- TMK -

The smell of earthen ammonia hung over Vandeirus. The slums were thick with begging Salamanders. They bawled at passing steam carriages, the citizens inside holding their snouts in disgust. The occasional dedalat guard would shove the forlorn from the street should they come too close to the carriages.

           

If that would not deter the beggar, a secluded alley and a bullet would.

           

Joh kept his distance from those steel-clad Salamanders watching the roads. He weaved among the beggars, careful to step on the few mud-free stones and bricks. He stopped at a creaking shop built like the rest of the slums. Through the splattered glass, dry goods smuggled in by the Coterie were on display. Above the door was a sign with barely legible paint smears written in blocky, Nassian script.

           

Joh was lucky he was one of the few forlorn who could actually read ‘Archon’s general goods’ on the sign. Most in the Hollow called it “The Sweet Shop” on account of the seemingly endless rock candy. Rock candy that was a diversion for what the Coterie truly peddled within.

           

A bell rang as his clawed feet crossed the threshold. Inside, a black-haired Human bleated Odovan at a Salamander clerk.

           

“Please! I just need some stationery,” the Human yelped with frustration.

           

“Hanaharisto, ethalas at Nassían,” the clerk responded, her monitor-lizard snout flaring with every word. 

           

“Oh for– do none of you overstuffed iguanas speak a lick of Common?”

           

“Odovan,” Joh interrupted.

           

The black-haired Human turned to face him. “Come again?”

           

“If you’re going to use the Vampire’s tongue, call it what it is. This is not the Empire. This is Vandeirus. And here, your words are Odovan.”

           

The man let a devilish grin pass over his lips. He scanned Joh’s adolescent body, noting his tawny scales and the faintly speckled pattern unrelated to any eugenic caste. “How would you, an ill-begotten, misshapen forlorn, know Common?”

           

Joh trudged to the counter and stood before the Saironian. Even at his age, he stood at eye level with the Human. Joh’s slit pupil fell to the crimson star badge along the man’s belt–and the revolver holstered next to it.

           

“Khos, zeelóz kyi ypestólím gian ton Zironíkon,” Joh told the Salamander behind the counter.

           

“Jamimen Zironíkon…” The Salamander muttered, fumbling below the counter as Joh and the Saironian continued their impasse.

           

“Haven’t answered me,” the Human pressed, slicking back hair damp from the humidity.  He had a melodic, even smooth voice when calm. A voice Joh confounded with bazaar racketeers out to sell fool’s gold.

           

“It would be as unwise for me to answer your question as it would be for a constable to visit Rat Hollow for envelopes,” Joh replied.

           

“I can see you are of no such sort, then. Unlike your friend here,” the Human answered as the Salamander clerk placed pen, paper, and envelopes on the counter.

           

“Deha metryos.”

           

“Ten metryos,” Joh translated. “Khos will also take cauldrons or tithe. She’s not picky.”

           

“Or perhaps the ‘mander who owns this shack isn’t.”

           

“Ask him yourself.”

           

The bell above the door rang, three new Salamanders strolling in. Two were clad in metal plates strung over their bent bodies by chains. The third wore the traditional draping, colored robes of a Nassian citizen. The robed Salamander eyed the three by the counter warily, his head displaying scaly blue spots of the fiscal caste.

           

“Elehiste nahanstyma atemén,” the blue Salamander uttered a confrontational hiss.

           

“Nái, aftainon,” the Salamander behind the counter nodded, proceeding to close the blinds and lock the display cases.

           

“And you, Saironian,” the Salamander switched to Odovan. “Go. Now.”

           

“Charming city, really,” the Saironian sighed.

           

He opened a hide pouch and tossed silver coins onto the counter. Scooping up the stationery and avoiding eye contact, he trudged past the Salamanders at the door.

           

As he grabbed the doorknob, he turned and nodded to Joh, “Till next time, young ‘mander.”

           

His farewell yielded a jeer from one of the armored Salamanders. The door promptly slammed behind the Human.

           

“Erhiméné dhóm, myn fises khai nen. Esyas halon, Khos,” the blue Salamander spoke swiftly.

           

“Nái, aftainon,” the clerk responded in unison with the armored Salamanders.

           

“Vrasma,” the blue Salamander’s focus fell on Joh. “Kolothse mouhn.”

           

Joh nodded. He fell behind the robed Salamander, who immediately stomped behind the counter and proceeded to the stairwell. They came upon the roof entrance. A gust of Rat Hollow’s foul wind assaulted Joh.

           

On the rooftop, though, Vandeirus was a new city entirely. While Rat Hollow’s slums were a constant eyesore, the center city bazaar bustled. There, colorful awnings denoted each good the merchant caste had to offer. Candied dates, Harralheim furs, Maedan pottery–the world itself was on sale for the Kingdom’s citizens. Tastes and luxuries Joh could experience only though imagination. Behind walls encompassing that market of wonders, egg-shaped towers of white brick housed Vandeirus’ citizens. Each window held hanging vines that dusted the white background with green. There were even spiral aqueducts carrying water from the Taxhorn mountains to the top of each tower. Aqueducts that brought pure and clean snowmelt a world apart from the sludge of the River Vand.

           

“Scumling!” The Salamander’s monitor lizard jaws snapped together.

           

“Nái, aftainon?” Joh replied sheepishly.

           

“In Odovan. I didn’t pay fuck-all for that shitbird dwarf to teach you for nothing,” the Salamander barked. “Besides, better those cave crawler’s downstairs don’t understand.”

           

“Why did you hire them if you don’t trust them?” Joh said with a smirk.

           

The Salamander shot a narrow glare at Joh. “Remember who you’re speaking to, cur.”

           

“My mistake, ArdHazhIr,” Joh reverted to the Salamander’s formal name.

           

The robed Salamander ejected a gust of tobacco-tinged breath from his nostrils before speaking, “They’re not mine. The Coterie decided to send extra muscle with each lieutenant since Lysänder started flushing our city full of those black-haired apes. Like the one you were rattling on to downstairs. Another meddling Saironian.”

           

“He just needed pen and paper, Hazh. Not like Khos could understand and I didn’t want him hanging around the shop when you arrived,” Joh explained.

           

“Lot of good that did,” Hazh growled. “Anyway, you’re going to make a delivery.”

           

“Of what?”

           

“Don’t act as stupid as you look,” Hazh said with a snap. He fumbled under his draping robes. Before long, Hazh produced a brown leather satchel, dumping the bag on a small table. The satchel hit the table with a heavy thud as the rectangular blocks within clattered against one another.

           

“Where?” Joh said without a second thought.

           

“The Ivory Quarter. Ranaís Tower. Agon will meet you outside.”

           

“When?”

           

“Sometime in the night. I don’t care when.”

           

“It’s midday?”

           

“And?” Hazh asked matter-of-factly.

           

“It’s…a lot of bite to carry around that long,” Joh took a more conciliatory tone.

           

“I don’t give a fuck what you do till that time, but you best not lose it,” Hazh responded as he scratched one of the bony lumps along his snout.

           

“I…ok.”

           

Hazh gave a prideful snort as he dug through his robe’s embroidered pockets. A coin pouch landed on top of the satchel.  

           

“For your trouble. You’ll get the rest if you deliver it. If you don’t, the rooks could always use more carrion.” Hazh curled his hands over the rooftop sidewall.

           

Hazh looked over the spiraling, step-shaped edges of Rat Hollow. Sheet metal shone like iridescent bismuth as dew caught the sun. To Joh, Hazh looked sullen, probably for having to slink to the Hollow while the upper echelons of the Coterie feasted in green-speckled towers. But as a citizen, he, like the Coterie majority, chose their life.

           

Joh, like all the forlorn of the Hollow, merely was.

           

Joh realized he had lingered too long for his master’s comfort. Hazh turned to him, the black veins in his eyes pulsing with saurian blood.

           

“Did I miss something, Scumling?”

           

“Ohy, aftainon,” Joh instinctively reverted to Nassian as he slung the satchel over his shoulder.

           

“Good,” Hazh sulked again over the city vista. “Now fuck off.”