From the Editor:

Readers, I am thrilled to be back in full swing. Last time we visited them, the indomitable Battle Axe and the inscrutable Inkstone were piecing together a plan to save Fire Fade from certain death.

Well, later that night a little flurry of dramas played out in Pearl City’s Cloth District – a nexus of late-night bustle, jingling coins, and indiscretion.

This episode is about a few of those dramas, because you see:

1 – Our heroes needed to purchase a list of goods necessary to carry out the next stage of their plan.

2 – Our heroes needed (badly) to get presentable in order to carry out the next stage of their plan.

And, as you will see, it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

The first little drama played out in Snaggletooth’s Superior Virtue Pawnshop, which sits (rather self-righteously) just downwind from the giggles of the Cloth District’s largest teahouse. In fact, let us start with the teahouse.

// Oriole Burdee

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The Story Begins:

A Dazzling Display of Desperation

On just about any evening you can get a free show if you stand on the cobblestone street just outside the lavish three-tiered Lucky Tile Teashop.

From the street you won’t see the sing-song girls, draped in painted silk like the sylphs of ancient times. But you will hear their crooning float out on the perfumed air, punctuated by the clatter of sparrow tiles from a hundred gaming tables. Listen to the melancholic strains of that classic number “The Deserter”:

Stand with me on the rampart wall, wall, wall.
Watch the starlings sweep and call, call, call.
Toss your sword into The Paragon – gone, gone.
So you and I can be as one.

Flee your captain and your battlefield, field, field.
Heave your sword and heave your shield, shield, shield.
Heave your bow into The Paragon – gone, gone.
So you and I can be as one.

Dodge the garrote, shake it loose, loose, loose.
Duck that hangman’s swinging noose, noose, noose.
Leap with me into The Paragon – gone, gone.
Then you and I will be as one.

You had a bad night at the tables? Put down your tiles and walk next door for a chat with Snaggletooth. You will be back by the next song with a pocketful of silver.

Most of his customers are afflicted gamers. But not all.

“Squeak squeak” Little Portent flapped his leathery wings, and settled upside-down on his perch by the door.

The door swung open. From behind the discretely high countertop Snaggletooth couldn’t see his customers. But a little dust cloud announced their presence.

“Whew,” said a female voice.

“Wowee,” said a male voice.

Snaggletooth’s walls were lined with the stock-in-trade of pawnbrokers. Jewels of every hue winked fiercely from captivity inside the cabinets, set alongside cakes of exotic dried teas, green-bottled sorghum wines, and sticky sticks of aged vanilla bean.

Some were exceedingly rare: here a humming wind-and-water-compass, there a turquoise chunk of ice from the Frozen Falls. Shining from the corner a glorious set of ivory teeth rumored to have belonged to Tiger Tread – ‘The Champion of the West’ – who had a bad tile habit and died in poverty, choking on a half-masticated banana.

Included in Snaggletooth’s collection was even a book about the adventures of a certain gutsy monkey (rather tatty from wear), brought in from the penal colony out west.

Ahhh, and tonight a new treasure, swinging from a grubby little hand stretched over the countertop – an iridescent purple moon large as a robin’s egg, set in silver and hung on a heavy chain.

Snaggletooth plucked it up.

“We want to sell it,” said female voice.

“PAWN it,” said male voice.

Little Portent shuffled on his perch.

“Origins, my love?”

“My mother gave it to me”

“And where did she get it? Where was it mined, in other words? Name of the jeweler etcetera?”

“Don’t know.” female voice somehow even sounded grubby. “She’s from the south, though, so maybe Cinnabar City? Couldn’t say for sure.”

The pawnbroker looked up at Little Portent with a questioning eye.

“Squeak, squeaky,” the bat said decisively. “Squeak.”

Snaggletooth angled the gem under his eyepiece and looked close. Clear as his ice specimen from the Frozen Falls, but for an exquisite little flaw shaped like a spider. No…not a flaw. A charm. Set deep in the purple stone.

“It’s a pretty thing, but a little common if you know what I mean, love. Sure you want to pawn? Sure you want to tie yourself down with payments?”

On the other side of the counter a little scuffling sound signaled a division of opinion.

“No…”

“YES!”

“Just…how much, please –”

“- for the loan!” male voice sounded like someone respectable. Wouldn’t be able to get much past him.

Snaggletooth rattled away on his abacus. “I’ll give you fifteen silver pieces. Interest is three silver pieces a month, until redemption.”

“Twenty,” grubby female voice said, too quickly. “I mean thirty!”

Snaggletooth chuckled. “I’ll give you seventeen. Interest is three silver pieces forty coppers a month, until redemption.”

“HEY, that necklace is worth at least a tael of gold! At least! I won’t accept less than forty silver. That is my final word.”

Snaggletooth looked over to Little Portent. His leather wings folded up tight, eyes shut. “Squeak.” End of conversation.

“Ill give you seventeen, interest is three silver pieces fifty coppers a month, until redemption. If you start to annoy me, love, I’ll raise it to four silver a month.”

A muffle-y, strangle-y sound drifted up. It sounded like someone trying not to cry.

“Well?”

The little hand came up again from behind the counter– open. Snaggletooth counted out seventeen silver pieces, wrote out a redemption ticket.

“See you in a month, then.”

“Oh, and…do you have any brass bells?”

Three minutes later:

Ding, ding, ding, sniff, the customers wrapped up their purchase. Whoosh, the door opened. Ding, ding, ding, sniff, the customers walked out. Waaah, waaah, the wail of the sing-song girls floated in. Whoosh, the door closed.

“Well. That’s a treasure and no doubt,” Snaggletooth rubbed a prominent incisor with his finger. “What’s a dirty rat doing with a Deepwater Quarry Amethyst? And how likely is she to trot back in here a month from now with her respectable friend and seventeen silver plus interest?”

Little Portent hissed authoritatively from the perch.

“Just so. If you watch the shop, I’ll go pay the barracks a visit.”

A ‘First’ for Battle Axe

Glossy Petal was from the hardscrabble countryside and her real name was Girl Bear. Glossy Petal had only been working at the Pellucid Pool Bath House for a fortnight. In fact, she wasn’t exactly sure what “Pellucid” meant.

But Glossy Petal knew some things. She knew, for example, that there was trouble on that dewy night when shrieking commenced over at the 4^th Level Paradise pool and a sodden (and presumably female) form was shoved straight out of the crystal clear water. A rather muddy form.

Glossy Petal grabbed a fluffy white towel and hurried over.

The lady guests soaking in the 4^th Level Paradise pool were steaming, they were fuming, they were furious, their double chins were wobbling indignantly. “Dis-GUS-ting! Dis-GUUUUUS-ting!!!”

“WHAT?” the muddy guest was fuming back. “WHAT? WHAT?”

“My lady,” Glossy Petal cleared her throat discretely.

“WHAT?” muddy guest turned on her.

As I said earlier, Glossy Petal was from the rough-and-tumble countryside. She wasn’t squeamish about dirt, wasn’t ruffled by the odd altercation.

“My lady,” she said. “There is an order to our luxury service here at Pellucid Pool. First you visit one of our ‘little waterfalls’. Second is the hair wash. Third, the salt scrub followed by another rinse. Fourth, an oil massage and nail cleaning. Fifth, an optional ‘candle wicking’ treatment to remove excess earwax, and finally – a soak in one of the pools. Shall we start?”

Muddy guest’s bare feet made a squelching sound on the porcelain-tiled floor as she followed Glossy Petal through a maze of sunken pools and potted plants.

“The 1^st Level Paradise pool here is icy cold, and the 8^th Level Paradise pool over there is nearly boiling. I think you have made a very good choice with the 4^th Level, but let us get you cleaned up a little first, yes? And your little purse, there, would you like me to lock it up for you in the dressing room?”

Muddy guest made a grunting sound that sounded like “get your eyes off my little purse”.

“As you wish. Ahhh, and here we are.”

Glossy Petal sat the guest down in one of a dozen little mirrored alcoves, and reached up to release a spigot.

“Eeek!!” muddy spluttered. “Eeeeek!” Little rivulets of brown sediment ran across the gleaming floor, frantically seeking the nearest drain out.

“Breathe through your mouth, my lady,” Glossy Petal encouraged. “That’s right! Now, I am just going to swing your stool around. Prepare for the best hair wash you’ve had in your life, and then it’s back under the waterfall. Think of it like cooking up a batch of buckwheat noodles – you need to finish it off with a good cold-water rinse.

“Glaaaar, glaarrr,” she spluttered.

Glossy Petal rolled up her sleeves, scooped up a handful of jasmine-scented wash powder. “Well, would you look at that – you’ve got hair the color of a terracotta figurine, my lady. I thought it was just the dirt. How lovely.”

By the time she had been scrubbed, rubbed and brushed to the optional earwax-extraction stage the lady was much transformed. Glossy Petal stepped back to admire her handiwork, stepped back for a look at the slight figure sitting on her massage table.

“Between you and me, my lady, I suspect you don’t get a lot of baths.”

My lady looked glum.

Then the Pellucid Pool Bathhouse’s most junior attendant/masseuse glanced up and down the gleaming length of the room quickly. She lowered her voice. “If you come here off-hours and help out with the floors, you can stay for a free soak.”

“Who says I need a free soak?”

“Oh, nobody,” Glossy Petal was unflappable to the end. “But the off-hours hours are lunchtime to dinnertime.” She winked.

And that is when the real trouble began on that dewy night. It started with outraged shrieking from the direction of the dressing rooms, and quickly degenerated into general mayhem.

There were cries of “rats!”, then flocks of robe-less women running to and fro, and to top it all off…there were men in the Pellucid Pool Bathhouse. Men in the ladies section!! City Guard men, to be exact.

Glossy Petal, as I have already said, was a bit of a country bumpkin. But she was no simpleton. She had seen it before – when the tax collectors came calling with their staffs and their sneers, it was always the least fortunate farmer they sought out. The raggedy-est, wretched-est, most humble, least able to press silver into the right palm.

So she grabbed newly-clean guest by her fluffy white towel and propelled her out the Massage Room, down a green marble hallway, pushed her through an archway. “In here – it’s Silly Beryl’s private dressing room. Little door next to the wardrobe will take you down to street-level. Hope to see you again, my lady, and thank-you for patronizing the Pellucid Pool Bathhouse.”

The Runner and the Starling

Inkstone was ducked in a narrow alleyway, keeping an eye on the ladies streaming out of the Pellucid Pool Bathhouse. Where was that skinny redhead?

Ah-hah there was a skinny redhead….but it wasn’t Battle Axe. This skinny redhead was wrapped in sapphire- colored silk, her hair twisted up on top of her head like a proper lady. Rather inexplicably, this very skinny redhead made a bee-line for Inkstone’s hiding place.

“Shining stars!!!” she panted, “I got out by the boiler room, but just!!”

Inkstone was dumfounded. “Whose clothes are those?”

“Not sure….a sing-song girl’s, I think. Very unfortunately I left a pair of stout leather leggings in the public changing room. Those will be hard to replace.”

He was still staring.

“WHAT? Battle Axe said, struggling to manage the long sleeves. “WHAT?”

“Uh…nothing.” Inkstone shook himself. “Rather elegant baths, I have to say. Although I never actually got to the soaking pool.”

“Neither did – “

“Hey!” Three City Guards, bows strung tight, were striding towards the narrow alleyway purposefully. “Hold up there, you two!”

“Time to run,” Inkstone said, grinning his rare grin. “Can you run in that…get-up?”

She scoffed. “Just you try to keep up, foreigner.” And like that she was off like a starling, blue silk flapping from her wrists and ankles.

Inkstone watched her fly down the cobblestone alley, stretched his legs with a leisurely pull, prepared to launch himself after her. He would seize her from behind and whisk her through the maze of the Middle City faster than she could even imagine. This was…fun.

Then the City Guard was right on him. He leapt like a runner at the starting drum of a footrace. And that is when he noticed that something was wrong. He was running. But he wasn’t running fast.

As his feet pounded after the flapping silk in front of him Inkstone had a sudden thought – a bad, bad thought. He fingered his waist. Gone, it was gone. Forgotten. Left in the dressing room. His belt. His tortoise belt. Emery Inkstone’s stomach clenched, then dropped like a rock.

“Run!” he screamed. “Run Battle Axe! Run fast!”

Taking Stock of the Situation, and of Themselves

Two rebels sat in the dark courtyard of a sympathetic pickle-marker, munching on preserved gherkins.

“Ok, we still have to visit Little Din’s shop – that’s further down in the Lower City. I suggest we go underground, no use walking through the streets if we are just going to get nabbed by an over-zealous City Guard.” Battle Axe was searching through voluminous sapphire-hued robes with her free hand. “Ah. Purse intact…oh, and let’s not forget food. I’m hungry and this pickle is good as far as pickles go, but you can’t fill a stomach with vinegar and salt. Maybe Sesame Seed’s? They are baking all hours, you know…then again, we had a not-so-good experience there just this morning…rather, yesterday morning…”

Inkstone was munching in silence, staring at the ground.

Battle Axe rummaged through her little threadbare bag. “Shining stars, I really am hungry –””

“We can’t go.”

“What? Go where?”

“The caravan…Fiddlehead Spring, was it?”

“WHAT? Because you lost your stupid belt?”

“It isn’t a stupid belt, it’s me! It’s all there is to me!”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Without it I am nothing, I am just a person.”

“Hey! I’m just a person. So what? What happened to the fine words of your warrior-philosopher Studded Shield…something about saplings cutting down the forest, blah, blah, blah?” Battle Axe’s face flamed up, a few copper-colored strands of hair worked free of her tight chignon. “What about my sister? WELL, what about her? What about Fire Fade?”

“Fire Fade,” Inkstone whispered.

“WELL? WELL? Are we saplings or are we…are we just stupid weeds?”

“We’re saplings,” he said.

“Good, yes. Saplings. Now eat your pickle, little sapling, and let’s go through our list again. Only an hour and a half before the horse cart leaves the stables.”

A New Day

The morning drum sounded mournfully over Pearl City. Overhead the sky was waking up. Soon it would turn a grayish-pink color, then a pinkish-grey, and finally the bright azure of an early autumn day.

A horse-cart-for-hire carrying a (respectable-looking) young man and a (very fancy) young lady pulled onto the Southern Highway. The stately Paragon ambled alongside.

If you were the cart-driver or a passer-by you would hear that the fancy lady was singing a song, softly. Maybe to the early autumn day. Maybe to the stately river. Maybe to the respectable man sleeping in the seat across from her.

Stand with me on the rampart wall, wall, wall.
Watch the starlings sweep and call, call, call.
Toss your sword into The Paragon – gone, gone.
So you and I can be as one.

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Join me next week, Dear Reader, for a continuation of our story – however long it takes!

And a special thank-you to Cat, who understands the treasures of Snaggletooth’s Pawnshop perhaps better than anyone (apart from the owner, that is!).

// Oriole Burdee