Sylver Seeker

Frankly speaking, Marshal had died an hour ago.

When that collar touched Sylver’s skin, he was a dead man walking from that moment on. Not in the way Sylver was, but in the normal dead kind of way.

Maybe if Sylver had been in a better mood, there might have possibly been an infinitesimally microscopic amount of wiggle room for Marshal to offer Sylver something that would be worth sparing his life.

But Sylver wasn’t in a good mood.

His fever came back, his arm hurt like a bitch, his ass was numb from sitting on such a poorly designed chair, and he found that one of his back teeth was missing. Sylver didn’t even know when he lost it, but his bottom back left tooth was just gone.

He probably swallowed it and hadn’t realized, so there was that to look forward to.

Sylver wasn’t sitting around thinking about how he could use Marshal and his connections to his advantage, he was just resting his eyes while he waited for Spring to finish delivering the letters.

The barrier around Arda protected it from most things, with some very minor exceptions. Sadly, shades didn’t fall into that small category. There was a very minor magic suppression effect in the room, but it wasn’t enough to interfere with the magic Sylver was using to hold his hand in one piece.

All it did was irritate him.

But the funny thing is that Sylver was inside Arda right now, inside the impassable barrier. So all the splitting up Spring’s had to do was simply move through the barely visible cracks in the walls, and they could go wherever they wanted. One letter was sent to Lola, or Tamay if she was sleeping, another was sent to Shawn, to give to Sophia, because Spring couldn’t get close enough to the temple of Ra to pass along the letter without getting destroyed.

Marshal returned from whatever he was doing about a minute after Spring #4 returned to inform Sylver Tamay would be coming to his house in a few minutes.

Marshal dropped several dark brown folders on the table, and they fell over and spilled the contents out on the table. Sylver looked down at them while Marshal sat down and made himself comfortable and saw pictures of a man wearing a polka dot bandana in one folder, and the Left Tooth members currently in his house poking out from the other folder.

“When I was 12 years old, my father was found dead in his office with his left wrist split open,” Marshal said, as he sat down.

Sylver sat up straight and made eye contact with Marshal.

“But here’s the funny thing. My father wasn’t right-”

“Can we skip the backstory and you just tell me what you want?” Sylver interrupted, and suppressed a smile as he saw Marshal’s confidence waver.

“At the time of his death, he was investigating-”

“I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve had a very long and very hard week, and I promise you I’m nowhere near as empathetic as you imagine me to be. What do you want, and what do I get for it?” Sylver asked. Shawn had just finished giving one of the temple of Ra’s guards Sylver’s letter, so they had maybe 10 minutes left.

“What do you get? Not rotting in a labor camp for the rest of your miserable life. Although it isn’t going to be a very long life,” Marshal said, with a shrug of his shoulder towards Sylver’s left hand.

“How are your guards doing? Anyone raped or eaten alive? The girl that brought me here looked new,” Sylver said, as Marshal once again strained to keep the smile on his face.

“Some guards were being lent to us by a nearby lord but with the war with the Krists escalating, he asked for them back. Admittedly we did all feel a bit stupid after you left and a week passed without any of your predictions coming true, but the same trick won’t work twice.” Marshal warned, with a very demeaning wag of the finger.

He placed his hand on the knocked-over folders and they spread out on the small table between them into neat and readable piles.

“I think it would be wise if you kept your mouth shut until I finish showing you how big of a stick I have,” Marshal warned, clearly enjoying the words.

“Do you often show undressed men your stick, or are you-”

Marshal slammed his hand on the table so hard that if it weren’t bolted to the floor it would have jumped. Instead, all the pictures and notes on the table flew into the air, before almost miraculously floating back down into their proper places.

“-or are you just that unpopular that you have to threaten them into looking at your stick?” Sylver finished after the last picture finished falling. Marshal still had the same smile as when he walked in here, but there was a faint crack forming in it.

“You know I can just stand up and leave, right? Then a guard will walk in here and force-feed you lead shavings, and then you’ll be put in a labor camp while your buddies up top try to convince me to let you go. I like to say I’ve got an eye for people, and a mage without his magic won’t last a month in there,” Marshal explained, while he pretended to casually look over his nails.

“You’d be surprised at what a mage without magic is capable of. Magic just makes things easier,” Sylver said, as he focused on his forearms for a moment and made 4 daggers appear near his feet.

They were still covered in [Coat Of Carrion] and floated an inch or so from the floor. With how close they were to him, and how little they weighed, they moved almost faster than Sylver’s eyes could follow.

The daggers appeared around Marshal’s face, forming a square around it like a frame, with the blunt side of the blades.

“For example, I could snap my fingers and your neck would get snapped so quickly that you wouldn’t even hear it,” Sylver offered, holding up his functional right hand up so Marshal could see it.

“Are you finished?” Marshal asked, with a tone so unafraid and causal that it almost threw Sylver off.

“I don’t know. Are you going to cut to the chase or are we just going to sit around talking?” Sylver asked as the daggers pressed slightly harder against Marshal’s face. The one on his left cheek pressed a little too hard and the tip of the blade drew blood.

Marshal swatted away the daggers in the way a person might swat away flies, as all four of them flew back down towards the floor and disappeared again.

“You would snap my neck, wouldn’t you? I humiliated you, so you think you have every right in the world to administer your own personal brand of justice,” Marshal said, while Sylver was busy moving the dagger with the bead of blood on it up from his shin to his skull.

“I quite honestly don’t think about things in those terms. Look... Would I be so brazen and arrogant if I didn’t have a whole deck of cards up my sleeve? What do you want from me? I am a lot more receptive to carrots than I am to sticks,” Sylver explained.

For a split second, he genuinely considered making a deck of cards appear in his hand before he decided he’s already been far too dramatic for his liking as is.

Marshal leaned back in his chair and gave Sylver a very long and very hard look. Sylver could tell by his soul he had been thrown off balance, this friendly chat hadn’t gone anywhere near the way he had planned it.

“… I was hoping you would do the right thing and give me the names of high-ranking Cord members so that I might lock them away and bring them to justice,” Marshal offered. Sylver wanted to laugh in his face, but instead slowly turned his face from neutral to concerned and afraid.

“The Cord?” Sylver asked, with his shoulders tensed up along with all the other muscles in his body. He could tell by his soul anyway, but the way Marshal slightly leaned towards him was a dead giveaway.

“I had you figured too smart of a man to try playing dumb,” Marsha said.

“Hypothetically speaking… And I do mean hypothetically, but why would I do that? What could you offer me that would offset them hypothetically, I don’t know, killing me the second they realize what I’ve done?” Sylver asked as he slightly regained his confidence to offset the worry on his face.

“Not going to a labor camp right this very mother fucking second?” Marshal asked as he leaned even more towards Sylver.

“Other than that.”

“No, it’s either names or digging for lead for however long it takes for enough to build up in your system to kill you,” Marshal said, as he snapped his fingers and made the folders pack up, with the exception of several photos of Sylver’s supposed victims.

“And what if I say I don’t have any names?” Sylver asked.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re already undressed and unarmed. Although you’ll be searched a lot more thoroughly to figure out wherever it is that you’re hiding those daggers. But don’t worry, Kart has very small and delicate hands, he’s good at finding things hidden in tight spaces,” Marshal explained, with an eyebrow raised in mock.

Spring very gently informed Sylver that Sophia was already outside and was currently in the process of arguing with the guards to let her, and her small army of priests, in.

“I’m going to take some time to think on it,” Sylver said. He leaned back in his chair and almost mimicked Marshal.

“Take all the time you need. But you’re not leaving this room until I have names. Or unless you’re on your way to a place no one in the last 50 years has escaped. I’m told the average life expectancy in Galen is 2 years, if you’re lucky,” Marshal explained, as Sophia stepped aside to allow someone else to talk to the guard.

With all the holy energy actively spreading out from the small group, Spring couldn’t see anything clearly, he was watching from a distance, and even then everything looked blurry.

“A migraine that never goes away. You’ll spend entire weeks constipated and with the worst stomach ache of your life. And that’s not even going into the memory loss and seizures. And if through some miracle you are able to get out, you’ll need to forget about having children,” Marshal continued, as Sylver stood up and brushed himself off.

“But don’t worry, because everyone you’ve so much as spoken to will be right next to you. Bleeding from the blisters on their hands, starving to death, losing their hearing, and you don’t even want to know what the people there will do to such a hot piece of ass as your elf friend. Women are usually sold off as slaves to pay off their debt, but I have a feeling that won’t be an option for miss Aeyri,” Marshal explained, as Sylver adjusted his loincloth and started to look around the room.

He walked towards the furthest corner while Marshal just looked at him.

“As much as it would pain me to do that to a pretty little thing like her,” Marshal finished as Sylver just shrugged his shoulders.

There was an odd couple of seconds while the priests couldn’t seem to find the room Sylver was being kept in. A pudgy priest that Sylver wasn’t certain if he’d seen before opened the door and nearly closed it before he saw Sylver almost nude in the corner wave towards him.

“What is the meaning of this! I-”

“By the authority granted by the treaty of red horns, this man is hereby under our jurisdiction and protection,” the pudgy priest almost screamed, as all the other priests meandering their way through the hallways began to move towards him.

“Demons?” Marshal asked in disbelief, temporarily stunned by fear, and then by anger. He looked at Sylver with such a strange smile that it was impossible to describe properly. Somewhere between about to burst out laughing, about to cry, and about to start screaming bloody murder.

“Do you have any idea what I’m going to do to you after the 33 days are over?” Marshal asked as Sylver shielded his face from the magic leaking out of the 10 plus priests attempting to force their way through the relatively small doorframe.

“Can everyone back up please!” Sylver asked, as the priests didn’t react for a second, and then struggled to all at once fit through the small doorframe.

Marshal walked up to Sylver and placed his hand on his shoulder, as he leaned down and whispered in his ear.

“I wouldn’t leave the city if I were you. And you better hope that cunt gets lucky and finds something,” Marshal whispered, as he removed his hand from Sylver’s naked shoulder and walked off to the side, and stood up straight and out of the way.

Sophia had to lower her head to walk through the doorway, but thankfully she already had all her suppressing jewelry on. She stared at Sylver’s torso for a while, and he could almost feel her gaze wander from one self-inflicted scar to the other.

Sylver’s surgery had gone well, but his body didn’t think so, and the condition his shoulders and arms were in were better left unsaid.

“We’re leaving,” Sophia said while staring directly at Marshal, who had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.

*

*

*

Sylver opened his chest and looked at the neatly laid out bones inside of it.

“There’s one missing,” Sylver said as he allowed the lid to close and looked up at the still grinning Marshal.

“Oh, dear. Wherever could it have gone?” Marshal asked, so engulfed in his joy that he didn’t seem even a little concerned about the possibility of the guards stealing one of Sylver’s belongings.

Sylver looked down at the chest again.

“Right, I gave one to your mother, I forgot all about that,” Sylver said without any change in his tone.

It did slightly sour Marshal’s grin though.

“My mother is dead,” Marshal said.

“I know. But you are aware I can raise the dead, right? In the eastern cemetery, plot number 117,013 right?” Sylver asked.

Marshal’s face went white as he practically tripped over his own feet to run off to check. Sylver waited until he was out of hearing range before he chuckled to himself and made the bone-filled chest float into the air and follow him out of the storage room and out into Arda.

Sophia was waiting outside but she looked as pale as Marshal had become, and as pale as Sylver normally was.

“This was both personal favors, and the one the temple owed you from before. If you leave before the smallest sun finishes rising, that would be for the best,” Sophia said, with so much grief in her voice that Sylver almost felt a physical pain in his chest.

“Why would I leave? Because of Marshal? I’ve got that under con-”

Spring caught the open palm aimed for Sylver’s face and stopped Sophia’s hand just short of making contact. It was still mostly dark, but there was enough light from the large sun rising for Sylver to see that her eyes were wet.

“Decades of planning! All ruined!” Sophia said in a shaking whisper, as she used the smallest drop of holy magic pointed towards Spring and made him break apart. She pulled her hand back and rubbed the area on her wrist that Spring had touched.

“First of all, don’t ever hit me. If you’re still upset about that thing with the-”

“Do you know what I just did? Do you know what’s going to happen to me at the summer solstice? I’m going to be lucky if they don’t decide to burn me until I’m nothing but fucking ash! The fucking red horn treaty is sacred!” Sophia said in much the same half a step away from crying tone.

“Sophia, I’m missing a hand, my organs are shutting down from the equivalent of blood poisoning, and I’ve now got to spend several hours putting together the thing I mentioned, with only one functional hand,” Sylver said.

Sophia seemed completely deaf to everything he had said, up until the last couple of words.

“Wait… The demon worshiper finding device is real?” Sophia asked, her tone completely devoid of emotion, despite the tears still running down her cheeks. Sylver flicked his hand and made a handkerchief appear in it.

“Of course. I explained it in the letter,” Sylver said as he held his hand out towards Sophia. She didn’t take the piece of cloth and instead used the back of her sleeve to wipe the tears out of her eyes. She turned her back towards Sylver while she fanned her face with her hands.

“Oh thank the red sun, I was so sure you lied to give yourself enough time to run away from Arda,” Sophia said, still with her back towards Sylver and still fanning her face. “But what are you going to do after the 33 days are up?”

“I’ll think of something, don’t worry about it,” Sylver explained, as Sophia finally turned around and looked at him.

“You know about his family, right? You can’t just do whatever you want to him, there will be consequences,” Sophia said, as Sylver put on the most reassuring smile that he had.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll think of something. I’ve got other cards up my sleeve other than just dark magic and violence,” Sylver said.

*

*

*

“Would you like some tea? Biscuits? Tera made ginger-flavored cakes, but they’re kind of hard to chew,” Diarla offered as Sylver followed her into the kitchen.

“Actually I would like to hire an assassin to kill Marshal, the investigator stationed at the southern wall. I’d like it to look like a suicide if that’s possible,” Sylver said, while Diarla, or Raba, put down her tray of confectionaries and turned around to stare at him.

She didn’t say a word for an entire minute.

“He’s a government employee, you couldn’t afford the amount it would cost,” Raba said. She apparently wasn’t that well aware of Sylver’s relationship with Lola.

“How much,” Sylver asked.

Raba blinked slowly about three times, each time appearing to have read something while her eyes were closed.

“2.88 million gold,” Raba said finally.

“Sure. I’ll make it an even 3 million if they’re willing to make the suicide as humiliating as possible. Oh, and I need it done within 2 weeks, but the sooner it happens the better. Is there an express option?” Sylver asked.

“You’re hiring an assassin, not ordering a cake… Humiliating how?” Raba asked.

“Oh, I don’t know… Hanging while nude with something large and phallic shoved up his rear end? Maybe hide some kind of deplorable pornography in his desk? I don’t really care, as long as he’s dead I’m satisfied,” Sylver said, while Raba giggled to herself.

“The Kotzwara special got it. But they require payment upfront,” Raba said.

“Not a problem. Do they want it in physical gold?”

“Are you insane? No, just transfer it to this account. The money from there will be split up and routed all over the place until it will end up where it needs to. Untraceable, considering you’re technically speaking buying shares of a company that doesn’t exist,” Raba said, as she scribbled down an account number and handed Sylver the scrap of paper.

“Alright, let me know if there’s anything else,” Sylver said as he got ready to leave but stopped when Raba started to talk.

“What exactly did he do to you? Why do you want him killed, I mean?” Raba asked.

Sylver grinned at her.

“He caught me on a really bad day. And threatened me. And as you know, I don’t react all that well to being threatened,” Sylver said.

“You know his family is going to make an issue out of this? And the connection to you is clear as day, they would have to be blind to miss it,” Raba offered.

“Good. They can make an issue out of it all they want, but the end result is always going to be the same. Someone tries fucking with the necromancer, and then almost magically they end up dead, while the necromancer goes on with his life completely unscathed. If they’re smart they’ll see the pattern and leave me the fuck alone,” Sylver explained, as he decided he did want a ginger cake and walked up to Raba to take one with him.

“And if they’re not?” Raba asked as she watched the cake disappear once Sylver touched it.

“Then I hope the assassin has a friends and family discount,” Sylver said as picked up a ginger cake and bit into it.

It was a little hard to chew. Tasted great though.

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