1.13

A series of tiny bells chimed as Car­nelia poked her head into the dim­ly lit insides of the mys­te­ri­ous store. Quite imme­di­ate­ly, a thick wave of incense suf­fused her nos­trils, so heavy in the air she could see it glit­ter­ing on the stray lances of sun­light that made it through the veiled win­dows. She had to cough to get out her voice.

“Hel­lo?”

Her greet­ing van­ished into the depths of the room, unan­swered.

The sounds of the mar­ket muf­fled as the door closed behind her and Car­nelia cast her gaze around for the pro­pri­etor of the shop. It was a cramped space, made all the small­er from the ornate throw rugs and imprac­ti­cal fur­ni­ture that crowd­ed every open inch of floor. A low table sat in the mid­dle of the room, with a small crys­tal hookah, marred with ash, stand­ing atop it with char­coal that still glowed. A tiny stream of smoke escaped from the mouth­piece, slip­ping over the edge of the table like the dream of a water­fall. The sounds of the mar­ket muf­fled as the door closed behind her.The sounds of the mar­ket muf­fled as the door closed behind her

No one was there to smoke it. Cer­tain­ly not her. Car­nelia cleared her throat again.

“Ehm! Is any­one there?”

The thick, indi­go cur­tains that adorned the walls swal­lowed the sound of her voice like they were try­ing to smoth­er it. Fad­ed tapes­tries and black-stained orna­ments hung from the cur­tains, scat­tered amongst pinned scrolls with bru­tal slash­ing hiero­glyphs writ­ten upon them. In idle curi­ousi­ty, Car­nelia lift­ed one up from the wall to take a clos­er look. She couldn’t read the glyphs, but there was text etched on the perime­ter of each scroll that looked vague­ly--

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a hoarse voice.

Car­nelia snatched her hand back. There had been a bead­ed entry­way on the far end of the room, and sud­den­ly, there was a man stand­ing there. A gaunt, small­ish man with a harsh nose and sunken eyes. Arghus, from the sign, she pre­sumed. A beard swung down his chest, woven and band­ed with rings of brass. She glimpsed a scar behind it, mot­tled and red across his neck.

The man held out his hand. It took a moment for Car­nelia to real­ize that in her sur­prise, she had torn a cor­ner of the frail scroll.

“Sor­ry!” she squeaked, drop­ping the piece into his palm. She hoped that was­n’t impor­tant, mag­i­cal­ly speak­ing.

The man, Arghus, slow­ly and care­ful­ly rolled the piece of paper between his fin­gers, until it oblit­er­at­ed.

“One bro­ken seal is of no con­cern,” he replied. “Now sit. You’re late.”

Arghus’s com­mand boomed like he had shout­ed it in the deep­est cave in Down­town. Car­nelia quite lit­er­al­ly felt the cur­tains of the room rever­ber­ate. His voice was bey­ong hoarse too, like some­one had once slit his throat and sown it back up.

It was all very authen­tic. Car­nelia eager­ly plant­ed her­self at the table.

The war­lock did not look at her. He did not con­sult her or ask ques­tions. Instead he start­ed by pac­ing around the table as he mut­tered prayers and traced mys­te­ri­ous sym­bols over his chest. At times, he inter­ject­ed a vio­lent gasp or a slash of his fin­ger.

The war­lock began to pace around the table, mut­ter­ing prayers in strange tongues and trac­ing mys­te­ri­ous sym­bols over his chest. At times, he inter­ject­ed a vio­lent gasp or a slash of his fin­ger. Car­nelia watched with wide-eyed curi­ousi­ty.

After a cou­ple of rounds, he stopped at the head of the table, cen­tered him­self, then knelt down across from her. He reached for a near­by cush­ion, a mot­tled pur­ple design lost on its worn vel­vet.

“Apolo­gies for the dra­mat­ics, young lady, but the dark arts often attract spir­its of malev­o­lence and ill-intent,” he said, tuck­ing it below his knees, “but I am an accred­it­ed ward-mage of the Black Tow­er of Tolth. They are tooth­less under my watch.”

Arghus ges­tured at a dusty plaque laid out on a near­by book­shelf. Car­nelia tried to make out the word­ing on them.

“Er--the black tow­er? I’ve nev­er heard of--is it a them?”

Arghus laughed dark­ly.

“I should think not. The Black Tow­er is not a soci­ety meant to be known by the meek and inno­cent. It is a bas­tion of for­bid­den knowl­edge, a coali­tion of dark thinkers, where only those with the strength to peer into the abyss are allowed to enter the gates and par­take in com­mu­nion. It is not for an inno­cent like you.”

“I see…”

“Fear not, child. While you will nev­er cross past its crooked, iron portcullis, oh that ter­ri­ble and hideous tow­er, you still have the for­tune of afford­ing the ser­vices of one of its black­ened grad­u­ates. Now give me your hand, child. It is your fate you wish to see, cor­rect?”

A black tint col­ored Arghus’s bony hands, deep­er and more opaque near the tips, and shal­low­er near his palms. Car­nelia hes­is­tat­ed in accept­ing them. It struck her as some­what inap­pro­pri­ate to have some­one look into her future with­out even a prop­er intro­duc­tion.

“What about my name…?”

“Irrel­e­vant!”

Arghus snatched at her hand--but went stock still the moment her touched her skin. His grasp tight­ened painful­ly.

The war­lock con­vulsed. His chest heaved, and his eyes rolled back, reveal­ing their yel­lowed whites as he rocked back and forth under the thrall of unknown forces. He began spew­ing gib­ber­ish, veins popped in the his neck and spit­tle fly­ing. The hookah rat­tled pre­car­i­ous­ly on the table as his arm banged over and over into the table, with grow­ing feroc­i­ty.

Then, as quick as the fit came, Arghus fell into a still and silent slump.

Car­nelia dipped her head low to the table to peer at the warlock’s face. His eyes were still all whites, and she couldn’t hear his breath.

“Are you—?”
“Hu-ck-gah!”

With a phlegmy gasp, Arghus lurched back upright. The blacks of his eyes returned on the twist of his neck so hor­ri­ble, it was like he was try­ing to wrench his head back on. When his pupils zeroed in on her, there was a fer­ven­cy inside them, and he took some­thing from his robes and smeared it in the crook of her palm. He final­ly released his tight grip.

Car­nelia glanced down at her tin­gling palm. A dark pow­der had cov­ered her hand, all except for her palm lines. There, her skin gleamed through the obscu­ra­tion like veins of met­al in stone.

“Such is the strength of palm lines,” Arghus croaked, as he waved his trem­bling hands. “Only a true mag­ic can hin­der the truth they con­tain. The Fates have made it so.”

As Car­nelia inspect­ed the lines of her hand curi­ous­ly, the war­lock stag­gered off, mut­ter­ing some­thing about need­ing a drink. A short while lat­er, he returned with a cup and a glass decanter in hand, swirling with some mys­te­ri­ous mud-red liq­uid.

The astrin­gent scent of alco­hol waft­ed across the table as he popped the cork and care­ful­ly poured a shot. He threw back one, then two, but left a third on the table. He gri­maced and held out a hand.

“Mon­ey.”

“Right! Pay­ment. Um…”

Car­nelia blinked, remem­ber­ing that for­tunetelling was, of course, not free. She reached into her bag and grabbed the first thing she found. Opal’s good­bye gift. But Arghus took one look inside the pouch, at the myr­i­ad coins inside it, and slid them back across the table. He shook his head.

“Is that not enough?” asked Car­nelia ten­ta­tive­ly. There hadn’t been much use for mon­ey in Down­town so she wasn’t sure.

“It is not the amount. That is not your mon­ey.”

“Yes, it is! I received it just this morn­ing, as a gift!”

Car­nelia pulled back, affront­ed. Arghus smiled in return, bar­ing a set of black-dyed teeth.

“Exact­ly. You pos­sess it, to be sure. But it is not yours. You have not car­ried it for years, bond­ing it with your dreams and expec­ta­tions. Do not think this is like any oth­er estab­lish­ment, where any mon­ey will do. I can­not do my work with the spare change of some­one else’s hopes.”

The war­lock thrust out his hand again, the flush of his fit slow­ly fad­ing as he wait­ed for her to respond to his demands. Car­nelia took back Opal’s gift with a nod and began rum­mag­ing through her bag for a more fit­ting pay­ment, push­ing aside spare snacks and cloth­ing for some­thing she knew lay at the very bot­tom. A heavy, off-yel­low enve­lope, bulging with the sug­ges­tion of bills.

She pulled the enve­lope out, only to hes­i­tate.

Jeorr had­n’t raised her to be a mon­ey grub­ber. Real­ly, there was­n’t much use for mon­ey in Down­town; most every­thing was afford­ed by a com­mu­nal fund. So Car­neli­a’s under­stand­ing of mon­ey was prob­a­bly loos­er than most oth­er peo­ple, but even she knew the impor­tance of the stack of bills in her hand. It was a col­lec­tion, years in the mak­ing. Decades of sav­ing up birth­day cards and cel­e­bra­tions, pay­ments for work­ing odd-jobs around town. She had nev­er spent even a deci-cterl of it before, and now she was--

Arghus laughed as he gen­tly pried the enve­lope from her fin­gers.

“Hah, you can bare­ly stand to part with it. Good. The more you’ve feel­ings you’ve attached to it, the bet­ter it will be for our rite.”

Coins clinked and bills flut­tered as Arghus began perus­ing the con­tents of the enve­lope. Sev­er­al times he stopped, bring­ing a par­tic­u­lar piece of cur­ren­cy to his eye for clos­er inspec­tion until he land­ed upon a final one that seemed to sat­is­fy him. A sin­gle steel cterl, which he dropped right into the flu­id-filled shot glass. He tensed, like he was wait­ing for some­thing to hap­pen.

Car­neli­a’s eyes flicked between him and the coin in the glass, wait­ing, also, for some­thing to hap­pen. The war­lock just watched, breath steady and even.

Even­tu­al­ly, Arghus pulled back. He scratched his beard thought­ful­ly.

“Curi­ous. So it’s not here. Per­haps… some­thing else car­ries the weight of your dreams?”

His gaze flicked to the sil­ver Chal­lenger coin around her neck. Car­neli­a’s hand jumped to it, pro­tec­tive­ly. Oh, boy, was he ask­ing for…?

That meant it was bet­ter for the rite. With a gulp, Car­nelia unlocked the clasp at the back of her next and pre­sent­ed the Chal­lenger coin to Arghus and his dark sunken eyes.

What­ev­er ret­i­cence Car­nelia felt at let­ting him fid­dle through her sav­ings, she felt dou­ble for this. Her fin­gers clung tight­ly to the chain. The coin had not left her per­son in years, not even when she show­ered.

“I’ll get it back, right?”

The war­lock shrugged. “Pos­si­bly not. The rites of the Black Tow­er are unpre­dictable, and, after all, to gain some­thing, you must offer some­thing.”

It was­n’t the answer Car­nelia want­ed to hear, but if she want­ed her for­tune told, what oth­er option was there? She dropped the coin in Arghus’s palm.

The war­lock imme­di­ate­ly plucked the cterl out of the shot­glass and replaced it with Chal­lenger coin. It began bub­bling right away.

“Aha,” he exclaimed sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly, “Your hand, please.”

Arghus placed one palm over the fizzing glass and reached out for the pow­der-cov­ered hand with anoth­er. The frizz on the back of Car­neli­a’s neck tin­gled as he began trac­ing his fin­gers across her palm lines with great care, his head dipped low in front of her so he could inspect more close­ly. Silence befell the room has he read her balm. Only their breath­ing and the monot­o­nous tick­ing of a grand­fa­ther clock broke it.

“I can see,” Arghus start­ed by drag­ging a nail direct­ly across the cen­ter of her palm, “that you are not from these parts.” Then his fin­gers ran over her cal­lous­es, “and that you enjoy phys­i­cal activ­i­ty.” He over­turned her hand, “though not out­doors. Climb­ing per­haps?”

Car­nelia blinked. That was unerr­ing­ly cor­rect.

“Wow. How did you know that? Clair­voy­ance?”

“Less­er prac­ti­tion­ers would cer­tain­ly claim that. But no. It is sim­ply that if you have spent as much time as I have look­ing at people’s hands, you learn to spot such signs.”

The war­lock tapped her mar­ble-pale skin with­out break­ing con­cen­tra­tion. He con­tin­ued his read­ing.

“Though,” he said, trac­ing ver­ti­cal line down her palm, “if you wish to know what aethe­r­i­al sig­nals I am sens­ing, the loud­est of them is a dual sense of pur­pose and urgency. You have come to this city dur­ing a spe­cial time of your life, haven’t you? A peri­od of great poten­tial and con­se­quence. Where the choic­es you make in the fol­low­ing days may define decades of your life to come. Does that ring true to you?”

Again, spot on. Car­nelia sat up a bit straighter.

“It--it does!”

“Curi­ous.” Arghus paused his read­ing to give her a prob­ing look. “You are not the first to give me this read­ing. No less than three oth­er clients have giv­en me sim­i­lar impres­sions just this week. Some­thing of great import must be head­ing the way of Cam­mec City.”

A bead of sweat dripped down Carnelia’s back as the warlock’s gaze bored into hers. His fin­ger dug slight­ly painful­ly into her palm.

Then he shrugged and returned his atten­tion to her palm.

“It mat­ters not. I do not need to know.”

Car­nelia held back a sigh of relief as Arghus returned to her palm-read­ing, seem­ing­ly none the wis­er. Let­ting peo­ple find out details about the Chal­lenge was a taboo. She didn’t know if psy­chics count­ed, but…

“Mm…”

Arghus returned her atten­tion to her palm by tap­ping her lifeline—the wrin­kle that curved around the base of her thumb and up through the cen­ter of her hand. He mut­tered like a doc­tor find­ing a mys­te­ri­ous lump.

“No good. This is no good.”

“What?”

Car­nelia eyed her hand. It seemed as per­fect­ly line-y and wrinkly as any oth­er hand she had seen before.

“Your life-line. It’s of good length, but see here?” Arghus touched a fin­ger to the upper tail of that line where it drew close to anoth­er. “It doesn’t touch your head-line. This means you are too cav­a­lier about your future, you leave too much to chance. You must prac­tice cau­tion.” He touched yet anoth­er crease. This one was twice as defined as the oth­ers. “But it appears that is not your forte.”

“You sound like my gramps!”

“Then he must be a wise man, and you ought to lis­ten to him more.”

Car­nelia pout­ed at the humor­less response while Arghus con­tin­ued to rove over her palm. Until his fin­gers stopped.

“And this,” he said, retrac­ing the same two spots twice over, “is bad. Very bad.”

Car­nelia peered at where his fin­gers had stopped. Again, to her, her palm looked like any oth­er. Arghus explained grim­ly.

“Your fate line. Your rela­tion­ship lines. Both are very, very mud­died. Sep­a­rate­ly, one says that the road ahead of you will be dan­ger­ous, and the oth­er warns that you must be care­ful about the con­nec­tions you make. Not ide­al omens, but man­age­able.”

“Okay…?”

“The prob­lem hap­pens when both devi­a­tions appear at the same time. That por­tends ter­ri­ble betray­al.”

Arghus’s voice sud­den­ly rum­bled once more, shak­ing the whole room. The backs of Car­neli­a’s arms prick­led with goose­bumps as an unnat­ur­al chill befell the room.

That made even the war­lock hes­i­tate. Cast­ing a wor­ried glance about, Arghus hur­ried to his feet and began rum­mag­ing through an ornate armoire in the back of the room. Glass and met­al baubles clinked as he spoke urgent­ly.

“This requires imme­di­ate inter­ven­tion. A counter-spelling totem with enough innate mana to ward off out­side influ­ences… No, brass is too crude… Wood, too pen­e­tra­ble… Ah! Per­fect. I still had one left.”

Arghus returned to the table with a swirling crys­tal ves­sel about the size of a fin­ger, hol­low, glit­ter­ing with specks of ash and gold. It caught Carnelia’s fan­cy imme­di­ate­ly.

“This should pro­tect you from any male­fac­tor that may cross your path. Though…” Arghus paused, dan­gling the charm a few inch­es from Carnelia’s hand. “…it is rather expen­sive.”

“How much?” she asked right away.

“Not includ­ing the read­ing? Fif­teen hun­dred cterls.”

“Fif­teen--?!” Carnelia’s jaw dropped. She had entered this store ready to spend a pret­ty pen­ny, but that was a hefty chunk of her trav­el bud­get. “Is there real­ly no way you can bring the price down?”

Arghus sim­ply shrugged.

“Apolo­gies, child. Djinn dust is hard to come by, and as I said, this is the last charm of its kind that I own. I sup­pose we can always try a cheap­er charm, a mahogany cross-crest maybe, but is now the best time for you to be skimp­ing out on pro­tec­tions? With what­ev­er it is you have on the hori­zon?“

The tone of his voice indi­cat­ed a clear no. Carnelia’s eyes dart­ed between the enve­lope of mon­ey and the charm that dan­gled in Arghus’s hand. She bit her lip.

Arghus sighed, and relent­ed.

“Fine. I don’t usu­al­ly do this, but how about this? Still, fif­teen hun­dred total, but I throw in the read­ing for free. That’s already a hun­dred cterls off. And I’ll also replace this,“ the war­lock flicked the nar­row length of leather that the charm hung from, “with a prop­er sil­ver chain. Its puri­fy­ing prop­er­ties should improve the longevi­ty of your charm.”

In the inscrutable cal­cu­lus of her sub­con­scious, the glin­ty­ness of that sil­ver chain tipped the scale. Car­nelia rose up, smil­ing wide, and ready to accept the deal.

But as Car­nelia thrust out her hand, the door---

Bang!

“Sor­ry fel­la, but I’m gonna have to stop you right there.”

The man stand­ing with his foot in the door­way had his hair up in a bun and the morn­ing’s scruff on his chin. He leaned against the frame, and gave her look like like they were the old­est of friends and he’d caught her get­ting back togeth­er with an ex, again. 

Except, of course, he was a total stranger.

“Hey kid. This guy’s rip­ping you off.”