“Down!” Hildy hissed.
Lien and Yun dropped behind the barrel. It was large enough to hide them both, as they squeezed behind it as well as they could. Sounds of clanking of metal and heavy footsteps came closer as two guards jogged into view. Their armour showed insignia branded with three swords holding up a bridge. The trio held their breath.
“Did you see where they went?” a guard asked.
“I didn’t. Why are we even chasing them?” the other guard said.
“They ran, didn’t they?”
The other guard squinted to peer into the alley. Hildy had flattened himself to hide in a shallow alcove and glanced at Lien and Yun. Lien was straining to keep the barrel from rolling down the sloping alley. Yun took a quick glance over the barrel and relaxed, as the guards turned away.
“We should have some sort of a cart for this. No honest craftsman just rolls a barrel around on the street,” he whispered.
“This is the city of the wizards. We should be levitating the barrels or have some floating discs if we didn’t want to stick out,” Hildy whispered back.
“You remember the last time when we tried that,” Lien said.
“I do,” Hildy said and stood up. “They’ve gone. Let’s keep moving.”
The Tenorsbridge street watch was known for its enthusiasm, if not for its wealth of experience. Hildy grabbed hold of the barrel and started rolling it with Yun. They were dressed in dark grey overalls and working boots. They were supposed to look like ordinary labourers, even though Hildy’s hair was suspiciously well groomed for that. He had a square jaw, penetrating eyes and was annoyingly handsome in general.
“How far is the boat still?” Yun asked, with beads of sweat rolling down his bald head.
Yun looked like a person who should be arrested just in case. He was bald and his eyes kept darting around like looking for something to steal.
“And why can’t Lien push this goddamn barrel? She’s twice as strong as me.”
Lien was built solidly and carried herself in the same way. She was wearing a long brown leather jacket and holding a notepad in her hand and a stern look on her face. She walked behind the two with shoulders square and head straight.
“We want someone believably self important to play the supervisor,” Hildy said.
“Which begs the question why you aren’t doing it,” Lien said.
“It’s better if I keep a low profile around here,” Hildy said.
An old man with a long grey beard passed by and gave them a long look. Hildy ducked his head even lower to hide his face behind the barrel. Lien glanced down at the man, who reflexively raised his tall conical hat to her.
“After this block, it’s just down the hill and to the right. We’re taking a bit of a detour to the channel this time,” Hildy said after the man had passed.
Yun sighed and kept pushing.
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“Oi! What’s going on here then?” the guard asked.
The guard was approaching them with a furrowed brow. Lien was standing on the dock and watching Hildy and Yun straining to lower the barrel into the boat. They had managed to cobble together a winch by running ropes around some posts next to the bank of the channel. The guard had snuck up on her, but Lien collected herself quickly.
“What’s the problem, officer?” she asked.
“This isn’t a place for transporting cargo,” he said when he reached Lien. “This comes directly from mountains and is for potable water only. You’d need a special permit to have a boat here, you do.”
The rapid flow of the channel was nudging the boat against the wall of the channel. The water was crystal clear and icy cold, brought to the city via a massive aqueduct system.
“Yes, obviously, but we’re working directly with representative Lombarte. He instructed us to use this channel. The necessary paperwork should be in order.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I have no doubt about that, miss, but I will need to inspect it.”
“Ah, of course. Get the papers, will you?” Lien said to Hildy.
“Yes, madam,” he replied and started searching around in his overalls.
Hildy pawed around his clothes for a good while as the guard was tapping his foot on the bank. Lien slowly inched behind the guard and was miming a push with both hands, but Hildy shook his head imperceptibly. Lien rolled her eyes. Yun was tying the barrel down as quickly as he could. Finally Hildy grunted and grabbed something inside his overalls.
The guard leaned forward and reached out his hand. Hildy grabbed the guard’s arm and pulled out a wand with his other hand.
“Forget!” he shouted and flicked the wand towards the guard’s face.
There was a sound of something clattering inside the wand but nothing else happened. The guard looked momentarily confused and frightened but then yanked his arm out from Hildy’s grasp.
“Right!” he said.
Hildy grimaced and started shaking the wand vigorously. It kept clattering but the sound got quieter the more he shook it.
The guard had the whistle in his mouth and was breathing in when Lien shoved him from behind. The guard managed to get out a tiny peep that turned into a gurgle when he hit the water. When he surfaced, Hildy flicked the wand again and shouted “Forget!” A dull green light jumped from the tip of the wand to the guard’s head. He was blinking his eyes as the current grabbed him and carried him down the channel.
“Where am I? What the bloody hell is going ooooon!” the guard shouted as he vanished from sight.
“Hope he didn’t forget how to swim,” Lien said.
Hildy was inspecting the runes on the side of the wand. The golden symbols were hair thin and burned deep into the wood by all the mana that had flown through them. He raised the wand to his ear and shook it gently. The only sound was a small, dry, clatter.
“I can’t believe you managed to squeeze one more charge out of that,” Yun said.
“Yeah, this baby has collected quite a bit of sediment,” he said and held the wand in his hand over the edge of the boat.
Yun nodded. His eyes widened when Hildy didn’t drop the wand but slid it into his sleeve.
“There’s another spell on it that isn’t quite as spent though,” he said. “I’ll fill it up once more, it can’t go that wrong.”
“It really and truly can,” Lien said.
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“So, walk me through this one more time,” Yun said. “Why are we stealing bathwater?”
“High-quality pre-owned ambrosia,” Hildy corrected him.
“It’s bathwater. In which an old smelly wizard has soaked for days,” Yun said.
“Well, both can be true at the same time,” Hildy said.
Yun groaned and kept steering the boat. They had got out of the inner city and past the first wall and were making their way by moving towards the Market Square Balcony. The gilded balcony with integrated cushions floated above the square and could be seen over most rooftops. In addition to being a landmark, you could also get a great view of the market and the events held on the square from it. No one knew who the owner was and the balcony was never used by them, so the kids often tried to get on it. The usual way was to wait until the balcony floated low and jump from the clock tower and try to grab on. The impact made the balcony tip and sometimes even spin in the air. It was extremely dangerous, but in Tenorsbridge the worst that could happen was that the kid would get a lecture from a Janitor.
“Keep your eyes open, you two,” Lien said. “I saw they had fished out the guard a while back.”
“Don’t worry. He won’t remember us,” Hildy said.
“They will know that something is up though. The clock is now ticking.”
“That’s the way we like it.”
“No, we don’t,” Lien said.
Yun nodded and shot a dubious glance at the barrels.
“I don’t believe anyone will buy this crap anyways. Ambrosia shouldn’t smell like old feet.”
“Once it’s distilled back to potency and corked, you can’t smell anything. And who goes around smelling their mana potions anyways?”
“I know wizards are weirdos, but who knew they would have so many rubber ducks,” Lien said idly.
“They are good at grounding the static mana discharges that might otherwise happen,” Hildy said. “No one wants to activate all the magic items in the house when they get out of a bath.”
“I’m still confused why they bathe in the stuff in the first place. Does it.. recharge their spells or something?” Yun asked.
“Naah, it keeps them young,” Hildy said. “Well, old, mostly. If you spend long enough per day in an ambrosia bath, it stops ageing.”
“Still. A whole bath! How often do they have to change the stuff? Do you know how much ambrosia costs?”
“I very much do,” Hildy said and grinned.
He slapped the nearest barrel.
“You can’t use it for baths after a couple of days, but this stuff can be distilled back to strength or just used as disinfectant or for cosmetics as it is. Have you never wondered where the Skin Wizard products come from?”
Lien glanced at Hildy, furrowed her brow, and then retched.
“I got a bottle of that stuff for my mother,” she said.
“I’m just joking,” Hildy said. “The wasteful buggers here don’t actually do anything sensible with this stuff. They just store it in a cellar and mostly forget about it. Get rid of it wholesale when the cellar is full. We on the other hand can fence this for nearly half of what we would get for new ambrosia, but the security is minimal compared to actual ambrosia reserves.”
“They did just let us roll away with the barrels,” Yun said. “My forgeries are great! They could have at least taken a proper look.”
“It did seem nearly confusingly easy,” Hildy said. “I didn’t think they would be thatindifferent.”
“The ones on the street cared enough to run after us though,” Lien said.
“Well, the street watch does have some more enthusiastic people in it,” Hildy said.
Suddenly a shadow covered the boat. Hildy, Yun and Lien looked up and saw something square hovering over them and blocking the sunlight.
“Dock and step away from the boat! Keep your hands where I can see them!” someone shouted from above.