by Marin Landis
Melvekior hadn’t forgotten that treacherous little bastard, Galtian either. He meant to have a reckoning with him once this was all done and dusted.
“Did he say what sort of side effects?”
“No, but I don’t feel any different to before, before those little green men attacked me.” She must have been struggling to remember as her brow was furrowed and she spoke haltingly. “He said I would try to block out being killed, but I remember them all dancing around me, but I couldn’t move. Your father was controlling me and I was watching it all from far away.”
Her voice broke at this stage and Melvekior respectfully waited for her to finish. He contemplated reaching across and grabbing her hand but worried about seeming too forward. He looked at everything but her. He looked over at the white marbled statue of the woman pouring water from a large jug into the bath. He hadn’t seen the servants draw the bath but he could surmise that they poured the water into a trough in the back of the statue and it made it look as though the woman in the statue was filling the tub. He was sure it was supposed to represent some sort of minor deity, but there were so many Gods that he recognized only a few other than Mithras, the Sun God. He looked at the floor to ceiling painting of the old man standing on the precipice shaking his fist at the army ascending the mountain peak. He was too far away to make out the name of the painting, but the scene was marvelously described. He could almost hear the old man’s imprecations.
Looking at the scale of the luxury in the room reminded him that he was now broke and he didn’t know how he would get any funds, let alone enough to prolong his stay at what must have been the most expensive place in town.
She had stopped sobbing and he offered her a handkerchief from the drawers at the side of the bed. Accus was still out for the count, snoring louder now.
“Why would you risk traveling by yourself? Was it so bad working at the Inn?"
"Yes, I used to be a lady-in-waiting and because of Soria, we were both dismissed and I didn't want to be a serving wench. Men are always pawing at you and Fulgrin paid me next to nothing and always pressured me to sleep with him."
"Where did Soria go?" he asked, not really knowing who that was, but assumed it was a friend.
"Amaranth. She came here and got a better job"
“Oh, well that’s a start, I could help you find her,” he offered quickly. He didn’t want to get rid of her exactly but wanted her out of harm’s way. Plus, if he helped her it would mean he knew where she was and could see her again.
“I’m not sure I want to meet her. She’s a hostess,” she accented the word, “in a men’s club.” This didn’t get the reaction he expected from Melvekior, so she continued. “I think she’s a prostitute.”
His reaction this time was driven by a mixture of guilt, knowing that his father had used such women, and not wanting her to get involved in such activities.
“You’re right not to want to meet her then. It’s a very dangerous way to make money.” He was red faced and his voice was rising in volume. “I just,” she was looking at him intently and he noticed that she was smiling slightly, “don’t think you should expose yourself to all that, especially after what you’ve been through recently,” he finished lamely.
“I came here to seek my fortune, so I suppose I should do that now,” Janesca continued. “Though now I know I don’t want to do it that way, I’m not sure what to do.”
“Nor I, and I am woefully short of money. This room costs two gold crowns per day and I have less than a handful left. I fear I shall be working my debt off somehow or making my way home to adopt my ancestral seat having known less freedom and adventure than I should have liked.” He smiled sadly, happy to have met her but unable to take her home with him.
“Why don’t you just use the money your father has in the mining bank here in Amaranth?”
“What? How do you know about that?” he demanded. “Were you able to read his mind when he was within your body?” It already sounded odd when he said it aloud.
She furrowed her brow. “No, it just came to me that he had secretly stored a small fortune in money here.”
“He probably meant to tell me about it sooner or later but met his second demise before he could.” He looked at her curiously. “If even what you say is real, you’ve been through a lot and might be confused.”
“I do not feel confused. In fact I feel absolute clarity.”
“One of the side effects Accus mentioned no doubt.” He stood, “Let us visit this bank and test the veracity of your words.”
The concierge gave them directions to the bank. “Once you come across half a dozen semi-nude men then you know you’re in the right place,” he tried to joke. Melvekior couldn’t quite remember if this was the same fellow who was rude to him the first time they met so he didn’t laugh.
It was another beautiful day, the sky blue and cloudless and they had dressed appropriately. Janesca wore a short jacket over her blue and white dress and she looked the picture of prettiness. Melvekior had dressed in a gentleman’s tunic; brown and with enormous brass buttons, white breeches, skin-tight with high leather boots. He felt a bit of a dandy and he didn’t want to consider what the garments would add to his bill. He hoped fervently that this visit wouldn’t be a fool’s errand, although he suspected it might be.
Many of the stores and establishments that had been open over the past few days were closed, with shopkeepers presumably having a rest after the excesses of Summerfest. Inns and taverns of course were still doing a brisk trade as it seemed many people treated this is the second day of a single day holiday. The city was consequently quieter than normal. Still the usual beggars and hawksters were in force and more bothersome than ever due to the slimmer pickings. The fine garb they wore made them prime targets and even Janesca’s kind nature, or naivete as Melvekior referred to it, was tested within minutes.
The Kingsway marked the end of the commercial district, outside of which begging and soliciting was banned and the ban enforced. They entered the Kingsway through Piety Gate, so named due to sins of the flesh being left behind in the main part of town, and crossed over to the more elite area which separated the bulk of Amaranth from the region of the actual mines which were the source of all the wealth in the city.
There were a score or so large estates inhabited by the richest of Amaranthan society and the roads and general populace reflected the superior area in which they found themselves. There were no street people and the roads, wide enough to carry horse-drawn coaches, were well maintained and clean. Guards, dressed in smart black and silver uniforms and red plumed helmets patrolled in groups of four. There would be little danger to combat but they kept in perfect order, not a plume or weapon out of place. The group that passed them gave them a surreptitious once-over but Melvekior guessed they were dressed appropriately as they were not stopped or questioned.
Carter’s Way was the long road that ran all the way up to the mine itself, updated long since from the dirt track it once was and now needed regular repair work due to all the heavy wagons that transported their loads of untreated Volcanium. Everyone in Torgetiea knew of Volcanium and most lives had been enriched by it. Melvekior’s ancestral home had lighting, heating, cooking and bathing apparatus that used the miraculous power of the mineral only found in this one mine.
The brothers immortalized by the statue in the Grand Plaza were adventurers who discovered the mine, with one of them being gifted in the arts of transmutative magic. He was able to bring forth the unexpected properties of Volcanium, bringing about a new era of prosperity and progress across the nation and beyond. Little wonder then that these three men were almost deified across the known world. A reputation they were not willing to surrender.
A reputation that Melvekior unwittingly endangered by holding Sunar's medallion.
They walked a fair distance up Carter’s Way until they came to a guardpost. It consisted of two nondescript, square buildings on the left hand side of the road. Outside, two on e
ach side of the path, stood two Deniers of Kurhu. Fearsome in repute, they looked impressive standing, watching, almost unmoving.
All Deniers dressed the same; brown, knee-length trews and brown slippers. They wore nothing on their torsos and all were devoid of body fat, muscled in the way that only a person who exercises constantly can be. Their heads were shaved, and their bodies hairless too, giving them all a nearly identical look.
As Melvekior and Janesca approached there was no response from any of the men, but as they came within ten feet, one of them seemed to relax and smiled in a friendly fashion.
He had a handsome face, tanned a dark brown by the sun and when he spoke his teeth could be seen to be fine and even.
“Good day, citizens, what is your business?” His voice was melodic and his tone reasonable.
“Hello. I have business at the mine bank.”
The Denier looked him up and down. Then at Janesca. “Well?”
“Oh, uh I’m also going to the bank,” Janesca said, almost asking the statement.
“Very well, pass,” he said pleasantly. “If you have any weapons, leave them here. The guards at the bank will beat you if they see any weapons or aggressive behavior.”
They had brought no weapons with them so it was moot, but the warning was odd. The guard pointed up the road. “That large building on the right is the bank. Farewell.” He finished so emphatically that even the haughty Melvekior thought better of asking him any further questions. He and Janesca just walked off awkwardly, feeling the Denier’s eyes on their backs.
“Do you think you could take him?”
“What?” He squinted into the sun looking towards the bank.
“That Denier, any Denier. I’ve heard they are the best fighters in the world. Could you beat one in a fight?”
He wished she’d keep her voice down. “A fight? Combat isn’t a game, but I’m sure I could hold my own. How good could they be?”
Of course he had considered the same thing. He was not yet a score years old and all other males were direct competition in some nameless game of machismo. He normally had the benefit of being the healthiest, brawniest and most skilled person in any room, but Deniers of Kurhu were about as physically perfect as a human being could be. The did not partake in fun of any kind. Alcohol was forbidden to them, martial prowess was their drug of choice. They lived their lives as living weapons, honed to lethal extremes, and nobody ever saw an elderly Denier. Rumors abounded that they killed their own people when their levels of fitness declined through age, sacrificed to their dark Denier gods. Their homeland, a large island off the south-east coast of Amaranth was off limits to all but those born there and they were notoriously unforgiving of trespassers.
They were, however, for sale. For exorbitant amounts of money one could hire a Denier as a guard or soldier. Incorruptible and steadfast, they made perfect hirelings, but no amount of gold could tempt a Denier to reveal anything about his homeland or his people. Repeated questioning would cause offense and an offended Denier was the last thing anyone wanted. The story of Baron Andrect was an oft-told cautionary tale.
Baron Andrect, a nobleman with delusions of grandeur, had determined that he would take control of the mines and knew that to control the Deniers was the only way to do so. He hired one on a pretense and planned to torture information from the man. Red hot pokers, blades and threats were all utterly ineffective. It was as though the poor fellow didn’t feel pain or know fear, although he did warn the Baron of the folly of his actions and the retribution that would follow.
The Baron in his cruelty and arrogance had left the Denier alive on the rack, his guts half pulled from his body, fingers and toes missing, teeth removed, nose slit, one knee smashed and one foot flayed. With some superhuman effort the Denier had slipped his manacles, gathered his entrails back into his body, sewed his wound up and seared the wound and then limped free. No guards had been posted as nobody could have possibly believed possible the incredible fortitude and strength it took for that dying young man to escape the torture chamber of Baron Andrect.
It didn’t take long for him to hobble from the Baron’s estate in the Amaranthine Noble’s District to the guard post on Carter’s Way.
Within minutes, summoned by some unknown signal, there were dozens of the half-naked fighters standing before the Baron’s mansion, demanding his surrender. Of course he didn’t and from the midst of the Deniers stepped a man, dressed, according to witnesses, not in the traditional brown trews and slippers, but in black with a featureless mask.
Smashing the barricaded door with a single blow and moving like the wind, he raced in, dragging the Baron out, kicking and shrieking, by his hair.
“My people are inviolate. You all would do well to remember that.”
In full view of scores of observers, he beat the fourth richest man in Amaranth to death with his bare fists. Soldiers, nobles, peasants, merchants, average citizens, all witnessed the act and none offered any complaint or objection.
The man in black looked up at the crowd, now containing the Mayor at the time and other politicians and council members beside and issued a chilling warning.
“Any taking for granted the service my people provide will suffer the same fate. As a warning, this man’s pitiful corpse will be left here until the birds have picked its bones clean.”
So it was left. Until scavengers had stripped the flesh from the bones and gnawed at the bones. Looters robbed the house, broke the windows and knocked the doors in. One night someone set fire to the manse and only a blackened shell was left in the morning, the Baron’s remains nowhere to be found. Even his family were not interested in burying him. They changed their name shortly afterwards and left Amaranth.
Over the years the story had grown in the telling, but all agreed on the finer points and the moral of the story. Don’t ever try to hurt a Denier of Kurhu. Most people in fact tried to avoid them at all costs.
A sign swinging from the eaves identified this, typically Kurhan, building as the bank. A pile of gold coins sitting on a green background. Typically Kurhan as it was unimaginative, dull but functional. A warehouse it seemed, nothing like he’d imagined a bank would look.
A single door the only entrance and there were no windows. He stepped through and the interior was absolutely not what he was expecting either. It was more library than bank. Shelves of thick, leather-bound books rose to the ceiling covering every wall. All the books were the same brown leather and the words on the spines made no sense to Melvekior. There were numerous wheeled ladders situated in the library, presumably for the librarian to reach the books on the higher shelves.
The only person in the room was a woman, sitting at a large desk in the center of the room, her head down, scribbling within one of the books. There were four more of the large tomes stacked on the dark wood next to her left arm. She seemed young and Melvekior’s first thought was of her origin. Was she from Kurhu? She wore clothes so maybe she wasn’t.
He coughed politely and the woman looked up, smiled and beckoned them forward.
“Hello, I am Hatavva, is this the first time you’ve been here?”
She had a plain face, lightly lined as though she were approaching middle age and chin approaching double status. Her eyes were brown and she was almost tanned, quite possibly a local but it was hard to say.
“Hello. Yes, I’ve never been here before.” He didn’t know exactly what to do but didn’t want to look as though he had no place here. He was hoping that Janesca wasn’t just making all this up.
“Account name please,” she got straight to business.
“Martelle, I am the heir to the name. My father Mikael recently died.”
The woman looked at him more closely now. “I see the resemblance now. I liked your father and I’m sorry to hear of his passing.” She stood and walked to one of the bookshelves directly behind her, scanning it briefly and then taking one of the mighty volumes down. Melvekior noticed that she was shorter than average, walked with
a limp and she wore men’s leggings instead of the robes he had expected.
She placed the book gingerly on the desk, hopped back onto her chair and opened the book. Skipping a few pages she came to the page she needed and nodded. “It says here that you are indeed the beneficiary of this money should Lord Martelle pass, which he has, Kehenre keep him.”
There she stopped and he was glad. For a moment he feared some other stupendous news. Your mother isn’t really your mother, your father left you massive debt. Something of that ilk and he had enough to think about. He wondered if he’d have enough money to continue his adventures or would he need to head home and invest the money in some sort of business.
“Hatavva, pray tell, how much money did my father leave in here for me?” He was trying not to sound too desperate.
“Seven thousand crowns. I’m afraid though I will have to close this account in the circumstances."
"What will I..."
“I have created an account for you," she interrupted efficiently. "You will be able to retrieve your money either here, in Uth-Magnar, in Lagutia or in Maresh-Kar city. There will also be a line of credit, paid automatically every seventh day, at all establishments that are part of the TriMar Guild."
He’d never heard of it and he wondered if the Maiden was part of this guild.
“Your current lodgings are members of the guild. You’d be hard pressed to find an inn or tavern of repute that was not.” It was as though she could tell what he was thinking.
“How much could I collect now?” He looked around and it didn’t seem as though there would be hundreds of thousand of coins in this room or even if the rest of the building other than this room could hold as much money as he imagined would be described within these books.
“As much as you are owed but it would be difficult to transport unless you have a way to do so, which I know you do not. Our fees to you are ten crowns every Summerfest. Do you have further business here?”
