Raely was a woman not to be trifled with. The scars on her forehead and cheeks—from a handful of knife fights and brawls, no doubt—warned Aralim of her Maykren street wisdom. Unlike her companion, none of her weapons were easily visible, though Aralim was sure she had a knife or two in her boots. Nalembar stood behind her left shoulder, hands on his hips as his female colleague pulled out a chair from the Iron River Tavern table where Aralim sat. Nalembar, unlike Raely’s lanky stature, was thick as a barrel and coarsely bearded. His broken nose and plethora of blade-hilts marked him as a similarly weathered crook.
“Ambassador Aralim, I presume,” Raely murmured, sinking into the seat. Nalembar took a moment longer, glancing around the stifling, smoky common room. After a moment, he turned a seat around and lowered himself onto it, setting—though not resting—his hands on the arch of the chair’s back. Raely’s eyes gleamed as she folded her fingers around a small drinking glass with a brass foundation. “We’ve heard a lot about you, but never expected to speak with you.”
Aralim smiled. The Aura stood nearby, subtle but very present. “Then you haven’t heard that much about me after all,” he said, smiling. “I talk a lot.” He sipped his tea, absently wondering why the tattooed barkeep had stared at him when he ordered it.
“It’s more of a coincidence really,” Raely explained. “You shared the road with one of ours, you know.” She smiled smugly and then hid her mirth with a sip of her spirits.
That caught Aralim off-guard. He furrowed his brow. Who does she mean? he wondered. “Are you referring to the assassin? Gathim?”
The nostril’s of Nalembar’s bulbous nose flared. “No, I don’t believe we had any connection to that.” Aside from his inhale and his words, it was unclear if he even knew about Aralim’s would-be assassin until that moment.
Though these two seemed to be the two-pronged head of Maykren’s gang, they could have fooled Aralim. The unreadable faces and unexpected secrets would have mingled well with Rema’s upper class—and their willingness to use their physical powers might teach the politicians a thing or two.
More troubling to Aralim than their demeanor was the truth of what they hinted. Was one of his friends a crook? At what point had he journeyed with one of their contacts? Their words could just be an attempt to get under my skin… he considered, but he could not fully commit to that. Instead, he shrugged. “Well then, we probably got along quite well, whoever it was.”
Raely relented; her smile grew more innocent. “To business then? We were told you sought information about a certain magician?”
“Yes, he seems to have disappeared just when I received some news for him,” Aralim said, and sipped his tea again. They all knew that the magician they spoke about was none other than Overseer Tussom. Aralim glanced at Nalembar who had spent the last few minutes quietly observing the silent man in orange robes behind the Ambassador.
“Disappeared? Died? It’s a complicated distinction,” Raely muttered, smirking.
“We would need to come to some sort of…” Nalembar shifted his eyes to Aralim and continued, “understanding to uncomplicate it.”
Of course, the public story about Tussom was that he had died. Aralim lifted his shoulders. “I’m open to requests. A challenge is always good for my place on the Path.”
Raely’s eyes flicked up to the Aura. “Do you have access to his resources?”
The Aura quietly approached the table, and Aralim glanced up at him. “At this distance,” Aralim said, “there’s no guarantee—but the Emperor and I usually agree. Are you simply hoping for payment? Or do you need a favour?”
“This deal could be costly to our business,” Raely said, quietly. She chose her words carefully. Aralim realized they didn’t want to even confess that they knew Tussom lived, let alone that they were involved, but in taking this meeting they had already confirmed both. “Payment is what we require, but an ample amount of it.”
Aralim shrugged. Internally, he sighed again at all his setbacks in even arranging this meeting. He had spent the last two weeks trying to meet with the Magistrate of Maykren or with the criminals reported to him by that man in the Wide Net Tavern. Typical of Numa’nakres politics—there were more hoops to jump through in order to get involved with the “right” people, than with the “wrong” ones. Equally frustrating was dealing with money. “Hmm… I haven’t managed my own funds in a long time. I don’t know how comfortable haggling I am. I assume you have a contact in the capital?”
“We have allies in the capital, but our own people are mostly local,” Nalembar said, his low voice a soft rumble.
Raely grinned, lowering her nearly-finished spirits. “Who said anything about haggling?”
Aralim snorted. “I haven’t been a Walker so long as to not know that these things always have a degree of haggling,” he assured her. “Give a price range and a person to contact in the capital. This Aura will inform the Emperor and your contact will have an answer by the end of the week.”
The two mobsters exchanged glances with some uncertainty. Nalembar shrugged. “You said you wanted to do this.”
Raely finished her drink and puckered her lips. “Fine,” she said, raspingly. “1500 to 2000 iron coins, delivered to the innkeeper at the Courtier. The more he’s paid, the more we’ll say. And if anything happens to him, it’ll be in vain; he’s not our contact.”
“Excellent. If all goes well, we’ll meet again when you receive word. I have a habit of talking, so if you two would rather leave now, this is your chance,” Aralim rambled, with a smile. His tea was only half done.
“We know where you’re staying. We’ll let you know,” Nalembar warned, rising.
Raely crossed her arms and added, “And don’t tell anyone else about our deal.”
“Of course not.”
After they had left, Aralim remained seated at the table. The Emperor’s Aura lurked nearby, quiet and unobtrusive. As he finished his tea, the Walker pondered the situation. Would this just sort itself out? Would the Emperor pay the innkeeper and the criminals cough up Tussom? Aralim had hardly even applied himself this time, aside from patiently retrying his attempts to contact those with power in Maykren. Was he that good?
On another note, he wondered how much money 1500 iron coins was. Surely, it was a small fee to the Emperor… but Aralim still worried that the Emperor might leave him out in the rain, trying to teach him some timeless lesson about respecting the boundaries of a self-made god.
Aralim could only hope that flushing Tussom out on a whim would help win back Tag’na’s favour.