Legend of Ransera

The Velvet Cabaret was a different animal by night. Between the intoxicating substances and the intoxicating company, time lost some of its cohesion within its storied walls, but perhaps the bodies inside sensed what their eyes could not. Outside, gloaming gave way to night as it always did; some went home to solitude or family, while others gathered in places like this for conviviality or distraction or to scratch some other itch. And the Season of Frost had arrived, drawing many to the communal warmth and making them loath to leave, knowing their walk of shame would involve shivering and slip-sliding on ice if they weren't careful

The pungent scents of the hookah lounges gave way to the clearer air of the main hall as Aurin did his rounds. He was everyone's best friend, holding court here for a moment, asking after someone's children there for a moment. Most people were either friends or friends he hadn't met yet. Some greeted him with ill humor, but none actively disliked him. A nod here, a signal there, and various of his co-workers moved like fine clockwork to see things done, to let the good times roll like so many dice. Even when the house rolled snake eyes, the house won in the end. But, to Aurin's mind, everyone won. A bad night at cards oughtn't to beggar a person. The Cabaret didn't want to lose a customer, just keep their cash flowing into its coffers. It was an engine for Kalzasi's economy as much as its gold and green sisters on the same stretch of street, and helped citizens cope with the vagaries of life.

Everyone needed to cut loose sometimes.

"Well played!" he exclaimed, clapping a regular on the back who had just won a nice little pot with a clever bit of bluffing. He spun with a lazy grace and snatched up two flutes of sparkling wine, setting one down and holding the other out to celebrate with him. "Cheers!" A sip of the heady stuff, then, "Should I tell Madame you're playing hard and fast for her silkiest knickers tonight?"

"Is it true her cat's fur isn't the only stuff that's white?" the man asked, loosened up by the headier stuff of winning.

"Sir!" Aurin exclaimed, hand clutching imaginary pearls at his chest. "A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell." Once that settled, he leaned down and whispered something in the man's ear that made his eyes bulge and his mouth gape wide with raucous laughter. "You'll just spend it all on lap dances anyway."

With a hearty pat on the man's shoulder, Aurin moved off glancing toward the stage where a large ring was suspended from the ceiling, spinning slowly as a man and a woman wearing very little and all of that sequined to catch the light danced with each other and sang a duet. He was well and duly impressed both by their flexibility and their breath support.

While Aurin hadn't seen Torin come in, he had already marked his presence. He had perfected a manner whereby whenever he broke eye contact with a person—and everyone did; staring into someone else's eyes without blinking or looking away was only something people did in copper novels—his momentary glances aside strategically took in the room, never leaving a corner of it unchecked for very long. He did this even when he wasn't working, a survival skill learned long ago. As the lad had found himself a seat and some food, the fixer didn't feel compelled to immediately check upon him. He would likely want to soak up the ambiance and everything for a while before he would want to talk.

At first, he didn't know which songbird Lord Tsuyoshi meant. The man lived outside the city most of the year, but enjoyed spending his winters in the capital and his evenings in music halls and brothels. He well knew that trysts were negotiated with the Madame, but he also knew Aurin could find the woman faster and expedite matters. He was prepared to do just that when the man tried to inconspicuously indicate young Torin.

"Ah, the young runesmith," he deflected. "Alas, he is not on our menu, though I imagine Madame Lunaria would give him a job if he came calling for one." He was delicate about the matter, of course, suggesting a lad with a few similarities to Torin. The lordling was miffed, but Aurin scored him a drink and may or may not have intimated that a certain so-and-so at that table over there was drunk enough to be easy pickings at cards.

Lord Tsuyoshi didn't strike him as predatory, but he was full of himself and a lifetime of entitlements and that could be more than enough trouble for someone lowborn and honest. After a bit more schmoozing, he checked and made sure the randy gentleman was occupied at the card table before working the room in Torin's general direction. The lad seemed so enthralled by the sights that Aurin managed to rest his hands on his broad shoulders before he was even aware of Aurin's presence.

"Young man, you are out past your bedtime."

"It was a joke, kid," he said, a wry smile on his mouth as his hands squeezed on those growing shoulders in a companionable sort of way. It wasn't a massage from next door at the Jade Crane, nor had it the seductive tug of the massages one could request especially from the trained courtesans. It was just what it was. Many people came here less for the intoxicants and vice than to feel connected to other people. The workers here paid attention. Even Aurin, who wasn't on the menu, had built himself up a sort of mystique here. People deferred to him. Even Madame Lunaria listened to what he had to say by now. The locals saw him as someone whose whim could improve their life, at least in the short-term.

He tried not to take it too seriously, nor too personally. Slapping those shoulders a couple of times in succession, he nodded.

"You've seen more than most, but come on. I'll give you a bit of a tour."

It would be good to get him to a different room. Out of sight, out of mind, and hopefully nothing untoward would occur with Tsuyoshi. He named the performers on the stage, not sure how much detail Torin wanted or would retain. He reminded him that the large but inobtrusive swinging doors led into the back of house areas. As they walked past tables, he indicated what game was being played. A smaller room used for private games of chance, unused at the moment. A hallway where private time happened. A muffled giggle preceded a moan from the nearest door as they passed.

The hookah lounges were smaller than the main hall, of various sizes, some occupied, though only a few had curtains drawn. The air was heavy here, incensed with various burning things. In one smaller lounge, two men lounged on pillows, passing the hookah back and forth while watching a woman with her skirts pulled up and her fingers between her thighs. The men weren't touching themselves, but their hazy eyes looked hypnotized by what they saw. The lounges weren't as loud as the main hall; the curtains muffled some of the noise, conversations overlapping into nonsense unless one had a well-trained ear and a yen to eavesdrop.

Aurin slowed, having not opened up every little room to let Torin peek inside, but the young man ought to have a relatively complete view of the place now. He idled, curious whither his attention might go.

Oh, what a rush of ripe élan
Languor on divans
Dalliant and dainty
But oh, the smell of burnt cocaine
The dolor and decay
It only makes me cranky

Though Aurin could see he was overwhelmed, the youth was also less inhibited than he had been when he came knocking at the service entrance that morning. If he stood a little closer than before, it made sense: Aurin was the most familiar face in this strange and unusual mise en scène. And while these delights were tamer than some, the lad was a novice when it came to such things. More violent delights might have more violent ends, but it might all read as dangerous, undiscovered territory.

Aurin rested a hand on the lad's broad shoulder, and if his smile was faintly mocking, it was not unkind.

"My role is to ensure that what happens here is done with consent," he assured him. "You might not be perfectly safe, but safety is an illusion. You needn't venture in the dark. I'll be certain your eyes are open." He paused. "Though, you might want to consider how early your master wants you awake tomorrow morning before you begin an adventure." He paused again. "Time is fluid here."

The hand on Torin's shoulder demanded nothing, but was merely a point of contact, an anchor. Aurin had never been a country boy. The city from whence he sprung, not full-grown, though he felt a thousand years old when he finally became a man, was at least as sophisticated as this one. Innocence had been a luxury denied him. Torin stood on the brink between innocence and experience and perhaps that was why Aurin felt the tug to play psychopomp from one world to the next. His own deaths hadn't been so kind.

Kindness is cruelty, opined a ghost from his past. He ignored it.

Cruelty is a kindness. He ignored it.

"If you need some bracing fresh air," he said, "I can take you out back where you made your delivery earlier." The chill might shake the reverie of alcohol and clinging smokes. Aurin wasn't sure he believed in a contact high, but perhaps there was an element of empathy when narcotics brought down a soul's natural resistances. He didn't know this to be fact, but he thought it likely, the way one could catch a mood from someone else.

After a moment's consideration of the young man before him, Aurin nodded with his lop-sided grin, and led him with that hand on his shoulder to a nearby table. It was low and cradled by a crescent-shaped couch, also too low for someone's home, most like. The fixer sat first, his hand sliding down to grasp Torin by the wrist and tug him down to sit as well. He wanted the smith's apprentice to feel like he was free to flee should the need arise rather than crowd him in and make him feel claustrophobic. Aurin didn't know what the lad feared yet. And people reacted differently to the different sorts of smoke. What he had in mind was mild and negative reactions were rare, but if it gave him a touch of paranoia, Aurin would stay with him. Madame didn't want them scaring customers away, but making lifelong clients of them.

He pulled a small square of folded wax paper out from somewhere upon his person and began to deftly pack the hookah's bowl, explaining what he was doing as he did it so the lad would feel some sense of control over the situation. Knowledge was power, after all. The table and the hookah were in pristine condition; workers would make quick work of tables after clients left, and the paraphernalia were kept quite clean, especially after Aurin had reminded the Madame how sharing such things could spread illness. But as for Torin and Aurin, they would just be taking their chances with each other's health.

"This is a powdered mushroom that grows in the Warrens and some other caves around the city," he said, voice a bit sonorous, fitting the occasion. "It needn't be habit-forming. At least, your body won't grow to crave it, though your mind might grow to crave the feeling it gives... but that is much the same with alcohol, which can trick the body into actual dependency." He placed the charcoal carefully over the bowl and let his finger trace down the apparatus. "You will pull the smoke through the water and the vapor will make it easier to breathe than pure smoke. It isn't good for you, but a bit once in a while won't hurt you."

Taking up the hose, he brought the metal mouthpiece to his lips when it seemed to have had enough time to prepare. He took a long, slow draw, watching it all through the glass parts of the apparatus, and then holding the smoke and vapor in his lungs as he turned his lambent gaze upon his new protégé. After a time, he let the smoke escape, and it snaked up about his features as he continued to speak.

"Mostly, it puts one at ease, physically and emotionally. As with alcohol, it reduces inhibitions, so you will be more inclined to... let yourself be. Sometimes, the world might sparkle a bit but it doesn't truly cause hallucinations. But you might see things from a new perspective, smell things from a new perspective, or taste things from a new perspective." He offered the mouthpiece as he sprawled back into the couch, his long legs splayed around the central leg of the table, his arm along the back of the couch behind Torin.

"Try a little? There's no rush."