Two of Knaves Chapter 81-85

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? I can’t be divine, it’s resisted all my attempts to suss its purpose.”

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

I was quite sure that it was not. Hawkley turned it over in his hands. “I can get it appraised, I know a few diviners 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 Mayazian’s 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.”

Chapter 82 - The Grind

We had to stop by the Mop and Bucket before heading back up to the middle city. I wanted my seeker robe and cravat if I was going to approach them as the Barrow Knave.

I greeted a few familiar faces on the way up to my office. Miss Trundi grouched at me about finding half her girls turned to spies. Mender Bartran I thanked for patching up Annalisa and I after our undercity delve, and of course the card players I left to their own devices. I wouldn’t say I trusted them after they’d extracted the mender, but they’d certainly earned the right to not have their drinks watered down.

I also spotted Quin, at the bar, and I pulled up a stool next to him. He nodded to me, but almost coughed up half his drink when Annalisa slid into the seat on his other side.

“Ma’am,” he said, blushing. Annalisa smiled and batted her eyes. I rolled mine. Wasn’t sure what the highborn Soul Seeker saw in my rough and tumble lower city partner. Whatever it was, Annalisa seemed to basking in it, doing her best impression of a proper coy lady—though the effect was somewhat ruined when she guzzled down half an ale in the span of one breath and belched loud enough to shake dust off the ceiling in the next.

“How’s your reeducation coming?” I asked.

“Still only got the three,” said Quinn, “but I’m getting better with petals. Able to combo the knave and make a fighter’s hits harder to see coming.” he took a pull on his own drink and shook his head. “All this time, who knew every single fight was fixed?”

“It’s not all that bad,” I said, clapping him on the back. “Most are fixed at both ends, so it’s a match between fighters and a match between fixers. Two for the price of one. They do the same thing in the upper city, just that both fixers are in the ring so they’re fair game for the fighters and fair game for the box office.”

“I suppose that’s true,” he said. Then he shrugged.

“When’s your next fight?” I asked.

“Two days ahead, in Cradledown.”

“Bring your boots,” I said, standing. “And careful with Annalisa. She bites.”

Annalisa chomped the air helpfully and then grinned at Quin. He blushed.

I passed Damen on my way to the stairs, and caught his eye, though I’m not sure if he stared at me or through me. “Stay strong! Looks like relief is on the horizon,” I murmured as I passed him.

He made no indication that he’d heard me. Poor devil. I moved past him and up the stairs to retrieve my robe. A stack of letters sat on my desk, which I perused. I had a number of notes and missives from the Kindledown operations, a query about odds for a fight from Brokier, and even a few scrawls in Mithra’s incomprehensible penmanship that I managed to decipher into dirty limericks. There once was a Drakkyn from Crassport… Fucking hell, I bet she made them extra illegible after I’d told her how tough it was to sort out her scribbles. I tossed the parchment back onto the desk and picked up another.

The Alinderre Masquerade Theater invites you to to a night of spectacle. Witness a production of the…

A play invitation? I turned it over. Admit two: For the Barrow Knave and the Lady Blue.

Interesting. Clearly a trap, of course. One of those things where they invite a bunch of lower city criminals to an event and then adventurers round them all up for the bounty. The rogues in my deck echoed my sentiment. I pocketed the invitation and grabbed my robe. It was difficult to picture Annalisa sitting for a play—or sitting still longer than the thirty seconds or so it took her to find the bottom of her drink, for that matter. But perhaps we could turn such a thing to our advantage.

It was time to go to work.

By the time I made it back downstairs, Quinn had started doing a reading for Annalisa, and she seemed to really like the results. I had to pull her away as she protested, but the devilborn girl finally fell in beside me and we headed back for the middle city.

Annalisa was uncharacteristically quiet. If my partner were capable of quiet contemplation, that’s what I’d imagine she was doing.  The sun drifted toward the horizon, reflecting painfully bright off Annalisa’s polished horns. And as it dropped beneath the rooftops on the western rise and the glare dimmed enough to face her, I finally asked.

“What did you ask him to read for you?”

Anna shook herself out of her reverie. “Hmm?”

“Quinn, he did a reading for you. What did you ask?”

“Oh,” Annalisa said, looking away. She cupped her elbows in her hands. “I asked how my father was getting on.”

“Oh,” I said. then I paused. “Wait, why did you need a reading for that? Didn’t you say he was in the Cartographer’s guild?”

“Mmhmm,” she said.

“Doesn’t that mean he’s in the city?”

Annalisa was silent for a moment. We stepped aside to make way for a lamplighter and climbed up the narrow steps to the highest tier of Barrowdown.

“He’s… very busy. I don’t speak to him much.”

“Is he out on some long survey?” I asked.

Annalisa dropped her hands to her sides and curled them into fists. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Alright,” I said. “We don’t gotta.”

I let it go that she’d asked me uncomfortable questions about my own past, which I’d answered to her satisfaction. And gods know I don’t like those sorts of questions, so I couldn’t blame her. No devilborn comes from a happy home. Somehow Annalisa had convinced me she was the exception. With as much as she talked about her family, bragged about the work they did in Dragonmaw, shared details of their lives, and pent herself up writing letters to them in her room, I had assumed they were close. But in the few months I’d been nearly inseparable from Annalisa, I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any of them. I’d given it little though, but it certainly bears some.

I pursed my lips. Some diviner I am.

Chapter 83 - Seeking Soul Seekers

For what it’s worth, Annalisa doesn’t have the attention span to maintain awkward silences. It wasn’t long before she was recapping the events of her fight the week before—her first since our undercity delve, as well as her first without me by her side since we’d become partners.

“You shoulda’ seen it, Darcent!” she punched the air. “This guy is the third-ranked fighter in Oildown. Was the third-ranked fighter. They called him Baleen, which is like teeth for whales, but also like a brush. I don’t know why they called him that because his teeth were normal. I got a good look at two of them that I knocked out in the third round.” she jumped up and mimed a flying knee. I winced, knowing she’d adopted a strategy of opening an obsidian tunnel behind her opponent before delivering that particular attack.

“And Quinn was alright in your corner?” I asked. We’d had the academy student moonlighting as a fixer, and I wanted him to cut his teeth on a fight I knew Annalisa would only need a little boost for.

She nodded. “Uh huh. He made my hands all blurry, but he doesn’t have dragon juice like you do. So Baleen still landed a couple hits—“ she lifted her shirt, gathering scandalized looks, and pointed at two prodigious bruises on the left side of her ribs. “Here, and here,” she said, pointing. I reached out and pushed down on the hand holding her shirt. Dragons above, this girl needed to learn some modesty. She continued unabated “But getting better at tunneling has made me even tougher. I got him, too. But right on the liver and he dropped.” Annalisa made her tail stand up straight on end, and then angled it down as though it had fallen. She stopped for a moment, eyes drawn together in concentration.

“How come you weren’t there?” she asked.

“I was making inquiries into some of the things we saw in the undercity,” I said. Namely, I’d been in the Middle City Repository looking for any hint or whisper of that elven college. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t find anything, the problem was that apparently, Golden Elves fucking loved colleges. You’d need more research skill than I had to figure out which one our little jaunt had found. I’d also looked into the friends we’d made. Celithia and Volian had made it out of the undercity, unfortunately. They were making inquiries of their own. But thus far, the wards that hid the Mop and Bucket from eyes that would harm it had worked a charm. I was surprised how much utility I’d gotten out of the basic ward.

Speaking of wards, I hadn’t been idle on that front, either. I’d spent a significant amount of my effort over the past week getting closer attuned to the three of towers and practicing my ward craft. Barrowdown had been long overdue for a security upgrade, and things had slowed down just enough for me to implement some plans I’d been keeping in my journal. And it seemed that dilligence was none-too-soon.

I felt the impression of someone’s eyes on my back, thanks to wards of hostile intent buzzed in my mind as we headed north. Someone north of Barrowdown was coming to do us harm. I angled us to the west, and the hostile presence followed. I cursed under my breath. It looked like the shrine would have to wait. I picked up our pace.

Annalisa knew well enough by now that navigating the winding downs of Dragonmaw was not one of my weak points. So if we were headed away from our destination, then something had compelled me to do so. She took a defensive posture, eyes scanning for threats in the shadows and assassins in dark alleys.

I shifted us again, southwest this time, along one of the canals. Our unseen pursuers matched us, and I began to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I crossed a small footbridge and stopped in the middle of an intersection, on a corner between a baker and a furnisher. We were in a square with good sight lines in all directions, and Annalisa looked at me in question.

“This is one foe we can’t hide from, Annalisa,” I said. I hoped they wouldn’t come at me as a foe, either. But I’ve never been the best at making friends, so I didn’t fancy my odds on that one. Before they closed in, I drew my deck and the strange dagger I’d taken off the Mayazian witch. “Try not to kill any of them, if you can help it,” I added.

“I never try to kill anyone if I can help it,” said Annalisa. “But what’s after us?”

“Inevitability.”

We waited under the light of the wane dragons for four figures to approach from three different streets. The ones to our left and right were armed with weapons—one on my left had a studded pole, and of the two on my right, one swung a chain with a fist-sized iron ball on it while the other twirled a pair of long knives. Annalisa slipped on her own spiked knuckles when she saw the lethal weapons being leveled toward us. They came slow, letting us see them, making no effort to disguise themselves. I’m sure they knew we’d picked up on them when we started changing directions.

For my part, I worried more about our last pursuer. He had the most lethal weapon out of the three: a Deck of Wills, fanned out in front of his hands. He emerged from the shadows in a robe nearly identical to mine, except for the padded quilting over his chest and under his arms. This was a robe designed specifically for battles. A robe given to those trusted to defend the interests of  the Seekers Guild by force. And he was here for me.

I didn’t recognize him—hardly surprising. Most full guild members didn’t hang around at the academy unless they were teaching specific classes. This one might not have even been in Dragonmaw until asked to take this assignment. While this city had the largest Soul Seeker presence thanks to the dimming effect the wane dragons had on most other types of magic at night, full guild members were in demand as advisors anywhere influential decisions are being mulled over. He pulled out a scroll, sealed in wax with the guildmaster’s signet. I could just barely make it out in the twilight.

The residents of the middle city started to take note. We were still close enough to the downs for most of the local residents to have developed a keen sense of when things were about to go sideways. Credit to our pursuer, he let them leave before speaking. Though—perhaps he feared the same thing I did, that the other would use them as hostages. Raising my opinion of him slightly wasn’t exactly going to let him get away with coming after me, of course.

Once the lane was clear, the seeker threw back his hood—an elf, of course—and also tossed the scroll over to me. It struck the cobbles and rolled to the side near my feet. I bent to pick it up and unwound the seal on the leather backing, playing to his formality. His voice rang out in the street.

“By signed order of the six Seeker’s Guild elders, and ratified by Highlord Guifoyle of the Dragonmaw Shared Court, I am authorized to use force within the city in the apprehension of the unlicensed seeker and criminal known as the Barrow Knave, and the reclamation of guild property… regardless of it’s condition.”

I scowled. He could have left that last part out. This robe was old when I got it. Its best days were probably back kicking around with Master Hedwin’s some centuries past. Still, the warrant was legitimate. Though, the fact they only listed the Barrowdown persona and not my actual name on the warrant suggested that Drella had at least left that part out when she reported my interference at the Middle City Arena. I made a mental note to thank her for that small concession, if I ever got the chance.

The enforcer continued, splitting his cards. I could feel the Wills answering his call.  “Come quietly, and this need not turn violent.”

I countered with my own offer as I spread the cards out before me, pulling the three of towers into my hand. “Walk away, seeker. Barrowdown is beyond the authority of the Seekers Guild and answers no summons, coercions, threats of force, or warrants of extradition. You’re a long way from the Shared Court, sir.”

I knew it wouldn’t work. The seeker had the Warlord arcana inverted above his head. Bloodthirsty, bullying. I whispered to Annalisa beside me. “Ready?” I asked, “just like we trained.”

She cracked her knuckles and bounced on the balls of her feet.

The four guild enforcers stepped closer. The one with the fist-sized ball on the iron chain began to swing it in a slow loop, creating a sound like the breeze through the city at night. The one with the pole tapped it against the cobbles. The Soul Seeker just smiled and cycled his cards in a warmup exercise. He was going to relish this as much as he could.

Well, he wouldn’t be smiling much longer. I glanced through the three of towers to be sure everything was in place, then I flicked it down into the center of the square.

They all stared down at it.

“Cute,” said the guild enforcer with the pole. “But you know we’ve got a real Soul Seeker, right? Not just a pretender in a stolen robe?”

Oh. So these hunters had been quite ill-informed, indeed. “Gentlemen,” I said, ignoring him, for the moment. “Perhaps you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”

Iron ball scowled. “Pretty sure we grouped up to track you down.”

“And a fine job of it you did,” I said. “But I suppose I ought rephrase that.” I sent my will into the three of towers. “Perhaps you should be wondering why I’ve gathered you here, today.”

Annalisa stuck her fingers into her ears.

An odd look passed over the Soul Seeker’s face, and then he sent his will into his deck.

The street around us erupted.

Chapter 84 - A Message for the Guild

You could argue that showmanship robbed our advantage, or you could argue that the display of confidence enhanced it. Whichever side of the rail you fell, you’d have to argue it very loudly, since all the wards I’d placed around the square over the past week detonated at once, and this was one of the three squares I’d concentrated them most heavily.

Even if we can’t always pick our fights, we can sometimes pick our battlegrounds. The Soul Seeker’s guild had sent an arrogant, cocksure seeker after me, and he’d come to track me in Barrowdown. Barrowdown was my house. I hadn’t spent the last months fending off sharks, orcs, narcotic peddlers,  and every penny-scammer in the downs just to give it up when the first guild muscle came calling. I’d studied the wards, just as I’d promised myself. I’d found something with some bite that was within my range. Picked a few strategic locations around the district and went to work with a card over my eye and a lump of sorcerer’s chalk. What I’m saying is, I’d taken steps. Now, thanks to those steps, the guild lackies were taking flight.

The thug with the pole was knocked clean off his feet and through the front face of a storefront. Iron ball and long-knives got hit with about half a wall’s worth of splinters and flying daub, sending them sprawling to the cobbles. The cobbles under the robed Seeker bucked, but a quick trick of his cards saved him from the worst of it.

Annalisa took her fingers out of her ears and went to work. A touch of the three of dragons saw her leaping through a frost tunnel and dropping right above the seeker’s head with a punch that barely missed, and spread a spiderweb of frost across the broken cobbles. She had a lot of practice sparring with me while I had next to no practice fighting Soul Seekers. You’d think that since I know what they’re capable of, I’d be one step ahead. Well, the enforcer had probably fought dozens of unlicensed seekers. Attacking him directly would be playing to his strengths. Being one step ahead was sending a close-range brawler to smash through everything he could throw at her.

I headed for Iron ball. Long-knives was out out. But the other brawler was already climbing to his feet, showing surprising resilience. Before he could recover, I snaked out my deck and charged the tip with the two of knaves, creating a cutting whip that forced him to draw his hand away from his weapon. He scrabbled back, oddly lithe for a tough his size, and I used the momentum of the cards to snap the lash around and send a half-dozen charged cards flying toward him with lethal intent. He scrabbled back, managing to scoop one end of the chain up and pull the ball into a spin.

He shot the iron projectile back out at me, flowing like water into a wide arc that would have taken my ankles out from under me if I hadn’t jumped when I did, over top of where it sparked off the cobbles. Faster than I would have thought possible, he pulled the other end of the chain and his ball came back, swinging this time into a vertical arc. I stepped to the side and called my cards back to me. Iron ball was fully engaged now, and I gave ground, searching for an opening while tapping the four of dragons to expose any weaknesses.

I discovered something else, entirely.

I cursed and pulled my dagger. Iron ball pulled out something too: a Deck of Wills.

“They sent two of you after me?” I asked.

Iron ball fanned out his deck and charged a pair of cards with his will. The chain on his ball began to warp, flowing like water—some sort of streams suit enchantment that made its motions hard to follow. In that moment of distraction, a solid force bowled me over, pushing me across the cobbles. I groaned, rolling onto my hands and pushing back up. I knew that attack. I’d suffered it enough times at the hand of Tanlith Guifoyle.

Streams and lances.

“Reading suggested we ought take you serious,” said Iron ball. He lashed out, sending a wave through the chain that resulted in the length of it crashing like a breaking wave. I barely got out of the way, and it dug a furrow in the cobbles at my feet. The lances came again, but I met them with the two of towers, arranging my deck like a fence and straining will-against-will with the more experienced seeker. I grit my teeth and glanced down at the possessed dagger. It’s eye was closed.

“Wake up, damn you!” I hissed. I hadn’t gotten it to speak to me again since I’d pulled it out of the undercity and tried to uncover its secrets. I’d seen what it could do, and it had recognized me as its new owner, but certainly given no indication that it would cooperate since. It didn’t seem eager to impress me now. Still, the sleeping dagger was sharper even than the masterwork scale-etched knife I’d taken off the Mayazian bruiser. If I could get close to Iron ball, it would cut all the same. Easier said than done, mind you.

“Towers and knaves, huh?” he said, grinning. “This’ll be interesting.

To my side, the other soul seeker seemed to be holding off Annalisa—if barely. Her repeated punches and kicks met with walls of the seeker’s own, held solid by his will. Of the three, only he had no weapon, and it seemed he’d developed his ability to use the cards themselves as one, just as I’d been learning to do. Only, he’d had years of practice, and it showed. A wide arc of cards caught Annalisa across the midsection and lifted her off her feet, sending her spiraling through the air. Worse yet, I could see the pole-armed one picking his way out of the storefront wreckage. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts, and still somewhat dazed, but not out of the fight.

I pushed in against Iron ball behind a bulwark reinforced by the two of towers but held one card in reserve behind them. Iron ball fanned out his deck again, pulling another spear card to his hand. But as soon as he sent his will into it, I split my bulwark of cards and exposed the face of the two of storms.

Iron ball’s eyes went wide as the energy from his own will shoved itself back into the card. It proved too powerful for the card to handle, and it burst into flame in his hand.

“Fates!” he swore, throwing the ruined card down. “He’s got storms!”

The leader of their little hunting party was in poor position to answer, doing everything he could to fight off my partner. She leapt up for an overhand right, and when the cards came up to block, her fist dropped through a portal and caught the Soul Seeker on the side of the knee. He buckled over, going down on that side, and Annalisa landed a kick to the side of his head that sent him sprawling.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught the fighter with the pole coming up on my flank, but he skidded to a halt when he saw his ally slide across the ground. I held my knife at the ready.

“I’ve got this,” said Iron Ball, spinning his ball, prior mirth forgotten. “Go help Dallers,”

Dallers, Dallers, where had I heard that name mentioned? Sometime at the academy, surely. But I couldn’t recall its significance. I didn’t have much time to think about it before the fist-sized ball shot out, aiming for my own kneecap in retribution. I stepped out of the path, and coating the blade with the two of knaves, drove my dagger down through one of his chain links and into the cobbles.

The seeker enforcer tugged, but the knife was magic and the keening enchantment didn’t break at the first sign of resistance the way it had on lesser blades. Handy, that.

“Don’t like seeing me burn your cards, do you?” I asked, pulling another card into my hand.

Iron ball scowled, dropping the chain and calling a card from his own deck.

“I don’t plan on stopping at one,” I said, and blew into the two of dragons.

The night lit up with brilliant, scarlet flame as the card turned my breath to dragonfire in the night. The column of fire speared out, searing half of Iron ball’s deck before he had a chance to react. The dragons in my deck roared with approval. The pole user skidded to a stop and stared at the fire, before changing his mind yet again and heading back toward me.

I didn’t desperately empty my lungs into the card as I had in the tunnels beneath the city. A dragon is always in control. “The downs don’t recognize guild authority,” I shouted behind me, before taking another deep, measured breath. Iron ball did his best to get the rest of his cards between me and him, giving him a chance to retreat. I took the opportunity to reduce his greatest weapon to a pile of cinders.

“He’s got dragons, too?!” shouted the confused bruiser.

Iron ball was already on the retreat, so I turned to the hapless fighter facing down a mage with a stick and a prayer. “Did they tell you I was a fake?” I asked. “That I had one, maybe two cards I could call upon?”

He threw down his stick, backing away. “They didn’t tell me shit!” he said. “I just took this job for some extra silver. Ain’t none of this worth it!”

He turned to run. I let him go, moving to retrieve my dagger before moving to where Annalisa had subdued the lead enforcer in a pile of shredded cards. She still burned with the intensity of the three of dragons—though the drain didn’t seem as bad as it once was. Not since meeting the Heiress. I don’t know if that’s because my fitness had improved or because I’d become more attuned than ever to the suit. Perhaps both.

I squatted down over the defeated seeker enforcer, watching his warlord arcana flicker and sputter.

“I expected more from the guild,” I said.

“Well, maybe the guild should have expected more from you,” spat the seeker. “You’re obviously guild-trained. Quad-suited to boot?”

He held his hand out to call the cards back to his hand, but I sent my will out as well, wrestling him for control of his own deck. His face twisted with effort But he was exhausted from fighting Annalisa. I knew how that could be. Hell, even talking to her could be exhausting. Still, his focus was like steel, and it clashed against mine as sharply as any sword.

I concentrated harder, making my will resonate with the inverse suits in his deck—those would be the first to defect. His towers tried to deny me, but I sidled in and slipped past their guard. Storms fought me, matching will to will. Rather than battle them, I let them wash over me and settle into a calm. The dragons raged against me, proud and strong. I became one of them, and then showed them I was stronger.

“How are you doing that?” the guild enforcer seethed from behind clenched teeth. He tried to send his will into my deck as well, but the towers shut him out as if he stared at a wall ten paces thick. He flinched back as if struck. “Who are you?”

The knaves in his deck reached out to me. I don’t think they much cared for the seeker. Thought his tactics to be the wrong sort of underhanded. They offered an open door and I stepped through it. After that, the rest of the suits folded beneath my will. His deck crumbled under my intent, the portraits on the cards sizzling as I excised the wills from his deck—leaving nothing but singed plaques of polished wood. I picked one up. The two of knaves. Appropriate.

I handed him the ruined card. “Just one who seeks truth in mystery,” I said, quoting an oft-spoken mantra from the academy. I looked him up and down. “Take off your robe.”

He didn’t move.  I nodded to Annalisa, and she reached out, flipping over the enforcer and dropping him right out of the garment. I shrugged out of my own robe and swung his around my shoulders. It was in much better condition, and padded with armor panels, to boot. I tossed the other one down. “Here. You came for missing guild property? Now you’ve got it.” I tugged the lapels of the robe. “I think this is a fair trade for your life. Don’t come back to Barrowdown unless you’ve got something even nicer to give me, yeah?”

“Fuck you,” he said.

I tsked him. “See to your friends. I have an engagement.”

With Annalisa in tow, I turned east, stopping to pull my demon dagger from the cobbles.

“Fat lot of help you were,” I muttered.

The blade vibrated with annoyance in my hand. I stopped, fumbling for the four of knaves.

It yawned, sending an impression of fatigue across the deviltongue. “Wake me when there’s blood,” it said. Its awareness faded once more. I shivered.

“Come on,” said Annalisa, excitedly. She’d already pushed the fight aside to make room for new ideas. “I want to play Hawks and Wheels!”

Chapter 85 - The Shrine of Fortune’s Favor

“Were those the guys you were so worried about?” asked Annalisa, leaning over and prodding the padded areas of my robe with the tip of her tail.

“Just the first wave,” I said. “We were lucky they were so arrogant. How’d their leader fight?”

“Like a mage,” Annalisa flexed her biceps. “One that never hits the ash for a scrap. You guys need to do more press-ups.”

“I’ll add it to my growing to-do list,” I said, angling us toward the Lucitian Shrine. But wait, you might say. I thought you were going to a gaming house.

You’d be right. And my answer to that would be that religion is a funny thing. Some (few) religions make sense. Of these, I include the temple of Trawmir, saint of Anglers, Old Stoneface, the mountain god of the dwarves, and Choklar, the god of hangry snacking whose portly clerics push wheeled shrines and sell honeyed nuts and pigeon pies throughout the streets of Dragonmaw under the icon of a sugarcane stalk. Many a late night studying at the academy was made possible by those carts.

Slightly more eclectic are the disconnected-from-time adherents of Skein, and the savages who worship various wilds god beasts. Most strange of all is the Atheist Temple, whose sigil is a lightning rod. Even with real estate at a premium in the upper city, the nearest building to the local Atheist’s Temple is a full ten paces away.

Then, you have Lucita. Lucita is the goddess of odds and wagers. If you’ve ever watched the stone roll across a roulette wheel and offered a prayer, it was to Lucita. If you’ve ever prayed for that three of spades to finish out your straight and had it come up? Lucita stacked your deck. If you ever… look, she’s the goddess of gambling. You get the idea. Naturally, all of her shrines are gaming houses, filled with her followers offering praise and curse alike in her name. Her adherents keep the tables running and the coin flowing, and does it ever flow.

In my humble view, most of the religions in the city are little more than ways to part a fool from their silver. Lucita’s temple at least posts the odds of getting some of it back. That’s more than any wishing well will do for you. I’ve never seen a Temple of Fate collection plate with a 6/4 split, either. Shrines to Lucita are the only places where you can leave a church richer than when you entered—unless you run the church, of course.

And her adherents hate seekers. We’re the antithesis of chance and unforeseen outcomes. We suss the truth and the order of the universe while Lucitians revel in the murk of uncertainty. We throw off the odds and make even seasoned gamblers blanche.

We’re also not super fun at parties.

I knew we were getting close when the old guard barracks loomed above the top terrace of Barrowdown. Any further east and we’d end up in the unsheathing that buffered us from Hollowdown. There’s no guards in the guard barracks. That’s why it’s called the old guard barracks, and not just the guard barracks. Even before Margot Bethane wiped out what remained of the official city guard, it had become a pale shadow of its former self. But that shadow gathered here, and the fel witch caved half of it in with a wave of her hand. She was quick to turn the skeleton crew into a skeleton crew, if you take my meaning. She must have learned some of the northern necromancy along with her more blasphemous secrets.

Though many of their bones still lay beneath the rubble of the north wing. The south wing that still stood—well, leaned—had become home to vagrants, shrum addicts, foreign sailors too drunk to figure out the sea was downhill, and all other manner of degenerate. Graffiti marred every wall in more languages than I could count. Some had been scratched away to make room for new markings, or even just scrawled over top to create an incomprehensible mess of both tags that was somehow still more legible than Mithra’s handwriting.

You would think with the Shrine of Lucita so close by, it would also be home to debtors. But they tend to find religion right fast when the paladins stand behind them with a cudgel and a pile of IOTs (or I owe thee’s if you’ve had the good sense to steer clear of gaming dens). Most converts of the Odds Goddess become so to pay down that debt—which is a tight racket because they’d already been giving all their money to the church anyway.

Perhaps I should have become a cleric.

Finding the shrine wasn’t difficult. If anything, it would have been harder to ignore the place. Three stories of palatial stone looked quite out of place in the middle city, especially shaped and stacked to look like an old-fashioned peaked castle complex from the Mausoleum planes, with a carved visage of the goddess and her, ahem, ample blessings, that gave Felatitia’s icon of lust a run for its cleavage.

Lucita’s colors were red and white, and one of her adherents stood out front in a patchwork ruffled outfit yelling praises, odds, and drink special prices to passers by. His expression fell when he saw my seekers robes.

“Look,” he said, “I think you might be lost. The guild is in the upper city, up that big hill, schoolboy. That’s why the call it the upper city.” He leered at Annalisa. “She can come in.”

Annalisa whooped and shot through the door, leaving me with the door cleric, who continued to eye me suspiciously.

“I’m not with the guild,” I told him.

“And I’m a farmer. Wanna taste my gourds?”

I scowled. I didn’t just trade spells with two seekers just to be roadblocked by an entry-level altar boy. I snapped my fist out, low and direct. The door cleric’s eyes bulged, and he doubled over, gasping.

“Don’t think they’re ripe yet,” I commented, stepping over him. Several of the patrons stared at the curled up, moaning moron. “When you can get your boots beneath you, tell your boss that Barrowdown is at the bar to talk business.”

“Hulgh-fack my arse.”

I pulled my hood up and stepped into the shrine. I was immediately assaulted by a cascade of lights, music, and a see of flickering card crowns that made me dizzy.

This wasn’t like some seedy, dockside dice table shoved in the corner of a whore-house. This was gambling taken to a religious expression. Clerics presided over grand gaming displays, running odds and moving wagers with crops according to sacred forms. Not every patron was a worshiper, of course. Annalisa, professional blasphemer that she was, had already managed to find a bottle of something, and she was currently splashing it over everyone nearby as she shouted at the dealer of a Stakes table—which has rules and a board more complicated than any of the wards in Alondalis’ book.

Beneath vaulted ceilings, smokeless lanterns kept the interior daylight-bright. Hells, this gallery of games might be better lit than the finest libraries in the upper city. It had to be, in order to catch would-be cheaters. You had to be pretty brazen to risk cheating when you were playing against a capital-G God, though. A quick touch of my four of dragons showed me several floating constructs with enchantments of scrying. It also showed me several of the church paladins with concealed weapons patrolling the shrine floor. They’d already marked me, and two moved to flank my movement.

I didn’t give them any reason to draw their weapons. The holy weapon of the Lucitian church is the paired brass knuckles—which, while I didn’t want to run afoul of them, probably didn’t measure up well against Mayazian knives and swords. Still, it was surprising they’d attacked at all. Shrines aren’t exactly soft targets. But the bigger question was, why was mother Mayaz sniffing around here at all?

I made my way to the upstairs bar on the second level, two shrine enforcers close behind. The upstairs bar was at the back of a lounge, kept darker for ambiance, with a small raised stage at the front. Paper lantern versions of the twin dragons flitted about on invisible air currents near the ceiling, spinning and circling each other much as the real ones did over Dragonmaw each night. Though these filled the lounge with the soft, warm light of flickering candles.

The bartender, of course, was also a cleric—a dwarven one, who offered an assortment of ‘sacraments’ to the others at the bar but just offered me an unimpressed look as he put his palms flat on the table. “Seeker, I think ye may be lost.”

“Your man at the door said something similar,” I said. “I took a chance anyway.” I pulled a pair of cunnings out and put them on the bar top. The dwarf still gave me the stink-eye as he swept the coins across. “Kalash lager, if you’ve got any.”

Orcs may be assholes, but they still brew the best beer on the Bastard, thanks to the sniffers on the little ones. The primary exports from Kalash are beer, followed closely by widows. At a smattering of applause and whistles, I spun around in my chair. The fanfare marked the arrival of the next performer. I craned my neck, hoping to see one of the vaunted magic shows that were a stable in Lucitian shrines—which ironically contained zero magic. Skilled artists made effects as though through arcane means, but in ways that left wizards worrying their beards in confusion.

Instead, I watched Mithra step onto the stage in a corset that left even less to the imagination than her usual getup at the Mop that she wore when entertaining clients. Even more surprising, she began to sing. That was a talent I didn’t even know she had. She caught my eye, winked, and before I knew it I found myself captivated by both her voice and her sinuous movements across the stage. After so much time spent working with her, I sometimes forgot that Mithra’s primary living was made through making others desire her. And she was good at it. Even half the courtesans in the lounge had they eyes glued to her with either envy or desire. Hells watching her pace across the stage, even I was reconsidering my no-paid-company policy.

A drakkyn woman slid into the chair next to me, watching me admiring Mithra. I noticed the paladins shadowing me tense up a bit.

“She’s quite the showgirl,” said the Drakkyn. “Fire in her heart. Fuels her performance.”

I nodded my assent.

The dwarven barkeep pushed over a glass of bubbling liquid without the woman even ordering, and she accepted it before twisting her neck to regard me. “She has the eyes of every man and half the women in this room. Yet hers are reserved only for you, as is her praise. Tell me, Seeker. Why is that?”

“Maybe I’m just a lucky, lucky man,” I said.

“I’m thinking not.” she tilted her head as though listening to something. “In fact, I’d wager most of your life has been marked by misfortune.”

I managed to tear my eyes off Mithra long enough to regard the unadorned red and white blouse, vest, and skirts the woman wore. She might have been dressed as a simple pit priest, but I got the distinct impression she knew as well as I the value of being underestimated.

“Finish your drink, enjoy the show, and then let’s retire to a less distracting venue.”