I’m halfway to the Refuge before I’m calm enough to drag myself out of the spiralling thoughts and inanity of what’s been going on. I take a deliberate turn toward Leaf Street, force myself to break away from my default patterns.
I can’t keep running blindly. I’m far enough from the scene of the crime and well away from the trade district where the confrontation with my Copper-Mage benefactor slash hunter caught up with me.
I don’t have the luxury of time to panic. I can do that once I’m safely tucked away on a carriage out of here to… to wherever I decide to take the next steps in. I need to stop and think this through properly.
I can’t go back to the Refuge. Even if the only person who knows what I’ve done is Merien, can I really trust him to keep his big mouth shut for once? I’m not willing to stake my life on his silence.
Likewise, I don’t think I can confront him. Whatever madness incited him to setting this up, it’s something I want to get as far away from as possible, not involve myself in deeper.
If there were any way to be rid of this thing, even knowing how powerful it is, that would be by far the safest option. But there’s no choice, so I may as well find the option that best allows me to continue to survive into the future.
I tap one of the three coins hidden about my person. I was supposed to turn them over at the end of the week, cover the Refuge fees for my continued existence at their mercy, but the urgency of needing to find additional income methods has vanished completely. By the end of the week I’ll either be far away from here or in a situation where being murdered would probably be a mercy.
The Storming Swan is as tempestuous a bar as its name suggests, without any of the implied elegance. It’s not somewhere I visit often, but it’s under Refuge protection while not being directly within Refuge control.
I don’t think I can make it through the night without something to take the edge off. And maybe some casual chatter with some of the tired laborers who spend their evenings here will help clarify my options.
It’s a bit early in the day to be hanging around the Swan, but it’s a good place to settle my thoughts and assess options. I scan the handful of patrons, but they’re all local. The ones I want to talk with are still out in the fields or at the market. I break the first of my coins to get a drink for myself, which leaves me with enough change for a few more to use strategically later.
The other two I’ll reserve for food. If I’m not going back to the Refuge, I’ll also need to find someplace to stay, but that’s a problem for later. I’ve slept on rooftops before, I can do it again if necessary.
Caen Carvaxen is a sprawling mess of a city. Even living my whole life here I’ve seen barely a fraction of it, but I know the Dustways and a good chunk of Stoneheart. There are five districts in the Dustways, spread out around the south and east sides of Carvaxen.
The two nearest the city are the trade district, which is where we put on a pretty facade and play nice for the guards and caravans, and the labor district. The Refuge operates out of the labor district, providing work and shelter for those of us who can’t seem to break in to the kinds of work the rest of Carvaxen is willing to pay for.
The three outermost districts are larger and more spread out, the farms and canals, largely self-sufficient except for massive hiring bursts around harvest and hunting seasons. There’s always a handful of people being hired to help out year round, but the number of those who end up burned out, disqualified for injuries, or simply disappearing without a trace are too high for my liking.
I’ve spent too many of my years malnourished and couldn’t keep up with the increasingly mounting strength requirements of the outer districts if I tried. Competition is already high, and that means the employers have all the power. They can disqualify people en masse with height and weight baselines that people like me will never have a chance at.
The old saying is true. The path to improving your station in life starts with not being born poor.
In a city as vast and populated as Carvaxen, there’s always going to be someone who wants it just as badly as you, but was better off from birth. It doesn’t matter how hard someone like me works and struggles, our trajectories were set twenty years in the past and a lifetime of momentum sets even the smallest difference apart by a vast gulf as it compounds on itself.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You want company?”
Halfway through my contemplation, I glance up, then frown.
The man who’s seated himself next to me is about as non-local as you could get. Not only is the color and fabric of his outfit far higher grade than is normal around here, the style is Droniien in cut.
I note the bulge of his coin pursue, the careless latch of his belt, the heavy links of his necklace. Any other day, he’d be the perfect mark. Beyond belief. I could get enough from him to satisfy my existence payments for two weeks.
Today I scan the appropriate vulnerabilities and turn back to my half-empty glass without interest. “Why, you hiring?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He tosses several Droniien coins across the counter and orders two full bottles of the best the Swan has to offer. He pops one open and shoves the other toward me, not bothering with a cup. “You don’t remember me?”
“You don’t seem the sort of person I’d forget.”
He chuckles and sets something on the counter with a dull clink. “I believe I saw you a few hours ago. But I understand if you weren’t paying attention. You did seem distraught at the time.”
It takes me a second look to put the pieces together. He’s set an empty resonator cube on the counter between us.
The man whose horse I ran into when I ran blindly out into Merchant Street..
I swallow, dizzy. How could I have forgotten about him? Stones knew how many people he could have told. Some covert operator I am. One little life-shattering panic and I’m forgetting key witnesses.
One calculation insists I should find a way to dispose of him immediately. Another reasons that if he knows this much already and hasn’t turned me in, I could at least get some information out of him.
I take another gulp to wet my suddenly dry throat. “What do you want?”
“To discuss our options, of course. I believe I’m correct in saying that your core has not been clarified yet?”
I shrug. “Who has time for core nonsense down here?” The Dust districts are spread out around the base of the mountain that makes up Caen Carvaxen. Even the Stone districts are elevated more by merit of buildings having two stories rather than any real geographical improvement. Only as you start to circle up the mountainside into the Iron and Copper and Bronze districts do you start to get high enough to actually feel the power in the air.
I’ve been up that high exactly twice, and the first time I was too young to remember. The second time I visited Copper tier, it was as a boy, delivering a message. I’ll never forget it. The creak of gears as the elevator ascended, the view out over the rest of Caen Carvaxen as the districts where I’d spent my whole life suddenly looked like toys scattered down below. Like I could have flicked a finger and crushed whole blocks.
It was dizzying in more ways than one.
It was only on the descent that I noticed the lessening of the air. A tightness I’d never before noticed, released so gradually I hadn’t felt it at the time, but with each moment dropping back toward the Stone tier that unseen oppression reclaimed me.
It wasn’t until years later that I learned enough to put a name on it. Sostanza, the immaterial material that made up your core’s strength. Below the Iron districts, there’s so little sostanza and so many people that almost everyone’s core is malformed and suffocated. Farmers have it a little better off, with so much space they can walk without needing to share, but even that is nothing like even a few days spent in a higher tier.
No one cares what we do down here, Stone and Dust, we can bicker among ourselves freely, and if anyone from a higher tier is careless enough to be robbed while down here they don’t expect anything different. But there are rules. Lines we know never to cross.
Entering the higher tiers without permission is one of those lines. Even an Iron-core child could obliterate the strongest Dust warrior in existence. Going up-tier inherently sets you at a disadvantage.
Better to rule a kingdom of dust than be a slave in a higher realm.
“Well.” The Dronii merchant’s reply is so late in coming I’d almost forgotten he was here. “You’re going to have to make time for core nonsense.”
“I don’t suppose you’re willing to clarify that at all?”
“I’d be glad to. Please, come join me in my caravan.”
“No.” My answer is immediate and firm. Does he think I’m an idiot? Dance myself right into his power? At least in here there are enough witnesses around that I can pretend he won’t try to kidnap me in broad daylight. Though, judging by how wealthy he has to be if he’s casually handing out resonators and riding around on a mechanical horse like it’s nothing, he could probably do whatever he wants to me here and pay off the witnesses to say nothing. Down here, everyone is desperate enough to take it without a second thought. I can only hope he’s unfamiliar enough with the city not to know that.
“You really want to have this discussion in public?”
“Yes.”
He shrugs and leans back, taking another swig of his bottle. “As you say, it shall be. First, tell me what you know of your core and its level, then I’ll answer any questions you may have.”
How should I handle this situation?
