“Good news is that we… what happened?”

Liam was staring at Bunny, comfortably surrounded by a small pile of carrots. Next to her was Imani, her feline half was sitting atop a young volar man. Lying face down against the dirt, the man writhed and groaned, holding on to the stump on his right hand.

“He tried to steal from us, and your…” Imani glanced over at Bunny. “The guardian retaliated.”

“I am a Guardian now.” Bunny preened.

“You took his hand?” He tried to keep his tone calm and collected, he knew the laws of this land were not kind to thieves. A hand was a mercy compared to what they would’ve been entitled to.

Hell, he’d witnessed worse with the collector.

“You… do not appear happy.” The lagomorph tentatively sent the thoughts his way.

“Just… not used to it.” He sent the thought out.

There was also the question of how Bunny had done this, last he’d checked she wasn’t able to cause such damage. That, and she’d also never shown the ability to just go invisible until very recently… it left him feeling like he’d missed something, had Maridah just unlocked those powers to her and not told him? Shaking his head to dismiss the train of thought, now wasn’t the time.

He switched to actual spoken words. “Just let the guy go, I think he’s been punished enough.”

“That is very lenient of you.” Imani glanced down at the young man that had made an effort to pretend he did not exist. Raising her haunches, she kicked him off. “We will not be so kind if we ever see you again.”

The man bowed profusely, clutching his cloth-covered stump as he scraped and bowed and thanked them. The moment he’d made it a few steps away, he broke into a full sprint to vanish into the crowd as best he could manage. Liam had to figure that it wouldn’t be long before he found his way back into the city, and word would spread of the supremely violent black rabbit.

“Anyway.” He rubbed at his temples, trying to avoid thinking too much about if he should feel some mild responsibility for creating poverty in this world. It was frankly a hole he’d much rather not dig into. “We have priority since our cargo needs to be declared and reviewed by the Emir’s people.” Liam said. “Bad news is that the cargo needs to be reviewed by the Amil, the Emir’s tax-man.”

“Why?” Imani frowned. “I have the papers for everything we carry.”

“Not the gold and other loot, and some of it will catch their attention.” He answered. “By law, just about anything and everything that we looted belongs to the Caliphate. They will either let us keep it after a tax, or pay us a reward for bringing it in.” He pointed at the wagon he was on, ignoring her scowl. “We can’t really hide the solid slab of gold, nor some of the more flashy items, the guards at the gate will take note. We ought to take those to the Emir’s people and play nice. The rest? I’d say we can do some minor tax fraud and look for a fence.”

Imani’s scowl deepened. “What do fences have to do with this?”

“A fence is someone willing to buy random stuff, usually doing so without getting the authorities and taxes involved.” Liam was slightly surprised at how readily Imani’s nervousness evaporated the moment money was on the table. “I can handle the Emir’s people. It’s standard stuff, a quick interrogation enforced by truth-detection enchantments, and then we’re on our way.”

There was a tiny risk that they could find out the gold came from a non-pantheon deity, that was to say, a demon; but Liam wasn’t afraid to maneuver his way around technical-truths. That, and he’d gotten a bit of coaching from Maridah, this was a crucial step in her operation.

It had all been well organized, though some of the details had clearly been kept from him since the last thing anyone needed was a telepath accidentally plucking something out. Still, if everything developed as it should, Cracked Bay and the people therein would hopefully become a blindspot to every deity in the pantheon. Maridah needed to restart her religion free of outside influences, Liam needed a safe haven that couldn’t just be freely spied upon by anyone with access to the Triumvirate Throne.

This was a neat agreement of mutual convenience. The kind of clear and well defined boundaries Liam appreciated.

“You speak of thieves. It would be better not to entangle ourselves with them.” Imani proclaimed with a stiff look around them.

“She means that she sucks at subterfuge.” Bunny threw the thought his way like a suckerpunch. “I can find what you need. Boss-bitch does want us to set up some contacts wherever we can.” She looked up at him with what could only be a devilish grin. “I do need permission, however.”

He poked the rabbit, causing the tiny furred creature to groan out. “Is this whole permission thing something where you’ll seek to take broad interpretations of my instructions?”

“What would make you think such a thing?” She batted her eyes innocently at him, the words carrying a sickeningly sweet taste.

Liam’s brows furrowed. “You’re plotting something, but I’m not your handler. If you get into trouble, make sure to at least give us a heads-up.” She was an aspect, Liam had little doubt she was perfectly capable of nibbling her way out of any trouble she might get herself into.

Bunny let out something halfway between a giggle and a cackle before vanishing.

Somehow, Liam felt certain he’d come to regret letting her loose upon the city. His only consolation was that Wolf was supposedly shadowing him, so there were very few things she wouldn’t be able to rip apart.

“Well… I guess that’s one problem solved in exchange for, probably, a worse one.” Liam muttered under his breath, glancing over at Imani. “Anywho, how about I handle the whole tax thing while you finish your contract?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“That would be adequate.”

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It took them several hours of waiting, with everyone in the crowd giving the glaring leonid and her cargo ample space, but eventually it was their turn to get inspected. The guards marched right up to their trio of wagons, congratulated them for how they handled the thief incident, and then gave their stuff a cursory look-over.

Anything that wasn’t in Imani’s papers got written down, and a few of the items they’d taken from the collector that they couldn’t just hide away got a bit more scrutiny. They were handed two pieces of parchment and two sets of instructions. The first was for Imani, certifying that the mercenary’s cargo matched with her documentation. The second was for Liam, boiling down to “go talk to the Amil for review ASAP. They will handle review and reward for the goods you brought”.

And with that, they were given entry to the city.

While the outside of Doeta might have appeared slightly drab (though how “drab” a giant freaking beak was up to debate), the inside was a whirlwind of color.

Massive lengths of violently green rope connected both ends of the inside of the beak. Each rope was as thick as a semi, and together they formed five spider-web-like platforms. The first platform hung barely twenty meters off the ground, with the second one being roughly at a hundred, the third at three hundred, the fourth at six hundred, and the last one nearly half-way to the top at over a kilometer off the ground. Though it was extremely hard to judge the distances.

The ropes were not merely there for decoration. The first three levels were occupied with small structures. Watch-towers and small houses, with every other inch of space used for walkways and small botanical hanging gardens of some kind. Further up, where the ropes were more closely knit together and less prone to swinging, there were actual buildings. Liam could only spot a handful of them, but they were beautifully decorated with glowing rust-moss and flowers.

For a moment, he felt déjà vu, as if he’d returned to the jungle’s upper canopy. He half expected a shimmer-chicken to pop its head out somewhere and try to eat him.

Dismissing the thought, he glanced to the “ground” level of the city. The architecture was not unlike Al-Zahra’s, with mud-brick buildings splattered with whites and blues, with the infrequent thin tower. Though the towers here appeared to be more akin to staircases, a needle thrusting out of the ground and through the first three levels of rope, connecting the ground-level with the upper ones.

Liam’s gaze coursed through the scene unfolding before him as they traversed the packed streets. A manic grin was plastered on his lips. His mind was buzzing with possibilities. This wasn’t a city he was familiar with, he’d designed the monster, placed it there to fulfill its role, but had done very little to imagine what else might have grown here.

Everything he focused on was a tiny mystery. Was the city’s interior design somehow influenced by Maridah’s jungle or had it been pure coincidence? Who had made the ropes? They had all the signs of being enchanted, yet it was hard to believe the city would see a need to put them there… no, wait, it couldn’t have been the Gods. The beak was ever-shrinking, had the ropes been there from the start, they would’ve sagged plenty by now.

And the celebrations! The streets were rowdy, crowded, and to the brim of people that had all the aspects of crowds that Liam hated. Yet he couldn’t stop imagining what he might find amongst the locals! The air was so packed with rich scents that he couldn’t wait to get the gold turned to coins and start looking for the best meal in the place.

All too surely, he wished he could just make a hundred copies of himself and send them everywhere all at once!

“We should drop you off first.” Imani interrupted his thoughts, the feline had put herself atop the middle wagon, hands on the hilt of her blade as she openly growled at anyone that dared so much as look at them.

As much as Liam would’ve probably enjoyed walking around before the meeting with the Emir’s tax-man, she was right. It would be impossible for him to walk around with the lumps of gold. Not for his safety or anything, it just weighed too much for him to feasibly carry half-way across the city.

Though their destination was for him to speak with the tax-man, they weren’t headed to some government building. Despite appearances, this was still a small city in the corner of bum-fuck nowhere. Which meant that the Amil did business right where he lived.

The building was relatively humble… if you considered having a small complex within a city where most houses were packed wall to wall as “humble”. There were three buildings, surrounded by a garden fence decorated with rust-moss that glowed a pale blue. All three structures were squarish, adorned with the same kind of hanging gardens that were present overhead. The tallest of the trio had two floors, and also happened to be the widest and furthest from the gate.

“State your business.” The volar guards here were fancier than at the city gate, wearing chain-mail tunics underneath their leather armor. They also had pointy helmets and swords.

“Gold and goods.” Liam handed over his paper while Imani unloaded the stuff they were seeking to get appraised. The flash of greed, confusion, and curiosity was unmistakable, even when the guard’s faces were fish-adjacent. “Now take me to your leader.” He whispered in plain English under his breath, entirely for his own amusement.

They triple checked his paper, then the pile of gold, one of them ran inside. After a hot minute, ten or so servants approached in haste, Liam frowned at the sight of them. Each of the ten servants were of a different race, none of them being volar… or human. For a moment his gaze lingered on them as they hurried to bring in the “merchandise” into one of the secondary buildings.

The servants had nothing about them that appeared odd or out of place, they were well groomed, and their clothes were neat and clean. But the fact that each of them was of a different race, one of them even being a valkyrie with another being a centaur, nagged at Liam as if there was some detail he was missing.

Leading into the secondary building, Liam expected some basic amenities, but was slightly surprised to find it to be the opposite. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit chamber, but he was left slightly surprised at the modest luxury it displayed.

The room was a study in contrasts, blending the austere elegance of the Caliphate’s geometric architecture with the lavish grandeur. A high ceiling decorated with ceramics following a pattern of kaleidoscope-like lines and shapes, while the walls were adorned with ornate tapestries depicting scenes of gardens and rivers. The air was perfumed with the subtle scent of oud, its source entirely hidden from view. The center of the room was decorated by a simple low wooden table, sporting a small spread of dried meats and fruits.

And on one of the corners of the room was a small fountain, bubbling softly, water gently cascading down and out of the room through a discreetly hidden drain.

As he took in his surroundings, the heavy fabric of a tapestry opposite to where he’d entered was drawn aside, and the host stepped through. The Amil, for it couldn’t be anyone else, was a human woman with most of the ethnic traces from someone born in the Sub-Saharan area. She was dressed in a traditional deep blue abaya, the dress-tunic adorned with golden embroidery, the fabric rich and silky smooth to the sight. She wore a simple golden necklace, her hair was concealed beneath a hijab of matching color, its fabric lighter, almost ethereal. But it was her green eyes that caught his attention, piercing and discerning, yet with something else hidden just beneath, something… sharp. A sharpness that was amplified by the pair of black silk gloves she wore.

Liam’s mind stuttered, and he hurried forward. “I greet the Amil.” He bowed his head hastily, trying to remember if he’d fumbled somewhere before a simple gesture from her hand signaled he could rise.

“I am Aisha al-Hakim, you may refer to me as Aisha.” The woman stepped closer, gesturing at the table. “Please, sit, eat, and excuse my urgency in having you brought over without giving you the opportunity to refresh yourself.” She gingerly took her spot on one of the cushions next to the table.

Urgency? Liam thought that what the guards had told them at the gates had been just to “preferably” come over here soon, not that he was under any obligation. Seeing nowhere to sit other than the cushion next to Aisha’s, he took the offer. “I thank you for your hospitality, Aisha. I am Liam Carter, just Liam will be fine.”

“It’s the least I could do.” The woman carefully took a wooden cup from the table, right as the servant elf approached to fill it up from the jug she carried. “Let us talk about what you’ve brought.” She took a long sip, glancing at the pile of gold and jewels.

He smiled back.

“Certainly.”