Mughal Mood

Been working on the next in the Mughal serials. This tune is helping the mindset a great deal...

Working On The Third...

of the Mughal Court Stories. I sold the second this weekend.

Here is something I am listening to as I write, hope you enjoy:

Not Entirely Sure....

Not certain of it, as the response was a bit oblique, but I think THE LAST CAPTAIN was turned down today. I am not too down about it, content that I have an answer at last.

So, knowing I don't have to adhere to anyone's version of it, I re-opened it to start taking a look at it for the first time in a year.

There's some issues, certainly. There's also some good stuff:

“It’s not whether you can tell when a suspect is lying to you-they always do that, and they, unlike you, are always highly motivated. No, it’s about figuring which lies have useful grains of truth in them. In that way, the job of the police interrogator is like a miller’s, grinding truth from the chaff.” -Simon Baptiste, NGPD Inspector, killed in the line.

The place was a pit. It was meant to be a pit. A pit seven stories high and full of damaged people and their broken dreams. The smell of their blunted promise permeated the place, sliding under the bleach and cleansers used to scrub it down on endless rounds.

I hate it. The thought didn’t make the drab colors and muted misery of the detention center any easier for Venkman to bear. 

He wouldn’t have come, but there was a chance Mort would talk to him. 

There was history here. 

I doubt Mort even knew who he was shooting when he pulled the trigger. Not that Mort isn’t a violent shithead, but Bap and me were always able to talk to him after handling that shit caper with his sister and Loius. 

That slim chance and the fact it was his partner in hospital that dragged him to the visitor’s center on the seventh story of the Black Hole.

The visitor’s Warden nodded at the big officer, recognizing him from the many prisoners Venkman had brought in over the years. It wasn’t terribly often that someone was held for shooting an officer, and the Warden was immediately on guard. “Officer Venkman, the prisoner is on special detention until the IMPs pick him up this afternoon.”

“I know, Pierot. Can you give him the word, let him know I want to talk? I might even have something to offer him for his time.”

Pierot frowned and cast a significant glance at the recorders above them. “I don’t know I can do that, what with the IMPs coming for him.”

Venkman smiled and nodded. “I’m not asking for anything special. I just want to know what he knows, if he’s willing to tell me, before the IMPs sew him up.”

“I’ll pass the request along,” Pierot said, pointing his chin at the waiting area seats.

“Thank you.” Venkman entered the waiting area. 

Nerves kept him from sitting. Not exactly here with the Department’s blessing, I might get a couple grumbles from the Inspector’s Bureau, let alone what the IMP Inspector might say.

Fuck ‘em. 

Baptiste will want to know how a low-rent moron like Mort got his hands on military police hardware. If Mort talks to me, then I can worry about appeasing anyone who takes issue with us chatting.

“Officer Venkman, the prisoner accepts your request. Please proceed to interview room B.” Pierot announced over the intercom.

Venkman did as he was bid, entering the secured area where police interrogations of prisoners were recorded, rather than the counsel visiting chambers that didn’t have such devices.

The bare alloy surfaces of the small chamber reminded him of other interrogations, memories he’d rather not have dancing while he spoke to Mort.

He took a seat. Waited, tried to organize his thoughts.

A Warden Venkman didn’t recognize ushered the prisoner in and sat him down on the other side of the table. 

Mort didn’t look happy at all. He raised his hands, the gesture shortened by his restraints. “Venk, man, I didn’t know.”

“Sit,” Venkman nodded at the Warden, “and we’ll talk a bit.”

The warden departed. 

Venkman read the thin-faced addict his rights. They were few, given that he was now headed for Imperial custody. That formality out of the way, he sat back and waited for Mort to start talking.

It didn’t take long. “Seriously, Venk, I was out my head. High as fuck, you know. You gotta tell Bap I didn’t know it was him.”

“Sure, Mort, I’ll tell him, but you have to tell me a thing or two first.”

“You can’t get my sentence reduced, can you?”

Venkman shook his head. “You know that ain’t likely now it’s in the hands of the IMPs.”

Tears welled, but Mort managed to swallow them. “Fuck, Venk.”

Spreading his hands on the table, Venkman said, “Did it to yourself, Mort. You can still help us out, though. If you do, I might be able to convince Bap to petition the Imperial Justice for a light sentence.”

He thought about it, he really did. Eventually though: “Man, that’s not enough.”

Venkman shrugged. “You took it out of our hands when you picked up that ZAR. Still, it has to be better to have one of your victims take your part than testify about all the dirt we know.”

“One of?”

“Your girlfriend was pretty beat up, Mort. She was happy to talk to the Inspectors.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Mort shook his head, “I ca-”

Seeing he was about to say no, Venkman interrupted. “I’m not saying you aren’t a stand-up guy, I mean, you just came clean to me on the record that you feel bad about Bap. That takes a man.”

Mort nodded, bowing his head.

Time for a change of subject.

“I thought you were strictly using to maintain, Mort, not getting high anymore. What happened?”

That got a rise out of Mort. He looked up, his lips curling in anger. “I was, man, but I picked up this new shit on a lark. Got me going harder than I thought possible after all these years. I was out of it, high as fuck. Out to goddamn lunch with a hard on.”

“What new shit?” Mort might not have any control over his addiction, but he was a connoisseur of street drugs, their preparation, and their origins.

“Mindfire. Some custom shit that hasn’t even fully hit the streets yet. I got a sample from a guy I know. It was supposed to be this almighty high. Cheap, long lasting.” His face crumpled. “I suppose it was too good for me.”

“Who put it in your hands?”

“Huh?” Mort sniveled.

“Who sold you the Mindfire?”

“Venk, you know it goes against the code to roll like this.”

Code? That’s fucking rich. 

“I do, just as I know it ain’t right that he sold you a hot load right when you were doing so well. I mean, shooting at Baptiste when you’re doped out your mind is one thing, we expect that, but you went and beat your old lady while you were high. That was something you told me and Bap you would never do when we took down the man doing the same to your sister.”

Mort wiped his nose, tried to keep from telling Venkman, then said in a rush, “Crooked Luc.”

“Luc Versace?”

“No, Luc…I think it’s Yount. Works the clubs in Starfall.”

“Which ones?”

Mort tossed his head back, “C’mon Venk, you’re a big boy, you can figure it out.”

“Fair enough. Now, about the coilgun.”

Mort shook his head, speaking over Venkman as he tried to interrupt the negative response, “Sorry, man, on that, I ain’t saying shit.”

Venkman took in the firm set of Mort’s mouth. Damn. 

“Why not?”

“Cause-” he pointed at the ceiling and the monitoring devices there, “That’s the one bit of useful I have to strike a deal when the IMPs come calling. Maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I can see your point of view, I just don’t think you’ll get what you need by playing coy with me.”

Mort wilted a bit. “You don’t think so.”

“Nope.”

“Then I might as well lawyer up and shut the fuck up.” Mort picked at his thumbnail with the other, a nervous habit he dropped when high.

Venkman shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, Bap and me could be in your corner. Could be the difference between a firing squad and just a damn long walk up the well.”

“A walk I already know. And fuckin’ hate.”

“Beats the death sentence for use of Imperial military gear in a crime, hands down.”

Mort’s eyes hardened. “You know what? I think we’re done.”

“That’s too bad, Mort. Really. I hoped we could help each other out.”

“All I got is my rep, and if I do end up on a rock out the well, I’ll need it as intact as I can get it.”

“I don’t think so, Mort. You got your sister and her kids. What are they going to do without you looking out for ‘em?”

Mort snorted. “You didn’t hear?”

“No?”

“She married some freighter captain, got the ‘Conditioning and everything. Not just her; the kids too.”

Venkman pasted a smile on, upset at himself. Damn, I should have looked that up before I came in here pulling the wrong damn levers. 

“No shit?”

A sad smile spread across the addict’s face. “No shit. She left last week.”

And now I know why you were out trying new dope. You sad, sorry fuck.

“You sure you won’t talk to me?”

Mort shook his head. 

Venkman pressed the call stud for the warden.

“Just do like you said you would with Bap. And if you can, tell Lorraine it was the drugs, not me.”

Damn, should have pressed the girlfriend angle harder.

“I will, Mort.”

Venkman was leaving the detention center, dataspike with Mort’s interview in hand when the IMP troop transport roared in from the south, flared to a halt in midair and dropped smoothly to the rooftop landing pad. For the second time that day, Venkman suppressed old, ugly memories that wanted to take him for a ride down the rabbit hole.

Venkman refused them. 

They’re just getting around to picking Mort up. Nothing to do with you. He looked at the sun. Still time to get to the hospital and see Bap. 

 He finished the walk to his truck and climbed in. The drive to the hospital was quick and relatively painless, and allowed him to focus on something other than memory. 

The hospital was a large and rambling structure, but one he’d been in more than once. He had no trouble finding the unit where his partner was recovering.

The nurse actually flinched when she saw his face.

Fuck you too.

He showed his star. “I’m visiting Officer Baptiste.”

“Right, he’s in-”

Venkman had already turned and started walking. Baptiste’s was the only room with an officer guarding it.

“Hey Victor.”

“Hey, Venk.”

“He awake?”

“Fuck yes, I am! Bored out my mind!” Baptiste called.

Venkman shared a grin with Vic and walked on in.

Baptiste waved from the bed. “Where you been?”

“Talking to your would-be killer.”

Bap’s brows shot up. “And?”

“It’s good news and bad.”

“Fuck, you going to make me ask after every detail or just tell me what’s what?”

“He told me who sold him the drugs, but refused to tell me where he bought the gun.”

“Thinking to use that information with the IMPs?”

Venkman nodded. “Yes.”

Baptiste shook his head. “Poor fucker never was all that bright.”

“You hear about his sister?”

“Got married recently, didn’t she?”

“How is it you remember all this shit?”

Baptiste grinned. “Because I’m a local, as opposed to you and your misspent world-hopping extravagant lifestyle.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, shit! Annis left, too. That’s why he was hitting the sauce so hard. I was wondering what made him stray from his ‘I’m just keeping out of withdrawal’ bullshit.”

Venkman nodded. He may make light of it, but Bap’s ability to remember names and faces is nothing short of a gift! Not only remember them, but place people in the larger context of their family relationships, places and things, crimes and their criminals. 

It was a gift Venkman was often surprised by, but never envious of. All gifts can be burdens, under the right circumstances: Jean never forgets.

Baptiste had gone on without him: “Or, could be I’m just a born gossip, unhappy unless I’m sticking my nose in other people’s shit. 

Who was it sold him the dope?”

“Dealer called Crooked Luc. Mort says he sells through the nightclubs in our district. He wasn’t sure about the real last name. Thought it might be Yount.”

Baptiste nodded, pulled at his lower lip. “Yount… Yount…I think he worked for one of the Lagauche crews, way down the ladder.”

That name I recognize. But… “Mort also said it was some new dope, Mindfire.”

Baptiste released his lip, leaned back into the pillows with a slight wince. “That should rule out the Lagauche crews. The Lagauche has never been a fan of dope sales, and supposedly has his people on a short leash on anything new. There’s too much heat from us when someone croaks because the chemistry was off.”

“My thought too.”

“Well, Prometheus is LaGauche’s boy in Starfall… or it could be Gilles Lascombe… and maybe one or two others.”

“Not specific enough to go asking for a warrant on.”

“My money’s on Prometheus. The last intelligence assessment from the IMPs had him in charge of Starfall.”

“Could be.” Baptiste said. 

One of the mechanisms of the bed beeped softly as the cortex determined it was time for another treatment. Baptiste’s expression pinched and he hissed “Damn, this shit itches.”

“The wonders of modern technology.”

“Yeah. Good news, though: they tell me I’m out next week.”

“Then it’s the wonders of the psych folks.”

“Yay,” Bap replied, deadpan. His hand crept to the button that released a dose of painkillers. 

“Should I wait on you to go visit Mr Yount?”

“I’d appreciate it, unless you have to report it.”

“Oh, I’ll kick it up in a memo, just won’t tie it to your incident. If they figure it out, bully for them. If not, we’ll take a crack at him.”

 Baptiste sighed as the painkiller took the edge off the itch. “Fair enough. Now get out of here, you’re messing with my high and you have to be on shift in an hour.”

Venkman smiled, took the man’s hand. “See you in a couple days.”

“Yep.”

It began to rain as Venkman rolled up to the crime scene. The coroner’s van was departing the garage, presumably carrying the crispy critter from the explosion.  Officer Proulx’s squad car pulled back and out of the way to allow the bigger vehicle to depart. 

Proulx waved from his patrol vehicle, motioning Venkman into the spot he’d vacated to allow the coroner to leave. Venkman parked to block the garage ramp and waved to Proulx, but the senior officer was already driving off through the rain.

This was Venkman’s first call of the holiday weekend.  Not the way I would prefer to start my night, but there it is. Seniority is king, and I don’t have enough time on the job to be a prince, let alone day watch.

Venkman keyed his mic and let dispatch know he’d taken up his post. Checking the log for the scene, he verified the bomb squad had already cleared the zone as safe. Homicide Inspectors had already arrived, checked things out, and departed as well. The lab techs were the only ones still present, taking their time documenting everything.

The officer sat up in his seat as one of the lab techs scurried over to the mobile lab vehicle and his supervisor.  Civilians, the techs tended to be excitable. 

The scurrying fellow showed the supervisor something on his data pad, gesturing excitedly. The supervisor shook her head. The underling was insistent, however.  

After a moment the supervisor grimaced and picked up her own data pad, keying in a sequence. She blanched at the result. She then moved slightly closer to the garage entrance and Venkman, most likely for better reception, before making a call. 

Venkman couldn’t tell exactly what was said, as her mouth was partially obscured by the mic, but he got quite a bit, old training proving useful.

“Yes, we ---- a goddamn problem,” she said, pacing back and forth about twenty meters from Venkman’s patrol car.  

“Yes, you --- -- ---- to see who we think the victim ----,” she continued.

“Right. We’ll stay locked ---- ---- they ,” she finished, keying off the unit and looking at Venkman’s patrol car before turning to bark something at her subordinate.

A few more minutes passed in heated hand-waving discourse.

“3D4C?” Dispatch asked for him even as he heard the comp beep with an incoming message.

Venkman twitched, keyed the mic, “Go ahead.”

“Check messages.”

“10-4,” Venkman replied, entering his pass code into the dash mounted terminal.

Reading, Venkman shook his head. The crispy critter was apparently one Remer ben Diele, Imperial Supply Clerk First Class. Crimes against Imperial Officers, even one as low on the totem pole as Supply Clerk First Class Remer ben Diele, were taken very seriously by the Imperials, warranting full Military Police Investigators. 

And if I remember my training correctly, the ranking Imperial Military Police Investigator normally be called in. If he or she wasn’t available, it devolves to Navy, then Marines, then regular Army. If no Investigators are available, it devolves to the senior ranking officer of each service in the same order.

I’m fairly sure there are no Investigators on planet, not since the first round of force reductions that made Nouvelle Genève such a good place for me to settle. Nouvelle Genève was always an IMP staging point, a fact that kept their Navy from establishing a permanent base in-system. Got to love the imperial legal codes governing the labyrinthine relations between Imperial governmental organs.  

Remembering the blonde and attractive IMP captain on the feed the other day, Venkman idly wondered who was in command of the base after all the draw-downs of the last few years. He didn’t dare do any queries from his department vehicle. Not a good idea to go raising questions I’d rather not answer just for the sake of idle curiosity.

The end line of the message from dispatch ordered him to remain in place and maintain the perimeter until further notice. 

He typed in an acknowledgement of the order and sat back. 

The boys and girls in Homicide will be running around in circles congratulating each other once they learn the IMPs will be taking up the case. He grinned. They’ll have to hustle if they want to get here before the IMPs and make it look like they were here doing their jobs the whole time.

He sighed. Regardless of how it turned out for the crispy critter, it looked to be a long wait for one Officer Nigel Venkman.

About twenty minutes later, Venkman managed not to flinch when the scout troop carrier rounded the corner onto Eighth Street, despite the sudden flashback, the smell of burning oil and flesh he knew weren’t there, suddenly he was back there and then…

IMP carriers rolling up on his position in the blown ambush, gauss weapons making the air turn to lightning and thunder. The resistance unit he’d stirred to action melting away, either literally as Imperial fire vaporized bodies or they broke and ran. Scrambling for the ram, picking up the crew-served weapon and firing from the shoulder, missing. The turret tracking, firing. White noise and pain… 

Venkman mastered memory as the carrier came to a stop in front of the ramp and the hatch popped open. When he saw the Captain of Imperial Military Police step out of the armored personnel carrier Venkman’s left eye wanted to drop closed for a better sight picture, and the act of will it took to keep it from doing so set his eyelid to twitching.  Details picked up on an unconscious level kicked his fight or flight response into gear, hyper-efficient adrenal glands rolling fire through his veins, his muscles.  

The steering yoke groaned and popped as his hands clenched on the plastic and steel surface. He breathed deep, pushing through the sudden, overwhelming desire to tear up or tear out. 

Venkman resorted to the mantra, rendering his center clear and pushing the calm out along his limbs until he gained enough control to analyze the power of his reaction.

It wasn’t just that he recognized the uniform. Worse, he recognized the limp and the face. Letting out a slow breath, he took himself to task.

It’s not like she’ll know who you are. You’ve taken great pains to see to that. 

He managed to remove one hand from the yoke to wave at her before popping the door and stepping into the rain.

Captain L. Schrader smiled at him.

She extended a hand to him in greeting, “Evening, Officer…” She read his nameplate, “Venkman.”

Not that she had to, Venkman thought with a wary glance at the PID riding across from her sidearm on her belt, the central cortex has all the information she could ask for.

The rain went from persistent to insistent in a flash, the sudden deluge actually bouncing from the pavement.

“Wet enough for you out here?” she asked with a grin.

Venkman smiled, despite himself, “You could say that.”

“Wish I could say I was a stranger to leaving warm places for shitty ones myself,” Schrader cocked an eyebrow and gave the large and thick-built officer a crooked smile he quite liked, “but shall we get out of the rain?”

Venkman led her up the ramp, pausing in the shelter of the awning, he turned to face her.

She glanced up and met his eyes.

Did I just catch her checking out my ass?

She cleared her throat and went on without acknowledging anything untoward. “So. I am the investigating officer. Can you tell me what happened?”

The rain ran from his helmet and her uniform cap. “Ah, wouldn’t you prefer to talk to homicide?”

Schrader gestured at the nearly empty street, “Are they here?”

“No, ma’am. They haven’t yet come back.” 

She’s looking at you like she’s thirsty.

No, she damn well is not.

Is so.

“Well then, I guess it’s just us, isn’t it?”

Venkman flushed. He fucking hated blushing, it made the mass of thin white scars on his face more pronounced, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Lead on, then,” Schrader said.

He led the way into the garage. “Our bomb specialists say the structure is safe for entry, with no secondary devices, but then we don’t have your technical abilities to be absolutely sure.” 

“They know their business well enough. I trained some of them back when. You know Granger?”

“Yes.”

“Quick study.”

Venkman nodded and changed the subject as they stopped on the perimeter of the blast area, “Well, we don’t know much: Apparently the victim returned to his car after doing some sHopping in the district center here. We have some footage of him walking through the shopping center and then entering the garage with some packages. He then started the car and the device exploded, killing him. No secondary explosions. This was at about 1632 hours. Plates on the car are, or were, Zulu 8-8-8-8.”

“Army or Marines?”

“What?” Venkman asked.

Schrader shrugged and smiled softly, “You used the military designation, not the local PD. Zebra on the air here, isn’t it?” 

Venkman nodded, suddenly cold. “Yes ma’am. I was in the Army for a few years during the war. Garrison duty, mostly.”

Schrader nodded. Garrison duty was boring work, and not known for combat. He knew what she would ask next: the scars indicated he’d seen more action than most garrison soldiers, so she asked, “Where at?”

“Beatte’s Star,” Venkman replied as the crime scene techs approached in what could only be described as a gaggle.

He could see her respect for him kick up a few notches. “No shit?” Schrader said. The Last Push, Imperial High command had called the series of assaults that had secured the system. They’d called it wrong, of course. The Perfected had counterattacked there and in three other worlds of the sector, igniting insurrection on a score more. Bloody battles fought in some heavily built up urban centers.

“No shit, Captain.” He replied as the technician began to wave his findings in the Captain’s face.

Happy to fade into the background Venkman watched Schrader speaking to the techs. It took a bit to calm the civilians down, but eventually Schrader had the information accumulated at the scene transmitted to her PID and began to review it.  

From her expression, Schrader didn’t like their preliminary findings one bit. She clicked off the visual feed and pursed her lips.

I wonder what those lips taste of. 

Venkman shifted uncomfortably. 

Shit. Leave her be. Not the kind of trouble you need.

He looked at the scene with his own practiced eye. 

Obvious the clerk had been made to resemble thick reddish confetti by someone who knew their ass from a hand grenade. The assassination had been planned and executed with efficiency. No recordings of the garage interior, no witnesses. Damn few recordings from the street outside.  Not enough money to get that kind of infrastructure going in this place, especially now Imperial forces were pulled. Some recordings off the street, but nothing to indicate he’d been followed. 

He came free of his reverie to realize she was looking at him expectantly.

“Sorry?”

“You know who the victim was?”

Venkman nodded, “Not the man, just his position.” He gestured at the mess before them, “And not what made someone want to do this to him.”

“Remer ben Diele, he was the supply for all Imperial Services in the system.”

“Where was his protective detail?” he asked without thinking.

She glanced at him again. He could see her esteem building again.

Shut it, Venkman. You do not want this woman’s interest, no matter how good she smells.

“The Civil Service were some of the first to have their protection details pulled after the war.” 

Not smart, but the Imperium has made more severe mistakes in their five hundred year existence, and outlived all other pretenders, so I suppose I haven’t much room to talk.

A clatter from the ramp drew his eye and a frown. Inspector Delongue. Some pricks only get longer with the years.

She followed his gaze as a man in a damp but sharply turned out suit crossed the police line and entered the crime scene. She cocked another brow but turned an expressionless face to the newcomer. He was of middling height, meaning shorter than both Venkman and the Captain, had a weak chin and what looked like prematurely graying hair.

He drew closer, pulled his star out and presented it to her, “Inspector Delongue, Homicide.”

“Inspector. I am Captain Schrader, Imperial Military Police.”

Delongue held out a data spike, “Our preliminary findings on your case.”

If Schrader noticed both the suppressed glee and the emphasis on the your in the Inspector’s statement, she was either very good at hiding it or decided to ignore it. “Thank you, Inspector.” 

Beer Bottle Full of Beer?

Today I had a prime example of what it means to an individual when that individual cannot –or will not– conceive of a reality in which they are not always doing the right and legal thing: 

Officer: This person had a 16 Oz bottle of ___, a beer, in hand. I asked her to go back to the private dock to consume the drink. She ignored me. I asked her again, asked her to discard the bottle if she didn't want to return to the private dock where she could have been legally drinking, even told her I did not want to cite her. She ignored me. I got my cite book out and moved toward her, at which time she drank the contents, a clear violation of our local police code against drinking of alcoholic beverages in public.

Defense: It was water in the beer bottle. I had replaced the contents of the beer bottle three times. All the officer had to do was ask what was in it.

The officer shrugs: You emptied the bottle by drinking it in front of me, so no contents remained for me to verify. And if it was only water, why not tell me that or discard the bottle as I asked?

Defense: You could have checked.

Judge: I find you guilty, miss.

The smack as reality slapped her in the face and wallet was quite resounding.

I mean, how dare someone be so unreasonable as to think that there was BEER in a BEER bottle!

More people need to be taught gun safety and apply this rule to their everyday life: ASSUME THE WEAPON IS LOADED.

Geek and Sundry Does it Again:

More Malost

This bit has proven more of a challenge than I'd hoped, but it's worth the time to get it right, I think. As it's a new POV, I need to get the voice down, and keep the readers into it. I am still not done, but expect to be tomorrow sometime...

Malost found the wine here in the City of The White Boar a good match for the weather; cold, toneless, and none too agreeable to the palate of those not born of these northern climes.

Toneless or not, he reflected, swaying slightly as he turned from the bar, it serves.

Finding his cup empty and the serving maid being groped by a largish man who had her on his lap, Malost decided he must head to the bar. Squinting, he marked its location and set out across a floor that seemed to roll under his feet like the seas surrounding the tiny homeland he’d left behind years ago.

He dropped another coin on the bar, slammed the cup back. Had another served, made a start on it.

Malost closed his eyes, opened his heart, and muttered a prayer.

The smell of salt and sea, gulls crying on the wind, Najia’s smaller hand strong in his. 

Malost smiled, rejoicing in the sense of being back on the shores of a place torn from him many measures back.

A belch welled, found release, brought him crashing to the present with its thunder.

He blinked back tears of loss. 

Almost, but not quite.

He again closed red-stained eyes, trying to find that place he needed to be, right on the edge…

Two Pathless hunched over a table, one with a tentacle waving, another with a hard shell covering half a twisted face, both before a third Pathless whose traffic with the Dark had marked him with raised crown of bony points and barbs along the brow. 

“Patience,” the Crowned One urged, “the triptych will arrive in a few days. Until then, you must stay here.” 

Ignoring the complaints of his companions, the Crowned One drank and upended his cup, ”I will bring more wine, food, and a proper offering before we make the next attempt.”

Malost knew, then, where they were. It was not so far from where he swayed.

A hiccup.

Stars, then bright light. A youth, as much boy as man, striding from the light, sun in his hair, speaking words Malost could not hear but understood, despite not knowing his name, to be those of his namesake.

Another hiccup.

The same boy, now more a man, with grapevine wound through his hair, a song on his lips, and a jug of wine in hand, guiding others through a complex dance. 

A sudden push sent Malost stumbling, stiff-legged, from the bar. He screwed his eyes shut, tried to hold on, but it changed:

An elderly woman, care and tears marking her face more than the years, her hair a mess, coughing, eyes begging a son to stay when her voice failed. The son laughing as he strode out her front door, her few coins jangling in his purse and the last of her wine in hand.

The vision popped like a bubble, leaving him breathless and blinking, struggling to gather his thoughts. 

A man stood between him and the place he’d occupied at the bar, required a moment more to recognize the broad back as belonging to both the vision itself and the cause of its abrupt end: the son, a local, had shoved him aside, bent on getting a drink. 

He briefly considered pointing out, for the benefit of all present, the niceties of tavern manners by way of application of his fists to the softer parts of the man’s anatomy. Concerned he would lose details of the vision in the fog of battle, he decided against directly attacking the piece of shit.

Besides, Khadoz waits, and you know how patient that bigoted fuck can be.

The man was ordered another drink, and none-too politely, either.

Still, I cannot let such behavior go unrewarded. 

“Vintas bless,” he said quietly, dipping a finger in the wine staining the bottom of his cup and daubing his lips with it. 

Feeling the power, he pulled three full marks from his purse, he waved them at the barkeep over the man’s shoulder. “Barman!”

“What?” the barkeep answered, eyes locked on the silver in Malost’s hand. 

“A drink for everyone in the house save this man,” he answered, pointing at the local who’d shoved him aside.

The man still had his back to Malost and didn’t realize he was to be left out until everyone’s eyes came to rest on him and the taproom grew silent with their regard. He slowly turned to face the room as the barkeep moved to fill Malost’s order.

“What’s this?” the local asked, one big hand tight on a tankard.

Reaching past him, Malost slapped the coins down on the bar, said in a voice that cut across a sudden quiet in the taproom: “What is this?” he waved a hand at the other patrons, “Well, for the rest of these folk, it’s a free round of drinks on me. For you, it’s nothing–nothing but the shame of having these folk know you robbed your own mother of money for her medicine just so you could get a drink.”

The man’s face went whiter than was usual, even for a northerner.

“That true, Pellon?” someone called from further down the bar, as Malost knew they would.

“I-“ Pellon reached for rage-filled denial, but the words could not come at his call, seeming caught in his throat.

“I always knew you for a low sort, Pellon, but that’s just foul!” someone else shouted as Malost stepped away.

More than one hiss from the crowd, then a voice shouted: “Let’s have our drink, then go round to Pellon’s home and see what we can do for her, eh?” the same voice as asked if the story were true. Malost tracked the words to their owner, saw a man rosy with good health and a few cups and said a silent prayer for him. 

A general rumble of agreement with the man’s idea was still making the rounds of the taproom as Malost stepped, unobserved, out into the cold northern night.

The ice on the wind made his face prickle and kicked him with the sudden urge to piss. He paused on the edge of the porch and quickly undid his trews. Groaning with relief, he and his waste began parting ways, his piss steaming. If the calendars didn’t agree Stag Night is upon us, I’d call any man who said this day marked the first of spring and the first mating of Jagma to Nisha a filthy liar!

“Done?” the lone word issued from the darkness at his elbow.

Not in the least bit finished, Malost’s urine still slowed to an uncomfortable trickle as surprise drew tight that which had to relax in order to work. 

Mahok! No man so big should be so quiet. Khadoz must be even more impatient than I thought, to send his favorite torturer.

Refusing to look up from his freezing cock, Malost answered as calmly as he could. “Yes, Mahok, I am done. Go, tell the Quaestor I have what we seek.”

A sweet whistle Malost recognized as a few lines of Inn-Keep’s Daughter, then: “Tell him yourself, he’s still at the inn.”

Malost sighed. “Mahok, just do as I say.”

A creak of old boards under the big man as he leaned close enough his breath steamed the air above Malost’s shoulder with each word: “And if I don’t?”

“Then Khadoz will ask why he was unable to attend his duty, and I will tell him you thought of yourself before his duty.”

“Lies.”

“No, I would not lie: I won’t be able to find my way from the inn.”

Silence for a space of heartbeats. Then, from some paces away, Mahok resumed his whistling, the sweet tune receding in the direction of their lodgings.

Malost’s bladder required the whistle fade entirely into the distance before releasing its stinking contents into the street. He finished up, tied his trews closed, and edged into the darkness where Mahok had come from.

The door to the tavern opened, patrons spilling into the street under a pair of torches. Pellon, tied up and carried at the center like some reluctant idol, was the subject of much poking and prodding from his bearers, but was otherwise unharmed as he was carried to face a sort of rough justice before his mother. The man Malost had blessed led the motley array of drunkards and drinkers down the street and around the corner, on their way to Pellon’s home. 

From the shadows, Malost watched as the last of them disappeared from view. Feels good to do good. First time in a long time, and not the usual, since…

With a little effort, and aided by the wine he’d already consumed, Malost turned his thoughts from past pains and instead contemplated the vision, sending his mind along the grapevine he imagined was the link between the visions Vintas provided.

The boy must be very important to appear so strongly when I expected only visions of the Pathless I seek. And the boy himself is definitely no Pathless, given the display of favors bestowed on him; vine, song, and happiness–each, alone, a mark of the love Vintas bears for Man. To have all three favors, that means something extraordinary. 

But what?

He re-examined his memories, but that stretch of the vine ended in Pellon’s maltreatment of his mother. 

Knowing it would come no closer if he reached too hard for it, Malost went back, reaching for the vision he’d had before the boy’s appearance. The Pathless were no more attractive in memory, and he still felt the creeping portion of the vine which would lead him to where their conversation had taken place, but he sensed nothing connecting that place to the boy.

I should take it on faith that the boy will present himself in time. Vintas knows Khadoz won’t be of help: damn Solamite has little enough use for Quaestors of the New Gods as it is.  If I ask him for time to chase down this boy, he’ll surely make a stink.

Shaking his head, Malost stamped feet grown numb with the cold, then had to do it again mere heartbeats later. Vintas Bless, but it’s fucking cold here! He pulled from his pouch the silver flask that was his single most expensive possession. Unstopping it and bringing it to his lips, Malost found he had to tilt it back further than he’d like to get the wine to flow. Might run out before Khadoz and his band of merry killers show up.

His concerns proved unnecessary: as he lowered his arm a group of man-sized shadows appeared in the alley opposite, headed his way. Each shadow resolved into a man as they stepped through the narrow strip of Hesh’s ruddy light that found its way between the buildings that leaned close together above the street. Light glanced from the metalwork studding the leathers one wore, momentarily making him appear covered in tears of blood.

A poor omen.

The slim figure leading them jumped from the open sewer of the street and onto the porch, harness chiming quietly. “Malost?”

“I am here,” he answered.

Khadoz’s shadow turned. “Mahok says you have found them?” he asked, lisping slightly in the fashion of the local nobility. Malost thought it pretentious. Doubly so, since the man hadn’t had the lisp for the last two years of their association.

“It’s not far. We should go softly. One of them moves around, said he’d return later.”

“Any idea of their number?”

“At least three.” Malost said, brushing past to step into the street. 

Khadoz followed, stopped to murmur to Mahok, who passed his orders further down the line of waiting men.

Malost waited, wishing he could drink away the rest of the night.

“Ready,” Khadoz lisped. 

Nodding, Malost closed his eyes and reached for the vine. In his mind’s grip, he tugged it gently. It gave slightly, then retracted, pulling away in the direction of his desire. Holding to his purpose, Malost opened his eyes and followed in the wake of that gentle retraction.

The men followed him, darker shadows on the dark streets and narrow alleys of the city Malost did not know himself. He could sense Khadoz directly behind him, keeping an eye out for the Duke’s Watch as well as any watchers the nest of Pathless might have set.

After less than a quarter-measure, Malost came to a halt, peering around a corner at a building the looked much as the others did, dark and lifeless.

“Which one?” Khadoz asked, from his elbow.

“Third one down on the other side.”

“Is that a chandlers?”

“Looks that way. But it’s the stores door we want,” he answered, punching his chin toward the doors sloping steeply from the street a few steps beyond the front door.

“Cellar?”

Malost closed his eyes, studied the vision. “Yes. It’s bigger than the front of the place shows. There might be outlets around back. I could only see the one room.”

“Very well.” Khadoz turned, murmured a few words in Mahok’s ear.

Malost took a knotted string from his belt as the big Pavari walked along the line of men, selecting five of them with a slap on the shoulder. Mahok turned and led the chosen men across the street and around a corner in the direction of the chandlers.

Malost began silently counting knots.

“Twenty?” Khadoz asked.

He grunted assent, continued the count.

“Solk, be ready with the lantern,” Khadoz murmured to the shadow behind him.

A crack of light appeared, then snapped closed, Solk showing he was listening. None too intelligent and not particularly warlike, the simpleton had the twin virtues of being steady and following orders to the letter.

Khadoz addressed the men in a low voice, “Know that you are the hand of a Quaestor, and can do no wrong so long as you follow my orders. You know your duty. Do it and we shall burn these Pathless properly.”

Malost finished the count, nudged Khadoz with an elbow. 

Khadoz moved, the men following. 

Malost followed the last man, kept an eye out for the Watch. His head was starting to throb a bit, hands twitching for the feel of cup and flask.

Khadoz stopped on the far side of the cellar door, drawing sword and one of the hideously expensive pistols he kept a brace of. Malost thought the choice of weapon foolish on a raid that had no sanction from the secular authorities. Gunshots were not common here, and would certainly draw attention. Much better the crossbows he heard saw to of the men putting tension into and loading. Quieter, though just as prohibited.

 Malost halted on the near side, eased himself onto the door as quietly as he could. He pulled a flat length of steel two fingers wide and a couple hands long from his sash, knelt and worked it between the doors. Feeling the catch, he glanced at Khadoz.

Khadoz nodded.

Malost pushed, felt the catch give. He slid off the door, getting out of the way. 

One of the men grabbed the door and pulled it up. Khadoz plunged through, the rest of the men on his heels. A hollow clattering sounded, followed by a muttered curse.

Closing the door after him, Malost followed the rest of the men. He tripped over the last step in the dark, whacked his head against a series of sticklike somethings and came to a halt when he crashed into someone’s back.

Good thing I didn’t lead with blades.

“Light, Solk,” Khadoz hissed.

Solk, owner of the back Malost had run into, opened the brass shutters a fraction, letting the men see. 

The raiding party stood on a narrow strip between covered vats containing, from the smell, tallow. The ‘sticks’ that had hit him in the head were candles hung to dry still swaying from recent collisions with human skulls.

“Idiot,” Khadoz grunted.

Malost ignored him, comparing their surroundings with memory. This was the place, or nearly so. Aside from the stair leading up into the storefront, an ill-fitting door he’d not seen earlier was set in the far wall. He nodded toward it.

Khadoz motioned his men to follow and approached it. He was just steps from it when the door slammed open and one of the Pathless from Malost’s vision charged out. The chitin-plated horror crashed into Khadoz, sending him reeling before hammering into the men behind and coming to a stop. Malost caught a glimpse of a saw-edged arm, heard it whicker as the thing slashed at the men.

Malost drew two blades, slipped sideways between the vats and watched the door. Sure enough, the second Pathless step silently from the doorway behind Khadoz. “Behind you, Khadoz!” he shouted.

The Quaestor whirled, brought his sword up instinctively parry. The knife the Pathless held in one tentacle skirled against Khadoz’s steel.

One of the crossbowmen loosed, the bolt making a loud TOCK as it slammed deep into wood somewhere in the darkness.

Taking careful aim, Malost drew back his arm.

Khadoz parried another knife, this one held in a human hand.

Malost threw, missing his mark; instead of taking the thing in its malformed head, his knife bit home where the arm would make a shoulder in a normal human. The Pathless gurgled, dropping the knife gripped in its tentacle.

Taking advantage, Khadoz stepped in, pressed the muzzle of his pistol to its gut, and pulled the trigger. The lock snapped forward, sparking the pan. An instant later the gun discharged with a dull thump: thunder, smoke, and ball all absorbed by the flesh of the Pathless. It slumped to the ground, lifeless.

Continuing...

Malost found the wine here in the City of The White Boar a good match for the weather; cold, toneless, and none too agreeable to the palate of those not born of these northern climes.

Toneless or not, he reflected, swaying slightly as he turned from the bar, it serves.

Finding his cup empty and the serving maid being groped by a largish man who had her on his lap, Malost decided he must head to the bar himself. Squinting, he marked its location and set out across a floor that seemed to roll under his feet like the seas surrounding the tiny homeland he’d left behind years ago.

He dropped another coin on the bar, slammed the cup back. Had another served, started on it.

Malost closed his eyes and muttered a prayer.

The smell of salt and sea, gulls crying on the wind, Najia’s smaller hand strong in his. 

Malost grinned, rejoicing in the sense of being back on the shores of a place torn from him many measures back.

A belch welled, found release, brought him crashing to the present with its thunder.

He blinked back tears. 

Almost, but not quite.

He again closed red-stained eyes, trying to find that place he needed to be, right on the edge…

Two Pathless hunched over a table, one with a tentacle waving, another with a hard shell covering half a twisted face, both before a third Pathless whose malformed skull had a raised crown of points and barbs along the brow. 

“Patience,” the Crowned One urged, “the triptych will arrive in a few days. Until then, you must stay here.” 

Ignoring the complaints of his companions, the Crowned One drank and upended his cup, ”I will bring more wine, food, and a proper offering before we make the next attempt.”

Malost knew, then, where they were. It was not so far from where he swayed.

A hiccup.

Stars, then bright light. A youth, as much boy as man, striding from the light, sun in his hair, speaking words Malost could not hear but understood, despite not knowing his name, to be those of his namesake.

Another hiccup.

The same boy, now more a man, with grapevine wound through his hair, a song on his lips, and a jug of wine in hand, guiding others through a complex dance. 

A sudden push sent Malost stumbling, stiff-legged, from the bar. 

An elderly woman, care and tears marking her face more than the years, her hair a mess, coughing, eyes begging a son to stay when her voice failed. The son laughing as he strode out her front door, her few coins jangling in his purse and the last of her wine in hand.

The vision shattered, leaving him breathless and blinking, struggling to gather his thoughts. 

A man stood between him and the place he’d occupied at the bar, required a moment more to recognize the broad back as belonging to both the vision itself and the cause of its abrupt end: the son, a local, had shoved him aside, bent on getting a drink. 

He briefly considered pointing out, for the benefit of all present, the niceties of tavern manners by way of application of his fists to the softer parts of the man’s anatomy. Concerned he would lose details of the vision in the fog of battle, he decided against it.

Besides, Khadoz waits, and you know how patient that bigoted fuck can be. Still, I cannot let such behavior go unrewarded. 

“Vintas bless,” he said, dipping a finger in the wine staining the bottom of his cup and daubing his lips with it. Pulling three full marks from his purse, he waved them at the barkeep over the man’s shoulder. “Barman!”

“What?” the barkeep answered, eyes locked on the silver in Malost’s hand. 

“A drink for everyone in the house save this man,” he answered, pointing at the local who’d shoved him aside.

The man still had his back to Malost and didn’t realize he was to be left out until everyone’s eyes came to rest on him and the taproom grew silent with their regard. He slowly turned to face the room as the barkeep moved to fill Malost’s order.

“What’s this?” the local asked, one big hand tight on a tankard.

Reaching past him, Malost slapped the coins down on the bar, said in a voice that cut across a sudden quiet in the taproom: “What is this?” he waved a hand at the other patrons, “Well, for the rest of these folk, it’s a free round of drinks on me. For you, it’s nothing, nothing but the shame of having these fine folk know you robbed your own mother of money for her medicine just so you could get the drink in your gut.”

The man’s face went whiter than was usual, even for a northerner.

“That true, Pellon?” someone called from further down the bar, as Malost knew they would.

“I-“ Pellon reached for rage-filled denial, but the words could not come at his call, seeming caught in his throat.

“I always knew you for a low sort, Pellon, but that’s just foul!” someone else shouted as Malost stepped away.

More than one hiss from the crowd, then a voice shouted: “Let’s have our drink, then go round to Pellon’s home and see what we can do for her, eh?” the same voice as asked if the story were true. Malost tracked the words to their owner, saw a man rosy with good health and a few cups, and said a silent prayer for him. 

A general rumble of agreement with man’s idea was still making the rounds of the taproom as Malost stepped, unobserved, out into the cold northern night.

The ice on the wind made his face prickle and kicked him with the sudden urge to piss. He paused on the porch of the tavern and quickly undid his trews. Groaning with relief, he drained his bladder and tried to ignore the cold. If the calendars didn’t agree Stag Night is upon us, I’d call any man who said this day marked the first of spring and the first mating of Jagma to Nisha a filthy liar!

“Done?” the lone word issued from the darkness at his elbow.

Not in the least bit finished, Malost’s urine still slowed to an uncomfortable trickle as surprise drew tight what had to be relaxed. 

Mahok! No man so big should so quiet. Khadoz must be even more impatient than I thought, to send his favorite torturer.

Looking at his freezing cock, Malost said, “Yes, Mahok, I am done. Go, tell the Quaestor I have what we seek.”

A sweet whistle Malost recognized as a few lines of Inn-Keep’s Daughter, then: “Tell him yourself, he’s still at the inn.”

Malost sighed. “Mahok, do as I say.”

A creak of old boards under the big man as he leaned close enough his breath steamed the air above Malost’s shoulder with each word: “And if I don’t?”

“Then Khadoz will ask why he was unable to attend his duty, and I will tell him you thought of yourself above his duty.”

“Lies.”

“No, I would not lie: I won’t be able to find my way from the inn.”

Silence for a space of heartbeats. Then, from some paces away, Mahok resumed his whistling of Innkeep’s Daughter, the sweet tune receding in the direction of their lodgings.

Malost’s bladder required the whistle fade entirely into the distance before releasing.