Sicilian Defense

by Andrey Vasilyev

  “You got it, my general,” I replied before turning and heading toward the kitchen.

  “And don’t take too long—I’ll be waiting,” her bell-like voice rang out. “I miss you.”

  ***

  We went to one store, then to another, and then to many more, since Mega was a mall with all kinds of them. There were fitting rooms, cute sales girls, suits, pullovers, jackets, slacks, jeans, shoes, and endless amounts of all of them—at least, that’s how it seemed to me. I followed Vika from store (your advertisement here!) to store (or even here!), lugging around a growing collection of bags sporting foreign names. Finally, I broke.

  “Okay, babe, let’s go take these to the car and get some food, all right?”

  “Yes?” Vika looked at me dubiously. “You’ll eat, and then you’ll tell me how tired you are and how much you want to go home. I know you!”

  “I won’t,” I replied, looking as meek and devoted as I could. “I really won’t. Look, we bought all this for me, right?”

  “And?” Vika said suspiciously.

  “Well, now we’re going to buy you some things, right?”

  “Okay?” She squinted.

  “My job will be to just sit there and carry bags around. Well, maybe I’ll come into the dressing rooms a few times if you’re trying on underwear—I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

  Vika’s slender eyebrows remained incredulously raised, though she agreed.

  I was thoroughly enjoying my second sandwich, Vika poking away at a piece of cake, when an unpleasantly familiar voice started talking behind me.

  “Why do you eat that trash? It’s like poison for your body.”

  The fresh bread caught in my mouth, and even the mayonnaise didn’t help it slide down when I tried to swallow. Seriously? I can’t even get a few minutes to eat? Today is my day off!

  “By the way, my dear young lady, this is for you,” the voice said. I was in no hurry to turn around. “My friend Harriton told me that you enjoy eastern sweets just like I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In which the hero draws a few erroneous conclusions.

  “Thanks so much, though I still haven’t finished the first ones you gave me,” Vika replied in surprise. “There were so many of them—I just can’t eat that many this fast. So you’re a friend of Kif’s?”

  “Something like that. Really, I’m a friend to all good, kind people, and to you, too, if you’ll forgive a bit of a cliché. My name is Jeremiah—yes, not a very modern name.” Jeremiah smiled when he saw Vika’s surprise, as his name really was unusual. “I hope you two don’t mind me joining you?”

  “Do we have a choice?” I guffawed as I wiped my mouth with a napkin.

  “Certainly,” he said, completely serious. The weather had him dressed in a long, gray coat, under which I could see a black suit. In his hand was a matching gray, old-fashioned umbrella. “There’s always a choice, no matter who we are. Some of us are too lazy to make it; others too afraid.”

  “Maybe we just don’t want to make it?” I gestured toward an empty chair. “If everything’s good, what’s the point of going out and making a choice?”

  “That’s being lazy,” Jeremiah replied, crossing his legs and resting his umbrella against the table. “People like that just don’t want to think about if they’re doing the right thing, the best thing. Not to mention how it could end.”

  “Sounds kind of dark, even a bit threatening.” I bit off a chunk of my chicken sandwich. “Keep it up, and I’ll lose my appetite.”

  “Never!” Jeremiah waved a hand at me. “What do you mean, threatening? I’m just continuing the conversation we started recently, nothing more.”

  Vika looked over at me, then back at Jeremiah, and then back at me. Her eyebrows were sky-high and accompanied by a wrinkle creasing her forehead.

  “My dear lady, don’t worry, everything’s okay. Your consort and I enjoy going back and forth on more philosophical topics.” Jeremiah’s voice enveloped and cradled us. “And you don’t have to listen—it probably isn’t that interesting for you. You wanted to go see the new dresses they have at that store over there, no? I saw how you were looking at the display window.”

  “Yes, I did,” a surprised Vika replied. “It’s just really expensive, and we don’t actually need anything there…”

  “Oh, my dear child, I wish I had your problems.” Jeremiah dug around in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a plastic card. “Here, this will get you a big discount and a gift from the store.”

  Vika took the card, looked it over, and stared at me.

  “Vika, when have I ever said no to you? Ready, set, go.” Off she flew.

  “Women,” Jeremiah said as he watched her go. “Time marches on, but they never change.”

  “Humanity as a whole isn’t very prone to change,” I noted. “Put any of us through the ringer, stick us somewhere where we have to just survive, and you’ll see the Neanderthal come out in us all. Sometimes you don’t even need that; the Neanderthal pops out all on his own.”

  “That’s arguable,” Jeremiah said, stretching his legs. “Very arguable. People today are pampered, fragile, pliant, introspective, reflexive, and fans of compromise, not to mention the fact that they compromise with themselves. People in the past were complete and solid, unburdened by moral torments. They did or they didn’t; there wasn’t any ‘is it worth it?’ or ‘what would people think?’.”

  “But back then life itself was different—it was complete and solid, too. You lived or you died,” I retorted. “Now we have alternatives. For example, you can live, but live poorly if you’re lazy and you aren’t curious. Or you can live, but behind bars if you’re greedy and don’t share your money with the government. And so on, and so forth.”

  “And there we are, back where we started. How mad was Nikita when he heard about me?” Jeremiah grinned.

  “No, nothing like that—he just gave me a car when I told him about our meeting. He’s not a big fan of yours, or, at least, that’s how it sounded.”

  “He’s so vindictive,” Jeremiah said with concealed sadness. “I can assure you, I have quite a few more reasons to hold a grudge against him than the other way around. There was just one thing I ever did to him that he didn’t like, and voilà—an eternal feud.”

  “That’s your business, and I have no desire to get in the middle of it,” I said with a wave. “What do you need from me?”

  “Oh, nothing much.” Jeremiah interlaced his fingers. “I just wanted to invite you to one particular, very hospitable home for a chat with my…well, in this case, let’s call him my employer, though I’d say ‘partner’ would also be accurate. It’s just a conversation; nothing more. No tricks, no ‘work for us or die,’ especially since we have no right to say anything like that to you. We’ll just have some tea and talk for a bit—that’s all.”

  “Can I decline?” I asked quickly.

  “Of course,” he replied, his face the picture of friendliness. “How am I going to force you to visit us? Still, thank carefully, since declining is always the simplest, and often the worst decision you can make. I’m no mafioso, after all, and I’m not asking you to do anything against the law.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?” I asked innocently.

  “I’ll take you there myself. Let’s say…Monday evening?”

  “No, I can’t do Monday. I already have a meeting,” I said, looking closely at him.

  “Ah, that’s a shame.” Jeremiah thought for a few seconds before continuing. “Then Thursday evening? How does that sound?”

  “Let’s exchange phone numbers, and I’ll call you Tuesday to let you know.”

  “I’m not a big fan of cellphones, unfortunately—they aren’t secure.” Jeremiah got up. “It’s okay, I’ll find you so we can finalize the time and day. For now, however, I have to go. Talk to you soon.”

  He grabbed his umbrella and trotted off quickly, gracefully darting between the plastic tables.

  I bit into
my already-cold, if still delicious sandwich, and started thoughtfully chewing.

  “Where is he?” a familiar voice barked in my ear. I choked from surprise.

  “He…ah…he…” Eyes popping, I pointed a finger in the direction Jeremiah had walked off in.

  “Find the rat,” Valyaev ordered, and three short, flexible gentlemen in black suits ran off.

  I couldn’t cough up the food stuck in my throat until Valyaev, shaking his head, slammed a fist into my back, right between my shoulder blades.

  “Ah-h,” I howled quietly and in relief.

  “You eat all that crap, and then you complain about health problems. Your stomach hurts, your manhood doesn’t work…” Valyaev picked up a slice of potato, sniffed it, grimaced, and tossed it back. “You really want to poison yourself with that?”

  “Not any more,” I replied, angrily throwing the half-eaten sandwich down on the tray. “Screw you, Nikita! I’m just trying to sit here and enjoy some good food, and—boom! First one person comes to ruin my appetite, then another. A pox on both your houses!”

  “Hey, easy with that type of thing,” Valyaev replied darkly. “Don’t talk like that, otherwise it could actually happen.”

  I pushed the tray away, crossed my arms over my chest, sniffed furiously, and stared at Valyaev.

  “What kind of life is this?” I asked him, enraged. He twitched as he looked at me dubiously. “I can’t even get a minute to relax and eat on my day off. Seriously! What kind of life is this?”

  “The same kind we all live,” Valyaev answered, scratching his side through his coat. “Phew, you idiot, you scared me. And you thought it was all sunshine and butterflies? We run around like chickens with our heads cut off, too. Oh stop it with the eyes—you’re not scaring me anymore.”

  I stopped, realizing that Valyaev couldn’t care less about how angry I was, even if I was completely justified.

  “What did that clown want?” Valyaev asked, all business. “He was here for a reason, no?”

  “He invited me to a chat with someone he called his ‘employer.’ He wanted to do it on Monday, but we went with Thursday.”

  “All right.” He cracked his knuckles. “So they want to talk. That’s good. Wait for us—we’ll call you, and I don’t want you doing anything without checking with us first. Ah, here come my minions, though it doesn’t look like they were very successful.”

  He got up from the table, patted me on the shoulder, and went to meet his discouraged troops as they returned. Jeremiah had apparently gotten away.

  “Serves you right!” I thought vindictively, happy that I wasn’t the only one having their day ruined. I picked up my soda and let myself sink into my thoughts as I sucked away at the straw.

  ***

  Vika spent the next couple hours ducking in and out of different stores until, finally, I loaded the second round of packages, bags, and even rolls into the car. She plopped down peacefully into the front seat.

  “Done,” she said with a satisfied sigh. “What a perfect day!”

  “That’s what I was going to say,” I replied. “You’re plagiarizing me.”

  “I just made your life easier—you don’t have to say anything at all! See how caring I am? By the way, who was that guy in the coat? I need to give his card back to him.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said as I started up the car. “Consider it a gift from a kind gentleman. You hadn’t seen him before today?”

  “Nope.” Vika pulled a hand mirror out of her purse. “Never. I’d have remembered, what with a name like that. Like some kind of old story. Jeremiah…”

  She started making the faces women all make when they look in the mirror, and I wondered if I could even try to pull them off without pinching a nerve. And why do they open their mouths when they’re putting makeup on their eyes? Does that make their eyes bigger? Are there some paired muscles down there or something?

  “Yep, yep,” I muttered, pulling out of the parking lot. “But how did Jeremiah find out where I would be? Nobody knew where you and I were going this weekend.”

  “Yeah, right,” Vika snorted. “Everyone at the office knew. Shelestova can’t keep anything to herself, and I wasn’t exactly hiding our plans. I didn’t know it was some big military secret!”

  All I knew was that I had no idea what was going on.

  “Whoa, hold your horses,” I said. “Why did you tell everyone at the office? And what does Shelestova have to do with anything?”

  “Discounts, silly.” Vika looked at me like I was some kind of toddler. “These days we all exchange discount cards—it’s not the market, we’re going to actual stores, and you can save some money. I asked the boys if any of them have cards for men’s clothing stores. Needless to say, Yushkov only had cards for bars, though Samoshnikov gave me a card with a 5% discount for Mondigo. That’s where we bought you those vests with the diamonds, remember? That 5% is ours to keep, so why not?”

  “And what does Lena have to do with it?”

  “She had a whole walletful of cards, and she told me where all the sales were. She doesn’t do anything quietly, so whoever didn’t know about our plans found out from her. By the way, I saw her in the main courtyard buying cosmetics.”

  I lost it. “What cosmetics? What courtyard?”

  “In the courtyard at Mega, the central one,” Vika explained patiently. “You and Jeremiah were still talking, and I went over to another store. She was walking in the opposite direction. I gave her a card for a perfume store, so that’s why she was there.”

  “Vika,” I said, gripping the wheel with both hands, “how can that possibly be if you hate her so much?”

  “What’s the matter?” She snapped the mirror shut. “A feud is a feud, but discounts are discounts, and there’s nothing wrong with having both. We’ll be at each other’s throats for quite a while, still—at least, I won’t be happy until I destroy her. It’s a matter of principle. But we can save some money in the process, can’t we? She can, too. She’s a bitch, but she’s no idiot.”

  That’s something I’ll never get used to. Women are an inscrutable, unknowable, nameless abyss.

  “Even my sister knew about today,” Vika grimaced. “She called me yesterday, wanted to get together so she could tell me something important. I told her I was going shopping with my hubby—winter’s coming, and we need new clothes.”

  “Interesting.” That was the straw that broke the back of the system of conclusions I’d been slowly building up. Everything I thought I’d figured out when I was sitting at the table in the food court had come crashing down.

  “What? I just told her the truth,” Vika said with a frown.

  “Oh, I know, that’s not what I mean,” I assured her immediately. “It’s just that she’s stayed away for so long, and now suddenly she needs something…”

  “Forget her.” Vika waved dismissively. “She’s always getting herself worked up, and we still get to look forward to living under the same roof as her for New Year’s. We’ll hear all there is to hear, and then some.”

  “Sure,” I replied gloomily, remembering the fun vacation in Kasimov we had looming. As if there’s nothing else for me to worry about…

  “Oh, come on,” Vika said, twisting to get more comfortable. “I think I saw Zhilin, too, though it might not have been him. Maybe I was just seeing things…”

  I’d gotten lucky with her, when it came down to it. We got home, and she practically shoved me into the capsule so she could sort through all of our new purchases by herself. I didn’t really mind too much—old MacLynn was waiting for me, and I was in no hurry to disappoint him.

  ***

  Back at the hotel, the first thing I did was dump the contents of my bag into my chest. Out fell what I’d gotten from the bear, my gold, and the scroll I’d gotten.

  Deadly Swell

  For class: mage

  Minimum level for use: 100

  One-time use

  Gives the ability to learn Deadly Swell, a
n individual class ability (costs 220 mana).

  The ability turns any surface (the spell covers ten square meters) into quicksand. Players sink up to their waists in it and cannot move for half a minute. There is a 30% chance that they will sink up to their heads, in which case they may die.

  To use this scroll, read the name aloud and say “Learn.”

  Then there was the gem.

  Emerald from the Cliver Mine

  Gem mined in the Sumaki Mountains

  This gem can be inlaid in:

  Sword pommel

  Sword scabbard

  Dagger pommel

  Saber pommel

  It cannot be inlaid in any other items.

  If you successfully inlay this gem in one of the above items, you will receive between one and three bonuses increasing random attributes by one to five points.

  You have a 15% chance of boosting one of your passive abilities.

  You have a 5% chance of learning a new active ability.

  You have a 0.5% chance of getting a hiding quest tied to the location where the gem was mined.

  To inlay the gem in one of the above items, speak with one of the jewelers you can find in any more or less large city.

  Note: This gem is one-time use only, and cannot be retrieved once inlaid in an item.

  Minimum level required to use the gem: 50

  It was a nice little toy, though it wasn’t the right time for it. I also needed to see what gems, scrolls, skins, and bile were going for. I decided to head to Selgar early that Monday so I’d have time to stop by the auction and get a feel for the prices being offered.

  The first person I saw on the street outside the hotel was red-haired Lennox, who was brushing himself off by the entrance.

  “Waiting for me?” I asked amiably. “For a while now, probably.”

  “Since this morning,” he said. “The bayron told me to stand here until you show up and then escort you.”

  “To make sure I don’t run off?” I sighed. “He doesn’t trust anyone as far as he can throw them—you can’t treat people that way!”