol of house Karlov was unmistakable. It matched the one over the bar.
The patriarch’s clothing was even more ornate and expensive-looking than that worn by the bald man or the young woman, but, most notably, the bulky creature did not appear to be breathing. Oozing, yes, but not breathing. Though it was hard to tell with a mask covering the patriarch’s face.
Kos stood there for a second with his jaw hanging open, uncertain what to say. It had taken him three seconds to notice the old man was dead—one expected a patriarch to look half-rotten, but he should have paid more attention to the urgency across the faces of the two living Orzhov travelers. Fortunately, Pivlic jumped to his rescue.
“Attendant Melisk! Lady Karlov! It’s good to see you again, my friends,” the imp said. He hopped over the bar and soared over the tables, landing next to Kos. “We did not expect you to arrive until dawn. My apologies for the state of—”
“Shut up, Pivlic,” the woman said, “and help me get him into a saferoom. We haven’t seen a ghost yet.”
Kos took one look at the imp, another at the young woman, and adjusted the Haazda he carried. He nodded to the newcomers. “Good evening, Madam. Sir.” As he slipped past the pair of Orzhov and their grisly burden, he turned back and called to Pivlic. “You need a hand, boss?”
“He can take it from here,” the bald man said, and Kos heard Pivlic concur.
“All right then,” Kos said and left Pivlic to take care of the unusual situation.
Kos didn’t believe in gods, but he’d been known to buy into the concept of lucky streaks. Of late, he hadn’t had any. But the fact that he knew with absolute certainty that he would not have to be witness in any way to the patriarch’s necrotopsy seemed to indicate that his luck, such as it was, was getting better. He wondered if Pivlic would perform it himself.
* * * * *
“You call this safe, imp?” Melisk demanded.
“As safe as anything in these parts,” Pivlic said with just enough obsequiousness to avoid a slap from the attendant or an unkind word from her ladyship Teysa Karlov, soon to be declared Baroness of Utvara.
“Boys, Uncle is getting heavy,” Teysa said.
“The thrulls and the throne are—oof—Sorry, were taking quite a bit of the load,” Pivlic croaked as Uncle’s weight shifted.
“Is that your ectochair?” Melisk said. “Why, I didn’t know that model even existed anymore.”
“It will do the—Do you mind pushing instead of pulling, friend thrull? There you are,” Pivlic said. “That is it, yes, and it will do the job. Please, no offense intended, honored attendant, but the thrulls seem to be bickering. If you wouldn’t mind lending me a hand?”
“Certainly,” Melisk said. He lifted the staff and let his head loll ever so slightly backward. He hummed a low dirge, and the mask atop the staff glowed fiercely. Uncle’s corpse rose upward to hover in the white light, spun into an appropriately seated angle, and settled—with only a little guidance from Pivlic, who struggled to hold on, into one of Pivlic’s oldest and most valued possessions.
The ectochair had been a gift from this very patriarch over two hundred years ago. That was clear from the Orzhov script lining the back of the seat and the tiny, stylized sigils painted in red upon the skullclamps. Teysa doubted the imp was the original owner, though Pivlic’s name had been carefully inscribed into the chair as well.
“An excellent forgery, imp,” Teysa said, gesturing to the chair.
“Pardon?” the imp said, looking up from the power nodes along the left armrest.
“You expect me to believe that Uncle gave you this antique?” she demanded.
“Believe what you will, my lady,” Pivlic said.
“That will be ‘Baroness’ soon enough,” Teysa said. “Just so long as the thing does what it’s supposed to do.”
“One moment, Baroness-intended,” Pivlic said. “We must ensure the nodes are properly grounded, then retrieve the mirror from above the bar.”
“You stored it above the bar?” Teysa said, a little aghast but not truly surprised.
“It seemed a good place to keep an eye on it,” Pivlic said. He turned the three nodes clockwise a full rotation and said, “Attendant, I fear my last employee left before I thought to retrieve the mirror, but you seem handy with telekinesis. Would you mind?”
Melisk scowled at the imp, but Teysa scowled harder at Melisk. Her attendant turned, grumbling, and tromped down the hall outside the saferoom. She’d have to sit him down for a nice, long talk soon. Ever since their brief partnership, he’d been entirely too impudent at all the wrong times.
“My lady,” Pivlic asked as soon as Melisk was around the corner. “May I ask—Was there an attack?”
“Yes. Gruul. What else would it have been?” Teysa said. “Is this contraption ready?”
“Yes, Baroness-elect,” Pivlic said. “And it appears Uncle is ready as well.”
“Good,” Teysa said. “When this is finished, I will expect you to—”
A crash from direction of the bar was followed by Melisk’s voice.
“Those were only glasses, my lady!” the attendant bellowed.
“As I said, we will finish this ceremony as quickly as possible. The official induction will be at the end of the year, after he serves his probationary period.”
“Amazing that one so great should even need to serve a probationary period,” Pivlic said.
“We’ll get along a lot better if you cut out the unnecessary fawning, barkeeper,” Teysa said. “Have you ever been in a court of law?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Imp …”
“Occasionally, but fortun
ately I pay my dues like any other loyal guild member in good standing,” Pivlic said, his mouth left hanging at the beginning of a self-censored “my lady,” Teysa guessed.
“Then understand that I was, until very recently, an advokist,” Teysa said. “As you might suppose, that means I have spent a lot of time listening to people get to the point in the most roundabout way possible. Now I didn’t plan on taking over Utvara,” she saw Pivlic’s eyes widen slightly. Good, no objection, though definitely a little surprise. “But we’re going to make it work, and we’re going to be recognized by the Guildpact. We’re going to do it with efficiency, we’re going to do it with confidence, and we’re going to do it with diplomacy. Then I’m moving back to the city, and my appointed agent will take over here in my stead.”
Pivlic nodded. More efficient by the second, she noted.
“You have been Uncle’s agent here for, what is it?”
“Twelve years,” Pivlic said. No wasted syllables. The imp learned quickly.
“And he told me personally you could be trusted,” Teysa said. “That makes me want to distrust you. Does that surprise you?”
“Not at all,” Pivlic said. “I would be insulted if it were otherwise.”
“My lady,” Melisk said, carrying the heavy mirror into the room over one shoulder. “I do not mean to interrupt, but where would you like me to put this?”
“In front of Uncle, of course,” Teysa said. “How else will he be able to admire himself?”
“Of course,” Melisk smirked and moved the silvery glass into place. The large mirror rested against a set of legs that folded out from the back. It was quite simple-looking, but sometimes the simplest-looking things had the greatest power.
“What do you think, imp?” Teysa said.
“Pivlic,” Pivlic said.
“What do you think, Pivlic?” Teysa said.
“It appears to be in place, and the connections are sound,” Pivlic said. “I admit I have not yet had the opportunity to see the chair used on one as auspicious as—”
“Efficiency,” Teysa warned.
“But it will certainly work for your purposes,” Pivlic finished.
“Wonderful,” Teysa said. “Turn it on.”
* * * * *
Kos stopped a moment to stretch and pop his back into alignment. Vodotro had been eating too may roundcakes and drinking too much bumbat. But that, at least, wasn’t so different from some wojeks Kos had known. Borca, to name just one. He’d never had to drag Borca anywhere though. He hadn’t planned to carry Vodotro all the way to the Haazda guardhouse, but leaving the man in the street seemed a little too cruel. Kos had given him the sleep-inducing narcotic, after all, and anything that happened to the drunken deputy would have been on the old ’jek’s conscience. His conscience carried plenty, and he was tired of adding to the weight.
He sometimes missed his irritable old partner Bell Borca and half-expected the fat ’jek sergeant’s ghost to be floating in his doorway every time he made it home. It had never happened, but he wouldn’t put it past Borca to have made some kind of arrangement for it, if only to see the look on Kos’s face.
That, at least, was one thing Utvara had over the city, and it was one of the reasons Kos stuck around. He had never seen a ghost in Utvara that lasted longer than a few seconds. He wasn’t quite as curious as he’d been in his younger days, when he might have independently decided to investigate the reason for the region’s lack of residual souls. These days, he just knew there were no ghosts in Utvara, and that was enough to satisfy.
The air had barely cooled even though the sun had been down for almost eight hours and already threatened to return. Kos found himself still sweating from the exertion of packing an overweight, drunken Haazda half a mile. Then the real reason for the sudden sweats kicked in, and he felt his heart begin to race in his chest. He stopped, leaned against a glowpost, and willed the troublesome muscle to slow down. Kos closed his eyes and forced his breath in through his nose and slowly, so slowly, out from his mouth.
Eventually, it worked, but it was an exhilarating and terrifying couple of minutes.
In the last few months, random and sudden panic episodes like this had become more frequent. This one was only a week after the last, the closest they’d ever been together. Twelve years ago a physician had told him that heavy use of medicinal magic—specifically, the teardrops that were standard issue for peacekeepers in the City of Guilds—had taken their toll on his system. At Kos’s advanced age, one more ’drop could be the death of him. As it was, he felt like his heart was just waiting for the right time to finish him off, ’drops or no ’drops. It seemed almost anything could set it off. Last time he’d just been sitting at the bar drinking juice when the attack hit.
Once the pounding stopped, Kos straightened and went on his way, grateful he had not been seen. His gratitude soured somewhat when Kos spotted a gang of four street toughs harassing an old centaur at the mouth of a narrow alley. Kos knew the centaur well and recognized the thugs too—they had once been hired labor, long since released from indenture by a prospector who had made his fortune and left. Like so many without a guild to call their own, they had formed a small pack and now roamed the streets by night, picking up what they could with street crime.
You don’t need to get involved in this, a voice not unlike Pivlic’s sounded in Kos’s brain. Just walk by and get home. You’re old. You’ve already been on the verge of a heart attack once tonight. Leave it be.
Younger Kos, he suspected, might well have hated the man his older self had become. But what was cowardice to the young was common sense to the old. At least, that’s what Kos kept telling the nagging voice in the back of his head that wouldn’t stop telling him he’d become a sad, cowardly, old fool.
One of the thugs, a wiry sort with a scraggly beard, spotted Kos and pointed at him. The other three, all human like the apparent leader, turned from the centaur and stepped out into the thoroughfare.
“Guess they’re not going to let it be,” Kos muttered and pulled a silver baton off of his belt. That shut the little voice up. Just because he tried to avoid trouble didn’t make him a coward. Then, more loudly and in his best ’jek’s voice, he called, “Evening, boys! Out for a little fun tonight?”
“What do you want, Kos?” the bearded one replied. “This isn’t any of your business.”
“Yeah, people keep telling me that,” Kos said. “But you’re wrong. That centaur owes me zinos. Leave him alone.” With a loud click, Kos turned the hilt of the baton ninety degrees, and the weapon hummed audibly.
“Orubo, is that what I think it is?” one of the others said to the leader.
“Shut up, Vurk,” Orubo said. “He’s no ’jek. Not anymore.”
“Maybe not,” Kos said and gave the baton a flashy-looking twirl, “but they did let me take a few things from the armory as keepsakes. Want to see how we handle street trash like you in the City of Guilds?”
“Orubo, I don’t know,” another said. “The centaur was one thing, but this guy—He’s famous.”
“Heard of me, have you?” Kos said. The old ’jek wasn’t fond of his celebrity, but at times it did come in handy. “Then you probably know who I work for now too. Now I know I can beat every one of you within a whisper of your lives. And on a word from me, you’ll be sent to the Cauldron or, better yet, the Husk. That’s assuming they don’t ship you off to the mansion district and the entertainment pits. You don’t look like Gruul to me, but I’m sure I can convince Pivlic that you want to be.”
“Pivlic?” repeated the only thug who had yet to speak. “That’s the Orzhov, isn’t it? Orubo, maybe we should think about—”
“Shut it!” the leader snapped, but he was spending more time watching Kos’s baton than he was looking at his potential victim now. “There’s one of you, Kos. There are four of us.” His words were bold, but even at this distance Kos could read the uncertainty in his eyes.
“You’re not dealing with a Haazda here,” Kos a
dded. He brought the baton up and aimed it like a bam-stick at the thug leader’s chest. “Now I know you boys don’t get out to the big city much, but I’m sure you know that I can drop all four of you before you even get within an arm’s reach of me?” The baton hummed in agreement.
“Orubo, I think maybe we should—”
“Quiet,” the leader said, then called down the thoroughfare to Kos. “All right, ’jek,” he said, “but we’re going to remember this.”
“I certainly hope so,” Kos said. “I’d hate to have to teach you all over again. If the four of you leg it down to the hostel, I imagine they’ll let you get some sleep on the steps. You all look like you could use a little. I mean, why else would you accost someone in the middle of the thoroughfare?” He took a step toward them, the baton still aimed squarely at Orubo. One more step, and the gang leader turned, beckoning his fellows to follow him.
“Watch your back, ’jek,” Orubo called over his shoulder before the group rounded a corner that led to the local prospector’s hostel, a boardinghouse that most prospectors preferred to the more expensive hourly rooms at the Imp Wing.
Kos turned the hilt of the baton and the humming stopped. He gave it another experimental twirl and replaced it on his belt. The old ’jek-issue baton had gotten him out of quite a few scrapes in this way, even though it would never be able to fire a submission blast again. Kos had long ago run out of the powerful crystals the League used back in the city. The League didn’t hand out crystals to retirees, no matter how honored, so the best he could get were cheap Orzhov knockoffs that could make the baton hum and little else. Fortunately, the hum was usually enough warning to get thugs like Orubo to back down. Fortunate, because despite his bravado, there was no way Kos could have taken all four of the much younger gang members. His heart was racing—not a real attack, but fast enough that he doubted he would have lasted long.
Eventually, someone would call him on his bluff, but no one had done so for twelve years. He supposed he was lucky.
“They’re gone,” he said aloud.
