by Deck Davis
“It’s not magic or cursed, don’t get me wrong,” Instructor Irvine had told the class, “It is simply a treatise against you all – against magic users. Bendeldrick believes we should share our powers; he thinks a tattoo is where the power comes from, he doesn’t understand that we earn our magic before we even get our tattoos. This book is deadly, and thank goodness they let it go out of print.”
Gasputon, a novice necromancer from the Feriloux Isles, had spoken up. “Sir, how can a simple book be so dangerous?”
“This man’s ignorant views have caused hundreds of deaths, from people trying to give themselves their own glyphline tattoos before they’ve even prepared their bodies for the mana influx, to people attacking magic users out of fear and envy. As you can imagine, attacks like that don’t go unanswered, and it is easy for pain and hurt to spread.”
Jakub didn’t want the book, but he wasn’t in a position to turn down loot. He’d just sell it when he got to Dispolis, that’s all.
With that, he gave one last look behind him, where the academy was just a speck. He felt a shudder in his chest when he thought about Abbie and her face, and he promised himself he’d come back to see her when he’d found his feet.
Then he set off limping toward the Royal Road, no longer a novice of the academy.
CHAPTER 14
He reached Dispolis the next day, after spending a night in the Ram and Hound tavern between the academy and the capital city. He hadn’t wanted to spend money on a room so soon, but helping Mason D’Angelt had wasted daylight, and his thigh wound, although getting better, had slowed him down.
He arrived in Dispolis tired, hungry, and with a blister the size of a grape on his foot. That’d teach him for being too stingy to pay for a seat on a trader wagon.
The second he walked through the steel gates and stood on the streets of the city, its noise and its smells and its colors bombarded him.
Dispolis was the city of satin and wood, with its rows of timber houses and shops and lean-to market stalls, and every other wall and roof draped with embroidery showing off the queen’s emblem. Where other cities had earned their prestige through architecture and beauty, Dispolis was the pearl of the queendom purely by its proximity to Blackcobble castle, where Queen Patience lived.
Hundreds of chimneys puffed out smoke, and this twirling scent of burning logs mixed with ale from the inns, spices from the markets, pastry from the bakeries. Rain water dripped from ill-maintained gutters, and mold gathered on walls that hadn’t seen a wash in months.
Jakub had no sooner set foot onto the Royal Mile, the home of most of Dispolis’s shops, before he was sucked into the crowd, becoming one of a hundred people. Chatter, jokes, shouts, it was a medley of noise from the courting couples walking hand in hand, and the drunken teens stumbling from one in to the next. In such a crowd it was easy to lose your sense of self but that was how he wanted it; to be just one in a giant number, inconspicuous and unremarkable.
He headed past the bakeries, pausing only for a second to stare at icing glistening off a bun before resisting the temptation and then heading into a shop called Archibald’s Artificery and Magical Items.
The tinkling of a chime accompanied him opening the door. The scent of spent mana hung heavy in the air like tobacco smoke; it reminded him of the alchemy wing of the academy.
Archibald himself was behind the counter, fiddling with a pocket watch that gave off a green glow. Jakub had met him once, years ago when he’d come to Dispolis on weekend leave. He doubted the old man would remember him.
“Buying or selling?” said Archibald.
“I have a few things for you to look at.”
“Come, come. I don’t have all day. Thicky Fenton is coming back for his pocket watch at two, and I didn’t build my reputation on letting people down.”
Jakub emptied his inventory bag piece by piece, laying the items he’d looted from his first assignment in the Killeshi lands on the shop counter.
Archibald picked at them, examining each, holding them close to his face and grimacing as if he was handling raw sewage.
Jakub could tell when he was about to be gouged on price. In fact, he’d anticipated it. You didn’t go into a pawn shop expecting to get what your things were actually worth.
It didn’t matter; all he needed was to get enough gold coins to set him on his way, to pay for a roof for a few nights until he met the Black Cleric. Once he knew what kind of work the cleric had, he’d decide whether to stick around, or whether to go see Kortho.
“Blade of Purge Evil…,” said Archibald, holding one of Jakub’s swords. “Interesting, but I always find magic blades to be so restrictive, no? Most can only be used for one thing. You couldn’t use a magic-endowed knife to butter your bread, could you? In that way, a simple butter knife has more worth. The more valuable an item, the less you want to use it. The less use it is…the lower its value should really be.”
“And if you were selling me this sword instead of buying it, I’m sure its magical properties would suddenly be amazing, and they’d make it worth all the gold of a king’s treasury,” said Jakub.
“Value is like the wind above the Swirling Fields; it can change direction in an instant. I am but a kite flying where it takes me.”
“And where do these swirling winds take the value of my sword?”
“Five silvers.”
“You have to be kidding. You have more front than Queen’s Patience’s nursemaid, pal. It’s gotta be worth more than that. It’s rare.”
“Rare? Chronic Redlung disease is rare, but that doesn’t mean I would pay a dozen gold coins to contract it.”
“Fine; forget the sword. What about everything else?”
“Let’s see…”
While Archibald was busy looking for ways to discount his offers on Jakub’s items, he decided it would be a good time to ask him something.
“Listen, do you know of a man they call the Black Cleric?” he said.
“Witas, you mean? You’ll find him in the Boarhead Tavern most mornings. And most afternoons. I hear he sometimes finds the time to stumble home and sleep, too,” said Archibald.
“Got it. What about the rest of the stuff? How much?”
“I know a man who would want the Boots of Focus; his son is failing in college, and they are already paying a queen’s ransom for him to keep his place. As always, rather than work on their boy’s attitude, they would prefer to use artificed items.”
“And the inquisitor’s belt?”
“A private citizen could hardly be seen walking around wearing an inquisitor’s belt, could they? No coins for that. In fact, as an artificer and an honest trader, it is my duty to report to the guardship anything which may be stolen. I am sure that you didn’t steal it, but all the same…I will keep hold of it, rather than let you get into trouble by carrying it.”
“Since you’re such an honest trader, I’m sure you’re aware of academy policy on looting,” said Jakub, showing him the academy emblem on his overcoat.
“It slipped my mind,” said Archibald.
“I’m sure it did. The exotic spices? The Bracelet of Rest?”
“Folks won’t pay much for a bracelet that merely does what they can do themselves for free every night– artificery is no substitute for a good night’s sleep. As for the spices, well, I can muster a few coins for those. The eastern shipping routes are more blocked up than a soldier who’s eaten a pound of beef. It’s the Baelin Empire, if you ask me. Two gold for the trinket of sleep, one gold and eight silver for the spices.”
This was less than he’d expected, even from a weasel of a pawn broker. The problem was, he didn’t have a lot of choice.
“I’ll take the coin for the spices. There was something else I wanted to talk to you about, too,” he said.
Archibald raised an eyebrow. “Oh? is this an open shop conversation, or the kind where I should close my blinds and lock my door?”
“Is that a kind of conversation that you’re accusto
med to?”
“The guardship know that I like to take naps from time to time. There’s nothing peculiar about me closing the blinds or locking the door of my shop. It’s best to do that when the topic is…delicate.”
Jakub put Henwright’s mana-sealed envelope on the counter. Archibald flipped it over once, twice, then set it down.
“All this secrecy so you can post a letter?” he said. “You don’t need me for that.”
“You’re an artificer as well as a trader, right?” said Jakub.
“My hands are worthy of better work than carrying an envelope to a post wagon, boy. There are scamps on the high street who’ll deliver a weeks’ worth of mail for the price of a hot cross bun.”
“I’ve heard that while artificers can create, they can also take things apart.”
“Yes; only for repairs, and such like.”
“Let’s say I had an envelope sealed by artificery,” said Jakub, “the kind where it only opens when a named person holds it. Is that the kind of magic that can be broken down?”
“It’s a delicate balance, running a shop like this. A balance of things I can do with my blinds open, and things where they must be closed. Do more of one than the other, and the guardship might start to think that actually, it is peculiar that I close my shop from time to time.”
“So you can’t do it?”
“If there’s one thing the guardship and the nobles above them can’t turn a blind eye to, it’s the sanctity of their communications. So many secrets pass hands in Dispolis; envelopes slide from one palm to the next like love notes in a schoolyard. Imagine if just anyone could read their private letters?”
“Fine. I get it,” said Jakub.
“Actually, I’ll hang on to this envelope. Now that I think about it, I’m visiting the post-wagon later; I can make sure it goes to its recipient.”
“I thought your hands were too special for that?”
“A man can change his mind.”
Jakub drew his overcoat back and touched the hilt of his sword. “A man better change it back,” he said. “Put the envelope down.”
Archibald didn’t look worried, but then being a pawn trader, he’d probably seen more than his fair share of dubious clientele, the kind that might act angrily when he pulled his valuing routine. Jakub guessed Archibald had had dozens of blades drawn on him over the years.
“So tetchy,” said the trader. “You wouldn’t draw your sword so near the high street, surely? One word will bring the guards in,” said Archibald.
“And if you want to gamble on having the time to speak it, go ahead.”
Archibald pushed the envelope over to him.
“Good choice,” said Jakub. “Now give me the coins for the spice, and we’ll finish this trade.”
CHAPTER 15
He found the Boarhead tavern two side streets away from the Royal Mile. He ducked into an alleyway and then, after making sure it was deserted, he took his Vagrant Blade from his inventory bag.
After holding the blade for a few seconds, his clothes began to transform. The blade’s magic seeped over him, changing his black necromancer coat into a vagrant’s tunic, and ripping holes in his trousers. It dirtied parts of his skin, and then spread a stench of tobacco and sweat over him.
It was the third time he’d used the Vagrant Blade, and the third time that he’d asked himself why someone would spend the time and money to create a weapon that transformed the holder’s appearance into that of a vagrant. If Jakub could afford to have an artificer meld magic onto his blade, he’d sure as hell make it cooler.
Whatever the reason, whoever made it, the blade had helped him on his first assignment. Today, it would help him ask questions about the Black Cleric without people seeing that it was him. If you were asking questions in a place like this, it was best not to let people put a name to your face.
When he went inside, it was easy to see why the Boarhead tavern got its name - there was a giant, stuffed Boarhead above the hearth. Its stare unnerved him, since it seemed to have the knack of following him around the room.
The other patrons didn’t seem to care. A group of elderly men were playing dominoes, two women were hunched close together with a bottle of wine on their table, and one man was sitting on his own with at least a dozen empty tankards in front of him.
Was that the Black Cleric? He didn’t look much like a cleric; no robes, no religious symbols. He just looked like a drunk.
Jakub walked over to the bar, where the innkeeper was cleaning a glass.
“Woah, no,” he said, seeing Jakub in his vagrant guise. “Not a chance. No begging allowed in here. See the sign?”
He pointed behind him, to a wooden board that read, No beggars, no charitie. Let patrans drink in piece.
“I just want a beer, the strongest you’ve got. I have coins,” said Jakub.
“You don’t look like a man with a full purse, and I don’t offer credit. See the sign?”
There was another sign - I dun offer no credit.
“A guy has to prove his wealth to you before you’ll turn your taps?” said Jakub. He took a silver coin from his bag and slapped it on the counter. “Here. One pint of Rose’s Golden, please.”
The innkeeper turned the coin in his thumb and index finger, bit it, and then nodded. He grabbed a glass and started to pull on a beer tap.
“Fancy a pie? Bake them myself. Something I’ve been practicing, and you might have heard about my recipes. A man’s only worth what he puts into life, I always say. Do nothing but pull beer taps, and that’s all they see you as. But create something, do something new, and you got yourself a life.”
“My purse is only going to stretch to the beer for now. Has the Black Cleric been in today?”
“Can’t say I’ve seen anyone with that name. Can’t say I’d tell you if I had. A man’s got a right to drink without people poking into his whereabouts.”
“You know what? I will take one of your pies. The smell is making my stomach dance.”
“Coming up.”
“And the Black Cleric? Think you might have seen him now?”
“Ahh, yes, now I remember. As it happens, that fella over there might answer to that name. See the one with the dozen tankards around him? I try to clean ‘em, don’t like my place looking like a hovel, but he gets tetchy. Best to just collect ‘em once he’s plastered and stumbled out into the gutters.”
“What’s he drinking?”
“He’s got an expensive taste. Don’t think your purse can take it.”
“Give me two of what he’s having.”
Jakub joined the Black Cleric at his table. The whole tavern smelled of spilled beer, but most of the aroma was concentrated here, in this nucleus of ale and tobacco where the cleric had seemed to have set up shop for a week’s worth of boozing.
“Fuck off,” said the Cleric.
Nice guy, thought Jakub.
“You look thirsty. I’ve seen what dehydration can do to a man,” he said.
The cleric pulled a chair out in front of Jakub. “Why didn’t you say so? Pull up a pew, my alcohol-bearing friend.”
“Thanks. Here,” said Jakub, passing him the beer.
The Black Cleric had black hair so long and coarse it looked like a witch’s wig. His beard was just as black, and looked like it had never been groomed. Jakub guessed that if he stared at it long enough, he’d see fleas leaping from hair to hair.
Maybe the Black Cleric has a Vagrant Blade of his own.
Although the academy didn’t offer cleric training, a few clerics had sometimes visited, so Jakub knew what they looked like. This man wasn’t it.
He had no cape, no cross, no book of holy spells on him. The only thing vaguely cleric-like were his eyes; they were pure white, not a speck of anything else in them.
“See the kid over there?” said the Cleric. “Watch the way he moves. All awkward, like a clown with a verruca.”
A boy walked through the tavern, bumping into tables. At first he looked dr
unk, but there was something deliberate in his drunkenness; he only bumped into the tables that had people sitting around them. The empty ones, he was sure-footed enough to avoid.
Each time he knocked a table he’d put his hands on the people around it, on their shoulder or sides, while saying a slurred “Sorry, sorry. Beg yer pardon.”
“It’s an act. He’s a pickpocket,” said Jakub.
“Should have known better than to think a vagrant wouldn’t have noticed. But if we’re being honest with each other - and I always say if a man doesn’t have honesty then he has nothing - you’re not a vagrant, are you?”
“If it looks like a vagrant, if its smells like a vagrant, then odds are it’s a vagrant.”
“You smell like the academy. Spent mana and boiled cabbage dinners. My brother sent you, didn’t he?”
“Your brother?”
He drank the rest of his drink in one gulp and slammed the glass on the table, rattling the rest of his collection. “You’ll probably know him as Instructor Irvine, master necromancer and possessor of a giant stick up his tight arse. He likes to check up on me. Pretends he doesn’t, acts like I’m the black sheep. Gets all uppity when I ask for extra roast potatoes at our family Christmas dinner. But he cares more than he lets on. There’s a heart beneath those stupid fucking checked shirts.”
“Irvine gave me this,” said Jakub.
“That’s his handwriting, alright. Didn’t think he’d send one of his novices to me, though.”
“Well, the thing about being a novice is that when the academy kicks you out, you lose the benefits that brings. Instructor Irvine said you might have work for me. I’m a few coins short of where I need to be. I don’t know what kind of work he thought you’d have for me, but…”
“What are you? Mage? Warlock? No, wait. If Irvine’s taking an interest, you must be one of his necros. See that boar on the wall? That big fucking ugly thing mounted on wood? Denny says he shot it on a hunt, but we all know he bought it so he could tell that story. Suppose he bragged to you about his pies, too? He buys them from a bakery on Royal Mile. The boar - bring it back to life, necro. Let’s see what you can do.”