Chapter 27. Made Man

  “There!” Jeremiah slammed the gold coin on Monty’s desk.

  Monty raised one eyebrow. “Did you? You left my office all of,” he glanced at the hourglass, “two minutes ago, and in that time you managed to find a gold?”

  “Yup, that’s what happened. Just like you asked.” Jeremiah massaged a stitch in his side.

  “The point of the task was steal a gold to prove your worth as a second-story man.”

  “ He said what he said. Press him on that fact. ,” said Delilah.

  “Ah ah ah! You didn’t say that,” said Jeremiah. “‘Bring me one gold,’ that’s what you said. Here’s the gold. I get to join a cell.”

  Monty closed his eyes a let out a groaning sigh. “While I can only imagine where this came from,” he said, as though he knew exactly where it came from, “I said what I said. That’s on me.”

  Jeremiah held his breath.

  “You’re in. Congrats. I’ll add you to the register. And by the way,” Monty picked up the coin and closed it in his fist, “if it turns out you have no business being part of a cell, your exit will be far less expedient than your entrance.”

  Jeremiah exhaled. “Thank you, sir. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a fluke.”

  “We’ll see. I still know you’re lying about who you are.” Monty dropped the gold back onto the desk. It wobbled where it landed, the previously flat disc was now bent in the middle. “But if you can do a good job for the Stonefists, then I suppose it doesn’t much matter.”

  ***

  “You're Jay, right? Our new slip?” A woman found Jay where he had been hanging around in the Stonefists headquarters. She was a gnome, with wide eyes and a small nose, standing chest-high. A tight leather belt at her waist held two coils of thin rope and a scabbard for the rapier. She looked him over with a skeptical eye.

  “Yeah, that's me,” said Jeremiah. He was relieved—he’d missed dinner, and the company of those who’d been so recently hoping to collect a bounty on his head left something to be desired.

  “Sweet Melissa. Let's go,” she said.

  Jeremiah followed Sweet Melissa out of the headquarters and into the still-dark shamble of the Pit. “Gotta ask about the Sweet part,” he said.

  “No idea,” said Sweet Melissa, “was given to me when I wasn't around. They still won't tell me.”

  Jeremiah snorted, and to his surprise she flashed him a smile and laughed too. “Don't make fun,” she said, and gave him a friendly push. He realized that he was thoroughly touch starved and, as a result, he was instantly smitten with her.

  “It was just a funny answer,” said Jeremiah. “I wasn't making fun.”

  “You were gonna,” said Sweet Melissa. She gave him another playful smile.

  “So I’m staying with you? In a building?” Much as he was enjoying the playfulness, the possibility of a night indoors was even more enticing.

  “With me and the guys. We’re Cell four. Of course, if you’ve got something better lined up, by all means.”

  Jeremiah was shaking with excitement. This would change everything. He could sleep. He would feel like a person again. The night back home had only sharpened his desire for a roof and bed.

  Sweet Melissa brought him to a building that perched on the very edge of the Pit, a leaning mess that looked ready to topple down and crush everything beneath it in an avalanche of dilapidation. It was beautiful.

  She handed Jeremiah a key. “All you.”

  Jeremiah put the key in the lock and turned. With more effort than should be necessary, the deadbolt slid aside and the door jumped open.

  Sweet Melissa ushered him inside with a little bow. “Welcome home, Jay.”

  ?

  Sweet Melissa led him up some rickety stairs to a door, upon which she performed a rapid series of knocks. The room it opened to was small, to say the least, but it was moderately clean. Jeremiah was more than willing to overlook the tiny water stains beginning to form in the corners and some mysterious red tinge along some of the floorboards.

  Two half-orcs lounging on a couch looked Jeremiah up and down. “Well, you get what you get,” sighed one.

  “Don’t listen to him, we’re happy to have a new slip,” said the other. “I’m Shugga, this is Dronkal. We’re your knockarounds.”

  Jeremiah raised a hand in greeting. The half-orcs could have been twins. Both were tall and ropey with muscle, shaved heads, and wore matching leather armor. Their tusks were stubby, more like fangs than the tusks Jeremiah had seen on other half-orcs. Each wore a pair of identical metal-capped truncheons at their hips. Knockaround meant the muscle, responsible for intimidation, they certainly seemed suited to their role.

  “Jay here just skipped being a Subby,” said Sweet Melissa, draping herself over an armchair. “Impressed Monty enough to get promoted right up the chain, lucky us!”

  “Aw, I kinda miss the Subby days,” said Shugga. “They get to get their hands dirty. We mostly just give out orders,” he added for Jay’s benefit.

  “With a slip we can get back to some real profit work,” said Dronkal. “Last slip messed up and got himself a few years. We’ve mostly been collecting protections while we waited for a new one, bit of drug trade stuff, and we’ve got a couple teams mugging. But it’s been a while since we could do a big score. Couple of knockarounds and a call aren’t the best for the big jobs, you know?”

  A call was a killer, plain and simple. Sweet Melissa batted her eyelashes at Jay. “How do we get jobs?” Jeremiah asked.

  “Usually they come down from Monty,” said Dronkal. “You find a lead, you can run it up the chain and if he likes it, you’ll usually get it. Not always. But if you try to run a job without his say…”

  Smack. Shugga hit his open palm with his fist. “Boss don’t like that.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Jeremiah nodded. “Easy enough.” He stifled a yawn. The stress of the evening was starting to get to him.

  “Hey Melissa, why don’t you show Jay his room?” said Shugga.

  “I have a room?” It seemed too much to hope for.

  “Right up there,” Shugga said, pointing. “There’s also a kitchen, but you’re on your own there.”

  “Your door has a lock.” said Dronkal. “No one’s gonna bother you. I’ve been where you are right now.”

  “Huh?” said Jeremiah. Where was he exactly?

  “There’s stuff for a sandwich in the kitchen,” continued Dronkal. “You should go make yourself one and take it upstairs and lock the door. You’ll see what I mean.”

  Jeremiah didn’t need to be asked twice. Balancing a true feast of a sandwich, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d had this dream before. The room was unremarkable, barely more than a closet, but there was a bed in it, and a window. A window that let you look outside without actually being outside. In the corner was a basin of water and a cloth.

  Little motes of rain were just beginning to appear on the window glass. He closed the door like he had closed a thousand doors in his life, but this time when it clicked shut the silence of the room was everything. He was alone, truly alone. He threw the bolt, and the shabby room became a fortress. They couldn’t get him here. Anyone.

  He placed Gus beside him. Gus was safe and still and quiet. Total silence. There were no wild dogs, no lurking rats, no city guards.

  Jeremiah ate his sandwich slowly, very slowly. He savored every bite. Something was releasing in his body. As he finished his food, his eyelids began to grow heavy.

  Jeremiah stripped down and went to the basin. The water was warm, comfortably warm. There was a sliver of soap. Jeremiah washed, feeling like he was exposing skin that hadn’t touched air in a long time.

  The heavy eyes grew to lightheadedness. He staggered over to the bed and crawled under the sheets. The bed was as cheap as they come, a frame with a lattice of rope. It was perfect.

  “No one is going to get me,” thought Jeremiah as he lay his head down on an actual pillow. “I can sleep. No one is going to get me.”

  Jeremiah suddenly burst into wracking, silent sobs. They were over quickly. Sleep wasn’t the word for what Jeremiah fell into, it was catatonia.

  Jeremiah woke with a start, heart pounding, hands already forming the movements he needed to send an acid ball at…what exactly?

  The previous night returned to him piece by piece as his terror subsided. It was still here, the tiny room that was all his. The lock remained secure. Sunlight and bustling sounds from the nearby slums came from the tiny window.

  Jeremiah pushed himself up to sitting, and his hand landed on Flesh . He was unsurprised. He’d last seen the book sinking to the bottom of the canal tied to a rock, but it returned now sans rock or string. It wasn’t even damp.

  “I should practice some enchanting,” he told the book. He had food in his belly, a safe place, and nobody was demanding he go somewhere else. It was a perfect opportunity.

  Instead, he ran his fingers over the cover of Flesh . Books were meant to be read. He'd read a lot of books, and nothing bad had ever happened.

  “It would be irresponsible of me to not to learn more about the artifact,” he explained to Gus. “Flusoh made it for me as a gift, and it seems to have imprinted on me. I’m not going to be able to get rid of it anytime soon, so it would be unwise to ignore it.”

  “ Uh-huh ,” said Allison.

  He opened the front cover, resisting the urge to flip to the ivory page detailing the new spell. The first page of the book showed a single drawing of a nude, male human. The next page focused on dissected views of the human’s arm and shoulder bones, musculature, circulatory, and nervous systems. The detail was exquisite, drawn by the hand of a master artist. Perhaps Flusoh himself?

  The diagrams were engrossing, as were the margin notes reminding the reader of common anatomical variations or highlighting traits specific to humans compared to other races. He read for almost two hours before the book moved past just exploring the arm and shoulder and continued onto a section about the hand.

  The detail of the hand was so incredible Jeremiah felt like he could touch it. He did, and it moved.

  “Nope!” Jeremiah slammed the book shut.

  What had just happened? Hallucination? Trick of the light? Brain injury born of malnutrition and blunt force trauma?

  He slowly opened the book again. It fell open to the same page with the hand.

  “I am a mage,” he said out loud, “learned and brave and other positive things.”

  He jabbed the illustrated hand. It was like poking a page in any book. He wiped his fingers across the drawing, and the hand followed the movement. The ink of the illustration simply bled in the direction he dragged his fingers, not leaving a trace behind. It moved like a liquid pouring across the page.

  After the shock wore off, Jeremiah found the game delightful. He danced his fingers all over the page, and the drawing changed as he did so, the joints moving and the perspective rotating in response.

  “Gus, you have got to take a look at this!” He made a broad gesture to demonstrate the effect to his familiar, and the illustrated hand flew off the page entirely.

  Jeremiah’s jaw dropped. The inky hand, in all its detail, floated in midair. It was not just a flat drawing anymore, but a three-dimensional model, albeit one rendered in ink. As before, it responded to his movements, the fingers moving and rotating as he prodded it. He glanced down at the page it had come from, and saw ink bleeding through to reform the drawing. No shortage, then.

  Playing with the hand captivated Jeremiah for so long that Gus grew bored and took a nap. It was wondrous, one of the most miraculous things Jeremiah had ever seen, but something niggled at him.

  What was the point? Why go through the enormous effort this book must have taken just for an advanced anatomy lesson? He had to be missing something.

  Jeremiah flipped the book to a random page. It showed the section of the leg between knee and ankle of an orc.

  “Yeesss,” said Flusoh’s gleeful voice in his head. “Yeeeeeeessssss!”

  He pulled the piece of orc leg off the page and let it float beside the human hand. With a few quick touches, he maneuvered the hand over the end of the leg, where a foot ought to go, and connected the muscles together.

  The hand flopped around as Jeremiah flexed the orc calf. The leg-hand was complete.

  “Oh gods, that is creepy,” said Jeremiah. “This isn’t just a fancy reference book, then. It’s a way to experiment with building… things! ”

  “ Abominations ,” said Flusoh.

  Jeremiah remembered that Flusoh had mentioned teaching him about abominations when they’d last spoken, and it seemed that his teacher had created Flesh as a way to impart that knowledge in his stead. Most likely, the spell at the back was the key to assembling the amalgam creatures.

  “ Again, abominations ,” said Flusoh.

  “Well, I definitely don’t need to learn the spell,” said Jeremiah. “But I can play with the pictures. There’s no harm in that.”

  “ None at all! ” said Flusoh.