The Quarter – Night Out
The slums of Lower Heartwood are best avoided when touring the grand citadel of Avium. Populated by refugees from the Far East and across the Grey Sea seeking shelter behind the towering red walls during the repopulation, the district has always been a source of disease, degeneracy, and disorder for the greater Avium citizenry. Over the many years, it has drawn every sort of villainous personality into its dark mazelike alleys, serving as a home for those most wretched and unsavory of civilized society.
Though there have been Protectors of the past who have believed in the ‘possibility’ and ‘potential’ of those who populate the Lower Heartwood neighborhoods, any such attempts to bring them into the fold, give them value, and unleash said ‘potential,’ have ended disastrously. The inhabitants of the district, it seems, are content with their lot, living animalistically on the streets and in the shattered houses of generations past, resisting any attempts by the Lords to alleviate them of their self-impressed suffering.
Today, the streets and wretched structures are largely walled off or seized by the Protector for the incessant demands of the Forest of Heroes to the north. General access into the district is heavily controlled by the city guard as well as an auxiliary of the Protector’s Shields, Sinea Battalion. There is nothing to fear from these soldiers and if stopped by a patrol in the area, provide relevant paperwork and reasons for traveling in the district. Production areas such as the fisherman’s wharf, tanneries and foundries, and chemical manufacturing, as well as the multitudes of storage for the trade of the citadel, can all be found along the southern coastline and may require traveling near controlled regions. Ensure your patron, leader, or tourism authority has authorized your travel if intending to utilize routes near Lower Heartwood.
There is not an overly large risk of you wandering into the ghettos described above if you maintain your sense of position: one can always find the Twelfth Tower in the northernmost quarter of the citadel if lost, head toward it to soon find one of the large, central avenues which will guide you directly back to the Grand Market, the Forest of Heroes, and the Avenue of Gardens. As a general rule, it is advised that those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the massive sprawl of Avium begin their explorations at one of the three above sites. You will find more than enough to capture your interests and days at a time can be spent without boredom.
If south of the Market District and the Forest of Heroes in the western sectors, always keep to main thoroughfares during the day and avoid most areas entirely after sundown. Though there are many areas of the city that may draw interest such as the Milkmaid’s Quarter or Blackfish Alley, be aware that these areas generally fall outside of the more heavily regulated areas of the city guard and their oversight.
If you are seen after dark around Lower Heartwood specifically, guards will detain you without question or warning. Your safety in these situations cannot always be assured and traveling in these areas without proper protection and provisions may result in severe and/or fatal consequences.
Travel safe and enjoy your stay in the Rose Citadel!
-Pleasures, Poisons, & Pitfalls: Greatest Comforts of the Grandest Citadel
Citadel Scholar Nasuella
The wrinkled old woman shook as if afflicted with palsy, eyes rolling back in her head as she admonished the people moving about in front of her, she pointed at the group of young soldiers sidling by on the far edge of her limited vision.
‘…FOR THE NIGHT IS DARK, AND FULL OF TERRORS’ the wild, crimson-haired soothsayer shouted from an improvised pulpit of two overturned egg crates. ‘THE LIGHT OF HER VOICE SHALL NEVER FADE. HARK! AND SEE HOW THE FLOWER BLOOMS.’
‘Does it now?’ asked Simen, looking as if actually pondering the woman’s words. ‘I have always preferred to work in the dark myself.’
The woman cocked her head in silent calculation as she stared at the young soldiers who had slowed to a near-stopped before her.
‘You…’ she pointed a finger at Simen, suddenly sinister, ‘the Lord says you belong to the depths, that the blessings of the light are not for you.’ She cackled, taking glee in his furrowed brow.
‘The depths, huh? Mellivora going caving?’ He looked to Sily who shrugged disinterestedly and pushed onward impatiently into the Quarter.
‘Don’t do that,’ Pica admonished his friend gently, ‘don’t play games with her or go getting her going worse enough for the guards to come poking around.’
Simen rolled his eyes and grinned only half-apologetically, looking around and raising his arms at the lack of any sort of official figure.
‘Guards?’
‘We’re off duty tonight, remember?’ Pica looked around, searching over the heads of passersby for his now absent colleagues and finding them pushing further into the Quarter. ‘I’m not trying to get pressed into service tonight, Si.’
‘Hurry up, I’m starving! Leave her to her premonitions.’ Sily’s voice, long-trained in cutting through all manner of din and clamor, shot back to them, she pointed to a rather smoky side road ahead, craning her head back over Scribe’s shoulder as they all but disappeared into the milling crowd.
Pica threw a full silver tab at the woman’s feet and grabbed Simen’s shoulder to drag him away. ‘You heard her, ‘STARVING!’’ he imitated her Populan accent poorly.
‘And,’ he continued normally, ‘I want an ale, or maybe three after the last month. Maybe that Arler brown we found a keg of in Fraxinus last summer can be scrounged up here as well? If the traders survived the journey this season that is.’
The prophetess’s shouts were lost on the squad as they pushed deeper into the dense, colored paper-lantern-lined streets. Pica thought of the woman’s words briefly but swiftly worried about other things as two Sinea guardsman pushed past with intent writ large across their stern faces.
The lovely and unseasonably balmy evening had arrived like a blooming flower in the Milkmaid’s Quarter overlooking the fisherman’s wharf; shutters already closed against the frigid seaside winter for months were cast wide in enjoyment of the fleeting warmth, the lower-district shook the lethargy from its bones in a cascade of music both instrumental and anthropogenic.
Colors of infinite variety and beyond any adequate description flooded the boisterous streets as the people of every occupation, every passing persuasion and driving interest, joined together in anticipation of the coming Fourth Night. Intricate leaded windows and foggy glass lantern covers shone prismatically from the oldest buildings, the stonework facades stretching high into the night and obscured by the wafting incense and drug smoke that danced flittingly about the meandering people.
Many of the street children from the market were recognizable in the chaos, making clear their entrepreneurial aptitude and running about selling gorgeous flowers for a few copper clips apiece to anyone they thought in a relationship or actively in search of one of some type. Simen and Pica exchanged glances, recognizing the ‘fallen flowers’ grift from their own youth and wondering if the children still used the same hole in the wall of the Forest of Heroes to escape the angry mark. Was it still so profitable to liberate the offerings left for the freshly dead soldiers of the Grove?
They laughed as Sily showed an interest in a particularly lovely purple lily held proudly for her inspection by a buck-toothed girl in mismatched old boots three sizes too big for her tiny feet, Sily paid the girl five-times the asking price and gently tucked it into Scribes breast pocket as the girl bolted into the crowd, whooping and skipping at her fortune.
‘That’s a night’s food and warmth,’ Pica observed approvingly, ‘thank you, Sily.’
The woman, either ignoring him or failing to hear his quiet utterance altogether, stopped to stare ravenously at a pile of fresh mince pies just tumbled from a baker’s peel and onto a cooling rack under the window.
‘Please,’ she insisted tearing her eyes away from the steaming treats, ‘food, drink, rest.’ Her brothers mirrored the sentiment with synchronous grunts. They pushed onwards.
The Milkmaid’s Quarter was a place of comfort for soldiers of every disposition and experience, and no matter where one looked, there was something to allay the hungers that torture the soul and inhibit the thoughts. Pica and Simen, despite their own bitter memories of the area, had long enjoyed the opportunities they had been afforded to visit the twisting alleyways of the Quarter over the years. They loved how it always seemed to be growing and turning in upon itself, transforming as the district continually built itself anew, stacking higher and consuming neighboring buildings to create a wondrous, almost carnivalesque architecture that simultaneously tricked and enticed the eye. It was hard not to enjoy yourself in such a welcoming, gay atmosphere; rejecting nobody and offering no judgements on how one found relief in the darkness of night.
But the poison in the two young men remained, forever skewing their perspectives with experiences far older than the time they had spent soldiering for Protector and Avium. Growing up in Lower Heartwood to the west, they would often hear the discordant frivolity that drifted over the walls, through the alleys, and down the drainage channels from the revelry just beyond their imaginations. They would huddle near grates in a wall, hoping a clumsy or careless passerby might drop something of worth within reach of their darting, dirty paws; a nice piece of silk from a discarded handkerchief, a rolling coin that didn’t quite make it from fumbling hand into tight pocket, a piece of bread crust or a bone with a few pieces of gristle hanging onto the end. Anything could mean surviving another night. Walking through the misty kaleidoscope bombarded the men with contradiction: warm nights and full plates, black-and-silver giants with iron rods rounding up families in the dead of night; heavy smoke and intoxicating incense, broken fingernails scrabbling at filthy grains of rice on shattered cobblestones; friendly boasts and good-natured laughs, screams of pain and terror amongst the rhythmic stomp of hobnail boots on dark streets.
The sights were equal parts elevated and, in the case of the Triplets, contested by the arresting smells that pervaded the broad street from countless festivals and ancient shopfronts. Garlic, paprika, chile, onions, coriander, and cumin floated upward, forced upward by the heat of the stall and mixing harmoniously with incenses of saffron and sage and sumac that smoked in lazy braziers throughout the market at large. Perfumes of cedar, cypress, myrrh, and rosehips danced from high windows, falling in opaque fingerlings like ethereal waterfalls from the heights above. A man spit-roasting and shaving nondescript meat that had been spiced to blood-redness hollered from his stall on a corner, beckoning them with a bone of some sort and inviting them to partake of the spicy flesh arrayed before him. Rusa and Alces jostled for position, gasping as the cook slapped little doughballs into flat discs before pressing them onto the cherried walls of a kiln to cook. It took only seconds and before the last was pressed, the first was already puffing up and steaming, ready to be removed and tossed into a covered basket at his feet.
At a nod from the two large men drooling over his wares, he ripped one of the flatbreads open and began stuffing well-charred bits of meat, fresh leafy greens, and fresh raw cheese inside. With a smile and a knowing nod, he selected a small jar from a collection of similar ones on his cart, opened it, and poured a drizzle of thinned yogurt over the döner before finishing with another dusting of fresh herbs and roasted spices. The boys beamed as they accepted the generous meals, falling upon them with relish before Sily had finished counting clips from her pocket.
The longtime denizens of the district were out in force, always finding a good profit to be had with so many people about enjoying the break in the endless cold of a coastal winter and rushing to fill the final days before the solstice holidays. Less-than-savory merchants, unable to sell their wares in the proper marketplace during the day, hoped to get something out of the drunks and otherwise inebriated instead in these darker recesses where one might not look quite so close at quality and guards were even less likely to see anything at all for a clip or two.
Beautiful young men and women stood on balconies and hung out street-level windows, waving down passerby with blown kisses and long-flung winks while baring goods for any potential buyers. They shouted over one another, smooth voices clashing as they competed for attention and haggled for the best prices. A stunning young woman draped in a sheer gold silk dress grabbed Sily firmly by the shoulder as they passed, pulling the startled blonde soldier close and pressing herself hard against the slate-and-rose armor as if trying to melt into it through sheer will. She smelled of rose and citrus, her brown hair cascading down and pooling on the ivory skin of an exposed shoulder.
She pulled back, looking into the wide eyes of the shocked Sily before planting her with another deep kiss. With a grin, she grabbed the trooper by the hand and began to lead her by the buttocks into the house she rented a room in.
‘Flattered!’ Sily choked out, pulling back with a huge smile and deeply flushed cheeks. ‘Maybe... later though, mein häschen… almost definitely.’ She disengaged firmly and blew a kiss as she stepped back into the street with her squad. ‘Food first, then you.’ She promised.
The brunette winked and daintily lifted a porcelain breast from her low-cut dress to show Sily what she could look forward to before returning the kiss and spinning off into the rose-tinted recesses of the pleasure house as if a frenetic pixie. The stunned young soldier turned, the cracks in her characteristic cool showing bright red on her bronze face. She tried, and failed, to ignore the mock scandal on the faces of Simen and Pica, their gawping, dinnerplate expressions moving periodically to where the young sex worker had disappeared seductively into the darkness like some terrific dream.
Simen whistled low and Pica nodded his agreement emphatically beside him.
Sily rolled her eyes. ‘Stop it!’
She shoved Pica roughly before hustling to catch her brothers as they disappeared down a side street with an ever-oblivious, but now well-adorned in flower necklaces, Scribe in tow. The two young men howled as they followed, pointing to the cherry-red flushing her neck as she hustled away.
Rusa and Alces took the lead, pushing through with broad shoulders as they searched for a bar that looked promising for six young Badgers not particularly interested in trouble that evening. Following primarily their noses for tasty food and instincts for better beer, they turned down another side street and stopped at the door of a well-built, if a bit old and worn, tavern.
The door swung open on fresh-greased hinges and they stepped eagerly into the warm light that flooded to greet them. A voice floated to greet them.
‘-a dark sorcerer of desert magics’ a man said knowingly over a mug already half-spilled on the table before him as the squad pushed into the sunken and smoky room.
‘A prince, I’m sure!’ someone retorted. ‘Those southern islanders don’t do nothing without sending a Lord What’s’Name or Prince Something-or-Other.’ The man nodded knowingly into his filthy mug.
A portly old tavern keeper glowered from her stool by the kitchen fire. ‘What the hell do you know or even care for, Bat?’ She spat at the frowsy, loutish man who appeared to permanently grace the sunken spot on the wall-side bench. ‘You drunk old shit!’
It had been two months since the dramatic arrival of the slave-pulled monstrosity on wheels and despite the excitement of Fourth Night the coming weekend, the district was still alive with rumors relating to the odd, black-bearded ambassador and his rather scandalous entrance. The barkeep was sick of hearing about the ‘new bell’ and that political nonsense with the army closing roads all about, who gave a shit what they did up on their hill? All the experience she had getting involved in the affairs of Lords and Protectors led to pain, in a variety of manifestations. You don’t want trouble? Don’t give them a reason to look at you and they leave you alone.
She had clearly been there for a great amount of time, spending years, if not a lifetime, sitting on the stool and making the daily stew for tomorrow at the end of every day. She proved her proficiency, finishing peeling a nondescript root vegetable, cutting it into six rough pieces against her palm, and depositing it in the bubbling pot in one fluid motion. She slipped the small blade into the top of her apron and polished off whatever remained in a flagon perched on the windowsill to her left before beginning to inspect the remaining ingredients sitting at her feet. The sound of the door closing against the cold of the night drew her attention.
‘SOLDIERS!’ she exclaimed in a way that said ‘welcome’ to the arriving troops more than ‘run-for-it’ to the patrons, she stood up in a clatter of falling utensils, ‘please, let me get you taken care of! Follow me!’
The old woman was crooked in the way those who have worked their whole lives usually are, yet moved with impressive agility, defying her audibly cracking joints and clearing a table of its usual denizens with a flurry of her damp rags. They fled to a place at a table further from the roaring hearth with sour looks over their shoulders as the six youths were ushered into their warm seats with a wave of washcloth. It was clearly her best table, close enough to the fire to enjoy the warmth seeping from the hearth yet removed enough to be free of the smoke from a poorly cleaned flue and the worst of the traffic to the rundown rooms above; the top looked like it had been planed within the last decade and was generally free of any excessive carving, it shone with a freshish application of thick whale grease sealant.
A few of the regulars eyed them with varied emotions. Most acted like they hadn’t noticed the arrival of six Mellivora troopers and continued staring into their cups or talking quietly in scattered corners, two younger looking patrons finished their drinks in quick gulps and left a half tab of silver behind as they exited the small pub.
‘Ales, I take it?’ the woman began, sidling up neatly to the head of the table and looking at them interestedly. ‘Will have some fresh bread out the kitchen for stew shortly. If you’re interested.’
Simen’s eyes left the small rectangle of thin metal and looked up at the matronly woman. ‘What kind of prices we looking at here…’ he began leadingly.
‘Oh!’ she looked over her shoulder and laughed reassuringly, ‘just a debt owed. Prices are normal down here, Hun.’
Alces’ eyes were locked on the glistening lamb roasting over the central hearth before them, lost in its dripping fat and the greedy flames licking the meat with tiny black tongues. ‘Mead, if you’ve got it, please.’ he said in a deep voice followed by a hopeful, ‘and some lamb if it’s ready?’
Rusa chuckled, ‘second that. Oh, and the bread too. Black and seeded if you’ve got it.’
‘Jaaaa’ added Sily, much exaggeration to her mild accent and her head thrown back with eyes rolling in desire.
‘Black and seedy is all we got around here Darlin,’ she winked at Rusa, ‘alright, three lamb dinners, three meads, and…’
‘Ales for them, Arler if you’ve got it.’ Sily answered, shooting a look at Scribe before adding, ‘and probably nothing for the handsome, moody one there.’
The innkeeper smiled at the three men, ‘anything for you lads? Hungry at all? I should have a honey crisp coming out soon if you’re inclined to sweeter things.’ She winked an implication in the split second before she threw her head back toward the depths of the kitchen and barked something about that ‘damned crisp’ that went unanswered by whomever was supposed to have heard her back there.
‘Oh, I haven’t had a good crisp since Glauca! That would be wonderful, thank you!’ Pica looked expectantly at Simen, knowing the hell to follow if he didn’t eat something before they really got down to drinking and debating whether to just order something for the man.
‘And some stew as well,’ Simen added after a long moment staring at a roll of paper materializing in his fingers, ‘would be lovely.’ He popped the smoke in his mouth as the matron deftly grabbed an ashtray from the hearth and slid it across to him.
‘Don’t be ashing that crap on my floors now, that’s fresh straw you see? Not cheap!’
The innkeeper had a motherly demeanor, she chuckled affectionately at the man’s mischievous smile as he looked at her with feigned innocence, ‘I’ll whoop you, boy, see if I don’t!’
She flexed her cracked hands for emphasis and made a show of limbering up. Simen laughed obligingly and assured her he would behave as well as he knew how, she indicated she didn’t believe that. With a final smile, she was gone, barking orders at two youths who sprung up from the depths below the bar. One, she sent to ‘ask a man about a crisp’ while the other went to investigate the readiness of the roasting animal in the great hearth.
‘Five minutes, Mum!’ the small boy piped as he prodded the thick part of the roast with a finger already well-tested in determining doneness.
Sily leaned across the table and ogled Scribe’s latest masterpiece, ‘you should try some mead at least!’ she implored with huge, begging eyes aimed at the perpetually disheveled man of letters across from her. ‘How do you survive on just that tea you drink? How is that even possible? Indulge yourself, man. Indulge me!’
‘Leave him be, Silybum’ Alces admonished gently despite there being no reaction from the grey-cloaked man at all. ‘You know full well that he doesn’t partake.’ He raised a curious eyebrow to his silent friend nonetheless.
‘I know, I know. But one day, I’m gonna get a word out of him one way or other!’ the sister huffed dramatically before spinning to face Simen. ‘What about that?’ she asked with a gesture of her chin toward the small rollie Simen was tapping absentmindedly against the ashtray before him, ‘ever got him to smoke any of your ‘special herbs?’’
‘I wish,’ intoned the man, licking the paper twist once before placing it gingerly in his mouth. He struggled a blue-tipped match from the small leather case on his hip made further inaccessible by his refusal to stand up. ‘Would certainly have told you if I had. Shout it from the hospital steeple, I would.’ He chuckled at the image and broke the match on his first attempted strike against the shining tabletop.
He was halfway through breaking a second when Pica pointed out they were probably wet from his ‘half-assed unpacking’ after a chase had ended with one of them plunging into the canals near the southern wall.
‘Gonna end up with a rusted belt knife or a maggoty bandage if you don’t pay more attention to your gear’ he said with only the slightest hint of admonition.
The stocky man just smiled broadly at Pica through white teeth, favoring him with a wink of a big umber eye before leaning back with a look of feigned helplessness. His scarred friend sighed and stood to grab a candle from the hearth, huffing in overstated disapproval and holding it steadily for Simen until a bright ember caught and deep, piney fumes filled the table.
It was a distinctive odor, the herb being of an exotic, eastern provenance and generally unused in the western half of the continent, and a few of the patrons wrinkled their noses or turned away as the smoke wafted gently over the wider area. The squad, having become used to it over the last eight months of it being Simen’s latest bad habit picked up abroad, hardly noticed the smell at all and Alces gestured for a drag as he pulled the deck of cards from a pocket.
Catching Sily’s occasional glances, Simen leaned forward and proffered the smoking paper twist across the table to her. Her brothers exchanged looks but remained silent as their sister took the smoke, inhaling deeply of the smelly green flower and exhaling with intense satisfaction at the rich flavor of the plant and the fog rushing in to soften her thoughts.
‘Ales and meads! Blow that toward the flume if you don’t mind, dear. There you go now.’ the tavernwoman was joyous and bubbled as she arrived holding six cups on a large round platter. She passed them around with practiced ease, setting a mug in front of Scribe who, for once, stopped his penwork and looked slowly from the tankard to the glowing woman at the head of the table.
‘Warm frothed milk’ she beamed at him, ‘fresh out Ol’ Milly round back, just for you. Added a dab of honey as well, just to knock the tang off it.’ She winked to the dour man and turned to the brothers, ‘lamb coming up shortly dears. The littlest one might be a squeak, but he sure has his daddy’s skill when it comes to the meat.’
She smiled fondly toward the child who had taken up her peeling and was surreptitiously stealing sips from an unchaperoned mug nearby, ‘be the death of me.’
Scribe nodded once slowly, lowering his head back to his work and tuning back out of the interaction entirely.
‘And…’ the matron added, eyeing their already near-drained mugs, ‘a flagon as well, I should think.’
The other child, a gangly young girl of maybe thirteen summers, arrived behind her mother with a brimming pitcher of golden mead just as she finished speaking.
Sily smiled at the girl, reminded of herself helping her father in his work. She knew the pride that came with the honest labor, how often it went unnoticed; the smile the old woman turned to the girl before sending her off to fetch more flagons assured the Populan woman that the work at least went acknowledged and was likely even openly appreciated. A flash of green envy churned cold in her stomach as she downed the last of her mead.
‘Anything else, dearies? Food should be out shortly.’
At their assurances of the quality of her hospitality and the arrival of two more flagons of the foamy, nut-brown ale in the hands of her daughter, she nodded her approval and moved back to her stewing across the room, grabbing a side of smoked fish from the wall as she passed and a large pipe materializing in her mouth as she sat down by the fire to pull it into pieces for the bubbling pot.
Soon, their food arrived in the arms of tiny bearers and the group turned to matters they had already been discussing for weeks with no real resolution or progress: what was the meaning behind that giant ship and its slave-crew? What had they brought and why did it seem the entirety of the city was on edge as of late?
‘I’m telling you,’ Rusa said through a mouth of dripping red meat, ‘gotta be medicine of some sort, heading east for all the sickness popping up out there.’
‘Gotta be,’ his brother confirmed from behind his mug, ‘you said yourself that the Taher’I are wonders with medicine.’
‘But those weren’t Taher’I,’ Sily reminded with a stern glance. ‘Zingi said herself that couldn’t be true.’
‘She seemed insulted by the idea,’ Pica recalled, ‘got pretty heated. Said it was impossible.’
Silence answered.
‘Could be,’ Simen said swigging his tankard before adding conspiratorially, ‘that it weren’t medicine.’
His compatriots looked at him warily, unsure of where he was taking this; Scribe’s pencilwork halted with a booming absence.
‘I heard,’ he dove into the story with vigor, clearly waiting for this part of the conversation and pouncing on his opportunity, ‘a rumor in the baths this weekend that says there were some strange sorts seen moving through the North Gate; some say alchemists from that damned tower up in Oxycarpa came through with all manner of suspicious stuff.’
All eyes turned to the man’s deep brown ones, peeking over the edge of his emptied mug, a lightning-fast glint of green from Scribe included and unnoticed.
‘Strange…how?’ Asked Pica, disbelieving but willing to humor his friend.
‘Like they were carrying stuff that doesn’t normally go through inspections, especially not the North Gate; barrels of lead coins, boiling tars, and spitting yellow powders, people tend to notice stuff like that, and remember it too.’
‘One giant crate that came off a ship was full of tiny black pebbles. They said they smelled funny too.’ He added at their blank stares.
‘Mmhmm. And why alchemists again?’ Sily inquired.
‘Coins and rocks, Simen?’ Pica joined ready to forgo another discussion of rampant speculation.
‘Yeah! No, seriously!’ Simen rejoindered ‘you know Carissa, fluid engineer from Dorylus Corp.?’
He didn’t need to wait for their nods of assent.
‘Carissa,’ he began leadingly, ‘was here in Avium on escort when the large ship nonsense went down – as you know – and I caught up with her just before she shipped back to Cera on that demon of an airship.
‘Well, she said she overheard her sergeant telling the ship’s captain that they were not permitted to leave the ground until some cargo was loaded onboard.
‘Dear Gods, Simen…’ Pica began, a hand reaching for his brow reflexively.
‘No, no. Hear me out!’ the big man waved his hands to the group placatingly, ‘When was the last time you saw any Dorylus wandering around Keeptown?’
‘Simen, seriou-’ Pica tried to interrupt once more.
‘A few days after the slave ship.’ Sily leaned past Scribe to look at Simen directly. ‘Pellia and I were training after her… choice during the committee meeting, we saw quite a few in the yards. Saw an airship too now that I think about it. Docking at the Twelfth Tower right over us.
Scribe looked at her, an arced eyebrow decorating his face. She flushed at his look.
‘I forgot!’ she defended quickly. ‘There was a lot going on with Pell and everything else!’
‘Which ship?’ Pica leaned forward.
‘I don’t know, the sun was in my eyes trying to look up at it. Didn’t pay too much attention beyond noticing it, to be honest.’
‘Well,’ Simen reclaimed his status as storyteller, ‘that is exactly what I mean. They took the man and his whatever back to Cera.’
Alces rolled his eyes. ‘Says who?’
‘Says the night guard who saw Sinea sneaking that spooky emissary guy through the side gate into Keeptown and then told me that he saw both airships leave a few hours later.’
‘And the guy never left?’
‘Nope. My guy says Sinea left twenty minutes later sans-creepy foreigner.’
‘Who is your guy, then?’ Sily was clearly engaged.
‘What?’
‘Your guy. Who is it?’
All eyes turned to Simen who flushed suddenly.
‘Padina.’ He said meekly.
‘Padina?’ Pica was aghast.
Sily guffawed. ‘Tacca is going to kill you if she sees you and Padina together again.’
‘To say nothing of Lieutenant Heteractis.’ Pica added under his breath. ‘You know you can’t get caught buying your crap in Keeptown. Not again, Simen, and not from one Mellivora’s.’ He added louder.
‘Yeah, yeah. Doesn’t change what she told me.’
‘No? And what was she doing on guard duty in the middle of the night? Not on punishment detail for anything, I’m sure.’
‘She got caught stealing from the commissary again.’
‘Simen!’
‘But that’s on purpose. She and someone in logistics are in it together and, as she puts it, ‘is there a better reason to be lurking in the shadows at three-o-clock in the morning?’
‘Ugh...’ Pica palmed his face in exasperation.
‘Look, if she is able to hoodwink the overseers of Keeptown, I think we can say she is a fair share of observant and smart. And I have no reason to think she was telling tall tales.’
‘Ok, that’s fair, Simen. We don’t mean to imply we don’t believe you.’ Sily was conciliatory and relit the spliff that had burned out in the tray while they talked. She handed it to Simen with a smile and he returned the gesture as he accepted the smoke.
‘So, what else?’ she asked.
‘What else,’ he began, enjoying the intrigue, ‘is that Padina had a theory on our not-Taher’I visitors, herself.’ He paused, enjoying the sudden tension as all eyes moved firmly to him. ‘Pirates.’
‘Pirates?’
‘Yeah! From Nib’u, but not the Taher’I. Which lines up with what Zingi said, I might add.
‘According to Padina, one of Heteractis’ favorite tales about her time on the Grey Sea involves a meeting with a pirate kingdom she says exists somewhere where the Grey meets the Atra.
‘They call themselves the Aji Confederation and claim they are the rightful leaders of the desert lands of Nib’u. I don’t know if that is true, but they are apparently very fond of two things: warpaint and slaves.’
‘When did you know about this?’ Pica looked at his friend, horrified he hadn’t been told of this sooner. ‘We have been talking about this for weeks!’
‘I know. I know. But I-’
‘Here we are, Dearies!’ The matron reintroduced herself in a wave of merriment that overwhelmed the increasingly hushed conversation. ‘Another round of ales, this one a little stronger if you get my drift.’ She patted the clear outline of a flask in her apron pocket.
‘Oh, yes! Thank you so much.’ Rusa rose to take the tankard from her hands. ‘Do you have anything sweet back there we could maybe bother you for?’
‘Of course,’ she beamed, ‘that apple crisp just came out of the ovens. It’s cooling down now.’
‘I could smell it,’ the brother admitted ruefully.
‘Not to worry, Love. I’ll get it to you with some clotted cream just as soon as it won’t melt your mouth.’ She disappeared with a wink and the friends raised freshly filled cups.
‘To a never-ending conspiracy that I don’t understand the relevance of.’ Pica intoned, slamming his cup in one crisp movement. ‘Now, why didn’t you tell me this?’
‘Because A: I only learned of it this morning,’ he held up the small bag of herb he was rolling another spliff from for emphasis, ‘and B: I knew we would all be out together tonight and therefore free of the usual ears around Keeptown.’
Pica grumbled but said nothing. Simen continued.
‘Which gets to my next point.’ He looked around slowly. ‘I think this is dangerous, more than the usual.’
‘How so?’
‘Because she said something else about the pirates. They use some sort of chemical to clear ships for boarding, a plague powder or something. Do you understand what I am saying?’
All exchanged very serious looks, Pica and Sily held theirs for a bit too long.
‘What?’ Simen looked between them, ending on Pica. ‘What do you know that you haven’t told me?’
Pica gulped. ‘In Cerasus. We-’ Gold pain, sharp and insistent, filled his brain. He gasped and blinked. ‘In Cerasus we found some-’
‘We found something, after operations in Cera, we found a whole group of dead people around a little pot of yellow powder.’ Sily supplied for them both.
Alces, Rusa, and Simen all stared at the two in dumbfounded silence. Sily gulped and looked at Pica who was breathing hard and had buried his face in his hands against the tabletop. Scribe blinked slowly as he looked from face to face.
‘We don’t know what it was. We haven’t even talked about it with each other, Pell, Pica, and me, since it happened.’ Sily frowned ‘I haven’t even thought about it. Not when I could help it.’
Her words resonated with Pica as he pressed his palms hard into his eyes, trying anything to make the gnawing glowing pain stop as it burned through the backs of his eyes. He hadn’t thought about those things either, not much, and every time he did-
A groan escaped Pica and Sily took it as a confirmation of his experiences likewise.
‘It was scary and after the seers and the LT showed up… I think we were all scared.’
‘You saw seers, like up close?’
‘Way too fuckin’ close, let me tell you.’ Sily shivered. ‘Got a good look at that damned insignia too.’
Rusa leaned over the table. ‘You said Strozzi was there?’
‘He came with the seers. Basically escorted them right to us.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing. Not a thing. Just took us back to the market square and made it very clear that we didn’t see anything.
‘Then they pulled us into that… interrogation with the Captain. I… I don’t really think I can blame myself for trying to forget all that.’
The mention of the blistering evening they had spent in the bowels of the Captain’s new headquarters gave everyone pause and it was clear that the amnesia was a little more widespread than just Sily and Pica.
Simen looked at the quiet man coolly. ‘You were with those seers. That night with the Cap.
Do you know why we were drug into that torture chamber?’
Scribe met the hard eyes and implications as placidly as ever. Slowly, he reached into a pouch on his belt and, pulling something small from it which he held closed in his palm, he extended his hand into the center of the table for all to see what he presented.
Sily gasped and Simen all but pushed the bench backwards as he leaned in for a better look. There, on the upturned palm, was a small scrap of golden paper.
‘That?’ Sily met the green eyes of her beau uncertainly. ‘What is it?’
‘The paper…’ Pica stared at the glimmering object.
The edges of the things were tattered and the corners slightly rolled in on themselves. It looked slightly smudged yet caught the flaring light of the hearth easily, sending a cascade of golden flickering across the faces arrayed around it.
‘Paper?’ Sily looked between the object and the drained face of her friend. ‘This is stupid, Pica.
‘Scribe, what is he talking about?’ She paused for a moment, suddenly a dawning of recognition crossing her face. ‘That is why we stopped that day, before we found the boy.’
Pica mumbled a confirmation.
Sily considered for a moment. ‘What does it say?’
‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen it since…’ Pica faded, his memory hastily attempting to reorganize as the last strands of golden, white-hot pain seeped from his mind. ‘Since… I don’t know when.’
He was sullen but felt a little more himself as a slew of lost days and weeks marched resolutely back into memory. ‘It is just a picture of a wreath and a list or poem or something. I couldn’t make anything of it at the time and then, I lost it somewhere.’
In response, Scribe flipped the paper over on his palm smoothly with a quill tip to reveal that beside each of the originally unreadable items listed on the back was now an equally illegible, but somewhat recognizable, scrawl that Pica supposed was a translation in the silent man’s own hand.
Sily, easily able to decipher the scrawling hand, leaned in close and Scribe presented the item to her for review.
‘What is this?’ Simen was reddening from either anger or confusion, or envy at being left out of such a secret.
‘A list of locations.’
‘Where, in Cera?’
Scribe nodded. Sily leaned closer.
‘This is the place we were at, isn’t it Pica? Where we found the paper and the boy? The stable-tenements?’
Pica lifted his head and looked at the black ink line she was indicating for him. He nodded despite being unable to read what anything on the paper said. ‘Yeah, and the southern wellhouse is where all those troopers from first platoon got sick from bad water.’
‘What does that mean?’ Alces looked at Rusa in consternation and turned back to Sily. ‘What do you mean you found a bunch of dead people? What boy?’ The complications and intrigues were starting to bother the brother and he was quickly losing track of what he had thought a fun conversation of conspiracy.
‘The boy was rabid, he attacked us when we found the list under some rubble, we chased him to the place where we found the bodies.’ Sily ameliorated. ‘I had totally forgotten why we stopped at all.’
Scribe gingerly reached forward and plucked the paper from the woman’s fingers, flipping it over and holding it to the shifting light so all could see the wreath and flower logo on the backside fully. Retrieving his tome once more and flipping through it deftly, he pushed it back into the center of the table for all to see the document he had copied within.
‘What am I looking at there, Scribe?’ Simen scratched his stubbled face. ‘Is that the passport the emissary had? The slaver?’
Scribe nodded.
‘See here,’ Rusa pointed, ‘it says they are Taher’I right there. Both at the top and next to the signature down here.’ His finger followed his words, tracing the lines as he always had while reading and slowed to a stop as they reached the bottom of the page.
Alces’ eyes, drawn to the floating finger, looked between the tome and the little slip of gold as he realized the same thing his brother had.
‘Is that the flower?’
Scribe nodded once more. Silence fell as all stared between the two pieces of parchment.
‘Meleagris is behind this… list?’ Sily held the thing and adopted a distasteful look. ‘and the fake Taher’I? The Aji?’
‘One sells death powder; another might have used death powder in Cerasus.’ Pica gulped and sat up more fully, the pressure behind his eyes beginning to subside. ‘If we believe Zingi, and Padina is right about the pirates, then what? Sinea is smuggling that stuff in, for what?
‘And who did it?’ he finished, ‘There was no Sinea in Cerasus. We all know we were the first through the gates.’
A darker mood fell over the group then as they reflected on the last three years, the campaign across the frontier that was somehow both behind them and omnipresent as they sipped beer and enjoyed hot food in the Milkmaid’s Quarter.
As if on cue, the innkeeper arrived with two plates piled high with rough pastries teetering precariously on a rough, splayed hand. Liquid sloshed and pitched in a dark bottle tucked into her waist as she stopped at the table, flour-dusted arms dropping first the large pile of apple pastries and then the bottle before the group. Six small cups appeared from a pocket and she smiled down at them all.
‘I haven’t been eavesdropping, don’t you worry none, but I do know a hushed conversation when I see one.’ She gestured around. ‘Been here a long time afterall.’ She winked and walked away without another word.
A sigh was the only response as Pica morosely tore into a pastry. Simen uncorked the bottle with a gentle twist and poured five cups, setting them before each of the Badgers carefully and placing the empty sixth in front of Scribe without a word. They looked at the viscous drink before them, exchanging glances between one another that conveyed a chaos of conflicting emotions. As one, they picked up their cups and locked eyes across the table; with a synchronized tap, they brought them down against the tabletop in obligatory respect to the tavern before throwing the contents back.
The flavor was terribly bitter, and salty. It assaulted the mouth in waves, muscles constricting in the mouth involuntarily and saliva flooding the tongue as it attempted to overwhelm the syrupy liquor. Sweetness crept in slowly, dulling the sharp edge with hints of fennel that seemed ethereal among the burning fumes of the alcohol. Warmth flowed up from the breast in an intensifying burst, the body becoming invigorated, the soul lifted; inhibitions dulled and burdens freed for inspection.
Simen opened his mouth to speak but Pica interrupted him, suddenly resolved. ‘What happened in Cerasus? Really?
The Triplets exchanged glances with one another, silently conferring in the way that siblings can. Sily turned to look at Scribe, he held her gaze for only a moment before he closed his book with a snap; while he had ceased writing long before, he indicated his complete attention pointedly as he secured it to the clasp on his belt. He eyed the foam on top of the now-tepid milk distastefully before returning his attention to Pica.
Sily mirrored him, clasping her hands and speaking in a quieter tone as she moved snugly beside the odd man. With a raised eyebrow, she asked: ‘which part?’
Her friend needed no further encouragement. ‘All of it.’
‘Chaos,’ Rusa mumbled, his brother nodding in agreement.
Pica grimaced, ‘that was a Protectorate industry town we raided, not some frontier hamlet in Aila. What was that? This far in the interior.’
‘Anticlea is recruiting,’ Sily swept her arms universally, ‘you never know where the next rebel is hiding or who will don that ugly, red sash.’
Her brothers smiled at her rough pantomiming of the propaganda posters that littered the military compounds of the Grove.
‘Was recruiting.’ They reminded and to which she drank.
Pica, unperturbed by her attempts to soften the tone, continued: ‘We killed civilians in that town.’
Simen sighed. ‘Look, we can’t keep dwelling on this shit. We’re soldiers, we kill people wherever we go. Sulking around because we had to clean out our own backyard? Isn’t any different at all.’
He huffed and retrieved his smoke pouch from the table. ‘I didn’t kill civilians; all I saw was insurrectionists.’
Sily rolled her eyes at the man before turning to Pica: ‘I saw First Squad when they went in, they hacked an old man to death before he even knew we were there.’
‘Mmhmmm, just feeding his goose.’ Alces grunted affirmatively.
He reached across the table, shoving one of the small pastries into his mouth and gripping it with his teeth as he poured ale into everyone’s cups. He grunted at Simen, sliding a mug back to the grumbling man.
‘Sergeant Gloydius,’ Rusa added past a mouthful of mince pie, ‘he’s the one who threw that torch into the stable.’
Sily flared suddenly, turning sharply to face her much larger sibling. ‘Gloydius did that?’ Her voice was tight, a venomous staccato.
Rusa placed a protective hand on his brother’s shoulder as he looked at their infuriated sister. ‘It was him; he took the torch from that private after they left the grain store.’
‘Dipus,’ Alces added, ‘he grabbed it in the bakery. Think it was a bakery anyway; it was burning when they left. We were still a few buildings further down the street, but I saw it true enough.’
His sister seethed and clenched her teeth as she imagined an improvised interaction with the sergeant from First Squad that began with him walking through the door at that moment. Maybe he would be conveniently bragging about murdering animals to some friends, too. Her large blue eyes snapped back to meet Pica’s russet-brown ones; there was a grief she saw there that unnerved her. Her eyes flicked to Simen; he sat slouched and smoked quietly, ignoring them all.
She returned her gaze to Pica; ‘I’m sorry, what’s wrong with you?’
Everything was growing clearer for the man as the dulling Pyre’s Nectar fully fled from his mind.
‘That wasn’t the bakery, that was the blacksmith’s house.’ The tawny man was quiet, barely breathing as he spoke. ‘I saw them kill the smith’s children as they tried to escape past them. They just cut them down. Left them bleeding in the street with throats cut.’
‘Almost got you killed as well!’ Simen added.
‘He’s right, the woman who attacked me, the one Haidarum called Anticlea, only did so because I was in her way as she chased after them. I killed her and almost died myself, and nobody said anything about those kids afterwards either.’
Simen gulped. ‘Well, Carissa…’
‘Why would they?’ Alces interjected, ‘based on both what I saw during the fight and heard on the march home, those weren’t the only kids or old men or mothers who died in Cerasus. Especially once Strozzi ceded command to Heteractis after the initial fight. What makes the blacksmith and her kids special?’
‘Mmm,’ his brother added as he finished his pastry and grabbed another, this one raspberry, before clearing his throat, ‘the people calling it the ‘Burning of Cerasus’ aren’t entirely wrong.’
‘Shoot, it isn’t even called ‘Cerasus’ officially anymore. Called Cera or Fort Cera now.’ The other added matter-of-factly.
Pica blinked, not entirely understanding what he had just heard.
Sily leaned forward and placed a calming hand on his, ‘like Simen said, we are soldiers Pica, people die sometimes. It’s terrible but it’s just… you know… incidental.’
His temper flared and he glared at her, ‘Incidental? How are two young boys of what, fifteen, sixteen summers, one couldn’t have been more than thirteen, how are their sliced throats some sort of… what? Accident?’
He poured another portion of the thick liquor and threw it back, grimacing slightly before sliding the bottle across the table toward the blond woman. He leaned forward, ‘if we burned a civilian village, in Prunus, if it is as bad as it sounds despite your obliviousness, we are criminals. Either directly, or as accomplices at the least.’
There was an audible slap as Simen’s hand slapped against his bowed head.
‘Criminals? How so?’ Rusa looked genuinely confused, Alces frowned severely.
‘That is a bit extreme, Pica,’ Sily dismissed, ‘we didn’t kill anyone who didn’t attack us first, what the other squads do is Strozzi’s problem. That’s officers’ business.’ She paused, considering her words carefully, ‘those dead boys, that’s a tragedy, shouldn’t have ever happened. But you can’t let what happens in a fight get you too twisted up; you know that things just happen sometimes.’
‘‘Things just happen?’ Those aren’t things that just happen!’ He stood and glared at the three siblings, his words coming out low and hoarse. ‘Those kids were slaughtered like sheep before the sun was fully up, how could they know what was going on? Innocents, butchered.’
Scribe shot the man a warning look as the faces of patrons turned toward the rapidly escalating conversation. Pica was silent for a moment, seething and frustrated by the conversation before he sat down and leaned in to address the Triplets across the table.
‘You care more about dead dogs and horses than you do about Prunian families.’ He hissed at the siblings. ‘If we had been in a village in Populus instead, Tremula’s around the same size as ‘Cera,’ isn’t it?’
‘And richer by far.’ Simen added, backing up Pica and always quick to take any shot at their privileged upbringing that presented itself.
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t be so dismissive then.’
Across the table, Alces produced a derisive snort and rolled his eyes; Sily’s mouth dropped, her eyes narrowing. After a moment, she sighed and shook her head resignedly. This wasn’t the first time they had had a conversation like this, Pica tended to get sentimental when he drank and doubly so the first few weeks after a bad scrape; she knew that there was nothing to be said, whether in agreement or otherwise, that would mean anything compared to how he felt in this moment. Better to say nothing at all and let the conversation expire than allow more unretractable words to hover between friends. He didn’t mean what he said, and now that he had vented, she was sure he would be fine again after a night of sleep.
Simen stood with a scrape of the bench and, apparently having the same idea as the tall woman, he snapped his fingers loudly in the center of the group, interrupting Pica’s final seconds of sour reflection and changing the topic abruptly to the matters of the evening.
‘Let’s go find some fun.’
Sily stood, she leaned down and offered a big, exaggerated wink to the sage-eyed Scribe staring up at her from the bench. She blew him a quick kiss, grabbing the cup in front of the ink-stained man and slamming the milk in one massive gulp.
Pica couldn’t help but smile. ‘I wonder what kind of ‘fun’ you have in mind. You even get her name or…?’
‘Shut up, you goblin!’ She shoved him playfully, arguments and accusations already forgotten in her rapid mind. ‘Off we go!’
‘I wish we’d brought Pell; she would love this part of the city’ Simen added. ‘Hope she’s doing alright.
The group stood, arranging themselves and breaking off clips from silver and copper tablettes to cover the collective tab. Alces and Rusa departed to inquire about any barrels of mead the innkeeper may be interested in parting with; Pica gathered their dishes and shuffled to give them to the tall girl in the kitchen.
‘So… a bar fight then?’ Simen inquired innocently of Sily.
‘We’ll see what I can find!’
Pica sighed but nodded, long-ago learning to just roll with the punches when it came to Silybum. He was happy to be distracted and already the emotions were slowly spooling themselves back in, nestling within control of his reason. Maybe he was overreacting a bit, better not overthink as well, he supposed. Could he find Arler Ale down one of these twisting alleyways?
Alces and Rusa were the last out the door, leaving under the weight of a small cask of premium brown ale and pockets overflowing with rich, crusty pastries of every variety. Much to the tavernkeeper’s delight, they offered a full silver tab for the goods, easily doubling what she would have made on the goods otherwise.
The light from the hearth had dimmed over the hours they had spent in the cozy tavern and now cast low, dim beams across the smoke-filled room. On the bench by the fireplace, a small slip of ivory paper fluttered away unnoticed as the innkeeper moved in to wipe the scarred tabletop; it floated to settle in the fading light, a picture of a blonde-haired young woman with a huge smile and twinkling blue eyes glowing warmly from the densely woven material.
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