The night continues at the top level of Shveek’s largest suite. She has all her trusted subordinates over to celebrate the double full moon. Built like a hippo and wearing dreads made from yarn, she is not the type to encourage with her own charm. So, she rented out good looks from the shady side of town. A string quartet is playing upbeat, boisterous cluster of melodies. They were told to drown out everyone else’s noise with their own. This command has been impelling improvisation and long tones for when they need time to think. They call this style, “free sling”, and the fact the musicians came all the way from Bellic to share it gives the music far more mystique than Shveek was expecting. Ale is served at a round counter. Across from that, a wrestling match is about to begin to attract bettors. This will be the fourth of the night, and Shveek is hopeful that the alcohol has set in for most of the gambling types. The floor is already splintering away from the last few matches. Competitors from earlier are tasked with sanding off the spalls of wood. Some of the slave girls rented for this party, out of genuine interest or seeking a path to freedom, strike up conversations with them.
Shveek excuses herself to her room during these preparations. She feels the need to smoke, so she opens a drawer beside her bed with a shiny wood frame and decorative roof. The drawer is laden with an assortment of tobacco products, her pipes forming a strange collection. She despises tobacco rolled up in any single-use products. It produces an unnecessary amount of waste in her opinion. She despises how messy the streets are from all the other junk people throw out their windows without hesitation, beyond the bodily wastes that everyone produces. As a lacquerlord, Shveek has apt access to the finest material for coating wood. Her favorite pipe shines from this coveted sap. The tobacco leaves go in the mouth of an ogre, which ancient myths claim formed vast wastelands with their fiery breath. Wherever this was, scholars know it as the Charredlands and see it as the catalyst for their ancestors forming a civilization. Shveek is privy to the dangers of giving away her location, which is why she only smokes within the nine hours before sunrise. Not many people are out and nearby this late at night. It just happens that an open window, the smell of smoke, and loud music all draw enough attention when there is an active search. She is too busy daydreaming to consider these now. There are plenty of goons guarding the building anyhow.
While she is zoned out, she fails to notice the clopping of shoes from above. Miccolo has done this procedure at a few wrong places by now. Corvus has suppressed the urge to tell him not to disturb random residents. He has been following from below and dreading every time someone shoos them away. Miccolo is staying optimistic as he works his way down from the roof and notices a window on the top floor open. There are two reasons someone would be on the top floor: being too poor and thus willing to use stairs, and being too important to stay somewhere within easy reach. Shveek fits in the latter category by involving herself in the underground economy. Miccolo guesses as much once he gets a glimpse of her pipe. Rich and part of some weird counterculture. Now that he hears the party happening inside, it looks like the best way to get in is to wait for her to go back. After a few minutes of the lady still smoking, this gets tiring, and he regrets not going back on the roof to wait. The skulker slides over to his right. He needs room to avoid stepping on the pipe or setting fire to his robe.
Within a few minutes, the coast is clear. He drops down, maintaining a grip on the lintel he was standing on. Feet first, he swings into the room and aims to land on the bed. This fails, but what little noise his light weight creates on impact, the party masks. Not many guests notice the kid slip inside. The few who do are indifferent what they see. The rest are gathered in a semi-circle around two wrestlers. Shveek must be somewhere in this crowd. While he waits for it to clear up, he decides he has time to watch as well. The competitors are burly men with olive skin. The only parts of their body they appeared to shave were their armpits. Neither athlete has a clear advantage at the start. Both reach an arm under the other’s armpit early on, looking to tilt their opponent off balance. The shorter of the two, with coarse black hair seeming to avoid only his head, wraps a leg around the back of the taller one’s knee. Spectators are silent during every reversal of fortune, intending respect for the athletes. This is unusual back at their homes in Cortigo and Phut. They cheer with indefatigable energy for their favorite fighters.
The second wrestler, sporting dark dreads, uses the shift in their weights and tips his opponent to the side. He stomps his feet to loosen the grip now around both knees. Per the rules, he would just need to get his opponent’s arms off and let him fall to the floor. But he faces obdurate resistance. As he pulls one limb off, another clings back to his body. The large man twists his waist and stomps to the side. His opponent’s arms lose their grip. The bald contender bridges with his palms on the floor. He commits both legs to the other person’s right knee. A move this desperate and improvised is met with brute force. He is shaken off. His feet fall to the floor. The match is called in favour of,
“Tyre Lionsoul!”
The crowd is pleased with his performance. Tyre ambles about, offering hugs and handshakes to his fans. Bettors line up at the counter across the room to collect what little winnings this match was worth. Once a sufficient number of people have moved out of the way, Miccolo feels two knives pressed against his back. It is a threat. A threat not to make a scene and, judging by the free hands pushing him, to move forward. They take him back to Shveek’s bedroom and stand at the door to ensure he stays in place. Miccolo makes himself comfortable by taking a seat on her bed. Neither of her goons stop him. More murders beget more investigations.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Who brought you here?” she demands.
“You should be asking who sent me here.”
This sets her off. The crime boss takes in a quick whiff of air through her nose as she bites her bottom lip. The back of her throat growls with irritation. “You know, I would rather you live. Some naughty kid’s head doesn’t belong in my trophy room. Honour among thieves is still alive…barely…” She paces between the door and window.
“Okay, my bad. I came here on behalf of the Czar’s Friendly Shadows.” Miccolo is deliberate about omitting the finer details. His rank, his identity, all of that can wait. He must gauge the reaction of the potential recruit, see if she has any impression of the group already.
“Oo! He’s jealous, isn’t he? The Czar’s domain keeps shrinking, while mine couldn’t be better. He has to beg for my help, and probably a few others too. Does he think the underground economy needs Raskidon’s rulership anymore? If Jace takes over, he would realize these parts are ungovernable now.”
“This really has nothing to do with him. The organization fell into the hands of one of his sons. He wants your help. You have an enemy in common.”
Her face droops down. Her lower lip swivels from side to side. “Wh-What do you mean?” she hisses. Shveek has one true enemy: her mysterious larger competitor known as Fjelr. They have both been scrambling to terrorize smaller estates in and around the city of Palazo. If one of the princes, and presumably the whole royal family, considers Fjelr an enemy; if an agent is coming to tell her they have him in common, she must be implicated in a crime as well. She can never show her face in public again. All of these thoughts zip through her mind. They overload it. I’m overthinking this, aren’t I? Damn it damn it damn it!
Without realizing it, without even trying, Miccolo has struck some sort of nerve. He continues his mental script, which is more or less a complex flowchart for every possible reaction the crime boss could give. “Fjelr represents everything wrong with the pseudo nobility Luther created. No offense to you, I guess.” Shveek voices her opinion on his remark with an irate glare. Nevertheless, she allows him to continue out of nerves. “He never attends the Imperial Diet. No one has ever seen him in person as far as my superiors know. He has overstepped his bounds, operating protection rackets outside of this city under the guise of ‘competing’ with actual nobles. Th—”
“You keep talking like the lacquerlords aren’t…”
“I’m still talking now, gold-plated commoner.”
She winds back her hand, ready to slap this petulant child. Lacquerlords manage the spaces no one else deigns to touch. And calling her the “commoner”? What even is this stranger anyway? Deep inside is a voice of reason that tells her to stop, stow away these feelings, and keep listening. It reminds her of an old friend. One that could be here to guide her through this confrontation now if not for Fjelr. She whimpers, defeated, and saves herself any further trouble.
“As I was saying, Fjelr works behind everyone’s backs. He managed to create Even the Czar is afraid of him, assuming the two have even met.” Miccolo raises a curled index finger. “Or should I say, ‘assuming the Czar knows the two have met’? Yes, it could be that Fjelr is someone very close to him. In this case, Fjelr could vet himself, build a reputation for himself.” He figures from the blank stare that Shveek is completely lost in the reasoning. “We think it’s Perun.”
“What?” She screeches with a lengthy drawl.
“Right. So, the other princes don’t like that. I represent them as much as I do the Czar. That’s why we want your help. Okay?”
Shveek deems this an offer she cannot refuse. Fjelr is her biggest rival. If it had been anyone less cunning in his place, she would have been running all the estates by now. She presupposes there must be individuals watching her every move, not recognizing how difficult it was for Miccolo to find this lair. This tough crime boss for once fears that she is in a moment of weakness. Not only must she agree to. She has to tone down some of her own illicit activities, unless the powers that be know enough about her as is. “Yeah, sure,” she relents at last, pulling Miccolo off the bed before collapsing on it herself. “Just get out of here.”
Miccolo prepares to take his leave through the same window he entered through. By the time he gets his foot outside, a couple of the lacquerlord’s goons drag him the other way. They insist he has drawn enough attention towards this place and show him out the normal way. After six flights of creaky, squeaky steps, they nudge the boy out the door and slam it shut. He is pretty sure he can overhear a discussion about how to prevent such an intrusion from happening again. Corvus is standing on his heels, resting his tailbone against an abandoned wagon. He has been getting some stretches in with the expectation of feeling a little bit younger. Seeing the young infiltrator get out unharmed was a good sign.
“Is it safe to assume we can cooperate with Shveek?”
“I don’t know how, but I think we have her,” Miccolo confirms.
Corvus, on the other hand, does know how. He worked in the massive world of crime before the Czar’s Friendly Shadows. Chances are, most of the activities of major lacquerlords would go unnoticed otherwise. He knows what suspicious activities to watch for because he did them. The only differences are in scope and scale. Not even Miccolo can know this side of him. He never can.