Gensmot is a rough city, if you go down the wrong street you can be sure to run into trouble and I was definitely on the wrong street. Worse, I was wool gathering in my brain and I barely have time to duck before a city guardsman bounced off a stone wall over my head as I emerged onto the Street of Dreaming . The guard fell as a silent lump to the cobbled street. I looked out and could see one of the Ogres that pulled the great ferries across the river was surrounded by nine guardsmen wielding oaken cudgels that seemingly were having no effect on the Ogre. Two other guardsmen lay on the ground and were not moving, the red and white sashes that denoted their status as watchmen showing up brightly against the stones. With the one that just bounced off the wall, that made three guardsmen down and the others looking scared. Ogres and Black Lotus do not mix well, and I could tell by foam dripping from its mouth that it must have gotten ahold of a potent dose.
The street the fight was taking place is called the Street of Dreaming where the black lotus is sold in dingy holes for those seeking relief from the reality of the world. Black lotus is forbidden in most civilized places, but in Gensmot it is allowed as is everything else that doesn't interfere with the "good order of things". That, of course, is just another way of saying as long as it does not interfere with the Great Families making money, which is the only real sin in Gensmot. The street I am treading on is cobbled with rough stones seemingly designed to turn an ankle. It normally has a graveyard like qair to it, but not today.
This ogre was not particularly big for his kind, as he did not stand more than eight and a half feet tall (2.5m), but he was well muscled from his occupation of pulling a ferry across the turbulent confluences of the river. His face was stupid looking, and his dark lanky hair hung down in strands. His shirt was a dirty rag probably sewn from an old blanket and he wore a kilt made from a single brown and poorly cured cowhide. A guardsman darted in to strike his cudgel on the knee of the ogre, but the ogre caught him by the nape and raised him over his head with an inarticulate roar.
I must admit I have no love for the city guard, they are little more than the Doge's bully boys, nor did I feel sorry for the ogre, he should have known better than to antagonize the City Guard. Normally, I would have simply backed up and went another way because I do not concern myself with other people's battles, but the damn ogre roared and when he saw me, he chucked the hapless guardsman at me. Lucky for the guardsman I was there to break his fall and we both landed hard on the hard cobbled street. Bruised and more than a little pissed, I disentangled myself from the guardsman and regained my feet, swearing unkind and blasphemous oaths at the ogre.
I suppose I should tell you who I am. I am called Barrim the Mage by most, sometimes Barrim the Alchemist, but I also enjoy some more derogatory epithets by my enemies and my landlord, but I repeat myself. I have seen thirty five winters come and go, and you have probably guessed by my title that I am a student of the arcane, and not a bad one at that. I wield enough power to make people leery about bothering me, but not enough to single me out to the Great Families as either a threat or an asset to manipulated, usually. I am tall and stout and I look exactly like what I am, the son of blacksmith. Indeed, one of the most frequent criticisms leveled at me is that I just don't look like a wizard. I have eschewed the robes and the pointy hats for earthen colored wool trousers and dull yellow linen shirt with a leather waistcoat with numerous pockets, which I found to be practical when I was adventuring and still enjoy wearing. Despite the perception of my sartorial shortcomings, I enjoy a well-earned reputation for wizardry among, mostly, the adventurers who operate out of the city. Fifteen years ago when I came to this city, I was fresh-face young mage who had just won his staff and I came here looking for adventure like the rest of the fools and I found it. I have since that day walked several thousand miles and clambered and crawled through a hundred dank barrows and tombs and searched the ruins of hundred fallen cities. Now I prefer my chambers and my books to some wilderness camp, but I still keep my dark brown hair and beard cut short as I did as when I actually looked for trouble.
I was not looking for trouble today, but I do not like having things thrown at me, especially people. I was angry and maybe that got the better of my judgment as I walked over to the ogre, who was now facing away from me, and I reached up under his kilt and found what I was looking for and then I spoke the spell in the Arcane Language and my Bigby's Shocking Grasp spell went off with the desired effect.
Electrical energy made the greasy black hair on the head of the ogre stand up straight and he let out a peculiar high-pitched keening wail and then fell to his knees holding his crotch with both hands. Tears rolled down his eyes, and the guardsmen showed little mercy as they pounded his skull as hard as they could, some their seasoned oak cudgels even broke during the onslaught and eventually the ogre went down, blood leaking from his nose and ears. He would probably be okay when he woke up, ogres are tough. The sergeant-at-arms nodded to me in thanks and I nodded back and continued on my errand, noting the damage the beserk ogre had done along the way. I could follow the trail of destruction to a dingy black lotus house with the front door lying in the middle of the street, its wrought iron hinges twisted and broken.
Gensmot is cesspool of a city with a veneer of white marble that echoes with the sound of the numerous fountains that flow freely in every square and marketplace, built by the city's guilds as gaudy monuments to themselves. The origins of the city's name, which few remember, comes from some old language and it means "peaceful meeting place" because the kings of three ancient kingdoms used to meet on this island to discuss treaties and such things. It had been declared independent and neutral territory by them and has remained so for several hundred years. Gensmot belongs to no king or prince, just to the powerful merchant families who run the place.
The afternoon sun of early spring is cold in the blue, crystalline spring sky as I walk in the shadows of the city's buildings. The sunlight was welcome after three weeks of non-stop rain. Not that there was much light where I was walking. There is little land available here, so people build upwards, creating narrow trenches of shadow and darkness we call streets and in Gensmot, the higher your towers climbed upwards, the greater your social standing. The Great Families in their seven great towers rise higher than everything and everyone here, but many lesser towers emulate, or mock, those great artifices. At the very top of the blunted mountain of stone that is Gensmot Island, squats the Ziggurat; that step sided monstrosity where the Great Families hold court and plot against each other. Every few years they elect the Doge from among the Seven. Each Doge holds on as long as they can before the other families cut them down with their infighting and intrigue that is as cold, twisted, and as serpentine as a dragon's back. Personally, I avoid the Great Families if at all possible, but that is not always possible.
The city sits on an island, a two mile long (3.2 Km) rounded hump of bedrock that raised itself out of the confluence of three large rivers. The nearest shore is over a quarter of a mile away (400 m), thwarting all who have desired to seize it. It is called by other names, the "City of Towers" for the spires that reach upward like daggers thrusting into the belly of the sky, or the "City of Stone" ever since the Great Fire gutted the city two hundred years ago and since then building in anything other than stone has been forbidden and the "City of Fountains" because of the ornate and bountiful basins in the city. It has also been called the "City of Adventurers" in reference to the number of freebooters who make the city their first port of call. For the last ten years, I have called this place my home.
In a narrow building, hardly wider than the tips of my outstretched fingers is Moogy's herbal shop. This was my destination for this morning. I was a frequent customer of Moogy's, coming every first day of the month to buy ingredients. Moogy sells the black lotus blossom, sure, but he also sells several incenses and herbs that are very useful in my occupation. There is no sign above the door, and no exterior windows to let any light in from the outside. The door itself a warped piece of wood, the green paint faded and streaked from age and it groans as I force it open, dragging its bottom edge against the stone floor. The interior is lit by tallow candles that give the place a pungent, but not unpleasant aroma. I stop dead in my tracks when I see the three customers standing before the counter. Moogy, an ugly amalgamation of human, orc, and elven blood is behind the counter in his apron fawning over the illustrious visitor who was none other than Lord Valker. Valker is commonly called "Lord Stargazer" for his passion of looking at the stars on top of his middling sized tower with his Dwarven made farseer device. The other two with him were brutish half-orc bodyguards in black leather armor and carrying clubs and long daggers. Both were huge, ugly, and scarred from their time in the fighting pits. They scowled in disgust when they saw me, but I did not take it personally, I knew they hated everyone equally.
"Ah!" Exclaimed Lord Valker as I stopped suddenly in my tracks. "It is my old friend, Barrim! So nice to see you, my boy."
"Lord Valker," I said, giving the stargazer a bow of respect as my heart dropped into my boots. He raises his hand toward me and the skin on the pale frail hand sticking out of his heavy red velvet robes is mottled with age and the fingernails are long and sharp. He has a longish face, also mottled with age spots and white thin wispy hair wrapping his head in an ephemeral white cloud. I have dealt with Valker in the past, and I know that this is not him, but in the interest of not dying, I play along and take his cold hand in mine and bow again. I have wards set up to protect my shop from evil types, but I cannot ward the whole city.
"How fortunate am I," the wizened old man said with a honey-dipped smile and a voice dry and brittle with the coming grave, "that I would chance run into such a dear friend today. However, I must chide you for not visiting me. It has been too long, my dear friend. You must come and visit me and quite soon, too."
"Far be it for someone like me to take up your valuable time, Lord Valker," I replied with a fake smile of my own and a third humble bow. I knew there was no chance this was a random encounter, but I hoped maybe I could beg off from seeing the old man, but it was not to be.
"Nonsense!" Lord Valker exclaimed with feigned conviction. "You are always welcome, my dear Barrim. In fact, I insist you must come this very evening, just after dark and we will catch up on what you have been doing."
"This evening, Lord Valker?" I asked, trying to keep the dread out of my voice while giving me time to think.
"Oh yes, yes. This very evening, I am most keen to hear of your comings and goings. I am insisting, my friend, so there is no getting out of it."
"Just after dark then," I acquiesce with not a little trepidation.
"Excellent," the old man says. "I will send my carriage around for you."
"You are most kind, Lord Valker," I reply and the old man gives me a reptilian smile.
I make room to the side so the old man and his two brutish thugs leave the shop without saying anymore with a grinding of the door that was slammed so hard bottles on the shelves rattled.
"Well, ain't you important now," Moogy says with mock adoration. "Hobnobbing with the likes of Lord Valker, just like a proper toff."
"I would rather kick a bugbear in the balls than have anything to do with a tower dweller," I muttered darkly.
"You can do that down at Freddy's, he's got one there as a bouncer." Moogy offered with mock helpfulness.
"Shut up, Moogy."
I absently gathered the things that I had come for from Moogy and then I headed for my alchemy shop, where I lived in the back. My shop and home is a single story building with a basement and the crown of a broken tower rising on one end like a rotten tooth with a hole in it. My mind rushes along like water going over a waterfall, once I had put to bed the blind panic that was threatening to seize my mind I began to think again. I had several reasons to believe that I would not be killed outright. First, I had to conclude that Valker would not have invited me so publicly if he meant to kill me outright. Oh, I know that was not Valker, but his agent, but that agent would have been following Valker's orders. Second, if Valker had wanted me dead, there were a hundred people in this city that would kill me for a handful of copper coins and no questions asked. But the idea that Valker wanted to see me to ruminate about my life was ludicrous, which meant that he needed me for something and that thought did little to ease my worries.
When last of the golden red sunlight disappeared from the pinnacles of the city's towers, I was sitting on the steps of my shop. I had been sitting there for an hour already, watching the gloom grow ever deeper as the sun went down. I idly wondered if the sun was really a solar barque sailing around the edge of the world, mostly to keep me distracted as I waited and hoped against hope that the carriage that was to take me to Valker's tower would never come, a desperate reprieve for a, possibly, condemned man. But it was not to be as I heard the clatter of hooves and the rattle of metal-shod wheels rolling over the cobbled streets coming from the darkness. Two lanterns appeared at the end of my street like great yellow eyes that swayed back and forth like a great lumbering beast was heading my way. The carriage, driven by one of the half-orcs stopped in front of me and the driver gave a jerk of his head as an order for me to climb inside. With a sigh I did so, only to find the other half of the duo sitting inside waiting for me. I sat opposite of him and we stared at each other, my brown eyes staring into his black little pig-eyes in the light given off by the enchanted light fixtures inside the carriage. I had met, and vanquished, a hundred like him before and I found myself more than a little insulted that these two crude thugs were sent to see that I followed through with my promise to attend Lord Valker.
The carriage rolled to a stop in front of a round tower some hundred feet high (30.5m), its top, unlike most of the towers of the city was not covered with a roof, but remained open to the sky. This was to facilitate Lord Valker's passion for star gazing. The heavy oak door at the base of the tower swung open with a minimal amount of noise, attesting to it being greased regularly. The woman who opened the door was a redhead with hair the color of the morning sun cascading off her shoulder and down her back. Her dress was emerald green, to match her eyes, and diaphanous as if to show contempt for the cold night air of early spring. The ephemeral nature of the dress showed off her flawless white skin of her long legs and ample bosom. Her green eyes flashed as she smiled at me in welcome. It was a serpent's smile, cold and heartless and predatory.
"Welcome, Lord Wizard," she greeted me in warm tones that seemed to be notes of a musical scale.
"I am hardly a Lord, Maid Shassani," I replied with mock politeness.
"And I am hardly a maiden, Mage Barrim," Shassani smiled at her own double-sided joke.
"But you always remain a vision of loveliness," I replied, still playing the game.
"You are too kind, Mage Barrim," She replied as she gestured for me to enter the pit of despair that was the Stargazer's tower.
Just inside of the door, a staircase wound its way up, following the wall in its curving rise to the top of the tower. Shassani walked beside me carrying a pewter candle enchanted with a Continual light spell to light the way. We were alone now, and I could drop the pretense of politeness.
"I assume it was you at the apothecary shop this afternoon." I said to the being who called themselves Shassani. For a split second the vision of absolute beauty vanished, to be replaced with a tall, gaunt figure with bulging eyes and the domed skull of a doppelganger.
"Of course," Shassani purred, the feminine form returning.
"Smart trick," I said, "having the Stargazer being seen in the daylight."
"It is convenient for dispelling any rumors that might crop up," Shassani replied nonchalantly.
"Was it an accurate representation of Lord Valker?" I asked the doppelganger.
Shassani lips formed a pout as if I had offered her a grave insult. She replied with a snappish, "Certes it was. Well, minus the red eyes, of course."
"Of course," I agreed. I grew ever more worried at to what plot was being hatched and how I fit into the damn thing. I did not delude myself into thinking I was a valuable enough playing piece in whatever game was at hand that I wouldn't be sacrificed early on for some perceived advantage.
We finally made it to the very top of the tower. Shassani looked at me as horse trader might look at questionable horse they have been offered for a sizable sum. I did not give her the satisfaction of showing any shortness of breath from the long climb up the stairs, although a trickle of sweat dripped down my back under my wool cloak. We exited onto the top of the tower, and a cold south wind of early spring brought the smell of a hundred hearth fires to us. Valker's tower was on the north side of the city, half way up the big hump of rock that was the city's foundation. The seven great spires were lit like beacons with the careful placement of Continual Light spells around their exteriors to create islands of lights in the darkness. Valker's tower was dark as the inside of a tomb except for small oil lamp with red panes of glass glowing feebly on a nearby table. Next to the lantern was a book written in a language I had never seen before and it sat on a pile of parchment and vellum with neat handwriting and mathematics and diagrams of star constellations. I assumed those had been written and drawn by Lord Valker since a bottle of ink and quill pen were nearby and he had spots of ink that showed up like black mold on the white skins of his hands. An intricately detailed Dwarven made far-viewer made of bronze was pointed at the open sky stood next to the table.
Turning away from me with a bemused look on her face, Shasanni formally announced our arrival, "Lord Valker, Mage Barrim is here for his audience."
"Please, please," I heard Valker greet me, "come over to the far-viewer."
I followed Shassani, staying inside the circle of light given off by the magical candle as if it might offer me some form of protection, a foolish but instinctive reaction to being in a predator's den.
Lord Valker is not tall. The top of his head only comes to my chin, but his frame is solid and robust, or at least it use to be. Now, it seemed time had grabbed ahold of him in a death grip as his weak and pallid form shuffled into the light. It was the same man from all appearances that I had met in Moogy's shop earlier in the day, except for the eyes. His eyes glowed with a red light like a cat's eyes shining in the night. They were red with blood hunger held under control by the iron will of a seven hundred year old vampire.