Chapter 26: Hands of the Artisan VII
[THE SILVER SEAT - South Side]
The shadow of the bridge cast a shadow over the cobblestone as the water from the Dymalloy River reflected sunlight, causing moving patterns of light to appear on the underside of the large construction.
A magical sight, perhaps, if one were in the mood and mindset for enjoying such things. The man kneeling on the ground was not. He was far too absorbed in the little traces that he had found; his mind was racing toward the conclusions that they hinted at.
He lifted the object caught between his index finger and his thumb into the light. It was a small black strand.
The Manslayer supposed that if he had followed his hunch from earlier, then it wouldn’t have taken him so long to finally hit upon the trail of the target. But that wasn’t the way that he did things. Haste made waste, and it was better to make sure than rush.
This last silver trail that he had followed - it had been the jackpot. The trail had led him under the bridge, where he had found black hairs and dirty footprints that had not been wiped away by the evening rain. About the right size for the boy the client had described.
He rose from his kneeling position, looking into the air. There were still a few silver trails here, but much less so. Few wandered an area this out of the way and dirty. It was infinitely easier to track from this area than the Night Market.
The Manslayer was getting close to his goal.
[THE SILVER SEAT - White Hand Precinct No. 7]
“The orders could’ve crushed the Laughing Kings at any time?”
Alonzo stared at Ronove incredulously.
“Yes, but no,” said Ronove. “The first thing you have to understand is that the Laughing Kings are a symptom of a greater problem.”
It hadn’t been long since they contacted Ronove and filled Alonzo in on who they really worked for. A few hours, and then a squire of the White Hand had knocked on the door to let them know a silver-haired man had arrived with news. They had then retreated to Alonzo’s office on the second floor.
Webby had greeted them from the little origami fort that he had constructed out of the office’s blank paper. The wolf beastman had taken one look at the structure before shaking his head. He didn’t really know how to approach this situation.
Normally, he’d give the little divine beast a bonk on the head for wasting his office supplies. Divinities be damned, even a child of heaven needed to mind their manners. But his heart wasn’t in it at the moment.
There was so much to think about - this entire Player stuff aside. His head was swimming.
“The South’s slave trade is dying in its natural habitat,” stated Ronove. “Since a few years ago, there’ve been sentient rights movements that have started up. The movements have sparked uprisings by beastmen and inspired like-minded allies. The traditional slave trade itself is in danger, and so they are looking to expand into Goethia.”
Ronove started pacing around the office. Despite the mess, he bumped into nothing and stepped over nothing. Cain wondered how much of that was natural, and how much of that was practiced.
“The Laughing Kings are a symptom of this problem. Just the spearpoint of the vanguard, really,” said Ronove. “So the people at the top didn’t consider them enough to go after.”
Cain wondered just how far up the chain Ronove really was.
The Black Lamps specialized in information, but this seemed almost excessive. Criminality along these lines fell into the Handknights’ domain.
“It’s not our domain, but we do work with the other orders,” said Ronove. “The White Hand specifically have been keeping a close eye on the Laughing Kings with the intent on infiltration and using them as bait to nab a larger harvest.”
“I... never knew,” said Alonzo softly. This was classified information, sure, but this was also his beat. Precinct Seven didn’t have jurisdiction over the entire South Side, but...
Annoyance. Consternation. Did they not think his boys and himself worthy of trust?
“That’s natural. The information is highly classified, and only disseminated to the Grandmasters as well as select members of the Hands, the Bars, the Moons, and us,” said Ronove. “There is reason to believe that the greater slave trade has managed to corrupt certain knights. Money, in exchange for looking the other way.”
Alonzo shook his head.
Ronove came to a stop, and turned to look at them all. The expression on his face was serious, freed of that dark humour that Cain associated him with.
“We’re getting distracted. Onto the main topic. That fool Lesalia Romera has confirmed that we have a Player on our hands. A young man by the name of Nameen. He was the one who created the wooden swords with his System Mechanic, and escaped some time ago when he feigned hunger to go to the Night Market.”
He then raised his hand and pinched his nose bridge, closing his eyes and letting out a sigh. It was as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say, yet had to anyway.
“She has hired the Manslayer to retrieve him.”
Alonzo’s eyes shot wide, while Muse and Cain simply looked at each other. The name meant nothing to them, but if it meant something to the knight inspector...
“She hired the Manslayer to retrieve somebody she needed alive?!” asked Alonzo, incredulously. “The hell was that woman thinkin’?”
“She wasn’t,” said Ronove. “It’s not as if the Laughing Kings were on good terms with the other organizations, so maybe she simply didn’t know. Any other fixer would’ve been a better fit.”
Seeing the confusion on Muse and Cain’s faces, he explained.
“As you can probably tell from his alias, the Manslayer is... what you could call a mercenary assassin, I suppose. There are plenty of those like him in the Seat’s underground, although he is one of the most well-known ones. Effective, and extremely deadly.”
Ronove’s frown deepened.
“But there’s one issue. The man is not just a contract killer,” he said. “He cannot control his urges. He leaves bloodbaths where he goes, even if it would serve him better not to.”
Alonzo shuddered. He had worked in the darker areas of the city long enough to have seen some of the Manslayer’s handiwork.
The scenes of carnage had seen in the past went far past the realm of contract killing and into the depraved. Bodies mutilated even past death, blood painted over walls. There was killing, and there was overkill.
“The Player is in danger,” said Ronove, running a hand through his hair. “But even the Laughing Kings have no lead. We must be days behind in the search, now. The only thing we know is that he escaped from them at the Night Market.”
Alonzo raised a hand to his chin.
Night Market. That was Signer Street.
The Night Market had a single large entrance and a few other smaller ones. No wonder the Laughing Kings had let the kid slip. Since the kid made it out, he would’ve been on an open road.
Alonzo focused, closing his eyes. He let the neurons in his brain fire; let himself enter the mind of a caged bird.
The mentality of somebody who was trying to escape. The open road was not something that he would’ve been comfortable with; he would keep to the darkness, especially since he knew he was being looked for.
Players had limitless stamina? That meant the kid’s greatest weapon would be distance. In the amount of time it took for a group to search around the area, the kid would have created a considerable lead. Keeping to shadows and alleyways, away from prying eyes. The further he went, the less likely he would be found.
The destination... It had to be to the north. If the kid didn’t know where he was going - which direction was safe - the view from the exit of the Night Market, which was held on top of a hill, would’ve been a stunning vista of the North Side. Enticing enough to catch the eye.
That, and the fact that heading south from that area would’ve led the kid back into Laughing King territory. If the kid had been led outside by his guards and handlers, he would’ve known not to go back the same way he came.
North for sure.
Alonzo mentally mapped the path the kid would take. Not the open road, so Main was right out. East to Cambie, then north into the alleyway behind the bar. Soon enough, he would be at the bridge.
Wait. The bridge?
That wouldn’t be far from where the boss’s workshop was loca--
“Something like that. There’s a stray hanging around,” replied Vandamme, who had returned to his book. “Poor thing looks hurt, so I’ve been trying to take care of it.”
Alonzo forgot to breathe.
[THE SILVER SEAT - Vandamme’s House of Blades]
The boy was talented, Vandamme concluded.
He grasped the heat of the fire well, and there was no fear in his eyes as he lifted the incomplete sword out of the fire. In fact, the boy showed far less anxiety here than he did outside.
The iron lit red-hot, the boy raised the hammer. It went on like that.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
It was not as if the old dwarf did not understand.
Hammering the anvil was a beautiful thing. Seeing the metal take shape in front of you, feeling your blows mold it into the object you imagined in your head. The magic of creation.
Through the process, one could not lose concentration. It was easy to get lost in the work, the art, and leave both time and body behind.
The fire of the forge warmed the soul and scared off the dark.
Years ago, in his darkest hours, he had considered leaving the work behind. Memories that had once brought him great joy had been tainted. The smiles that he had once seen around him vanished, whether it was due to their owners’ absences, or due to his own absence to others. The fire that had run his smithy had run cold.
As he left the workshop for the last time, he considered a future in which he would never stand on top of an anvil again, simply live out the rest of his days in peace - somewhere forgotten. Slowly rot away, as he suspected he would’ve in the darkness of that dungeon.
But it was not to be.
Despite it being the cause of his ruin, he could not give up the hammer. Just as he shaped steel by hammer, by the time he realized it he had been shaped in turn. Even if he would never again forge creations that rang clarion bells across the land, he was content just to forge for its own sake.
It was therapy for him. It was something to do. A path that he could still walk, even when the woods around him were dark and unwelcoming. The light of the lamp, in his case, was the fire of the forge.
And in this boy, he could see the same. Each hammer blow rang out like a cry. His vivid and strange eyes narrowed in concentration. His tanned skin did not seem to feel the heat, rather Vandamme saw no shimmer of sweat on the boy at all. It was as if he was home in the heart of flame.
Fire and productivity. Balm for the soul.
He had welcomed the forge into his heart, and so too did the forge welcome the boy into its realm.
When was the last time he had heard a hammer ring that didn’t come from his own hands? When was the last time he had walked a young untempered soul through the process of creation?
“It’s time to change hammers, lad,” said Vandamme. He walked over to the rack of tools and pulled out a smaller one. “You managed the basic shape. This one will serve you better in the details.”
The boy nodded, and gratefully took the tool from his hands. Just a few days ago, he wouldn’t have even taken life-saving food.
He didn’t know how long they stood there in the flame-lit room, as Nameen pounded away at the steel and Vandamme watched. Silence, except for the occasional words of guidance.
Age had a way of playing tricks on minds, Vandamme supposed, for the vision in front of him of the boy on the anvil began to overlap with the visions of countless other youths who raised their hammers above similar anvils.
Young faces untarnished by failure. Unblemished hands untouched by flame. The darkening of skin as the calluses grew. Youthful exuberance replaced by the confidence of artisans. Nervous excitement as they produced under the watchful eyes of their master.
Vandamme wondered.
Was it too late?
With his hands as they were, would he be able to demonstrate the skills the correct way?
Did he even remember how to teach?
He shook those doubts out of his head. Overthinking was something that he had picked up since the dark days began, but he never used to be like this. In the past, when he was hale, hearty, and whole, nothing could stop him when he wanted something done.
“I am Vandamme,” he said, introducing himself for the first time.
The boy looked at him. The hammer in his hand stood still.
“...Nameen. Nameen Bhattacharya.”
The dwarf nodded. Just as he was about to continue, the bell that hung from the front door of the store chimed.
“A customer,” mused the dwarf. “...Continue as you were, lad. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Nameen nodded, and watched the dwarf leave. His eyes then turned to the hammer in his hand.
He took the tongs, pushed the slow-changing iron block into the forge, returned it to the anvil, and then once again began to beat on it.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The rhythm of the hammer, the angle of the strike; his mind was consumed by such things. He had never before made something with his bare hands.
Synthesis simply took the materials and gave him something in return. It wasn’t something that could be called creation. Not in the same way as this, where he could feel his own essence leave him as he concentrated and settle into the steel.
It was an entirely alien feeling to him, but...
The warmth of the fire... The reverberation of the tool in his hands every time he pounded the metal. This felt right.
This was right.
A smile broke across his face, for the first time in a long time. It was a big one. If anybody else had been in the same room as him, perhaps they would’ve been relieved that the radiant boy finally looked his age, instead of resembling a traumatized veteran home from some misbegotten war.
[Congratulations! Your Synthesis has become Synthesis Lv.2!]
Nameen didn’t notice the message or the feeling of change within himself. As if the universe could sense his joy, he suddenly smelled something very wrong.
Rust. He could smell rust.
Not the same as the smell of the forge. No, this was something fresher, something infinitely more disgusting. His mind flashed back to memories of barbed whippings, and the wounds of the other slaves.
That was blood.
And it was coming from the front of the store.
