4.2 - Tomorrow Is Early for Them
Why was there a patrol this early?
Of course. Izakis. The mage who most wanted to see Randuil’s head on a spike, or perhaps adorning one of the walls of his tower bedroom. The only one who regularly broke the unspoken agreement he had with the mages. During the sunset hour while Randuil was by the docks collecting ayse, or rather, dusted kelp that would soon be ayse, the mages happened to be busy elsewhere. There was no standing order from Bolshia, the Saorin lord on the matter. It was more of a heavily implied desire for Randuil to be left alone, seeing as how he supplied ayse to the lord and her constituents as well. As long as their pipes stayed packed, Randuil was free to do as he pleased.
The mages directed their ire elsewhere, particularly towards the free Carshgan peoples buying the illicit goods that the city lords not so secretly devoured. The Saorins tended to evade such judgment for one reason or another. This was the lord’s cousin. That is the son of the head mage. She is a well-regarded Saorin diplomat. Their potion shops bring in too much coin to be shut down. It just so happened that every single Saorin Randuil sold to was in some way or another, immune to the wrath of the mages. He was sure it had nothing at all to do with the fact that Postrazu, the Carshgan lord of Sumberus, was so deep inside the pocket of Bolshia he was impossible to find.
All of Sumberus’ assumed social structures went out to sea when Izakis was involved. Randuil had never met a mage he liked, but Izakis practically begged to be hated. His jagged features made him look like an anvil that a giant had smashed to bits and then pieced back together incorrectly, with harsh points sticking out this way and that. He was one of the only mages who refused to channel his magic into flight, presumably because that would bring him closer to the gods who surely would smite him down in disgust. Instead, he stomped around as if his boots were laden down with rocks. His dark green uniform was, to put it gently, disastrously neglected. Holes were awkwardly stitched closed, the collar around his greasy brown hair was darkened from constantly rubbing his nose on it, and the entire thing was so sweat-stained it was barely recognizable as a mage’s uniform. And here he stood on the dock, hands on his waist, peering down his crooked nose at Randuil who was waist-deep in the water with his hands full of dusted kelp.
“Well if it isn’t Sumberus’ golden child,” Izakis said, with his stilted, deep voice. “That wouldn’t happen to be dusted kelp you’ve got there, would it? Ayse is illegal in my city, I sure hope you aren’t planning on making some.”
“With this?” Randuil asked incredulously, holding up the kelp as if it was his first time seeing it. “Oh no, I use this to keep rats out of my garden. I’m sorry, but your parents really do a number on my vegetables. Particularly your mother, she is relentless.”
One of the mages behind Izakis quietly snorted, and then quickly cleared his throat to try and cover it. Luckily for him, Izakis seemed not to notice. He crouched down on the edge of the dock, bringing himself as close to Randuil as he could get without falling in.
“One day, drug boy. One day, when you least expect it, I’m going to dismantle your little organization and bring you to ruin. I’ll sit over you, just like I am now, slinging slop down to the dungeons to keep you alive a little longer. Just to watch your soul slip out of you, one wisp at a time until you’re nothing but a construct waiting to falter. Waiting for a final pitiful breath to slip from your cracked lips.”
Randuil laid down the dusted kelp into his basket floating on the surface next to him and with one flat open palm, slapped the water. In an instant, ten zeitlos sprang upward onto the dock around Izakis, each one holding a handful of dusted kelp, each one with the trademark pupilless and singularly blue eyes all zeitlos were known for. Crest, the tallest of them, and Randuil’s personal bodyguard stepped forward. She wore the traditional garb of zeitlos; a tunic made of hundreds of overlapping leather straps. Attached to her thighs were shortswords, long enough to be formidable weapons but still short enough to enable free movement through the water. Izakis jumped up and steadied himself, turning to face the woman.
“Still haven’t learned?” she said, bearing down on him. “You work for us. Now run along, little mage. I won’t repeat myself.”
“You can’t threaten me. I work for Bolshia and Bolshia alone.” Izakis said. He reached for the scroll quiver attached to his hip, which held dozens of prepared spells needing only their corresponding incantation to be spoken. Before he could go further, however, another mage stepped forward and whispered something in his ear. Randuil recognized this one as well. Charsidis, yet another example of the city’s nepotism. He was Bolshia’s nephew, and despite serving a quarter of the time most mages had, he served in one of the highest-ranking positions in the city beneath Izakis and a few others. He also happened to be the only mage that genuinely frightened Randuil. Izakis talked and postured but in the end, he always played by the rules. It was the only thing you could count on these folk for. Regardless of how nonsensical their rules may seem, they would follow them. Charsidis on the other hand seemed unbound. His rapid rise and seemingly untouchable status gave him the air of someone willing to bend and break the rules if it served him. He looked as if, at any moment, he could swing a hammer through the fragile glass framework of unwritten laws the city lived by. Izakis nodded to Charsidis and took his hand off of his scroll quiver.
“You aren’t worth my time, little fish.” he practically spat the last word at Crest, who yawned in response. It would take much more than that to provoke her. Randuil had learned the hard way not to keep a hotheaded bodyguard. The mages marched off the dock and across the small stretch of beach along the outskirts of Sumberus, disappearing into the streets. Randuil did not envy the poor soul who would receive the wrath primarily directed at him.
“He is desperate to please them,” Crest said, as she reached a hand down to help Randuil up onto the dock. “It saddens me to see it. There is so little left of him.”
“The great city of Sumberus at work,” Randuil said. “Like a slow, subtle poison in the well.”
“If Izakis is supping poison, Charsidis is holding the ladle. I don’t trust that one.”
“I feel the same way,” Randuil said. “That is a flood to dam when it comes to us. For now, we have ayse to make, and a shop to open. Let’s go, the sun is nearly set.”
The privately sanctioned but publicly illegal selling of ayse in Sumberus was an odd practice. A proper storefront would cross a line, and yet selling as he once did-by whispers in dimly lit taverns and clandestine alleyway meetings-was considered too inconvenient for the wealthy. So an awkward middle ground was what Randuil was left with. An alchemist shop peddling the simplest and easiest to acquire potion-making supplies on the surface, (all procured and delivered by associates of Postrazu) while selling ayse to anyone who asked the right way, or frankly, asked at all. It was an incredibly uncomfortable position for Randuil, but it paid well and kept the mages off his back.
Crest gathered up all the dusted kelp and led a few of the zeitlos into one of the back rooms where it was prepared.
The process of turning dusted kelp into ayse wasn’t so much complicated as it was time-consuming and labor-intensive. The first step was to fully dry the kelp, which could sometimes take days. Then Crest and the other handlers would take a blunted wooden knife called a layer scraper to the kelp, peeling back the surface layer of each blade. Once that was disposed of, the inner layer of the kelp blades was left to dry for another day. Finally, the inner layer would be shaved down and lightly muddled with a bonding agent extracted from the stipes of the kelp to form small clusters. The clusters could be easily broken down, but storing and transporting them in a clustered form made selling them simpler and more consistent. Crest currently had two batches in the second drying phase and a batch ready to be muddled and packaged. Combined with what they had just brought in, Randuil was set for the next few weeks. At least for his buyers in Sumberus. It was unlikely but always possible for an outsider caravan to make a large purchase on their way to a different town. Proper ayse sellers were hard to come by in cities closer to the mainland like Tourmaline, and even rarer in far north towns like Osterhold or Elk and Wolf. The midland towns were instead full of wine drinkers, and the northern towns...well...they had more dangerous vices. Ayse was a mild and relatively harmless drug, considered by most in the harsher northern environments to be no greater than weak alcohol. They were more likely to imbibe heavy drinks that warmed them from the ice, or if they were more reckless, the wax substance known as candleblood. Even in his youth Randuil wouldn’t touch that. He didn’t blame them, though. There wasn’t much hope to be found up there.
“I’m making tea, you want one?” Gyrrin asked.
The youngest member of Randuil’s organization, Gyrrin was a kid from the southern edge of town. Randuil thought of him as a kid, but he was in his nineteenth summer. He was a quick learner, and a smart merchant to boot. The daily selling was left to him to handle mostly, as well as shop upkeep.
“Sounds good, thanks,” Randuil said, slumping down in a chair typically used by customers waiting on an order to be prepared. He stared at the shelves of alchemical goods, brought to him by servants of the Carshgan and Saorin lords, used to cover the sale of illegal goods to the same lords. How had he become both a pawn and an outlaw at the same time? How much longer could he do this before something or someone came crashing down on his head? How much longer did he want to do this?
“You alright?” Gyrrin stood in front of him holding two aged and dented iron mugs. He handed one to Randuil and began to blow the steam off of his own. “Be careful, it’s hot.”
“Oh, the tea is hot?” Randuil said, taking the mug. Gyrrin, not known for shying away from a confrontation, even one with his boss, tilted his head and gave Randuil a look of disapproval.
“Sorry lad. I’m alright. It’s this shop. Sometimes I can’t breathe in here.”
Gyrrin nodded and took a sip of his tea.
“Why don’t you go for a walk?” he said. “Fresh air. Fresh moonlight. It might help.”
“It’s worth a try I suppose,” Randuil said, standing up and slapping Gyrrin on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, I have to open the shop,” Gyrrin said, motioning to the counter. “Maybe Telva or Loch could go.”
“Gyrrin, I own the shop. We’ll open when we damn well want to.”
The moonlamps along the narrow sandstone streets were still capturing light, but they were glowing enough to illuminate the pathway. Gyrrin and Randuil slowly wandered around the district, sipping their tea, and listening to the sounds of the Carshgan night beginning. Sumberus was a latticed city, where Carshgans and Saorins lived side by side, not divided by areas like most cities. Out of respect for the other half, the city was quiet. Quieter than any city Randuil had ever been in. Even so, the sounds of breakfast being prepared and chores being done filtered into the streets from time to time. Certain market areas or main thoroughfares were considered too highly trafficked to remain quiet, so the homes in those areas were sold at vastly reduced prices. Randuil’s shop was far off the beaten path, however.
Walking the streets in the pale soft light of the moonlamps, with the everpresent delicate sea breeze weaving along the sandstone did help clear his head. How anyone lived beneath the overbearing light and heat of the sun he could never understand.
“Quite a few mages out tonight,” Gyrrin said. “That’s the third patrol I’ve seen already.” He subtly nodded down the road to their left at two dark-green-clad mages mulling about beneath a moonlamp.
“Ready to pounce on our Carshgan customers no doubt,” Randuil said, finishing his tea. “Izakis was in rare form at the docks earlier. Along with that Charsidis bloke.”
They turned right, heading away from the mages.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Gyrrin asked.
“They can’t touch me and they know it,” Randuil said. “Besides, I’ve got Crest to look out for me.”
“No, I don’t mean Izakis and his crew,” Gyrrin responded. “I mean the way the mages use us. The way they use our shop as bait. Everyone knows you’re the only one in town with the resources to make ayse, so they don’t have a choice. We’re leading them to the slaughter.”
“I look out for me and my livelihood,” Randuil said, stopping in a dim intersection where the moonlight hadn’t hit the lamps yet. “They know the risks when they come to buy from us. I can’t be sticking my neck out for every Carshgan that wanders through my doors. Besides, half of them get out just fine. They aren’t all busted by the mages.”
Gyrrin stood quietly for a moment. A sliver of light from a nearby window cut across his face, and Randuil could see the boy was struggling with that answer. His brow was furrowed and his lips were drawn thin.
“It feels like we’re as bad as Postrazu,” he said. “We’re just tools to be used by Bolshia.”
“Watch what you say, kid,” Randuil said. “There are plenty of people in Sumberus hungry for work, and they’d do anything for a job that pays like yours.”
“What are you gonna do, turn me in?” he responded. “Maybe slide some ayse into my bag before I leave? Let your cohorts in green sniff it out?”
A Carshgan a few doors down from them stepped outside and headed towards the marketplace in the center of town with a basket in hand. Randuil and Gyrrin smiled and nodded at the old man as he passed, then they simultaneously turned and started walking back towards the shop. The kid had the same instincts, Randuil couldn’t deny that. You never stay in the same place too long.
“I’m sorry, that was out of line,” Gyrrin said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing everything I should be, or could be. I can’t rightly explain it, but things just feel like they’re always shifting away from me.”
How long had it been since Randuil had considered what he should be doing?
“If you think I’m happy about the arrangement, you’re wrong,” Randuil said, settling his temper as much as he could. “But I do what I need to do to survive. That’s all there is to it.”
“Is that it? Survival?” Gyrrin showed no signs of relenting. “Is there nothing more to all of this than survival for you?”
“What would you have me do?” Randuil said, exasperated. “Izakis and Charsidis watch me like hawks. Bolshia has half the city mages patrolling my neighborhood any given night. I can barely sell a portion of ayse without the entire town knowing about it. What can I do about Carshgans walking into my shop and buying from me?”
“What if we shift the shop hours?” Gyrrin said. “We’re only open in the waning and waxing light. The mages won’t be able to tell who’s who.”
“Kid, do you know what a Saorin Monocle is?” Randuil asked. “Every mage in the city has one. It looks simple enough. Just a gold band around a circle of glass the size of a small sand dollar. They’re enchanted with a spell that shows moonlight in a person’s skin. You look at a Carshgan through that? They light up as bright as can be. Night or day.”
“Well, what if they don’t need to walk into the shop in the first place?” Gyrrin said. He was growing more animated, but his voice remained as low and steady as it had been. “A sort of delivery service. They place an order, we bring it to them for an extra fee?”
“Far too dangerous,” Randuil said, shaking his head. “It’s one thing to carry dusted kelp through the city. That’s technically not illegal. It’s another to carry a single portion of ayse. But carrying bags of ayse house to house? You get caught with that much on you, and they’ll dig a dungeon beneath the dungeon to put you in. On top of that, Izakis and his hounds would swiftly catch on when they saw us coming and going.”
They rounded a corner two blocks away from the shop. The street ahead was a ballet of shadows and moonlight. Great swaths of darkness separated islands of light as far as Randuil could see, like an archipelago in an ocean of night. Together they formed a single street in a single city but split as they were by the dark, they seemed to be worlds, waiting to be unveiled in their immensity. He stopped and took in the sight. Gyrrin took a few steps more, then turned and looked back at him. He knew the boy was right. It was easy to think of himself as indispensable, but he was only a step away from the Carshgans the mages preyed upon. Eventually, when Charsidis broke down the unspoken barriers that stood as flimsy as paper around the structure of Sumberus, or when the dusted kelp died out, his fate would be no different. Deep down he had always known this. A clever cage Sumberus had put him in. One that fades through time until the bars can only be spotted in the periphery, on the very edge of awareness. Always present, always pressing. The weight of coercion behind the guise of cooperation. One of the moonlamps continued absorbing moonlight and its circle of illumination merged with the two on either side of it. The islands of light were replaced by a great landmass, each and every corner laid to bare in its undeniable substance.
“There might be something we can do,” Randuil said. “A start, at least. I’m going to need to pay Crest and her crew more for this.”
Izakis rounded the corner on a Carshgan coming from Randuil’s shop.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he barked. “Against the wall, give me the bag.”
The Carshgan, a young woman calmly obliged, standing with her back to the wall and handing over her knapsack. Izakis ripped it from her hands and rifled through it, tossing her belongings along the sandstone. Only alchemy supplies, fishing bait, and personal goods.
“Where’s the ayse!?” He shouted. “I know you bought some. Don’t lie to me, we’ll find it!”
The young woman shook her head.
“I just needed a few supplies for tonics at home, that’s all sir,” she said.
The tenth Carshgan tonight Izakis had personally searched with not a portion of ayse on them. After the fifth, he stormed into Randuil’s shop and demanded to know what was going on. Randuil simply said, “perhaps Carshgans value their freedom over ayse. You aren’t exactly subtle with your operations.”
The following evening, the young woman who Izakis had questioned grabbed her knapsack and left home. She took a long, meandering walk, making sure to give a wide berth to Randuil’s district. Eventually, her walk led her to the beach. The moonlight splashed through the branches of the tall bronzecur trees, charging the moonlamps hanging from them. Their massive trunks sprouted up from the water like earthen pillars all along the docks. She walked to the edge of one of the docks and sat down next to a fishing pole. The city had installed fishing poles all along the docks in an effort to increase the export and sale of fish, you just needed to bring your own bait. She pulled up the line and attached the bait the boy gave her at Randuil’s shop. As she was instructed, she gently lowered the bait into the water instead of casting it. After a moment, there was a brief tug on the line. She pulled it up and the bait was gone. In its place was a glass bottle with a stopper in it, tied to the hook by a thin rope. Inside the bottle was the ayse she had paid for the night before. She carefully untied the bottle and placed it in her knapsack beneath a blanket, then stood up and walked home through the quiet streets of Sumberus.