Published at 3rd of October 2023 12:00 pm

Chapter 2.38 In Which the Dark Lord Leaves an Offering

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The mess hall was filling up as everyone settled in for the evening meal that was soon to be served, and Sakin took advantage of the hubbub to slip away. It made me…wonder. Shirking duties was not among his…let’s call them “interesting character quirks,” so I could assume his presence wouldn’t be needed for Minifrit’s thing. On the other hand he wasn’t one to miss out on something that could be important, and he and Minifrit never missed an opportunity to compete with each other.

Minifrit herself gracefully deflected greetings and inquiries, save those of Gilder, who was ecstatic to see me back. She chivvied the both of us along with wordless ease, also gathering up a more quiet Aenit from the children’s table as we made our way to the kitchen.

“Oh, sure, yeah, let’s just march a buncha people into here,” Gannit complained loudly as we filed through. “Not like I’m in the middle of gatherin’ up dinner for a hundred mouths or anything. And why is there a damn dog in my kitchen?”

“Junko’s cleaner than Donon,” I replied, ignoring his stammered protest. “Never mind the dog, I can’t get over the fact that Minifrit put out that pipe before coming in here. How the hell did you housebreak her? I’ve had no luck.”

Gannit brayed an abrasive laugh, her assistants grinned, and Minifrit gave me an extremely calm sidelong glance that said I’d be paying for that later. Junko panted and thumped her tail on the floor, just happy to be hanging out with everybody.

It was Gilder of all people who got us back on track, clearing his throat loudly and skipping over to the door to the pantry. “So, Lord Seiji, Miss Minifrit wants to show you what we found, right?”

“Indeed,” Minifrit drawled. She opened the pantry and glided inside. “Gilder, Aenit, come. Lord Seiji, it will be easiest for you to see what we mean from in here, but more people than that will make it uncomfortably cramped.”

Aster sighed, but silently took up her position next to the door, leaning against the wall with her arms folded.

The pantry was kind of a source of pride for me, because it was well-stocked. Dire warnings about the state of our food supply aside, at a glance it appeared we were doing okay. There were shelves, barrels and bins, well-organized and while not loaded with food, amply supplied. Hocks of dried meat and bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling.

“No,” I said sternly as Junko went right for the jerky, pointing at the floor by my feet. “Sit down.”

She whined and gave me the eyes.

“Don’t even try it! It’s not like I don’t know all these suckers sneak you treats. You’re gonna get fat.”

Gilder and Aenit immediately looked way too innocent and Minifrit rolled her eyes.

“Junko gets plenty of exercise, thanks to…well, everyone,” she reported. “And in fact there has been much less begging since Harold started making toys for her from leftover hardened leather. I don’t know how he got them to smell like meat, but you’ll doubtless be finding one in your bed, Lord Seiji. Everyone else has.”

“Right, well,” I prompted, as Junko sat by my feet and smiled at us all without a hint of remorse, “we are in here because…?”

“This is where we discerned the nature of our dark elven ally,” said Minifrit. “Or at least, some of it. Obviously there remains more mystery than fact, but the balance is tilted a bit further toward our favor, thanks to the ingenuity of the Gutter Rats. The idea was Gilder’s, so perhaps he had best explain.”

Gilder swelled up with pride, ignoring Aenit’s eyeroll. Minifrit had clearly grown adept at handling him, not that it was hard. A little praise went a long way with this one.

“Okay, so it’s like this,” the boy said with all of his usual animation, skipping over to a fully loaded bin of tubers. The thing had a lid, but it was upright against the wall behind it, the potatoes (they weren’t quite like any Earth potatoes I knew, being purple and yellow striped, but close enough in flavor and texture that I was pretty sure they were just an offshoot, not one of the truly alien plants native to Ephemera) piled too high for it to close. “Say you wanna keep track of who’s filching, right? There was a bunch of reasons to wanna know that in the Gutters—we Rats all had our own stashes of stuff an’ was always hunting for each other’s, plus sometimes stall owners would give us leftovers if we could figure out who was gettin’ into their stock an’ put a stop to it. I got a whole black disc for it once! And then there’s always the food stores inside the Nest, that’s where we got the most use outta our secret technique. Little grubby fingers always gettin’ into the pantry. So what you gotta do is, you gotta learn to paint a picture in your head!”

“A picture? You, ah, wanna expand on that?” I asked, frowning.

“Say, these potatoes.” Gilder turned and gestured widely at the bin of spuds. “So what I do is, I have a good, hard look at the potatoes, right? And I remember what it looks like. The important details! See, most people’s brains, they turn a bunch of potatoes into mush, right? You see a bin of potatoes and it’s just a bin of potatoes, you don’t see what each individual potato looks like. That’s just how our eyes work, see? So you remember exactly what it looks like, and when you check it again, you can see what’s different, so you know what was taken!”

“Photographic memory?” I exclaimed. “Holy shit, kids. That’s impressive as hell.”Junko barked in agreement, her tail thumping against the bin of onions behind her.

Gilder puffed up so much he looked like he was about to float off the ground, so of course Aenit had to let some of the air out of him.

“It would be, if we could just do that any time for anything,” she said, her soft and even delivery standing in contrast to the boy’s. “It takes a lot of focus to remember a single scene, and even then it really only works reliably if we cheat ahead of time.”

“Exactly,” Gilder agreed, nodding eagerly and looking not at all perturbed by her undercutting of their trick. “It’s all about advance prep! See, you gotta know how a filcher thinks. And if there’s one thing Gutter Rats know, it’s that.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” Minifrit commented. I noted with amusement that she still had her pipe in its usual perch in her hand, though so far she hadn’t forgotten herself and tried to pull from it. Her eyes silently dared me to make a comment, which I only didn’t because I was far too busy listening to Gilder’s account.

“If you’re picking something to filch,” the lad continued self-importantly, “there’s a bunch of factors you gotta consider. Take these potatoes, right? You wanna pick one that’s good to filch—but not too good, cos really good ones’re more like to be missed, see? And you wanna pick one that’s in a position where it’s not as likely to be missed if it goes missing from the pile. Say, off to the side and toward the back—never the big nice one sittin’ on top like a jewel. But because it’s in a lower position on the pile, you gotta make sure it’s not one that’s buried, cos what you don’t wanna do is disturb the pile. You could be in trouble if it falls and makes a noise while you’re grabbin’ it, and also the more of a disturbance you make, the more likely the shopkeeper—uh, that is, whoever owns the potatoes will be noticed. Right?”

He covered for his momentary lapse by reaching over to grab a potato and hold it up.

“So here’s what I do, see? I pick a perfect potato—big and nice-looking, but not too much, not so much somebody’d have it marked out for their dinner and get annoyed if it goes missing. Then I put this potato real careful-like, in exactly the right kinda position in the pile. See?” He leaned over, screwing up his face in concentration, and very carefully placed the chosen tuber in a place just as he’d described, near one edge of the pile and toward the back. “Then I do that, oh, about seven or eight times. Depends on the pile and how many perfect filching spots there’s room to set up. So that way I don’t gotta memorize the whole damn pile of potatoes! ‘Cos, yeah, too many potatoes turns to mush in anybody’s mind. You just remember your perfect filching ones, then you come back and see if any of ‘em got filched! That’ll trap most any thief, especially if they’re going after something like potatoes. It takes a Gutter Rat to bother with this kind of detail over something this cheap!”

I blinked, considering the ramification, and looked again over the pantry with fresh eyes. “I think that’s even more impressive, Gilder.”

He grinned again, but somewhat to my surprise didn’t try to hog the credit. “Hey, I’m just in charge of potatoes. The girls did a lot more work, Benit and Aenit both have super sharp eyes! Aenit especially, she was always best at this, back at the Nest. She sees everything.”

Aenit gave him a surprised smile at the acknowledgment, though it immediately switched back to a frown. “If you’re so impressed, how come you didn’t ask me to join when Lord Seiji had you recruit trustworthy Rats? Benit, sure, but you picked Radon over me?”

“What’ve you got against Radon?” he demanded, frowning right back.

“He’s a tiny!”

“What do you want me to say, Aenit?” Gilder gave her an exaggerated shrug. “Lord Seiji wanted people who were trustworthy, not just smart.”

“I’m not trustworthy?!”

“Sure you are, and I know that now. But this was then! You’re always such a mystery all the damn time, Aenit, nobody ever knows what you’re thinking. Yeah, I thought about you cos I know you’re sharp, but come down to it I couldn’t even guess whether you’d throw in or just run right to Uncle Gently.”

Aenit ground her teeth audibly and I decided to cut this off before it progressed any further off course.

“It worked out for the best,” I interjected, making my voice as soothing as I could without sacrificing firmness. “Your help made the crucial difference in busting up Uncle Gently’s operation, Aenit. If Gilder had recruited you earlier, you wouldn’t have been there to guide me. Right now, I’m proud as hell of you kids—you continue to do excellent work. So what did your investigations turn up?”

“The Rats have been monitoring the pantry all week,” Minifrit said, interjecting smoothly before either of them could answer. Both kids looked a trifle put out that she took over the story, but considering how readily they devolved into squabbles and tangents I figured this was for the best. “Thanks to their careful inventory of what was taken, I believe we can be certain that we have one person helping themselves very lightly from our supplies. The surrounding circumstances being what they are, I am confident it is our dark elf. A more inept thief would grab at random, and a larger group would scoop up whole handfuls. The Rats’ method is perfect to see, specifically, the traces left by a single careful, skillful thief.”

“I almost hate to ask,” I said, “but how can we be sure it’s not just one of our own people stealing? We’ve got too many in this fortress now to keep tabs on everybody.”

“The pantry is secured and watched most of the time,” said Minifrit, looking significantly down at Junko, “but such terms are…relative. Anyone capable of getting into the valuables closet could bypass the defenses here quite easily. Besides—”

“Besides,” added a strident voice from behind us, “nobody who eats from Gannit’s kitchen goes hungry!”

The cook herself stood in the doorway, arms folded, dripping stirring spoon still in one hand. Behind her, I noted the kitchen was considerably quieter already; it seemed Donon and Madyn had wheeled out the serving carts while we were talking in here.

“If it was any of our people stealing,” Gannit continued with a scowl, “they’d be grabbing high-value items. The flavorful stuff that’s nicer’n what everybody gets three meals a day of, what little there is of it. Nobody around here’d be stealing single potatoes, jerky, and unflavored wyddh. Those are survival rations.”

“Some people do steal out of a compulsion or for the thrill rather than for acquisition’s sake,” Minifrit added, “but those would start with other people’s personal possessions rather than food items from the pantry. No, Lord Seiji, this paints a very specific picture. We have a dark elf walking through our fortress with impunity, invisible and silent. They are trying to endear themselves to us—but also, they are hungry.”

Well, how about that. So you’re an intelligence operative with an innate gift of stealth? Well fuck you,I’ve got half-starved orphans! That means I win, apparently. Somehow.

Life is weird.

This painted a whole different picture indeed. I’d been nervous about the prospect of Shylverrael, or even just one political faction therein, keeping its eyes on my operation out here. But one dark elf, alone, starving, desperately trying to prove themselves? Suddenly I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy. Sure, I’d landed in a fortress when I was ripped out of my life and dropped in this wilderness, but I’d had to fight for it. Everything had been one damn struggle after another.

Poor elf, they were trying so hard…

I cleared my throat. “Excellent work, everyone, I am seriously impressed. Biribo, analysis?”

“Minifrit’s right, boss, we got a more thorough picture now,” he said, as Junko panted happily at the positive change in mood. “It’s a bit contradictory, but that might actually help us narrow down the possibilities. So we’re dealing with an individual who possesses one of the most powerful artifacts on this entire island, one of the great treasures of Shylverrael itself. That, plus the fact that they know exactly how to make the warning totems that tell local beast tribes to clear off, says this is somebody with wealth, connections, and a solid education in political affairs. She’s Blessed with Might, to be able to use that artifact—with a respectably strong Blessing, at that—and is a skilled shadow scout. Sure, dark elves have an innate gift of stealth, but they don’t all have the same inherent strength in it, and the ability to walk around a fully occupied fortress without getting caught says training.”

“Wait, she?” I interrupted.

Biribo bobbed in the air. “Okay, yeah, true, we don’t know this person’s gender. But as assumptions go, boss, it’s relatively safe. Dark elves are more or less as sexist as the light kind, just in the other direction. If you ever meet a dark elf man who’s in charge of anything, you best watch your step; that guy had to outperform the dozen most qualified women to get that job.”

“Well, shit, now I kinda like them,” Aster commented from just outside, earning a cackle and a punch on the shoulder from Gannit.

“On the other hand,” Biribo continued, “our girl is alone and clearly cut off from her city’s resources, as revealed by the fact that she’s unable to make the totems properly, lacking naga feathers, and the fact she’s reduced to stealing food.”

“Sounds like a noble, all right,” Gilder commented, grinning. “Anybody else can live just by catching crawns, at least until winter comes. But you gotta know how to do that. They’re sneaky little bastards if you ain’t learned their tricks. Any Gutter Rat or farm boy can catch crawns, but highborn kids don’t learn shit like that.”

“This does sort of counter-indicate Biribo’s theory,” Minifrit added. “If this individual is exiled and on the run from Shylverrael, there’s no reason to assume they are of the dominant gender there. If anything, I propose that it implies the opposite.”

“Could be, I guess,” my familiar agreed, though not happily.

“So,” I murmured, staring absently at the potatoes, “we’re dealing with a deposed aristocrat or a thieving rebel, possibly both, and in either case someone exiled from Shylverrael. Who either is or isn’t a woman, which makes that a completely useless data point until we know more.”

“All right, fine!” Biribo exclaimed in annoyance. “What’s important is that we can be certain they’re in a weak position just from how they’re going about this. A Viryan with any amount of political education would not approach us openly until they were in some kind of position of strength. Coming to us for help like a beggar… Well, that’s just unthinkable if you see the world the way Viryans do. Even possessing an artifact like that bow would just be asking to have it taken away if you showed up at the Dark Lord’s feet with nothing else. She—they are trying to prove their value to us by keeping the cats off our back and ridding us of Lady Gray, an obvious enemy. That’s why I think Sakin was right: as soon as they actually kill Gray, they’ll come present her corpse. In fact, that’s probably exactly what they’re waiting for before revealing themselves.”

“That being the case, we ought not disregard how their well-meaning attempt has utterly backfired,” Minifrit said archly. “We had no problems from, or even contact at all with, the cat tribe until our ‘friend’ started putting up those totems. Clearly, the cats immediately recognized that they were fake, because of the faulty materials used. I doubt they would challenge the decree of Shylverrael, but from their perspective, someone not backed by Shylverrael’s power is trying to invoke it. Small wonder they’ve become aggressive. Worse, they most likely assume it is we who tried that trick.”

“Unless the elf has been putting those fancy arrows in cats,” I mused. “That’d settle them down all right. As far as that goes, we’re blind to the situation, since we don’t know what’s been happening out there.”

“Settle ‘em down?” Gannit snorted. “Some dipshit elf started shooting my pals, I’d get good and pissed off. Maybe enough to take it out on whoever the dipshit’s friends are.”

I sighed. “Thanks, Gannit.”

“You got it, Mister Dark Lord,” she heckled, turning to saunter off back to her oven. “You gonna eat with the crew tonight or should I make you a plate in the kitchen?”

“I’ll go out to the mess hall as soon as we’re done in here,” I said distractedly. Making my presence felt to the troops was a big part of my reason for returning to headquarters, after all.

“Right, well, either way, the dog doesn’t eat in here. This is a kitchen, not a damn kennel.”

“Before you reach a conclusion on how to proceed, my lord,” said Minifrit with a serious expression, “I must raise a point for your consideration. I am not advocating for this specific approach, you understand, but merely ensuring that you have considered it.”

“Devil’s advocate, I understand,” I nodded. “Go on, Minifrit, your input is always valued.”

She rewarded me with a ghost of a smile as she continued. “I believe you should at least entertain the option of rejecting this individual’s friendship. One of the few things we know for certain is that they are one person, isolated and without power or connections. Indications are that their allegiance will not gain you a foot in the door with Shylverrael, and may in fact earn the enmity of the dark elven state. And there is the very strong possibility that their ineptitude is the direct cause of our current troubles with the cat tribe.”

“Uh, scuze me?” Gilder held up one hand for attention. “This person’s invisible, right? With a deadly-ass artifact weapon? And might be in this room right now, listening to us? Cos, just sayin’, suppose we ‘reject their friendship’ and they start rejecting people’s throats while they’re asleep, huh?”

Junko growled softly and I reached down to give her ears a soothing scratch. I still wasn’t quite sure how much spoken language she understood, but she was amazingly sensitive to minute changes in mood, and not just mine.

“You both have good points,” I said, “but ultimately neither is what it comes down to. Look around: we have an organization built of orphans, prostitutes, and bandits here. Even in our more elite connections, the Auldmaer Company and Clan Yviredh are poorer and weaker than the entire rest of their social circles, and I gained their friendship specifically by approaching them in their hour of greatest need. Hell, even the Kingsguard Captain I’ve been working with has welcomed me at least partly because he gets no respect and not enough aid from the system he’s supposedly serving. Every step here on Dount, I’ve succeeded by siding with the people who needed my help, not those who had the most to offer me. Now, since we don’t know much about this elf, their situation or motivations, all I know for sure is what’s worked for me so far, and I see no reason to deviate from it. If anything, the fact they’re an outcast in need of allies makes me more inclined to welcome them. Clear?”

All of them nodded; even Minifrit, who had raised the objection, did so with an approving smile at my answer.

“I always did want to meet a dark elf,” Aenit commented solemnly.

“That being decided,” said Minifrit, “all that remains is the question of how you wish to proceed.”

I considered for a moment, glancing again at the potatoes, the jerky, the wyddh. Survival rations indeed. If this person couldn’t catch crawns, they probably couldn’t cook; were they trying to eat raw potatoes? Yikes.

“Hey, Gannit,” I called, leaning over to look out the pantry door.

“Hey, Lord Spookypants,” she called back, stepping into my field of view and wiping her hands on a rag.

“Do we have any of those ration packs you make for the gwynnek riders at hand?”

“Sure, I got three different batches, for three different size trips. How long you planning to need rations for?”

“How big is the biggest size?”

“Food for a week of careful eating, plus small travel supplies. Y’know, for mending clothes, starting fires, shit like that.”

“Perfect. Could you bring me one of those, please? Oh, and some paper and a pencil. And a kitchen stool!”

“Oh, sure, I’ll just bring the whole damn kitchen in there for him,” she grumbled, just loud enough to be clearly audible, which had to have been deliberate. “Let’s have the old lady with arthritis haul furniture around after a whole day of cookin’, that makes sense. Perfect division of labor.”

I knew very well Gannit’s arthritis was a thing of the past and she generally moved like somebody half her age. But she loved to complain and I wasn’t about to spoil her fun, especially since she produced everything I requested in less than one minute. Of course there was paper and a pencil just hanging around in the kitchen; it was a Fflyr kitchen, after all. I wondered how many sauce-stained books they had in there.

“Oh, and an empty wineskin!” I added as she retreated. From outside the pantry there came a loud, theatrical sigh, but Gannit returned in moments with just what I’d requested.

I had already set up the stool in front of the potato bin, set the pack of food and supplied prominently atop it, and now carefully wrote a label on a scrap of paper in the Sanskrit-like Fflyr script, which I then affixed to one of the pack’s buckles:

DARK ELF RATIONS

Hopefully they could read Fflyr. Presumably so, if they were hanging around us.

I then conjured a healing slime; thanks to Tame Beast, it was the work of seconds to get it to crawl into the empty wineskin and remain there. The instruction should hold it, but nonetheless I tightened the cap and added all the necessary details to the warning label which I attached to it before setting it on the stool alongside the pack:

FOR MEDICAL USE ONLY. DO NOT INGEST.

KEEP CONTAINER CLOSED WHEN NOT IN USE.

GENTLY SQUEEZE AND APPLY A SMALL AMOUNT TO INJURED AREA.

DO NOT ALLOW IT TO ESCAPE THE CONTAINER OR YOU’LL NEVER GET IT BACK IN THERE.

“There,” I said with satisfaction, standing back. “Well? Looks good?”

Junko barked her approval.

“Extremely serviceable, Lord Seiji,” Minifrit said in that excessively solemn tone which was as good as laughing. “A most compassionate gesture.”

“It is that,” Biribo agreed, “and also, from a Viryan’s perspective, a real power move. Putting them back in our debt even as we accept their help, not to mention revealing we know about the thefts.”

“Well, I’m not trying to piss them off…”

“I doubt our mystery buddy will take offense, boss. A good Viryan will be more likely to be impressed by it. ‘Sides, if they succeed in collecting Lady Gray’s head for you, that’ll still give ‘em enough face that they’ll finally be comfortable declaring themselves openly. Most likely they’ll take the supplies and leave money on the stool.”

“Why would this person have money? I thought we figured they were a starving runaway.”

“A probably aristocratic starving runaway,” Minifrit corrected, “or at the very least someone with a combination of education and deadly skills which says they were accustomed to power. Such people always carry money. It must be quite a bitter realization for them that they cannot eat or burn Goddess coins to survive in the forest.”

“Well, fair’s fair,” I said. “Let’s clear out, everybody. Whether or not our friend takes the deal, they’re not the only one who needs to eat. C’mon, we’re late for dinner.”

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