“They call Mälentis ‘The City of Dreams’. If that is true, then Tumba would be ‘The City of Shit’.”

-Paladin Sarcho Valento, 184 U.E

 

Stephan stepped off the landing ramp of the Tits Up and into the oppressive heat with nothing but the borrowed clothes on his body and a couple hundred bits in his pocket.

A ragged city skyline stretched out before him like an uneven haircut.

He was happy to be alive. Ecstatic, actually.

Quintilla Wenezian walked up beside him. She wore a wide-brimmed hat to protect her eyes from the sun and a satchel slung over one shoulder.

She put a hand on his shoulder.

Stephan resisted the urge to brush it off.

“It’s not too late to reconsider my offer,” she said.

“I’ve given your offer its due consideration, and decided that I will be heading home after all,” he answered with all the courtesy he could muster. Stephan turned to face the pirate captain. “That being said… Thank you. For saving my life. For everything. I won't forget this.”

Quintilla nodded. Her many braids wagged in the slow breeze, precious beads clicking against each other. “I see. It’s been a pleasure to have you on the Tits Up, Mr. Lordling. For now…” She pulled something out of her satchel and handed it to him. A knife sheathed in cracked leather. “Take this. The city is a dangerous beast. Especially someone looking like you do.”

Stephan took the knife, frowning. “Looking like what?”

“A pussy.” She shouldered her satchel and began traipsing down the wooden walkway leading off the landing platform, connecting it to the busy docks. “Well, I’ll be off. Got to see someone about a thing.” She stopped and turned around briefly, fixing him with dark, alluring eyes. “Good luck with your life.”

Stephan found his mouth dry. He cleared his throat. “Good luck with your…”

She walked off and was swept up by the crowd.

“...Thing.”

Quintilla Wenezian is a strange woman, he thought.

Stephan took a minute to gather his bearings before going anywhere. A myriad of platforms similar to the one he was on stretched out to his left and right, holding skyships both large and small. Merchant ships, salvage ships, and pirate ships.

Surely, one of those merchant ships would be able to provide him passage back to the Concord, or at least to Redharbor, in the southern part of the archipelago, which was Concord-owned territory.

He stuck the knife in his back pocket and stepped onto the docks, which ran as far as the eye could see. Warehouses with clapboard facades stored goods of what Stephan guessed was a dubious nature. A couple of brightly painted brothels advertised their services to freshly arrived cloud chasers. Girls wearing hardly anything cried themselves hoarse out front.

Stephan clutched his coins tightly as he passed.

The city seemed to have been built with no plan in mind, no single person in charge. Buildings had been slapped down wherever they fit, making some tall and spindly, having to be supported against their neighbors with wooden struts to avoid toppling. The facades were pale, like sun-bleached carcasses.

Streets were narrow and dusted with sand. The sheer bulk of humanity pressing against him was enough to make Stephan sweat.

There were people of every kind here, every nationality and every race. Tall, short, fat, thin, ugly, beautiful. But they all had one thing in common.

They had a hard edge about them. A silent aura that had nothing to do with magic which told Stephan that none of these city folk, from the lowly beggar to the finely dressed merchant, were to be trifled with.

A look in their eyes that said ‘Don’t get too close, or else’.

He petitioned a few crews who were readying or unloading their ships for passage, but none would take him. Most simply stared at him with half disbelief, half disgust the moment he mentioned the Concord.

They clearly harbored no love for his homeland. Who could blame them? The Concord had once invaded the Aiyek Archipelago and still controlled many of the southern islands.

For a people who supposedly valued freedom over everything, he imagined that probably hadn’t gone over well.

Stephan persevered, but found himself plodding up and down the docks for the better part of an hour without much luck. The sun had come out in earnest, and his reddening skin was starting to grow tender and stingy under its oppressive rays.

He needed to get into the shade, but he didn’t want to do anything until he had found a way off the archipelago. He didn’t want to stay in Tumba a moment longer than necessary.

Eventually, Stephan was forced to admit defeat and headed for a bar located in a shadowy alleyway. He immediately felt relief in getting out of the sun, wiping sweat from his brow.

He checked his pocket for the money Quintilla had given him. Four Valerian suns and five sigils. It added up to 450 Valerian standard. He would have to be thrifty with that money to afford passage home.

Stephan felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He jumped and tried to spin around, but another hand held his other arm firm.

“What’cha got there?” a rough voice asked in choppy Elandran, accompanied by a stench so sour that it made Stephan’s eyes water. “Lotta money for a little rabbit like you.”

Stephan tore himself free. He reached for his knife as he spun around.

Two men leaned over him in the alleyway, their dark skin scarred from countless battles. They were both smiling through yellow teeth.

“Now, you hand over that money, little rabbit,” said the one to the left, the taller and broader of the two. “If you do, you might just live to see tomorrow.”

A myriad of possibilities branched off in Stephan’s mind. He could run. He could call for help. He could try to fight.

He ended up doing none of those, staring at the two men like a halfwit as they inched closer.

When he heard the door to the bar swing open behind him, he finally came to his senses. Glancing over his shoulder, he yelled at the man coming out of the bar to help or fetch a lawkeeper.

The man just laughed and slurred something in Estaroso—the bastard language of the Aiyek Archipelago—then continued on his way. He walked straight-backed and with a whistle as if unburdened by any form of conscience.

Stephan turned back to his attackers.

“New around here, rabbit?” the man on the right asked. He had a puckered scar that split his chin into two halves. “There ain’t no help from no one in Tumba. So hand over that money, or we’ll take it off your fucking corpse.”

Stephan looked at the money in his hand. He considered handing it over, but then he thought better. If he lost it, he’d never get home, and that was as good as dying anyway.

I might as well do this the hard way, then.

He stuck the money in his pocket and pulled out his knife. He held the point out, blade as long as an outstretched hand, alternating between pointing it at the big one and the double-chinned one.

“Back off!” Stephan shouted. “I’m trained to use this!”

That wasn't a lie. There had been mandatory close-quarters training for all diplomats.

He had failed that course.

“Enhance,” he said.

The two men’s auras sprung into view. Neither was frightened, of course, but the double-chinned one was feeling a little bit less confident than his partner. If Stephan could incapacitate the latter, somehow, maybe the other would run…

The big man pulled a pistol and pointed it firmly at Stephan’s head.

“Money. Now.”

Stephan’s body went stiff and his plans dispersed like smoke.

He let his knife clatter to the ground and slowly reached inside his pocket to get the money.

“I’m complying,” Stephan said firmly. “I am complying. Don’t shoot.” He licked his lips as he pulled out the money.

The big man’s finger feathered the trigger. A disdainful grin crossed his lips. “There’s a good rabbit.” He stuck out his hand. “Now give it.”

There was a green blur.

A moment later, the pistol split in half.

A spinning knife lodged itself in the double-chinned man’s shoulder. He screamed and stumbled against the wall, powerlessly scrabbling against the cold steel firmly planted in his body.

The big man was kicked off his feet and sent flying. Still midair, a green blur bounced off the alley wall and delivered another combination kick to his midsection, sending him hurtling to the ground.

Something cracked when he landed.

Yin landed on silent feet, black hair whipping about her round face.

The big man tried to get up, but a throwing knife pinned his hand to the ground.

Now both of the criminals were screaming, and neither was trying to escape.

Yin turned and looked at Stephan.

“You saved me,” he said breathlessly. “But… why? How did you know…?”

“I’ve got good eyes,” Yin said. “Plus, it’s not hard to guess that a guy like you will get himself in trouble first thing after stepping off the docks.”

“Let me guess,” Stephan said, adrenaline still pumping through his veins and making his limbs jittery, “because I look like a pussy.”

“Because you are a pussy.”

“Wow. Did no one ever teach you how to talk to an adult?”

Yin stared dully at him with those black gemstone eyes. “I just saved your life. Pretty sure I get to talk to you however I want. Speaking of which, you owe me now.”

Oh, boy. Here we go.

“What would you ask of me?” Stephan asked.

Yin grew quiet. Her cheeks went purple and she spun around.

“Tell you later. I’ll deal with these gentlemen first.”

She drew one of her short swords, and the would-be robbers started pleading for their lives.

“Wait,” Stephan said. “You’re going to… kill them?”

Yin stepped up to the big man and angled her sword down, at his throat. “What does it look like?”

“Won’t you get in trouble with the law?”

“Ha! Funny. There’s no law here.”

Stephan stepped forward and took Yin’s arm before she could end the blubbering man on the ground. She whipped her head around to stare at him, and he met her gaze intently.

“You mean no one will care what happens to them?”

The cold lump at the base of his stomach was being unwound, replaced with something hot and insistent. Something that set his muscles ablaze with the need to act.

Yin shrugged. “No one who matters. So let me finish this.” She pulled her arm back with surprising strength.

“I will care of them.”

Yin snorted. “Yeah, like hell you will. What are you gonna do, make them a nice, home-cooked meal and send them on their way?”

“No,” Stephan said darkly. He rolled up his shirt sleeves and guided Yin gently aside. “I will give them what they deserve, and no less.”

Yin reluctantly stood aside. She leaned against the wall of the dingy bar, arms crossed, and watched him expectantly.

The shame, the fear was consumed by the fire that raged inside of Stephan, becoming fuel for his anger. He straddled the big man, who struggled weakly, but not enough to throw him off.

Stephan was tired of kneeling. Sick of smiling for tyrants.

He cracked the man once across the face. His knuckles flared with pain, but he kept going. Two, three, four. His hands hurt, they bled, but it was a good pain, an honest kind of wounding.

He kept punching until the big man’s face was bloody and swollen.

“Please…” a choked plea escaped the big man’s lips.

Stephan wiped his knuckles on the man’s shirt and stood, but his anger had only been stoked. He brought his heel down on the man’s jaw, knocking his face sideways. A handful of teeth clattered on the ground.

Yin clapped her hands and whistled. “Woo! You go, Concordian!”

He left the big man to his simpering misery and went over to his companion. The scarred man pleaded just like the other one had, but Stephan was in no mood for mercy.

Stephan pulled out the knife in the man’s shoulder and he sank to the ground. He kicked him until he was curled up in a ball. The air had gone out of him, and his pleas had gone quiet, but Stephan could tell that he was alive by the jerky pulse of his aura.

Stephan took a step away from the two men, swept his hair back, and let out a ragged breath.

The rage escaped him all at once with that one breath, and he was left the same man he had been before. The fear seeped back in, and he regarded his bloody work with utter shock.

“Not too bad, for your first time,” Yin said as she came over to him. “It is your first, right?”

Stephan nodded numbly.

She handed him his knife.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Better,” Stephan said. “Much better.”

“Good. Then…”

“I owe you,” Stephan acknowledged. “I remember. What do you want me to do?”

They walked past the two injured thugs, back onto the docks and into the screaming, unrelenting crowds.

“Just…” She hesitated, lips moving silently as if forming the words was painful. “A dinner. Like the one you made yesterday, but…” She shook her head and looked away. “Whatever. It’s dumb. Forget it.”

“Tell me.” Stephan smiled. He was going to put a hand on her shoulder but realized it was all bloody and thought otherwise. “I’ll come back to the ship and make you anything you like.”

Yin was quiet for a minute.

Then she mumbled something that was immediately snatched up beneath the ambient rumble of the city.

“What’s that?” Stephan asked and leaned a little closer to her.

She blushed and ran away from him, quickly lost amid the seemingly endless throngs of people.

Stephan stood back up, sighed, and scratched the back of his head.

Seems like I’ve got one more thing to make right before I leave this place.