by D M Gilmore
“Boys,” the bouncer growled, letting them get a good look at the golden ring around his right horn, the telltale sign of a member of the Misty Mountains gang. “Business or pleasure tonight?”
“Business,” Asher hissed, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets so that the bouncer couldn’t get a good look at his watches.
The brothers were well enough known at the club that most of Smog’s gang knew them at least by face, if not by name. Ruth didn’t like that so many members of a known street gang could so easily place them, but with Asher’s business dealings it would have eventually been unavoidable, and it did come with some useful perks. Ruth liked being able to walk into Club Erebor whenever he wanted, skipping the line for entry and getting a discount on booze, but he didn’t trust how friendly the gang behaved around him.
This wasn’t anywhere close to being their first business deal with one of the drake gangs. As soon as Asher had been out of college, they’d been selling his spells on the streets to anyone willing to pay a good price. Ruth had to remind himself that they had done this exact same kind of deal loads of times before, and that tonight should go no differently than any before. Provided, of course, everyone played their part.
Ruth’s eyes narrowed as Asher tapped forearms with the copper drake before slipping past the barrier, and denied the gesture when it was presented in turn to him. Instead, Ruth bared his fangs and growled menacingly at the copper, who stood a good head shorter than him.
“Easy, scaler,” the bouncer whispered, barely audible over the earth-shaking bass, as he opened his jacket to show off the pistol holstered under his arm, “no trouble.”
As they passed through the door, held open by another member of the Mountains, they were momentarily blinded as they stepped through a short, unlit room, and out into the sheer brilliance of Club Erebor. Drakes of all shapes and sizes mingled and danced, sitting in groups at tables or standing by the bar. A DJ stood upon a stage on the far end of the dance floor, blasting techno music on a digital rig in time with flashing holograms and neon lights. Everything in the club was illuminated by shimmering multicoloured mana projections, while the smell of ozone they produced was only drowned out by the smell of sweating drakes and alcohol.
“I don’t see Smog,” Ruth shouted over the blaring music, crossing his arms in frustration. No Smog meant that they would be left waiting for him to send for them, and that meant he had to stand around and look scary.
“Then I’m going to get a drink,” Asher replied, raising his voice equally loud to be heard over the music. Asher didn’t recognize the song, it sounded like a combination of old style hip hop and techno.
The brothers waded through the crowd of drakes, occasionally elbowing them out of their way as they made their way through the pounding room towards the bar. As they approached, the idling patrons parted for them, looking up at the angry face of Ruth in fear and awe. That was another thing Ruth hated, the fact that he was big and mean looking meant people made a noticeable amount of space whenever he came by. Even other drakes were scared of him. Fuldrakes weren’t uncommon, but Ruth was big even by those standards. Big, in the world of drakes, meant strong. Strong meant dangerous.
Asher pulled up his phone’s hologram display quickly and got ready to wire the bar some money. “Hey, brother,” he called, getting the attention of the purple drake at the counter, “get me a Misty Mountain,” he said, sending the money.
The bartender nodded knowingly, flashing the golden band around his horn, and began to mix a blue cocktail in a tall glass. Asher took his seat on a nearby stool, letting his tail drape onto the ground and coil neatly by his bare, taloned feet. Ruth continued to stand with his arms crossed, insisting on looking as menacing and unpleasant as physically possible.
“Hey, big boy,” a blue female said, sliding up to Ruth, “you look like fun,” she cooed, casually wrapping her arms around his thick forearm. “What say you and I go find somewhere we can play around a bit, hmm?”
“Fuck off,” Ruth growled, tugging his arm away.
“Wow, asshole, you could just say no,” the female growled back, scoffing in disgust at the larger fuldrake.
This was perhaps the aspect of their business dealings that Ruth hated the most. Every time they came out, without fail, somebody would hit on him. It wasn’t that the female wasn’t pretty, but judging by the golden Mountain band he spied around her rightmost horn as she walked away, she was a prostitute, and not a casual encounter.
“One Misty Mountain,” the bartender said, breaking the sudden nervous tension by dropping a steaming chunk of dry ice into the glass and passing the fizzing concoction over to Asher. “He’ll be right with you,” he added quietly, before walking off to go check on some more customers.
Asher sipped at his drink in silence while the music pounded through his skull and his brother stood there passively. He tried to get a feel for the room, whether there was any danger in the club that they needed to be aware of, and he looked to Ruth for confirmation that they were still safe. The larger drake nodded his head, and Asher let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
It was one thing to willingly do business with the gangs, but it was another thing entirely to get caught up in their fights. The absolute last thing either one wanted was to have to make their escape while the Misty Mountains fought the Phoenix Tribe.
“Heads up,” Ruth called, breaking his brother’s concentration as the larger drake spotted a group pushing their way through the crowd. “I think our ride just got here.”
Without a word, Asher chugged his drink, shivering as the dry ice touched his tongue and the alcohol left a burning sensation in his throat. He quickly spun himself around on his barstool, and came face-to-face with three drakes of different colours, each of them in finely tailored suits and with a golden ring slipped over their rightmost horn.
“Smog’s expecting you,” the middle one, blue scale and green trims, said as he looked from Ruth to Asher and back again. “Your muscle can wait here.”
Ruth began to snarl at the comment, but Asher put a reassuring hand on his brother’s arm as he hopped off the stool and looked up at the offender. “My brother comes with me.”
The trio looked from one to another, before the rightmost, white scale and orange trims, shrugged and nodded. They were most likely under orders to bring Asher, not Ruth, but if the runt wanted to hold on to his bodyguard, they weren’t going to refuse. Without trying to shout over the blaring music, they motioned for the pair to follow, and effortlessly carved a path through the crowd as they made their way to the opposite end, just beyond the DJ booth.
Asher dusted his coat off as he followed them, grinning from cheek to cheek. Time to make some money.
Chapter 4
The back of Club Erebor was significantly less pleasant to behold than the front. Where the front was full of pounding music, bright lights, and dancing drakes, the back was all business. A grid of hallways led to managers’ offices, drug labs, change rooms for the guards, and bedrooms for the whores. Soundproof walls blocked out everything from the squeaking of beds to the pounding bass. Every few feet, lining the walls and ceiling, were small beacons that pulsed dozens of times each second, filling the hall with flickering blue light. Asher cast a quick glance at the beacons and narrowed his eyes.
“Smog upped security again,” he mused, as he watched the beacons. He had been in the back of the club more than a few times, given his dealings, but each time it seemed like Smog had added a few more to the hallways, bolstering his security ever so slightly.
The group stopped at the end of a long hallway, lined with a thick red carpet and painted a rich gold colour, and reached for the polished metal door. The white and orange one nodded to Asher, and pushed the door open, ushering him inside. He was about to close it, when Ruth pushed him aside and ducked under the door frame to avoid hitting his head.
The office looked much like Asher remembered it from their last business dealing. It wa
s occupied mostly by a pair of fine synthetic couches in the centre, on opposite sides of a glass table, and just beyond them was a finely made wooden desk, accompanied by a plush ergonomic chair that lacked distinct lumbar support. On the right side of the room was a giant mural, a replica of the Last Supper, but with every human replaced with a drake, and Jesus replaced by a winged dragon. On the left side was a fine wooden cabinet, and in front of that was the drake they had come for.
Duncan Smog was a lot to look at. He stood just a hair under seven feet tall, which put him firmly in the average size. His scales were a polished ruby red, while his trims were an oily, shiny black. Unlike most drakes, who had a pliable crest atop their head, Smog was unique in that he had a flowing mane of shimmering black hair, grown down to his shoulders, giving him a sinister, if not regal, appearance. Like all members of his gang, he had a golden ring over his right horn, but in addition he had another over his left, alerting everyone who saw him that he was the drake in charge. Like his men, his suit was finely tailored, perfectly sized to fit on his surprisingly slender frame, and he had a few golden rings on each finger. Asher had been wondering about those rings for a long time, if one or more had draquartz inset, but he suspect the golden chain around Smog’s neck was the piece that bore his quartz.
Upon hearing Asher and Ruth enter, he slowly turned around to greet them, a grin plastered on his face and a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. His ruby eyes went from Asher, to Ruth, to the trio outside, who quickly closed the door lest they invoke his wrath.
“Boys,” he greeted, his voice smooth and lacking the distinct gravelly accent most drakes had. “How are my favourite spellcrafters doing?” He took a sip from his tumbler, rolling the whiskey across his tongue and savouring the taste.
“Well, that’ll depend on how tonight goes, right bro?” Asher said, nodding up to his brother.
Ruth said nothing, returning his arms to their normal position, crossed across his chest.
“There’ll be time to enjoy ourselves later,” Asher continued, plopping himself into a couch, taking up the centremost cushion. Ruth took his position behind the couch, just above his older brother’s right shoulder, a constant reminder to Smog that if anything funny were attempted, the larger brother wouldn’t hesitate to pounce on him and shove his face through the table.
Smog chuckled softly as he stepped around the couch opposite the brothers, taking position at the centre cushion and slowly lowering himself down into the seat. The cushion sagged beneath his weight, and squirked as he got comfortable, smiling all the while.
“Correct me if I’m wrong but today you have my commission?” Smog asked, taking another sip from his glass. “What did you call it again? Shadowscale?”
“Shimmerscale,” Asher corrected, reaching into his jacket pocket and producing a data key the size of his thumb.
“Shimmerscale,” Smog sighed, letting the world roll over his tongue as he played around with the word. “The invisibility spell that I requested, correct? It will allow my crew to be completely unseen?”
“Not exactly,” Asher explained, shaking his head and dropping the data key into his opposite hand, which he quickly closed into a loose fist. “Invisibility, the way you wanted it, is impossible. You can’t just make somebody not be seen, that just doesn’t happen.”
“So how did you crack the problem?” Smog asked, leaning back in the couch and crossing his legs expectantly.
Asher grinned as he prepared to tell the full story. “Invisibility could have worked one of two ways: mental trickery, or lensing. Tricking somebody’s brain into thinking that you’re not there would absolutely create the effect you were looking for. Your crew would be completely invisible to people affected by the spell, but there’s the problem, see, you would have needed to recast the spell on each individual you wanted to affect.”
“You couldn’t just make a field or something?” Smog asked, raising an eyebrow and swallowing a generous gulp from his tumbler. “I mean, mana isn’t an issue.”
“It is in the kind of operations you’d want this sort of spell for. You can’t bring a giant battery with you when you’re sneaking around, and even then it would take so much mana to maintain the illusion field that you’d have maybe ten minutes to operate.”
“And what of this other option, lensing was it? I’m assuming this is the one you went with.”
Asher nodded excitedly, and Ruth suppressed a sigh. This was Asher’s natural element, talking nonstop about magic and all things associated with it. The research and theory were more interesting to his older brother than any practical use for them, but Ruth supposed that was what made him such a good spellcrafter and seller. He genuinely got excited about tackling problems creatively by creating the perfect spell for getting around it.
“Lensing in this case refers to bending light around something. Instead of affecting other people, it only targets the caster, and bends light around them, effectively making them invisible in the right circumstances,” Asher explained. “For example, your glass, when polished to a shine, emptied, and placed in a dark place is as good as invisible,” he continued, pointing at the tumbler that Smog was casually gulping from. “It’s the same sort of principle. In effect, the user becomes like glass: see-through, but not quite unseeable.”
Smog blinked a few times and frowned in confusion. The older drake was very much not interested in the theory and research involved with crafting a spell, and cared exclusively about how it could be applied to his operations. He had a plan for a spell that would make his crew invisible, and if Asher didn’t deliver something impressive there would be a problem.
“Perhaps a demonstration is in order?” Asher asked, flicking his wrist. The hand gesture woke up his watch, and the interface appeared just above the palm of his hand. Using the clawed tip of his thumb, he quickly swiped through applications, before stopping on the one labelled Shimmerscale. “Are you watching?” he asked, quickly looking up to catch the eyes of the impatiently waiting drake. When he was sure he had Smog’s attention, he swallowed nervously and clicked the icon.
Mana began to crackle in the air, a few sparks of bright blue energy splashing off Asher’s scales as they quickly turned translucent, before finally becoming transparent. In a matter of seconds, Asher looked like nothing more than a drake shaped ripple in the air.
Smog nodded in approval, his lips pursed in surprise, as he leaned from left to right and staring at where he knew Asher was.
“It’s not a perfect solution,” Asher continued, turning off the spell and reappearing faster than he had vanished. “Like I said, perfect invisibility is impossible. There’s just no way to carry enough mana around to keep your crew completely unseeable for more than maybe ten minutes, if my math is correct. With this method, the spell can at least last two hours on a single charge.”
Smog nodded slightly, and held his hand out, palm up. Asher gingerly handed the data key over, and watched as Smog held the tiny plastic device up to his eyes, nodding slowly.
“I’ll give you 1,000 for it,” he finally answered, closing his fist around the drive.
“What?!” Ruth snarled, clenching his fists.
“You offered us five grand for an invisibility spell. I delivered, Smog,” Asher growled, subtly swiping through his watch interface to have his fireball spell at the ready.
“You know you’re not the only spellcrafter in town, Asher,” Smog said, cocking an eyebrow, “others have told me that they can get this exact same effect, and have offered to do so for this price.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed and his lips parted into a sneer. Competition wasn’t completely unheard of in the broodtown, but downright undercutting him on a deal? That was territory you just didn’t cross. “Yeah, and I bet their invisibility spell would have left an aura around you. You go to someone else when you want something pretty, you come to me when you want something that works! Did you take their offer?”
Smog shook his head. “Of course not, Asher. You’re exp
ensive, but rarely are you not worth the price. It just so happens, however, that this is one of those rare times.”
“No offence, Duncan,” Asher began, cracking his knuckles, “but our original deal was five grand for a spell to make somebody invisible, which is already incredibly difficult to accomplish without hemorrhaging mana. I delivered a spell that is effective and controlled,” Asher said, tapping his claw on the glass table for emphasis. “It won’t leak mana at the same rate as a field, and I can guarantee you that no other spellcrafter in town would ever be able to make a version as efficient as mine!”
“What you have delivered to me amounts to a parlour trick, if I’m being honest,” Smog said, his voice remaining calm but taking on a sharper tone. “I wanted a spell to make my crew unseen. An illusory field would have accomplished more than this lensing effect, and for that, I’ll pay you a thousand.”
Asher’s tail twitched nervously, and he quickly muttered over his shoulder to his brother. “Ruth, go wait outside.”
“No way!” Ruth protested, uncrossing his arms and holding his fists up in a boxing stance.
“Ruth!” Asher growled, raising his voice. “Out. Now.”
Ruth instantly dropped his stance and looked down at his brother in shock. Asher very rarely raised his voice with him like that. If he was getting mad, something was seriously wrong. Ruth wanted to ask what it was, but knew now was neither the time nor the place to confront his older brother about whatever was on his mind. With a snarl, he galumphed out of the room, slamming the door on his way.
“Now that the brute is out of the way?” Smog asked, raising an eyebrow ridge at the remaining brother.
“Five thousand,” Asher repeated, leaning forward in his seat, “that was our deal, Smog. You want that spell, I expect to be paid.” His jaw clenched as he said the words. He had to tread carefully here. One wrong move, one wrong word, and Smog would come down upon him with all the might of, well, a mountain.
