Keeping the Fire: Two Definitions of a Fair Price

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When the Fortress Edgar was first built it was a wide wall cutting off the tiered spire and a singe stout blockhouse almost a half mile away. A second and higher wall was soon built outside of the first and further down hill, creating a cramped bailey that was the first city of merchants and common folk. Over the years the Fortress expanded from the block house until it absorbed entirely the old walls. But that old bailey was kept and filled with small houses of wood, rough stone, and mud brick. This became the Old Town and it was a stage to the miserable stories of a thousand beggars, criminals, and discarded folk. The Edgaran's liked to pretend places like this did not exist. But there is no city without a slum just as there is no tree without roots sunken in the vermin ridden earth.

Two souls met in the Old City that night under cover of darkness and a thick freezing fog lingering from the passing of a late winter storm. Both of them were of high status, yet both knew the need for a place like the Old City as only a scholar or spy could hope to. They were Alembic and Tavya, and they had come here to be free of any prying eyes, even that of their own.

Alembic stared across at Tavya, she back at him. He had taken a risk in following her summons. She had sent him a message hidden in secret words concealed within a sealed jar of pickled tomatoes, a delicacy of her kingdom, and smuggled in with his daily provisions. She had asked him to come alone, to tell no one, and to meet in the Old City. It was because of the secrecy that he considered it safe. Indeed, a public meeting or an officially sanctioned one would be more likely to be an assassination attempt. He did not fear Flinish magic, but he did distrust it. Their people had a remarkable talent for producing witches and an ill disciplined spell is much more of a threat than one of a great scholar. Thus, rather than befuddle her as he would most others at a meeting like this he simply kept her eye, and waited for her to make the first move. She did not disappoint.

“You know this is important or neither of us would be here. I need the assistance of Dun.”

“Is that so?” he replied, and let her continue.

“I need two things. Firstly, I need to know what you know about the Djaught and the Luminary. Polena never shared much with me and though you were a foe to Coralm, I suspect that you were closer in her council than I.”

“That would be a wise guess.”

“We'll toss wisdom. It's more my old grudges that tells me it than any sagacity. You haven't asked what the second thing I wanted was. I take it that this is because you are playing that game of yours where you wait for your opponent to get frightened that you will leave and they give you everything to keep you here. Well toss that as well. I am not in a mood for tricks.”

“That would be evident from your arguments the Mehethe's minister, were it not self evident from our own arguments.”

“No games.”

“Did I say we were playing one? Oh, I'm sorry, I did not intend to confuse you Tavya,” Alembic smiled. He was being a fool but the chance to take a dig at Tavya was too good to pass up. Indeed, he had never forgiven her for her work to block and out a lengthy and valuable contract he had been preparing with a Monan minister. Had he succeeded more than half of the Fortress's foreign trade would have gone through cities allied to Dun and under their discrete taxes. Instead Tavya spoiled the whole affair and had he not the wit to see it coming Alembic would have been ousted from the Fortress in disgrace. The fate of such mages when they return to Dun is not good. It often involves a few decades of remedial scribe work in the Tower. To see her brought low was something of a treat to him, and he chose to indulge.

“I suppose Tavya that you have come to me because you have no one else to go to. I suppose you didn't think that the minister would refuse your advances, that the Whale would get wise to your contraband, or that the King would learn just how many of his records you have rented out to prying eyes. Which one is it?”

“Mage, I don't have time for this,” Tavya replied, her voice shaking with controlled anger.

“Neither do I, but if a little humiliation is the price for my aid, I think you can take it.” Tavya lowered her eyes. Some would see this as submission or shame. Alembic knew it was the opposite, and that he should stop now.

“Alright Tavya. As good faith, since I know you have something worth my while, let me tell you that the Djaught and Polena are not dead. Alliance soldiers took them in Dehali. That was her plan, or should I say, Lord Commander Kaira Volaire's plan. Did you know she is the one in charge of Ledire Fortress and the Alliance's push into the valley? I suspect that the Djaught will be ransomed back at a high cost.”

“Truly?” Tavya replied, and the hope seemed genuine.

“Truly,” Alembic replied. A small voice in his head told him to worry about how clever he felt at the moment. He dismissed it, but made a note to come back to the thought later.

“What was the other thing Tavya. Do tell?”

“The other is a personal matter, but perhaps sign of the stress I have shown in my recent labors. I need a spell, one of, oh, I don't know how to say it. One of unbinding, or unraveling, or cleansing. I am troubled by an errant spirit, one of my family that has chosen not to take up residence in the Afterworld or perhaps was denied their place at our ancestor's table for some secret indiscretion. Can you offer me a charm against a spirit?”

Alembic hid his derision with practiced poise. Dun did not believe in ghosts. Miss tapped energies and unbidden aethers most certainly, but ghosts and spirits were a thing of superstition and storytellers. All the same, he knew that he could provide some protection, a dampener to disrupt any trouble she did face.

“I can provide such a charm, a brooch that would fit a lady. I am sure you have something to offer me, yes?”

“Yes--” but before she could continue he interrupted her.

“--well toss your payment. I will ask only a favor, to be determined by me, at a later date.”

Tavya looked down again and Mage Alembic could see a deep resentment in her frown.

“Alright,” she replied, almost a whisper.

“And will you swear it?” He asked with a cruel smile.



The price had been steeper than she thought, but after the Mage was away Tavya felt that it was worth the cost. She would have her brooch in the morning and Alembic? Well hopefully he would sit on his favor until he got himself exiled or killed. She intended to see it happen soon enough. He had made her swear to her ancestors in the Afterworld that she would grant him a favor. Knowing, as he surely did, how much such things meant to her, the humiliation was all the worse. There were few things a cynic like Tavya took as sacred. Her beloved dead was one of them. It was a necessary price. In the morning she would take her brooch, test it in the Royal Archives with a certain well protected book, and then leave for Dehali city. Uhen's first message had made it clear that the Djaught, Polena, and all that accompanied them left the city for an old crypt. Of that company only the Curator Ibe had returned. She would get to the bottom of this herself and no one, not the Whale, neither the King, nor the Mage would learn of it until it was too late to stop her. She only hoped that when she came to that tomb she would find something worth her while, and not yet more candles to burn when she gave her weekly prayers to the Afterworld.

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