Last Life

I STOOD UP, shooting a glance at Maître Brisot. He glanced back at me, and I shot a demonstrative look at his wagons. He understood me without a word and started giving signals to the women and children who were sitting around the table. Whatever his orders may have been, they were obeyed without question.

Jean stood up from the bench and took a step forward. Pierre did the same. Each man had a knife on his belt. Within a second, both of them were standing motionless by my side. Discover more novels at nοvelfire.net

“Look at this, boys,” the stubbly young man said as he looked around at his friends. “I don’t think we’re welcome here. That’s weird... I seem to remember that girl over there inviting us to come see her performance. Don’t tell me we just walked all the way across the city for nothing?”

There were seven “guests” in total. Not one of them was gifted. Wicked smiles started spreading across the faces of the other thugs as the stubbly kid spoke. Judging by their relaxed expressions, Jean was the only one of us whom they actually perceived as a potential threat.

Suddenly, I heard a creak from above and looked up. It was the owner of the apartment block, hurrying to close the shutters on his windows with a look of fear on his face. Our eyes met for just a moment. Hm, I thought... I guess he must have known that we’d be receiving guests this evening. And he clearly had no intention of calling for the city guard. Which, of course, was just with me.

I winked at the owner and shot him a loaded smile that sent a shudder down his spine. His eyes widened in confusion and fear. He’d obviously expected to see me shaking in terror; the fact that I wasn’t couldn’t possibly bode well for him after what he’d done.

“Where’re you off to, girls?” The stubbly thug asked with a tone of feigned disappointment as the women retreated out of the courtyard. “We’re going to sample your entire repertoire this evening!”

He ran his hands down through the air, imitating a woman’s curves, as he said this. His buddies burst into raucous laughter.

“This one’s tongue is loose,” I said quietly. “That’s good. At least one of them will talk.” Hearing this, Jean let out a knowing chuckle and ran his shovel-like hand across his big, curly beard. His calloused knuckles, and a huge number of small scars, suggested that Bridget’s father’s youth had been full of fun and adventure.

Pierre, his son-in-law, tried to reply in a similarly casual fashion, but all he managed was a sort of twisted smirk. His thin shoulders were shaking slightly, and his long musician’s fingers were flexing and relaxing without him even seeming to realize it.

“Don’t rush in,” I said quietly, without looking at either Jean or Pierre. “Just cover me from behind.”

Jean replied with another knowing nod. Pierre did the same, a moment later.

“Gentlemen — I think you might’ve knocked on the wrong door here,” I said as I stepped forward and smiled.

“Oh!” The stubbly man pretended to be surprised as a fire of anticipation flashed up in his eyes. “I guess this little pipsqueak must be their director?”

His cronies waved their iron-plated clubs through the air as they fanned out into a semicircle. The stubbly kid’s words elicited another roar of laughter.

“Look, kid,” he continued, addressing me in a patronizing tone. “You’ve clearly got a problem with your hearing. But I’ll repeat myself for you, since you’re crippled. We’re here because that broad over there, with the pretty little face, invited us to come.”

With that, he pointed the tip of his club at something behind my back.

“And we’re not going anywhere until we see the show we were promised.” He was no longer smiling.

“Listen, Shard,” rumbled a broad-shouldered giant with long, hairy arms. “Enough talk. They said to get this done fast.”

The stubbly ringleader’s black eyes flashed menacingly at his comrade. But the big guy didn’t care. He started moving toward us, and the other followed in his wake.

“Hey — hairball!” I shouted, addressing the giant, who was a little bit thrown off by such insolence. He turned his big head to look at me. “Who said to get this done fast? Who do we have to thank for this bullshit?”

The hairy beast didn’t respond. Instead, with a low grunt, he sped up a little bit and swung his club back for a blow. He was aiming at my head — and if he’d have hit it, my skull would have been reduced to one big, messy, bloody mass.

Using the minimum amount of mana (so that everything would look natural), I ducked below his arm as he swung, then jabbed him hard in the side and broke two of his ribs. I hit him right in the middle of what, in true vision, looked like a big, dark blotch — an old wound. From a knife, judging by the size.

The giant man grunted in pain, then lost consciousness from shock immediately. Seeing him collapse to the ground in a cloud of dust, his friends froze where they stood for a few moments. I could see disbelief on every one of their faces.

Jean, however, didn’t miss a beat. He jumped over to the unconscious thug on the ground, snapped up his enormous club, and then jumped back into his place in our formation, ready to repel the next attack.

Stubbly and I glanced at one another. His eyes were wide with surprise. I snickered and cocked my head to the side.

“Like I said — I think you got the wrong door.”

From there, events played out in fast-forward. With a chorus of grunts and swearing, our uninvited guests rushed forward to attack us. All except for the stubbly kid, of course, who seemed to prefer to observe things from the sidelines.

My provocation had worked as expected: the big man’s five compatriots wanted immediate revenge, and they rushed toward me instead of Jean or Pierre. There was no coordination at all. So while their attack was formidable, it was also totally inept.

At least one of them (more likely all of them) must have had lots of experience as a street fighter, but their fury made them blind. All they saw was a small-looking young man, who had somehow managed to get extremely lucky and knock out their authoritative comrade with a single blow. The only thing I could see in their rage-filled eyes was a desire to grab that lucky young man and rip him to pieces.

First to come at me was a red-headed bulldog of a man, whose right ear stuck out at an odd angle from his head. He swung his club — unlike the giant, however, he had decided to aim for my chin with a bottom-up blow.

I slid to the left a little bit; then, without even giving him time to finish swinging his blow, I slammed a blow straight into his temple. I hit him just hard enough to knock him out without killing him. This fight would have to end without anyone dying. The last thing I needed was for the city guard to get involved with the Brisot troupe and start digging around in their recent history...

A sudden crack — and the redhead slumped over onto the ground, as if someone had pulled the spine straight out of his body.

The next thug had big, broad shoulders and a clean-shaven head. His short club was already halfway to the right side of my head when his comrade dropped. I ducked under the blow and hit him in the leg. He lost his balance and fell to one knee. My elbow slammed into the back of his head. The man dropped his club and collapsed face-first onto the ground.

The third attacker was a swarthy little man, one of whose nostrils had been badly torn up at some point in the past. He jumped at me from the side, arms spread wide — he obviously intended to wrap them around my legs. I could see experience and fury in his dark, darting eyes. Before he could sink his claws into my leg, his face ran headlong into my knee. I heard a crunch, and the little man was stretched out in the dust. His unconscious body had already gone into convulsions.

The last two attackers came at me simultaneously from both sides. One was a thin cutthroat with a bulging vein on his forehead; the other was a big, stocky bastard with a scar running down the length of his forearm.

I knocked the thin one out with a blow to the temple, and the stocky guy with the scar (who tried to stick a knife into my ribs) went down when I sent a pulse of mana from my hand into his torso, breaking his collarbone in half. He let out a high-pitched scream and passed out.

I made a show of dusting my hands off as I looked around. Six bodies were lying unconscious in the dust around me. I could hear Jean laughing excitedly behind me; Pierre just let out a sigh of relief.

There was just one more “guest” left to deal with: Stubbly. He was standing a little ways off to the side, squeezing his club in both hands. But there was no trace of his former confident smirk left on his face at all. His features had grown slightly sharper as his facial muscles tensed, and his bulging eyes were darting around from one stricken underling to the other.

“So,” I said in a mirthful, sarcastic tone as I stepped closer. “How’d you like the show? In the world of theater, that kind of thing is called “improvisation.” I hope your friends liked it too.”

Stubbly’s breath froze in his chest for a second. Then, slowly, he unclenched his fingers and dropped his club to the ground with a thump.

“Uhh...” He stammered. He had lost every ounce of braggadocio, along with his gift for gab.

I walked over to him, stopped about an arm’s length away from him, raised my fingers to my lips, and said:

“Now. You keep quiet and listen carefully for a moment, okay?”

He nodded vigorously.

“Good boy,” I said. Then I continued: “Now, if you can answer a few of my questions, honestly and truthfully, you can walk out of here in one piece. Do we understand each other?”

He nodded again, then gulped loudly as he looked around at his cronies on the ground.

I followed his eyes and explained:

“Don’t worry. They’re alive. I was very careful. True, some of them will need to shell out some coin for a doctor, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

With a nod at the last opponent I had knocked out, I said:

“That dummy there, with the scar? I had to break his collarbone. But it’s his own fault. He shouldn’t have gone for the knife. You saw it yourself...”

“Yes, yes...” stammered Shard in a terrified whisper..

“Soo-oo...” I slapped a hand onto Stubbly’s shoulder, which sent a tremor of fear through his body. “Here’s what you tell your boss. By the way — who IS your boss?”

“The Baron,” replied Stubbly, his voice now thoroughly trembling.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” I said with a sigh of feigned admiration. “An aristocrat?”

“No,” he shook his head.

“I see,” I said with a nod. “Then let’s move on.”

For the next hour, while Jean and Pierre were busy hurriedly tying up our guests and dragging them into the stables, and the rest of the Brisot family were packing up their possessions, Shard answered every one of my questions with remarkable readiness.

As expected, he didn’t really know very much at all. His boss was a local criminal who was known as “The Baron,” and he had simply ordered Shard to teach the excessively-talkative theater troupe a little lesson. Why HIS boss might have wanted that done... Well, Stubbly had no idea. That said, I knew exactly what my next step would have to be. Long story short, it was time to pay a certain “aristocrat” a visit.

“Well, that’s that,” I smiled, laying a hand on Stubbly’s shoulder once again. “See? And you were afraid. Listen, buddy — would you do me one more favor?”

“Of course.” I could tell by Shard’s voice that my friendly tone wasn’t fooling him at all. His body was still shaking slightly.

“Tell this Baron of yours not to look for us any more, okay?” I said, still smiling warmly. “Sure, he overreacted... But who doesn’t, from time to time? Anyway — we’re going to leave the city tonight, and he’ll never hear another word from us again. As for his employers, just have him tell them that the matter’s been settled. That you gave us a stern talking-to. That we were really scared, we understand everything, and we’re going to keep our mouths shut from here on. Sound good? Can you pass that on for me?”

“Of... of course!” Shard assured me through chattering teeth.

“Excellent!” I smiled. “You’re a good kid. Reasonable. Agh.. If only everybody were like you.”

I slapped Shard on the shoulder one more time, waiting for him to take his eyes off my hand. As soon as he did, I sent a sharp energy blow into the pain point on his neck. Stubbly’s head slumped limply down toward his chest, and he collapsed to the ground at the base of the courtyard wall.

Jean and Pierre walked past me in silence, both holding ropes in their hands. The big guy stopped for a second and slapped a silent hand onto my shoulder. I could see gratitude in his eyes.

I replied with a subtle nod at the window of the apartment building’s owner. Raising my voice ever so slightly, I said:

“We’ll be heading out of the city in an hour.”

“We’ll have to shell out some more cash, then,” Jean replied in his thunderous bass, playing along with me as he bent down above Stubbly.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Brisot family was quickly loading up the last of their things, throwing guarded glances in our direction as they did so. The children were already inside the wagons. Their curious little heads kept poking out above the wooden sideboards.

I saw Michaela giving Bridget an angry and thorough dressing-down, pointing in our direction from time to time. Apparently, the woman was explaining to her daughter that this was all her fault. There was nothing left of the girl’s noble, self-righteous attitude at that point. Bridget was just dragging chests and boxes to and fro, listening to her mother’s reprimands in silence.

Watching the hurried hustle and bustle around the wagons, I got lost in thought for just a moment. I guess it was kind of a mixed feeling. On the one hand, I was irritated and frustrated. Bridget and Étienne’s stupid little stunt had added a whole lot of headache to my plate, which was already heaving as it was. On the other hand, somewhere down deep in the bowels of my soul, I felt an unexpected sense of warmth and satisfaction. These young people had only ever seen the Margrave de Valier from a distance, and yet they had been ready to defend his honor without a second thought. And they hadn’t been doing it for any rewards or favors either. It was purely a matter of conscience. That kind of thing went a long way with me.

It was a paradox of sorts... While the higher aristocrats, who were technically supposed to be the very model of honor, were secretly a bunch of rats whose main occupation was trying to smear shit all over the names of other aristocrats, the common people were the ones showing the true nobility.

Alas, the same had more or less been the case in my homeworld as well. As it probably was in pretty much every world inhabited by humans. Depressing as that was, I felt certain that it was probably true.

After about forty minutes, our caravan hurried through the gates of the seemingly-hospitable apartment building. Before leaving, I shouted to the owner that he better not even think of untying our new acquaintances before sunrise, and that he shouldn’t send for the guards under any circumstances whatsoever. I promised that if he did either of those things, I’d come back and burn his building to the ground.

“Jack,” Maître Brisot approached me, looking worried. “Where are we going to go in the middle of the night?”

“I know a place,” I replied, trying not to let him hear the irritation in my voice. “You’ll like it. I promise.”

* * *

“Are you sure about this, Jack?” Maître Brisot asked with a frown, as the first wagon in our little caravan rolled to a stop in front of a bridge.

There, right across the river, were the lights of the old merchants’ district.

“Something worrying you?” I asked.

“There are a lot of contradictory rumors about this place flying around the city,” he explained. “People call it the Spellbound District.”

“Nonsense,” said Michaela as she threw back the canvas flap on her wagon. “I heard this place has been born again from the ashes over the last year. It’s clean and safe. All the incoming merchants, and even a lot of the old hands, prefer to stop in this specific district. That’s why their competitors from the New Capital are spreading all these ridiculous rumors.”

The nisse had already told me all about what had happened in the district since my departure. Basically, my “loving” relatives were trying their very best to ruin my good name — first and foremost, I’m referring to my uncle the Count and my merchant maternal grandfather. True, my people managed to parry all these attacks pretty successfully.

Heh, I thought... I tried to do this the easy way. I really did. What can you say? They asked for it. I guess I’ll have to do things the hard way.

Once we crossed the bridge, I stopped my wagon and jumped down onto the pavement.

“Wait for me here,” I said to Maître Brisot. “I’ll be back for you soon.”

He nodded silently; he was still looking around anxiously at the dark facades of the nearby houses.

For my part, I quickly crossed the street and ducked into the shadows between two stone buildings. I barely managed to take three steps before I heard a familiar voice:

“Well, hello there, auring! We were starting to think you’d never come!”

A thin, striped cat jumped down from the cornice of the neighboring house, landing on top of a chest of sand (one of the many I had installed in the neighborhood for firefighting purposes). A moment later, a smiling Kervan was standing in front of me.

Since the moment of our first meeting, the matagot — who, after all, had previously been squatting on the same land as a bunch of murderous werewolves — had changed quite a bit. He was still a long way from being as well-fed as his counterpart on Potters’ Alley, but at least his clothing no longer looked like a heap of rags. And his energy system had also become more saturated and bright since moving into the merchant’s district.

“Hello to you too, Kervan!” I smiled in reply as I revealed my true nature.

This was a way of making it clear that I came in peace, and had nothing to hide.

Within a few seconds, I could sense the presence of other first-born appearing around me. Young ones, for the most part. There were matagots, dreamlings, brownies, efirels, lunaris, and even a fayret. They were all staring at me with wide eyes. Some of them were even squinting, as though looking into the sun.

“Max!” I heard an overjoyed shriek.

Selina lunged out of the ranks of the first-born and wrapped her arms around me. I patted her on the shoulder, and asked affectionately:

“How’d it go?”

“Great!” Selina replied with a joyful smile. “They’re not mad at us anymore.”

“I’m glad,” I nodded, patting her shoulder one more time.

“You’ve really grown into your powers,” said Kervan with a note of admiration in his voice. “The elders will be surprised.”

Then he nodded at something behind me and added:

“Those people in the wagons are with you?”

“Yes,” I said. “But they know me by a different name. And it has to stay that way. Something unexpected came up. We had to hurry out of the place we were staying. We need accommodations here, in the District. So please call Lucas.”

I hadn’t been planning to reveal my presence to him, but circumstances had forced me into it. If there was anywhere in the world where I could hide my companions and build a temporary base for myself, it was here, in the merchants’ district. Where nobody could take so much as a step without the first-born knowing about it.

Not ten minutes went by before a gloomy, tired-looking Lucas stepped into our dark little alley. Despite the late hour, it seemed my old companion still hadn’t gone to bed.

“I really hope you didn’t tear me away from my business just for fun,” he growled as he peered half-blind into the darkness. “What happened?”

“I bet you’ll manage to find a little time for me,” I said. With that, I stepped out of the shadows into a beam of moonlight, and watched as Lucas’ eyes practically bulged out of their sockets.