Books and bread. The Yaniri sorceress. Unintended history lessons. Fake names. The summer poem.

Sal slid down onto the seat at one of the Mind & Body Tables with a full tray, a wooden cup, and a beaten, bent metal spoon. The bread came pre-buttered. The table had worn books on it, some heavily illustrated, some thick with prose. He recalled that Fabrizio said that the evening meals were to nourish both the mind and the body, hence the name. The ragged canopies above offered little shade, and it was still several hours before sunset. The heat was the worst of the day. He wasn’t going to stop sweating any time soon.

This time, he remembered to give his buddy Betty a bit of the rye bread, not the crust, but the spongy center, which should make her happy. He included a bit of butter to make Betty’s experience better.

As for Sal, he didn’t pause. They had the rye bread he’d had before and with that wasn’t meat but a curried lentil, which was thick and very buttery, so it was almost like a stew. There were several chunks of potatoes in there. He started eating.

At first, the Dark Lord was by himself, but soon, someone sat across from him, a woman with her heard covered by a collection of dark purple and gold scarves, which matched her dark purple robes. Across her throat was the tattoo of a crow with its wings spread. She shot him a dirty look, as if daring him to talk to her.

She didn’t want conversation, clearly, though Sal surprised himself by talking to her. “You were with the group trying to get into the tower the other day. I remember.”

“Remember what?” the woman spat. She then held up her hand. “Doesn’t matter. I’m just here to eat a little. It’s one of the only places I can still eat. But you know all that because, you know, godless Yaniri sorcerer here. Whatever. How about you don’t talk to me, and you get my leftovers?”

“Leftovers would be a welcome addition to my humble repast.” This time, Sal purposefully used all the vocabulary he could muster. Might as well counter her gruff reaction with flowery language.

“Right…” It took her a long time to say the word.

Sal glanced at all the people eating there, and there were a ton of women and children, but also a few men. The Ponti hadn’t been in the little nameless bakery, that had the oven blazing and big cauldrons of the lentils bubbling over fires, that had blackened the big chimneys there.

It wasn’t long before the lines started, and already, the tables were filled to capacity, so people sat on the ground, chatting. One dark-skinned man, in a red kilt, a leather vest, and the complicated sandals, played on a lute while a woman sang.

It was more like a party than anything else, and Sal found himself enjoying himself. He did wonder if he’d see the Ponti again. There were also the matter of the four men and the one sword he’d given them. He didn’t see them anywhere. Her was glad for that. They had been very unpleasant.

“Yeah, you might’ve me at the tower yesterday,” the woman said suddenly. “I was with my party, we called ourselves The Astounders, and we were going to go up. We thought we’d filled out the right forms, release forms, sponsorship declaration forms, that whole deal, but nope. We missed the detailed background form, which would’ve been problematic for us because, of, uh, legal troubles. Let’s just leave it at that. It was a dodgy party anyway. Now, I’m stuck in Tower City, eating lentils. I suppose life could be worse. The lentils are tasty and a good source of protein. Best of all, no dairy.”

Sal wasn’t sure how to respond without sounding like he had no clue what she was talking about. Besides, she’d said she didn’t want to talk, though it was pretty obvious she did.

He decided on going the safe route and agree with everything she said. “Bureaucratic paperwork is one of the banes of our existence, is it not? For can the government forms ever begin to capture the poetry in our souls? Can you quantify desires, hopes, dreams, in a simple formula? I think not.”

She gave him the normal reaction. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I am not,” he agreed. “I come from a distant island, that was very much like this place, though now the entire world seems so different, and I am stranger, to Tower City, and to myself.” Everything he said was exactly the truth, though he meant the distance of time rather than of place. “So the Yanir Republic administrates Torment Island?”

“It sure tries to.” The woman regarded her food and his empty plate for a second, and then slid her tray over to him. “There you go. Don’t worry, I don’t have any diseases, not ones that I didn’t choose. Either way, they aren’t catching.”

She had that easy way of speaking, not unlike Betty Don’t-Bite. It was the informal Yeshin, full of contractions and slang.

The woman sighed. “This is where we exchange our life stories, but look, we’re strangers, chatting, and it’s probably best we remain strangers. Though I have questions. Okay, I’m curious, so take me to court. What distant island?”

‘It doesn’t exist anymore. The island was destroyed, drank up in the ocean’s time. Unexpectedly, I arrived in Torment City and thought I might find treasures here, but alas, the treasures were not what I thought.”

“You come here to tower climb? Looking for Salvanguish’s Deux Coin? People have been looking for it for a thousand years, and whole wars have been fought over it, but you can take me to court if you want, but I say nobody is ever gonna find it. Lost forever, or back with the gods, or used to buy another world or whatever. The treasures here on Torment Island are few and far between.”

“So it would seem.” Sal started eating her food, which seemed a little desperate, though he wasn’t going to let pride get in the way of filling his belly. Besides, she seemed clean enough. One thing she did say that was strange, she mentioned a disease she’d chosen. Who would choose to have a disease?

The answer was simple. A great many people would, in all sorts of ways, which is why taverns served drunkards.

“So are you a refugee then?” she asked.

Sal knew he was a refugee of time and fate. Instead, he said, “I lucked into a café in The Champion Plaza that I’m thinking of opening.”

“That whole plaza is cursed, haunted, totally, not a place anyone should be. Not sure why, but even the gangs and their bosses don’t go there. You see the doorway to the Abyssmuck there? That’s what people are saying. Or a backdoor into the tower’s dungeon, though I doubt that. Ziggy would have guards there, and there would be all the paperwork all over again, even with the spooky ghosts.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Perhaps there is a doorway to the Abyssmuck,” Sal said absently. “It would explain a great many things, but alas, no, I have not seen any sort of portal. I have had my fair share of encounters with specters. They have tried to kill me at every turn, but so far, they have been unsuccessful.”

“If you do open your café, make sure you have dairy-free options. You’ll get more Yanir if you do, especially of the spell-wielding sort. You know the deal.”

Sal mopped up some lentils with his bread. “I am not sure I do. Again, I am a stranger here. I read about the Yanir, but I thought they were warriors.”

That made the woman burst out laughing. “Oh, right, the Menold, those guys who helped the Primogeny kill Mood, but we had to change it up when we fought the Dragonriders, right? You can have all the swords in the world, but at the end of the day, the dragons were too way too powerful, and so it all changed, and Yanir got smart. Sorcery was the answer, but we paid a price for it. I guess the sorcery was the right way to go. We run Torment Island and the Republics are basically an empire. Am I rambling? I’m rambling. You don’t need a history lesson.”

“But I do!” Sal protested after swallowing his last bite. He was comfortably full, and better yet, he might eat this same meal every night, happily, for a long, long while. It was a miracle. He’d never given Yeshu that much thought, but if his church was providing free food, well, he might just become Sal’s favorite god.

The woman laughed. “I’m not the right teacher. I focused on destroying large portions of my soul, and that takes a lot of fricking time and effort. Don’t ask for dates. I don’t know dates. But what do you want to know?”

“The Dark Lord was…” Sal almost talked about Kenny’s betrayal, but he wasn’t sure if that was common knowledge or not. “How as the Dark Lord slain?”

She had a bored look on her face. “The Champion killed him, right? I mean, the Kinkaid family still brags about that. Though if you ask me, I think it was probably the Godspear. Killed ‘em both in the end. Smote by the gods. Good riddance. Dark Lords and Champions are pain in the you-know-what.”

Sal muttered, “Pain in the heart. Mostly. Then what happened?”

“The Church took over for a good bit,” the woman replied. “But people got tired of that because if you’re promising heaven while you’re stealing money, that’s only going to last for so long. Hypocrisy, corruption, whatever. The Scallia Caprans got their dragons, and they conquered a bunch, until the Yanir Republics decided they wanted their turn conquering, and you have the Scallian-Yaniri War. Yanir got enough magic to kill a bunch of dragons, and then took over, not only Torment Island, but a ton of other places. Created new republics and here we are. So you don’t know about the Scallian-Yaniri War?”

Sal shook his head.

Several women, some with children, were looking for a place to sit, and they were eyeing Sal and the sorceress woman with the crow-tattoo on her throat.

An old woman next to them finally said something. “Dearies, if ye are finished eatin’, move to let them families sit. Don’t make ‘em sit on the ground.”

Sal stacked their trays, cups, and spoons and picked them up. He addressed the sorceress. “Please, ma’am, could we continue our conversation? I am not foolish enough to think I am requesting a great deal, for the heat is sweltering and you undoubtedly have no desire to school a stranger.”

“No desire, you’re right.” She stood up. “But after Yeshu’s free meal, I feel like I owe him something. I’ll help you out. Should we do the name thing? It’s probably a mistake, but I feel like we should do the name thing.”

“The name thing?” Sal asked. Was this a new custom.

“Yeah, the name thing. You tell me your fake name, and I tell you my fake name, and we pretend we’ll be friends forever, though little encounters like this never amount to much. You’ll forget me, and we’ll continue on with more little encounters all the days of our lives until we die. End of story. You can take me to court on that.”

“What court?”

“Just a figure of saying. Tell me your fake name, so we can get on with it.”

“Let’s find a place to chat.”

Sal returned the trays to the bakery, and while it was hot outside, inside it was even worse.

He thought the woman might’ve left, but she was waiting for him. They tried inside the chapel itself, but the place was full of people praying, which made Sal glad for some strange reason. He wasn’t religious, not at all, but he knew the Ponti would be happy.

The Yanir sorceress snorted derisively. “Free meals my boots. It’s a marketing scheme. A pretty effective one by the looks of it. Worked on me. Felt guilty about Yeshu’s hospitality and now I’ll sweat with some rando until the sun sets.”

“Might not take that long,” Sal said. He looked down, and she was wearing enormous boots that disappeared up her leg, hidden by the robes. She must be sweltering. “Do you know of a place?”

The woman sighed. “Not really. Look, I’m tired, I’m figuring out my finances, and I’m still wondering if the Astounders are even going to be a thing. I thought about calling ourselves the Astounding Ascenders, but now it sounds dumb.”

“Not dumb,” Sal said. “Though I am probably not the person who would know about such things, since I am a new arrival.”

“Don’t wanna be rude. But let’s do the name thing and part ways, okay? Okay. I’ll go first.”

The sorceress put out a hand. “I’m Kaixo Allakarra. Is that my real name? You’ll probably never know. What’s your fake name?”

Sal smiled. “I go by the name Sal Fang.”

“Fang like snake fangs?”

“That is a connotation that I did not consider.”

“Hey, Sal.”

“Hello, Kaixo.”

She reached up, undid the scarves, and then untied them, revealing her half-shaved head. There was a tattoo there, though Sal couldn’t see what it was. Stringy, blonde hair fell down to her shoulder. “Much better, though people will talk smack behind my back. We’re supposed to keep our heads covered, unless we’re in a church. That’s one point for being religious. A cool head in a room that’s not so fricking hot.”

She then nodded at him, a little smile on her face. “See you around, Sal.”

Kaixo then turned and walked on her very large boots. Was that part of her magic? He’d seen the big boots before. They seemed as ever-present as the very complicated sandals.

There was something in her stride that hinted at happiness.

A second later, he got a message.

<<<>>>

You tried to make a friend! Karmic Gauge increased by 1%. It seems you brightened up her day a little. Keep up the good work.

Current Karmic Gauge: 4% (Red but getting brighter)

<<<>>>

Sal was a little surprised he’d be rewarded, though he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’d simply have to become a more friendly person. That seemed like a lot of work.

At the same time, the idea of returning to the cursed café alone depressed him, and so he went back to the tables, to wait until the crowd thinned. He found a place to stand, in the shade, near one of the ragged canopies poles, shoved into a bucket loaded with rocks.

The lute player and singer had stopped, and in the middle of the tables, the Ponti stepped up onto a stool that brought him upward.

Sal saw that some of the women were looking at his face with some appreciation.

Fabrizio didn’t see him, and besides, he was otherwise occupied. He lifted a book. “This is poetry from Gallias Protean, one of my favorites, about the heat of summer and the comfort of a cool summer’s night.”

He then began to read, lifting his voice.

Many of the current conversations were muted as he read. Some people still chatted, though they did so in whispers, out of respect.

Sal had to shake his head. That Ponti wasn’t reading from Yeshu’s Book, no, but from some poet that probably no one had ever heard of.

He tried to listen, but his thoughts returned, again and again, to his encounter with Kaixo Allakarra, the sorceress, and possibly one of the founding members of the Astounders. If she couldn’t get into the tower, what would she do?

And what was this tower climbing business to anyway? It seemed it was a search for his Deux Coin, and maybe it was, but after a thousand years, if no one had found it, why were people still looking?

He knew the answer. Hope was a powerful thing.

And Sal had his own hopes, though they had nothing to do with magical coins.

Betty piped up. “Hey, that poetry ain’t half bad. And you can tell, the Ponti loves it.”

“You’ve been quiet,” Sal said.

“Just letting you talk to the Yanir sorceress. Hey, I like the story about your island being destroyed by the oceans of time, or whatever. Nice.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. That rye bread and butter was good. This Butter King seems to know his business.”

Sal had forgotten to ask about that. And who was this Ziggy that Kaixo mentioned?

Maybe Fabrizio would know. Sal planned on talking, if not begging, with the Ponti after he finished his poetry recital. His life hung in the balance because magical peaches aside, another night in the cursed café just might kill him.