DF259 - Let The Funk Flow (Aris) (Patreon)

Aris watched the tower burn with no small amount of satisfaction. There was something primal about seeing the destruction of a valuable real estate that belonged to her enemy. Or maybe she just liked watching fires, and the bigger the better.

This was a pretty big fire. It was quite high up, too, which mitigated the danger to onlookers and the nearby buildings. A crowd had gathered despite the late hour and seemed to have the same attitude as Aris. Some water had been gathered, but it was mostly being saved for the buildings that weren’t on fire. A few brave souls had tried to get into the tower, but it seemed the wards were still functioning.

“I suppose we know that he’s not in the tower, then,” Aris said as one of the floors collapsed. The outer stone wall was holding up quite well, so it looked like the whole structure was going to turn into a giant chimney.

She turned away from the sight.

“Is that it?” Zaphar asked her.

“I mean, if he was going to come and try and save something, he would already be here by now,” Aris said. “We should get some sleep and try something new in the morning.”

“Lady Nos,” Zaphar said. Aris winced. Zaphar never called her that.

“What?” she said with resignation.

“This was the extent of your plan? Destroy his home in a fit of pique? In the hope that he’d show up to be shot?”

“He deserved it!” Aris managed to keep her voice down. No one needed to hear voices shouting from the rooftop. “He’s trying to kill Anton!”

“Of course, of course,” Zaphar said placatingly. “But what does this gain us? You shot him, true, but wizards have healing magic. He isn’t here, so he must be with them. You’ve announced that you know who he is and that you are coming after him. From here on, he will be much more prepared for a direct assault.”

“I just…” Aris gestured with frustration at the burning building. “This was the only lead we had!”

“And now you have burned it to the ground.” Zaphar cocked his head to the side, considering. “I have heard it said that women who are with child become more emotional—”

“I am not more emotional! This is the exact amount of emotion that is appropriate! Kelsey would have done the same thing!”

Zaphar looked over at the burning building. “Kelsey would have used her ‘demo charges’, but the destruction would have been about the same,” he allowed. “But do you think it is a good idea to use Kelsey as a guide to your actions?”

“Um,” Aris said. She thought about what Anton would say about that. “She’s really smart, though?”

“She is,” Zaphar agreed. “Smarter than you or me. She would be bringing the tower down, but she would be having a plan to pick treasure from the rubble. Copying her tactics without her strategy doesn’t help anyone.”

“Well, why’d you go along with me, if you thought it was a bad idea?”

“You are the one in charge,” Zaphar reminded her. “And… it was seeming like you had more of a plan in mind. Some reason to think he would show up.”

“Why wouldn’t he? All his stuff is here!”

“A wizard who has accepted a commission from a king must have access to resources beyond his own possessions,” Zaphar mused.

“So what do you think we should do?”

Zaphar thought about it. “I have some ideas, but they can wait for morning. We can get some sleep for tonight.”

“As long as it’s not in that terrible inn,” Aris said. “I want a good night’s sleep.

Zaphar nodded vigorously. “Yes, let us find a more suitable inn. A good night’s sleep is said to be most effective in settling one’s emotional disposition.”

*

Aris was going to make Zaphar pay for that remark, but the truth was that after a night’s rest on a soft, clean bed and a hearty breakfast, she was starting to think that she had been overreacting.

“Enjoy it while it lasts, love,” the server said when she plonked the plates down. “Food’ll get a lot tighter once the siege starts.”

“Do you think she’s right?” Aris murmured. Zaphar shook his head.

“Anton is bringing Kelsey’s big guns,” he muttered quietly. They will break down the walls. There might be hard fighting, but there won’t be a siege.”

Aris frowned. Anton was sure to be in the thick of hard fighting. He worried about her, but she worried about him. A confused melee was the perfect time for an assassin to step in, wielding a deathtouch dagger.

“We have to find this wizard,” she said firmly.

“We know his name,” Zaphar said mildly. “There are people in the city who keep track of where important people go, who they talk to. Varesh is one such person—whoever he went to would be another.”

“And they’d just tell us? Like that priest did?”

“No,” Zaphar chuckled. “They make a living selling information, so they will charge us. Maybe more than we can afford. But that is not the real problem.”

“What is?” Aris asked, sopping up her egg yolk with a hunk of bread. They ate well in the city.

“The problem is that someone is looking for us, or will be soon. They might go to the same information broker.” Zaphar poked at his bacon.

“And we might run into them? No, wait, it’s worse than that.”

“By going to the broker, we introduce ourselves,” Zaphar said, spelling it out. “Right now, the broker doesn’t know who we are, so he can’t sell that information.”

“But after, he can. And he’ll know what we’re after as well,” Aris finished. “Can we pay him not to tell anyone about us?”

“That gets expensive, and it can motivate the less trustworthy types to hunt for who might pay more than we can.”

“Well, do you know any of the more trustworthy types?” Aris asked hopefully.

“I don’t know any brokers,” Zaphar answered. “I know where we can find them, but trust… can be hard to find.”

“Unlike you two,” a strange man said, sliding into the bench on Aris’s side of the table. He had deep brown skin and dark hair and was wearing a long, leather coat. He jumped up immediately as Aris’s good mood evaporated.

“Hold on there, girl!” he exclaimed, holding out his palm placatingly. “I’m just here to talk.”

Aris glared at him, one hand on the grip of her pistol. She hadn’t drawn it; he must have some kind of danger sense that had detected his imminent death. The rest of the room was starting to stir, either at his antics or because they also had some Trait that sensed danger. Aris clamped down on Erase Presence, letting the rest of the room relax.

The man relaxed… a fraction. Unlike the rest of the room, he knew where the threat had come from. He knew it hadn’t gone anywhere.

“Sat next to the girl because you thought she was less dangerous?” Zaphar chuckled. “You must forgive her; she’s—”

Aris switched her glare to Zaphar.

“Worried about her man,” Zaphar corrected smoothly. “Sit next to me, I love talking.”

The man slowly eased himself onto the bench next to Zaphar, his eyes never leaving Aris. “Are you seriously thinking of trying something here? There are a dozen witnesses!”

Aris raised an eyebrow. “Won’t save you,” she murmured.

“Some introductions might relax things some,” Zaphar said. “You seem to already know who we are.”

“Corvin Marr,” the man said. “I don’t know your names, but you were in the Copper Stag yesterday.”

Zaphar held up a hand to forestall Aris, but his eyes went cold. He returned the introductions, and then casually returned to his meal.

“What makes you say that, Corvin Marr?”

“Let me tell you a story.” Corvin put his hands on the table and sighed. He half-turned to address Zaphar, but kept a wary eye on Aris. “Last night, a woman came banging on my door—my office door, you understand. This isn’t that kind of story.”

“You keep late hours,” Zaphar said mildly.

“Crime never sleeps, and neither do rich widows,” Corvin replied. “This particular widow had been married to Mastersmith Garran Vey. Who is dead.”

“We didn’t kill him,” Aris blurted.

Corvin blinked and stared at her. “Throwing that out there this early only makes you look guilty,” he told her. “I never said you killed him, and I don’t think you did. Well…” his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t until you showed how murderous you were.”

“Dangerous, my friend,” Zaphar put in. “Not murderous. It’s not that she seeks death, but she deals it very, very quickly. That is what your Trait is detecting.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Corvin said, shivering. “Anyway, Vey and his apprentice were killed at the same time, but in very different ways. Vey was killed by a very sharp knife, while Tavian didn’t have a mark on him. The very valuable commission Vey was working on was gone.”

Aris scowled and pushed further on Erase Presence. She resolved not to say anything more.

“So I asked around,” Corvin continued. “I heard about how you both expressed opinions about how Vey treated his wife. I tracked you to his workshop.”

“We were never in his workshop,” Zaphar said carefully.

Corvin nodded. “That might be true, that might be true. I never found a trace of you inside. Your trail ended just before the doorway.”

He scowled. “Of course, your trail ended entirely at that point. As far as I can tell, you never left, so you must have some way of covering your tracks.”

“Could we not have just retraced our steps?”

“You think I was tracking your footsteps over cobblestones? It doesn’t work that way!”

“Then how does it work?”

Corvin shook his head. “You think I’d tell you? Regardless, people who express concerns about battered wives aren’t the sort of people who would cut a man down in cold blood.”

He looked over at Aris. “Normally.”

“We didn’t enter the workshop,” Zaphar confirmed. “We heard what happened, and we know who the killer is.”

“Who?”

Zaphar looked at Aris. “Should we work with him?”

Aris frowned. Zaphar had been handling everything up to now, so why was he deferring to her? Anton was the rightful King, so that made her important in some technical sense… but…

“Whatever you think is smart,” she muttered. “You’re better at this than me.”

Zaphar nodded. “The murder is named Jalen Varesh.”

Corvin looked thoughtful. “I’ve heard the name,” he said. “Recently, in fact. Didn’t his workshop burn down recently?”

“We’re currently looking for him,” Zaphar said with an apologetic smile.

“Not for this,” Corvin mused. “You only met Vey last night and didn’t get off on the right foot. Or had you heard he was connected to Varash?”

“We hadn’t; it was pure coincidence,” Zaphar said. “We only found out that we were after him when we found out about his commission.”

“A Tier Four dagger is worth killing someone,” Corvin commented. “I don’t know if it’s worth setting fire to the Poor Quarter, though.”

“It was only the one tower,” Aris mumbled. “It didn’t come close to spreading.”

“Hmm. So are you willing to testify to what you heard to the Mages Guild?”

“Why them?” Aris asked.

“It won’t only be them, but Varash is a wizard,” Corvin said. “They won’t let anything happen to him without some kind of hearing in their guildhall.”

“We are… not keen on dealing with the Guild, or the Guard for that matter,” Zaphar said. “If it is testimony you want, you will need to seek elsewhere.”

“A not uncommon attitude,” Corvin admitted. “Though, paired with your propensity for deadly violence, it tells a story.”

“We’re not the bad guys!” Aris protested. “Varash is the bad guy!”

“His death would see justice served, would it not?” Zaphar asked. “Would that satisfy your widowed employer?”

“It might,” Corvin allowed, “But I’d need to verify he really was the one who killed Vey.”

Zaphar raised an eyebrow. “Is that something you can do?”

“I might,” Corvin said. “It might mean taking him captive, though.”

“Our goal is to prevent him from enchanting the dagger,” Zaphar said. “Killing him, stealing the dagger or capturing him are all ways of achieving this. But none of them are possible if we don’t know where he is.”

“That sounds workable,” Corvin said. “Maybe we can help each other.”