by Kyle Spencer
Got to hand it to Impressario: he has some great taste. Although it begs the question as to why he has so many dresses…
Scratch that. I don’t want to know.
Susi walks besides me along the cobbled streets. Both of us are wearing the same clothes as before, albeit after having them thoroughly washed. The two sisters walk on my left. All of us are basking in the warm glow - and safety - of the morning sun.
Our path takes us south by southwest west, close to Aquarian’s second massive lighthouse that, like its bigger brother to the east, signals safety and profits for the many, many merchant ships that come to port here. Somewhere around close by is the club known as Equuinox. I’ve heard the name but that’s about it. Well, that and they serve some very high-end clientele. What they serve, I’m about to find out.
Thumpa thumpa thump thump thumpa thumpa…
The ground underpaw vibrates slightly. The air comes alive and pulses around us, shaking my very bones. Celeste wraps her arms around me, pulling me close.
“Earthquake?” She asks as she presses her breasts against me. Gods, how I want to say ‘yes’ and see where that leads. But Talia and I just look at each other and shake our heads. Earthquakes are a way of life on the Shimmering Isles, as are volcanoes and tsunamis. And when the land itself tries to kill you every few years or so, you get real good at noticing the warning signs.
“Nah. Definitely not an earthquake.” I reassure her. “But I am curious as to where the Hel it’s coming from.”
We continue towards the club, more slowly now, keenly aware of the pulsing booms trembling through our bodies. The deep beat quickens as we press on and is joined by fast rhythmic music that grows louder and louder until we turn the final corner.
The street in front of us looks paved in obsidian with the telltale red sparkles of glowstone. It ends in a cul-de-sac where a lone building stands. It’s made of the same black stone with two large silver doors sitting in the center. Above them written in large loopy red letters is one word: Equuinox. The lighthouse, situated on a jetty a few hundred feet past the building, juts up right in the center so that the forced perspective makes the whole thing look like a…
“I think I know what kind of club this is.” Talia muses. I chuckle while Susi and Celeste exchange confused looks. The beat continues, obviously coming from the club in front of us. The whole building shakes with each bass hit.
“Seriously?” Susi folds her ears in on themselves. “It’s like, eight in the morning!”
“You heard Impressario last night.” Talia replies. She waves her paws in the air, mimicking the cat’s mannerisms. “You’ll find out that Equuinox is a club that never sleeps. Fa-ha-ha-ha!” Her voice rises high as she does his distinct titter, making the maus giggle.
“Let’s get going.” I lead the way, half-tempted to close my ears as well against the incessant noise. “Who were we supposed to ask for again?”
“Agador.” Celeste says.
“...Agador who?”
“Just Agador.”
Placing my paw on the door sends shivers up my arm like I’ve just been shocked. The heavy silver (are they really? Holy shit they are!) doors slowly swing inward to a small reception area. The music pumps louder but is still muffled, coming from a second set of doors on the far end of this new room. Those doors, of course, happen to be gold. The room is painted black - pure black - with red leather chairs lined up along the wall and a black desk with red trim a few feet in from the entrance. Behind the desk is a tall black horse in a red tuxedo. His ebony mane is slicked back and the suit is perfectly fitted to him. He eyes us with palpable indifference.
“May I help you?” His speech is curt and clipped, like we are causing him great inconvenience just by being there despite the fact that we are the only ones in the room.
“We’re here to see Agador.” Talia says politely. This raises one of the receptionist’s eyebrows, but nothing more.
“And. Who. Might. You. Be?” Black lips curl in a sneer. What an ass.
“Impressario sent us.” Talia is unperturbed. “He says Agador owes him some...things.”
“Hrmm.” The receptionist considers this, motions for us to wait, then trudges through the golden doorway. As the doors open a wave of drumbeats almost bowls us over. We sink into the plush leather chairs and wait. And wait. Aaaand wait.
Finally the door opens again and through it saunters a tall chestnut horse wearing maroon silk pajamas. Oil-slicked hair falls smoothly over the left side of his face and a drink the color of unicorn puke sits in the martini glass in his right hand. He stops a few feet away and gages each of us in his own sweet time.
“So,” He loudly slurps the sparkly pink liquid in his glass, “Impressario sent joo to Agador de Vena.” Another sip. “Well, I am flattered, but we do not cater to children.” His free hand motions to Susi. “I’m sure joo understand.”
“Honestly, I have no idea why we’re here exactly.” I shrug.
“In that case, first let me say that joo are all beautiful and dressed fantastically.” He turns and motions down the length of Talia’s body. “Firefox indeed! That dress brings out the fire of joor spirit! Fabuloso!” He downs the rest of his drink. “But I do not think that Equuinox is the establishment for joo. So it pains me to say adi-oh dios mio!”
His glass almost clatters to the carpet as the main entrance opens behind us. Archy’s massive frame fills the door. He looks like he’s been experimenting in his shop again; cloudy soot covers him from head to toe. He smiles wanly at us.
Agador looks absolutely apoplectic. He rushes over to the bear and slaps him on the shoulder. “Look at joo, silly beast! Getting dirt and grime all over my carpet! Again! And where have joo been?! Armando will not shut up about joo! He is scared to death you found another! Ah! He has been sulking and sulking for days! Joo better go and apologize to him immediately! Oh, but first come here.” The two hug. “Let’s get you cleaned up and then you can go see Arman-eh?”
Archy holds the horse at arms length. With a tree-trunk arm he gestures to us. “Agador. These are my friends. We have favor to ask.”
Agador stares at us with wide eyes and slack jaw. In an instant he gathers himself and rushes to embrace each of us, depositing a generous helping of soot on our clothes.
“A thousand apologies! Why didn’t joo say you were friends of Archelaus? Come in, come in. We shall talk in my office.” He hurries to the inner door, pauses, and turns back to Susi. “Joo...might want to cover your eyes.”
“I’ll be fine.” She protests.
“But-” Before our host can insist further, Archy interrupts.
“Time is of essence, Agador. And trust me, you cannot argue with her.”
“Fair enough.” Agador shrugs. “But joo have been warned.” The doors open and again we’re almost blasted back by the percussion inside.
“Huh. I was right about what kind of club this is.” Talia pats me on the shoulder.
The interior of the club is separated into four sections. One corner is lined with black tables with green tops. Tuxedos and dresses mill around them, throwing chips or tossing dice. Horses run the tables, dealing cards and taking bets and cajoling some of the more drunk patrons to part with the rest of their money. The next section hosts a large circular bar in the center with circular booths of varying sizes speckled around. From above it probably looks like a giant orrery. Three horses stand behind the bar, doing their usual bartender things. The third section is a large raised dance floor. Suspended stain-glass jars full of luxorbs dapple the area with rainbow colors as patrons too drunk or too broke for the other spaces dance like nobody's watching, which is another way of saying awfully. A thin gap under the stage reveals the source of the ear-splitting booms. A second stage, almost completely hidden under the dance floor, houses a dozen or so basilisk-skin drums. Two drummers stand at each one, opposite from the another. They strike the head with perfect rhythm, eliciting thunder with each hit. Horses mingle within the writhing ma
ss of dancers above . Some of them strike up conversations with patrons and eventually lead them to the fourth area: a large gilded staircase that splits two ways, each path leading to who-knows-what upstairs.
Oh, and every employee here is wearing a black and red bow tie.
And nothing else.
“Bow…” I can barely hear Leena above the din.
“You do realize that you can’t devour their life force afterwards, right?”
“…Nevermind.”
“Oh…um…wha…ah…” Susi freezes in place, eyes wildly roving around.
“Okay, I do not know what I was thinking. Agador was right.” Archy scoops her up with one paw and covers her face with the other. “Time to close eyes.”
We follow Agador up the stairs until we hit the fork. Pointing to the right, he instructs Archy while we leads the rest of us up the left-hand stairs.
“Armando is in room two-oh-one.”
Silently our the alchemist passes off Susi and ascends the right stairs. I could swear there’s a little hop in his step. And now the duty of covering Susi’s eyes falls to me.
“The rest of joo, please follow me.” The long black hallway ahead of us is bare of any doorways, save for the bright red one at the end. The walls are decorated with…interesting paintings. Yup, we’re still keeping the eyes covered.
The simple red door with ‘OFFICE’ written in black letters opens up to a rather smallish and cozy room. Sweeping his hand to a large couch, our host slides behind an ebony desk. With a smoothness that comes from muscle memory, he pulls out a bright pink bottle and five martini glasses. The bottle twirls in the air as he serves each of us a glass of unicorn puke. Ever the gracious host, he hands each of us one and raises his own.
“Salud!” Agador smiles and downs his drink.
“Salud!” We follow suit.
“Hey!” Susi pouts. “It’s not alcoholic.”
“I never said it was.” Our host looks bemused. “Now, how can I assist joo, friends of my friend Archelaus?”
“We need a ship.” I lean forward. “Reliable captain and crew.”
“And one that is not averse to danger, I assume?” Agador raises his eyebrows. I purse my lips as a reply. “As I thought.”
“So can you help us?”
“I think I know just the person. Although she may be preoccupied at the moment.”
“Can we find out?”
“Time is a factor, yes?” He scratches his chin.
“Kinda.”
“Okay, but the little one - Susi, is it? - should stay here.”
“Can I have more of the pink stuff?”
“But of course!”
“Deal.”
We head back down the erotically-painted hall, down and up the main staircase to the other hallway lined with numbered doors. Under each number is a small circular symbol. There’s a palm tree, a raindrop, a crescent moon, a castle…the list goes on. The primal drumming continues unabated but much more muffled as we continue onward. Joining the beat is a chorus of grunts, groans, moans, and I swear I heard a whip crack.
“Each room has a different theme.” Agador answers a question no one asked, probably because we all had it figured out already. “This one is a forest glade, this one is an ocean bed (complete with bubbles), and this one is a…um…dungeon.”
Stopping at a door with a wavy sun, he gives it three quick raps. No noise behind it. Three more knocks. Pause. Still no noise.
“Just how important is this again?” Agador grimaces. Talia and I frantically motion to him: get on with it! He gulps and turns the doorknob. Slowly our host opens the door to a room painted like an idyllic field of flowers. The carpet is plush and green. The walls are painted sky blue with puffy little clouds near the top. The bed is made to look like a mound of grass speckled with flowers. On the bed is…
“Oh my!” Talia and Celeste gasp as one.
“Oh my indeed.” I agree.
“I-is she…” Celeste stammers
“Yup.”
“With four other…”
“Yup.”
“Is that physically possible?”
“Appears so.”
“I like this place.” Leena chuckles quietly to me.
“I am so terribly sorry, Captain Saltana!” Agador stumbles over himself closing the door again. He speaks at the symbol of the sun. “When joo are finished, joor presence is requested in my office.” He turns to us with a startled look and shoos us back to his room.
“What about the professor?” Celeste asks as she’s ushered away by Talia.
“Give him some time.” Our host says. “He and Armando have some…catching up to do.”
Back in Agador’s office we find Susi collapsed on the floor with a distended belly and an empty bottle. Thin trails of pink drip from the corners of her mouth and pools on the floor.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice is a low, constant groan. “It was just so good.”
“Don’t worry, my dear.” Our host looks rather amused at the sight. “I remember my first time having Fenix Down. One of the sweetest drinks joo can find.”
“How rude!” Leena huffs. “She didn’t save me any!”
Agador pauses with a handkerchief half pulled out of his pajama pocket. “Did joor pendant just talk?”
I calmly usher our host over to the couch and sit him down. What was it Archy always says? “Let me explain. No, too long. Let me sum up…”
Saltana
Oh way down south where the cockatrice crows
Way down in Ussadra
The girls all dance to the old banjo
And we’ll roll the woodpile down
- Sea Shanty
“Once again, joo have my sincerest apologies. I thought that-” A flick of a paw silences Agador.
Standing in the middle of the office is a tall, slender otter. Breezy light blue breeches reach just below her knees and a darker blue coat with brass buttons covers a salt-stained blouse that’s tied at her midriff. 3 large gold hoops dangle off each ear and a much smaller one curls around her left nostril. A long red silken bandanna wraps around her head and drops down behind her like a second tail. Her right eye is the color of sea foam while the left is pitch black, what on account of the eye patch. A tiny snaggletooth juts out from her upper lip that she picks at absentmindedly.
“Shok prakat karana,” Her voice is smooth like the glassy surface of a lagoon…with just a taste of salt, “You walked in on me having sex. Like I care.” Her one good eye wanders over to us sitting on the couch as a paw scratches at her eyepatch. “But something important must be going on for you all to go barging in on strangers in here of all places. Let me guess: You either want me to smuggle something for you, or smuggle you. Now, seeing as how you don’t have two coins to piss on, I’m guessing you want to get the Hel out of Aquarian. I’m also gonna go out on a limb and say you want to get to the Shimmering Isles. I can do that. But I won’t do it for cheap.”
“How about a hundred pissing coins?” I chuck the pouch that I snatched up off poor Mr. Richbear a few days ago. Captain Saltana picks it up and slowly opens it. She lifts her eyepatch to reveal another perfectly good eye.
“Better. This’ll get you about halfway.”
“Halfway!” Talia snaps. “Hel, I’d rather swim there myself than pay a king’s ransom to some greedy pirate!”
“Merchant.” Saltana cooly corrects. “I…am a merchant. Who specializes in rare and hard-to-procure goods. Now, if those goods happen to be pilfered, poached, purloined, or even plundered, well…” She smiles and shrugs.
“You’ll get the other half when we reach our destination.” Talia glares at the captain but doesn’t sound as convincing as she hoped. Saltana just laughs.
“I’ve been burned before on that lovely lie. No. Full payment. Up front.” The sack disappears inside the blue buttoned coat just as another one plops at her feet.
“Is other half.” Archy leans against the doorjamb.
“Indeed it is.”
Saltana replies as she gazes up at the professor. She doesn’t even try to pick it up; I’m surprised the coin pouch didn’t fall through the damn floor it hit with such a heavy crash. “That sounds like it’s enough for passage for everyone in this room and then some.”
“Archy,” I say cautiously, “Where did you get that much money?” He smiles and taps his nose. Of course he won’t tell me; that bastard can keep a secret like nobody else.
“Umm…” Celeste looks around sheepishly, “I don’t think I’m going with you guys. I just...it’s too much. And the other sisters are going to need all the help they can get. Just…just promise me you’ll be safe.” She hugs Talia as tears trickle down her face.
“This is nice and all, but if we’re done here I’d like to finish up the time that I paid for. Meet me at sundown, dock number seventy-three, right across from the Rosebud and Pearl Tavern. You can’t miss my ship. Trust me.” Saltana is already undressing before she even reaches the office door.
“How about before sundown? Say, early afternoon?” I ask as she reaches the door.
“Why?” She turns around, blue coat hanging off one arm. “What’s wrong with sundow - you know what? I don’t want to know. I’ve got more important matters to attend to.”
“You actually might want to know.” Talia insists, but her words fall on deaf ears. Well, nonexistent ears.
Captain Saltana has already left.
***
“Ho-lee shit.” I whistle.
Saltana leans over the side of The Kelpie’s Tail and smiles broadly. Three other otters join her and start to hoot and holler at Archy and me. Soon the entire crew is whistling and hurling nicknames (most quite flattering) and even a few invitations our way.
“I bet you’re enjoying this.” Susi grumbles.
“I’m not not enjoying this.” I wink at her as I climb the gangplank.
The last ship I was on took me away from the Shimmering Isles eight years ago, and it was a trip I do not wish to recreate for the rest of my life. Five gods-forsaken months of puking every day, nights full of snoring and belching sailors, and more lost games of mumbletypeg and pinfinger than I care to count.
