59. [Infinzel] Solstice, Part 7 (Patreon)

Carina Goldstone and Cortland Finiron, Champions of Infinzel

Those they have met so far…

…and those they will meet soon

***

30 Frett, 61 AW

The pyramidal city of Infinzel, North Continent

150 days until the next Granting

Cortland waited by the Garrison entrance off the Underbridge. He had a feeling they would come in that way—Orryn es-Salvado usually did his guard shifts there. The cadet on duty when Cortland arrived raised his eyebrows at the sight of the champion and glanced around nervously. He’d probably been told to keep the door clear for Orryn. Cortland dismissed him.

Even with the outer door closed, Cortland could smell the smoke. They built with too much wood in the outer districts, but then they didn't have much choice in the matter. Permanent structures weren't allowed between the wall and the pyramidal city. The stones grown and cut within Infinzel—many of them by outer district workers—were shipped to other cities and towns. They were not meant for building here.

The pyramidal city should have seen to everyone’s needs. And yet, so much wood and fire.

Cortland didn’t have to wait long with these unpleasant thoughts. Issa Firstdot-Tuarez’s information proved correct. Five young men scuttled in through the side door to the Garrison, led by Orryn, as predicted. Orryn’s features became more rat-like with every passing day—his teeth more pronounced, his ears protruding—perhaps a cost of dabbling so much in the old ways. Or maybe that was just Cortland’s imagination.

All five of them wore the uniform of the Garrison, but Cortland only recognized two besides Orryn. He hadn’t memorized the faces of every cadet, yet these unfamiliar two looked awkward in their uniforms, the sleeves too short for one. Borrowed colors. They didn’t have the Salvado jawline and mane, so Cortland reckoned them for muscle on loan from some merchant interest. They were the ones hurting the most during the strike.

Cortland could smell the fire on them. As a group, they looked twitchy and wild-eyed. Something hadn't gone to plan out there, or else they'd gotten more than they bargained for. Cortland spotted flecks of blood on their gray coats. 

He grunted to get their attention and pushed off the wall he'd been leaning against. All five made a show of straightening up at the sight of him—slowing their pace, breathing deep, like drunks pretending to be sober. Their eyes bounced and their fingers trembled. Cortland knew what it felt like to come down off that combat high. 

“Where are you coming from?” Cortland asked. 

“Patrol,” Orryn said. His left hand dropped to the hilt of his knife—he wore one on each hip—and made a show of flicking ash off the handle. “It's a mess out there, hammerhead. Haven't you noticed?”

Orryn made to breeze by Cortland, bravely leading these others through, keeping his head up in that Salvado way. Cortland put three fingers on Orryn's chest, stopping him. 

“What'd you call me?” Cortland asked. “Cunt?”

Orryn stared down at the shorter Cortland, and his thick fingers, confusion in his eyes. “Ham…” He cleared his throat, thinking better of repeating himself. “Your nickname, champion. Vitt says it all the time–”

“You aren't Vitt, are you?”

It took Orryn a moment to realize that Cortland actually wanted an answer. “No, champion.”

Cortland nodded. “I asked where you were.”

“I told you.” Orryn wetted his lips. “Patrol.”

Cortland scanned the faces behind Orryn. The four all stared at him, some shakier than others. They had the good sense not to open their mouths, at least. 

“Wasn't no patrol assigned to you, rat,” Cortland said. “Don’t make me ask again.”

Orryn glanced over his shoulder, tittered slightly, and then leaned forward to speak quietly to Cortland. “What are you doing, man? We both know there’s work that needs doing out there. You want me to cut you in?”

“We are meant to keep the peace,” Cortland said, his eyes sliding from Orryn to the others. “The king said there should be no reprisals against the outer districts.”

Orryn half-turned to his friends and Cortland caught the subtle way he rolled his beady eyes. “We were simply enforcing existing laws,” he said. “On our patrol.”

Cortland nodded. He was glad for this opportunity. His heart practically soared. There had been too much politics of late and not enough of what Cortland preferred.

“I must not be speaking your language,” Cortland said. “Let me try another.”

Cortland’s hammer was in his hand and thrust under Orryn’s chin before the young noble’s eyes could widen. Although his Ink begged him to unleash more, Cortland used only enough force to knock Orryn’s teeth together. It would’ve been an easy thing to take the lad’s jaw clean off his face. Orryn howled, blood squeezing through his lips from his bitten tongue, and fell onto his back.

Two of the others—the ones who Cortland recognized from the Garrison—immediately dropped to their knees in surrender. The others—the poseurs—they had the temerity to reach into their coats for whatever cudgels they carried.

Good.

Cortland chucked his hammer into the belly of the first, not even bothering with the added velocity he could get from [Hammer Toss]. As that man fell, Cortland used [Weapon Return], snapped his hammer back into his hand, and then simply punched the last man in his face as he stared at the flying weapon. The feeling of a nose breaking beneath his knuckles satisfied Cortland like a cold drink.

“Do you fucks understand me now?” Cortland asked. “I expect you to turn yourselves into the cells. You—”

Cortland paused as Orryn scrambled to his feet, one of his knives out, his face pale around his bloody mouth. He didn’t hesitate—Cortland would at least credit him that—and came right for Cortland’s throat with the blade.

Like a shrug, Cortland used [Greater Shield]. An invisible wall of force slapped Orryn back against the wall. He started to slide down the wall, but Cortland grabbed him by his shirtfront before he could. Cortland pounded his body against the wall—once, twice, he lost count—until he heard the knife jangle against the floor and Orryn’s body had gone entirely limp.

For a moment, Cortland was young again, brawling in a lower tier drinking hole, letting his temper flow like an open tap. That was how Ben Tuarez had found him—pulling him off another man who had the bad luck to test Cortland’s patience.

“You want to see what a man can do?” Cortland roared. “You want that?”

Orryn’s head lolled in response.

“I think he has learned the lesson, Finiron.”

King Cizco stood in the hallway, one hand cupping his elbow while his other hand stroked his neatly trimmed beard. The king had tied back his hair into two braids along the sides of his head and he wore dark gray robes of fur-lined ward-weave. He looked ready for battle, Cortland thought, like he might have dressed sixty years ago when meeting the Orvesian siege.

Or, when striding out to welcome a returning army led by Bel Guydemion.

Cortland took a moment to loom over Orryn, and then stepped back. He made no explanation for the three injured men and the two others still cowering.

“It’s time,” Cizco said. “Henry ignores my messages, so you will accompany me to Soldier’s Rest. They respect you well enough.”

“As you wish,” Cortland said.

As the king came toward him, Orryn reached out a shaky hand from the floor. “Grandfather,” he wheezed through broken teeth. “He… hit me…”

Cizco did not break stride, but he did raise an eyebrow. “Grandfather? Oh, you’re one mine.” He snorted. “Well, that’s a fine thing you’ve done here, isn’t it, Cortland? Should have beaten him in front of Guydemion. Might have buttered the old man up.”

With that, Cizco exited the pyramidal city, stepping out into the Underbridge. Cortland rushed to catch up. He was the ageless king’s only protector.

***

HENRY. IT’S TIME.

The message appeared in black Ink across the charred wall of a hovel. The letters stood out from the burnt wood only because of their glistening wetness. Henry Blacksalve merely grunted and returned to his work, wrapping a young girl’s arm in a poultice of aloe.

His [Healing Touch] had faded, so Henry needed to resort to other methods of aid. The ways his mother had taught him back when he’d grown up in a neighborhood just like this one.

Using [Summon Garden], Henry manifested the ingredients he would need right there in the outer district street. Probably in violation of some ordinance, but let the Garrison come and try to stop him. People brought him a mortar and pestle, clippers, wooden spoons, clean bandages, hot water—he looked at the objects and not the faces. Henry only wanted to work. He made salves for the burnt and packed together lozenges for those who had taken too much smoke. Sweat dampened his back, in spite of the cold.

Henry made an [Empowering Beacon] so that those who had been fighting to keep the fire at bay could stand in its glow and restore their strength. Men and women came to stand around him, warming their hands on the power of the gods. He wondered how many had ever been exposed to magic like that. Probably none of them.

“The king calls for you, Blacksalve,” said a man who had noticed the message on the wall. “Did you not see?”

Henry glanced up, recognizing Watts Stonework. The bouncer whose injury had helped set off this chaos. He wore an elegant lens over his damaged eye, the glass darkned, reflecting the fire on the neighboring block.  

“I saw,” Henry replied. “He can wait. The man has time.”

That made those around him laugh, although Henry hadn’t really meant it as a joke. A sudden itching came over him and he paused his bandaging to scratch at the front of his throat. Black flakes of soot came off beneath his fingernails.

***

King Cizco tilted his head back and took a deep breath of the evening air. 

“Smokey,” he said to Cortland. “Is it always like this?”

“Fires in the warehouse district,” Cortland replied. He didn't feel it necessary to implicate Orryn and the others. He had already doled out punishment for that. “Overzealous code enforcement by our people.”

“Of course.” Cizco sighed. “Our people.”

Cortland had expected to be mobbed when they began their walk from the Underbridge to Soldier's Rest, but it soon became clear that the king had activated some kind of shielding bubble around them. The magic didn't just bump people gently aside, it seemed to stop their eyes from settling on the king at all—their gazes slid across him and Cortland like they were scenery. The hammer master studied the wards glowing across the man's cloak. Briefly, he wondered about the cost of such magic. Had he bought the king that power at the Granting with the wish for agelessness? 

“The people have always been the issue, haven't they?” Cizco mused. “A variable I could never entirely account for.”

Cortland's brow furrowed. “I don't follow.”

Cizco continued on long strides, barely pausing to smile at Cortland. He knew the king's face well—it had seldom changed in all the years he’d known him—and Cortland had not before seen this melancholy resignation.

“You know, Cortland, I have not walked out of the pyramid in decades. Of course, I've been whisked away by the gods for their games, but besides that, I have spent little time outside my walls. I forget the madness that festers beyond my ministrations.”

Cortland grunted. The streets were actually quieter than the last time he had made the walk to Soldier's Rest. Many were probably at the warehouses, preventing the fire from spreading further. To their right, an old woman gutted a fish over a bucket. 

“Do you think you would've ended up out here, if you hadn't pledged to the Garrison?” Cizco asked. “Your family was sinking lower and lower down the tiers. The dues may have one day advanced beyond their skills, and yours.”

Cortland pictured his addled mother tinkering with garbage in her apartments that were far too big for her. He had secured that residence because of his high value to Infinzel, although he had never before considered who had been displaced to put the old woman here. 

“I don't know,” Cortland said harshly. “Why do you ask me this shit?”

“A thoughtful mood, I suppose. I am plagued by them lately,” the king said. “I always knew my path, you see? I knew I would take Infinzel from my brother. I had always known. It was a perfect system for a while, Cortland, though I don’t think any could properly appreciate it. Everyone provided for, everyone fulfilled, a beacon of prosperity and advancement. Yet, I failed to account for the people. Their whims. I failed to account for the gods and how utterly stingy they would become.”

Cortland said nothing, but he tried to memorize every word. He would want to tell Henry about this the next time they met. Or Carina, perhaps. 

“They watch us now,” Cizco continued, glancing skyward. “Do you feel them?”

Cortland looked up, but all he saw was smoke. “Who?”

“The gods. I believe we approach an inflection point, like our dear logician warned us about.”

“A what?”

“It arrives faster than she expected, proving that she is not without her flaws,” Cizco said. His features flattened and he turned to Cortland. “You may yet have to kill her, hammer master.”

“What?” Cortland nearly shouted. 

“Calm yourself. I have not decided truly,” Cizco said. He picked up his pace through the narrow alleys, needing no direction to the broken wall and its hidden courtyard. “Come. My old friend awaits.”

***

Dell Whittle always knew the debt would come due.

There were some days when he let himself believe that maybe it wouldn't, but mostly the knowledge vibrated in the back of his mind like a ticking clock. Some nights he woke up in a cold sweat, imagining that he heard a knock on the door. And there were days when he thought for sure that strangers were staring at him with knowing looks. Even considering those flashes of paranoia, he didn't regret writing that man's name on the coin. He was a bad person, and one that short, baby-faced Dell couldn't handle on his own. So, he'd tossed his coin into the wishing pool hidden in the backstreets of Cruxton's harbor district. 

All things considered, Dell would do it again.

The man died three months after Dell wrote his name. Stabbed to death during a bar fight that verged on a full-fledged riot. Too many bodies swinging too many weapons to figure out who'd done the deed. Dell might have written that off as a bit of good luck—scumbags probably got killed in drunken brawls every day—but that same night he found a dagger coated in dried blood balanced on his barge's chain crank. A receipt. He didn't waste any time tossing the murder weapon into the water, even though he knew you couldn't discard a debt like that so easily. 

The Brokerage let him wait for three years. 

By then, Dell was a successful river-man working out of Cruxton. He moved small batches of precious cargo on his little barge. It had taken years, but he'd saved up and purchased a Gadgeteer water-wheel for the back of his boat so he could take jobs that sent him upriver without hiring on a whole crew of polemen. His ship was fast, maneuverable, and well-maintained. Not a bad life, all in all. A wife and three kids and money enough that they never went hungry. 

At first, he'd thought the woman was a prospective client because she came to find him at his office. She sat across from Dell, his desk between them, and slid his coin back to him. The coin he had written the bad man's name on. Dell picked it up and squeezed it in his fist.

“I am here to collect,” she said. 

Dell steeled himself. “Who is it?” 

He was not a strong man, but he assumed the Brokerage knew that. He would have to kill someone now. That must be how they worked it. Someone had done it for him, now he'd do it for someone else, and these middlemen made sure it all balanced out. They wouldn't give Dell someone who he couldn't handle, would they? That would be bad for business. Unless, of course, someone had written Dell’s name and the Brokerage wanted him to die. But who? He didn’t have any enemies left in the world.

As Dell’s mind spiraled, the assassin cocked her head. “Not who, captain. What and where.”

The Brokerage wanted him to move some cargo upriver. He was supposed to go all the way north on the Troldep until he reached Iceloch, the frozen bay situated in the shadow of the Nortmost. Once there, he was to take up residence at the Clear Sky Inn—Dell couldn’t imagine what kind of inn operated at the top of the world—and await further instructions.

“You will undertake this voyage alone,” the woman told him.

“Ah.” Dell hesitated.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, I can do it,” Dell replied. “Slower going, though. Get there quicker and safer with a few hands to aid me. And clients usually like their own security.”

“Do not concern yourself with timing,” the woman said. “Or safety.”

Later, Dell remembered that she was tanned from the sun, dark-haired, and very beautiful, but he could not have recalled a single real detail of her face. Maybe her ears stuck out a little strangely? She was a smudge in his memory. Except for the dagger and coins tattoo on her throat, which she had revealed with a casual unbuttoning of her high-necked dress.

For that matter, he could not remember going to his office or showing her in. The whole experience felt like a dream. Even the coin she handed him was gone, although Dell could feel the weight of it still against his palm.

It had been real, though. He knew that.

So, what choice did he have? Dell knew the stories about what happened to those who dared welch on the Brokerage. For them, death arrived as a relief. The journey upriver without a crew would cost him an entire season of business. The household budget would be tight, but his wife would manage. He told her a story about some long term contract he needed to honor—one that would end up not paying out and make Dell look like a fool in her eyes—but that was a small price to pay for honoring this debt. He would sleep easier when it was all over.

On the day of his departure, Dell found three large trunks stowed in his cargo hold. The footlockers would’ve fetched a fine price on their own—they were solidly made, leather stretched across metal, inlaid with gold. One of them was locked, two of them were only latched.

“Nope,” Dell said to himself. “No, thank you.”

Dell wasn’t particularly greedy, ambitious, or stupid. If the Brokerage intended to test him, he would make sure to pass. He ignored the trunks, never so much as peeking inside. The Brokerage hadn’t told him that he couldn’t examine his cargo—but he assumed they would value his discretion.

The voyage upriver went off as predicted. It was hard labor and slow-going, but the currents were at their winter ebb and Dell didn’t mind the chill that set in from the north. He brought books to read, kept on top of water-wheel maintenance, and put the trunks out of his mind. Early on, he made a few stops at the usual river trading posts, but got tired of dancing around questions from acquaintances about why he was crewed so light and carrying so little. Most people, he realized, assumed that he had run out on his family.

All in all, it was uneventful and a bit depressing. Until Infinzel.

During northbound runs, Dell had always enjoyed passing beneath the massive pyramidal city. It was a breathtaking experience, and the riverfront hospitality was the finest around. Tonight, however, fires leapt up from the neighborhoods crammed between the great pyramid and its surrounding wall. Boats had dropped anchor or were turning back entirely. Ships jostled on both sides of the river, some trying to escape from the docks and others trying to wedge their way in. Near the banks, he watched shadowy figures wade through the water and board a small craft, a scuffle with the crew ensuing. Dell shook his head. A difficult time to arrive.

Dell cranked down the water-wheel to slow his boat’s pace and jogged below deck to grab his crossbow. He knew an environment ripe for robbery when he saw one, though he hadn’t suspected to encounter that kind of thing in typically orderly Infinzel.

As he returned to the stairs, Dell skidded to a stop in front of the cargo hold. The two unlocked trunks were open.

“No,” Dell moaned. “No, no, no.”

They were empty. In the space of a few minutes, someone had cleaned Dell out.

Tasting bile in his mouth, Dell sprinted back up the stairs, aiming his crossbow wildly as he emerged onto the deck. Perhaps he could still catch the bastard and reclaim the Brokerage’s treasures with the assassins none the wiser.

“Calm yourself, captain,” a man’s deep voice said. “We only wanted a look.”

Dell’s finger froze on the crossbow’s trigger. Two figures stood on the deck of his boat, staring out at the slowly approaching chaos of Infinzel. A man and woman dressed in silky clothes that resembled pajamas. Neither seemed to mind the chill in the air. As Dell stood speechless, the broad-backed man turned to look at him.

Dell stared at a wooden mask shaped like an elephant. The trunk flared outward between eyes that were curved into angry slits.  

“Continue up the river, please, captain,” Wrathful Elephant said. “We will assure you face no trouble on the way.”

Dell hurriedly set down the crossbow and rushed over to the crank for the boat’s water-wheel. He kept his eyes down until the slender woman started speaking. Dell recognized the voice. He was certain she was the assassin that had visited him. She wore a simian-styled mask, the teeth bared in mirth.

“Did you know that I invited a man from Infinzel to join us at the beach?” Laughing Monkey asked.

Her companion chuckled. “Not just any man, I heard. You set your sights high.”

“Well, I am not just any woman, am I, brother?” Laughing Monkey folded her hands behind her back, bent one knee, and turned her ankle girlishly.

“No, sister. You are not.”

“He disappointed me greatly by not accepting my invitation,” Laughing Monkey said. “I think that I will tell him so.”

Wrathful Elephant paused. Dell heard the clinking of coins and hazarded a closer look—the bigger man held a small stack of angles, shuffling them from one hand to the other.

“Now, sister? Is that wise?” he said at last.

“Oh, no, not now,” she replied. “Soon, I think. I shall find my hammer master in the mountains and he will warm himself by my glow, much like his city warms itself tonight.”

“Amusing,” Wrathful Elephant said. “May the gods be ever blind to our arrangements.”

“May the gods be ever blind,” Laughing Monkey agreed.

Dell cranked the water-wheel back up to speed, grateful that the noise of gears drowned out whatever else the assassins said. He did not want to hear anymore.