Something For Nothing [Aurin]

[Valentin]

Frost 15, 123

Vanholl Estate

Roderick Vanholl was not, strictly speaking, a native of the Imperium. In a previous life, he'd been the merchant son of a merchant son operating out of Zaichaer, whose exploration into the grander world of shipping internationale had introduced him by chance to a younger daughter seeking prospects in the city. Though she had no title to offer and his aging father did not approve, Roderick had fallen head-over-heels, and his now-wife's family had been ecstatic to get so rich a relative for so little. All in all, a classic tale of true love.

Though Vanholl would have liked to get himself a townhouse in Northside and do a little social climbing therewith, his money wasn't quite enough to buy him real connections in the city- and his efforts to change that had been dealt a heavy blow last year, when Zaichaer went up in flames and much of Roderick's holdings became... uncertain.

This was the context in which he had met the solicitor Valentin Valentin, who had seen fit to offer him a certain amount of aid in hiding his true financial straits from creditors and partners in Gelerand in exchange for information about goings-on in Dardouen; the Duchy being an ever-present thorn in His Imperial Majesty's attempt to accurately catalog and take stock of His nation's wealth and welfare. Roderick had been an enthusiastic partner, as the information he provided could only harm his competitors as he strove to rebuild his wealth in secret.

Now, Valentin had tapped him for a somewhat more... concrete favor. Since the destruction of the High City, the merchant and his family had been staying at Mrs. Vanholl's home in Valensier, her parents having both been relegated to extended hospice care, and he was possessed of a fairly sizable guesthouse. The attorney had commandeered this, certain that Roderick would not let his whereabouts become general knowledge- after all, if his "friends" in the city knew Roderick was hosting an OIR agent, they might realize how the Imperial Government had discovered their own little affairs.

Well, that was Roderick's problem.

~~~

After a week of discrete inquiries, Valentin felt ready to move on to the next part of the plan. For this, he had removed a full-size mirror from the main house, the Vanholls' housekeeper transporting it as quietly to the guest house as possible. Once it was set up and Valentin had ensured that all the windows were closed, he placed a hand on the surface of the mirror and closed his eyes, the Rune of Traversion glowing faintly through the fabric of the shoulder of his suit.

"Aurin Kavafis," he intoned, mind moving through the Slipspace to the address he'd sent his letter to some weeks past, "Open the window between worlds and let me see him; let him see me. Let the lines of light and sound be exchanged; let the surface of the glass become the surface of the world, and the ripples go as I direct."

With that clarifying incantation, he opened a Window across time and space.

[Aurin]

While Aurin had spent a great deal of time and effort to come across as disreputable over the years, when it came to business—legal or otherwise—he tried to exude a sense of nonchalant competence. And so once he received the missive from Valentine², it was sure as death and taxes that he would be where he needed to be at the appointed time and place.

He had considered a counterproposal whereby he broke into the Valentin estate for the virtual meeting, but he didn't want to alienate his accomplice. Awaiting the date in candlelight with a tumbler of whiskey, he moved immediately when he felt the ley-lines of the slipspace begin to converge. Reaching out, fingers splayed, he anchored them in the mirror, doing his part to aid in the communication. When his image was replaced by that of his conspirator, he smiled and raised his glass.

"Herr Valentin," he greeted. "How is your holiday treating you?"

While he might seem unprepared—he hadn't brought anything to take notes—Aurin was ready for direction and any last minute requests the Gelerian lawyer might have. A great deal of this would be solo work, but while he had been looking into the situation in Dardouen, Valentin was his primary source of intelligence. He needed him to make this confidence game play out in their favor, or else he would have to go in, spend time preparing things himself.

But Valentin didn't trust him well enough for that. This didn't upset him; it was wise not to trust too heavily upon new collaborators until they had proven themselves. They were already depending upon each other quite a bit, even if they had both done their homework one upon the other. Aurin, at least, could easily flee the Imperium. Valentin could but he didn't seem like the type that would unless his financial straits were more dire than Aurin had sussed out.

[Valentin]

"Erfrischend." Valentin declared, his face giving away none of his sense of relief that he'd so quickly established contact, "Country air is just the thing for a man's constitution, or so esteemed Doctor Eisenbart claims at court. Something about the stink of pig shit and the sight of rolling hills which is essential to health, I've no doubt." Having been blessed with fair health all of his life, the lawyer paid scant attention to the physician-attributed fads of the court, which were driven by an abundance of ladies and lords of leisure who suffered from constipations or cramps.

In some ways, though, his visit to the neighboring duchy had not been much different. The city was primitive by the rapidly-evolving standards of society Gelerand, of course, but the expansive (and expensive) country estates he'd been prodding about had a certain quality of timeless grace to them. For all that the fashions were a decade late in Dardoun, the imported fabrics were just as expensive, and practically every man carried a pocket watch surreptitiously ordered from the big city as a downpayment on his inheritance.

Even the Duke's court itself--which was famously reluctant to cooperate with Gel'Grandal--struck Valentin as more defensive than derisive. He'd never really thought about the situation the local notables found themselves in, elevated to posts of vast provincial wealth and power but forever viewed as (at best) charming provincials by the people with real power. As a longtime resident of a Northside family, he could certainly relate to the constant, creeping social anxiety of it.

"I promised you I would identify the mark and murderer," Valentin began, a hint of reluctance creeping into his voice, "And I have... nearly done so. I shall elaborate."

The lawyer stepped away from the mirror, disappearing from Aurin's Window and giving him a glimpse into the modest sitting-room at the Vanholl guesthouse. Valentin had closed all the blinds and curtains, of course, but the room was well-lit by a combination of electric lights and what appeared to be an ensconced dragonshard, plainly a recent addition to the decor. The couch and chairs within the room looked almost antique, uncomfortable Gelerand specials from the late 80s, and the room was covered in a truly garish puce wallpaper.

A moment later, Valentin reappeared, bearing a small brass keepsake- a hinged portrait-bearer for the top of a dresser or mantel. When the lawyer opened it, it seemed initially blank; then images flashed across it, resolving into an austere portrait of a plain young woman, brown-haired and with a distinctive aquiline shape to the nose. The work of a very small memnosyte circuit, likely. Such contrivances had been very popular in Gel'Grandal once, before the widespread adoption of more advanced pict-casters.

"This is the woman whose death alerted me to the situation here, I am certain. Frauline Luisa Allstead, widow of the late Sir Tupin Allstead, which name you may know from the Allstead Dry Freight & Shipping Company, who own many of the train cars which deliver the bounty of the Duchy's farmland across two-thirds of the continent."

Valentin sat behind the little portrait-keeper, resting his head against his right fist and stroking the side of his chin with a thumb, the first such tic Aurin had seen the man display. "I thought I must be mistaken at first, for a woman with such a name would surely be well-known, but it transpires that the late Ms. Allstead became a recluse after Sir Tupin's death. Never attends on anyone, hardly sees visitors... precisely the right profile. In any event, I'm certain she's dead, contrary to the official records."

The lawyer sat back up in his uncomfortable prickly-fabric chair and reached down to the table, closing the portrait-keeper. The little dragonshard-conducting mesh flashed briefly as the memnosyte ceased to recall the image within.

"Unfortunately, while I had hoped this would make her murderer obvious... a reclusive widow of a shipping magnate living in a lonely country estate is known to a number of servants. To my count, there are at least three men who must know she has perished to keep the charade going- her solicitor, the estate's butler, and her brother-in-law, who lives with her. At this point, I suspect a conspiracy among the three, but I did not dare interview any."

[Aurin]

"Mm," he commented with dubious enthusiasm, most likely in reference to the odor of porcine feces. Aurin had always been a shoe made for the city, but he had traveled the roads of Ailizane, weathered the decks of ships on the sea lanes, and even been saddle sore to get from one place to another. He had grown to appreciate airships as well as the Rune he shared with Herr Valentin, but when he left civilization, it was to enjoy cleaner scents and fewer prying eyes. The dangers of a forest were more primal than a garden party, and it made a nice change of pace.

All the same...

As he listened to Valentin, he knew that another reason to travel to the duchy was to see how the Imperium expanded, how it administrated itself. It was only a matter of time before it more directly encroached upon the sovereignty of the Free Cities, and if it didn't happen in his lifetime, he wanted to ensure that any descendants his people had would be well prepared to resist or, at least, collaborate in the most auspicious and lucrative manners.

He considered whether it might have been easier to just step across that depthless membrane between here and there as it would have been a singular use of magic rather than a sustained enchantment, but Valentin was calling the shots. Aurin would call his own shots when he was there.

The hustler soaked up the intelligence, as well as Valentin's own tells. Nodding along, he considered the information for a few moments before he responded.

"Understood. Do you intend to continue your investigations alone, or shall I come to Dardouen in disguise to work another angle?"

Enough time had passed since Valentin had arrived that Aurin's own arrival wouldn't point to their collusion, especially if they didn't interact or interacted minimally. The ginger knew how to maintain a cover. His life was a cover.

[Valentin]

"Yes, yes, do come." Valentin shook his head wearily, "I'd hoped to give you the man on a silver platter, but that... Das Blaue vom Himmel versprechen."

His trouble was twofold, really. If he continued to press into the affairs of the late Dame Allstead, it would be instantly obvious to the culprits that the game was up. Valentin was not famous by any means in the Imperium, but he was well-known across the town councils and rotten boroughs as the signatory of probing letters about finances. It would take only a moment's asking about for the culprits to realize who he was and come immediately to the realization that they'd been caught out.

That was no good. A trap worked best, baited and ready, when the quarry had no inkling of it.

The second was that while he'd taken off a few days' work to travel and see the sights, he knew that would raise eyebrows within his department--Herr Valentin did not, you know, make merry in the country--so he'd scrounged together a package of small investigations, points of interest and other fiduciary matters to attend to while in Dardouen and passed that off to his colleagues as explanation. The sour attorney would never have gone off to the country just for the good winter air, but his colleagues could certainly believe that he'd simply reached his breaking point with the various half-truths and outright snickering lies the officials in Dardouen tended to file with the OIR.

"I'm going to be spending the next while here cooped up in a series of town offices, poking around in the bureaus of various distributors and farm barons, not to mention the pisspot excuse for a city hall." Of course an outlying province could not be expected to have anything resembling the administrative marvel which was the Archives of Gel'Grandel, but what he'd found here beggared belief. Rooms filled floor to ceiling with banker's boxes of loose-leaf reports, entire stacks ruined by a drip from the plumbing above, memnosyte plates cracked and splintered from rough handling, their stored memories blurred and unreliable... he itched to begin firing people, but that was the surest way to draw undue attention.

"No doubt you are familiar with the way sorcery is regulated in the Imperium; perhaps even with how cheats are caught in the city. The provinces have lax security by comparison, but I would still practice caution. Lady Allstead was not well-known at the court in Valensier, but her parasite brother-in-law had friends there, and that is the one place with enough facility to perhaps detect even covert works of magic. It is, of course, a state secret the number of Kathar who have been assigned to 'guard' the Duke and his household, but I have my guesses. I expect at least one of them to be quite capable of sensing sorcery quite precisely."

[Aurin]

"Wie Sie möchten," he said into his tumbler before taking a sip. The man listened attentively to Valentin's report; there was no telling which detail might mean life or death, or, more importantly, success or failure. As for the warning, "Noted."

Aurin knew better than to be cocky, but he was also aware that few had reached the level of mastery that he had with his magic "tricks." Of course, he had always tried to use his tricks sparingly, in order to give him an edge but not hinge an entire con upon them. That said, between his sensing and his glamours, he was able to create impressive illusions and invert the weave such that few could pierce them.

But the client knew best.

"All right. In two days' time, Darus of Haqs will arrive. Caravan delayed, vowing to move entirely to airborne commerce going forward. But, in the meantime, he will spend some coin to divert himself in that quaint, rustic town. I'll find lodging commensurate with my cover. Whether you acknowledge me in public, or we meet at all, is up to you. Or chance. But I can..." He squinted, tasting the slipspace connection. "Aye, I will be able to contact you there in your rooms for regular updates, or as required."

Having known this was in the offing, Aurin was prepared to move quickly. His contacts in the capital would see to certain things, and he could see to this job that required his absolute attention. He would take an airship to as near a port as possible, and then ride into town, the mysterious stranger who would be only too happy to dispel any mystique and play party boy while his finances idled along the road.

"Don't burn the city down before I get there."

[Valentin]

"Burn down the city? Burn down the city..." Valentin sneered at the notion that anything he did here could possibly make this backwards town so much worse "Ach, der bloße Gedanke. At worst, if I cannot manage to contain myself, I'll see a few of these damned layabouts tossed unceremoniously out of their offices. It would be just the smallest downpayment for the many years they have robbed the Imperium, hand over fist, I assure you!"

It would also, of course, be wildly counterproductive to the mission of not being noticed. As long as all the scoundrels of Dardouen were battening down the hatches and hiding from his investigation, they would be less inclined to themselves poke about his affairs, but a cornered dog would fight every time.

Valentin Valentin permitted himself a small sigh and straightened, hands involuntarily drifting to his coat buttons to center the seam. The reports--the ones he trusted, anyway--said that Aurin Kavafis was a competent spy and a devil of a thief, but he had only met the man twice and disliked the thought of turning over the investigation wholesale. He was, after all, a foreigner. Who could say if he'd understand all the details and nuances? He might come to unsound conclusions. Certainly better to try to keep a hand in, even if that risked getting his palm raked across the coals.

"Yes, once you arrive, let us rendezvous again. It should not be difficult to keep our acquaintance unknown to the people of this city. I shall simply have to avoid the Duke's presence as much as possible."

Once they knew exactly who had control of the late Dame Allstead's money, it would be child's play to figure out where and how it was being kept. Not that Valentin expected it was buried, or any such nonsense; he expected it had been slowly siphoned into accounts under the murder's control. Once they knew where that money was, he could engineer a scheme to see it placed in Aurin's hands, and when Aurin disappeared, so too would the ill-gotten gains of murder, like dew under the Searing morn.

(Not that dew burned off much in the last year. You never thought about how cosmological events could end up making your socks uncomfortably wet.)

"Ah... before you go... I have heard that you're known around the court in Kalzasi, and doubtless that is every bit as much a pit of vipers as courts everywhere tend to be-" this was extemporizing, really, Valentin couldn't be bothered to know much more about the Great Houses of the faraway land of the birds than their relative financials, "-but I warn you that high society is quite bad here. Everyone's a big fish in a little pond, all simmering in resent of powerful people who aren't even aware of them. You might get far if you play to their insecurity."

[Aurin]

"I am certain that you will find a way to aim governmental oversight upon them after you have left in such a way that your hands remain clean," he replied with a smirk. Men like Valentin were cunning enough to enact such things; Aurin was his tool for the malfeasance, and he would certainly find another to deal with his layabouts. But certainly they would have to deal with the former before he could deal with the latter.

"As you wish," he replied, amenable as the farm boy from the story. After all, he was going to get quite the payout from this misadventure. One had to keep the pipeline to the money clear.

"Winged vipers," he corrected with a wry little smile, but didn't otherwise interrupt. Nodding still, his smile became a smirk. "We will catch the big fish and sashimi will be on the menu."

*~*~*

True to Aurin's word, Darus of Haqs arrived in the duchy of Dardouen, clearly a man out of sorts and out of his element. Of course, that all changed once he had rooms of his own to wait out the hiccough in his fortunes.

Having spent years managing the Velvet Cabaret, he quickly sussed out which bartender to tip handsomely, which regular to buy a drink for, and was happily engaged in soaking up contextual information about the people and the place. This seemed to be the right place to be seen, to establish his identity as a possible person of interest for a far-flung city with pretensions of grandeur. Whether he was anyone of substance outside of Haqs didn't truly matter.

These people were bored.

He could work with bored.

If he didn't espy Valentin, he would find him on the morrow. But if they did cross paths, he could either pointedly ignore the man or orchestrate some slight or another to make them seem most decidedly not colleagues in a secret mission to steal from the rich their misbegotten wealth much like a modern-day ballad of Robyn Hode.

[Valentin]

Valentin spent the night after his first communication with Aurin in sleepless repose, wrestling with his nerves. He was a man of reason, of course, and knew the risks of his mission and partnership here. He also knew that it was vanishingly unlikely that anyone could have detected his plot yet. Not unless an Inquisitor was already shadowing him, and in that event he was doomed whether or not he engaged in any criminal games.

Still, all he could see when he closed his eyelids were that Kathar's blade cleaving the nameless traitor in two, all those years ago. So quickly and fluid that it had almost seemed like the death came late.

After he had found what rest he could, the lawyer rose in the early morning to begin his rounds. There were the basic chores of life, of course; while his hosts had attendants in the main house, he had forbidden them from the guest cottage. Most of the laboring class could be trusted not to pry, but you could never know when a surprisingly-literate maid might worm their way into your employ. Best to be safe, rather than sorry.

He retrieved his dairy and checked the post box- finding nothing forwarded to his attention, he brought his hosts their letters to the front door as a civil gesture and then breakfasted on bread and yogurt. The morning formalities attended to, he dressed, donned coat and hat, and made his way out into the city.

~~~

It wasn't much of one, this city. He'd seen smaller, of course, in his junior postings when he'd needed to attend on some business in remote corners of the empire, but it would be lost in the outskirts of Gel'Grandal. Valentin tried to shake such derisive thoughts from his mind. He couldn't afford to let his disdain for the townsfolk show; their imaginations would conjure slights enough to trouble him, in time.

After a bit of a stroll, Valentin reached Valensier's town hall, nominally the seat of its government (though since the Duke and his family rarely bothered attending upon the civil service, it was in practice nothing more than an administrative records clearinghouse) and entered. This was his third visit, and so the clerks bolted upright as he entered, eager to avoid the sneering tongue-lashing he'd given them their first day.

"I want to see the harvest records again." The lawyer's voice was cool, but brittle. He'd cultivated a demeanor which seemed on the verge of exploding at any minute precisely to allow him to most effectively bully this type of junior clerk.

"Right away, Herr Valentin." one responded, quicker than her fellows. She practically fled the room, clearly bright enough to realize that she couldn't be the target of the man's anger if she was engaged on fulfilling his request. He smiled with approval at her back.

Harvest records were, more-or-less, the only thing anyone in Dardouen expected him to be looking at. It was the Imperium's breadbasket, after all. If Gel'Grandal was thinking about war (and when was it not?) it would need those numbers, and the bureaucrats trying to look productive would need scapegoats. As such, Valentin was sure that at least a few of the major concerns in Valensier had asked (or "asked") the clerks here to let them know if he inquired about their businesses specifically.

Which was good. That meant he could begin to build suspicion about why he was here- amongst all the wrong people.

"You." Valentin said, pointing at another clerk without even looking in their direction, "Get me the records for the woolens, would you? I slept poorly last night; I want to count some sheep."

The boy laughed at that, then realized Valentin wasn't laughing and trailed off. Moments later, Valentin heard his footsteps racing down the hall.

[Aurin]

Aurin Kavafis had done his due diligence, and had begun his investigations in Valensier. Darus of Haqs had made himself known, had bemoaned his fate, and had made some fair-weather friends among those of the local elite—such as they were—willing to feign concern when someone else was footing the bill for their drinks and other vices. But Aurin had yet to make contact with Valentin, so Darus was showing his face in the local town hall.

"Ahem," he said, attempting to catch the attention of any remaining staff.

"Ahem," he repeated when it appeared the man ahead of him in the queue was awaiting someone in particular while those who remained were not seeing to his needs.

"Yes, Herr Darus," one of them replied, showing their weariness of his appearance in an entirely rude fashion. After all, these people were paid to take care of problems like this. "Your report has been taken and no word has arrived from your stalled caravan."

"Ahh, but have you sent anyone to look?" he asked pointedly. Darus' voice was not Aurin's voice, neither in timbre nor cadence. He might only have managed the great theater of Kalzasi, but he had grown up among whores and confidence men. Being a different person wasn't an art, just a skill. Then again, he was powerful with his magic tricks, but didn't consider himself a mage, either.

"Just a moment."

"Wait, I—" But now the front desk was unattended. "Still got it," he murmured. "I know how to clear a room, eh?"

If Valentin did turn around, he would not find Aurin, but a dandy of a merchant wearing foreign fashions with an obvious attempt to pass as Gelerian. Even the "mistakes" were part of the character, though.

"Didn't want to pop into your private rooms," he continued, sotto voce, "in case I found you at your nightly, ah, ablutions." He meant masturbating, but he wasn't sure if Valentin would catch that. He wasn't sure Valentin did masturbate. He might have offered to teach him, but the man would probably choke on his own spit and Imperialness.