Particularly happy with this title.
He wasn’t shocked enough to not react, however; Justin shoved the woman forward, Taiko back, and retreated, closing the door but hanging onto its latch. Once it was shut, he used the handle to hold it closed while leaning into it with his shoulder. When the sound and vibrations of pounding feet approached, he crouched slightly and rammed it back open again, getting his whole body into the motion, from his feet to his hips to his shoulder and arm.
The percussive bang! and thud of it striking someone in at least two places, followed by floor-shaking thumps and then curses as more people piled into his target and, apparently, fell all over each other, was a balm to his irritated soul.
He looked over at Taiko. The old monk was grinning again, and he bowed to Justin in respect.
Justin shoved the door open wider and looked around its edge. The oldest man in the room, a heavy-set gentleman with receding gray hair, in perfectly tailored black household robes, had stayed put. He was leaning on his desk with one hand and looking down while he knuckle-massaged his forehead with the other. The young woman was simultaneously glaring at Justin while covering her mouth in dismay. Another man stood by the desk, thinner and not quite as old in black workclothes, his hand grasping something inside his guayatunic.
The priest and two men dressed like him in blue were tangled up in a groaning, moaning mess on the floor. The bank priest was cupping his right hand with his left while his swelling nose dripped blood on the red carpet. Of the other two, one was holding his forehead and the other his knee while they struggled with each other. Justin slipped through the doorway, followed by Taiko, and moved to the side of the room opposite the young woman.
“Advocate Tzo?” Justin asked.
“Yes?” said the older man, looking up.
Justin pulled the faintly glowing jade slip out of his security pouch and waved it like a pet’s treat. “Justin of the Carse; good morning, Advocate. Would you be willing to broker the sale of a ship to me in exchange for keeping this after its discharge? The recently Inlightened Kokyu Taiko over there would be delighted to assist me in ensuring that the Ling Fei are allowed to retain it after deposit.”
Justin saw the sale happen behind Tzo’s eyes. He’d learned how to recognize it after the hundreds of other times he or one of his mentors or his own mentees had offered an irresistible price.
At “recently Inlightened”, however, the other man had blanched, then slowly pressed the back of his hand against the inside of his robes. Which let him show how he was spreading his empty fingers apart before removing them from his guayatunic.
Justin glanced to the side to see Taiko still grinning, his attention entirely focused on the thinner man. There was something more predatory about his smile this time, however.
“Tai-ko,” Justin said, in an affectionately remonstrating goodness me I can’t take you anywhere voice.
“I am merely preventing any further hasty missteps, Brother,” Taiko said, not looking away from the other man. “There have been too many self-inflicted injuries by overly zealous young people for me today already.”
The thinner man swallowed and said, “Advocate?”
“Mister Cariss and Kokyu Taiko are our honorable guests, Tirot,” Tzo instantly answered. “Lord Unobu and his companions, as I was explaining to them before our honorable guests’ arrival, are not. Please escort them out of the house, with the assistance. . .” he paused for a breath, looking towards the door.
Right on cue, four men in cloth-and-leather uniforms, with truncheons in their hands, filed in through the opening.
“. . .of Captain Ougo and his men.”
“You dare!” squawked Unobu, then, in a much quieter voice “. . .aiyai my hand. . . .”
“As I said, Lord Unobu, you are acting outrageously out of your authority, and now directly impeding my firm’s business. Be assured, Castellan Chiro will hear of this. I suggest you and your companions retire to your own properties for medical care immediately.”
“My mother will hear of this!” Unobu gasped. “Help me up, you fools!”
His companions, belying his characterization, had risen to their feet and now shook their hands at Tzo. “We apologize for our intrusion, Advocate; we were not fully informed about this matter,” said the shorter one. “Thank you for your advice; we shall leave in accordance with the Captain’s directions.”
“Yes, Advocate,” the taller one humbly concurred.
Unobu looked around, suddenly aware that he had no allies in the room. Even the young woman was avoiding his gaze. His attention settled on Justin, and his lip curled further.
“This isn’t over, monster,” he spat. “I-”
“Good,” Justin overrode him, switching on his cross-examining-intimidator persona. “Because you’re the best candidate I’ve found here yet for relieving my. . .frustrations.”
It came out a lot more impactful that he’d intended – supernaturally so, he suspected. He turned it off again and breathed a little sigh through his nose, letting his regret for his – tantrum; honestly – show.
On the positive side, Unobu was thoroughly cowed, to the point where he scrambled to his feet and backed out of the room, staring at Justin the entire time. His companions followed him, looking over their shoulders with wide eyes, and the thinner man walked across the room after them in a curve that consistently maintained his starting distance from either Taiko or Justin. Or both. Probably both, Justin thought, in private self-criticism.
Tzo did a dismissive chin-and-eyes point, and the young woman left as well, closing the door behind her.
Justin smiled at Tzo. He raised the slip slightly, stepped forward, and placed it on the man’s desk. “Go ahead; hold it,” he invited. “Taiko and the Dawn themselves had their hands on it less than an hour ago.”
Tzo reached out with both of his own hands and picked up the slip, staring down at it and cradling it reverently, his breath shuddering.
Justin motioned Taiko closer, and when the Kokyu approached, he leaned in to whisper, “What happened to the sixth?”
Taiko knitted his brows and shook his head fractionally, not understanding.
“There were six people in the room when we entered,” Justin whispered. “Where’s the last one?”
Taiko’s lips parted to reply, but before he could speak, a woman’s voice, from some indeterminate point in the room, muttered “Not worth keeping it up, then.”
Taiko straightened up and shook his hands twice at the office in general. “Hokyukko Taisa,” he said, obviously recognizing her. “Well met. May the Dawn strengthen your resolve.”
“Ko-boy. May the Stars light your way. What have you brought into my District?”
“Okay, lady,” Justin broke in. “First of all, that should have been who; and second, that should have been first-person. If you want to know something about me, introduce yourself like a civilized person, and ask me, instead of trying to play bad-roe -” ‘horse-apple’, his brain thought “– dominance games like that.”
“My, Ko; how very sensitive it is -” the voice said, before Justin interrupted again.
Part of him – the angry part, that had been with him since
the funeral
wanted to go right back into intimidation mode, but he knew deliberate provocation when he heard it, and he wasn’t going to give this person the satisfaction, let alone the confirmation.
“No,” he said, keeping a tight rein on his own tone, “Either you behave, or you leave. Taiko’s my guide, and rapidly becoming my friend, but not my keeper, and if you know what that is -” he pointed at the slip in Tzo’s hands, whose incuriosity towards their conversation had to be the result of supernatural influence “- which you better, then you should also be aware that beyond basic courtesy, I don’t answer to you in any meaningful way. So cut the crap and at least pretend to be a responsible adult, or pack up your temper-testing bag of nonsense and get the hell out of my private legal consultation.”
Actually saying that out loud – attorney-client privilege being one of the few things he held even remotely close to sacred – almost caused his anger to slip the leash again. With great effort, he wrestled it down and continued.
“If you want to evaluate my stability and safety as a Xenopote, the Northern Dawn Temple is hosting me, and you can make an appointment for an interview there, just like anybody else. But at the moment I am busy with my own private concerns, and your vocational responsibilities do not grant you any kind of special status with me. I am at a minimum your equal, and if you don’t like being told off in this way, I suggest you go look in a mirror.
“Now, is that clear enough for you, or do you need it explained again with smaller words in shorter sentences?”
There was no discernible reason to call the Hokyukko’s ensuing silence shocked, but Justin got that impression regardless.
This time, Taiko wasn’t smiling at his antics. He looked worse than grim; he looked to be one thought away from the kickoff. This was finally the Kyoku Taiko that Justin might have met at the Bank if things had gone differently - a hard man, of deep faith, with a long history of terrible choices behind him, on the verge of ruinous violence.
“Don’t test him further, Taisa,” Taiko said, flatly enunciating each word with clipped precision. “The Stars may lie beyond the Dawn, but They are not above it.”
Favorite line in this chapter -
There were a lot of competitors, but in the end I have to go with
“You dare!” squawked Unobu, then, in a much quieter voice “. . .aiyai my hand. . . .”
TFW you publish something and stumble across an appropriate meme for it moments later:
Patreon
"The only face I give are the ones ripped off insolent snots" - Eldritch being having a bad day.
Haha! That's a great line!
[jots note down in SHAMELESS_THEFT.txt]
The parents card by the upper class scions always crack me up.
Yep! It's a class-ic!