IBTRFL Chapter 23

"No but listen, that nasty old crone's gone half out of her mind, I tell you. She's been running through the whole city screaming for days now. I ran into her once, last time—you have no idea how it startled me."

"Lived her whole life pawing dirty money…. Serves her right. What's the point stuffing coin in the church box when everything you touch is dirty through and through."

Aer swallowed the last piece of pie, her face content.

A single chicken pie, baked with the filling stuffed thick inside, had been more than enough to fill her up. But the most filling thing of all was the pouch stuffed thick at her belt.

The man and the woman had been quite the notable pair. In the bad way, of course.

They'd brazenly deceived people with false promises of job placement, or kidnapped orphans and sold them off to distant cities.

Several families had filed reports, but with so many people passing through in a single day, no one had managed to catch their trail.

Thanks to that, she'd been able to collect both the bounty the court had posted for turning the two over and the reward money each family had individually promised.

Add to that the money she'd lifted off the two of them while they lay unconscious, and her heart felt as rich as a farmer's after a bumper harvest.

Aer brushed the crumbs from her hands and set off toward the place the bailiff had directed her to.

She skirted a drunk carriage-driver's careening cart with a hair's breadth to spare, cut past merchants hawking their wares with reckless aggression, and along the way subdued a snarling drunk who lunged at her.

After a journey long enough to rival a pilgrimage, she finally found the sign painted with a hammer. From the entrance alone she could feel the heavy clang of iron on iron and the rolling heat.

Aer pulled her hood low and stepped into the smithy.

"Excuse me."

The smiths didn't so much as glance her way, hurrying on with their work. She hadn't expected a warm welcome anyway.

Aer turned and scanned the wares on display.

Boxes and stalls were piled with kitchen tools and hand tools, but nothing resembling what she was looking for.

"Oh—sorry! I was just running an errand!"

A boy with a young face came rushing over. The soot on his face and the calluses on his hands marked him as an apprentice smith.

"Do you sell swords, by any chance? Ones that could actually be used as weapons?"

"A—a sword?"

The flustered apprentice stammered the question back, uncertain, glancing nervously at the other men.

One of the smiths, in the middle of tempering red-hot iron, paused his work and asked, "What're you looking for that for?"

"I need one."

"…As you can see, we don't specialize in swords, but we can make one. Happens we've got some decent steel on hand."

"How long would it take, if I placed an order?"

The smith glanced around the workshop, eyeing his workload.

"Cheap piece of shit, two days. Decent one, five."

"A proper one, then. Something one-handed, if you don't mind."

"…Two silver, Thescion coin."

Aer pulled out a single silver piece and handed it to the apprentice. He took it with a startled flinch.

"That's the deposit. I'll come back in five days and pay the rest."

"Sounds good."

"Ta—take care on your way!"

Aer gave a light nod and left the smithy.

A faintly chilly wind slipped in through the gaps in her clothes. Her body, flushed from the iron-tanged, sweltering heat, cooled fast.

"The most urgent thing's done, at least…."

Trailing off, Aer lifted her head.

The sky was soaked through with dark ocean blue. At its edge, coral-colored clouds drifted beside a sun that lingered, dipping slow, toward the rim of the world.

Right on cue, the tower at the city's center rang out with a solemn peal of bells.

Merchants stopped their hawking and packed away their displayed goods, and customers embraced their heavy baskets and headed home. The market that had been so loud and full of life fell, soon, into a cold silence.

"Guess I…, can't get much more done today."

Aer quickly slipped out of the darkening market.

Whatever else she needed for the trip could wait; first she had to find a place to stay tonight. Fortunately, she'd kept an eye out for one while searching for the smithy.

The people who'd been bustling through the streets had gone off to enjoy cozy suppers. The unfittingly desolate streets belonged now to layabouts and sewer rats.

Aer dodged the rats darting out from every corner and made her way toward the inn.

Even this early in the evening, the patrons were already pleasantly drunk. Men with their arms slung around each other's shoulders stamped their feet to a musician's playing, while others clapped along in high spirits.

Undeterred by the tremendous racket, a few people in the corner were briskly dealing out cards.

"Hey, you hear about that thing with the guard?"

"No, haven't heard."

"There's supposed to be some kind of unexplained tremors going on in the slums. Somebody even claims they heard some kind of unearthly screech."

"That's just how that part of town is. Whatever—I won, pay up. Five copper."

"Damn it!"

Aer passed by the ruddy, rowdy-voiced patrons and came face to face with a woman standing with her arms crossed, evidently the proprietor.

The woman looked her over and said, bluntly, "How old are you?"

"Seventeen," Aer said it with a faint smile.

The proprietor's eyebrow twitched, and she gave a quick once-over to the face beneath the hood.

Running an inn for long enough gives a person an eye for people. This one was clearly taller and more grown than her age would suggest, but the youth still lingering in her face couldn't be hidden.

The proprietor said, in that same blunt voice, "Bring your mother."

"Don't have one. No father, either. Just so you know."

The musician, mid-note and merry, went still. The atmosphere inside the inn dropped as cold as if someone had thrown ice water over it.

Every chilled gaze in the room fixed on one person. The proprietor pressed a hand to her forehead and said, "…I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Happens all the time, s'nothing."

Aer shrugged, as though it were nothing.

The proprietor lost her words for a moment. Running an inn, she'd met and seen off countless people.

Everyone, always, carried some raw story and some old wound of their own—but she'd never met anyone this composed about it. Not even a child who hadn't reached adulthood yet.

"…My name's Milla."

"I'm Rana."

"Right, Rana. What brings you here?"

"I need a room. Not for long—five days or so."

"I've got exactly one left. Meals?"

"Include them. I'll pay extra."

Milla had just finished the calculation in her head and was about to open her mouth when the firmly shut door burst open with a crash loud enough to tear it off its hinges, and a man in fine clothes came striding boldly inside.

Every startled gaze in the room turned like a school of herring.

"Quiet—er, quiet."

The man, having tried to shout at the top of his lungs, scratched his head awkwardly. Then he composed himself again and bellowed:

"A message from Chairman Malva of the Thescion Merchants' Guild!"

Malva, the guild chairman. At the unexpected name of such a heavyweight, everyone's eyes lit up.

"Malva's beloved cat, Marey, has escaped over the wall. To whoever brings Marey back to her estate 'safe and sound,' Malva will pay a reward of five gold pieces, Thescion coin. The cat Marey has a mark of light-brown spots on her forehead, so she can be identified for certain. That is all."

The man finished speaking and dashed straight back outside.

A tremendous ripple rolled through the inn that had, until a moment ago, sat in silence.

Excited patrons chattered about the topic the man had dropped in his wake. A few even got up and rushed straight outside.

Watching all this, Milla frowned and gave a short snort.

"Going to be chaos around here for a while. Anyway—with lodging and meals, fifteen copper, Thescion coin."

Aer pulled out a silver piece and held it out. Milla opened a chest of money and said, "I'll give you change."

"No, there's something else I'd like to ask. Could you have warm bathwater ready for me every evening?"

"No reason I can't. Follow me."

Milla gestured and led the way. Aer followed quietly behind. They climbed a well-kept staircase and came out into a clean hallway.

It looked rough enough, plain as any other inn, but every corner bore the marks of careful attention.

Milla opened a door tucked into a corner. A wooden window on one wall, a bed piled thick with straw, a modest table and chair. Simple, but nothing was missing.

Actually, it was one of the nicer rooms she'd stayed in so far.

"Breakfast and lunch, you come down and eat. Supper you can eat in your room, or if you want to join that madhouse downstairs, feel free."

"…I'll eat in the room."

"All right. I'll bring up the food and bathwater in a bit. Get some rest."

Milla quietly shut the door and left.

Aer set her bag down on the table and tossed off her robe. Her thick brown hair fluttered loose into the air.

"Nearly suffocated in that thing."

Aer sat down on the bed and smoothed her tangled hair.

After parting ways with Valor, she'd rushed to find some kind of dye plant. There hadn't been much of it, and no time to spare, so the result was patchy in places—but better than standing out, badly, in her actual color.

"…."

Her somewhat weary violet eyes stared out past the window.

A city fully settled into night. Aer, having been staring hard at some point out there, frowned and drew her body inward.

"Seriously, this is annoying."

Her knee hurt.

A lot.