9 – Bargains
Tarnish wasn’t anything like any city Ward had ever visited. For one thing, it must have been built before or in spite of any sort of vehicular transportation. There seemed to be a central sort of spine of broad roads that ran west to east through the city, with major branches going north and south, but in between those roads were dozens or hundreds of smaller, narrow streets that wended up, down, and around hills. Buildings were of every shape, style, and size he could imagine, from a little mushroom-shaped bakery to a tall, circular tower that looked to be made of poured stainless steel.
More than the winding roads and strange building diversity, the smells and sounds kept startling him with their constant changes—scents from sweet, sugary confections to the stench of an open sewer drain—sounds ranging from a little girl standing on a corner singing by herself in a rich contralto voice, collecting tips in a faded, olive-green hat, to a wagon master screaming at and cursing his camel-like draft animals. He could tell that Fayella was getting annoyed by his constant slowing down to stare or listen to one thing or another, so he tried to tune out the otherworldly sights and sounds and focus on the back of her head as she led him through the town.
She surprised him, however, by coming to a sudden halt and pointing ahead where crowds had gathered on either side of the road, everyone staring at the two individuals in the middle of the street. Ward’s gaze followed her pointing finger, taking in the scene, and when he focused on the two men who seemed to be squaring off, staring each other down, he caught his breath as recognition hit him. “Hey, I know that guy.”
“Hush!” Fayella said, bringing Ward’s attention to the fact that everyone was quiet. Traffic had stopped, people nearby weren’t talking, and only the distant sounds of bleating animals and merchants hawking their wares drifted over the street. Fayella turned to Ward and whispered, “I mean, hush, but tell me which one you know. Who is he?”
Ward leaned closer to her ear. “The guy in the green with the glowing yellow eyes. I met him in the burned area nearby.”
“He’s a sorcerer! The man in blue, too. I think they’re from warring sects!”
“They gonna fight?” Ward frowned, wondering if he should do anything.
“Maybe. Hold still, and hopefully, they won’t hurt anyone.” Ward looked back at the two men. He and Fayella were a good forty yards away with dozens of people in between, but he was taller than most and had a clear enough view. What did she mean by ‘hopefully, they won’t hurt anyone?’ Huseem held his spear and stood in a way that projected readiness. His eyes were narrowed in a scowl, but even so, Ward could see their bright yellow shine. He couldn’t see the other guy’s face, but he, too, held a spear. Were his eyes the same? Ward started to edge around the crowd to get a better look.
“Ward!” Fayella grabbed his sleeve, tugging at him, but others in the crowd nearby shushed her, and he kept moving. Fayella trailed along with him, and he carefully pushed his way closer to the scene, making his way to a point where he could see the right side of the man in blue’s face. Sure enough, his eye blazed with light, though it was darker than Huseem’s, almost orange. The two men had been staring at each other in silence for at least two minutes now, and it felt like the entire world had frozen.
Ward started to feel something, like a vibration in the air, and the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck began to stand on end. The tension was getting to him, and he held his breath, staring, waiting to see what would happen. Suddenly, a sound crackled through the air, and he realized Huseem had spoken, but it was such a strange, foreign noise that Ward’s ears couldn’t wrap around it. It had a hard edge and almost sounded like a mechanical sound, loud and rough, with way too many consonants.
If someone asked him to repeat what he heard, he would’ve said something like, “Krkzkiszzzaht!” Of course, his guess wouldn’t have come close. The sound was only part of what happened; as Huseem uttered the weird word, he lunged his spear forward, and, against all reason, the weapon seemed to stretch with a flash of light, like a bolt from a fictional plasma cannon. It flashed so brightly that Ward had to blink his eyes, and when he opened them, the man in blue had fallen.
Huseem darted forward, spear raised high, but then another weird sound echoed through the air, and many of the folk on the street cried out. “Gtzakkvi!” the man in blue screamed—or at least that’s what Ward thought he heard—and suddenly Huseem was flipping through the air, flung head over heels as though struck by a giant’s fist. The man in blue leaped to his feet, his robes charred and smoking, and lifted his spear high. “Rkazvisatra!” More people wailed; some even fainted. Fayella grabbed Ward’s arm in a death grip.
As Huseem tumbled to the ground, Blue’s spear lanced out, burning and smoldering as though made from lava, piercing Huseem’s belly and pinning him. As Huseem wailed in agony, Blue stepped forward, both hands held high in the air, and uttered a string of those incomprehensible words, something like, “Tkrrklka gzk tkwa kvkstka!”
Both his hands began to glow with brilliant light, searing the air with shimmering heat waves that Ward could feel even fifteen yards distant. He and everyone else had to shield their eyes from them as they continued to get brighter and brighter. The sorcerer in blue stood just five strides from the downed, writhing Huseem and cried, “Yield and renounce your house!”
Huseem grew still, lifted his head, and focused on his opponent. He opened his mouth, but not to yield, he started to say one of those weird, clicking, grating words, but Blue wasn’t having it; with a flash worse than a gigantic welding arc, the energy he’d built up in his hands lanced down and, in a sizzling zap, reduced Huseem to ash. “Jesus Christ!” Ward hissed, rubbing his palms against his eyes and blinking rapidly. When he looked up, he saw Fayella, too, rubbing her eyes along with most of the people who’d been standing around. A few were moving off, probably smart enough not to have watched the duel.
Blinking, Ward looked down the road to see the man in blue robes continuing on, walking as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He let his gaze return to the blackened pile of remains that was Huseem and shuddered like someone had just tickled the back of his neck. “What the hell was that all about?”
It wasn’t Fayella who answered. An old woman sitting on the side of a handcart full of melons said, “Couple of monks having a spat about whose house is better. Highest adepts I’ve seen ‘round here in a while. Gods! I feel like my ears are bleedin’!”
“I hate hearing the words!” Fayella groaned. “That was the worst I’ve heard, though, the things the blue monk said. Some of those words made me dizzy!”
“Aye, not for the likes of us, them words. Welp, these melons ain’t selling themselves.” The old woman stood, picked up the handles to her cart, and started forward.
Ward looked down at Fayella; she still had a tight grip on his arm, and he raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Ward led her a bit further from the center of the street toward the side of a building, letting more people push past. “So, they can just kill each other in the street like that? The cops don’t care?”
“Cops?”
“The, uh, town watch. You know the guards by the gate?”
“Oh, the city guards won’t interfere with a sorcerers’ duel. They’re not suicidal.” Fayella let go of his arm and nodded, offering him a sweet, if shaky, smile. “Shall we continue?”
“All right, yeah.” Ward waited for her to lead the way, and then they continued down the street. He gave Huseem’s remains one final glance as they went by and offered a silent goodbye to the strange, cheerful fellow. He wasn’t sure how to feel about what he’d just seen. Two men had just gone at it in a magical duel in the middle of the street. What was he supposed to do with that? He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. The weird words, the blinding lights, and the sudden violence all added up to a surreal experience, and he needed time to process it.
After a long, winding climb up a steep cobbled road that led to a cul-de-sac of shops near the top of a small hill, Fayella pointed to a small, blue building with a steep A-frame roof. The front deck was covered with stacks of everything imaginable—pots, books, gardening tools, a rack of hats, another rack of shoes, and a hundred other items, large and small. The door, nearly obscured by the stuff piled before it, had a hand-painted sign that read, “Talbot’s Odds & Ends.”
“Talbot will probably buy what you’re selling.” Fayella gestured to the stoop. “I’ll just wait out here. Take your time; like I said, I already missed my appointment.”
“You sure? I can find my way to a hotel if you don’t want to wait around.”
“Nah, if I bring you back to the inn with me, at least I’ll get some credit for that. If I wander back on my own, my aunt will just holler at me for missing my meeting and then put me to work scrubbing the floors.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“Your appointment was with someone at the inn?” Ward didn’t really care, but he could tell Fayella was fishing for sympathy.
“No, no, it was with the doctor. My auntie will ask me about it, though, and I’ll have to tell her I missed it, see? She’ll be angry that I stayed outside the city last night and got hung up at the gates.”
“Oh, I get it. Yeah, that’s not great, but I’ll put a good word in for you.” Ward nodded, then shrugged, adjusting the sweaty straps of his pack, shifting them off the sore spots on his shoulders. “Well, I guess I’ll go in.” Fayella smiled at him and moved to sit down, so Ward stepped onto the wooden deck, skirted around a stack of copper pots, and walked up to the door. It opened with the ring of a bell as he pulled on the handle, and the smell of incense tickled his nose as he stepped inside.
The shop was just as cluttered inside as out, perhaps more so. Stacks of goods rose from the floor to the vaulted ceilings. Other than stacks, shelves, and racks, lines ran in a crazy spider’s web from roof beam to roof beam, from which hung more merchandise. Ward tried to think of a way for someone to cram more stuff for sale in the place, but he came up blank.
Careful not to knock anything over with his pack, he wedged between a spinning rack of watches and eyeglasses and a tall stack of books to make his way to the cluttered counter. A small old man with white tufts of hair sticking out from the sides of his head looked up from a magnifying glass. “Welcome in, traveler.”
“Thanks. I, uh,” Ward stepped over a pile of deep blue plates, “was told you buy used goods.”
“You were led in the right direction. What sorts of goods?”
“Well, that’s the thing of it, mister. I’ve had a pretty damn strange couple of days, and frankly, I don’t know what all I’ve got to sell here. I don’t even know what money is in this world. I saw a girl singing for coins out on the street. At least that’s what it looked like to me, people tossing coins into her hat.” Ward set his sack of pistols on the counter and worked on shrugging the heavy pack off his shoulders while he spoke.
“From off-world, huh?” The old man set his magnifying glass down and peered at Ward with strangely beautiful, pink, green-flecked irises. “Well, what’d ya use for money back home?”
“Dollars.” Ward set the pack down next to the counter and fished his wallet from his back pocket. He opened it up and pulled out a wad of green bills, laying them out on the counter—a twenty, two fives, and three ones.
“Hmm.” The old guy pulled one of the singles over in front of him and momentarily peered at it through the magnifying glass. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen this currency around here. Quite an intricate design, though.” He tugged it gently, making a tiny tear with his thumbnail. “Not paper? Looks like paper, but it’s tougher than paper.”
“Well, yeah, I think it has linen or something like that in it. I really don’t know what they make it out of.”
“Well, I’d buy ‘em if only to add to my collection. To answer your question, the Vainglory worlds have a standard currency called glories, as you might guess if I gave you a few hints. You can find single, five, ten, fifty, and hundred-glory coins. I guess there are thousand-glory coins, but I’ve never seen one. Could be an old washer’s tale, for all I know. How about ten glories for this funny, foreign money?”
“Oh yeah? I dunno. If they’re the only ones in the city, maybe I ought to shop ‘em around a bit.” Ward moved his hand like he meant to scoop up the bills.
“Let’s not be hasty!” the man said, shooing Ward’s hand away. “How about you tell me what kind of offer might pique your interest?”
“Well . . .” Ward thought for a couple of seconds, trying to think of a way to bargain with the old man when he didn’t even know what a “glory” could buy. “Let’s set that aside for a minute, okay?” He pushed the stack of bills to the side, making his request literal. Then he reached into his pocket and fished out a .357 bullet. He set it on the counter and, next to it, placed one of his empty brass casings. “You familiar with bullets?”
“Of course, though these are different than the ones I’m used to.” The old man picked up the live round and peered at it through his glass. “Your gun strikes the center here? To ignite the alchemical fire?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s the best way to describe it.” He opened the sack and took out one of the big scavenger bullets. “I noticed these bullets don’t have a primer. They shoot at a lower velocity than mine, spewing lots of black smoke, and they didn’t seem very accurate.”
“Poor quality alchemical fire. With a bullet that size, though, you wouldn’t want good fire; it would destroy your weapon. What do you mean by primer?”
“That little round thing the hammer strikes.” Ward pulled out his pistol and opened the cylinder, shaking the bullets into his hand, then he demonstrated how the gun worked, dry firing it a couple of times.
“So, the ‘hammer’ strikes the ‘primer,’ which ignites the alchemical fire?” The shopkeeper took the pistol and turned it slowly, admiring the craftsmanship. “Quite a lovely piece—almost looks like an artifact.”
“Thanks.” Ward held out his hand, and the shopkeeper handed it over. He reloaded it and slipped it into his holster. “You think I could get bullets made for it?”
“I’m something of a tinker. I could get the alchemical fire from a friend. Perhaps he and I could come up with a kind of ‘primer,’ though it might not function on the same principles as your bullet there. It shouldn’t be hard to create something that ignites from the hammer strike, however. I’ve seen alchemical fire that explodes if you drop it—"
“Well, look, they have to be stable! I don’t want my bullets blowing up in my pocket.”
“No promises, but I’ll talk to my friend.” The old shopkeeper reached for the empty casing and the live round. “Can I take these?”
“Yeah, but tell me how much those bullets are going to cost me.”
“I don’t know! I don’t even know if we can make them, young man. If we can, I’d say somewhere between fifty and two hundred glories.”
“For how many?”
“One!”
Ward frowned, and then he held up the scavenger bullet. “How much for one of these?”
“You can buy a pack of those for five glories down in the market.”
“Uh-huh.” Ward dug one of the scav pistols out of the sack. “How much will you give me for this gun?”
“Oh, five glories.” The old man shrugged.
“And for this one?” Ward touched the .357 in his holster.
The old timer licked his lips and then chuckled nervously. “Five hundred.”
Ward nodded, starting to get the idea. Uncommon things were worth more—basic supply and demand. He didn’t doubt he could get a lot more for his pistol; the old guy was a tight-fisted bargainer. Still, he had no intention of selling it. He looked into the shopkeeper’s colorful eyes for a second, then said, “What’s your name?”
“I’m Gonjin.”
“Okay, Gonjin.” Ward shook his head at the strange name. “I think I’ll shop around for bullets ‘cause I can’t afford what you’re selling.” He held his hand out for the live round and the casing, and Gonjin reluctantly set them into his palm.
“It’s not my specialty.” He shrugged apologetically.
“Right, well, listen. I’m going to sell you some mundane stuff, and if you don’t rip me off, I’ll consider selling you these dollars and maybe another special item from my world.”
“Rip you off? You mean to take advantage?”
“Yeah.” Ward started unloading objects from his sack and the pack onto the counter—the scav guns, all the scav bullets, a pair of stained leather trousers, something that looked like a copper ashtray, two empty wine bottles, and a small pouch filled with cloudy, yellow crystals about the size of his thumbnail. He kept some rope, the lantern, the thick blanket, another foil-wrapped cake, a brass flint striker, and the copper canteen.
“Well,” Gonjin said, looking over the goods, “I won’t speak fancy-like about this; you’re selling me some junk. The only bit of value comes from them Yevar crystals; that’s a kind of currency we get here quite often. I guess Yevar is one of the closer worlds via the Worldway.”
“Right, right. The Worldway.” Ward made a mental note to ask Grace about it.
“So, for the junk, twenty-five glories. For the crystals,” he pulled out a notebook and flipped through it, then held his magnifying glass over something, “fifty glories each, and that’s only seven percent under market!” Ward nodded and poured out the little pouch, counting out seventeen crystals. He started to calculate in his head, but Gonjin beat him to it. “875 glories for the lot.”
“Alright, Gonjin. You’ve been fair, so I’ll give you another shot. How much will you pay for the dollars?”
“A hundred glories.” He said it firmly, and Ward could tell he’d thought about the offer.
He considered it momentarily, then he countered, “Let me keep one of the bills for a memento. Just one of the singles.”
“Singles?”
“Yeah, the lowest denomination.” Ward pulled a dollar bill from the stack and pushed the rest to Gonjin.
“Fair enough. You said you had something else from your world?”
“Yeah.” Ward pulled his phone out of his pocket and held down the power button until the screen started flickering in its crazy rainbow hues and patterns.
“Ah! Electric!” Gonjin reached for the phone, but Ward held it back.
“Not sure how long it will keep working in this world—”
“No matter! There are collectors who will be interested. Five hundred?”
“A thousand?” Ward raised an eyebrow, pulling the phone closer.
“An insulting counter! Twice what I offer? Surely, you can see the rudeness.” The old man sniffed, frowning, but quickly said, “Seven!”
“Okay.” Ward grinned, setting the phone on the counter.
Ten minutes later, he was stepping out of the shop with a new leather pouch filled with glories. The old shopkeeper had given him fifteen one-hundred-glory coins and smaller denominations for the other hundred and seventy-five. He tucked the pouch inside his jacket pocket, firmly snapping the flap closed over it. His pack was lighter, and he didn’t have to haul the sack of guns around, so he felt rather unburdened as he hurried down the steps to where Fayella sat. She grinned up at him, exposing her missing teeth with something like pride, then hopped to her feet.
“Ready?”
“Yep. Let’s go see this inn of yours.”