Chapter 38 - To Cultivate Image

When I awoke, there was work to do. The light of the wane dragons filtered in through the windows in the long office. Though I hadn’t slept long, I found myself far more refreshed than I expected. I attributed it to Mithra’s magic fingertips. I pulled on my shirt and gathered my things before heading down the hall and below to the common room.

I spotted a familiar figure at the bar, and pulled a stool up beside Damen, the elf working boy who had shown an interest in Annalisa. He cast a glare my way and pulled his blanket tighter. His teeth chattered and a mug of hot tea sat before him on the bar.

It didn’t take a genius to suss out what had happened there. Annalisa had seen Mithra demonstrating skill in something and the devilborn girl was insanely competitive. Second, and most unfortunately for Damen, Annalisa was touched by the plane of frost, not fire. That’s adding two and two if I’ve ever seen it. This unfortunate recipe for frozen, mangled muscles had found its way onto the unfortunate elf in the most dangerous bed in the brothel.

“I don’t envy you, chum,” I said, motioning the barkeep over. “Bring him some stew, too, will ya? The man is suffering.”

Jaco cocked his eyebrows at me. “He’s ‘ad three bowls afore you even came down.”

“Then bring it to me, instead.”

Jaco shrugged and disappeared into the back. Meanwhile, I watched Damen pick up his tea with shaking fingers and slosh half of it out of the cup before it made it to his lips. Poor devil. His ears twitched, and he suddenly made himself scarce.

I heard the thump of Annalisa coming down the stairs mere moments later, and the woman looked quite pleased with herself, surely unaware of the carnage she’d wrought. She plopped down next to me on Damen’s vacated stool, beaming with pride. I’m sure she believed in her core that she’d just given the elf the best massage of his life—while more likely coming close to ending it, or at least making the elf wish someone would. Well, I’d warned Mithra that he ought stay away.

A diminutive figure clamored onto the stool on my opposite side. The dwarven pitmaster, Jeedle, slapped the bar top with a ring-laden hand and demanding to be served. “Oi! Is this a pub or a library? Why’s everyone so gods-damned quiet?” He turned to me. “Pits, what happened to your face?”

“Business dispute,” I said. “Everything ready for tonight?”

“Oh, aye,” said Jeedle, taking a stein of foaming lager and spilling what looked like a quarter of it down his beard. How did he even find his mouth in that wild tangle? “The fix is in. Mami’s got her a real light-touch fixer crunching for Altasian. Not a cheap one, neither. Known for getting under the sniffers. Good for them because the pit’s got a sniffer what can’t be bought.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s go.”

The dwarf looked me up and down. “You going like that?” he asked.

I looked down at my breeches and tunic. They were a bit soiled, but not remarkably so. “Like what?”

“Like a drowned rat. Darcent, if you’re doing what you aim to be doing, Ye’ got to look the part. The kerchief is snaz and all, but if you ain’t got the muscle then you need the style.”

I slapped Annalisa’s arm with the back of my hand. “She’s got the muscle,” I said. She flexed her toned arms in response, hard muscles punctuating my point. Annalisa wasn’t bulky, but she did look almost carved from stone and ice when she showed off. “Besides, my style is not being noticed. And I can’t afford new clothes.”

“Lad, you forget, I know Anna too well for that. I seen her tied in more knots than a sailor’s rope. And maybe that worked for an illegal seeker. But people gotta know who you are to know not to cross you. Or, to come to you. Fetch yon robe.”

I grumbled, but the dwarf had a point. Kridick, horrible gorgon that he was, had been a fixture of Barrowdown. People had come to him with all sorts of problems, and he’d fixed them in his own unique way. Which, for him, generally meant cracking the skulls of both parties. And, if the rumors were true, once eating one of the offenders. He was an orc, after all.

I made my way back up to the office and grabbed the robe. After a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed the cravat as well. Despite not knowing what it did, I still got the distinct feeling that it was extremely important. I tied it around my neck, and of course I could use it as a mask in a pinch. I replaced the books and deck in the hollow in the wall before heading back down.

“There ‘e is,” said Jeedle. His broad white grin split his wiry beard. “That’s a man what looks like he could keep his grip on a bit o’ power.”

“One night at a time,”. I said. “Let’s go.”

Rather than leaving with Jeedle, Annalisa and I took a different route. She wasn’t the one fighting, tonight. As much as she wished she could be, the headliner tonight was a rising star that had captured the attention of the middle city, and even some of the eyes of some of the noble hobbyists. Bigger eyes meant bigger stages, and instead of a dusty old pit or a cleared bar room floor, Storm-Laden’s presence demanded a proper arena with enough space to pack hundreds of well-to-do within blood-spitting range, and some thousands more in cheap stands that were at least as dangerous to their occupants as either of the fighters were to each other.

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Finding the arena was no problem. Once we left the downs and got into the middle city proper, we simply followed the cheers. Bigger events like tonight didn’t have just one fight. Several circuits ran to warm the audience up, starting with well-placed amateurs and up-and-comers. Each wave of shouts represented a blow struck or a body being thrown to the ash. It wasn’t exactly Guifoyle Arena, but the glass windows still shook with the excitement.

Unlike the raw and ravaged pits in the downs, bigger events like this drew the heads of guilds. Making an appearance might seem somewhat compulsory, but a surprising amount of business happens ring-side, away from the prying eyes of guild monitors and city advocates. Events of sport are convenient excuses for powerful people to appear together. While rumors might fly, anything could be reasonably denied with the excuse of accidental proximity.

However, that meant the Seeker’s Guild might have representation, as well. I had to be careful about that. Someone skulking about in seeker robes, flitting from shadow to shadow, might garner unwanted attention. So, I went boldly. I took a page out of Annalisa’s tome and walked with my back straight and my head high. So what if my robes looked a little oft-mended? People noticed and cleared the path for the two of us. I could get used to it.

Of course, as soon as we approached the box office, we diverted, and started skulking from shadow to shadow until we reached an old servant's door, whereby a judicious cheer gave us cover to snap a chain holding shut a derelict entrance. We quickly ducked inside.

If I’d thought the shouting was loud without, it was nothing compared to the rafter-rattling cacophony within. Of course, our rafters were the undersides of the cheap seats above—a fact that was not lost on me, concerning the aforementioned typical construction quality offered by the dwarven contractors who raised the place with the cheapest wood known to man, elf, or orc. Hell, even the support struts were studded with the jutting points of iron nails, and I had to be careful where to put my hands as we maneuvered through discarded bundles of rigging, sacks of sawdust and enough ash in the air to choke a basilisk.

“No sign of the sharks,” said Annalisa. I hummed agreement. I’d expected at least one or two sentries down here ahead of us but the Mayazians were laying low. Their fighter up above would even now be getting ready and warming up for his bout. They’d produced a deep sea lamia for Annalisa. I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of monstrosity they’d dredged from the harbor to face a monster like Storm-Laden. Well, we’d see soon enough.

I pulled my cards and did a reading, needing to know if we were under the right part of the arena. The results came quickly, almost automatic. I marveled at how much easier a true reading responded now that I’d bonded with a few additional cards. “This way,” I said.

Though I had a general idea what I was looking for, it took a quick look through the dragon’s gaze to spot the cheater line hanging down from the trap-door. I had to jump to reach it, and when it pulled down, the ladder stayed retracted.

“Hells,” I said, looking up at the hole. “Anna, give me a lift, will you?”

“Shouldn’t I go first?” she asked.

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re not exactly the stealthy type.”

She wrinkled her nose and cupped her hands above her knee. I stepped into them and she lifted me (startlingly easily, I might add) high enough to grab the lip of the opening. My feet dangled for a moment as I struggled to pull myself up. I managed to get my chin above, as well as one elbow. But I was out of leverage and my muscles had already started to flag. I had thought myself decently athletic, but walking and running don’t seem to translate to hauling my carcass up through a hole in the ceiling.

I gasped and fumbled with my free hand to get to my deck. I called on a quick burst of energy from the three of dragons, feeling the strength and stamina flood my body just long enough for me to pull myself up. The effort left me even more drained, and I lay on my back for a moment, panting and choking on the ash in the air. Luckily, there were no sharks in view.

The dim superstructure of the arena offered little enough light. But the mechanism for the ladder was simple, if rusted, and I forced it with a wrenching of metal only partly covered by the roar of the crowd. The ladder slid down low enough for Annalisa to jump and grab it. Her weight overcame what resistance remained.

I don’t know if it was a draft or subtle change in the air that alerted me, but I sensed a presence at my back and threw myself down just in time to avoid the thrust of the knife aimed for my ear. I rolled over and stared up at the sharp teeth of a Mayazian enforcer. Cursing at my lucky dodge, he reversed the grip on his knife and stabbed it down at me. I kicked his knee before he could, and then my own knife was out.

There’s a bit of misunderstanding concerning the nature of knife fights. Theater is partly to blame, with dramatic sequences of thrusts and parries offering participants ample time to exchange barbed witticisms. But knives aren’t rapiers. You don’t parry with them, you dive in and stick the other guy clean to the hilt and hope he dies before he can return the favor.

In this case the Mayan had the courtesy to sprawl out on a way that brought his throat in slashing range. The fingers of my off-hand found the two of knaves, and my oil-slick blade parted the meat of his throat with no resistance, like filleting the morning catch. His own knife dropped between my upper arm and rib cage. A few inches to the side and I’d have one less lung to boast of.

Annalisa popped her head up through the trap door and looked at me underneath the dead gangster.. “Stealthy, huh?”

“Just get up here!”

While Annalisa climbed up the ladder, I rolled the Mayazian thug off me and searched him. He had a few clips and a pair of cunnings, which wasn’t much to speak of. No magic items, but his dagger was finer quality than my old knife—if slightly chipped where he’d buried it in the wood. The blade had a sharkskin pattern acid-etched along its length. I took it for myself. I nearly gagged while searching him. Certainly, whoever would have to clean this up was not an enviable person.

A triple ring of the brass drum above signaled the end of the fight, and the crowd went wild, jumping up and down on the stands above us.

“This must be what it’s like for monsters under Dragonmaw” said Annalisa, looking up.

“Explains why they hate us so much,” I said.