“So be it,” I respond, finally.
“Fantastic!”
Corporal Level extends his hand to me and I shake it.
Afterward, he picks up a paper from the stack on his left and says, “Vong, Rakatha, Twitch, Ralith, and Anes—the one I got to replace you for this patrol—are due back in a week’s time. I’m afraid I don’t have anything around here that requires your skill set for that time. You were expecting on having the week off. Is it safe to assume you’re still okay with that plan?”
Corporal Level’s easy competence is quite pleasant. He demonstrates an excellent memory and what he doesn’t remember he has written down. I contemplate what it would take to convince him to work for me. I will have great use for such an individual, especially during the early stages of establishing my power base.
“Yes,” I tell him, standing—or at least nearly so in the cramped room—and moving toward the door.
“Let me know if there’s anything you need in the meantime. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week!” he says, pleasantly enough.
My business resolved, or at least placated for the moment, I take a deeper look at him and see the bags under his eyes and the pallid color of his skin. It’s not illness, I surmise, just stress. No doubt the fate of the Corps, the fate of those boys, and all the rest of the Corps members weigh heavily upon him. He’s too decent a man to look after himself first.
On second thought, someone like that could be a deep disadvantage for my dark empire. Many callous decisions will need to be made without regard for the wellbeing of those it affects. I decide to keep an eye on him but consider him, at best, an independent agent I might call on from time to time. Most likely not suited to the inner circle.
I say, “Good-bye,” and exit the converted stall of an office and walk down the corridor—still half livestock stable—and out into the market street. One week is mine to do with as I please, and steady coin is all but guaranteed in my future.
Before I spend that time making additional scrolls, I want to know it will be worth my effort, so I turn right and walk to The Notable Sage.
When the bell on the door rings and the mustached man emerges from the back room, his eyes carry recognition but no more welcome than the previous day. I have no more desire to drag this out than he does, so I go straight to the counter at the back.
Without saying anything, I slide the scroll out of my pouch and place it on the counter. He looks surprised, and I can only guess as to why. Perhaps he didn’t expect I was skilled enough, or even a magic user at all. Maybe he is surprised at the turn around time. Or, he might just have failing eyesight and that face helps him focus.
He picks up the sheet and turns it over and around, inspecting the quality of paper and who knows what else. The paper is nigh-invulnerable with so much arcanum infused into it, so a person could scribe into a clay tablet and the same process would still work.
Next, I watch as he reaches below the counter and pulls out a wand. Activating whatever spell is on the wand—probably one to detect magic—he peers at the scroll some more, but is obviously seeing new properties.
Finally, he pulls open a drawer and leafs through it for a brief moment before pulling out another scroll and setting it next to mine to compare. Donning a monocle, he scrutinizes the two pages back and forth, forth and back, for near on five minutes. I wait, saying nothing.
At long last he lets the monocle drop from his eye. It swings against his waistcoat and comes to rest at the end of a chain. He rubs his eyes with his left hand while simultaneously sliding his comparison scroll off the counter and depositing it back in its drawer. He places his hand over my scroll possessively.
Ah, he’s going to try to barter now, despite having an agreed-upon rate.
“Welp,” he begins, but pauses when I reach my larger hand over the scroll with intention to take it back.
He pulls his hand away instinctively and I slide the scroll back toward my side of the counter. If he is truly desperate for these spell scrolls, he won’t let me leave. If he’s a swindler, he also won’t, but it will come across differently. Not as desperation but as opportunity. I pause to see which, after making a show of putting the paper back in my pouch.
“Well now hold on there just a minute, magus,” he says, sounding a bit flummoxed. “I’m willing to take that scroll there so don’t run off just yet.”
“The rate is one gold per scroll,” I remind him, “plus materials by weight.”
“Of course! Yes!” he says, just a bit too loud.
He seems anxious so he’s either truly in need of the scroll or a very good con man.
The facade falls away completely as he reaches into his coin belt and produces one gold. He holds it out for me to see and then places it on the counter. He looks at me, then the coin, and then me again expectantly.
I put the scroll back on the counter next to the coin. I also pull out the scribing materials he weighed the day before and place those on the counter between him and the spell. Taking the cue, he pulls out his ledger and scale, weighing each and recording it. He doesn’t ensure I am shown the reading on the scale, but he does hold open the ledger for me after recording everything. Fortunately for me, I am tall enough that I have a decent enough angle to confirm that he does not trick up the numbers.
I nod and he adds ink to the magic ink well, produces a sheet of paper of similar quality, and rummages through the drawers to provide me a pinch of ground quartz and a small shaving of charcoal. The small amounts are quite fussy to portion out—it would be much easier to do after several scrolls’ worth of materials had been used—but this man needs to earn my trust before I would allow myself to be taken advantage of like that.
Replacing my sundries back onto my person, I lift the coin from the counter and hold it between my fingers. “I will bring several more within a week’s time.”
His look brightens at that and he seems pleased for the first time in our two interactions. “Then I’ll look forward to it, mister…?”
“Zer Khaldun.”
“Zer Khaldun,” he repeats, not quite correctly, but close. He just heard it, after all.
I pocket the gold and leave the shop.
I barely remember the week passing, but my spellbook and coin pouch are more flush than when the week began. Creating four more scrolls for The Notable Sage and translating three new spells from the grey market spellbook has me feeling quite studious and accomplished. Reminiscent of the best parts of learning at Val Maxis’s tower.
I feel only mild disappointment that one of the spells learned from the book thus far was a duplicate of a spell I already know since, by odds, it was bound to happen. I’m looking forward to getting back out into the field to try the other two—spells I might have passed over had they come to me any other way—since they are best suited to combat situations, which I try to avoid. I suspect the spellbook might have belonged to a battalion mage. If so, and the original owner is dead, no one will be looking for this spellbook.
The Wordbearer Chronicles is a dark fantasy web series with new passages on Tuesdays.
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