homeland.”
“He brought it back, did he?” Vordius raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you know this thing is contraband.”
“I do know,” Sorgius replied, “and I also know that it saved your life.”
“What does this toy have to do with it? It was all you and your timing. I thought you’d gotten scared and run off, but you were right to wait for the perfect moment. You have no idea how happy I was to hear those bolts coming! Although, I guess I could have handled them on my own – just a bunch of rabble from the port!”
“You’re wrong about that, Vordius,” Sorgius objected, looking hurt. He took back the multi-shooter.
“Don’t get all puffed up like a Mustobrim serpent!” the guardsman said and put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. “We’re working together. Risking our lives for Uni! Have you heard anything about this Fire Asp they were talking about?”
“Of course I have!” Sorgius cut him off. He looked away so that Vordius wouldn’t see that his eyes were shining traitorously. He had known since they were boys that Vordius was vain about his strength, and he had always ignored that vanity because his friend had so many other positive qualities. Still, it stung to have his role in defeating the ruffians ignored.
“Well?” Vordius prodded him as they made their way out of the ravine together.
“What do you want to know?” Sorgius shrugged. “Everyone has heard of him, but I don’t know anyone who has seen him. Just imagine,” he warmed to his subject, “in just a year this Asp person managed to kick all the Iristenians out of the port, put down the local gangs and made it clear to everyone who was left just how much of the pie they could expect to get. All of this, and nobody knows where he came from!”
“What are people saying?” Vordius was intrigued. “Are there any clues?”
They were taking the long way out, stepping over toothy ferns and cracking branches under their boots. The sun was suspended right above the horizon, and its last rays penetrated the crowns of the trees growing in the ravine.
“I’ve heard people say he’s about thirty years old, barrel-chested, so tall he can barely walk through a doorway, and with a voice like a trumpet!” Sorgius shook his head. “But others say he’s this tiny old man with a beard that almost touches the ground, but his eye is so sharp that if he looks at you, you freeze! But yet others say…”
“I see,” Vordius interrupted. “All fables. We have to find a man that no one has seen!” He was silent for a moment. Then he put his hand on Sorgius’ shoulder. “What fools they were to attack an officer in the Imperial Guards. I’d like to know what herbs give a man that kind of courage!” He shook his head, “No, I don’t like the looks of this at all!”
“The port has laws of its own,” Sorgius said. “I know of several attempts to clean up the corruption down there, but none of them worked out. When the Solar Sentinels make an appearance down there, it’s just that – an appearance. Here’s what I think,” he squinted. “Whoever runs the port is paying sizeable bribes to the city government. What I’d really like to know is how Asp and Fenia are connected,” he said, shrugging out from under his friend’s heavy hand.
“Do you think she’s employed by him?”
“Who knows? Asp carries a lot of weight in the port, but I think our friend back there was exaggerating about the mice. There’s no proof that the girl is from the port.”
“True,” Vordius replied. “So why are we looking for her there?”
“Because, my helmet-headed friend, we don’t have anything else to go on,” Sorgius scored a point. “If you have any other ideas…”
“Ideas? I can’t begin to imagine how we’ll stick our heads in that louse-infested den. We can’t just walk into the Lotus and ask for Fire Asp!”
“You astound me!” Sorgius cried. “I was sure you would say we should run in, tie everyone up, and start serving eyeball desserts!”
Vordius blushed. “I can’t do that and you well know it. If my superiors find out what I’m doing, they’ll feed me to the pigs!”
“Exactly! You’re starting to show some common sense. You have a good career and a lovely fiancée. One wrong move and you’ll throw it all away!”
“If you’re scared to keep up the search, just tell me. I’ll do it on my own,” Vordius growled.
“I’ve no doubt of that. I can just imagine how you’ll go about it,” Sorgius snickered.
“Enough of that, fool. Tell me what you have in mind.”
“Don’t rush the wagon. It’s a slow wagon, but it will arrive on time because it’s carrying something very valuable! Now listen,” he lowered his voice. “And stop calling me names. Your Uncle Sorgius has an idea on how to get through the fog without falling into the chasm!”
Enteveria’s northern river port was used almost exclusively for the government’s ships, but its southern river port handled all the private merchant trade for the enormous city. Because of its connections with the Empire’s far-flung trading partners, the southern port district was inhabited by people from all over the world, as if it were a magical portal opening into all the cities of the Empire and beyond. The sounds and smells of its streets were so different from those in other parts of the city that wise men were of the opinion that the port district was the remains of a settlement that had existed long before Enteveria, perhaps even the remains of an ancient community of Nigmays who had lived in these parts even before the Herandians. The port’s residents, whose ethnic makeup could have served as a geography lesson covering all of Dashtornis, had little interest in such theories. Unlike the wise men of the Imperial Academy, the people in the port were engaged in work of a more practical nature: they loaded and unloaded ships, traded in everything that was prohibited from the central market, made money catering to all kinds of human vices and engaged in associated criminal activity.
People with upstanding morals and respectable lifestyles almost never visited the southern river port. It would be tempting to make an exception for merchants and their salespeople, but in truth, the men of those professions are not guaranteed to always be moral or respectable.
The same could be said of two men that were now making their way through the crowd at the port. Even the most distracted observer would have seen right away which of the men was in charge and which was there to offer protection. The shorter of the two men was dressed in a gold-embroidered cape of fine Ulinian silk and wide rub-red southern style pants (to be specific, they were exactly the color of costly Arincilian gagawa juice). His tunic, stretched tight across his belly, was encrusted with pearls, and his crocodile leather shoes were ready to convince anyone who doubted their owner’s wealth. A pointed cap sat atop a head that was going bald young, and his shaven cheeks oozed with the lazy hauteur that earned the Vuravians so much dislike throughout the Empire.
His companion was much taller and dressed in a Torgendam deerskin tunic that stretched tight across his powerful back and revealed the rock-like muscles of his arms. His face betrayed his roots in the Empire’s heartland, with an oval face, dark, slightly curly hair, and a striking nose above a stubborn mouth and a solid chin. With two broad leather straps across his chest and a massive leather belt, he obviously knew how to circumvent the rule that civilians were not allowed to wear armor. The same could be said about
