Solo the Forivec Coup, i: a sword.

[Caelum]

BATTLE, n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue. - Ambrose Pierce. the Forivec Coup, i: a sword. Timestamp: 01 Summer 514 AV There wasn't a hope in Hai for Decath Rhodes. Not since the day his mother sold him to a ship’s captain had anyone found him to be worth much anything. It had been a thrifty fall in Sunberth, the cold settling in early and a good fifth of Tent City rendered to flapping ashes by the luckless ambition of a gangster firebug. They breathed ashes for a week and ever since Decath couldn’t shake his distaste for reimancy. The latest in a line of lovers had disappeared with half his mother’s ill-gotten gains and the last laugh line she would ever make, all but killing his little family in lay-a-way for winter. Captain Bruin had a wide, white smile and ready mizas for anyone willing to trade him child flesh, especially the kind that would go unasked after. There weren’t actually that many motherless street rats skittering around, at least not many of the kind anyone would want to buy and therefore Bruin would want to sell. Decath was a good head taller than the rest of his siblings and toeing up to a growth spurt that had him complaining for hunger near all the time. His skin was dark and clear, his eyes bright and shrewd. It took sixty gold mizas and half a slab of ham and Decath was aboard the Crack of Noon for the next dozen years of his life. He lost his freedom but he lived to see it taken. Three of his four siblings he later learned starved to death that year. At thirty-two years old Decath decided that was a near even trade. The world had never gotten any kinder, though. It had been a few years since he had last gone hungry, but it was only a matter of hours since he had wanted more. What that more was exactly he couldn’t quite name. It was little more than a skipping stone bouncing about his brain whenever he spent too long down in the tunnels of Rattling Chains, the ghosts of Forivec's dead miners more welcome company than those of Haev Provedan’s dead slaves. There wasn’t anything Provedan didn’t feel Decath owed him, from the soles of his new boots to the blood in his veins. They were no relation, he and Riverfall’s head slaver. Provedan just had the power to take his blood whensoever he wanted, so the fact that it was still in Decath’s possession made it, in his employer’s mind, akin to a gift. On the night that spring collapsed beneath the heat of summer and Caelum walked into the Kulkukan Tavern and Inn, Decath was worrying over that very gift. He half feared Provedan had in mind to take it back did he not return with the demanded gold. He could have hauled himself up from the table and stepped out to find a buyer, but he didn’t. The problem, of course, was that Decath Rhodes had finally grown weary with pieces of him being owned by others. He wasn’t properly a free man if Provedan could flog him, was he? He wasn’t nine and half their size anymore either. He didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew he didn’t want what he had. He wanted more, and more came in with half crooked smile. “Decath, isn’t it?” Caelum asked, stopping by the slaver’s corner table. “Can I sit down?”

[Caelum]

For the span of a bell, Caelum had watched the slaver. He slumped at a table, hand wrapped loosely about a glass of Riverfall’s famous wine. The bottle sat before him and he had traded fifteen gold mizas for it, ten for the bottle and five to tempt Chell’s smile into a kinder consideration. “Decath Rhodes,” the Kulkukan’s waitress told him while leaning the curve of her hip against his table. She set a pair of empty pint glasses down and glanced toward the dark skinned slaver who brooded in a corner. “Comes in every ten days or so, always well after night fall. I always know when he’s flush ‘cause that’s when he orders a bottle of the good wine. He’s a taste for it.” Caelum assessed the slaver as Chell spoke, only a fraction of his attention on her fingers which were smoothing wrinkles free of his tunic. The shirt was too big for him, but come the dawn it would be perfectly tailored to the broader shoulders and greater height of his ethaefal skin. If he minded Chell’s attention, it was impossible to tell by his easy smile and relaxed posture. He didn’t really. She had a good heart and hair the color of candle flame; and, truth told, at least she wasn’t a stranger. “The hems of his pants are stiff and sprinkled with sand,” he remarked in a mellow voice, his regard traveling slowly across Decath from their distance. “The wind’s been at his hair and he’s sagging. Not –“ Caelum narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, considering. “Not with exhaustion, but with dejection. Or something like it. He’s been on the shore, meeting up with a shipment of the ilk that nobody wants to see at the port. Provedan’s shipments.” “You’re good,” Chell hummed a little. “You didn’t mention that sword he’s got wrapped up and stowed against the wall behind him though.” She smoothed a dark braid from his brow. Caelum looked at her, and his mouth curved up on one side. “Too obvious. I didn’t want to insult you, Chell.” The waitress laughed quietly and a gentle bump of her desires went through him with it. “You could come to Alements some time when you’re off. I’ll stand you a drink for the industry and we can talk about secrets and their prices, how to find them and handle them.” “Keep them?” She raised an eyebrow. “I hear you do that too, Caelum.” “Keep them too,” he agreed. His smile climbed right up into his eyes. She sighed and tucked that loose braid back behind his ear before rising. “He’s fourth in command, not third like you guessed. Second’s a woman called Caracatas, third I don’t rightly know. As for that sword, well.” The line of her mouth tightened. “I don’t know why he’s hauling that one around, but word is he knows how to use the one on his hip just fine.” Caelum stuck his tongue into his cheek and bobbed his head in a nod. After a moment his boots tumbled off the seat of the adjacent chair and right to the floor so he could stand, gathering up his wine bottle and glass as he went. Chell watched this and the shook her head a little, smile amused. “I’ll bring you a second glass. Have a care, friend.” She hesitated. “He’s kept by Provedan as much as anyone.” “You keep mine, I’ll keep yours,” Caelum returned, catching her eye. She kicked his chair back under the table and gave an agreeable roll of her eyes. Before heading for the bar, she took a moment to watch him go, weaving through the tables on a loose hipped stride to come to a halt before Decath Rhodes. “Decath, isn’t it?” Caelum asked, stopping by the slaver’s corner table. “Can I sit down?” “You’re the physician who butchered our Anya, ain’t you?” Decath rocked his chair onto its back legs and looked Caelum up and down. He braided his arms over his chest, loose and thoughtful. The last time Decath had spoken with the healer was at the end of autumn when Provedan’s favorite slave swallowed a key. The head slaver had sent Decath in a fury to find someone who could perform what amounted to an autopsy, desperate to retrieve the key from the dead girl's corpse. Decath had found Caelum, and Caelum had turned out to be exactly what his boss was looking for -- dangerous, deft, and discreet. It had taken Decath quite off guard. "It was a butchering, wasn't it?" Caelum muttered. Decath blinked as he watched the smile fall of the man's face. "Still, I'd like to sit, to talk to you for a minute." He glanced over his shoulder at the bar and tilted his head. "Share a bottle with you?" Decath sighed. There was something reassuring in the healer's countenance and Decath felt himself easing. Slumping down in his chair, he kicked out the empty chair in wordless invitation. Caelum hauled it out further and dropped to a seat with an ignoble slouch. Chell arrived with a smile and that second glass, setting in down in front of Caelum before taking herself off again. Caelum handled the wine bottle the ease of long practice to pour first for his companion. “So what do you want?” Decath demanded. Caelum slid the wine glass toward him and met pale blue eyes. “Your sword.”

[Caelum]

Decath delivered him a flat, incredulous look and paused in lifting the wine glass to say, "I work for Provedan. Petch off." "Provedan owns you. There's a difference." Caelum remained close, rangy shoulders pitched forward and his hands folded about the thick base of the wine bottle. His glass remained where he had left it, two thirds done. "Ain't no slave, butcher." Decath grimaced and tossed a hand toward their fellow patrons. "You want a sword, hire the muscle." "The majority of muscle to be found in Riverfall are the Akalak," Caelum pointed out. "They suffer us in their city despite the fact that we aren't capable of bearing children because we are willing and able to help them defend it." He turned up his hand on the table between them, displaying the mark of his Kuvan status that identified him as a legal citizen of Riverfall. "You're saying most aren't interested in being hired by the likes of you." The slaver raised an eyebrow and the line of his mouth relaxed with amusement. Out of the two of them, Caelum was by far the more respectable, and Decath knew it. "Pretty much." Humor answered in Caelum's eyes as he met the slaver's stare, but it swiftly banked and a far more grave expression settled in. "And to be perfectly frank, Decath, they don't have what I'm after. You do." Decath's eyes were at once wary and interested. Caelum's mouth crooked with a self deprecating smile as he explained. "At the start of winter you found me without quite knowing what you were looking for. Now you have me, Decath, and it's coming time to make me useful." "You want Provedan." Decath was still and words were too, crouched careful as prey in case the glassbeak came by. He shifted forward and brought the scent of salt and stale sweat with him and also something cleaner and more scarred. Caelum recognized it instantly -- hope. "You've wanted him since you turned that rat chewed and flayed up little girl into your bar maid." "Her name's Elise," Caelum murmured mildly, eyes down as he traced a finger along the bottle's lable. "Elise," Decath ackknowledged with a jut of his chin, abbreviated but strong. "Decath. Decath Rhodes. I hear you're rich." "Rich enough." "And you broker information?" "I've heard that rumor myself." Caelum's smile came back, small but compelling. "So you want to buy what info I got on Provedan," the slaver concluded. Caelum sighed and finally shifted up, picking up the bottle to pour the last of it into Decath's glass. He set it aside, clearing the space between them, and met his eyes. "No," he explained patiently and he nodded to the long, cloth wrapped bundle propped against the wall behind Decath. "I want to buy your sword. Then I want you to teach me how to use it. And if in the course of this you decide there are other things I should know, then I will learn them eagerly." Decath frowned. It was not with confusion. It was with consideration and continued incredulity. "You want me to teach you how to fight? You're a healer." "I'm a healer," Caelum agreed, maybe just happy not to be called butcher again. "And I know how to fight. I want you to teach me how to fight with a sword." Decath snorted softly and leaned back, wrangling the wrapped wrapped from its lean against the wall and hefting it so that it lay across the arms of his chair. "This ain't mine. Mine's here." He patted the hilt of the sword at his hip. "This belonged to a man who thought he could draw it on Provedan at the pick up today." He looked over at Caelum slyly. "Sounds like it might be callin' your name." The healer ducked his head with an almost bashful smirk and downed the remains of his wine. "Bring it with you tomorrow for my lesson. Meet me a bell after sunrise on the north cliffs, just past the copse of sentinel pines. Bring some friends, if you like. There's a lot of things I could stand to learn." He made to stand, chair scraping back, and Decath's eyebrows drew together. "You haven't asked me what I want. What you're asking, it's going to be pricey, Caelum. At least five hundred." Caelum nodded a little and he pushed his chair in. "You want more than that. And more than gold too." "Maybe I do. You up for it?" Caelum's smile was a visible promise to Decath's eyes before he turned to walk away, hands sliding into his pockets. "Always. See you tomorrow."