The Dragon's Eye

Hey guy, this is my new story. Hope you people like it. Didn't get an editor so any mistakes are solely my fault. Feel free to comment. I love hearing your views. Please vote if you think you like my story

-TDRay1612

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The Dragon's Eye

The time when the Great War between the Orcs and the humans were raging in the Desert of Ilahi, I was sitting at my desk minding my own business, the major thought on my mind being whether I'd be able to afford to eat after the day after tomorrow.

Food was the issue, and realizing it was already past the middle of the day and I hadn't had a customer in a week, and wondering how hungry I'd have to get before I'd be walking the streets looking for odd jobs and manual labor. Then someone knocked on the door. I put the half-drained flask I had been nursing in a drawer and said, "Come in."

A woman entered my office. Tall and slender, much like whipcord lean. Her hair was green as her eyes, and flowed back passed her pointed ears. Her skin was the brown of healthy bark. Her face was marked high-cheek-boned face. Her green skin tone matched the patterns on her tunic and britches. Now I know most of you would have guessed it by now - she was an elf.

Now you may be asking how was an Elf coming into a city and asking help, that too from a 'human'. Well Elves are no more the nomads who only live in forest and rarely congregate with humans. A lot has changed since the last three centuries. Elves started living with humans since the Ancient War ended. Yeah you are right again - it was between Orcs and humans aswel. Due to the increasing threat of being run over by the Orcs, the humans requested the help of the elf's who in those days preferred living in the forest, incognito. I don't know how but the humans were able to form some sort of alliance and with their help stopped the Orcs and reinstated peace in the lands. After the war ended, many Elves started coming out from their isolation from the jungle and started to live with the humans. The humans were, by that time, used to seeing the Elves, as most of them fought with them side by side. So their reintroduction in their day to day lives was , let's say... went about without much resistance. Small conflicts between humans and Elves would pop up now and then but as years rolled by, the conflicts decreased. Now three hundred years since the Ancient war, most folks don't give a shit what you are - human or Elf, as long as you have enough money and not cause any problem with the authorities.

Now back to what I was saying. This elf woman came to my humble abode which served as both my office and home with a request "My husband has been kidnapped,"

Her husband had a large warehouse on the docks and a fleet of barges on the river. He hadn't come home the previous night. According to her, he had always come home before nine but did not come home on that night. A note had appeared under the door in the morning.

She passed it over to me.

Payment of 20,000 gold sheatles will cause the return of Fredrick Shumack. He is not hurt, yet search will cause death. More instructions will forth come.

The Dark Raven

"Huh," I said. The style was stilted, making me think of someone who was trying to sound educated without the benefit of actually having an education. On the other hand, the words were spelled right and the penmanship was neat. Still, I didn't have to look too closely to find the major unusual detail. The medium was a sheet of glistering iron, and the words had apparently been etched into it with fire.

"Do you have any idea who this Dark Raven is?" I asked.

"Certainly not, of course not," she said. "That is your job, isn't it?"

I made a noncommittal sort of hmm sound and let her start talking again. She had gone to the Palanchins, our very own police department. With the current political situation and the war going on, they weren't about to investigate anything, unless the order came as a command from the Guardians. So she'd gone to the Guardians. The Guardians were having too much fun enforcing martial law to worry about another kidnapping. The only kidnappings they were interested in were the ones they were doing themselves. I hoped for Shumack sake they weren't the ones who had picked him up. I wasn't about to fight the Guardians for him, even if she paid me a lot, and I didn't think anyone else would be prepared to either.

"Will you find him?" she asked.

"I'll do my best," I said, "under the circumstances. That's my job."

She made an unhappy face at me. Sometimes that was a good tactic - I'm a man, and like any 'good' man I'll turn gooey under the right circumstances - but it wasn't going to work on me this time. I already didn't like her. Yeah, even if she a pretty hot to look at.

"If I pay you good money and give you my trust," she said, "I would expect that you would at least be willing to guarantee -"

I had been leaning back in my chair. Now I let the chair fall forward so the two front legs hit the beam floor with a sharp 'thud', and pointed a finger at her for further emphasis. "Look, lady," I said. "Rantio Ovaran is a big city. There must be at least seventy thousand people living here. Any day of the week a bunch of them disappear and never get found. Now we're sitting with a dead Monarch, whose sons probably knocked him off is in charge, and mercenaries are running around the streets giving orders to the rest of the normal Guardians. You think the mess out there doesn't make the usual mess worse? Well, it does, lady, a lot worse. People are getting rounded up, people are getting executed, and people are getting kicked into the gallows for just being in the wrong place. Not criminals, not only political folks, just ordinary people like you and me, you understand that? In this kind of situation, a lot of old grudges find themselves getting settled, a lot of nastiness pops up. It's rough out there."

"But," she said, still pouting, "but what should I do, then?"

"If you hire me, I'll find your husband if he's findable. Are you hiring me?"

"Yes, yes, of course I am, even if -"

"Then get ready to pay this Raven person."

"But 20,000 sheatles! How could I -"

"I'll get you the money back if I can."

"But can't you bargain with -"

"You might reflect," I said, "on the fact that money can generally take more wear and tear than husbands can."

That shut her up. I asked questions, but none of the answers were helpful. She didn't know of any peeved employees. The list of business enemies was short; she said her husband had a reputation as a straight dealer. They had no children.

"Who gets everything if he dies?" I said.

"Why, I'm not sure. I really don't know."

I had yelled down for a envoy earlier, after the scent of work had floated in with her, and the messenger now returned with Gazi. Gazi was in more-or-less the same line of work as me, whatever that was, and we used each other as backup man when things were happening. He was glad to have something to do that might pay, at least as glad as me. As the wife was leaving in Gazi's custody she paused and looked back.

"Will you find him?" she repeated.

"Yeah, I'll find him," I said. I strapped on my sword and headed for the man's warehouse.

__________________________________________

SHUMACK CARGO was a hulking three storied building with heavy timber walls attached to its own jetty. The manager was a hulking man named Tamazin Azur. He wasn't attached to a jetty, but one finger was brandishing a ring with a stone the size of a fist.

"Me, I his quartermaster on the first ship Shumack ever sailed," Azur said expansively around a cylinder that looked like a cigar but smelled a lot more like a swamp after a range fire.

Tobacco leaves were one of the things Shumack imported, shipped up the river from the south. "First quartermaster, aye, and crew too. The two of us, like brothers." He waved at the humidor on his desk, offered me cigar. I shook my head. He shrugged and took a massive pull on his own, a line of solid ash advancing toward his mouth.

"Shumack and me, we go way back."

"What about his wife?" I said.

"What do you mean," he said slowly, "about his wife?"

"His wife. How long does she go back?"

Azur leaned back in his chair and squinted up through the smoke. "Mind you now, I don't really know her, but she's been around now for, oh, five years, six. Why are you interested?"

"Just asking questions," I said. "Part of the job. Nice ring" I asked pointing at the fist sized right.

Smiling Azur replied "Got it from my dead wife. Been ten years but cant remove it. Too sentimenral"

I nodded.

I poked around, checking in with the workmen. From all accounts, Fredrick Shumack was indeed that rare thing, a rich boss well liked by his employees. Another relevant fact also came to light: Shumack walked home daily, along the same route.

I left the warehouse, crossed the street, and entered the dive on the other side; step out on any street around the jetty and there was bound to be a bar within arm's reach.

Just to my prediction, a bar named- The Boar Whore was located just a clicks from the warehouse. The place was old - probably older than any standing structure on the docks. The panorama inside the - Boar Whore was just as same as any other bar in Rantio Ovaran - old and dirty.

When my drink came I laid a pence next to it. "The Shumack place," I said.

"Yeah?" said the bartender.

"Anybody seem interested in it?" I spun another pence in the air.

The bartender licked his lip and thought, and then shook his head sadly, eying the pence on the counter. I pushed it toward him. "Let me know," I said, and told him how to find me.

I worked my way along. From the feel of the kidnap note this thing had been a job worked out in advance, not a bit of random work popped on the spur of the moment. The Dark Raven, whoever or whatever he was or they were, would have hung around getting a handle on Shumack's movements, and might even still be keeping an eye on things. Maybe somebody had noticed something. It wasn't a real good bet - the waterfront was always filled with transients and with the number of out-of-town fighters bolstering the Guardians - things were bound to be worse, but maybe one of the regulars had an eye open. If nothing else, the Dark Raven might hear I was asking questions and go after me. That would either help me solve the case quickly or make sure that I am in no shape to take another case again.

Coming out of the fourth bar I felt a bump and tug at my side. Attached to the touch was an arm. I grabbed it as the kid tried to twist away. He was somebody I knew.

"How's business, Assan?" I said.

Assan looked around at me and turned white. "It's you," he said.

I shook him up and down a few times. "Yeah, Assan, it's me," I said. "You're losing your touch. You're also turning into an idiot."

"I didn't know it was you," he said plaintively.

"Save it. Just as well you're here. Maybe you can do something for me."

A look of calculation appeared. I shook him again, then opened my hand and dropped him. The street was muddy. The streets were always muddy. "You didn't have to do that," he said.

"You didn't have to try to pick my purse, either. Fortunately for you, I generally take the long view." I showed him a pence out of Shumack's wife's advance.

Assan stopped trying to clean the mud from his torn rags which he wore. The coin interested him. Coins always interested him. Coins interest most of us. "Who cares about mud anyway?" he said. "What do you need?"

"The Dark Raven," I said.

"The who?"

"That's what I want to know. This Raven kidnapped a businessman."

"Shumack?" Assan said.

"Yeah," I said, "that's right. Tell me about it."

"You going to give me that?" he said, meaning the pence.

"You going to give me a reason to?"

He glanced around the street, then slipped around the corner of the bar into a narrow alley. The street had only been about three times the width of the alley, but except for us the alley was empty. "I know Shumack," Assan said in a low voice, "I know most of the guys down here. That's what I do, I keep an eye out." Assan was a spotter for one of the thief-gangs. "Shumack's a right guy, pays good, he's good to the workers, you know? Half the guys around want to work for him. Then a couple of weeks ago a lot of bad talk started. A ship of his was late, see, and all of a sudden there's talk like Shumack might have sold the crew to the slavers and pirates. That's how it started. Last I saw him was two days ago. He was walking home. He didn't look good. He looked real depressed. Now today he's missing, it's all around the street."

"Okay." I gave him the pence. He said he'd nose around for me and check in later.

He went back to the street, and I slipped out the other end of the alley.

I tried a few more bars without much more luck and ended up at the Gilian Whut.

Civil unrest or no, Salaza was there, at his usual table in the back. I handed him the kidnap note Shumack's wife had given me. Salaza screwed a lens into one eye, Paniazama glass in bone housing, and scrutinized the engraving, rubbing the iron plate between two fingers. Then he tapped the plate with a fingernail and swiveled the lens up at me. "It's worthless, of course, excepting perhaps only the metal itself."

Salaza being the best fence in Rantio Ovaran, his comment meant he could move the thing for a profit and was willing to bargain, but selling it was not what I had in mind at the moment. I told him so.

"Ah," Salaza said. "Well. This engraving is not professional work." He rested a finger across the inscribed wards and closed his eyes. The letters around his finger swam briefly. He brought the plate up to his face and sniffed. "A fireneedle. Definitely a fireneedle."

The tapster was passing with a tray of foaming mugs, and I snagged a full one for Salaza. He handed me back the ransom note. "I know of Fredrick Shumack, and I consider him a good man," Salaza said. "I also note the line of this letter that reads - Search will cause death! "

"I figure they're talking about search by sorcery," I said. If an anti-search spell had been set up around Shumack, any finder probe keyed to him would set up feedback in the protector field, feedback that might be enough to fry Shumack. Whether the Dark Raven had the facility or the money to get a spell like that was another matter. I thought it was a bluff. Even if it was a bluff and sorceries search might find Shumack, hiring a magician to run a decent search would cost a lot more than my own time. If it wasn't a bluff, and the magician wasn't good enough to avoid or neutralize the no-search field, that would be it for Shumack.

Of course, I wouldn't hire a magician. I wouldn't even go near magic unless it grabbed me by the rear and throw me into it. Magic is more trouble than it's worth. It messes up everybody's life. It had messed up my own life enough in the past to give me more of an education than I'd ever wanted. No, all this case needed was legwork, and legwork I know.

Salaza said, "What if they don't care what kind of search it is, and the Raven people spot you looking for him?"

"Give me a little credit," I said. "This is my job, and I know what I'm doing. I know how to be careful."

Salaza looked doubtful. A chair scraped next to us, and a gust of alcohol announced the arrival of Malazar the Hairless. The name went back to the time when the balloon of gas, Malazar had been using to blow open the strongbox aboard a ship had blown up in his face instead. His hair had grown back around the flash-burn scars, but a name stuck. "The words out you're looking for a snatcher," Malazar said.

"Sure," I said, "why not? Have you got one?"

"Who knows?" Malazar said. "This town's so crowded this week, you can't keep anybody straight."

I tossed him a pence. Fortunately for me, Shumack's wife was paying expenses.

Malazar flagged the barmaid. The barmaid brought him a bottle, which Malazar upended, wiping green froth off his mustache. He burped, and said, "Okay, now," leaning forward on one elbow. "A guy hears lots of things. You don't always know what to think, you know what I mean? This guy Shumack, one day you hear one thing, and then you hear something else. One day everybody wants to work for him, the next day you hear he's selling his crews."

Salaza, whose attention had apparently wandered off to another part of the room, looked back at Malazar. "Selling?"

"Yeah, selling," Malazar said, "I mean like with pirates and slavers. All these years he's shipping grain, oats, like, and then all of a sudden they say there's always been loot underneath. Treasure, I mean, gold, jewels, real loot. Buried under the oats, all these years. I mean, I've got nothing against oats; I've got to eat too, but oats isn't the same as loot."

"That's an interesting story, Malazar," I said. "Now work the Dark Raven into it."

"You out of your mind?" Malazar said. "What's that?"

"That's what I'd like to know. You find it out and it's worth money."

"How's about a, whatta you call it, a retainer?"

"I'll pay," I said, "when I have something to pay for. Don't push your luck. You hear plenty of stuff, Malazar, and that's good. Find out who started this talk about Shumack."

Malazar scowled and drained the bottle. I had been keeping an eye on the rest of the room, watching for someone else, and now he came in, heading straight for a small table in the back of the place in a corner mostly in shadow. I rose and went over. A steaming chicken soup was already present on the table, and the guy was digging into it by the time I crossed the room.

I pulled up a chair across from him. "I want to talk to your boss," I said.

He didn't bother to look up; I was sure he'd spotted me on my way over.

He didn't miss much, that's why he had the job he had. "Are you on a case," the man said, swallowing a mouthful off his spoon, "or you just looking for some action?"

"It's a case."

He grunted, pulled a piece of small bone out of the chicken soup, squinted at it, and threw it over his shoulder where it stuck to the wall. "We may have a job, too. Interested in some honest work for a change?" The guy laughed a coarse harsh laugh.

"Depends on the work," I said.

"Sure it does," he said. "Somebody'll come by your place."

"Right," I said.

The table I'd shared with Malazar and Salaza was empty, so I headed for the door. I was almost there when it crashed open behind a pair of lances and a rabble of tough-looking men wearing the freshly printed armbands of the Centurions.

"All right, you goons," the corporal shouted as he raised a truncheon, "this place is closed! Move out to the street and - ""

The place erupted. I ducked as a small table flew over my shoulder directly toward the corporal, plunged my fist into an eye, shook my left leg loose from a set of sharp teeth, and as I shoved a hand with a knife out of my way something crashed into my back and knocked me to the floor next to the wall. Sticking close by the wall, I dodged and crawled forward and climbed through a broken shutter onto the street. A knot of fighting guys spilled through the door to my left, the three Centurion mercenaries watching the front of the building turned to deal with them, and I limped away from the bar down the street and around the first corner.

A regular sighting if you live in Rantio Ovaran. The Centurions formed the so called 'elite' law enforces of the so called 'Sun God'. Every now and then they would hustle into one such shit hole taking anyone they can find and throw them behind bars. It was their way of keeping the cities clean of such 'hooligans'.

My back was throbbing, but I figured that was part of the job; maybe I'd hook Shumack's wife for some extra expense money when I hit her with the final bill. I rinsed my face in a trough and walked away from the jetty into the city.