Maghstock

[Ignition]

Solo

It was a dingy basement room in the middle of a war torn country. There was nothing about it that should have been comfortable, but yet, comfort could be bought for little more than a day’s worth of wheat or a handful of gold. The civil war in Salvar had a way of making even the most impoverished of visitors feel wealthy, and Tom loved it for that. He looked over at the girl half naked, sleeping soundly on the lumpy bed roll that he had brought with him from Corone. The look of contentment on her face as she slept was almost heartbreaking; Tom had slept on more comfortable mattresses in prison.

Still that was the state of Salvar, and Tom wasn’t going to question the bounty that it provided him. He had arrived from Corone on an errand, a condition of his release from jail. The exact nature of his mission hadn’t been revealed to him until he reached this town, Maghstock, eight hundred and fifty furlongs north of Knife’s Edge. The town had barely been affected by the bloodshed, the Church of the Ethereal Sway had made a swift takeover with limited resistance only to find that there was nothing of worth to seize.

Outside of a granary that was looted within hours of the onset of war, Maghstock was completely useless, both strategically and economically. The church abandoned it as the aeromancers in Knife’s Edge all but rendered the town useless. With the heavy snow natural to Northern Salvar, there was nothing worth fighting for in the town, for no one but the residents who, too scared to leave, had turned on one another in hopes of getting what fuel they could to stay warm.

The self inflicted destruction had left Maghstock with little food and little fuel. Gold was still worth something to them, but not nearly as much as a day’s rations in wheat or a handle of vodka. Tom only wished he’d known that when he’d arrived. He could have made a fortune just by picking up supplies in Knife’s Edge.

Now that Tom had discovered the plight of Maghstock, he was curious why the Coronian government had made this place a rendez-vous point. He would have thought they’d have wanted somewhere safer, especially when given the chaos going on in Salvar, it was easy to be discreet. There weren’t too many people who were asking questions with the war going on.

Tom wondered if his contact knew the situation. Had he not wanted a bit of comfort for the night, Tom might have never known about the town’s story. As Tom looked at the blonde spread out fatigued on the bedspread, he was sympathetic, but knew that he couldn’t afford much more than sympathy. Within the next hour, his contact would arrive. Then, without hesitation, Tom would leave, pulling his bedspread out from under the girl if she were still sleeping. There was only so much sympathy he could afford when he was still technically a guest of Corone’s prison system.

[Ignition]

The blonde stirred, almost as if on cue. Embarrassed, she wiped her face and smiled coquettishly. “Just so you know,” she offered. “That wasn’t something I used to do.”

Tom grunted. He really didn’t care who the girl had slept with and what she had charged. In fact, he hadn’t even caught her name. He had welcomed her comfort at the price she had offered, and as far as he was concerned, their deal was done. As cute as she was, he had far too many things to worry about.

“No… really,” she insisted, as if her integrity depended on Tom believing her. “It’s just, with everything going on…”

“Fine,” Tom replied, but at this point he just wanted to shut her up. Now that she was awake, Tom just wanted the girl to leave. His contact would be meeting him soon enough, and he didn’t much fancy a Coronian government official finding him with a prostitute. Especially when he considered that his contact could send him back to jail for the rest of his sentence.

As the girl got up to leave, Tom heard a noise upstairs. The girl gasped, looking at Tom with a wide eyed nervousness. “Government raiders…” she said. “They come to these abandoned houses looking for things…”

Tom tried to conceal a smile. It might have been some kind of government raider, but not the government that the girl was thinking of. This house had been abandoned far before the civil war had started. From what Tom understood, it was a safehouse in Sulgoran’s axe used by Corone’s Salvarian spies. More likely than not, it was Tom’s contact.

“Stay down here,” he said, having no intention of explaining his position or mission to the girl. “I’ll go up and check it, but just in case something happens to me, stay down here and be quiet.”

The girl looked on appreciatively as Tom made his way up the stairs. Before he reached the cellar door, the girl interrupted him. “Don’t you need your weapons?” she asked, holding up the rapier that had been lying by the bedspread.

“Thanks,” Tom said, somewhat sheepishly. He was surprised that he’d been that sloppy. The girl only smiled as she handed it to him, no more suspicious because of his gaffe.

Once he was up the stairs, Tom immediately spied a slender, wormlike, pale faced woman. She was scowling, and by the look of her, Tom guessed that was her natural state. Her clothes were less stylish than even discretion would have demanded, and her hair seemed like it hardly had ever been well kept.

“Carjack Capone?” she asked.

Tom nodded. “And Sean Jackson.”

The woman nodded humorlessly, without as much as a slightest deference to making good company. “You can call me Esther,” she said. “And we have more to discuss than I planned.”

[Ignition]

“We’ve known for a while now that there are a few people hiding out in this area, people with the mob,” Esther began. “Originally, the plan was we wanted you just to infiltrate them, we know your ties to the mob were tenuous at best, but you’d know enough to get in when the rest of us wouldn’t. That was why we wanted you. However, things have changed…”

The mention of change piqued Tom’s curiosity. The civil war had already begun in Salvar before he had been released from jail. Tom wondered exactly what had changed, and what it meant for Corone ever catching him were he to stick his rapier through Esther and then walk away from the problem forever. Deciding to make sure she had no suspicions of his aggressive intentions, Tom sat down on the unfinished table that was one of the few pieces of furniture in the otherwise spartan house. Anything else of value had been taken away long before. The only thing keeping the table was how unwieldy it would have been to move.

Tom waited for Esther to continue, not prodding her in the slightest. He wanted to make sure she knew that his interests did not lie as far as the continued health of the Empire, even if he was technically their property as a prisoner.

“Well, now the plan is this, do you know Tony Giancarlo?” Esther continued, once she realized Tom’s demeanor.

“First tell me what has changed,” Tom replied, not answering the question.

Esther licked her lip uneasily, showing the first sign of emotion that Tom had seen from her. He liked it, he could tell that he had managed to make her uncomfortable. He imagined that she had expected him to be so swept up in her briefing that he wouldn’t care where it had originated from. “She probably rehearsed the whole damn conversation,” he thought. “Government people… they need to realize they’re not all that much smarter than the rest of us.”

“Well… I can’t exactly tell you,” she said. “I’m not sure myself…”

Tom grinned widely. He knew exactly what Esther was not saying. Whoever it was that she took orders from, they had disappeared without replacement. Immediately, Tom thought of the two prisoners he’d met in jail that had claimed to be Coronian Rangers. At the time, Tom, like the rest of the prisoners had thought they were just showing off, now he wondered if they hadn’t been telling the truth. The government of Corone wasn’t as stable as he’d supposed.

“So this mission?” he asked. “Offbook?”

Esther didn’t answer, but her silence confirmed it.

“And that means, Corone no longer cares about me,” he said. “If I remember, this whole thing was supposed to be secret, kept from people. I thought nothing of it at the time, but now I see what’s going on. You have traitors with you… if I remember from jail, it’s the Rangers. They’re enemies of your Empire now, and you needed me to do something to get them, didn’t you?”

Esther sighed. She took in a deep breath, as if to begin an important speech, but never said anything. Her silence confirmed everything.

“So I’m a free man now,” Tom said. “Erased from your books.”

“Afraid so,” Esther confessed. “But Carjack, we need you, someone. The mob, they had a storage house here, full of weapons. We need to make sure that they don’t end up in the hands of the rebels. If they do, it’s the end of Corone. Tony Giancarlo is the one who has them.”

Tom frowned. “I know of Tony,” he said. “He’s a made man.” He hadn’t said anything earlier, but now that he knew that Esther had no control over him, he had no intention of going up against the mob, especially someone like Tony Giancarlo.

“Was a made man…” Esther replied. “The mob tried to get a hit out on him a summer ago. That’s why he’s here in Salvar.”

Tom wasn’t sure if Esther was telling the truth here, but he didn’t care. It was possible, but unlikely. Back when he had been out, Tony had been running the streets. Tom knew things seldom changed that quickly.

Esther sighed. “Well, someone has to kill him. He’s in business for himself, and we think sympathetic with the Rangers. They are why he never ended up in jail.”

“So Tony was a rat,” Tom realized. “At least that’s what she’s feeding me here.” He tried to think back about what he knew about the mob, wondering if Esther’s story was at least possible.

“We can get the weapons out of here once he’s dead,” Esther said. “Or at least I know I can. It’s the service I owe my Empire. All you need to do is kill Tony, and I’ll forget all about you.”

Tom didn’t need her forgetfulness. The death of her handler had all but assured him that no one of importance remembered him in Corone.

“I’ll think about it,” he said before walking back down to the basement.

Esther stammered, beginning to try and convince Tom to work with her.

“I said I’ll think about it,” Tom said coldly. “See yourself out.”

[Ignition]

In truth, Tom had no intention of thinking about it. He was going to leave as soon as possible. Being around the poverty of Maghstock was too depressing to think about, and there was absolutely no way he was going up against the mob. Tom had punched a magistrate in the face just to avoid them in the past. There was no way he was taking up the Empire’s dirty work, especially for no pay.

The blonde looked at him with hopeful eyes. “I heard everything,” she said, speaking with a nervousness Tom would have expected would have evaporated now that she knew there were no raiders in the house. “Everything that woman said. You’re a Corone spy. If you don’t go after Giancarlo I’ll tell the people in Maghstock about you.”

“Tell them what?” Tom said, unsure why she cared at all what he did.

“That you’re a Corone spy,” she said. “We don’t take kindly to traitors here…”

Tom scoffed. “I’m hardly a spy… and anyways I’m leaving.”

“Well please...” the girl plead.

“What do you care?” Tom shot back. “Suddenly taken an interest in Corone?”

On the verge of tears, the blonde winced. “Please…” she begged, her fingers locked together in front of her chest as she looked on desperately. “It’s not Corone. Everything here has gone to hell because of Giancarlo. The mob was always here, they never bothered us, but after the Church took over, the mob went into hiding. When the church left, they came back, but their leader was dead. Giancarlo took their place.”

“And he’s been terrorizing you ever since,” Tom said, familiar with these kinds of stories.

“Yes,” the girl continued, seemingly more hopeful that she could acquire Tom’s aid. She wiped her eyes before continuing. “Remember how I said everyone was growing weaker? Not Giancarlo. He has enough heating oil and grain to feed all of us, no idea what he wants to do with it.”

“And you want me to get it for you…” Tom said. “Honey… let me tell you, I don’t do charity. Not for Corone, not for you.”

Undeterred, the girl batted her eyelids and linked arms with Tom. She snuggled up against his body and cooed that she would show him his gratitude. A mischievous smile appeared on Tom’s face. Prison had made him a bit more vulnerable than he would have normally been to a pretty face, but even then, he couldn’t take on a made man. There was only so much any man would do for a good lay.

“It wouldn’t have to be charity,” the girl said, running her hand down from Tom’s solar plexus towards his waist.

Tom smirked. “I don’t even know your name…” he said. “Beyond a day’s food gets me for a night…”

“Daisy,” the girl said. “Daisy Medkovic…”

Now, Tom knew he had no choice. As much as he might have wanted to, he couldn’t turn down a Daisy. “You’ll have to take me to your people,” he said. “I’ll help you, but not by myself. No one takes on the mob by themselves.”

Daisy squealed and gave Tom a wet kiss on the check. She pressed long and hard, but more out excitement than passion. Tom didn’t react much, he just hoped that he would live to regret the decision. He knew there would be regrets, for he was already experiencing them. Tom just hoped that a few days from then, he’d still be alive to do the regretting.

[Ignition]

The walk to the town chieftain, or at least the man that Daisy recognized as the magistrate, was more unnerving than Tom had counted on. Daisy had mentioned earlier that there were two factions that each controlled half of the town, and that was readily apparent. What Daisy had failed to mention, and Tom had just discovered, was that the town was not neatly divided. Neighborhoods had been split based on partisan loyalties, with houses coloring their door in green or white to declare what faction they stood with. Tom could practically feel the scorn of one of the clans as he passed through the cities. Caustic glares were shot his way from every house bearing a green door.

“Well, it looks like I’ve chosen sides in this,” Tom thought, looking at the pathetic faces on the other sides of the wax paper windows. Entering with Daisy seemed to have put him on the side of the white doors, despite the fact he knew nothing about the conflict that had caused the factions to emerge. Had he a choice in the matter, Tom wouldn’t have chosen sides. He genuinely pitied the towns people, regardless of the color of their door. These mousy people who lived their lives on the ebb and tides of politics decided by men and women greater than them were just like his parents and the others he’d abandoned in Istraloth when he’d left. The only difference was the people of Maghstock were starving.

Despite the uneasy surroundings, it took Daisy less than half an hour to get Tom in to see the village chieftain, or at least the village chieftain of those who lived behind white doors. Large men with spears blocking doorways moved aside at the request of her hand, though they all exchanged dirty looks with Tom. After passing through three doors, they entered what Tom would have considered the most pathetic example of a throne room he had ever seen. It was a half hearted effort from people who had no resources. The white door’s capital was just an old granary. It made sense, the building came with security, but it made the chieftain’s court seem vacant, both in its paucity of ornaments and in how few people there were inside. Save for a chair finished with a cheap but elegant veneer, there was nothing in the room that gave off the impression of majesty. There were only scattered wheat husks, emptied jute bags and a faint smell of grain that had faded since the room had last held food.

The chieftain’s chair was in the center of the room, facing the door. There was empty space behind him that he seemed to ignore, perhaps in a vain attempt to make the room seem smaller and more in his control. The high ceilings didn’t help the chieftain’s case either.

Had it not been for the chieftain himself, Tom might have dismissed the man as a pretender and been off on his way. However, the man who sat in the makeshift throne had a commanding presence about him that impressed Tom. He was fit, surprisingly muscular, and while his facial hair looked like it hadn’t been groomed in weeks, the man carried himself well enough to make his grooming habits inconsequential.

“You’re in charge here?” Tom asked.

The man didn’t acknowledge Tom but instead looked at Daisy. “Who’s thees outsider you bright in heer?” he asked, his Salvarian accent considerably thicker than Daisy’s.

“Sheriff Akhilev, he is a man with many names, from Corone,” Daisy answered. “He told me his name was Vinnie, but a government official from Corone called him both Sean Jackman and Carjack something…”

“Carjack Capone,” Tom interrupted. “And Sean Jackson.”

“So you are a man wit’ veery many names, Mr. Jackson,” the sheriff said thoughtfully. “Vich one is reel, likely none, but that doeseen’t matter. You are from Corone, what brings you heer to Maghstock? We have nothing left to geev, or even for you to take…”

Tom had no interest in pretense. “I’m here to kill Tony Giancarlo,” he said. “Daisy told me you wanted him dead.”

[Ignition]

“Eef this were outside, I would think you were joking,” Sheriff Akhilev said. “But only a fool would joke in heer about such a matter… even eef they are an outsider.”

“I’m dead serious,” Tom said. “Serious as a civil fucking war…”

Daisy, sensing a budding awkwardness, interjected. “Sheriff Akhilev, the government of Corone wants Tom to kill Giancarlo. If they think he can do it, we should give him the chance…”

“Deeputy Valkov veel not like it…” the sheriff brooded, running his hand through his overgrown beard as he contemplated Tom’s proposal. “You have plan?”

“Not yet…” Tom said. “But if you give me a room for the night, and about fifteen men, I’ll work something out.”

The sheriff frowned. “Thees a big undertaking, vith very scary consequences for us eef you fail, you understand?” Tom nodded. There were a few more moments of contemplative silence. Tom shot Daisy a somewhat awkward glance, telling her that if Akhilev refused to help him, there was very little that he’d do. “But eef da Deputy veel not like it, I guess then I do,” he said. “Eet will get his supporters to support me, they veel not go vith him after they know vhat I have done…”

Daisy shot Tom an appreciative glance, but it wasn’t reciprocated. Now, Tom worried for his wellbeing more than he had before.

“And for my terms, I’d also like one guard…” Tom said. “Someone to keep an eye on, so none of the Deputy’s people come after me.”

The sheriff laughed. “You veel defeet Tony Giancarlo but fear silly people who follow that fool?” he said, his voice booming with laughter as he slapped his thigh. “Go, Daisy veel take care of you. Her house is nearby, and they have enough food. In the morning, return. Eef I like your idea, we veel go forward.”

Tom nodded. “Good enough,” he said. As he turned to leave, he couldn’t shake the feeling that things were only going to get worse before they got better.

[Ignition]

Daisy’s home was fortunately close. The Salvarian winds had begun to take their toll on Tom’s Istraloth bred constitution, and his lips had already begun to crack. His fingers had barely had the chance to thaw in the sheriff’s office, and had it not been for the pressing matters they were discussing, he might have been shivering the whole time. Now that he was somewhere more intimate, Tom wasn’t concerned about letting Daisy know his preference for more tropical climates. It mattered little now what she thought of him.

“I’d offer you tea or vodka, but we have neither,” Daisy said apologetically as she pulled out a chair from the kitchen table for him before going over to her cupboard. She opened it wide and looked inside. “Hope you’ve eaten recently,” she deadpanned.

Tom couldn’t help but admire the irony of Daisy’s home. Unlike many of the hovels he had passed by on his way to the sheriff’s, it was clear that Daisy had once lived in luxury. Though there were no longer any items of value, there was considerable evidence suggesting such things once existed. There were hooks in the ceiling fit for chandeliers, and a coffee table sat by a wide marble staircase that had precious stones dug out of it. All the chairs and furniture that Tom passed by were of better condition than the sheriff’s makeshift throne room. It had made Tom wonder if the sheriff shouldn’t have just relocated. However, even with all these signs of wealth, there was hardly a jar of preserves left in Daisy’s cupboard.

“I have things to eat,” Tom said. Corone had anticipated these problems. They had given him enough preserves and smoked meat to last him at least three weeks, and warned him that he should eat food in taverns wherever it was available. “At least enough for a while.”

Daisy’s expression suddenly got a good deal darker, and she blushed. Had Tom been paying attention to her and not to a jar of vegetable preserves, he might have noticed that she felt embarrassed about having sold herself for what turned out to be such a low price, but he was too busy trying to turn the well tightened lid on the glass jar.

“They make these damn things hard enough to open…” he muttered. “Come… eat…”

With a coy blush, Daisy took Tom’s offer gratefully. She brought a pair of clean plates over to the table and eyed the preserves eagerly. “I thought you might have had something hiding in that pack of yours,” she said. “And I bet the locals did too, a lot of them were eyeing you.”

Tom opened the preserves with a rough twist. “They were eyeing me, because I was with you, and an outsider…” he replied. “It was the green houses looking at me more than the whites…”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “The stupid politics of Maghstock,” she said. “Those people with the green doors, they thought we should be sending anything we find to the Church, to help them with the war in Knife’s Edge… the Deputy Mayor kept insisting that, but Sheriff Akhilev pointed out we don’t even have enough to get by…”

“Makes enough sense,” Tom said, glad to know the cause of all the friction in the town. If he did end up getting captured by Valkov’s men, Tom knew any information he had could mean the difference between life and death.

They began to eat in silence. Tom had wanted to pump Daisy for questions, but the girl had been so voracious, she began shoveling the preserves into her mouth the moment they were on her plate. The only thing she said was to gesture for more. Tom obliged, mostly out of sympathy. Once Daisy was done, she smiled, wiping her face and then licking her hands clean. Tom had ate little more than a handful by the time that Daisy had finished both her helpings. Tom could tell she wanted a third, but unless she asked, he wasn’t going to offer.

“Good?” he asked.

Daisy blushed.

Tom turned back to his food. A few seconds later, he was interrupted by the girl. “You know, if you’re going to kill Giancarlo, you need to do it tonight…” she said.

[Ignition]

Tom bit his lip and threw his fork back down to the plate. “I think you’re mistaking sympathy for conviction here,” he said. “I’m not getting myself killed to satisfy your impatience.”

Daisy’s eyes began to glisten. “We need you to,” she said. “Tomorrow Giancarlo is going to come to the granary for his tribute. If he doesn’t get it, he’ll kill Sheriff Akhilev.”

Tom’s first instinct was to say that it wasn’t his problem, but that instinct was soon overridden by a sudden burst of thought. “Tell me,” he said, his entire set of expressions brightening as the idea began to flesh itself out.

“What?” Daisy asked, somewhat incredulously.

“How its going to happen… does Tony Giancarlo come for his own tribute?” Tom insisted.

“Yes, I think…” Daisy said, beginning to realize that Tom was developing a plan. “Anything we had to give goes into the granary, and Giancarlo and his thugs take it from there. But this time, we had nothing, and the sheriff said he’d rather have his dead body dragged through the snow than have all his people starve…”

Tom grinned. “Do you have crates?” he asked.

“Empty ones,” Daisy said. “My father had a shipping business.”

“Perfect,” Tom said. “Now all we need is people. We have to go back to Akhilev tonight.” Tom got up and reached for the coat he had only removed seconds ago. Though it was still cold, the momentum from his idea had energized him to the point where it didn’t bother him nearly as much.

“He said wait until tomorrow…” Daisy began, not yet moving from the table.

Tom didn’t seem to care about that. “He probably thought I meant a challenge or a duel or something of that type,” the cagey older man insisted. “What Akhilev doesn’t realize is that I want to be smarter than this guy, I’m not some meathead going out of or a fight to prove I can grunt louder or eat raw meat… I care about results, that’s it.”

Daisy still seemed a bit reluctant, but since Tom was already leaving, she quickly grabbed her coat and followed him out the door, only hesitating to secure the padlock on her door. The two made their way to the granary, Tom essentially pushing the guards aside with his intensive stares and purposive gait.

The sheriff’s chin was in his hand as Tom entered, and the chieftain of half the town’s entire body jolted with surprise as the Istraloth native burst into the room. “I have your solution,” Tom said, Daisy following behind him, panting as she came up to him. “We need to work now.”

“Vhat.. vhat is it?” Akhilev asked, suddenly echoing Tom’s excitement.

“Crates,” Tom said. “Daisy has them. You need to fill your crates with as many men as you can, arm them with crossbows, then let Giancarlo and his people burst in here, and you’ll have more weapons trained on him than he could even imagine. I’m sure he’ll have sweepers of some sort, but the mob won’t expect enough of you to check the boxes…”

Akhilev sighed. “But his men still have the veapons…” the sheriff insisted. “Ve thought of dat but knew, eet vood be eempossible. Dey vould take revenge on anyone left…”

“Not if you strike first,” Tom said. “Catch them when they’re down, or even come back claiming to have the supplies. By the time they realize it isn’t Giancarlo, they’re all going to be dead.”

“Ve don’t have de people,” Akhilev replied. “Ve barely have enough soldiers for our normal posts. Ve could stop Giancarlo, but dat vould be eet. The people vould suffer more than they gain…”

Tom wanted to say something, he opened his mouth, but he couldn’t come up with a single counter argument. He hadn’t thought about the soldiers necessary for his plan. Had he been more of the literary type he might have tried to convince Akhilev that it was better to die nobly than live like slaves, but Tom knew that neither he nor the sheriff were that type of person. Both of them valued being alive far too much.

Though he hated to admit defeat, he took one quick look over to Daisy, wondering if she might be able to offer anything, before he remembered that Akhilev had left one potential asset ignored. “Don’t worry,” Tom said. “Corone will take care of the rest of this for you.”

“Den eet is settled…” Akhilev said, getting up from his seat and giving Tom a huge, abrupt hug. “You are a good friend to de people of Maghstock.”

Tom glanced at Daisy uneasily as Akhilev hugged him. He only hoped that the sheriff felt the same way after everything was over.