by Noah Layton
‘No, no,’ Veronica laughed, batting her hand at me with a smile. ‘Okay, if you must know, I waited till night had fallen and all of the house was silent, and then I took a bucket of lantern oil, poured it all over the ground floor living quarters and-’ She stifled a laugh to finish telling the story, -‘Set the place on fire!’
Veronica broke into hysterical laughs, setting her plate down and fanning her face with her hand to cool herself.
I was halfway through munching into an ear of corn when I stopped dead, staring over at her with a raised eyebrow.
‘You set the castle on fire?’ I laughed with a little nervousness. ‘Why?’
‘Well,’ she panted, ‘years of having rocks thrown at you and having oil matted into your hair by a group of tyrannical arseholes can push a person to lengths they wouldn’t usually go.’
‘So what happened to the house?’
‘Oh, it completely went up in flames. You should have seen it, it was magnificent.’
‘Is that why you came to the city?’ I asked with an incredulous smile. ‘Don’t tell me you have a bounty on your head.’
‘I am not that stupid,’ Veronica chimed. ‘The family got out thanks to my waking them – never got a thank you for that, by the way – but the castle was entirely destroyed. It was such a beautiful sight. I stuck around for a while and batted my eyelids, playing the picture of innocence. They never suspected a thing. Then I was told that I was to help with the rebuild.
‘The moment they said that I grabbed my things, headed to the city and met Cassandra. And the rest, as they say, is history. Apart from that castle, of course, now it’s not even history. It’s just a great big smouldering wreck.’
Veronica let out another hysterical laugh and picked up her plate of food.
‘Please tell me you don’t tell that story to too many people,’ I said.
‘Oh, no, not at all. And what is your story, Drake Masterson?’ She asked.
‘Okay, you’ve told me a secret. Guess it’s time for me to tell you mine.’
Veronica listened intently while I told her my tale so far. When it came to the parts about me describing the injuries I had sustained during my betrayal and the comments about hunting the Poison Stag down, she leaned forward in an absolutely entranced state.
‘You must go after them,’ she said intently. ‘It is your duty as an individual, as a man.’
Before I could even respond she set her plate down and moved towards me, dropping to one knee and taking my hand.
‘I promise you, I will do whatever it takes to assist you in this quest for vengeance.’
She was being almost comically sincere, so much so that I thought she was mocking me, but after a few seconds of staring into her deep blue eyes, I realised that she truly meant it.
I wrapped my hand over hers.
‘I appreciate that.’
She was entirely loyal to my cause already – maybe a little too much.
After dinner was finished and cleared away the sun had completely set, and Spire City was bathed in darkness.
Cassandra turned in to bed while I hung around with Veronica as she prepared the red meducia at the stove.
‘How strong did you say you wanted it?’ She asked as we stood in the kitchen surrounded by lanterns like a pair of witch doctors.
‘As strong as you can make it.’
‘I can make it so strong that it kills somebody. Are we talking that strong?’
‘Oh, no, I mean enough that it would mess with somebody’s mind to the point of sheer terror.’
‘That I can do. So, the trick is to separate the leaves from the flower. That lets you get at the spores inside, but you don’t want to touch them with your bare hands. This is supposed to be inhaled, but it can still seep through your skin and distort your perceptions a little.’
She cut the spores from the stems and dropped them into a small pot of boiling water, then stirred it for several minutes. She then took a colander and a thick vial and strained the dark red-pink liquid into it, finally stoppering the top of the vial and handing it to me.
‘All a person has to do is take a big breath of this and they’ll be turned into a mess for the rest of the night.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, carefully pocketing it. ‘Do many people know what this stuff is?’
‘Very few. It’s a relatively obscure herb. Do you mind I asking what you want it for?’
‘An enemy.’
‘You mean the men who tried to have you killed?’
‘Just one of them. Taking these guys out quickly is too good for them. They tried to have me killed. Not only that, but they were going to rob me and bury me out in the middle of nowhere to make it seem like I never even existed.’
‘Then revenge is on the cards,’ she said firmly.
***
The Prism Opium Den was a basement hideaway in the Bronze District, not far from my old guild headquarters. It was the typical spot for wasters and hideaways; dimly lit by red lanterns, low ceilings and scattered with beds.
The low ceilings and the multitude of beds complimented each other; folks rarely stood up in a place like this, wiling the night away while high as a kite.
It definitely wasn’t my scene, but there was one person I knew who was a frequent customer; Bartram.
I left my hideout a little while after equipping myself with my weapons; I was suited up in my hunting gear, namely my boots, leather pants, overshirt and fighting jacket, as well as a scarf to cover my face and my hood to pull over my head, leaving only my dark eyes exposed.
I carried with me all of my new weapons; my sword and rifle clipped over my back, and my dagger sheathed at my waist and the pistol concealed in one of my pockets.
In what felt like another life, the members of the guild and I had been something close to buddies. We had drank together. We had killed together.
But any semblance of friendship that might have once existed was gone now. I didn’t trust a single one of them.
I hardly trusted anybody.
It was the dead of night when I arrived in the Bronze District. The crowds had thinned, leaving my existence exposed to anybody who would think to look my way.
But tonight was different. I was armed, and I was nothing but a shadowy figure moving through the darkness.
The opium den was one street over from my old guild headquarters, but I had to head over there to see it before journeying to the den.
I had to set my eyes on the bastards. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to expose myself this much, yet the anger within pressed me on.
I pulled to a halt in the alleyway across the street from the headquarters. The lanterns within were still burning, but I knew their routine. They drank till midnight, took off home and returned in the afternoon.
Bounties were easy to track down at night; less ruckus, more chance to surprise.
The same went for the other way around, though.
Unlucky for them.
A few minutes after midnight the lanterns in the headquarter windows were turned down and the door opened.
My eyes fixed intently on the trio of bastards as they emerged from within. There was Bartram, Wargo, and finally Killian.
They laughed drunkenly as they staggered down the steps, wandering their separate ways for the night.
Bartram didn’t look like much, but with his attitude and the thick, squat, dual-hand blade slung over his back, it was enough to keep most people in the streets out of his way.
I knew his type, I knew it from the moment I had him a year ago. He was the kind of guy who thought he was untouchable, getting in everybody’s face every second of the damn day, until he picked on the wrong guy who was the type to smash his fist through the guy’s face.
As of yet Bartram had managed to avoid such an altercation. Some guys were just lucky every day of their lives.
This wasn’t going to be one of those days.
I waited in the alley until he was twenty yards from the headquarters be
fore emerging onto the street and tailing him. I matched his pace, followed his lead and kept my head down and my footsteps silent.
There were plenty of others still around at this time of night, but I didn’t want him to think that anybody was tailing him, never mind it being me of all people.
To him I was a ghost. He had no reason to be paranoid.
He turned the corner at the end of the street, heading right and moving onwards. Now that he was out of sight, I rushed ahead and hid at the corner of a shuttered fruit merchants, peering around a stack of crates and mapping his route.
He did what he always did; crossed the street, glanced around, and descended a series of hidden steps into a basement that glowed with red light.
I was too well-hidden behind the crates to be seen. Once he had moved down the steps I promptly crossed the street and hugged the wall, following to the entrance to the opium den below.
Dens like this were scattered all over the city. Almost all were run by a sun-elf gang that practically dominated the opium trade, and this one was no different.
As I leaned over the barrier at street-level, I saw him standing at the desk, manned by the head of this chapter, a bespectacled sun-elf counting coins.
He shook hands with Bartram, planting both hands around his, combined with the rotten-toothed smile and the nod of a proprietor that was greeting one of his most valuable customers.
He led him deeper into the basement and out of sight. No doubt he was taking him to his usual bed, with his usual girls.
Did I mention the girls before? These places were all about comfort; dim lights, luscious beds, plump and full-feathered cushions, and company if that was your sort of thing.
Pay a little coin and you can pass out for the night. Pay a little more and you can have a courtesan snuggle up to you for a few hours.
The racket was common in the city, and the sun-elves were paid well for it. I had no interest in anything like that, but I would need to blend in if I was going to pull off the plan.
Fortunately there was little loyalty in places like this, and that was going to play to my advantage.
A few minutes later the man at the desk returned. I headed down the steps to this unfamiliar place for the first time.
Only then, as I walked through the front door, did I realise that the inner entrance was manned by two taller-than-average, suit-clad sun-elves. They both held out a hand, pushing me back slightly as I arrived.
‘Peaceably, gentlemen,’ the head sun-elf said. ‘He must simply not know our ways. Remove your hood and your mask please, sir.’
I did as I was told, first glancing over his shoulder to check that Bartram wasn’t in sight.
‘Kindly remove your weapons, too,’ one of the sun-elves said. ‘They are not permitted within the den.’
‘They aren’t?’ I said quietly in my best tone of faux-shock aloofness. ‘Oh, god, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to cause a problem. I didn’t know the rules. Never been here before.’
‘It’s no problem at all. If you’ll kindly hand them over to my men here, they will take good care of them while you are on our premises.’
‘Whatever you say.’
I removed every weapon on my person, right down to the concealed pistol and the dagger sheathed at my waist.
Now, there were two lies that I had told here. The first was that I had never been to one of these places before; I had, once, when I had first joined the guild. It was Bartram who had convinced me to join him. The moment I set eyes on the place I knew that it was the last spot I wanted to be in.
The second lie was that I didn’t know the protocol; of course I knew that I wasn’t allowed to take weapons in. Anybody who was anybody knew that.
It was just to add a sense of innocence to my appearance.
Or at least as much innocence as a bounty hunter could muster up.
I emptied my pockets voluntarily too, revealing the vial of red meducia.
One of the sun-elves took it and held the vial up to the light between his fingers.
‘What is this?’ He asked gruffly.
‘Just a little something to wake me up in the morning. I’ve got to work early.’
He handed it to the older sun-elf at the desk, who further examined it.
I prayed to whoever was listening up there that Veronica was right about it being too obscure for most to recognise.
Come on, come on, come on…
He finally offered it back to me.
‘Very well. Be careful not to drop it. Those vials are very delicate.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Would you like some company for the night?’
‘Please.’
‘Very well. Twenty gold pieces.’
I handed over the gold and followed the man at the desk inside.
Now I was in the lion’s den. The sun-elves were the last people that I was afraid of; they were the cubs, the escorts and the handlers.
It was Bartram who had the teeth. He had a short-temper and he was trigger-happy enough to rush me the moment he got the chance if he saw me.
I kept my head low and my eyes peeled at all times, and in the midst of the columns precariously holding up the ceiling, I caught sight of him.
He had a sun-elf either side of him, snuggled up as he inhaled deeply from a pipe.
I froze up; for a moment I could swear that his eyes were gazing straight at me.
He could see me.
Then his eyes glazed over, a vacant smile crossed his face, and he fell back against the bed with the sun-elves either side of him.
I finally exhaled, following the head of the den through to a quiet spot. I pretended to get comfortable on the bed, and a moment later the man returned with a courtesan in her early-twenties. She was a beauty, wearing nothing but lacy black underwear beneath an open silk gown, and the moment her eyes rested on me, her ambiguous face took on an expression of sincere interest.
She climbed onto the bed and snuggled up next to me, running her hands over my body.
‘You wish to take off your jacket?’
‘That’d be nice.’
She pulled it off for me and lit the opium pipe, handing it to me and running her hands over me as we got comfortable.
‘Are you always this friendly with lower-level customers?’
‘No, but for a man like you I will make an exception.’
‘You don’t want to be friends with me, believe me.’
‘Why so?’
‘I’m a bounty hunter. I’m dangerous.’
‘I doubt that you have ever laid an aggressive hand on a woman in your life.’
‘That’s true, but it doesn’t mean danger doesn’t follow me.’
‘I am sure that it does… But that is a desire of many women, you know?’
‘What is?’
‘To have a dangerous man on their arm who is dangerous to all but them.’
‘I wouldn’t disagree with you.’
‘Would you like me to help you smoke? So many like a lady to feed it to them…’
‘I’m fine, really.’ I set the pipe aside and turned to the woman. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘You may ask me anything.’
‘I mean it. You don’t need to play the part of courtesan for me.’
‘I am not playing a part. I do find you attractive. But to a man, does it matter whether or not a woman is acting?’
‘Do you pretend to be loyal to your gang?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Right,’ I smiled. ‘Just as long as we understand each other.’
‘I won’t say a word. Now what would you like to ask me.’
‘I already asked you the first thing; how loyal you are.’
‘My answer is that loyalty can be bought.’
‘And how much would it cost for you to do me a favour?’
‘That depends entirely on the favour, bounty hunter.’
‘How much would it cost for you to swap out a man’s opium for somethin
g else that I would give you?’
‘What are you planning on putting into this man’s pipe?’
‘Nothing too dangerous.’
‘It will not kill him?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘Something to… Unsettle him.’
The courtesan traced her finger up to my chest and bit her lip, letting it slide slowly from her teeth as she glanced up at me with her shimmering amber eyes.
‘I think that I can do that. Thirty gold pieces.’
‘Deal.’
The courtesan produced a pouch from the folds of her silk gown, and I filled it up with the thirty pieces from my own supplies.
‘Who is the man you seek?’
‘The one that came in right before me.’
‘I know of whom you speak, but he has only just arrived. He will not need to be topped up for an hour yet.’
‘Are you sure you can do this? Your girlfriends won’t rat you out?’
‘Certainly not. We may not be loyal to our men, but our sisterhood is unbreakable.’
‘That’s what I like to hear. So what happens now?’
‘We wait, and I do not think that that would be such a bad thing.’ The courtesan continued to run her soft hands over me. ‘You are a man filled with tension. I can feel it in your body. What did you go through to evoke such pain in yourself?’
‘You have no idea,’ I whispered, setting the pipe aside and settling into the comfort of the luxurious bed. The courtesan’s hands continued to explore my body, her touch removing a little of the stress from my muscles as she massaged me.
Every so often she glanced over at Bartram’s bed, peering beyond the pillar to get a view of him.
Time had become fluid by the time she dragged her expert hands from me and sat up a little more prominently than she yet had.
‘They are going to get him another dose,’ she said sharply. ‘What is this mysterious substance you would like me to give him?’
‘Here.’
I fished the vial from my jacket pocket and discreetly handed it to her. The courtesan slipped it into the sleeve of her robe with the skill of a magician.
I watched her saunter across the den while I remained hidden on the bed. She intercepted the other girl smoothly, wrapping her hands around her forearms gently and whispering something into her ear with a smile.