The Lynx King (unfinished, some side story)

Another sullen day in the city of Adioh.  It was cloudy and raining per usual and the Verde river was surging and swelling.  The water flooded the plain at the east end of the city, where farmers grew the water plants aplenty. 

In Adioh, the clouds gathered above the city almost all the time and very seldom would you be able to glimpse the sun or sky, but when the bright light peaked on those day people would drink and celebrate. A common saying was “happy sun to you,” a greeting akin to “how are you?’

It didn’t always rain though.  Most days there was a ceiling of  innocuous white clouds.  But when the gray starts to parse the fluffy puffs in places it would drizzle, and when they turned gray it would rain, and than, sometimes, they would turn dark black and the thunder and deluge would come. 

Adioh was known for the Weatherseers, specialist in the study of the particular weather in the Wetplains.  They could divine the time of weather changes three days into the future with 95 percent accuracy.  The city elders, the wealthy plutocracy of landlords, merchants, and bankers who ruled Adioh, funded the Weatherseers and published papers every day especially to the indentured peasant farmers who worked the lands they owned.  Bulletins were placed in the town square, the Churches, and other landmarks along with other news of the day.

Adioh was a pretty decent free city to live in, unless you were one of the serfs working enthralled to the  Puppetmasters.  The city was of wealth and one of the neutral zones.  There were no kings, no castles, not even walls.  It was entirely managed by the senate of oligarchs, the twenty families all vying for more wealth and territory.  All the while they kept commerce and trade flowing constantly through the veins of the Verde river which connected to the Majoris river in the west and into the sea to the east.  The free cities were few, but a necessary part of Libera, borrowing money and bribing the kingdoms that surrounded them.

---

Yes, Adioh was thriving in the year of 256 PL (Pax Libera) on the tenth day of the hot month of the Salamander.  And when the city people thrived, so did the thieves and beggars, and the open city had its fill.

Cork loved the rain.  He also loved the dumb and prideful inherited fools walking here and there to either conform and take upon the responsibilities of their fathers and conduct business or squander their pretty little coins on gambling, drink, and whores.  Either way, they were easy pickings for Cork, especially in the rain.

Cork wore his black slick cloak which he tanned himself from a arouch skin and a special formula potion which cost him two gold Kants from Ent at The Potion Plus, a special dye and waterproof sealant.  His cloak warded off the rain like magic.

He sat on the ledge of the House of Sanctuary, a subsidiary of the Holy Church of Libera, a  place for homeless retches who refused to sign over their lives to the puppetmasters and, instead, live in the mud and beg.  Thankfully, the acolytes of the Holy Church built and funded a place where the vagabonds could get some food and some clothes and, if they were lucky, one of the beds for a night.

The rain poured down upon him and onto the stone guardian statue he was crouched next to, an angelic figure with folded hands and a serene face.  He had his hood on and the pellets ran down the front of his face drip dripping, sometimes making their way onto his face.

(statues to ward off evil?)

Cork liked the feel of the rain on his head and face and even his body.  But he was in his Black Bird cloak as he liked to call it and felt the power of the Raven run through him, a persona he liked to embody. 

His hood on and a grin on his face, he flipped his ten inch dagger in three, four, five spins without even looking catching it by its wooden handle without even a thought, pure muscle memory from years of practice.  Every which way he flipped the dagger, elaborately and then palming it hidden in his sleeve then flashing out gripping it handle down in his right hand then twirling it in his hand flipping it to his left hand and palming it in his sleeve hidden again then in a flashing thrust the dagger came out his sleeve with the point thrusting forward. He swished the blade as if parrying an opponent.

Finally he finished his flashy tricks atop the sanctuary and put the dagger in a secret sheath underneath the cloak tucked into his a slot on his left upper thigh where he could pull it out swiftly with his right hand if need be, in fact he would grip the handle almost habitually when he wore Black Bird.  Without Black Bird, he would have to hide the dagger in his boot on his ankle, making it far harder to get to. 

Not like he ever used it.  In fact, nobody even knew he owned a dagger.  He was adept at keeping it and other things hidden, even hiding who he was from people. 

In fact, he used it three times only to defend himself from some brigands once, a hotheaded lush, and a gang called the Ornery Orphans.  Surprisingly the orphans were the most viscous lot of the all, even though many were younger than he was.  Either way, he knew how to fight and defend himself.  Moreover, he knew the art of deception and was quite an escape artist, like an agile monkey flipping and climbing, running like the wind.  And in BlackBird he took on the wings, almost flying.  He really did feel like the cloak gave him the aspect of a Bird and even called himself Raven, but only in his mind.  To everyone else, he was just cork.

The House of Sanctuary was at the far end of the city, at the end of Prime Street.  His eyes were keener than most, and he scanned Prime Street down toward the center of town.  He was high enough to see beyond most of the smaller houses and businesses.  The taller buildings were in the east section, structures built only in the last twenty five years in the (Rancor) quarter.  Some were towers ten stories high.

But he was more interested in the Red district.  It was still early morning, the daylight just rising from the darkness only to be veiled by the clouds.  However, there was that light that marked the early morning regardless of the blossoms of clouds.

He wished he had his looking glass.  He lost it in a game of stones to “Butler” Nat.  Regardless, he could make out enough even through the early morning and the rain. 

Oh, he thought of another nickname “HawkEyes,” but shook it off.  Raven was better.

He got more comfortable and dangled his legs from off the building and leaned against the statue scanning the area.  Nobody could see him, but he could see everybody.  It was his favorite spot in the city.

After fifteen minutes, he started to spot some good game.  Foreign faces dressed in high fashion coming out of The Jolly Cod, stumbling and drunk. 

He stood up ready to fly across the rooftops.  It was time to go.

-

A man was retching in the muddy alleyway across from Miss Birch’s tenement on Bottom Avenue.

“Ya bloody idiot!”  his mate Ga’gune burst out with laughter.  “Can’t keep a meager amount of the black wine down, can ya?”

The Retching man continued to projectile vomit a deep dark red sludge from out his mouth until finally, stumbling back onto the street, he fell to his knees.

“Get up ya idiot.”  his friend attempted to lift him up.  “Ma’ik, we get to Count Jaquin’s estate, remember?   Business my brother.”

Ma’ik and Ga’gune  stood in the street, dressed in tailored expensive jackets, top-hats with wide rims and fitted shoes.  They were obviously from the south country of Bla’kstone.  Ma’ik was wearing a red and blue plaid scarf and pail blue pants made of some shimmery cloth.  Ga’gune had brown feathers lining his jacket, beige pants of the same material, and a gold pin on his lapel in the shape roll of thread, the insignia of the haberdashery profession.  The pin was hexagonal gold plate and the roll was engraved in the center with a little needle sitting next to it.  The thread was painted a blue tint, making him part of the Y’un Clan of Ilco City, a wealthy and powerful family in the free cities.

“Where are we?”  Ma’ik asked looking up and around, hat tilted and lips a dark purple. 

“Um….i think its that way,” Ga’gune answered pointing down the to his left down Bottom Avenue.

“We came from that way didn’t we?” Ma’ik said with his mouth bubbling.  Not only was his lips purple but his teeth were almost black.

“No no, we came from that way.”  he pointed in the other direction.  He was also quite drunk, but Ga’gune made sure he looked well kept and composed not like his younger brother.

They had wandered down the streets after leaving The Jolly Cod singing and dancing after partying and drinking the whole night.  Their guide, a Jaquin servant, was called back to the estate and pleaded with the brothers to return with him, but they insisted they knew how to get back.  After some squabbling, Ga’gune gave him two silver plato’s and waived him away.

Now they were in the Dirt District of Adioh surrounded by rundown tenements and dark alleys after making a couple of wrong turns.  In the Red District, there were always people and guards, even at this time of the morning.  But the two brothers soon realized that the streets were dark and, even more to the point, completely empty.  Eerily empty.

“Um, I think we need to get back to civilization Ma’ik, we definitely went the wrong way.” Ga’gune said as he pulled his brother back toward the way they came.  Only barely, but he could see some lights above the houses to the north and the tops of the tall buildings of the Plaza District. 

“Let’s just knock on a door and ask someone for directions.  You still have coins, don’t you?  We could pay them a shiny stotle for their troubles.”

“And get murdered for our entire purse and the clothes off our backs?”  Ga’gune retorted.  “its that way, come on you buffoon.”

Ga’gune pulled his brother down Bottom Avenue with the sudden anxiety of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As they came to toward the next intersection a small person suddenly ran into them from out one of the alleys, knocking Ma’ik down on his bum and Ga’gune against a building.

“Hey!” the young boy in the cloak said with his hood shading his face.  “would you watch where your going?”

“What in the hell?”  Ma’ik was bewildered and disoriented. But his brother quickly took a stance against the intruder only to realize it was a young boy who had bumped them.  The boy was a head and a half shorter than Ga’gune who was 6 feet tall.

“Fuckin hell, you came at us like a branded bull and you have the gall to ask us to check us?”  Ga’gune said forcefully.  He wasn’t gonna let a little kid show him. 

“Oh, sorry sire, I was just on my way back to Mamma.  I have her medicine.”  the boy pulled back his hood and revealed his face. 

He was a handsome 14 year old boy with a mess of wiry shoulder length hair flecked with white.  His eyes were green grass color and his nose was small as was his mouth with thin pink lips.  He had two visible scars on his face, one clean line cleaving his right eye brow down from his forehead to his eyelid, the other a deep cut on his right cheek going from an inch from his nose to his earlobe and onto his ear which ended in a V shaped wedge on the top of the outer ring.  He jokingly called his left side his “good side,” but never tried to hide his battle scars.  On top of that, he had a good shiner on his left cheek from a fight he had the previous day.

“Oh.”  Ga’gune said scanning the boy.  “It’s ok I guess.” 

“So I can go sire.” Cork bowed. 

“yes yes, of course….”

“you shouldn’t be in these parts by the way” Cork interrupted him.  “there are thieves and gangs who prowl live on these streets.  Murderers too.  I would go take a right at the next street, go five blocks and make a right again, and you should find the Temple of the Guardian. From there you can get help to wherever you’re going.”

“Alright!”  Ma’ik was up on his feet putting an arm around Cork.  “What a good lad, we were lost you see, we have business with Count Jaquan, a pretty big deal going down, righ ‘Gun?”

“Shut up buffooon.”  Ga’gun started.  “and get your hand off of him, you don’t know where he’s be….i mean...just get off.”

“I have to go sires, but remember, make a right, five blocks, than another right, okay?”  Cork said with his gentle grin.

“thank you young boy...”

“Seeya!”  the boy ran off down the adjacent dark alley before Ga’gun could offer him some trifle little coin as per custom, only to find his entire purse was gone.

Cork lifted the purse easily enough.  Sure, these wealthy types learned long ago about thieves lifting their wallets so they were likely to afix a chain to the underside of there jackets or pants.  But, even though the chain was strong, the cloth wasn’t and an adept thieve could easily misdirect the person by bumping into them with some force and rip the chain clean from the cloth and that is exactly what Cork did.

Cork ran down the alleyway toward the edge of Bottom street getting enough distance and tossed the purse up and down in the air all the while grinning. 

But he wasn’t so happy about the purse.  That was easy game.  In his left hand he twirled a piece of gilded gold in the shape of a thread.  He had lifted both the purse and the pin from that fool.  The pin was an extra prize but one he took pride in lifting.