Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Morning. You’re looking better.” I sat up straight, yawned, and cracked my back. It was more a reflex than anything - since arriving in Archemi, I’d had no actual back pain at all outside of combat.

  “I feel like a dog’s breakfast, but I have my stats and HP pool back up to scratch, so I’m not complaining.” Suri flexed the new limb, then began to don her armor and gauntlets.

  Karalti stirred beside me, stretching and yawning. She opened one eye to peer sleepily at Suri, then grumbled and yanked me back in against her chest like a kid with a teddy bear. “Mmmm.”

  “Ack!” I fell back over, struggling against the iron grip. “Leggo!”

  “No. Mine.”

  Suri laughed, watching me flail around. “Aww, look at it. True love.”

  “True something.” Resigned, I sighed and let myself be hugged as the dragon curled around me possessively, her tail twitching back and forth.

  “So.” Suri sat down on the edge of the bed to slide her plate gauntlet up along her freshly regrown arm. “You found another Nightstalkers ring, if I heard you right?”

  “Right.”

  “That’s what I thought. The good news is that I can get us a meeting with the King of Cats,” she replied.

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but did you just admit that you can get us a meeting with a local crime boss?”

  Suri nodded. “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “It’s because she’s a thieving-” Before Karalti could finish, I whapped her on the edge of her wing with my knuckle. She snorted and pulled her wing away.

  “None of that,” I scolded. Then I realized I’d spoken aloud. “Sorry, Karalti said something to me in private.”

  Suri glanced down at her in confusion. “The Nightstalkers are a pit fighting syndicate. They do some smuggling on the side, but it’s mostly about the sport. Well, I fought for a syndicate down in Dakhdir - Dhul Fiquar, the Rose Knives. Ever heard of them?”

  “I hear they’re the biggest syndicate in that country,” I replied, gently prying Karalti’s claws from around my midriff. “Man, you think you’re getting to know someone, and then you find out they’re a foot soldier for the fucking Mafia.”

  “I wasn’t a foot soldier for anyone, asshole. I was a gladiator.” Suri wrinkled her nose at me. “Fighting’s how I survived in the city after I broke out of Al-Asad. I told you I tried to become a dancer. Well, it was at a place called the Tiger’s Den. They ran fights out of the basement there. The guy I beat up on my first night dancing tried to murder the bookie.”

  “Bookie as in bookmaker?”

  “Yeah. Well, I ripped the knife out of the guy’s hand and stabbed him to death. Saved the bookmaker’s life, and Dhul Fiquar picked me up as talent. They loved me – I was strong enough to take on middleweight and heavyweight men in the ring. It was a real hit.”

  “Huh. The more you know.”

  Suri nodded. “Well, point being, I made syndicate connections as soon as I wandered into Taltos. If you’re not in a rival gang, it’s polite for visiting syndicate members to pay a house call to the big players in any city they travel to. You go introduce yourself, have a drink, pay your respects. The Nightstalkers are currently the biggest syndicate in the city. I know where they hang out, and if we play it right, I’m pretty sure we can meet the boss. It’s good that we’re both foreigners.”

  “Why?”

  “Because their base is in Cat Alley. The ‘International District’, where the Meewfolk live.” Suri stood and hooked her axes onto her belt. “They don’t like locals, and the locals don’t like them, but that’s where we have to go. The earlier, the better.”

  “Not at night?” I asked.

  “Nope. Meewfolk are nocturnal, and nights are when the fights happen. The pit bosses do their admin in the morning, sleep all day, then run events from after sunset until the next morning. If we get there before nine, they’ll be wrapping up whatever went down yesterday.”

  I poked Karalti in her armpit. “Come on, girl. You heard the lady.”

  “Bleh.” Karalti yawned again, but she finally let me go.

  I picked myself up and yawned as well, then swiped my HUD and equipped my armor. I was alarmed to see that nearly all of my stuff was gone, until I remembered that it was in a pack in my room. “Mind if we stop by my place?”

  “Nope. But should get going already.”

  The three of us walked down to the Royal Stables, where rows and rows of riding beasts were kept in communal pens. Cutthroat’s was easy to find: it was the one where most of the other hookwings were cowering back against the far wall.

  It was just after feeding time, and Cutthroat was licking out the bottom of an empty trough. Two other, far more dainty hookwings watched her nervously as they gulped down their meals from the next trough over. The bigger hookwing looked up once she had cleared every scrap of meat, smacking her jaws, and her baleful golden eyes fixed on the rapidly vanishing food in the other trough. She didn’t even really bother making a serious challenge to the twins – she just reached out with a claw and began to pull Meal Number Two toward her.

  The smaller dinosaurs screeched with rage, and one of them snapped at her arm. As its jaws closed in, Cutthroat lowered her head and headbutted it right in the snout. It yelped and backed away. The other one was now alone. Victorious, the coal-black hookwing dragged the trough close enough to pull a mouthful of entrails from it, snapping them up and swallowing them down. Her eyes narrowed with pleasure.

  “Same old psycho,” I chuckled. “How are you two getting along?”

  Suri held a hand up to ward me back, and strode over to the bolted gate. She threw it open and strode in, scattering hissing hookwings to all corners of the corral. When Cutthroat saw who it was, her throat swelled, and she left off the food, bobbing her head and making a weird sound. Gurk gurk gurk.

  “Wait… is she about to...?” That was all I got out before she regurgitated the guts she’d just stolen onto the ground in front of Suri’s feet. I jumped back against Karalti. “Eww! Dude!”

  “She’s trying to feed me. She thinks I don’t eat enough.” Suri remarked. She took Cutthroat’s tack off the hooks and saddle tree.

  “That’s fucking nasty!” I hung back, watching on in a mixture of admiration and horror as Suri threw the saddle blanket and saddle onto Cutthroat’s back.

  “They do it for their mates to show they will be able to provide for chicks. It’s a courtship thing.” Suri said. “She’s basically my wife now.”

  “That’s so romantic.” Karalti sighed with longing.

  “Umm, sure.” My stomach churned as Cutthroat lowered her head and began to lick up the steaming pile of meat she’d just vomited onto the ground. “If you ever do that to me, I’m disowning you.”

  I watched as Suri mounted. She was looking more confident in the saddle these days, and watching the pair gave me a warm glow. For all her antics, Cutthroat would always have a place in my heart. When push came to shove, she’d always been there to back me up.

  Karalti was bigger than Cutthroat now, so she took the lead. People actively got out of our way, watching on in awe as she strutted by. Once we were outside, she broke into a graceful lope, lighter and faster than the hookwing’s bulldozer gallop.

  “You going to be able to stay cool during this?” Suri asked me, once we’d cleared the gatehouse at the end of the road. “You’re not going to turn into Mr. Law and Order all of a sudden, are you?”

  “Of course not. Anything I should know?”

  “Keep your purse down the front of your armor. Pay for things in copper coins, and don’t flash any silver or gold. Don’t stare any Meewfolk you meet in the eye without blinking. If they look at you, sort of squint your eyes slowly, nod, and leave it at that. They tend to talk without making eye contact, so don’t be weirded out if they’re looking somewhere else other than you.”

  “Huh. Alright.” I watched the street as we cantered by. “You’ve never met this guy before, ri
ght?”

  “No. Just one of the pit bosses and some of his lieutenants.”

  “Were they all Meewfolk?”

  “No. Pretty diverse lot, actually. That’s normal for syndicates... Champion fighters and coaches come from all over the world.”

  I chuckled. “Did you have a name in the ring? All fighters have ring names, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, they do.” Suri replied. “They called me Libiwat Asada, the Red Lioness. You don’t speak Dakhari, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “’Al-Asad’ means ‘Of the Lion’. The lion is the Sultir’s Clan symbol, and they named their dungeon after it. It was a bit of an in-joke.”

  “Nice. How’d you avoid the authorities in a city of that size?”

  “Dalim’s underworld is literally underground. Nearly all the crims are Fireblooded,” she replied. “They took me in, and for most of that first month of freedom, I was too scared of the sky to go outside much.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. There’s two things that scare the piss out of me: wide open spaces, and giants.”

  “Giants?”

  “Yeah. I hate big things, you know. Shit that towers over you. Gives me the creeps.”

  Cat Alley – officially known as the International District - was easily the shittiest and most heavily policed part of Taltos. The neat cobblestone roads and clean apartments gave way to a ramshackle sprawl of huts, crooked stone buildings, stalls, and lean-tos. On the way through the gate, we saw soldiers harassing a group of sour-faced Meewfolk. The humans were making them turn out their backpacks and pouches onto a table, searching for stolen goods and weapons.

  Even so, the area was lively. Street vendors sold baked fish, fried insects, live chickens, rats, and ducks. Human preachers held small crowds on street corners. Surprisingly clean Meewfolk children chased each other or played games by the edge of the sluggish canal. The river ran underneath a series of bridges in the middle of the district.

  “We’re in the Women’s Quarters right now,” Suri said. “Men live on the other side of the water.”

  Suri reined Cutthroat to a slow walk as we crossed a bridge and turned down one broad curving street, which ended in a dingy walled courtyard. The spike-topped wall was covered in faded notices and wanted posters, graffiti, and moss. Five guards - three Meewfolk, one Mercurion in a battered mask, and a human - lounged beside a heavy oak and iron door, or played cards at a rusted metal lattice table nearby.

  “Easy, girl.” Suri murmured to the dinosaur as she snorted and grunted, eyes darting from one face to another.

  “Telling Cutthroat to calm down is basically an exercise in futility. You know that, right?” I whispered to her.

  “Sure, but it’s worth a try. Let me handle this one.”

  “Oh, look. It’s the dragon man and the Dakhari bounty hunter,” the human called out. He was a big rough scar of a man, with a twisted lip, a big crossbow, and a bandoleer stacked with ammo for it. “Heroes of Taltos, renowned across the land. Not that you’ve done much about the Slayer. What’s your business here, kingsmen?”

  “My business is with your boss,” Suri replied. “I’m Suri Ba’Hadir, the Lioness of Dhul Fiquar. Me and Hector need some face time with the King of Cats.”

  “Dhul Fiquar? The man squinted at us both. “That supposed to fuckin’ mean something to me?”

  “Yeah, it should. And if it doesn’t, this will.” Suri brandished her hand with the gold Nightstalkers ring. I lifted my hand to show the same.

  “Come back at night. There’s no rousing in the morningsss.” One of the Meewfolk rasped. He was relaxing on one of the chairs at the table, his hand of cards folded against the top. Unlike the human, he carried no weapons other than his own claws, but he looked tired and strung out.

  “We’re not here to rouse. We’re here to shift bluff,” Suri said.

  “Shift bluff?” I asked her by P.M.

  “Trade information,” was the terse reply. “A rouse is a fight.”

  The human grunted. “Give me one good reason the king would want to see you.”

  I urged Karalti forward a step. “Because Red made me an offer, and we decided to take her up on it.”

  Suri looked over sharply. The guard’s thick brows arched with intrigue. Red’s involvement with the Nightstalkers had been an educated guess on my part, but it seemed I’d hit the nail on the head.

  He jerked his head to one of the Mercurions. “Glick, go in and give the boss their names. See what she says.”

  Glick bowed their masked head, then opened the gate and paced inside.

  We dismounted, and I lay a hand on Karalti’s shoulder. “I need you to stay out here and watch Cutthroat for us. Alright?”

  “Alright. You don’t need to tie her or anything. She’ll follow me.” Karalti looked down at the guards, flaring her horns.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m bigger now, so she listens to me.”

  Suri started to lead Cutthroat to a hitching spot, but I caught her arm and shook my head. “Karalti says she’ll take care of her.”

  Suri shrugged, then nodded.

  Another ten minutes or so passed before the Mercurion returned. He beckoned us forward with two bony fingers, and we followed him through the gate into a compound that was similar to a Chinese hutong. The path turned left, and we passed under an Asian-style hip-roofed gateway that opened into a courtyard. There were a number of houses here, all of them in bad shape. Some of them were clearly relics of an older Taltos, built out of worn black limestone. Others were distinctly foreign, with steep gabled roofs supported by carved wooden pillars. There was little in the way of walls and rooms. Meewfolk lounged on the bed-sized windowsills of these houses, sleeping in the open air, or watching us suspiciously as Glick led us to the biggest house in the compound.

  This house was in better condition than the others, but you could smell the old booze and sweat from the doorway. The Mercurion opened the door ahead of us, walking with a light, dancing step, and came to a stop at the bar where he flourished and bowed to the only person there.

  Red was dressed almost exactly the same as she had been at the party. She reclined elegantly against the edge of the long wooden counter, her body a study in sharp points and long, lanky curves. She was wearing a different mask today: instead of a serene Mona Lisa smile, this one had the grimacing face of a Japanese demon. Her head swiveled toward as we approached.

  “Hi, Red,” I said through clenched teeth. “You really know how to throw a party, you know that?”

  Suri frowned and stared at us. “Wait. Do you know each other?”

  “Hector and I met at a party once.” Red pushed back from the bar and beckoned us to follow her. “Come. The king is expecting you.”

  Chapter 35

  Red led us through the building and down a flight of hollow wooden stairs, as graceful and quiet as a ribbon of smoke. The hall had the dreary, grimy look of a shuttered nightclub, with dirty floors and clusters of empty, dirty tankards, paper, and straw. The refuse was being swept up by the morning cleanup team.

  “What’s this place called?” I asked Red, following behind Suri. We naturally fell into letting her take point - she was the tank, and I was the guy who could almost see behind his own head. It was natural that I followed up the rear.

  “It isn’t called anything,” Red rasped. She still had that gravelly, pack-a-day voice. “If someone wants to drink and find a fight, they know where to come.”

  At the bottom of the stairs was a basement lined with kegs and barrels. Red strode to the far wall and vanished right through it.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Illusion.”

  “Yeah.” Suri nodded her agreement. “Probably keyed to these rings.”

  She passed through, and I followed. The illusory wall had to have been fairly solid, because there was a noticeable temperature drop on the other side. Behind the curtain was another part of the Lethos Cellar complex - what looked like an ancient mineshaft
. Clusters of brightly colored glass lamps hung from the ceiling, lighting a path that led down to an ancient cistern. A solid beam of light shone down from overhead, illuminating the center of what had once been a round, shallow reservoir for water. Now it was a fighting pit with a fence built around the edge.

  “Does fighting pay well?” I asked Suri.

  She eyed the ring with an odd expression on her face. Nostalgia. “If you’re good at it.”

  “To the death, or...?”

  “Depends. Death matches pay better than anything else, though.”

  I smiled faintly as we cut around the arena and headed down a narrow stone passage. “I’m guessing they didn’t call you ‘Lioness’ just because you came out of Al’Asad.”

  Suri chuckled. “Nooope.”

  Red strode to a door at the end of the tunnel and knocked twice before opening it. I nodded to her, and paused as my HUD chirruped. I had a message - when I glanced across, my heart jumped when I saw who it was from.

  [You have one unread private message from Rin Lu]

  Dammit. Talk about shitty timing. I pushed the notification back with a thought, and followed Suri into the room while Red held the door.

  The office beyond was cool and sweet smelling, offset by the soft sound of trickling water. It was beautifully furnished, with antiques from every part of Archemi blended into one seamless artful composition. A purple divan was partly hidden by jade and pearl-inlaid ebonwood screens; fringed colored lanterns lit the dingy place with blue, red, and yellow light. At the back was a firepit, which burned high and clean behind a large mahogany desk and the lean, tall figure who sat behind it. As we crossed the floor, he stood and came around to greet us. He was almost six and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, and dressed like an assassin in layers of dark, soft leather. His face was thin and handsome, and even with a short salt-and-pepper beard altering his features, the resemblance to Andrik Corvinus was unmistakable.

  “You’re looking pretty good for a dead man, Your Majesty,” I said, with a bow.

  “Your… Majesty?” Suri’s head turned sharply toward me, then she looked back to Ignas, the King of Cats, and her eyes widened. “Ignas? Ignas Corvinus?”