by Sever Bronny
Augum and Bridget exited the alley onto a wide dock area teeming with people, the bustle mostly focused around one of several square-rigged ships that must have come into port recently. Sailors in rough woolen sea clothes were unloading a haul of goods, from fish to boxed spices to other wares acquired in distant lands, while carts with bulky workhorses waited to haul them straight to city markets. Locals, some swaying with drink, watched, eager for gossip or stories from wherever the ship had sailed from. Others hawked wares to irritable sailors anxious to finish the work so they could finally hit the taverns. And some people, dressed in finer clothing, tallied each crate and barrel and dictated where things were to be placed on the old docks. The area stank of fish and gull dung and tar—especially the latter, for it sat heavy in the nostrils and could even be tasted on the tongue like spiced molasses.
To the right, beside a fish trading house and an import market, was a large barn-like building, its two huge doors wide open, showing a raucous interior of men and women dancing and singing and fighting to a spirited tune. A couple chairs flew before two big burly men were sent in to calm the instigators.
Augum and Bridget exchanged a look—this place was mean and stinking and sweaty and probably the very last place they should wander into.
“Nettle or mead first?” Bridget asked.
Augum glanced around, wondering about the same thing, and what criteria to apply to make a decision. “That looks like a pirate ship,” he said, nodding at the last vessel on the pier, a large but thin ship with a sharp wooden prow carving that depicted a slender nude woman pointing a blade at the horizon, a shield of moss fastened on her left arm. Whereas the other vessels had but a single square sail, this one had three, all furled tightly. A few men loitered on it, smoking pipes and drinking from pottery flasks.
“I say we find the pirate first,” Augum said. “Arrange passage and get the nettle all in one go.”
“Agreed.”
They plodded on, this time forced to walk through a crowd.
“Thieves be lurkin’ ’bout, lordlings,” sang a passing sailor wearing a canvas shirt and trousers. “Mind them purse strings.” Around his neck he wore a dead mirko—a vicious deer-like carnivore that loved to stalk its prey for fun. Augum had hunted one back when he could still wield a bow, before he had damaged his elbow in the war—not that he needed to hunt with a bow anymore, as his arcanery sufficed.
After that, Augum kept tight hold of the coin pouch in his pocket as they pushed through the stinking throng. Eyes followed them like sharks. And sure enough, a hand felt its way into Augum’s pocket, only for him to catch it and squeeze, causing a squeal of pain. The thief, a small girl of about ten years old, made eye contact with Augum—and her protuberant brown eyes enlarged further before she scuttled off. But had that been terror or recognition in her eyes? It was hard to say.
There was a loud slap. Augum’s head whipped to Bridget, who had only broken stride long enough to hiss, “You dare, sir,” before she continued, leaving behind an old man with a raw handprint on his face. The crowd laughed at him as he quickly slunk away.
“Fiend tried to grab my hand,” she muttered when Augum gave her a questioning look.
Another old man opened his mouth, no doubt to say something lecherous at Bridget, only to wither away into the crowd once she leveled a fierce gaze upon him, reminding Augum of what the Henawa woman had said earlier. Perhaps these people did see death in them. The point was strengthened when an elderly woman with a blanket around her shoulders recoiled from them, murmuring, “The blood of the gods, diluted in witch form.” She signed skyward, adding, “Path bless us all and keep us safe.”
After that, the crowd seemed to sense their presence and parted around them. It was an odd experience, for not even the young dockside thieves ventured near. Augum and Bridget became the sharks, and the people a school of fish that curved around them.
When they at last left the crowd, Bridget glanced back only once. “Strange,” she said, apparently having sensed it as well.
Augum saw the girl, who he thought might have recognized them, follow them with her gaze. She was malnourished and dressed in rags and stood apart from the others, a loner. A dirty woolen cap sat too large on her head. Her face, vaguely rodent-like with its long nose, was smeared with soot and dirt, and her mouth perpetually hung open a little.
To be safe, Augum withdrew the pouch of coins. “Cover me,” he said, and Bridget stepped before him to block people’s gazes. “Hold this a moment.” He placed it into her hands and spread his own hands over it, preparing to cast the Object Track spell on the pouch. “Vestigio itemo discovaro,” he incanted, then thanked her and tucked the pouch away again.
The pair advanced upon the fearsome vessel. Like the other ships, there were multiple holes below the deck line where oars would jut out in dead seas. This one was named Howling Lily.
“Merchant traders,” a bearded man muttered as they stepped onto the dock. He cupped a beefy hand around his mouth and tilted his fat neck up at the ship looming above him like a huge crab. “Business be comin’, Captain!”
An old woman with almond-shaped eyes and blue-painted lips grabbed one of the hemp ropes and stepped onto the balustrade as easily as a child born at sea. She looked down with an imperious glare, her face as fearsome as her ship. She wore a fine woolen coat embroidered with flowers and gold coins and fish and whales riding curling waves.
A bejeweled finger stuck out at Augum. “Lightning?”
He nodded, taken aback.
She flicked a finger at Bridget. “Air?”
“I am afraid not, my lady,” Bridget replied.
The woman closed her eyes as a finger rose. “Say nothing. Water.”
“Earth, my lady.”
“Bah.” She beckoned in resignation. “And it’s Captain Chan, as a lady I decidedly am not. So … 3rd?”
“Er …” Augum didn’t want to reveal how many stripes they had with so many prying eyes about. “May we discuss business in private?” he asked instead.
She nodded ahead at a ramp before disappearing behind the edge of the ship.
Augum and Bridget strode by several rough-looking men and women, all of whom gave them the once-over, sneering amongst each other knowingly. They ascended the ramp, ridged with well-worn strips of iron to allow for better grip.
The deck was surprisingly clean, with everything stowed and in its place, perhaps in trained readiness for a quick getaway. A huge, bull-like man loitered near, drinking from a bottle the size of a small child. He sat on a barrel, one leg up, and yet all it took for him to scurry off was a single look from Vada Chan, leaving them mostly alone to talk.
Captain Chan pressed her fingertips together as she stepped before Augum and Bridget, methodically sweeping them from foot to head with her fierce gaze, missing nothing.
“Lordling ’locks. Blackhaven, by the cut of your dress. Academy trained. Perhaps looking to stow away on a long voyage to distant lands, knowin’ what be a comin’.” The last was said in a sea twang.
“What’s coming?” Augum pressed.
The woman ignored the question. “If you were any older I’d say you were training your teleportation up so that you could later skip from place to place—” Her bejeweled fingers flicked about. “—like fireflies in the night, perhaps to acquire wealth, power, or prestige.” She brushed the bottom of her chin. “But then, you have the faces of innocence lost amongst a stormy sea. Stolen innocence, the kind that demands justice … and vengeance. And there is ambition. Oh, yes, there is ambition. Along with … familiarity.” She narrowed her eyes. “We have met before.”
“We have not, Captain Chan,” Augum replied, though perhaps a little too quickly, for one of her eyebrows rose. “We … need something,” he added awkwardly, though realized he could use that awkwardness to his advantage. “Something we are … unaccustomed to doing.”
“We have an enemy,” Bridget added. “An enemy that we, uh, cannot deal with … directly.”
She seemed to have caught his drift.
Captain Chan glanced between the pair before breaking out in a gleeful smile. “Disposing of another warlock is quite a tricky thing indeed, is it not? But such services are beyond my scope. I urge you to inquire about the Whisper Blades in the city of Iron Feather.”
Augum scratched the back of his head. “Er, well, we were thinking of a more … direct route.”
“Nettle,” Bridget blurted in a whisper, glancing about uneasily. “We need one of the nettles. Um … you know which one.”
“Do I now?” Captain Chan’s voice had taken on a cool tone. “You are but babes playing with the terrors of the night. And only, what, nineteen years of age?”
“Er … almost seventeen,” Bridget feebly said.
“Babes newborn into adulthood. Babes playing with blades they could fall upon.” She watched them for their responses.
Augum and Bridget stiffened but held steady. Neither wanted to give the game away with a careless slip-up.
“How much for the black?” Augum pressed, inserting a bit of iron into his voice while lowering his head and wolfing his gaze.
“You have taken a life before.”
Augum did not reply, merely kept his gaze firm.
Captain Chan looked to Bridget, whose own gaze had hardened as she accepted the part she had to play in the ruse. “As have you. Babes playing innocent and coy.” Her face darkened. “Babes who are … killers.”
The pirate woman pinched her throat, stretched the skin out and released it in thought. “You play lordlings well, inviting hapless fools to parlay in lethal games, hiding how dangerous you truly are. Perhaps the most dangerous people in this town. Lethal babes walking the night in pretend highborn fashion. How … insincere. How … modern.” She took a deep breath and examined her fingernails. “I shall sell you the black if you answer honest and true a bold question. You have taken life, that much I can tell. But how many have you taken in cold blood?”
Augum sensed a test and thought about his response. Although he had never killed in cold blood, he knew he was safe to tell a lie in service to their cause as long as he did not have to swear it upon his shield—though he would much prefer not to lie at all if he could help it. And so he strategically decided to ignore the query altogether.
“We also wish to book passage to a location we will only reveal after our journey has begun,” he said instead, keeping his voice low and empty of emotion, “at the eighth town bell of this very eve. Is this acceptable to you?”
Vada Chan watched him a moment. “Ones so young should not know death so intimately.”
Couldn’t agree more, Augum thought.
At last she nodded. “How far will you be traveling?”
“Not far, a couple hours at most, maybe more depending on the speed of your ship.”
“Don’t you worry about matters you know nothing about. You leave the seas to me and I’ll leave the arcane arts to you. Now how much will you be paying for the black and this passage?”
Augum withdrew the pouch of mostly golden crowns and opened it up for her to see—but did not hand it over.
“That is a substantially larger sum than would be required.”
“There will be more of us,” Bridget added.
“How many more?”
“Not too many. We will have few possessions. But we will have to depart in haste.”
Augum realized a flaw in their plan—if Captain Chan spoke to the overseer who had pointed them toward her, she would think they wanted to return to Blackhaven after acquiring the black nettle. That incongruity prompted him to add, “Your discretion in this endeavor would be highly appreciated, Captain Chan.”
“Discretion is my business, false lordling. I shall ask you no more questions. Everything will be in order for the eighth bell. However, payment will be due midway through the voyage seeing as you ’locks can ’port off at leisure using scrolls or whatnot once you step foot on land. But there is one condition to departure.”
“And that is?” Augum asked.
“You do not meet us at this pier. There is an old rotten pier half a league to the northeast. We meet there.”
“Agreed.”
She nodded, stepped past them and hissed down to one of her charges, “Gather the saltbloods, we sail in an hour.”
The Pig and Spit
Augum and Bridget stood before the tavern’s open barn doors, adjusting to the nauseating stench—a mixture of rancid ale, fish stew, sweat and vomit. A rough-looking woman their age with greasy pigtails and a broken nose belted out a lively Canterran song, with the main refrain going, “Stomp on the ground, stomp on their face, stomp on their heads until they are dead, dead, dead.” She was up on a stage expertly strumming on a battered lute, her beefy feet stomping the hay-strewn planks and leading the audience with it, her voice a bullhorn—booming, confident, and fiercely Canterran. And yet she was not only accepted among the Solians, but they were stomping right along to the tune.
Boozy men and women streamed in and out, some giving the pair a wide berth, others snarling at them or signing skyward with a prayer, or throwing pointed barbs like, “Too fancy here for them fancy dress, lordlings,” or “You look like fake ’locks,” or “If you don’t dance with her I will, I says,” to which both Augum and Bridget made the same dismissive back-handed wave, a casual-enough response, apparently, for the drunken oaf to immediately turn to a cohort and slur, “Lucky I ain’t gotten that there magic thrown in me face, eh now?”
Indeed, they were that obvious. Had to be how they carried themselves—besides their dress, that is. But Augum didn’t let it deter him and pressed forth, Bridget close behind. The challenge now was to steal a pint of mead without dimming their shields—and then transport it back to their group and across to Moonhook Isle without spilling a drop. Thus far, neither of them had come up with any solutions, and resolved to grab a table to mull it over.
They found seats in one dingy corner. The table was square and made of thick ash wood and gouged with profanities, the stools weathered stumps of driftwood. They sat down with their backs to the walls and took in the scene. The place was large and stuffy and lively. People were loud and obnoxious as they sang or danced to the tune belted out by the young woman on stage. The walls were adorned with large rusted fishhooks, fishnets, glass fishing globes, anchors, commemorative plaques, woolen caps embroidered with sailors buried at sea, and worthless baubles from distant lands.
A woman in a soiled and square-neckline dress that framed her bosom strolled over, tray in hand, wide mouth chewing on something, eyes as dead as a fish’s. “Grub or ale, lordlings?” The tips of her flaming curly hair bounced with every word.
“Both, please,” Augum replied.
The woman pressed a hand to her bosom. “Oh, a ‘please’ even. Well, ain’t I flattered.” Her accent was that of someone who had been near the sea all her life, a mix of foreign lilt and smoky grind. “What will it be, you fancy pair? We ain’t got no peacock, that’s fer damn sure.”
A nearby table, filled with six bullish men who clearly worked with their hands, roared at the jest and clinked their tankards, muttering, “Atta girl, Sammy, you put them city snobs in their place.”
“What do you have?” Bridget asked in a shaky voice.
“You is by the sea, so I reckon you can say we have sea fare. You know … fish?”
The men roared even louder. But Sammy didn’t stop there.
“And we ’as crab and clams and turtles and snails and all sorts o’ others.” She leaned a touch closer. “Snails are small icky things you find on logs and the like. You know, not in them cities.” The men chortled.
“Right,” Bridget replied, unimpressed.
“Come, come, lordlings, you is fancy. And probably got yourself some coin. Don’t be cheap now. How’s about buttered lobster?”
“That sounds divine,” Bridget replied.
“Ooh, ‘deevine!’ ‘Deevine.’ I reckon I don’t rightly know what that wor
d means. Boys—boys! What you reckon this fancy word ‘deevine’ means?”
“It means you, sweet cheeks!” one of the men snapped, cackling along with the others.
“Ooh, then I likes the word, I does. Deevine. Maybe it’ll be my new name. Deevine.” She flicked a finger. “Show me some spine, lordlings.”
Augum was about to ask what she meant when he realized it was a play on words, and fumbled for his pouch as the men and the bar maiden snorted with laughter. He kept the pouch as hidden as he could, but even the sound of it was enough for the men to elbow each other and nod at it, their expressions darkening.
Augum handed the coin over and promptly put the pouch away. Sammy the bar maiden held the silver coin up and it flashed in the light. “Looksie cooksie, it don’t even have a mark upon it. Freshly minted.”
“Just like the lordlings,” one of the men said, but this time none of them laughed. They now looked upon Augum and Bridget as if they were fresh meat.
“I don’t even want to bite into it,” Sammy said. “I want to frame it and look at it like a girl looks at her first wee love.” She sighed sweetly, mockingly, as she pressed the coin to her bosom. Then she perked up. “You boys play nice and watch over my esteemed patrons while I see to some lobster an’ ale for these here fine city folks. You a husband and wife?”
“Brother and sister,” Augum replied.
The men exchanged leering glances. “Well, that still don’t mean they ain’t waywards,” one of the men said, cackling along with the others. Another man frowned, mumbling something about how he wasn’t sure that was how it worked, but he was ignored.
“Brother and sister. How adorable,” and Sammy drifted off as if it were her birthday. Augum had the distinct impression they had seriously overpaid and should have asked for change.
The men kept glancing over, making Augum uneasy. He thought he’d defuse the situation by leaning forward and hissing at them, “We’re ’locks.”
“So?” one of the men immediately snapped back with a sneer.
Augum blinked. He hadn’t anticipated them not caring at all. And then it dawned on him why—they probably thought he and Bridget were low in degree and could be easily handled.