Chapter 7 - Nahla and Arqarin - The Spy
Arqarin opened the message and quickly read the contents, scowling. It was from that rich Undine, Mereid, who occasionally had work for her and as usual the man couldn't even get her assumed name of Baeldar right. Her alias wasn't Bair, it was Baeldar. Although women were accepted in most positions in Sihr and throughout Amsha, for some reason, when it came to more shady dealings of the sort Arqarin specialized in, her clientele would rather deal with a man. So Arqarin gave them Baeldar and worked only through the intermediaries in the Jackals' communication network. That way everyone won. The rich and powerful people who wanted a man to investigate something on their behalf got Baeldar and Arqarin got to do work she was highly skilled at. Her own guild of The Sands of Time didn't care that she lied, as long as she got the job done and paid her dues.
"Baeldar" might let his friends call him Bael, but not this rich man. Arqarin was half-tempted to reply with her own message stating that she didn't know anyone named Bair, but the job offered good money, and unfortunately, Arqarin needed money. She'd had some extra expenses recently.
All Mereid wanted Baeldar to do was find an Undine woman and her two brats, who were suspected to be either staying or living in a low-to-middle class inn, tavern, or restaurant somewhere in the city, though Mereid didn't think a tavern likely. Baeldar wouldn't need to capture them or anything, just let Mereid know where they were staying. If Arqarin accepted the job, she would be sent to pick up a sketch of the woman and her children, and then she had a week to find them, with an extra bonus that would increase the more days ahead of the deadline she found them.
Unlike Oreads, Sylphs, and especially Ifrits, Undines seemed to get on with a much wider variety of races, which would make her job harder. While she didn't know of anyplace that catered only to Undines, she did know of a few places that were run by them, as well as a few places that catered to the less common races.
And if this woman and her brats weren't at any of those places, she knew of some help she could hire for cheap to help run them down. She didn't like having to hire help as she didn't like sharing her spoils, but she wouldn't tell them what Mereid was really offering or how big the bonus was. She'd offer a pittance of a bonus compared to what Mereid was offering.
Deciding that she had a decent chance of nailing this mission and getting a bonus, too, she scrawled Baeldar's acceptance and placed it in an envelope which she labeled with the location Mereid had indicated. She then placed that envelope in a second labeled with a different destination and that envelope into a third one labeled with yet another location. That was how the Jackals' communication worked - no one person knew the starting and ending points of a message because it made stumping the imp police that patrolled Sihr easier. It was perfect for paranoid people like Arqarin who hated the imp police.
Arqarin received the location of the sketch the following day. She sent her most reliable contact Paliv to pick it up and tipped the boy with a gold when he returned with a rolled document an hour later.
Arqarin was glad Mereid had had the good sense to wrap the sketch in something. Even though she trusted Paliv more than most, that didn't mean she trusted the kid completely and the less Paliv knew about the job, the better Arqarin liked it.
The 'sketch' was a tracing of what was probably a real sketch. A woman stood on the left of the image with a boy and a girl on the right and a gap between the woman and the boy where another family member had probably been included in the original drawing. Glancing at the bottom, she saw the image was 4 years old. She knew Undines lived longer than both humans and half-Elves like herself, but she couldn't guess their ages in years. They were all wearing plain but well-made clothing. If the woman were human, Arqarin would estimate her to be in her mid-to-late 30s. She was no connoisseur of Undine beauty, and in fact found the blue skin and hair, finned ears, and webbed hands of the race to be a bit off-putting, but she didn't think the woman would be considered all that attractive by other Undines. She did, however, have a serene demeanor and there was a quality about her eyes even in this copy of a sketch that suggested that she saw people and could look into their hearts. Arqarin hadn't seen that quality in a woman's eyes since her own departed mother, dead now for nearly 40 years. The boy in the sketch looked to be not long into adolescence and possessed a gangly build. There was nothing very remarkable about him. The girl was younger than the boy, but not by much, Arqarin estimated. The girl wore her hair braided over either shoulder and had a slight build. A gleam of intelligence lit her eyes, but at the same time there was something fragile about her.
Arqarin didn't think they were Mereid's family. For one, the clothing was too plain and they wore no expensive items, though he supposed that whoever did the tracing or the original sketch could have left those out. More telling, there was no haughtiness or smugness in the eyes of these people, and she'd never met a rich person yet who didn't think their money made them better than everyone else. She'd had her guild contacts check Mereid out when the Undine had come to Baeldar with a job that first time. She'd been told the man was self-made and as self-important as they came. That made Arqarin think the woman and two brats were someone else's family. Maybe Mereid was paying a debt or setting one up for future collection. Or maybe the woman was a sister or sister-in-law and the brats were his niece and nephew. It didn't matter - she would find them.
Four hours later, Arqarin, who was now disguised as a wandering bard wearing a tri-colored skirt commonly worn by residents of Naga and a multi-colored patchwork cloak made her way up to the last of her preliminary search locations, the Marid's Solace Inn, which she knew to be run by Undines. She really hoped the woman and her brats would be here - now that she'd had the chance to think, she could do a lot with the bonus money Mereid was offering.
An Undine woman with soft blue hair but whose face was too round to be the woman Arqarin was looking for seated her and pointed out the chalkboard where the day's menu was written. She thanked her and pulled out a paper of news, ostensibly absorbed in it while really keeping an eye on the inn's workers. It would take at least an hour to find out if the woman she sought was here.
A few minutes later, a woman she was almost positive was the one she was looking for came up and asked, "Are you ready to order now, mum, or would you like a little longer?" Her clothes were a little plainer than they had been in the tracing, and she looked tired. The sense that she saw people was confirmed. Arqarin would have to hope that didn't include a strong ability to tell if someone was lying.
"How fresh is the shrimp?" she asked with a friendly smile.
"Sihr's technically a costal city, despite this half of it being up in the clouds, so you know it's fresh," the serving woman replied with a smile of her own, "but I can find out more precisely how fresh it is if you really want to know."
"Please do," Arqarin said. "I hope you don't think I'm being too picky, but I just made my way here from Naga, and there's this little place there that gets their seafood fresh every day, and it is just so good." She gave an apologetic smile. "I'm afraid it's quite spoiled me."
The serving woman gave an understanding smile and then excused herself. A few minutes later, she returned and said, "Our shrimp is about two days old, though I am assured our coldbox keeps it plenty fresh."
Arqarin grimaced, although she made sure she made sure to keep her eyes crinkled charmingly. "I'm afraid I'm spoiled completely rotten," she said with a laugh, "and two-day old shrimp won't do. What non-seafood do you have that's good?"
"Well, we are serving pan-fried sausages with roasted onions for dinner tonight. We haven't started cooking that up yet as it's a bit early for the dinner crowd, but if you don't mind a little extra wait, it will be good and fresh. I could also bring you some sort of a side dish while you waited if you wanted," she told her.
"The sausage and onions sound fine. Any chance you could fry me up some tubers? I do love those. And maybe a slice or two of bread?"
The serving woman nodded. "I believe we can do both of those. Anything to drink?"
"Oh yes, I almost forgot," Arqarin said with a self-deprecating laugh. "I'll take the best wine you carry."
As the serving woman was about to head to the kitchen, Arqarin said, "After you get my order turned in and then whenever you have a minute, there's one more thing I'd like to ask you - but it's not about my meal."
The serving woman turned to study Arqarin then, frowning slightly, and Arqarin suddenly realized the woman was questioning her motives. "This does not seem to be my day for making a good impression," Arqarin said with mock forlornness. "First I am the pickiest customer ever, then I leave my server thinking I have some kind of wrong intentions. If you would kindly indulge me, mum, what I need is help choosing gifts to take home to my children. I thought you seemed like the type who might have some insight."
The serving woman's face lost its frown and she smiled brightly. "Now that," she said with gusto, "is something I'd be delighted to help you with. I'll be right back."
She returned a few minutes later with Arqarin's wine and a plate bearing two pieces of bread. She also brought a tiny bowl filled with butter. As she placed the items before Arqarin, Arqarin asked, "I do need to make sure you are properly qualified. You do have children of your own, right?" She allowed her eyes to dance mischievously.
Laughing, the serving woman replied, "Yes, I have three. My eldest recently left home to learn a profession, but my youngest two are still at home. Now did you have anything in mind that you wanted to get for them? How old are they?"
"Something they'll like," Arqarin replied with good-natured peevishness. "They complained my last gifts were more appropriate for little kids. I would tell you my daughter is 16 and my son is 13, but I think those numbers probably mean different things to you than they do to me. As I recall, your race is much longer lived than mine. However, with Sihr being a city of where so much magic is practiced, I was thinking maybe some kind of magic trinket. By the way, I'm Jannys." Arqarin made it a habit to never give out either Baeldar's or her own name when she was on a job. Things sometimes went wrong and the less the imp police had to work with, the better Arqarin liked it.
"And I'm Nahla. Pleased to meet you, Jannys. Are your children adolescents, then?" she asked. "How far into adolescence are they?"
"Old enough to be talking back and pushing boundaries," Jannys replied with a sigh. "Or so I'm told by my sister who is raising them for me. My son has just barely entered adolescence and my daughter already has a few young men interested in her. She's already talking of wanting to get married. I have to say, it seems like only yesterday she wanted to marry my sister's husband, who is the only father she's ever known."
Nahla looked at Jannys empathetically. "My kids are both slightly younger than yours are, as my son has not yet expressed any interest in girls and my daughter is not quite yet into adolescence, but she's right on the cusp. And yes, it seems like only yesterday they were toddling around. Tell me, does your daughter like clothing? I know of a great little magic gift for a girl who likes clothes."
"Does she ever," Jannys replied with a laugh. "She's apprenticed to the tailor in my sister's town."
"Well, over on Mulabis Street, there's this shop called Pashti's Accessories that sells these color-changing scarves. You give the scarf a command word followed by one of the colors that it has been enchanted with and it changes to that color. But they also sell a version that hasn't been enchanted with any colors yet. The cost will depend on how many colors you want the scarf to have - the number ranges from 5 to 50 in increments of 5. Just take it home and all you need is a magic user who knows the Prestidigitation cantrip, which is really common, to set the colors." Nahla said enthusiastically. "Perhaps you know that cantrip yourself?"
"I'm afraid not, but the scarf does sound perfect," Jannys said in pleased tones. "I'll have you write this information down as soon as we get something figured out for my son."
Nahla then asked, "Tell me, are you familiar with a book called The Journeys of Mayin Longwalker?"
"Well, sure. I'm a bard, you know. I get asked to tell stories about Longwalker and his companions all the time. Why?" Jannys wanted to know.
"Both of my boys just love that book, what with all the adventure and travels to far countries that it contains. And there is this magic shop that sells a copy where the book cover takes on a scene from whatever chapter you last had open. It's just some illusion magic." Nahla was clearly also enthused by this idea.
"My boy's not the most avid reader, but I know he likes Longwalker," replied Jannys. "What shop carries the book?"
"I believe it's called Never Scene Before. The proprietor is a Gnome who specializes in illusion magic and adds little illusionary scenes to things that don't commonly have illusions but do have empty space that can be used for one. He's got everything from books to lantern covers to weapons."
"And where is Never Scene Before located?" Arqarin had to keep up the ruse. Part of being successful was making people think you were really interested in whatever you were talking to them about. You had to make them believe your story.
Nahla paused a moment, thinking. "You know, I don't remember offhand. I want to say it's over near the Alakazam Magic Academy, and that's not too far outside the older wealthy section of town. I don't remember exactly how to get there. But any of the more established magic shops would probably know of it."
Jannys glanced up at her. "Such as?"
Nahla replied, "Mereid's Magicks, for one. Or Raafe's Runes and Rods. Or The Cheap Talisman. Those have all been around for a while."
Jannys nodded. "Sounds good. Now, if you'll go write all of that down for me, I'll have a nice tip for you once I've finished my meal."
Nahla bustled off and Arqarin pretended to return to her paper of news, glad she was done with playing the doting mother. It was so easy if you were polite and asked a few reasonable questions. She smiled to herself when slightly older versions of the two brats from the tracing wandered in and Nahla greeted them warmly. It was always good to have confirmation of your target.