“I… I see,” said Poldo. “Well, perhaps you can give me a few pointers later.”
The Troll nodded and smiled, but the young plant held most of his attention now.
Poldo sighed, a wistful smile twisting up his mustache. It was rare to see his friend and bodyguard at peace. The life of a Troll living among society was likely filled with rejection and scorn, and in particular an encounter with an Elf that Thane had admired seemed to have left deep scars. Clearly, he was haunted by a painful past, and would have been more so if the present would stop butting in with new trauma.
The last thought proved extraordinarily prescient when Poldo turned to find a hunched figure staring at them. The lawyer-monk clearly held considerable seniority; the combined weight of the medals, pins, and other insignia hanging from his robes had bent the man over double. A small, floating desk hovered through the air beside him, periodically dipping as though struggling to support the reams of parchment stacked atop it. His leathery face was shrouded by his heavy hood, yet the shadows couldn’t conceal the monk’s disgust and revulsion as he stared at Thane.
Poldo stiffened. No, there was no question at all in his mind as to why they faced eviction from Adchul.
“You know,” he muttered to the Wood Gnome on his shoulder. “When I was young, I learned that in business it is usually best to keep one’s language professional, no matter the circumstances.”
He gave a nod of greeting to the lawyer-monk, who returned it warily.
“And now that I am older and wiser, I’ve learned that you can do so and still stick it to the bastards,” he muttered, before raising his voice and arm in greeting. “Good morning!” he called to the lawyer-monk.
The old Human grimaced, but his shoulders fell like a deflating sail. With a heavy sigh, he crossed his hands in front of him and launched into Adchul’s traditional greeting. “The following is a wish of a good morning between myself, Brother Atticus, hereafter ‘I’ or ‘me,’ and Duine Poldo, hereafter ‘you.’ This is a non-binding greeting that does not guarantee or obligate either party to provide a morning of any quality, good or otherwise…”
Poldo allowed himself a petty, satisfied smile as his thoughts drifted back to a sign he’d seen in the small archway down by the docks. It was painted in simple blackletter that read: “YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE A VOW OF SILENCE TO WORK HERE, BUT IT HELPS.” The lawyer-monks spent their days meditating on the great disciplines of voiding liability and channeling leverage, and their sacred Master Agreement taught that careless words and idle chatter carried potential risk. Dinners at Adchul tended to be a quiet affair.
“… Nothing said in this disclaimer or greeting constitutes legal advice.” An enchanted quill on the old monk’s floating desk quickly worked over the surface of a piece of parchment, documenting every word. “You agree not to discuss legal matters with me without first signing a contract including an agreed-upon rate and fee schedule…”
The Troll had taken note of the monk and his monologue. “Did you forget how much they hate it when you say, ‘good morning?’” he asked Poldo.
“No,” said Poldo brightly. “Thane, I’m afraid your job is likely to become more challenging. We will be leaving Adchul.”
Thane frowned. “I thought you wanted to remain for at least another year.”
“Indeed, but circumstances are changing,” said Poldo.
“I see,” said Thane with a long sigh and a glance at the lawyer-monk. The Troll was no fool, and he held little illusion as to why they had a hard time finding permanent lodging.
Brother Atticus droned on. “… You further agree to release me from any liability for any damages, emotional distress, or financial harm that comes as a result of this conversation…”
“We will find somewhere stable.” Poldo reassured his bodyguard with a warm smile and a friendly pat on the shin. “Somewhere better.”
“Not safer,” Thane said sullenly. “The Hookhand still has assassins looking for you back on the mainland.”
“They’ve yet to put a scratch on me with you by my side,” said Poldo. “I’m more worried about his lawyers piercing our corporate veil and finding their way to Mrs. Hrurk’s Home. But all of those concerns are for another day. If the lawyer-monks won’t see reason tomorrow morning, we’ll want to leave as soon as possible. Pack your things and make your preparations. I’ll head to the docks to see if we can arrange passage on short notice.”
“I’ll be ready in the morning.” Thane stroked the short plant with a long sigh. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, my good man,” said Poldo brightly. “Let’s save blame for those that deserve it. Speaking of which…”
He turned to Brother Atticus, who was just completing his greeting. “And so, with the aforementioned understood and with your implicit consent to a verbal agreement, I wish you a good morning as well, as defined in subsection forty-two, paragraph ‘r’ of Adchul’s Master Agreement.”
“Thank you, Brother Atticus. I have truly enjoyed this conversation,” said Poldo with both honesty and malice. “And now it is with equal pleasure that I must bid you good day.”
Oopa of Many Hues was having a very bad day.
Usually a bad day meant that the olive prices rose right after she unloaded a barrel at the market, or that a client skipped out in paying for the information, or—on one horrible occasion—that the family goat got loose in the silk market. When it comes to expensive tastes, nothing beats a goat in a silk market.
But today was worse. She longed for the days when her worst problems were an empty purse, a half-eaten bolt of fabric, and a nanny goat with a bad case of indigestion.
A crossbow bolt ricocheted off the sandstone wall next to her, reminding her that the current problem—the very insistent problem—was a quartet of armed men with crimson robes.
Another shot zinged overhead as Oopa sprinted around the corner and into Kesh’s Dawn Market, her many-colored cloak trailing behind her like a rainbow banner. Merchants and shoppers shouted in surprise and anger as she shoved them out of her way, then screamed as she toppled a table covered in brass vases. Her pursuers leapt over the fallen vessels, so Oopa overturned a cage of squawking imps, knocked down a stack of clay pots, and went out of her way to crash through a fruit cart. Then she tossed her rainbow cloak over a mannequin, kicked it over, and ran in the opposite direction.
It was all to no avail. A glance behind her revealed the red-robed men continuing their dogged pursuit, unfazed by the makeshift diversions and obstacles. Worse, now the noctomancer selling the imps was giving chase as well.
Oopa’s eyes darted to a stack of crates leaning against a white stone building. A burst of quick leaps took her to the top of the pile, and another took her onto the clay-tiled rooftops. She climbed up to the steeple of the roof to get her bearings, and quickly dropped onto her belly.
Below her, where the courtyard of most complexes would be, a pit of thick, black mud burbled and congealed like last night’s stew. She caught a glimpse of a crest on a banner hanging above the muck; an Imperial serif wearing a crown of gemstones.
An old proverb from before the birth of the Empire said, “the man who would hold court with dragons will wear a jeweled crown.” Most scholars believed that it originally was meant to say that power brings wealth, but most scholars don’t get to direct policy. Emperors and empresses throughout history had interpreted the wisdom to mean that taming and working with dragons or dragon-kin would surely lead to riches and authority.
The only problem with this theory was dragon-kin.
Dragons themselves were believed to be sleeping beneath mountains across the globe since ages past. They rarely surfaced—only a handful of times during entire ages—and those that did seemed more in the mood to burn cities and eat livestock than to hold court. That left the ambitions of Imperial dreamers to drakes and other dragon-kin, which were universally ill-tempered, stubborn, and deadly. Many of the Empire’s finest men and women had lost their lives in attempts to ride wyverns, or lead Stone Drakes to war, or even just to convince a Flame Drake to light a stove.
More recent emperors recognized that dragon taming was a waste of serifs and knights, and relegated the task of taming dragon-kin for the Empire to criminals and exiles. For the most part, these souls met the same fate as their nobler predecessors, but the criminal mind often has a certain ingenuity that’s incompatible with a proper education. Eventually, an innovative and desperate dragon-tamer discovered Mud Drakes.
Mud Drakes were dimmer than most dragon-kin. Their thick scales deterred most threats, and their dull minds couldn’t process any that remained, so they seldom got defensive. As ambush predators, they had no instinct to chase prey. They got disoriented when walking for any distance at all, and thus were as easy to lead around as beasts of burden. It was almost impossible to get hurt by a Mud Drake, provided you didn’t stand directly in front of a hungry one with its muzzle off.
And the only place the royal Mud Drakes had their muzzles off was in the Imperial dragon tamers’ stables.
Muck oozed around dark, bulging shapes in the mud below. Once happily concealed within a mud pit, Mud Drakes remained perfectly still until prey wandered into range.
