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I look suspiciously at the coin in my hand. An Elvish double unicorn. Very rare. Very valuable. #2 | | |
"We will pay you another one if you find it." #3 | | |
I look suspiciously at my visitors. Elves are very well regarded in Turai—fine upstanding race, good warriors, excellent poets, beautiful singers, kind to trees, at one with nature and so on—but I have my reservations. In my line of trade I've seen some evidence of Elvish misbehaviour that most people haven't. #4 | | |
Okay, I've never come across an Elf who was a vicious killer like some Humans I've known but I've certainly encountered a few with distinctly criminal tendencies. What's more, in my business a visit from an Elf usually means trouble, because if they have any sort of minor problem then their Ambassador sorts it out for them, with plenty of help from our authorities, who always like to keep on their good side. #5 | | |
Yet here are two young Elves, green-clad, tall, fair and golden-eyed, and they want to hire me. Hire me to find the Red Elvish Cloth. The substance is plaguing me. I've already explained my involvement in the whole affair is accidental. "If you heard a rumour I have it, it's just that, a rumour. I don't know how it got started but I've no idea where the Cloth is." #6 | | |
"We have heard no such rumours," states Callis-ar-Del, the older of the two. "We have come here because our cousin, Vas-ar-Methet, loyal adviser to Lord Kalith-ar-Yil, who sent the Cloth, recommended you to us as a clever and trustworthy man." #7 | | |
I enjoy being called a clever and trustworthy man. I look on the young Elves with more sympathy. #8 | | |
More importantly, the name of Vas-ar-Methet takes me back. One of the very few Elves I've ever been really friendly with, he came up from the Southern Islands with an Elvish battalion in the last Orc Wars. #9 | | |
After the western forces took a beating we ended up sharing a ditch together along with Gurd, ingloriously if prudently hiding from a large Orcish dragon patrol scouting the area. We hid for three days before fighting our way back to safety. Sneaking back to safety might be more accurate actually, but we did have to cut our way through a band of Orcish warriors before we reached the city. It's one of our favourite wartime stories. I relate it at least once a week in the bar downstairs. #10 | | |
"How is Vas these days?" #11 | | |
"He is well. His tree of life grows strong with the sky." #12 | | |
I don't exactly know what that means but decide not to pursue it. #13 | | |
"Before we left the Islands he instructed us to come to you if we found ourselves unable to make progress." #14 | | |
The Elves have been sent from the Southern Islands by their Elf Lord to locate the missing Cloth but they have made no progress. So here they are. They've been to their Ambassador, seen our Consul, been to Palace Security, consulted the Civil Guard and asked around at various Investigating Sorcerers uptown, all to no effect. Which brings them to Twelve Seas—rotting fish heads, stinking sewers, cheap detective. Welcome to the big city. #15 | | |
I shrug. Since I'm already involved in this affair, someone might as well pay me now I've been sacked by the Princess. I agree to take the case. The Elves, Callis and his companion Jaris-ar-Miat, tell me what they know, which isn't much. Their Elf Lord, Kalith-ar-Yil, sent up the Cloth on a ship bound for Turai, but it had to put in south of Mattesh because of storm damage. Rather than wait for repairs to be completed the Cloth was loaded on to a wagon train and sent up to the city. Somewhere along the way the escort was murdered and the Cloth disappeared. And that's about it. Callis and Jaris don't seem to have learned anything since being sent to investigate, but then they're not professionals. #16 | | |
I stare again at the double unicorn in my hand. Very valuable indeed. And another one to follow if I locate the Red Elvish Cloth. That would go a long way towards paying off the Brotherhood. Then there's the reward for the Cloth offered by the Consul. Things might be looking up. I might even earn enough to get out of Twelve Seas. The Elves prepare to leave. A very well-mannered pair. They haven't wrinkled their noses at the state of my rooms. #17 | | |
Makri appears, failing to knock as usual. She is taken aback and gawps dumbly at the Elves, who stare back at her. Their manners let them down. They can sense her Orcish blood and it requires little insight to see they don't like it at all. They edge away from her uncomfortably. A look of annoyance flickers over Makri's face. #18 | | |
"Well?" she demands, aggressively. #19 | | |
The Elves nod to me and hurry out. I ask Makri what she wants. #20 | | |
"Nothing. I've got work to do," she says with what she probably imagines is dignity, and storms out, banging the door behind her. #21 | | |
I'm annoyed. I don't like to see Makri upset, but before I can pursue her Pontifex Derlex appears at my door. I try to look like a man who woke up in time for morning prayers. The Pontifex expresses concern for the attack last night. #22 | | |
"I'm fine," I assure him. "Me and Makri fought them off." #23 | | |
Derlex suppresses a grunt. His concern for my welfare doesn't extend to Makri. With her Orcish blood, chainmail bikini and sword-wielding abilities, Makri is about one step up from a demon from the underworld in the eyes of the Church. #24 | | |
"I am gravely concerned at the increase in crime in the Twelve Seas," says the Pontifex, fingering his sacred beads. "As is Bishop Gzekius." #25 | | |
I grunt. "I doubt Bishop Gzekius will lose much sleep over me, Pontifex." #26 | | |
Derlex looks pained. "The Bishop is concerned with the welfare of every one of his flock," he says. #27 | | |
He keeps a straight face, which is more than most people could do when attributing Bishop Gzekius with any sort of charitable feelings. The good Bishop Gzekius, whose pastoral responsibilities include Twelve Seas and the rest of Turai's miserable dockland slums, is an ambitious schemer with his eyes on the Archbishopric. He's far too busy striving for power and influence among the city's aristocracy to worry about the poor of Twelve Seas, or anywhere else. #28 | | |
"Why did the gang attack you?" #29 | | |
I profess not to know, and usher Derlex out after again promising to attend his church. I'm finding this concern for my health a little hard to take, particularly before breakfast. #30 | | |
My breakfast is a cheerless affair, eaten under the frosty gaze of Makri who is currently as angry as an Orc with a toothache. She slams my plate down on my table and refuses to speak. #31 | | |
"Don't you think you're being a bit over-sensitive?" I venture, as she passes with a mop in her hands. #32 | | |
"I don't know what you're talking about," she snaps, brandishing the mop in a quite dangerous #33 | | |
manner. "I'm as happy as an Elf in a tree." #34 | | |
She mops under a chair, knocks it over, and stamps on the remains. #35 | | |
Customers arrive for an early drink, ending our discussion. I curse the delicate sensitivities of my axe-wielding friend and prepare for a day's investigating. I go down to the local Civil Guard station to see if Guardsman Jevox can throw any light on things. I once used my influence to protect Jevox's father from the Brotherhood when they were threatening his livelihood as a bookmaker at the Stadium Superbius, which makes Jevox rather more helpful to me than your average Civil Guardsman. #36 | | |
"Any leads on the theft of the Red Elvish Cloth?" #37 | | |
Jevox is surprised at my question. "You working on that?" #38 | | |
I look vacant and he doesn't press the point. Jevox has heard about the fight at my house with the Society of Friends, but he can't throw any light on why they or anybody else should have thought I had the Cloth. He does tell me that the Society is rumoured to have been connected to the hijacking, though there's nothing definite. #39 | | |
"Are you saying they don't have it any more?" #40 | | |
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I ask him to let me know if the Guard makes any progress, particularly on the name of the Sorcerer #42 | | |
who might be working with the Society, and Jevox agrees. He asks me how I got mixed up in it. #43 | | |
Naturally I decline to explain. "What's the reward?" #44 | | |
"Just went up to five hundred gurans." #45 | | |
A nice figure to a man in urgent need of money. Tholius, Prefect of Twelve Seas, arrives unexpectedly and throws me out. Tholius doesn't like me. Prefects never do. Any time I solve something it makes them feel inadequate. #46 | | |
Outside the Civil Guard station some young kid from the Koolu Kings, the local street gang, shouts a disparaging remark about fat men who always gamble on the wrong chariots. I scoop up a stone and hurl it at him in one smooth movement. It hits him on the nose and he bursts into tears. #47 | | |
"Never mock a trained soldier, brat." #48 | | |
Palax and Kaby are busking beside the harbour. Both are dressed in their usual bizarre assortment of shabby but colourful clothes. They augment their outfits with many strings of beads and great numbers of earrings. Each of them wears a metal stud piercing their left eyebrow (among other parts of their anatomies) and they dye their hair in colours bright enough to get any normal citizen attacked in the street, though as travelling entertainers they have some licence in this sort of thing. Their horse-drawn caravan is parked on a patch of waste ground behind Gurd's tavern. I was shocked the first time I saw them, and recommended that Gurd ran them off the land, but I'm used to them now. They're actually a nice young couple and we're quite friendly. It's beyond me why they have to look so strange though. I mean, pierced noses and eyebrows? Ridiculous. I listen to them play for a minute, and drop a coin into their cup. #49 | | |
It's time to visit the Mermaid, one of Twelve Seas" least pleasant taverns, which is saying something. More youths from the Koolu Kings jeer at me as I pass. Everyone in Twelve Seas knows me, but I wouldn't claim to be popular. The prostitutes and dwa dealers ignore me as I pick my way over the filth strewn over the street. #50 | | |
