The Ironwall market was a delight. I glanced around and got an idea where the guards were, assessed the general affluence of the townsfolk, borrowed a box from a copper worker, and set it up in the middle of the square. Getting onto it, I took a deep breath and began the show. “Gather round, ladies and gentleman. Yes, madam, you too. Gather round to hear of something that will change your life. No sir, I am no priest, prophet, or preacher. I am an apprentice to the sage priests of the Ottorian dragon herders who has seen marvels now told only in the tales of children.”
A couple going though a selection of pots and pans at a nearby stall stopped to listen, shading their eyes against the sun. A cluster of merchants beside them turned my way as well. It was starting.
“I have ridden the northwinds astride the ice wyverns,” I announced, in a full hit-the-back-wall voice. “I have crossed the Southern Ocean with Arrulf the pirate, who paints his toes with the blood of virgins and eats gold at every meal. I passed a year with the lizard-men in caves east of the Grey Forest, and dined with trolls in the fiery chasms of the western volcanoes. I resided four winters in the Library of Lore (ancient and modern) under the tutelage of Erelthor, high mage of the Council of Light. And after these my wanderings, I have come to your humble market, and I bring you life.”
There was quite a crowd gathering now. I could see the skeptics on the outside smiling and nudging their friends, but that was no matter. There are always enough fools, and besides, I was good at this. If the skeptics wound up paying out with the rest of them, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“Good people of Greycoast! Worthy residents of Ironwall! I bring you the elixir of Sensenon! After years of study and penitent worship, the council has permitted me to sell a small amount of the elixir to the world, the place commanded by divination and the drawing of numbers. You, proud Ironwall in the land of Greycoast, have been selected!
“Oh, Sensenon, after these long centuries your people will finally be satisfied! No more will they suffer the chills of winter or the fevers of summer. No more will their skin age and their eyes fail! Lo, it says in the book of Onthrast: ‘Their cheeks shall be as babes and they shall see ants on the horizon and count their legs.’
“It will build your muscle and lose your fat. See the results in less than a week! It will make you potent and fertile, witty and intelligent. Yes, madam, it cures piles. Certainly, it straightens bones, enlarges the brain, strengthens nails, gives sheen and body to hair, beautifies complexion, and richens eye color. Ladies, apply it your skin and body hair falls away. Gentlemen, do likewise for a full and lusty beard. Can you afford to turn away?
“Across continents I have searched for the ingredients and measured them out as Sensenon prescribed. For each vial, a blend of badger bile and seven hairs from the snout of a grizzly bear are added to the ground beak of a Hrof ostrich, a sliver of the bamboo found only in the rain forest of the Xeltark, and a pinch of the moss that grows above the snow line on Mount Valten. These are simmered for three years in a special distillation of Thrusian brandy and Stavissian hemlock, and into them are stirred powdered pearls and emeralds. The whole is seasoned with bee urine and shaken in a cup of purest gold lined with leaves of the screaming mandrake. It is brought to a boil for exactly thirty-seven seconds in the dragon-breath furnace of Salhayazim, and stirred with the fibula of a ruby- throated leaping wombat as the secret words of completion are breathed into it. At last, it is ready and I present it to you, Sensenon’s all-natural elixir-yours, for a limited time only, for just two gold pieces.”
That last part was true, at least, for I always drop the price by half after five minutes, once the real morons have gone home satisfied. Ten minutes after that I’d drop it by half again. In a country village I might go lower, but in a worldly-wise hub of commerce like this place, they won’t buy if you go too cheap. They figure that expensive means good.
The party arrived halfway through. I ignored them and sold my wares, figuring their speeches about truth and virtue and how naughty it was to tell fibs would be shorter and easier to ignore if I’d made them a potful of money. This turned out to be right.
But as I was packing up, having made a tidy twenty-eight gold pieces and a handful of change, Garnet said, “Have you got any left?”
“Any what?”
“Any of the elixir.”
I gave him an odd look. “Why?”
“Well,” he said, “if it does only half the things you said it does, then-”
“It doesn’t,” I said quickly, with something like shock. “Why should it?”
“Well,” he said guilelessly, “your learning, and the special ingredients. ”
“Learning have I none,” I said, smiling. “As for the ingredients, well, it’s mainly puddle water, clay, and something a little special of my own that you don’t want to hear about. There are a few flower petals in there, but not enough to make it palatable.”
Garnet looked at me in silence. I’d just sold the last bottle to one of the guards, who now leaned against a gibbet holding a corpse labeled cutpurse. I shrugged and slid the gold through my fingers into Lisha’s bag.
“Well done, Will,” she said.
“My pleasure,” I replied honestly.
SCENE XXXIII Romance
In the Eagle, tales of adventuring had always been stuffed full of colossal dragons, all insatiable greed, murderous fury, and breath that would singe your eyebrows at four hundred yards: absolute evil in physical form. I’d never
It didn’t seem to work like that in reality, though I wasn’t sure Garnet and Renthrette had figured that out yet. For them, there was always a line drawn, and they were on the side of truth, justice, and sunshine. There were a lot of people on the other side of the line, and once you were over there you could very easily became ax meat. This was disturbing for someone like me, who frequently wandered from one side of the line to the other without even realizing it.
Lately I’d been on fractionally better terms with Renthrette, though that wasn’t saying much, and even that limited progress had less to do with her feeling more comfortable with me and more to do with feeling less comfortable with the mission, if you see what I mean. She had made her disdain for my moral status clear after my conciliatory words to the duke (the fact that he had been ready to execute me did not strike her as relevant) and had referred to my money-raising methods as “snakish and deceitful,” so we weren’t exactly ready for candlelit dinners, but she called me stupid less often and always seemed to be weighing the things in my character that nauseated her (most of them) against my undeniable, if erratic, usefulness to the party. Whenever I did something right she would give me a long look of muted surprise, as if she were watching a camel say the alphabet at high speed: unexpectedly praiseworthy but somehow suspect. I’d bought her a drink a few nights before and she gave me that very look when I didn’t try to weasel my way into her affections and/or underwear. Even I wasn’t certain what I was doing, since I’d pretty much given up hope of progress in that direction. Pretty much.
I hadn’t met many women lately, because the party members always seemed to be watching me like the vultures we’d seen in the Hrof, their faces heavy with sermons on virtue or equality. I watched keenly for signs of romantic goings-on amongst the group, but everything seemed cerebral and professional, curse them. I had thought people went into adventuring for romance (sex) and excitement (sex). It was just my luck to hitch up with the only celibate mercenaries in Thrusia. I started saying what a good physique Lisha had to Garnet, but his green eyes started to get that cold, homicidal look, so I dropped it. I said nothing of Renthrette, fearful that Mithos or Orgos would show interest and then I’d really be screwed. Or, rather, I wouldn’t. I liked to pretend I had a chance, even if she was only just getting over the impulse to put a dagger through my windpipe every time she saw me.
A sample piece of recent dialogue: “You have beautiful eyes,” I said to her, very smooth over the top of my tankard. We were sitting in a tavern waiting for the others to join us and she was drinking tea (for God’s sake!).
