Twinty stood before the home of Weatherworn, darkness closing out the day. The guards looked a bit worse for wear, one of them shaking every few seconds as his nerves remembered the touch of lightning and danced to their tune, the other wearing an impressive bulge down his pants from a pack of ice that numbed any lingering ache.
“Rough night, boys?”
“I think you're a little lost, trash eater. Garbage dump is that way.”
Twinty laughed and shook his head, using the distraction to tap him in the ice. He doubled over and Twinty growled.
“Check the guest list, pointy ears.”
His glare paralyzed the other guard before he could make a move who instead found the list in his hands quite the riveting read.
“It's under Twinty Sevin. Like the number.”
The guard nodded slowly.
“Oh, it's, it's actually here.”
The guard led him to the door and let him in to the large main hall. Any damage was repaired already, artisans paid and home by now. Guards stood casually here and there and a servant girl approached him, dressed in a fine robe wrought in lace and cotton like a maid that never had to clean.
“I'm afraid Mr. Weatherworn likes his guests to relinquish any weapons they have before meeting with him.”
“That's fair, certainly.”
Twinty pulled a knife out of his cloak, several bottles of questionable content, some paper and pencils and a few flowers he'd picked from the road side. She put them all in a large bowl to the side.
“Care to pat me down, Miss?”
She grimaced at how he phrased it, dripping in lewdness and a nearby guard butted in.
“I'll handle that, sir.”
He was quite thorough but nothing dangerous came of the search and he nodded curtly to the servant girl.
“Usually I have to pay for that kind of feel up.”
Twinty sneered but the elven girl was already leading him to the library.
Still stacked high in shelves and books, magic crystals lighting the area and elven architecture holding everything in a wooden, refined cradle. A thick, wooden table was placed in the center and there sat Weatherworn. He looked worn out despite his perfect posture, a blackening of skin under his eyes, his beard neatly trimmed and styled but fraying. Wormwood stood beside him, confident smile and hand on his hip.
Weatherworn smiled and gestured to a seat on the opposite end of the rectangular table.
“Twinty, please, come in. Care for a drink?”
He held up his glass but Twinty put his hand out, politely declined.
“Never cared for the stuff.”
He nodded at Wormwood who refilled his glass.
“That must make doing business very hard. Alcohol is social lubrication they say.”
“What your guard did to me in the foyer probably should have required lubrication. Very thorough fellow.”
Weatherworn paused, taken aback for a moment before he laughed.
“There's that trash digging rat I love. No sense of who he's speaking to, no sense of tact in your people. I've always thought you were the perfect ratling, Twinty. You snuck in the shadows as a young man, you slit throats, you made questionable food that no one else would or could stand. I like that you were always so...expected. And when you became lord of the local burrows, practically king of the rats, you stayed in your hidden village and went on as if nothing had changed, still working from the shadows.”
“Thank you. And I've always felt you had everything that made a traditional, old timey elf. Arrogance, haughtiness, a short life span...”
He smirked at that and Weatherworn's face tightened as his sore spot was jabbed. He tried to laugh it off but anger stiffened his joviality.
“Well, we'll see. We'll see. I have been feeling better lately after Wormwood brought me this bauble that rock hound of yours found.”
He took from around his neck a chain linked to a polished stone that glowed faintly green, crystalline structure like hundreds of tiny webs inside. Twinty nodded.
“Oh, thievery? What would the other high-noses think?”
Weatherworn held it in front of his eyes, sniffed of it as though ingesting something.
“This is a poisonous bauble that would have killed someone. Mr. Wormwood was saving people from your dwarf's ineptitude.”
Wormwood smiled, a little too wide, a little too smug.
“Just being a good citizen, sir.”
Weatherworn sighed.
“Putting it all together, this is what would have brought the elves back to their true power. Just this energy put out by one of the machines they were working, one of the wonders that she helped us imagine from her travels, another thing pulled from those funny little sticks she was always looking for.”
“Aggatha.”
“You do remember? From what Wormwood had gathered you'd had your memories of her erased from after you arrived in that little village you were hiding in. Did you make a little love nest there?”
Twinty's jaw tightened but he forced a smile.
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“No, just lived in the same town. We hardly spoke.”
“That's surprising. Back in Whaler's Wharf you would hang on her speeches about bringing the world together, erasing racial tensions as though washing away dirt and refreshing the world into a kinder place. Did you get tired of all the pretending just for the hope of a little tail, as you ratlings put it?”
They stared at one another and a clock ticked somewhere in the room, the two boring holes in one another with their eyes. Twinty sat back and brought his smile back up.
“I would like Clarke back, please. He's a good worker and resource for me. I'll make sure you get proper payment for his treatments.”
There was an edge to how he said 'treatment'. An anger like a blade unsheathing. Weatherworn sat back and put his hands on the table defensively.
“I think we both know what Clarke is by now. A Script User. A being that can read the essence of the world and change it on a whim but for a dear price, a loss of sanity comparable to things changed. An exceedingly rare specimen with extensive power and limited use. Tell me why I would give him up.”
“Is this where I make some grand speech about how I'll destroy everything you hold dear and dog you until your dying day? About how I could poison your senses and make every last moment of the rest of your life a joyless slog through sand tasting meals and dulled eyesight just bad enough to cripple you but not so bad you don't think it can't be fixed? I'm sorry to disappoint you but there's no need for that. I already stopped in on Clarke's home and it told me everything I needed.”
Wormwood made a tiny head shaking motion so Whilaway could catch it from the corner of his eye but Whilaway had known Twinty a long time. He could bluff and lie with the best of them but it was the biggest lies that you had to watch out for.
“What did you find?”
“I'd have to guess that he's been trying to use those powers without understanding the exchange. I'm sure he's quite beyond use and sanity now for anything you'd want. He broke himself before you could.”
Weatherworn gulped and found himself silently agreeing but he held his hands out.
“He's still a man. I could breed him and hope to make another, like you would with any rare creature.”
“Being insane I would doubt he'd be in the mood.”
“You don't stop to ask animals what their moods are, Twinty.”
Twinty smiled devilishly.
“I don't think you have the time, old man. Breeding would take years and I can think of a few ways of keeping you out of the places with all this energy floating around for the year or so you have left.”
Weatherworn scowled, his politeness becoming a tense snarl and the veins in his neck bulging as his blood pumped faster. Twinty cut him off before he could say anything.
“But the funny thing about Clarke is he's a smart boy. Before he destroyed himself and tussled with your assassin he enchanted his book with his Script. If it were to be destroyed that a few certain people touching it would restore it to a healthy condition, clean and legible. I just so happened to be on that list of a few people. I know where Aggatha is and I'll tell you if you give me Clarke. Then you'll have the chance to get the last competent Script User in the world.”
Weatherworn balled his fists.
“I already know your little group left an hour ago. I'd just need someone to follow them to find her.”
“Which one?”
Weatherworn's face fell and Twinty laughed.
“What, your intel network is that slow? I sent out several 'secret' groups, all consisting of a dwarf, an elf and a human. The hardest part was getting more giswirds. Those things aren't cheap around here.”
Whilaway whipped his gaze to Wormwood but he had already turned his back and was speaking into a crystal to some of his watchers. Thirty seconds of hurried speech between several groups and he turned back to Whilaway.
“He really did. There are several groups matching the description going in several different directions.”
Twinty sighed.
“I like those magic items. Very useful. Too bad they can only make so many calls so your people only report in at specific times.”
Whilaway fumed but Twinty quickly waved his hands as though to dispel any animosity.
“But listen, I'm not unfair. Give me Clarke back and I'll tell you which one is the real one.”
“I don't need your help. We've played this game a thousand times and every time we've clashed I've come out just fine. Do you know how rich I am? I could outfit each one of those people following yours, buy up a tiny army just to follow them no matter how many you put out. I don't have to give you anything!”
He slammed his fist on the table, his breathing rough and deep as something throbbed in his chest. He fell back into his seat, hand clutching at his heart. Twinty tutted.
“Maybe I was a little generous with that year. Poor little bug, reaching the end.”
Whilaway gave some secret signal, some flick of his hand and Wormwood jumped on the table and advanced slowly towards Twinty.
Twinty smiled and took a step back that pushed his chair to the ground, using it to step up on the lavish wood himself. Wormwood drew his knife.
“Sorry old man. I have the utmost respect for you but I doubt you can handle me alone.”
Twinty laughed, his front teeth clicking as he clapped his mouth shut.
“That's why I wouldn't do it.”
He grabbed the edges of his cloak and shook, two lithe and tall ratling assassins falling out of the folds of the inner darkness as though he had a whole other room on the inside. Their weapons already drawn and pointed as they took position to defend Twinty.
Weatherworn sat back, the pain slowly subsiding until he could breath without daggers of pain shooting up his side. The crystal had made him healthier but it was just a lump of rock with very limited energy. It couldn't do much for his condition.
He imagined himself saying, “You wouldn't get away, you couldn't live in this city again without being hunted down!” but what did that mean to someone who never bothered with the light of day?
“Wormwood, get the Script User.”
He measured the ratlings up, thumbs rubbing over his index fingers, flicks of the eye, slight movements of the foot as they leveraged their movements, pictured the moves they could make against one another.
“NOW, Wormwood. Do not make me tell you again.”
He slowly stood back up, relaxed and let go of his tension in a breath.
“Yes sir.”
He left the room and Weatherworn sat back, his glare shooting past the assassins to Twinty who smiled like the cat with the proverbial rat.
“I hope you'll live up to your end of the bargain?”
“When we see Clarke, yes. Does it hurt, Weatherworn? Is your pride just a little bit less puffed up with the pin prick I gave to it?”
He said nothing and they stared silently at one another for several minutes until Wormwood came back. Clarke was held by a slave pole, a tight clasp of metal at one end of a long pole, Clarke clawing at his throat and muffled gibberish gargling from his throat. Wormwood released the latch and Clarke fell to his knees, his body shaking, eyes wandering wildly around to the corners of the room.
“In all things...behind all words, fragile, breakable world...change, too constant, too easy!”
One of the assassins approached Clarke, slowly, grabbing him by the arms. He struggled at first but became limp, his body trembling from old sedative. Twinty looked at him, pulled his chin up so their eyes could meet but Clarke's were dilated, looking at something far beyond all of them, something he'd seen within the makings of the world.
He whispered just so he could hear.
“I'm sorry my boy. I can...I can probably fix this. I won't let it end like this for you or her.”
“Well, Twinty? You have your gibbering fool back. Where is my reward?”
He helped Clarke towards the door, the assassins watching his back before he spoke.
“Wubwé. She's being held in and by The Roots.”
Weatherworn's eyes widened, glowing with delight and his face falling into sudden anger.
“Those bastards. This won't be easy...”
Twinty didn't stay for his scheming monologue. He and the assassins disappeared outside quickly, past the baffled guards and out into the night and the secret rat dens.
Weatherworn sat quietly rubbing his beard, thoughts flying through his head as he planned and replanned. His chest ached, a constant out of rhythm thump and he knew Twinty was right. There was no time.
“Wormwood. Damn the cost but I want you to buy whatever you need, take whatever magic items you want and hire whomever you can but I want you to invade The Roots and get me that script user.”
Wormwood smiled. He sorely needed to kill someone and it sounded to him like he'd been given his pick in a candy store.
“Yes sir.”