35x02
As they strode toward the rag-tag market stall containing the bellowing dwarf, Arden turned back and gave Kormick a quick, meaningful jerk of her head. He understood her instantly and continued to march toward Vatik while Arden slipped into the crowd and vanished.
“Giant balls, tiny balls! Buy my little, tiny--” Vatik’s last word ended in a gulp as Kormick’s shadow fell over him.
The dwarf wasted no time wheeling and dodging backward out of the stall--only to run into Arden and nearly impale himself on her dagger. As he backed off, she twirled the dagger meaningfully, almost hungrily.
“How was Dar Und?” asked Kormick, thinking back on the fine letter he’d written to introduce Vatik to his countrymen--and all, apparently, for nothing.
“Ah. Right. Funny you should ask,” said Vatik, turning back around with an ingratiating smile. His Common, Kormick noted, was much improved. “It was nice, for a day, but then things got warm. Very warm. For me.”
“So you came back to the place you’d been
thrown out of?” Kormick wasn’t sure if he felt more irritation at Vatik’s waste of his time or admiration for Vatik’s shamelessness.
“This is not the same place! This is high up, different mountain! How could I know you’d follow poor Vatik here?”
“All mountains belong to Kettenek,” Arden observed. “And so they’re deadly places, especially for lying, cheating--”
“But not for poor, honest merchants, pretty lady,” said Vatik. He held out several rocks carved roughly into spheres--plainly unmagical and not even particularly decorative. Twenty stalls they’d already passed were selling the exact same thing to souvenir-seekers. “Not for honest Vatik just trying to sell his balls to the pilgrims.”
Kormick squelched a smirk, charmed to see the look of chilly distaste on Arden’s face. She’d lived with a lot of rough people--
was rough, herself--but just then she looked about as disgusted by this petty scoundrel as Brother Scribe did when he caught a grammatical error.
Arden shot her next words past Vatik to Kormick: “We would have an obligation to report any merchant to the local Inquisitors, Justicar, if we suspected he was selling false relics or operating without a permit. This could be sacrilege.”
Vatik’s improved language skills vanished. “So apology-sorry. I no Common good.” He turned to Kormick. “I no understand servant-girl. What be ‘permit’? Is like bagel?”
“You heard her,” said Kormick. “Why not show us how these relics work? You could eat a couple and then shove the rest up your--”
“Ha ha ha!” Vatik’s laugh was beautifully forced. “Tell you what!” He began fumbling several small bottles out of a dirty sack. “Presents! For you! To make up for this terrible misunderstanding!”
Kormick made a quick grab to prevent the bottles from falling out of Vatik’s shaking hands. He took a look, holding a vial up to the sunlight. Then he uncorked one and took a sniff.
“Healing potions,” he declared.
“Are you sure?” Arden asked.
“We can check with Savina, but these seem legit. After all, he’s given us working items before--”
“Yes! Always generous, me! They’re very best! Highest quality!”
“They’ll
work,” said Kormick. “Stick to that.”
Vatik held up five stone balls. “More gifts!” he said.
“Those, we do not need.”
Vatik nonetheless bestowed the whole load abruptly on Arden, finally forcing a stop to the dagger-twirling as she struggled to catch them. “Justicar--” she growled.
“The murder-slave is losing patience, Vatik,” said Kormick. “So, thanks to your generous gift--”
“--bribe--” muttered Arden.
“--we’ll be on our way. Stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, of course, always! And don’t forget to tell everyone you meet: Vatik gave you his balls!”
As they walked back to the carriages, Arden dumped the balls into Kormick’s arms and snatched one of the vials from his hand. She gave it a skeptical sniff.
“Smells like the good stuff, yes?” asked Kormick.
“It does,” she allowed. “But listen, Justicar. Next time, I really might kill him.”
“No, you won’t.”
She sighed in frustrated agreement. “Then the local authorities. We know he’s a con artist, he’s broken laws, let’s turn him in… Justicar,
please?”
“You sound like a kid begging for candy. Alas, I’d prefer to watch him enrage you.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“You should be, murder-slave. Now give these potions to Savina while I present Dame Mena with Vatik’s balls.”
Kormick felt victorious to see Arden turn away quickly to hide an involuntary twitch of her mouth, a leak of amusement. They really did understand each other well.
###
Nyoko had spent the past half hour in a semi-doze, her mind automatically recording the conversations around her even as she registered them as personal, not requiring Witness. Justicar Kormick and Dame Mena, in particular, were engaged in a mock-serious disputation about a lakeside cabin they proposed to build together in Dar Und “when all of this is over.” Given that the two had not yet (as far as Nyoko had Witnessed) actually admitted their obvious affection for each other, let alone consummated it, Nyoko found the discussion premature.
But she knew flirting when she heard it. She found her mind drifting back to the samisen player at the Indulgence Party…
Then, as the carriages crested a small rise, Nyoko looked out and saw the city of Divine Mark, at last, before them. It towered above the road: an elegant, intimidating cluster of right angles, pale marble, and obsidian, cold but beautiful. Behind the buildings rose the sheer cliffs of the mountains, dominating the city just as the city dominated the road, and built up to and against those cliffs, in a half-circle, were the seven great complexes of the Rings of the Sovereignty. The middle palace was, of course, the home of the Lord High Regent, built with a huge and ornate presentation balcony protruding from its exact center. Nyoko wondered if she would see that balcony occupied by its master.
The carriages entered the city, which seemed quiet and orderly compared to the raucous market stalls on the road: here, the people walked solemnly and the road was paved with near-perfect smoothness. Nyoko glimpsed striking architecture, stunning mosaics, and tranquil rock gardens as the carriages wound upward toward the great House of the Ring of the Inquisition.
All too soon, they found themselves facing the long, stark main corridor within that House. Nyoko barely had time for a few whispered reminders of protocol before they were ushered into a sparsely decorated audience chamber and found themselves facing the woman they had worked so hard to meet, the woman who might be next in line to the
“dying king” of their prophecy: Lady Akiko-san, Head of the Inquisition and Heir to the Lord High Regent.