FALSE GODS

09 Damon

Damon was a nobody. Damon could be anybody. Damon was somebody. Sometimes.

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, deception, and stealth were his modus operandi. He had no elemental powers but was a powerful peculiar.

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, and so on. As long as he could imagine the object, the young man could successfully produce it.

However, Damon 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 summoned twenty-one weapons within an hour. He was victorious, but in the aftermath, he lost vision in his right eye for an entire week!

During a whimsical experiment of his powers, Damon had tried to summon a horse cart. The attempt failed, and Damon blacked out, waking up half a day later.

Thus, the young man had learned to rely on his street skills rather than on his peculiar powers.

Damon's past was a bit dreary. His father, Dmitri, a drunkard, had been abusive to his mother, Nadja. The latter ran off with a traveling merchant, abandoning her family.

Dmitri sold off five-year-old Damon into slavery for a few coins. Little Damon had suffered initially, being kicked around in slave crowds. Then, after discovering his peculiar powers, things changed.

Damon secured his freedom from slavery as a boy and, in a few years, established himself as an expert assassin. He gained favor with Patricians and Magistrates alike.

Dmitri, his father, was found mysteriously dead in the sewers one day.

At the moment, Damon was on a mission to find a runaway lad—the son of an eminent Patrician who was willing to pay the kid's weight in silver if he were returned alive.

However, a spoiled patrician child was unlikely to have survived in Pago. The kid was probably dead already.

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

After asking around in a few shops, he deduced that if you wanted the latest news and gossip in this suburra, then you went to PIG AND WHISTLE.

The local sleuths gathered in this tavern. 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, and cartwheels rattling.

At one point, he crossed a patrol of the Vigils—the town's law enforcers. They were the Magistrate's men.

The Vigils' duties included apprehending thieves and robbers, capturing runaway slaves, guarding the baths at night, and preventing any disturbance of the suburra's 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 Government. They comprised retired army veterans, rejects from the Labors, and petty peculiars.

The unit had gifted individuals who handled the more serious crimes. They mingled among the commoners and came to the fore only in cases of an emergency. Damon had luckily never met a Prefect in his life and did not plan to meet one in the future.

Peddlers and hawkers huddled on either side, calling out to passersby. "Ruby tomatoes from Fugi!"

"A pan free with two pots!"

"Magical charms to woo your lady!"

"Saffron! Fresh saffron from the outlands!"

"Know your mortal fortune!"

Damon saw a tall, muscular young man carrying a bison carcass on his shoulders, heading towards the butchers' conclave. "This guy must definitely be a peculiar," he surmised. "Nobody can lift that weight without breaking their back."

Damon watched the young man walk away for some time, then shrugged and continued on his path to the tavern. He had no interest in uncovering secrets unless someone paid him to do so.

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 she orgasms! 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.