by J Jordan
“And besides,” he added, “if we really wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Then again, this little game is becoming quite tiresome.”
Romney took a step toward Kedro but was no closer to him. The elf kept his distance.
“Whether or not it comes to that is up to you. We will give your initial offer, in the currency of your choice, and you will give us the sword. Those are the terms.”
Romney looked back at Cora and Tykeso to see if they wanted to play along. Their dumbfounded looks were answer enough. He would press on without them.
“Your silence is your acceptance. Now, if you would please show us the sword.”
Kedro took another step back and froze in place. He was clutching the bundled towel to his chest, his eyes darting between the three shadow brokers. He whimpered.
This was all he could do. He remained on the spot, shivering in the afternoon haze. Romney glowered at the elf.
“We don’t have all day, Mr. Kyro.”
“Show me the money.”
Money. Romney kicked himself in the privacy of his head. Money. They didn’t have $15,000 ON with them. They didn’t have any money with them. Romney played it off with a smirk. Shadow brokers always kept their money in the shadows.
“We have it somewhere close by, hidden from prying eyes. You understand our situation. Perhaps we could take a peek before?”
“No,” said Kedro. “No way. I want to see the money. No rare coins, no priceless antiques. I want cash, Ontaran notes. Until then, you get nothing.”
Romney’s smirk thinned into a pleasant grimace.
“Your worries are unfounded. Show us the sword and we will see to your money.”
“No money, no sword,” said Kedro, backing away toward his car. “And I’m taking all my emails to the OIB. You’re going to jail.”
“You know those are untraceable,” said Romney, his bluff faltering with each step forward.
“Stay away from me.”
“Wait.”
This came from Tykeso, as a thick Azerran exclamation, like a cudgel with vowels. Romney couldn’t hide his surprise, but luckily Kedro wasn’t looking at him. And especially lucky he didn’t see Cora with her jaw nearly unhinged, her brow fully furrowed. Tykeso began making broad strokes with his hands as he spoke, in the most authentic North Azerran accent Cora had ever heard.
“You will stay here. We will get you money, yes? We will show you money and you will show us sword.”
Even Kedro needed a moment to slip back into paranoia.
“You have five minutes,” said Kedro. “Then I’m out of here.”
“Money is far away,” said Tykeso. “We get it, put it in bag, and give it to you. This is good terms, yes?”
Kedro squinted at Tykeso.
“How far away?”
“Come now,” said Romney. “You don’t really think we would tell you.”
Kedro’s apprehension turned back to Romney. His face twisted with internal conflict.
“Fifteen minutes,” he blurted.
The Shadow Cabal conferred at a branch bank, half a mile from their meeting point. They were sitting in Romney’s car, discussing how they were going to muster 15,000 notes in the time they had left. Romney went over the details of why this was impossible. For one, they couldn’t go inside. There would be posters with their names on them.
“There’s a withdrawal limit on ATMs,” said Romney, cupping his face in his hands. “It’s $2,000 ON per day in all of Lanvale Province. And they flag anything over $1,600 ON to local authorities.”
“So,” Cora began, putting the numbers together, “the best we can do today is $4,800 ON.”
“Which is nowhere near fifteen thousand,” said Romney.
“It’s an installment,” said Tykeso. “We tell him the rest stays hidden until our benefactors are ready.”
“He’s on his last thread. If we don’t show up with the full amount, then he’s gone.”
Cora furrowed her brow. The grimace on her face seemed to be thoughtful.
“Do you know what $15,000 ON looks like? Let’s just say it was stacked in neat piles in front of you. Would you know it was fifteen thousand notes?”
Romney looked up from his hands. His smirk had returned.
“Or if it was all jumbled up in a duffel bag.”
They returned to Kedro with the duffel bag. Romney swung it off his shoulder, unzipped it, and displayed the contents at an awkward angle. He also moved it around a little, to make it look like there was more inside. Kedro watched the stacks of Ontaran notes tussle around, his finger tapping against the bundled towel.
“Here it is,” said Romney, his Camerran accent gaining a drawl made prominent along the Camerran Southshore, and in most Camerran gangster movies, “$15,000 Ontaran, good as can be. Now, Mr. Kedro, it’s your turn.”
“That doesn’t look like $15,000 Ontaran,” said Kedro. “How does it all fit in one bag?”
“Because it’s high denominations,” growled Romney. “Enough banter. Show us the bloody sword.”
“Yeah,” said Cora, in a passable attempt at Tambridesian, “show us the goods.”
Kedro Kyro looked down at the bundled weapon, watching it carefully, as if looking for its approval. Romney could feel a strange pulse coming from the bundle, and a light tingling feeling in his fingers. There was electric anticipation hanging in the air. And something else. With a shaking hand, Kedro gripped a corner of the towel and opened the bundle.
The sudden flash of light caught them off guard. Romney fell to the pavement. The tangible spark became a microburst of energy, washing along the ground and causing the pavement to shake. He clutched at his ears to deaden the loud whine. The sound shook him. It was followed closely by another, heavier quake. Romney closed his eyes and waited for the vibrations to stop.
The grinding and whining sounds faded as quickly as they had come. The world of the parking lot came back by degrees. Romney was gripping Tykeso’s arm. Tykeso was yelling something at the top of his lungs.
“What?”
“He took the money,” said Tykeso. “He’s getting away.”
He pointed at the form of Kedro, disappearing into the distance, towel in one hand and duffel bag in the other. Romney jumped up to his feet.
“Don’t let him get to his car.”
But Kedro was already diving into his minivan. The van roared to life, dropped into gear, and screeched away in a flurry of burned rubber. Romney scrambled to his car, fumbling with his keys as he unlocked the doors. Tykeso shoved him into the passenger’s seat and took the wheel. Cora had just enough time to dive into the back seat, before the vehicle was in gear and peeling out of the lot. She closed the door just as they moved onto the road.
They roared through suburban Cresdale in pursuit of Kedro’s minivan. The whole time, Romney kept his eyes on the license plate. “LRN2CDE.” What a joke. What a stand-up guy, this Kedro Kyro. This father and business owner. This two-timing jerk. This guy would regret crossing Romney Balvance. No one ever got away with a dirty trick like this.
This was completely untrue. Romney had been swindled many times. And he would continue to be swindled many more times in his life. But, on occasion, Romney did exact his revenge on those ne’er-do-wells. And, more often than not, the revenge was sweet.
The minivan took a sharp turn into a sprawling neighborhood, then dove for a cul-de-sac that branched into another. As they made the first turn, Romney watched it disappear behind a row of houses.
“We lost him.”
“Don’t be so sure. It was a left up here, then a right.”
Tykeso made the turns with deft precision, but the road at the end was empty of cars and minivans. The web of cul-de-sacs branched on and on.
“How do people find their houses in this?”
Romney cradled his head in his hands once more.
“What the hells was that thing? Why was that light so bright?”
“It was the sun,” explai
ned Tykeso. “Tambridesian soldiers used to do that to advancing armies. They would reflect sunlight off their shields to distract the front line. Then the archers would pick them off. It was a strange tactic. I’ve never heard of someone doing it with a sword.”
Romney sighed.
“We’ve got a double loss for the day,” he said. “How are we going to explain this?”
“We won’t have to,” said Cora, her eyes locked on her phone. “He lives in this neighborhood. Take the second left up here, Tykeso. Then it’s the third right. North Morningstar, number 11354.”
“What?”
Cora swiped the screen of her phone, then handed it to Romney. It was a legal document for a local business.
“If you’re going to steal from us,” she said, “then don’t run your business out of your house.”
Tykeso made the turns and stopped before a beige, picturesque two-story house, flanked on either side by carbon copies in different shades of tan. Number 11354, with its freshly mowed lawn and its lone apple tree, and a boy’s bicycle discarded on the stoop. They approached the front door in a line. Romney took the lead again, while Cora peered around Tykeso’s towering form. Romney rang the doorbell as a courtesy and then waited for ten seconds. These were courtesies Mr. Kyro didn’t deserve, as far as Romney was concerned. But he offered them all the same.
Tykeso leaned around Romney and examined the door lock.
“Brand new set,” he noted, “but it’s nothing special.”
With a pick in each hand, Tykeso set to work on the lock. The gleaming brass tumbler was no match for his deft skill. Romney tested the handle for good measure, then slowly opened the door. Romney, Tykeso, and Cora peered into the dim abode. The inside was a mess.
Romney was no judge of messiness, and he would be the first to admit it. But even he knew the importance of dusting and ensuring your furniture wasn’t upside down. Bookshelves worked best when they weren’t on their side, blocking the archway into the kitchen. When upright, a bookshelf kept books in place. On its side, it spilled them in a pile on the ground. Romney only got a passing glance at the kitchen and that was enough.
Newspaper made for terrible decor, although that didn’t stop Kedro from plastering the left-hand wall with them. Unlike most conspiracy theorists, Kedro hadn’t circled or highlighted anything on them. A true believer would already know what to look for. There was a rustling from above, followed by a crash, and then a slamming door. They followed the source upstairs to the second-floor landing.
This was Kedro’s workspace, and it was the worst of all: more newspaper, old boxes of Tambridesian meals, a triple stack of pizza boxes, and a laptop perched atop an uneven stack of papers. Tykeso turned and pointed to the closed door at the end of the hall.
Romney eased up to the door and tested the handle. It didn’t budge. Something squirmed on the other side. An elf-sized rat. He did his best to summon the Camerran shadow broker and then tapped on the door.
“Mr. Kyro, we’ve come for the sword. The one we paid for. You didn’t think we would let you get away, did you?”
The next squirm came with a whimper.
“Please open the door. Or I will ask my associate to open it for me. You don’t want that, Mr. Kyro. I assure you.”
The third squirm came with sobbing. Romney looked to Tykeso.
“Can you pick this one?”
“I can kick it in.”
Romney held up his hand and knocked once more on the door.
“Mr. Kyro? Are you there?”
The door opened and a very different Kedro stepped into the hallway. His eyes were red-rimmed, bloodshot, and fixed on the three with a sudden ferocity. His bearded mouth was a thin line. He held the Jade Scar in both hands, the blade now stowed in an emerald scabbard. When Kedro spoke, his voice had lost all of its mania and gained a low growl.
“I am the keeper.”
Romney frowned at this.
“That duffel bag in the corner says otherwise.”
“I was entrusted with the scar. It was my burden. But now everything is crazy. Everybody wants it. My answering machine has all of their promises and threats. My wife took Milo and left. I haven’t seen them in months. The police say they’re looking into it, but then the calls keep coming and nothing changes. But the police are in on it too, aren’t they? Everyone is involved! Where does it end?”
Romney nodded to each point, his eyes drifting to the duffel bag in between beats in the rambling.
“It was just a sword back then,” Kedro carried on. “It didn’t do anything. Why is it glowing now? Why? Why are you people always following me? Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
“We will,” said Tykeso. “Just give us the scar and you are free.”
Kedro wrenched the sword in his hands.
“But I am the keeper. I was entrusted with it.”
“You stopped being keeper when you took our money,” said Romney. “You sealed the deal.”
Kedro looked down at the Jade Scar. The scabbard was simple cloth wrapped tightly around the wooden body, with no fancy patterns or other decorations. The quality was apparent even in the dim light of the hallway. The Jade Scar looked as if it had been made the day before. Kedro hugged the weapon tightly.
“I can’t do it anymore. This is too much for me. It’s crazy.”
“You're right," said Romney. "You have a family to think about. A career. A reputation. You can’t throw away your life over an old sword, Mr. Kyro. Leave it to us. We will be the keepers. Just give us the Jade Scar.”
“No more phone calls, no more threats,” Tykeso said, moving carefully along Kedro's periphery. “Your wife come back; Milo hugs his father. Your life returns to normal.”
“And all you have to do is hand over the sword.”
Kedro looked at his burden for a sign. Romney reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hilt. The scabbard was warm, like a car seat baking in summer. Far too warm for the air-conditioned room. Kedro’s grip tightened. His eyes followed Romney’s arm up to the shoulder but stopped short of meeting his gaze. Romney could see the dark rings around Kedro’s lids, even in the dim light. Kedro tugged the grip away.
“Mr. Kyro, if you please.”
“I can’t give up now,” said Kedro, his voice wavering. “I must be the keeper.”
He retreated to the corner of the room, with Romney and Tykeso following behind him. Kedro flung the duffel bag as they approached. A few Ontaran notes spilled out as it landed over Romney’s shin.
“Take your money. This is my burden.”
“Stop saying that,” growled Romney. “The sword is ours now. Take your money.”
“I can't. I am the keeper.”
“We paid for it. We are the keepers. Fork it over.”
“No, you don’t understand. This is supposed to be mine and mine alone.”
Romney glared at Tykeso, who had lost much of his edge in this strange display. He seemed worried for the distraught elf. Romney’s grimace spoke volumes. He pointed menacingly at Kedro.
“Mr. Vandesko, please break this man in half.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” chuckled Tykeso. “We are equals.”
“Then I strongly suggest you break this man in half.”
“Excuse me?”
This came from Cora, who had entirely abandoned the Tambridesian accent.
“What if we gave you more money?”
Kedro noticed Cora as she approached. His head shook back and forth once again, but slower than before.
“You don’t understand. I’m the keeper, appointed to this task by the keeper before me. No amount of money can change that.”
“Okay,” said Cora, “I do understand. But maybe we can offer a better price. What about an amount that can get your son through college?”
“We already paid him,” snapped Romney. His Camerran gangster persona had become second nature. This was surprising because he was—as the Camerrans say—bloody fuming.
“
Right,” said Cora, “a fair point, Mr. Balvance. But he's not going to give it up as it is. I would like to make an observation. Based on my own experiences. Fifteen thousand ON will not get Milo through Lanvale Prime, even at the in-state tuition rate.”
“What do you mean?”
Kedro was genuinely perplexed by this. For a moment, he had forgotten he was the keeper of the ancient sword. There was a far greater fate at stake: a college education for his son.
“I should have enough after I sell everything.”
“You didn’t figure in annual tuition hikes. If you sell everything on your auction page, then you’re still short twenty thousand. Accounting for current trends. As a best case scenario.”
“Wow,” said Kedro, “that bad?”
Cora nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in empathy.
“Probably worse.”
“We are not giving him any more money!” shouted Romney.
These words were completely lost on Kedro. And on everyone else in the room.
“You’re saying I would need $50,000 ON, just for a four-year degree?”
“Assuming he lives in your house and that none of his classes require textbooks.”
Kedro gaped at the thought.
“Textbooks,” he whimpered. “Oh Goddess.”
“I would round it up to $60,000 ON,” said Cora. “It doesn’t give you much padding to work with, but you can manage it.”
“Where am I going to get that kind of money? I can’t just take out a loan. They would eat me alive. And besides, I’ve still got a business to run, bills to pay, mouths to feed, shadow organizations to appease. Good goddess, I can’t keep track of it all. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Then consider my proposal,” said Cora. “We take the Jade Scar off your hands for fifty thousand notes, plus you keep everything in the duffel bag. That takes care of the phone calls, the heinous voicemails, and your son’s future. That is the best we can do.”
Kedro looked down at the Jade Scar in his hands. He seemed to fall back into his default raving lunacy.
“They’ll know I failed as keeper,” he sobbed. "I'm sorry. I can’t do it.”