13 A.L.
Irene really couldn’t believe it when she found the first stuffed chair. It was like Control was laughing at her. She invested a small fortune in fiber scrap and fabric and hours convincing Joe to cover a chair frame. She got the idea when she finally collected enough components in wood to make the frame. The end result was very nice, but Irene was forced to price it high to cover the costs of the fiber scrap, fabric and Joe’s time.
Just as the project was completed, one of her favorite hunting grounds remodeled and provided her with a free chair. The fabric on it was a dark tan, almost brown. Her custom chair was covered in hunter’s green. Turning the chair over and brushing its surface, she admitted brown wasn’t bad. It was a unique piece. She found them before. The first one she found was a very nice storage trunk. She was extremely disappointed when she realized it wasn’t made of components so she couldn’t build more.
She marked the chair room on her map. She was going back to the room every six days to get the replacement chair as the room returned to how she found it. This was her fifth chair. The room would continue to spawn the chair until the whole area remodeled again. She still couldn’t figure out a schedule for remodels. It seemed rather random, although it tended to happen at least once a year.
The room with the beds lasted only a month. Irene didn’t know if the spell encoding on the floor affected it or if she just discovered it late in its life. Luckily she always knew how rare beds were and priced them extremely high. When her source was gone, she tripled the price on the last bed. She did it partly because she kept sleeping on it herself when she was in town. She didn’t like the idea of going back to the floor.
It was about nine months since she opened the shop and sales were dropping as the square became saturated with furniture. Irene made the trip to Waymarket and back easily without the shop running out of product. She was thinking about making the trip out to Chicago. The large demand for furniture in the beginning kept Irene close to Londontown. When demand for the component based pieces decreased Irene shifted over to unique and modified pieces. She learned to pick up only the components she needed for the item she was replacing. That allowed her to remove the workroom wall from the shop layout and get more showroom space.
On the whole Irene preferred the slower sales rate in the shop. It allowed her to travel more. Anna was making noise about wanting a larger percentage, but Irene was pushing back on that. The clerk was still making a good living from the sales, it just wasn’t the instant wealth of the first days. Irene thought sales would pick up again when the furniture started wearing out. If the shop's sales fell below a working wage for Anna, Irene would close the shop for a few months and wait it out.
She thought this might be her last upholstered chair before heading north. The tensions with Chicago were increasing. Red magic users were always encouraged to move on from Londontown since the queen’s healing magic didn’t work on them. Recently Irene overheard hostile comments driven by the ever increasing number of toll booths.
The room was about two miles west of Londontown. Irene carried the chair back close to the square, before searching the rooms for a badger. She found four rooms with rats before she came across a single badger.
“There is talk about raising the tax,” Anthony told her as she delivered him the badger. Anthony was always on guard duty alone after the first hour of his shift. His partner was a heal addict. He would make up an excuse to go back into the square for something and never come back.
Irene didn’t think Anthony was addicted. She saw the warrior with minor wounds which healed over multiple days. As a blue in Londontown it was really only a matter of time. Irene felt for the man. She wished she knew what caused her to have purple magic. If there were more people like her, healing would be a lot safer. If it became known that she could heal people without addiction, she didn’t think she’d be safe in Londontown, regardless of whose daughter she was.
“What is driving that?” Irene asked.
“Scrap is getting scarce,” Anthony replied. “Most of our scavengers were going east, since the halls are easier there. Now they are being forced west, they don’t go out as long and come back with less,” he explained. “Plus I think someone realized all that fancy furniture in the new shop must be coming in from outside. The day guards have all been questioned. No one has even considered that someone might be going out after dark.”
Irene picked up scrap everywhere she went. She even cleaned out the rooms she just searched looking for a badger. That scrap was how she came up with the fiber needed for the stuffed chair experiment. Distracted by her shop, she wasn’t doing anything with the rest of it; wood, iron and bronze. She wondered if she was part of the problem.
“I have some scrap,” Irene commented. “I guess I should sell some of it off.”
“There’s a metal worker up on the third floor, near the training yard stairs that could use some,” Anthony commented.
“I’ll remember,” Irene commented. She left to go get the chair. When she came back she heard two male voices before making the last turn. She cast camouflage, muffle and eagle eye before peering around the corner to see what was going on.
Her brother Christopher was grilling Anthony. The topic of the moment was where the other guard was. Irene thought it wouldn’t be long before they got around to her. Anthony was a friend and Irene didn’t want to see anything bad happen to him.
Irene was planning to head out to Chicago soon. She bought a bundle of bear hides in Waymarket she wanted to sell there. She could check in with everyone at The Heights and get a feel for the rising tensions from the other side. She wanted to go north to Moscow and see what was going on up there, but she didn’t think she could be away from the shop that long. She would sell some scrap to the metal worker on the third floor in the morning and slip out of town after that.
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She dismissed her spells and picked up her chair. She hauled it up the darkened corridor making no attempt to hide her approach, although the bulk of the chair itself probably hid her identity. She set the chair down in front of the gate and looked at her brother.
“Hey Christopher,” she said. “How are you doing?”
“Irene,” the head of the guard responded. There were several layers of emotions in his voice, from exasperation to ‘that explains it’.
“Are you checking up on the night guards?” Irene asked. “You know those two on shift after Anthony here usually sleep most of the night. I’ve always found that a little worrying.”
“How long have you been in town?” Chris asked.
“This trip? About a month, maybe a couple weeks longer. I was out at Waymarket before that,” Irene responded. Chris looked at the chair.
“So the furniture store is yours,” he commented.
“Perhaps I was just hired by the owner to scavenge for them,” Irene responded.
“Perhaps,” Chris responded, but his tone said he didn’t believe it for a moment. “Have you seen Mary?” he asked.
“No,” Irene replied. “Not lately. How are her children?” Chris tilted his head and looked at his sister. He never knew her to ask after any of the family members before.
“They are fine,” he responded. “When did you last see Mary?” Irene made a show of thinking about it.
“About a year ago, maybe longer,” Irene responded.
“Where was that?” Chris asked. Mary left Londontown nearly two years ago now.
“Moscow,” Irene responded. “It’s a red square, about five or six green spaces north and thirty or forty stories down.”
“A red square?” Chris responded in shock.
“There was a group forming up heading north. She was talking about joining them. I wanted to go along, but I was scouting for another group. I needed to get back to report,” Irene told her brother.
“So she won’t be back,” Chris observed.
“I wouldn’t think so. She was very angry at Mother,” Irene told her brother.
“Yes,” Chris conceded. “I can see that.” Irene picked up her chair.
“I didn’t realize she had children until then. I thought I’d better check on them when I got back. I’m glad to hear they are ok,” Irene commented.
“Don’t you have children?” Anthony asked. Irene almost forgot him; she was so focused on her brother. Thirteen years since the landing everyone had children.
“No,” Irene responded. “If I had children I’d have to settle down someplace to raise them. Wildspace is no place for the young.” Inherent in that response was the fact that she wouldn’t leave them behind. Chris was startled. On some subconscious level he thought she did have a family somewhere. It was odd to realize she didn’t. Irene shifted the chair in her hands. “It’s been good talking to you,” she said. She moved to pass her brother heading to the courtyard.
“How long has she been bringing in the furniture?” Chris asked.
“On and off for about nine months,” Anthony admitted. “It started a couple weeks before the shop opened.”
“Why didn’t you report it?” Chris asked.
“Report what?” Anthony asked. “She pays the gate tax.”
“I didn’t see her pay anything,” Chris countered. Anthony turned and pointed to the badger in the bottom of the collection box.
“She paid the badger,” Anthony reported. “She went back to fetch the chair. She said she couldn’t carry both.” Chris looked down at the badger. It was alone at the bottom of the box. No one else entered the square since the last collection run after dinner.
“How long did it take her to fetch the chair?” Chris asked.
“Less than ten minutes.” That made Chris curious. He looked down the hallway she approached from. It seemed better illuminated than he would expect for this time of night. He compared it to one of the side halls. It was definitely brighter. Chris drew his sword, he felt better with the weapon in his hand.
“Come with me,” he said to the guard. The guard picked up a steel spear from where it was leaning against the wall. The two of them went down the hall to the intersection Irene emerged from. Around the corner was even brighter. The light was coming from around the corner of the next major intersection.
With care the two men approached the intersection. Only the need to keep up appearances in front of the guard kept Chris moving steadily forward. They carefully stepped out into the intersection, checking for danger. An overhead light panel burned at full brightness a short distance down the hall. Chris could see two more reaching out into the distance. The floor of the corridor was littered with dead rats. There were more rats there than Chris would want to face with a team.
He looked up at the light panel and wondered how Irene turned it on. No wonder she scavenged at night. With her comments about the early shift sleeping, she could have come and gone from the square any number of times, yet she chose to pay.
“I need to tell her she can pay the tax in rats,” Anthony commented.
“She doesn’t need to pay at all,” Christopher announced. “As a daughter of the queen she is exempt.” He was aware that Irene traveled the structure a lot. He also knew she was a wizard. Somehow that didn’t really sink in. Chris suspected she would have no difficulty killing any of them, yet at the same time he believed her when she said she left Mary in the north.
Mother always treated Irene like she was a complete failure, yet his sister won the same exclusive position in engineering their father held. Chris could see how their mother’s treatment of her might have taught her to hide from attention. Her quiet competence didn’t end with engineering.
Chris climbed the steps inside the inn to the rented rooms. He knocked softly on his brother’s door. If Phillip was already asleep, Chris didn’t want to wake him. The door was opened by Phillip’s spouse.
“It’s your brother,” she called as she stepped out of the way to let Chris in. “I’ll go check on the children.” She stepped out into the hall, leaving the brothers alone.
“What brings you by so late?” Phillip asked. He was half dressed and standing in the door to the sanitary facility.
“Irene is in the square,” Chris reported. “The guard at the back door told me she’s been going through in the evenings on and off for the last nine months.”
“Nine months, how have you missed her for that long?” Phillip demanded.
“We didn’t miss her,” Chris responded. “The furniture shop is hers.” Phillip stood straight and started pacing. He thought about the shop. It was about nine months. “I think she is looking for a home,” Chris commented. “If we welcome her, she could be an asset. She is a wizard.”
“If she’s been around that long and we didn’t notice, she hasn’t been causing her usual trouble,” Phillip observed.
“She did tell me the guards on the early morning shift sleep most of the time,” Chris replied.
“I don’t understand her,” Phillip admitted, “even if she is our sister.”