Chương 204: Chapter 225: The Lure

The evening of that day, I put on a nice classic red-and-white gown, and let my hair down, and checked to make sure I was recognizable at a distance. Then, into a portal and out again. When it's just me I can make the trip very quick, enough that I barely lose my vision at all. I hung in the sky, with my portal hanging in the air near me, blazing its scouring white radiance into the sky. I hardened the air at my side into a tabletop and I started my brass coin spinning.

"When my enemies notice me here," I said to the coin. It spun, reassuring me. And then I did some people-watching. I was hanging a couple hundred feet in the air, not too far for someone to spot me if they were looking in the right direction, but too far for anyone to shout at me. And too far for anyone but an expert to hit me with a bow. From here I could watch the busiest districts of Farenod, the people going on about their day. It's a decent enough little city.

The best thing it has going for it is that it's not Byeview. One of the worst things about it is that it is very near to Byeview. But then that was a major part of my plan when I chose this city for my coordinated swindling of Kralcit's moneychangers. After a half-hour I got tired of the people-watching and I took a book from the void and started reading over it and taking notes. Now, I'm not claiming any magnificent foresight abilities for this venture.

My precognition is for game events, and I'm off the map this afternoon, doing my own thing. But I've got a good feeling about my process. Let me walk through the steps. Late on Sixthday, I did a lot of business in Farenod. On Seventhday morning, a lot of Kralcit's business associates in Farenod realized that they had been swindled by a sorceress.

After some time for confusion, meetings, recriminations and threats, someone obviously needs to send a message to the boss and let her know what's happened, since she's only a day away by a fast horse. So, they got someone on a fast horse and rode to Byeview. This messenger presumably delivered their message in a shaking voice with knocking knees, delivering bad news to gang leaders often does not go well. That would have been last night, probably late in the evening.

For some situations, the logical move here would be to send a delegation of heavily-armed soldiers, or sneaks, or securities investors to go deal with the problem. Or, even, to travel here on her own, since a boss should want to be personally involved in the clean up of a debacle like this. But, I reason, she's not going to do that because I already know how Kralcit responds to situations that involve an enemy sorcerer. She does abide by the well-known adage that the best counter for a sorcerer is another sorcerer.

I reason that if she did it before and it worked, she's likely to do it again. She is cautious, and cautious people like plans that have worked before. If she got the news last night, then she would not be able to send riders until this morning. The roads here are good and you can ride a horse in the dark from there to here. But not a fast horse. You'll break your neck riding in the dark at a hard gallop. And there's no roadside inn along that route, the cities are too close together.

So either she sent a slow rider who made camp on the side of the road and won't be arriving here until tomorrow morning, or she waited until the morning to send a fast rider that will get here after sunset tonight, or she did what I expect she would do: call up her pet sorcerers and send them to Farenod. A fast horse takes all day, a competent sorcerer takes about six hours.

Fudging up some numbers about how long that sorcerer would need to investigate the moneychangers, they would probably be here until late evening. Between the geography that I've been well-trained in, the timing that I control, and what I know about Kralcit from gameplay and personal experience, I am pretty sure I've got the system down. I've even got some extra insight into her personality because I have little social chats with her daughter a couple times a week.

So, Kralcit gets word that a sorceress is causing trouble at an inconvenient distance away, and she won't get answers for days if she sends riders. And it might be a distraction, so she can't afford to leave Byeview right now. So, since one good sorcerer deserves a bad one, she would send her mages to come find out what's going on, and/or murder the sorceress in charge. If the opportunity presents itself. Now all those sorcerers are here looking for a brown-haired well-tanned sorceress with sunglasses.

And any minute now, they're going to notice the white -haired, white -skinned sorceress that they already hate, hanging around in the same area. They may not understand the connection, but they ought to be suspicious of this coincidence. I should expect hostilities, and confusion. They will want answers and they'll be mad. And from personal experience, that's not a good frame of mind to make snap judgements or tactical assessments. I've made plenty of mistakes when I was confused and angry at the same time.

The coin slapped down with a clack. I put my book away, and put the brass coin into my pocket. Then the essence of the owl streamed into my mana channels, and all of my senses expanded. The owl has great nightvision, but hearing is where they excel. I waited, hovering. The enemy did not rise up in front of me to confront me to my face, they moved towards my back. There's nothing wrong with assuming it's the enemy because I asked the coin specifically about my enemies.

I could hear wind snapping at the fabrics of their clothes, because they did not use the air's own movement to still themselves. I move with the wind, everyone else moves through it. That's a very different sound. But I do use essence of air, and now I'm using it to build a firm wall around my position, a vast bubble to defend me. It's not particularly powerful, air does not make a good barrier. The essence opposes that. But it's enough that the enemy bumps into it and knows it's there.

From behind me: "What are you doing up here?" A woman's voice. It's a rude, challenging tone. Angry and confused. I had set the barrier out at the limit of my range, so I cannot feel anything outside of that range as well. My sorcerous senses do not extend farther than my sorcerous powers do, my outer range is my outer range. But the owl can tell a lot about a sorceress who came in upwind of me because she wanted to avoid my eyes. Even this far inland, she smells of the sea. Curious. Well, time to antagonize her.

"I'm polishing my boots," I called back sarcastically, without turning around.

"We don't get a lot of sorceresses in Farenod," said the other sorceress in Farenod.

"Really? After such a warm reception?" I jibed. I put away the owl. I ready the thunderbeast. I try not to use steel to armor myself anymore, and the thunderbeast's toughness is almost as good. And its predatory instincts are a lot more useful than steel's rigid adherence to habit. I snapped off the glaring portal beside me and turned slowly in the air. And I had been correct, I recognized her. Perfect. The woman was by herself.

She stood on a platform of rough lumpy stone, something pitted and textured in a way unlike my stone constructs. When I form stone it is prone to certain shapes and textures, quite unlike what she's got. Could be she's actually using a different essence than I thought. And she looks a few years older than last time than the last time I was face-to-face with her. Now, I've never seen her in strong lighting before, she is only ever firelit in my dreams.

But she is one of the three that ambushed me in Port Noit, years ago. She's older now, but she has not changed as much as I have. In fact, it could be argued she hasn't changed at all. [Level 11 Sorceress: Strength 10, Damage 10] Typically sorcerers' abilities don't change much after they first get their powers, and she is an example of that. Same stats as last time, she hasn't grown any in the past four years.

Last time, she and her friends chased me all up and down the docks, blasting apart my defenses, and I was lucky to escape with my life. Today, I can take her in a fair fight. And even if she'd gotten the drop on me, I've got enough HP to tank her best hit at least once. Things change, and sometimes they change in my favor. Of the three, she was the strongest, the two men were a good bit weaker than her. Six weeks ago, so was I.

"All alone?" I called out, glaring at her.

"You used to have friends."

"It is you," she snarled. Massive boulders appeared at her side, ready for her to fling at me. These were oddly-shaped and colored though, and-"Is that coral?" I asked her, staring.

"I thought you worked in stone." Surprising, really. Sorcery takes all kinds of forms. This is why she still smelled of the ocean, even so far from the ocean where I had first seen her. It totally was coral. And apparently, weirdly, she seemed to be defensive about that. I'm guessing there's some personal history that makes her angry. Her face flushed with a lot of anger, even faster than I had expected.

"Those boots look polished enough to me," she said, and hurled the giant masses of coral at me. They punched straight through the bubble of hardened air, and came at me with more than enough bludgeoning force enough to kill outright, and each block was far too wide to easily dodge. She flew in at me, already preparing her next round of attacks close-up. Murderous intent, hurling boulders like baseballs. The twelve-year-old she had almost killed would not have been able to deal with this.

Would have been lucky to escape with her life, even with the powers of the void to call on. But today? I was not interested in giving her a more fair fight than the three of them had given me. Void ate the two boulders, sucked them away to nothing. A third void collapsed Kralcit's toughest sorceress, crushing her to nothing. It was the work of moments only, over almost before it started. One-two-three, both her weapons and then herself were just gone.

When the voids released, two went off with shockwaves of air, the third sprayed a fine mist of blood all around. There was no coral in the detonations because it was all conjured, and it had vanished when she had died. The blood was all that remained of her, and it hovered in a sphere around us, coating invisible walls. The bubble was not to keep her from attacking me. It was so I would not spray her blood on the city below. I cared about a clean crime scene.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. This is the most premeditated killing I've made in years. Since I poisoned the crew of the Glorious Curmudgeon, certainly. Even my murders among the Meadwhites had not been this forethought. There's a difference between going in armed and looking for targets of opportunity, versus planning how to dispose of the evidence when you're done. Both premeditated homicide, but this was more cold-blooded. More deliberate.

I need to practice this, and get used to it. The liquefied corpse was collected and compressed back into a single mass, less than twenty gallons of homogenous slurry, now resting in one big round cup made of hardened air. The whole murder had taken seconds. Someone from the ground may have witnessed, if they were looking upwards against the sun at just the right time and had particularly good eyesight. I felt reasonably safe about it. Even still, I did not wait around for someone below to ask a lot of questions.

I flew out of there to find a pond to pour her remains into. Even a small pond dilutes blood enough that nobody would ever know. The local mosquito population might be a little more boisterous than usual, but that's all. No more evidence than that. Stealing a lot of her money in Farenod got her attention. Killing her top-notch anti-sorceress assassin was bound to keep her attention. My mission of distracting her from Kudder's Ironworks was going to be a huge success. Everything has multiple goals.

Revenge, for sure. And eliminating future threats, also. Getting rid of Kralcit has an additional benefit if I time it right, in that it will reduce competition for the smuggling industries in the western districts right when Pynut and his people are going to be making their strongest moves, so the smuggling ring I'm inheriting will be even richer and more powerful. And in turn, more capable of defending the railroads that will defend the nation against the Blind.

And by basing my iron-mongering out of Byeview, I can push the connection to industry directly, simplifying my rail routes. Stealing money from Kralcit restricts her opportunities to hunt me, restricts her ability to hamper the other smugglers, and puts money into my pockets and my plans. And if she's broke after she bankrolls the sigil-breakers for the Revolt, it will be easy for me to find her, kill her, and finally be done with her. And, in so doing, make her daughter even more dependent on my patronage.

With the right plan, everything works. Line up the dominos, wait for the right moment to push.