Chapter 81 - Elfworks

Hawkley pored over the sample pages I’d copied from each of the four books, a crystal lens to his eye, and occasionally peered up at us.

“Darcent, m’boy… these are in Filigari,” he said.

Filigari was the written language of the Golden elves. Unlike the flowery script of the island and inland elves (no, literally, most of their characters are based on botanicals that makes a page of prose look more like a sketch of the forest floor in autumn), Filigari has one-hundred and forty unique characters and eighteen more with different-sounding duplicates. What I’m trying to say, is that the language is a mess, and nigh comprehensible. Which is probably how the Golds liked it, having a language so complex no lesser race could comprehend it. Probably lent to that smug sense of superiority they all had before the orcs reeducated them. Orcs don’t settle for golden, they prefer their elves blackened, with a side of potatoes and a draught of lager.

Maybe Annalisa was right about which was better to have around. But I still like Tea.

Hawkley set one page down and picked up another.

“Can you read any of that?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“A word here and there,” he said, scratching the tip of his nose. “No thanks to your penmanship. Such a skilled artist ought be a defter hand with a quill.”

I scowled. My hand still ached from transcribing the complicated elven lettering. I’d done ten pages from each book, which would be more than enough to determine content and appraisal value. Golden age books did not come cheap. “It’s not like I knew what I was writing.”

“Be easier if you brought me the originals,” said Hawkley. “You say they’re in good condition?”

The originals were currently locked in my office safe. “Not a chance. A little dry, but otherwise pristine,” I said. “Golden age books in readable condition don’t come cheap, yeah? High theft items.”

The dwarf sighed. “I oughta know. Had two stolen some odd years back. Only things taken in the whole damn store. I’ll show these around—yes, discreetly. No one will know where they came from.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Annalisa. She spun on a stool in the back of Hawkley’s store. “Enough about boring old books. What about the good stuff?”

Hawkley picked up the two trinkets and wrinkled his nose. “Why do they smell like a cesspit?” he asked.

“Because there’s not enough cleaning powder in the world to neutralize what we found them in,” I confided. Hawkley blanched, but I continued on. “The toothy one has something to do with translating drakkyn. The previous owner was acting as a translator for a squad of pistoliers when he ran afoul of an undercity nasty. The other one? It can’t be divined, and it’s resisted all my attempts to suss its purpose.”

“Maybe it’s a brooch of obfuscation!” suggested Anna.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I was quite sure that it was not. Hawkley turned it over in his hands. “I can get it appraised, I know a few identifiers in the upper city. Ten cunnings, but it’ll take some time. Or twenty-five if you want to know this week.”

I sucked air in through my teeth. “Twenty-five? I can’t afford that.”

“Waiting lists,” said Hawkley, shrugging. “The Adventurers Guild has most appraisers on retainer. Ten it is. The other? If it’s as you say, I’ll take it off your hands today for forty.”

Annalisa shot me a glare. “That’s a far cry from two-hundred,” she said. “You promised me two-hundred.”

“I did no such thing,” I pointed out. “I said your ring would have cost us two-hundred. But knowing drakkyn tongue isn’t exactly going to give us the edge in a fight.”

“It will if we’re fighting drakkyn,” countered Annalisa.

I tried to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose. Patience and fortitude. Annalisa helped me train them every day. “How about twenty-five, Hawkley—on contingency. Half the difference when you find a buyer.”

The dwarf ran his fingers through his beard. After a moment, he pulled out his coin purse. “Less ten for the badge appraisal—“

“It’s a brooch,” insisted Annalisa.

“—brooch appraisal, and an interruption tax—”

“Hey!”

“—that’d be fourteen from my pocket, aye?”

Hawkley counted out the fourteen pieces of silver and passed them over. Despite what I’d say, I was also not happy at walking out of Hawkley’s with only a handful of cunnings. But I had to be patient. Getting the best return on the time and awfulness we’d invested in the undercity meant finding buyers who could afford high-ticket items and retaining the talent of talented people.

Annalisa and I bid farewell to the dwarf and made our way back south amid looks from the well to do that didn’t involve Anna’s budding fame. While devilborn weren’t barred from the upper city the way orcs and drakkyn were, they were still seen as unsavory company. Being plane-touched was seen as a curse or a taint. It didn’t help that many devilborn found their way into more clandestine trades, of course.

Like I was in any position to judge.

I had no doubt Annalisa noticed the looks. If they affected her, it didn’t show on her face as she walked to my left and slightly behind. She still took her role of my bodyguard seriously. She didn’t deserve the ire of these highborn fops and their parasol-wielding wives. She was worth ten of any person on this street.

Though, if you were to ask her, it would probably be closer to twenty.

I stopped when my deck buzzed for my attention. Mithra’s voice entered my head.

“Trouble, boss, and maybe an opportunity.”

If she was contacting me, it meant she was already fairly close by. My range with the four of knaves had grown, but it was still limited to a mile and a half or so. I pulled Annalisa into an alley while two scandalized ladies looked on.

My devilborn partner was instantly alert, looking around, but relaxed when she saw me draw the tongue of knaves from my deck. I pressed it to my forehead and sent my will into it while I took Annalisa’s wrist by my other hand so that she could hear as well.

“What’s going on, Mithra?” I asked.

“You know that Lucita shrine on the southeast side of the middle city by the old guard barracks?”

“I’m familiar,” I said, grimacing. I visited the shrine for card games as an academy student. They had a paladin on staff that threatened to turn me inside out if I set foot inside again. I’d been scouting to see if I could make a little coin to help with my studies. And, well, I can’t help it if I had a peek at everyone else’s cards—at least, the ones floating above their heads. Enough to clean house. Unfortunately, ‘luck’ like that got recognized, and then I got recognized for a seeker, who aren’t exactly welcome in games of chance. And then I got tossed on my ass.

“Well, the Mayazians just made them an offer. And I don’t think they liked it. They’re taking three bodies to the canal, and one of ‘em is a shark. The others are wearing shrine colors.”

I rubbed my chin, looking to the southeast. Perhaps with the sharks breathing down their neck, they’d be more amenable to protection. “Thanks, Mithra. I’ll be there later tonight. Make an introduction, if you would.”

“On it. See you soon.”