Chapter 15 — Misfortune

Phaine stared down at the tankard of ale like she was a gambler and she thought the beer was bluffing.

“I thought you gave that up after—” a man’s voice said, behind her.

“I didn’t order it.” She pushed it away, across the small wooden table. “Some farmhand spending his harvest pay saw a woman alone and got Ideas.”

The man laughed, stepping around to the other side of the table and falling into the wooden chair opposite her.

Rist was almost young enough to be her son; his voice still cracked sometimes when he got overexcited. The guild had assigned him to her as an apprentice after her last assessment. The results of assessments were secret; but Phaine was sure she must have fucked something up, because why else would they punish her this way?

Her guild representative swore up and down that taking on an apprentice was a great honor. Her guild representative did not have an apprentice, she had noted, in response.

“You didn’t hurt him too bad, did you? Hey, if you’re not going to drink it, can I—”

“If it’ll shut you up for a few minutes, by all means.”

Her tone was a little too light for Rist to take offense. In truth, the kid was a quick learner, and Phaine appreciated that; but he had yet to learn to be careful, and that could easily get you killed in their line of work.

The coin-sized pockmarked acid scars covering half of Rist’s face were a reminder of that; he hadn’t saved up enough gold to pay the healers to remove them yet. Phaine still wasn’t sure how he had not lost an eye, or worse, when the trick lock had burst in his face.

“Why are we meeting here, anyway?” Rist asked, after downing half the tankard in what seemed like a single gulp.

“I heard the sausage was good,” Phaine replied, sarcastically. She gave him a look that all but screamed not talking about it in here. “But I heard wrong. Finish that and let’s go.”

Rist trotted down the side alley after her. He never understood how a platinum-haired slip of a woman that barely reached his shoulder walked so much faster than he did.

“Won’t we look suspicious, sneaking around?” He asked, keeping his voice low.

“If anyone sees us together, sneaking off, they’ll just think you’re having the luckiest day of your life.”

“Hey, you know, if you ever wanted to—”

“Don’t even. I don’t think so. You’re just too much man for me, sweetie.” If Phaine could have bottled the condescension in her tone, she could’ve sold it to an apothecary and retired off the proceeds.

“See that window?” Phaine pointed up the brick wall of the tavern, The Cat And Mouse, they had just left. The public room was the first floor of three; the two floors above were baths, hourly bedrooms, bunk rooms, and suites for wealthier guests. Phaine was pointing at a top-floor window.

“Third from the right, room six.”

Phaine nodded. She was proud that Rist no longer pulled out a notepad when she briefed him. She grimaced, annoyed that she was proud of her burdensome apprentice.

“Yeah. That’s the target.”

“What’s his deal?”

“Her deal,” Phaine replied, glowering only slightly, “…is that she was a caravan leader, and she bribed a pack of bandits to raid the caravan and split the proceeds with her, and then demanded the town she was shipping for to pay her hazard pay.”

“What’s our cut?”

“Guild standard for the mark, plus one percent of any gold we recover.”

Rist groaned; melodramatically, in Phaine’s opinion.

“Guild standard, guild standard. When can we run a freelance job, Phainey?”

“Do not call me that. We can run a freelance job when I can trust you not to melt your face off with acid, how about that?”

“That was one time— fine. Fine. How many?”

“Just her and a bodyguard. Don’t know anything about the bodyguard, but probably dangerous.”

Indistinct voices echoed down the alley from the street out front, and Phaine pulled Rist farther down the alley, towards the back road.

“Got it,” Rist repeated. “Third floor. Room six. Woman and a bodyguard. What’s the plan?”

“So tell me about her,” Ness almost literally poked Mira— she had her finger poised and everything— before remembering exactly why it was a bad idea.

Mira looked miserable, but Ness thought she was playing it up.

“She’s a thief.”

“Ooooooh. A bad girl. A criminal. Is that why you left her?”

“What? No. She has a guild marque. She..” Mira paused.

Ness caught the unsteadiness in the other woman’s voice and recognized it as a more genuine emotion. She dialed back her exuberance at needling the sorceress.

“She left me.”

“Oh.. Uhm. I’m— I’m sorry. I’ve been— uhm. Before. You know. Me too. It sucks.”

“Yeah.”

They walked along in silence for a few minutes. The outskirts of Terok were visible in the distance. Ness was surprised at how much it looked like a town from her world. There were no cars, power lines, or utility poles, but the relatively flat grey stone main roads were straight and in good repair, and the sparse buildings that they started to pass were brick, as ordinary as any brick she had ever seen; more substantial stone similar to that used for the roads; and more modest buildings in lime render that could easily have been stucco.

“What’s a guild marque?” Ness broke the silence.

“You don’t have— never mind. The thieves guild.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

“Okay, you know, if I steal something and I get caught, I’ll be handed over to a Ravenguard, a truth-seer will endorse the writ, and I’ll be branded according to the harm I caused.”

“Right. Thievery. Branded? Like with a hot iron poker?”

“First of all, no. Stealing. Stealing is a crime; thievery is restoration. Second, no. It’s a magical mark. Painless, but, impossible to hide.”

“I… uhm. What? Restoration?”

“I’m just a normal person, right? I don’t have personal guards, or a house with walls and wards. If a noble or a rich merchant causes harm, you can’t just walk up and grab them by the arm and march them down to a Rookery. There would be violence.”

“Yeah,” Ness replied, sighing. “We have the same problem in my world. If you have enough money, the laws don’t really apply to you.”

“The Thieves Guild deal with them instead. They recover money or valuables, usually up to triple the amount the person stole. For violent crimes it can be anything up to— everything they have, depending on the crime. The money usually pays off the bond, the victim gets back double, a third goes to the guild, and the thief gets paid a flat fee and a small percent.”

“Okay, so, what? They’re like the SWAT team? Cops? Big guns— excuse me, swords? Break down doors, kill all the guards? Your ex is a cop?”

Mira gave Ness a furrowed-brow look of disdain and a hint of revulsion. She shook her head.

“Thieves are forbidden from using violence in the course of their work, even in self-defense. They’ll be stripped of their marque and branded. No, no. Stealth and guile.”

“Okay. Wow. Okay. Cool. So… not a cop. Why… uh… why did she leave you?”

“Oh, look. Here we are.”

Mira stopped in front of a three-story brick building. There was signage in front of it, with shapes that Ness assumed were letters, but she had no inkling of what they said. A slightly flaked image was embossed above the letters, a golden cat’s paw with claws extended poised to strike a silver mouse with what looked like sparkling ruby eyes.

“I saw what you did there. Fine. Where is here?”

“An inn, with baths.”

From her tone, Mira might have been a wanderer in a desert, nearly dead from dehydration, who tripped and fell into an oasis.

Ness looked at her, head cocked to the side. One of her ears twitched, a man and a woman talking in hushed tones in a language she didn’t understand. She focused her attention on Mira.

“Okay.. uhm. Great. So, listen. Mira.”

Mira turned away from the inn, and its promise of baths; it seemed to pain her to do so, even for a moment.

“Ness.”

“Just so we’re clear.. just to set expectations. I don’t have any money. I don’t think they take venmo here. And you’re the only person on this entire planet I can understand.”

“Ness. Those are tomorrow problems. Today is bath. Your job is bath. My job is bath.”

Ness stared at her for a moment, and shrugged. She opened her mouth to reply, and found she had nothing sensible to say. She closed her mouth again, shrugged again, and gestured at the doors.

Mira glanced over at Mictlan, and raised an eyebrow.

((See you here tomorrow,)) he gestured, and continued walking in toward the city. Mira shrugged.

“His job is not bath.”

She pulled open the door and went inside.

The inside of the inn felt like any of dozens of dive bars Ness had ever been in— maybe even a little on the nice end. There was no music, no jukebox, just the chatter of conversation and the clinking of pewter. The tables were sparsely populated- they had arrived late afternoon, and Ness supposed they had beaten the dinner rush. She followed Mira up to the bar, and stood back while she talked to the bartender— innkeeper, she supposed.

“Hi. A room for two and a bath—” Mira glanced back at Ness, and felt a pang of sympathy for the girl. “—two baths, for me and my friend.” She gestured at Ness.

“Bedrooms an eighth hour, a gold for a bunk all night, or five gold for a suite. Two eighths each for baths, a gold for an attendant.”

“Terok prices,” Mira muttered darkly, and the innkeeper shrugged in response. “I may not look the part right now, but I am a guild sorceress. I can trade services?”

The innkeeper tapped her cheek lightly as she thought.

“The kegs have been running a little warm. I’ll tell you what. You’re lucky. Top up the cooling charms, and I’ve got a suite you can have for the night. The asshole that was renting it demanded to be moved to a room farther from the baths, so if you don’t mind dirty sheets, it’s yours. I gotta clean it tomorrow anyway, so it’s no extra trouble. I’ll throw in baths as long as you do that before you set foot into a suite. You look like you’ve been hiking through mud for a week. If you want an attendant though, that’s between you and them.”

“It’s a deal. Get those baths started; we’ll be back before you know it.”

Topping up a charm was trivial; it didn’t even require spellwork. Mira only needed to channel a little power from Ness into the existing runes. Mira could barely inscribe a light rune to save her life, but re-empowering an existing rune was one of the first uses of magic every spell worker learned.

The innkeeper had two pints waiting for them— frost forming on the outside of the mugs. She may have channeled a little too much power into the runes, but none of the lines burst, so no harm done. The woman pushed a key across the bar.

“Baths are on the second floor. Baths first,” she reminded them. “Suite’s on the third floor, third door on the left. Number six.”