by J. T. Wright
The Assassin’s words should have made her furious, but Agatha was speechless instead. She was a Seer. How could she not see that the Assassin was being honest? The Assassin found her beautiful, both for her ability and her face.
She had come to capture a Bandit, but when she came down from the trap, she wound up in the Assassin’s pocket. She would follow that man and his friends through adventure after adventure, and when duty called Lewis Al’dross home, the Assassin went with him. Agatha had followed as Taylor Craw’s wife. She ended up in the position she had avoided since birth, Seer to a nobleman.
It was a good life. It helped that the nobleman and his wife were two of your closest friends. The Duke never placed the chains that she feared on her. She could leave anytime she chose. Al’drossford became her home. She had raised a family here, opened a shop, and used her Abilities to keep her home safe. She still had to tolerate the Bandit’s presence, of course, but Cullen’s stink grew on you after a few decades, and she stayed upwind when she was able.
It was a good life and a peaceful afternoon. At least it had been. An odd masked Swordsman was currently cluttering up her doorway, spoiling her tea. She couldn’t place her finger on what bothered her about the bastard. She’d caught a glimpse of his featureless mask, but lots of Adventurers covered their faces. Agatha wouldn’t have so many scars if she had done so. That she could understand.
It might have been the way the Swordsman crouched in her doorway, shaking like a wounded Beast, cowering like an animal cornered by a huntsman. This was an odd posture for a citizen of Al’drossford to take. The Bounty Hunter in her flared up, and she wondered if gold had delivered itself to her doorstep.
That was when she discovered what was really bothering her. There was little in the World that could escape her with her Skills as a Bounty Hunter and Seer. She could see things that others couldn’t. In this case activating all her Skills revealed nothing. The Swordsman’s Status was hidden, and now that she looked closer, a haze hung about the man, imploring the eye to look elsewhere.
Agatha set her tea aside and stood up. The sword at the man’s belt and the natural way it hung there had led her to believe he was a Warrior Class if not a Swordsman. Now she wasn’t so sure. Her nose was twitching, though, the way it did when she was near a criminal begging to be caught. There was no honest reason to use an Ability powerful enough to confuse even her powers, not within Al’drossford.
She picked up the walking stick that she kept beside her. She leaned on this stick while assisting customers. It helped to hide her true Level and was a trick she had picked up from Taylor. Agatha’s disguise fell apart easier than the old Assassin’s did. Anyone looking closer would see the gnarled stick was more cudgel than cane.
Agatha didn’t use the four-foot length of wood to steady her steps now. The club was clutched in hands that did not shake, and Agatha approached her prey on feet that made no noise. Standing a few feet away, Agatha rolled her wrist, sending a thrust rushing to the back of the intruder’s head.
The man, who had his weight on the balls of his feet as if he were ready to run, reeled forward. Then, without a word, spun, his sword flashing from its sheath. He directed an overhand blow at Agatha, and his blade was pitiless. He didn’t care about her apparent age or unarmed state. He went directly for the kill.
Agatha had been correct. These were the actions of a man with no respect for life. The actions of a criminal! Here she thought business would be slow today. It’s always nice when money walks in and makes itself at home.
Chapter 27
Trent’s silent approach to battle had unnerved Tersa. She, like Cullen, liked to fight hot and loud. Orion had understood and approved of the instincts that drove Trent to discard the unnecessary. He also thought insults and carrying on got in the way of a quick, clean kill. Both of his friends would have been astounded and aghast at the way Trent swung unhesitatingly at the head of an old woman.
Trent, though, had no thought for any of that. To him, Agatha was an enemy. Cold anger flared up in his chest. Anger at letting a hostile monster get so close. Anger at Agatha for striking the first blow. Anger that was fueled by the treatment he had received in Al’drossford. Everyone in this city was out to get him!
The aggression that was the weakness of his Class didn’t flicker when he saw who he was trying to kill. Others might see her short, grey hair and black Alchemist’s robes, and dismiss Agatha as a harmless old woman. The scars that wrinkled her forehead pulled the left side of her face upwards so that her lips wore a perpetual smirk. They were a touch sinister, but everyone had a past.
Trent saw what was really there. This was no simple old woman. There was ice in those pale blue eyes. Those scars came from fights, ones she had probably started much the way she’d initiated this one. That was no stick in her hand. That was an implement that would set Tersa’s desire to bash things alight. Trent saw a monster. He saw all of his problems incarnated into one creature. He was fully prepared to solve his woes with one blow!
Then Trent witnessed the unbelievable. Agatha brought up a wrinkled left hand and caught Trent’s blade. She wore no gloves or gauntlets. She showed no signs of exertion. She yawned as she jerked Trent’s sword out of his hand. He hadn’t drawn blood, even swinging with every bit of Strength he had. Agatha, on the other hand, pierced his heart, by tilting her chin to glare at him scornfully as she waved the hilt of his sword in front of his face.
“Enough of that, scum,” Agatha snarled warningly, but Trent wasn’t done. His head ducked around the hilt of his sword, and he drove his fist towards Agatha’s stomach. Trent’s sword clattered to the ground as the old woman dropped it and grabbed hold of Trent’s hand.
Yanking the boy forward, Agatha sent Trent to the floorboards of the shop by tripping him over an extended leg. When she saw the determined little bastard try and turn her throw into a roll, Agatha brought the end of her cudgel down on his head. Trent flopped to the wooden planks with a groan.
Agatha felt a grudging admiration when the boy rolled over and lashed out with both feet. There was fight in this one. You wouldn’t have suspected that, seeing the idiot quivering like a rabbit in the doorway. He had to know he’d lost, but he kept trying.
Agatha stepped to the side and wrapped her left arm around Trent’s legs. She held them securely as he thrashed. She put a stop to that thrashing by pressing her cane to his chest to pin him in place.
Trent felt a boulder settle onto his torso. His legs were held by a vise, and it was a struggle to breathe much less fight back, but he kept trying. He slammed his fists against the wooden pole that was immobilizing him. He rocked his body, or tried to, in an attempt to create enough momentum to escape. It was useless.
“I said enough, boy.” Agatha pressed down harder on Trent’s chest causing him to cough and wheeze. “Turn it off!”
Turn it off? The woman was mad. Trent hadn’t done anything to her, and now she was speaking nonsense after attacking him!
“Turn what off? Let me go, you… you…” Trent’s tongue stumbled, trying to find an insult to apply to the scar-faced woman. He’d heard plenty in the past, but the words “piss drinking” such and such wouldn’t come out.
“What, boy? Bitch? Hag? Spit it out, I’ve heard as bad and worse, you won’t shock me!” Agatha tended to call all men, regardless of their age, boy. But judging from the timbre of her prisoner’s voice, “boy" was more accurate this time.
Taking a closer look, Agatha realized that, while Trent’s shoulders had promise, much of his bulk came from his armor. This was no hardened criminal worth gold. A petty thief that would bring silver, and more likely copper, was the best she could hope for. She was beginning to think that even copper was unlikely.
“Turn off your Skill, boy! Or I'll crack your skull and see if that does the trick!”
A mad woman! He’d been captured by a lunatic! Trent would know if he was using an active Skill. He pulled up his Status. He was right, there was nothing! Stealth a
nd Camouflage, off! Dodge and Dash, off! Fairy Cloak…
The fight went out of Trent. He’d checked his Status only because he was helpless to do anything else. He'd done it to prove to himself that the old woman was out of her mind. He hadn’t expected to see that Fairy Cloak, with its Dampen Presence, Enhance Stealth, and Mask Status effects, was on.
How had he missed that? An active Ability needed to be powered. Trent hadn’t felt any drain on his Stamina or Mana. What fueled this new Ability of his?
“It’s off,” Trent said grudgingly. He didn’t notice any difference himself, but from the way the woman’s face twisted with satisfaction, she did.
“Done lying, huh, boy?” Agatha felt a little disappointed. It wasn’t any fun when they gave up so fast.
“I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know it was on,” Trent muttered under his breath, pushing at Agatha’s cane to test whether the woman would let him up now. The heavy stick didn’t budge.
“Cut the crap! You…” Agatha frowned. Trent was disturbed to see half of her mouth twitch down, while the side pulled by her scar rose slightly.
The haze that had shrouded Trent was gone. With Fairy Cloak deactivated, there was nothing to obscure her Sight. That Sight told her that the boy was being honest. He’d been using a Skill powerful enough to affect her own Abilities and hadn’t known it.
“What are you running from?” Agatha resisted the urge to press down harder on Trent’s chest. This wasn’t copper, silver, or gold, which she had pulled into her shop. This was a boy. A Level 9 boy, with a wide array of Skills, but no monetary value. Squeezing him wouldn’t change that.
“I'm not running from anything!” Again truth, but this time maybe not the whole truth. The boy wasn’t wanted; he wasn’t a criminal. At best, he was an apprentice running from an irate master.
That was probably it. The boy had probably been caught peeking under the skirts of his master's daughter when he should have been working. He was young for those kinds of problems, but Agatha had mistaken him for a grown man at first sight.
“Stand up, boy.” Agatha removed her cane from Trent’s chest and allowed him to clamber to his feet. She took him by the shoulder and dragged him to the small circular table at the center of the room, where Agatha had been drinking tea. There was only one chair at the table, and it faced the door.
She pulled the chair to the opposite side of the table and pushed Trent into it. “You sit there and…”
Trent stood up. Agatha was about to shout at him, but his deliberate motions made her curious. Crossing to where his sword had been dropped, with footsteps that weren’t quite stomps, Trent retrieved his weapon, sheathed it, and returned to the chair.
“You done?” Trent nodded at the question. “Good! You sit there and wait. If you aren’t there when I come back, I'll find you. Believe me, I will, boy, and you won’t like what comes from making me chase you!”
Agatha’s threats lacked punch after Trent’s minor rebellion, but she was content to see him fold his hands in his lap obediently. Shaking a finger at him to drive her point home, Agatha disappeared through a curtained doorway set in the rear wall.
Trent took the opportunity to look around after she left. Agatha’s place of business was everything he expected a shop to be. It had all the trappings that Ranar’s Traveling Emporium had lacked.
Racks holding every kind of weapon Trent could imagine lined the walls. There were tables with potions, bookshelves filled with books, and glass display cabinets that held Skill Stones. A signboard listed potions that were not in stock but could be made for a price. That price was neatly posted, and a note at the bottom read the price was negotiable if you provided your own reagents. Don’t have your own ingredients? No haggling! Hagglers can eat shit and die.
That last was oddly out of place, written as it was in the same tidy handwriting. Trent was more interested in a second signboard that held the descriptions and the prices for the supplies Agatha kept in the back. The goods listed were all dried meats and vegetables, and Trent was suddenly reminded that it was a week or better of walking to reach the wilds. Less if he ran the whole way, but the hunting would be slim in the Al’dross lands.
If Trent wanted to eat during the trip, he had better see if the monstrous old woman would trade those dried goods for herbs. He would have to trade since all his coin was gone.
Agatha’s return interrupted Trent’s mental shopping. She was dragging a chair with one hand and holding a tray, with a teapot and a second cup, in the other. Setting her burden down at the table, Agatha took a seat. She poured fresh tea for both of them and then watched as Trent removed his mask and cowl to drink.
Sure enough, the boy was Al’rashian. She hadn’t quite believed it when she saw it on his Status. Al’rashian youths were protected by their Clans. Even half-bloods and by-blows were watched over as valued members of that wandering society. Trent’s features indicated he was full-blooded, and the name Embra wasn’t unknown to Agatha. His violet eyes were new, but from all appearances, Trent should be with an Al’rashian Riding Clan, learning from some of the best warriors in the World.
Especially if the boy was an Embra. The Embras were a major Clan. They weren’t the type to leave babies on temple steps to be raised by strangers. And there were no Ridings in Al’drossford. Agatha would know if there was.
“What’s your story, boy? Why are you creeping about the front of my shop like a fugitive?”
Trent carefully set his cup on the table and opened his mouth to tell Agatha his business was none of hers. He was horrified when a confession tumbled out. He didn’t mention Tersa or Cullen. He never spoke of the Keep or events more than an hour old. But what he did say was enough to make Trent look like the lunatic in the room.
He confessed to almost breaking the arm of a man that had jostled him. He explained how he had nearly stabbed a woman for shouting at him. His voice broke when he described the incident with the Laborer that had led to him seeking refuge in Agatha’s doorway.
“I was looking at the Guild when you attacked me.” Trent’s lips pinched together as he remembered that Agatha was as violent as he was. “I thought I could become an Adventurer and then get gone. If someone, a place, treats you bad, you get the hell gone, you know?”
The question wasn’t meant for Agatha. The boy sounded like he was quoting. The words were all wrong in his mouth. The speech patterns those of another person. Agatha wondered who that might be, but instead of asking, she held out her hand, telling Trent to take hers.
Trent, who was reminiscing about a time when a girl, who would become his best friend, told him he should join the Guard, laid the back of his right hand in Agatha’s palm without thinking. It was too late to reclaim it when he realized what he’d done. Agatha wasn’t the kind to let go once she had a hold of something she wanted.
Reading the boy was easy. Trent was almost a blank slate. Agatha caught glimpses of violence and felt turbulent emotions roiling through the boy, but the things she was looking for didn’t manifest. There were no crimes or misdeeds staining the Al’rashian. No reason for him to run that she could spot.
Trent had a hold over the weaknesses of his Class that few ever achieved. To Agatha’s Sight, the boy’s soul was a thick sheet of ice. She thought if you could break through that barrier, there would be an ocean of depth beneath. Her Reading brought more questions along with it. Questions she couldn’t ask. She knew better than any that a young Awakened’s secrets were theirs alone.
Agatha did find one answer. Shining darkly, like a blood-stained diamond, an Ability lay at Trent’s center. An Ability that did not belong. One she couldn’t wrap her mind around.
“Fairy Cloak,” Agatha’s voice was a whisper. A whisper that came to Trent from a great distance. “You leave that Ability alone! You don’t touch it! You never use it! It’s primal. It claims it will hide and protect you, all the while prodding at your weakness. It stirs… it brings… leave it be, boy.”
Agatha dropped Trent�
�s hand and shuddered as she came out of her trance. “You hear me? You use that Ability, and sooner or later, you’ll answer to people like me. Hunters will dog your heels and see you hanged if that thing gets its claws in you.”
Primal didn’t begin to encompass Fairy Cloak. While they’d been talking, the Ability’s effects had gathered around the boy. The haze wasn’t as thick as before, but still, a cloud of whispers told those that saw him to look away. Forget him.
Agatha didn’t have the words to tell the boy the trouble he had fallen into. Sympathy replaced the suspicion she had held for him. Clearing her throat, she said, “Joining the Guild is a good idea. You’ve got promise, boy. You make a name for yourself and maybe…”
She coughed again. “You’ve got the silver it costs for the token, I suppose. You need supplies? You’ve got a long road ahead; you’ll need to be prepared.”
She wanted to scream a warning to the boy. She wanted to tell him flat out that he needed to be careful, but all Abilities came with a cost. Some you paid with Mana and some with Stamina, others required blood. Agatha thought the price of her Ability was worst of all.
“Silver for the token?” Trent got the feeling the old woman was changing the subject, and he allowed it.
“Costs a silver to join the Guild, boy. Did you not know that?” Agatha took a sip of her tea to wet her mouth. Her drink had gone cold.
“I didn’t,” Trent replied with a shrug. “Do you buy or trade herbs and Beast parts here?”
Agatha did. Trent explained that he would need space to lay out all he had. Agatha produced a quill and parchment and told the boy to take out his trade goods one at a time. She was used to Adventurers overestimating their haul. It was the first time in long years of business that the Seer found she was the one to underestimate what a Level 9 could take out.
They were interrupted several times by customers before they were through. Dusk had arrived by the time the contents of Trent’s Storage had been transferred to Agatha’s inventory. Trent was left staring at an almost empty Storage while Agatha scowled at her list and tallied what the boy was owed.