FALSE GODS

07 A Tryst with Destiny~ Damon

Damon was a nobody. Damon could be anybody.

His talents lay in blending into populations and fulfilling clandestine tasks assigned to him. He could be a farm-boy today and an ordinary trader the next.

He could be a member of the Town Vigil, patrolling the streets one day, and be a petty thief on the other.

He could be a wealthy merchant this day and a beggar the following.

Damon was eighteen years old but could pass as a younger or older person with ease. Disguise and deception were his modus operandi. He had no elemental powers as such but was an undeclared peculiar of a high order.

Damon could manifest small, handy items out of thin air. The conjured item could be a weapon, a tool, a pouch of food, a few coins. As long as he could imagine the object, the boy could successfully produce it.

However, he had realized through terrible experiences that using the ability took a toll on him.

Once, during a drawn-out battle with a group of mercenaries, Damon had summoned twenty-one weapons within an hour. In the aftermath, he had lost vision in his right eye for an entire week!

During a whimsical experiment of his powers, he had tried to summon a horse cart. The attempt had failed, and Damon had blacked out, waking up half a day later. Thus, the boy had learned to rely on his street skills over time rather than on his conjuring ones.

Damon’s father, Dmitri, a drunkard, had been abusive to his mother, Nadja. The latter had run off with a traveling merchant, abandoning her family. Dmitri had sold off five-year-old Damon into slavery. Little Damon had suffered little, having discovered his powers at a young age. He had grown to secure his freedom and later establish himself as a sought-after mercenary. The prodigy had gained favor with Patricians and Magistrates alike. His father had been found, one day in the sewers, mysteriously dead.

At the moment, Damon was on an undertaking to find a runaway lad- the son of an eminent Patrician. They would pay him the kid’s weight in silver if the latter were returned to the father alive. However, a spoiled patrician child was unlikely to have survived the trip to Pago.

Dressed in a grey toga, which hid his thin frame effectively, Damon looked like a young traveling merchant. His hair was brown and short-cropped.

After asking around in a few shops, he deduced that the tavern- PIG AND WHISTLE, was where local sleuths gathered. These were lowly, dubious men who knew the area by the grass and could provide news of value for silver.

Damon headed towards the north gate.

The surrounding noise of the main path annoyed him- goats bleating, ironsmiths hammering away, horse-hooves clopping, customers bargaining, dogs barking, cartwheels rattling. At one point, he crossed a patrol of the Vigils- the town’s enforcers of the law. They were the magistrate’s men.

Vigils’ duties included apprehending thieves and robbers, capturing runaway slaves, guarding the baths at night, and stopping disturbances of the peace. They primarily dealt with petty crime and were pretty harmless to a seasoned mercenary like Damon.

The ones to be wary of were the Prefects, an elite unit, second only to the Magistrate and who carried the will of the Ascendancy. They comprised retired army veterans, rejects from the Labors, glorified peculiars. The unit had gifted individuals who dealt with the more severe crimes. They mingled among the commoners and came to the fore only according to the demands of the time. Damon had luckily never met a Prefect and did not plan to meet one.

Peddlers and hawkers huddled on either side, calling out to passersby.

“Ruby tomatoes from Fugi!”

“Pan free with two pots!”

“Magical charms to woo your lady!”

“Saffron! Fresh saffron from the outlands!”

“Know your mortal fortune!”

Damon saw a lithe young man carrying a bison carcass on his shoulders.

‘Definitely a peculiar,’ he surmised.

The hulk took a right towards the butchers’ enclave. Damon watched the peculiar walk away for some time, then shook his head and continued on his path to the tavern. He had no interest in the secrets of others unless someone paid him for it.

On his way, Damon passed several brothels. Women of sundry ages stood by the gates of each, calling out seductively to men.

A hustler approached Damon and walked alongside him.

“Ave, young man! How would you like to lie with an exotic peculiar? She gives off lightning sparks when you make love to her! It is like having the goddess Elektra in bed. Just one silver for an hour. What do you say?”

Damon disregarded the offer and walked on. The last thing he needed was a local whore remembering his face.

He reached the destination. A sign hung low at the entrance.

PIG AND WHISTLE.

It had the caricature of a pig standing on its hind legs, blowing a whistle with its forelegs. A part of Damon felt like laughing out loud.

A walk-up bar faced both the street and the inner salon. It was an open tavern under a single roof with no walls. They served hot wine with honey or saltwater. Meat and flatbread were available too.

Damon slapped some bronze coins on the bar and entered the salon with wine and bread. He took a seat in a dark corner to survey the place before he started asking questions.

The tavern was a middling establishment that attracted a good crowd from the plebe class. If any peculiars visited, they kept their abilities secret. Of course, no patricians were present.

The plebes chattered away, some at the top of their voices, in different stages of intoxication. Some cliques also hummed songs. The loudest were the ones talking about politics.

“Oh, down with Petromax,” growled one particular drunk, “I’d like Anaximander to be God-King! Hic! Petromax goes around on his voyages while the Magistrates and Patricians suck our blood dry!”

“Keep it down, Pythus,” his drinking buddy warned. “The magistrate has spies everywhere. You will be arrested, tarred, and feathered!”

“Then I would die a martyr!”

“You would die a drunken fool.”

The duo laughed flagrantly and drank some more.

The tavern was also the ideal place to spread news, both true and false.

“Did you hear about the attack in the outlands? They say a god was killed!”

“Nonsense! Gods cannot be killed.”

Damon listened to the banter until he spotted someone his instinct told him was a sleuth. The sleuth realizing the attention from the stranger, came over and sat opposite him.

“Young man, looking for something?” he asked in a slurred voice. Damon took a measure of the sleuth- a disheveled middle-aged man in a dirty tunic, nursing a mug of beer. Beer was the cheapest liquor there was.

“A runaway patrician kid.” Damon slid a parchment towards him with a portrait of the boy.”

The sleuth glanced at the sketch and nodded.

“How much?” he asked.

“Depends on how close you can get me.”

“I can find out where the boy is if you pay me two silver coins.”

Damon nodded. The sleuth left with a promise that he would be back with information within an hour.

“You seem to have deep pockets, young man,” the sleuth advised before leaving. “Why don’t you go to the inner salon and wait? Pay a silver to get in. No cause to hang with the rowdy folk here.”

Damon took his drink and food and entered the inner sanctum, which was an underground cellar. The young mercenary took a seat at a table and looked around.

The crowd there was more distinguished—a few well-to-do traders, vigils, peons of the magistrate, and so on. The wine served seemed to be fancier as well.

A hooded figure sat in a corner, studying a parchment. Damon could tell from the silhouette that it was a young woman. His task was near completion. Perhaps he could share a bed with a lady that night? He approached the table with a slight flourish.

“My dear lady-”

“Please be seated, Damon,” the lady said from under the hood.

Damon, startled, took a seat opposite her.

“How do you-”

“We will have another guest if you do not mind.”

“Of course-”

Just then, a burly young man walked into the inner salon, drinking from a large mug. He looked for a place to perch. Incidentally, all the seats were taken except the table where Damon and the mysterious lady were resting. The hulk walked over and asked politely if the place was vacant.

Damon recognized him as the peculiar carrying a bison carcass on the main path.

Small world!

“Ave, Tarsus! Please join us.” the lady replied.

“How do you know my name?” Tarsus enquired but took a stool nonetheless.

The young lady removed her cowl to reveal long golden hair and a countenance so beautiful that both men felt jostled back to sobriety. Pearly ice-blue eyes set close on the fairest face they had ever seen.

“I am Felicity. And I have been waiting for you,” she said from honeyed, pillowy lips.

For a moment, both men forgot who they were.

“Marry me!” Tarsus blurted out.

“I love you!” Damon echoed.