Liam encountered Imani on his way back from his very long coffee break with Bunny. The leonid had been waiting for him near the main plaza and had spotted him right away. A brief exchange confirmed that the mercenary had fulfilled all her obligations, contractual and otherwise, and that everything was in order for her to take up his offer.
Imani had been curt, brief, and very stiff during negotiations.
The leonid was openly agreeable to most anything Liam suggested, and had even proposed lowering her pay, which he’d vehemently refused. There was a vague sense that she either didn’t have a good grasp on money, or that she was extremely nervous about the whole thing.
It was likely both, seeing as a Goddess’ aspect had spoken to her… Liam was champing at the bit to figure her out and try to help her relax, but she hadn’t been engaging in any of his attempts at small talk.
In the end, it had been a lot of back-and-forth, but mostly to flesh out the details rather than argue over them. Her new contract boiled down to three tasks: first was to be security detail for Liam and his assets (which was nothing new to her). The second was to be a recruiter (be the person in charge of finding people to hire, and filtering out any undesirables, with salaries coming from Liam’s pocket). And the last one was to either find someone competent to lead the group or lead the group herself.
There were intricacies to their agreement. Details such as at what point she could just go “fuck it, we’re out” and kidnap Liam out of a dangerous situation; or the broad desired composition of the hired help that they’d be taking to Cracked Bay; or the expected maximum duration of her contract until it would be reviewed for renewal.
To make sure everything was above board (a detail Imani insisted upon, and Liam had no reason to refuse), they went to a scribe so that everything was put down in writing and in duplicate.
The contract was notarized, sealed, and the katib (the title scribes use in the Caliphate) was paid handsomely for the rush work at the late hour the very day before a large celebration. Liam was certain that the only reason the guy accepted their request in the first place was because the katib had found out Liam was the Amil’s guest.
If that was the case, then word had spread really fast.
After a frankly too-long day for both of them, Liam led the way back to the Amil’s estate, with Imani just gawking at it all as they were welcomed in. The gawking became nervous as the cart she was lugging around with her belongings was handled by the servants, and it compounded further as she saw the guest room meant all for her lonesome.
The human, on the other hand, gave his greetings, shared the good-nights, took a stroll, and then slumped onto the most comfortable pile of pillows ever. He barely even registered closing his eyes before he’d fallen asleep.
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Liam woke up to the light tinkling of a small bell and the faint scent of something sweet. The first hints of dawn were creeping in, a faint orange glow bathing the garden past the semi-transparent curtains of his room. A short figure stood silently on the steps leading to his room but not quite at the curtains, the silhouette of their head unmistakably that of a draxani. “Grauch, is that you?” Liam yawned out, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from his eyes.
“Indeed, sir, I’ve brought a morning snack.” He moved just close enough to place a tray on his side of the curtains. “Your breakfast with the Amil will be in an hour. We’ve prepared an adequate set of clean clothes; would you need any assistance, or will you be bathing on your own?”
“On my own is fine, thanks.” His toes curled into the thick, warm rug as he approached the curtain. “I should be ready in time, though if there’s anything you think I might need to know, now’s the time.”
“Very well.” He bowed, giving a brief rundown of the way scented oils and soaps were used before he turned and left.
Liam regarded the retreating Grauch for a moment. Though the guy was a servant, basically barely a step above a slave, his future prospects were quite solid (so long as the Amil didn’t fire him). The Caliphate was culturally built through trade, with the Merchant God being one of its main patrons. Thus, there was room for upward mobility in the Caliphate, but a lot of it gravitated around generational nepotism. In short, though technically anyone could become the next sultan, you’d place your bets on the handful of brats the current sultan had sired.
In short, it would be reasonable for the draxani to expect that his kids would have a better childhood than he had. In a world where most people’s prospects were to live a life not too different from the one their previous twelve ancestors had, that was a rather fortunate thing.
Promising himself to find some time to pester the guy to share some stories, Liam set out to bathe, clean up, and right as he was about to dress, he spotted a small box next to his change of clothes. It contained a dozen tiny glass bottles, each filled with an oily substance, with one of them being upside down. A quick pull of the cork and a sniff confirmed they were perfumed oils, with soft tones he couldn’t really put a name on.
“If I remember correctly…” Following the instructions he’d received from Grauch, he coated a bit of the oil on his palm and scrubbed it into his hair, using a comb to settle it all down before closing the box.
On his way out of the guest quarters, he realized there was sunlight.
Well, it had been there since a little after he’d woken up, but Liam hadn’t paid much attention until now. Looking up, he realized that a series of massive mirrors had been set up alongside the ridge of the inside of the larger beak. They had to be enchanted somehow, because Liam couldn’t otherwise explain how they were ensuring that the bit of sunlight hitting the top of the beak made its way down and bathed the whole district with the same intensity as if it were midday.
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“May I approach, sir?”
“Uh… sure?”
Grauch stepped past the foliage, giving one quick glance at Liam and then down at the wrap of cloth that was next to the box. “Ah, leaving the turban for last, a wise choice.”
He blinked, glancing at the cloth, then back up at the draxani. “I think we can skip the pretenses. I have no clue how to wear a turban and had not even thought it was part of the ensemble.”
If gazes could speak, the servant’s yellowed eyes would’ve probably told a story between surprise and amusement. “It is a rather easy problem to solve, if sir would wish for it.”
“I’m meeting the Amil, the last thing I need is to come off as disrespectful.”
“Of course.”
Sitting down, Grauch picked up several pieces of cloth and began his work. Liam tried to remain as still as he could while his head was wrapped in what he hoped was an adequate number of layers. The draxani’s work was efficient, keeping the cloth tight but not uncomfortably so. Yet, he was not done once the silver-gray turban was completed; Grauch pulled out an upside-down bottle from the box, extracting a droplet of oil and gently applying it to Liam’s stubble.
He stopped when Liam recoiled a little in surprise. “That…”
“Excuse me if I overstepped, sir,” he quickly apologized with a bow and stepped back.
“Just not used to any of this,” Liam glanced down at himself, wearing a soft green tunic that reached all the way down to his knees (it had another name, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember it). Over the tunic, he wore a waistcoat of darker green, adorned with silver thread in a geometric pattern of some sort, and beneath it, he had a set of loose trousers. “I probably look like the genie that pops out when you rub a dusty router.”
“There is one more thing,” Grouch declared, ignoring his self-deprecating comment out of a desire not to embarrass either of them by assuming what he meant. “The Amil wished for you to have this.” Seemingly out of nowhere, he produced a small bundle of silk.
Inside was a thick silver ring, studded with several pieces of malachite, the band patterned with tiny, seemingly random floating geometric figures.
Liam stared at it.
“Is something the matter, sir?”
“No, it’s… just something I presume she wouldn’t have known. Where I come from, partners propose matrimony with a ring.” Raising his hands in a placating gesture, he chuckled amicably to show no hard feelings. “I know that a ring holds no such meaning here, though I’m not exactly used to receiving gifts either; I should probably stop myself from rambling.”
Grauch studied him closely. “Perhaps the Weaver has seen to change your fortune.”
It was meant as a compliment, Liam knew that, but his smile turned a little brittle despite himself. “Yeah, maybe.” The answer was non-committal as the draxani led the way forward while Liam started to wonder whether sending Wolf off had been the right thing to do.
Even then, he couldn’t help but feel a trickle of anxiousness. There was no way Thalgrim hadn’t detected him when he’d met Imani, with the mercenary carrying some tinkering from the Goddess. Similarly, Aisha was an Amil, her life touching upon that of every citizen in Doeta; Thalgrim must know Liam was here. Even if nothing had happened, there was that gigantic “yet” hanging overhead like a sword of Damocles.
The big question was whether they had stepped into one of her plots or not. Was it truly a coincidence that he had become a guest to a fourth-circle mage he couldn’t remember writing about?
Liam’s gaze fell on the bundle of purple silk and the ring. In the Caliphate, a gifted ring didn’t really mean much; to the people in the higher ranks of the nation, it was sort of the equivalent of sharing a beer. Hell, if an Amil and their guest became friends, it wouldn’t be seen as weird for said Amil to give an actual job offer to the guest.
Nepotism was the name of the game.
But the opposite also applied: turning down a gift wasn’t exactly a nice gesture. Not as bad as refusing to be a guest, but still.
“When in Rome…” Resigned to at least being cordial about it, he gingerly extracted the silver ring and placed it on the palm of his right hand. His little guests didn’t respond, no tingling to indicate the presence of mana, so chances were it didn’t have any enchantments. Taking the leap, he slid it onto his index finger, half expecting something to pop out, but nothing happened… which just made Liam slightly more nervous.
His mind just kept bouncing back to Thalgrim and her ploys. Liam insisted to himself that he should be relaxing; he lacked the resources and skills necessary to spot a plot coming his way. He’d just roll with the punches. It wasn’t like he couldn’t handle things. Bunny and Wolf were within the city; nothing short of one of the deities sending an aspect of their own could pose a threat to them. And the Weaver wouldn’t send an aspect herself; that would be impossible to hide from the other members of the pantheon. Overthinking this was not helping, and he really needed to stop.
The little self-pep-talk helped him relax a little, and with a shrug, he threw away any further lines of thought that were irrelevant to the current situation. Which meant Aisha, Amil of Doeta, someone with the skills of a fourth-circle mage, but one he didn’t know anything about. Her invitation to be her guest had rattled him, and so far, he’d learnt nothing about the woman other than how impressively wealthy she was.
That really needed to change. Liam promised himself to try and see what he could find out about her. His buzzing thoughts came to a screeching halt the moment he stepped through the hedges and into an almost private little corner of the garden.
Aisha al-Hakim sat at the center of the picturesque scene, her dark skin and brilliant green eyes bathed in the multi-faceted light of the spell she wove. It was a sphere of swirling, floating, glowing yarn, each string no thicker than the thread of a spiderweb, twirling and spinning in place like a globe that had been carved open. Her fingers reached out into the guts of the spell, caressing each line and knot into place with the same grace as a harpist playing a melody. Each pluck and each twirl made the weave shift subtly, yet despite the hundreds of threads, Aisha would not touch the spell with anything other than the very tip of her fingers.
The magic sang to her, the knots pulsating with life to her every touch as she drew out the spell, teasing it, leaving it to linger at the edge of the precipice as she added minute flourishes to the design. Each little twist was nothing that gave it added practicality, but that made the spell shimmer with a beautiful whimsical geometry.
Liam moved closer, not daring to make a sound or disturb the mage, taking in everything, trying to commit it to memory even as he could barely breathe.
A soft crunch of sand broke the spell. The Amil twitched, the tiny loss of focus enough for the spell to no longer sustain itself, collapsing in on itself, the glow forming a dim light that poured into her forehead, the only trace of the work of art being the phantasmal glow of her emerald eyes.
Their gazes locked, and both their breaths hitched. “Excuse my slip-up,” she was the first to speak, quickly coughing to regain her composure. “Please, Liam, sit, let us eat. The day will be a long one.” Aisha’s eyes briefly regarded him, eyes coursing over him, the slight smile of approval one that made him feel a little flushed under the collar.
Liam swallowed, hurrying to his chair and noting Grauch was nowhere to be seen; he’d make sure to thank the draxani for the choice in clothes. “Yeah… let’s.”
Better not screw this up.