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Date Posted: 14:56:00 02/03/02 Sun
Author: Baeraad
Subject: Sira
In reply to: Baeraad 's message, "Chains of Love" on 14:52:46 02/03/02 Sun

Semerra was a very, very ugly city. It was actually so ugly that it had some sort of weird anti-beauty about it. There was something proud about the tacky overdecoration of the palaces and mansions at the outer fringes, where the really rich people lived; something powerful about the graceless bulk of the warehouses where the weapon manufacturers stored their goods, which was the only major Semerran export that was even vaguely legal; something strangely unbending about the rickety walls of the crumbling hovels in the city's center. Semerra was a place where people lived intensively. And died intensively, of course, but somehow, that was part of the charm. Except of course for those of its residents that were currently doing the intesive dying, but they would be gone in a moment anyway, so no one really cared what they thought.

Tianna had hated the city on sight. Sira had mixed feelings about it. She was not sure that she would like to live here, but she was glad that she had visited it.

Her methods of information retrieval were very effective here, at least. They consisted of scaring people out of their minds until one of them coughed up the information she wanted, and Semerrans responded well to fear. Fear governed most of their lives.

She tracked down Carn's home, a minor house with so many wards around it that it might as well have been screaming 'go away!' for everyone to hear, within two glasses. As the magician was not home, it took her an additional glass to find where he was, which was a tavern in the somewhat better side of town. Inwardly, Sira thanked him for being so considerate. She might not be able to go through her list, courtesy of Tianna, but she could at least get a drink or two before going on to finding Bavon.

The tavern was dark, smoky and crowded. The clientele was mixed; Sira could see both dirty men in ragged clothes, looking not much better off than beggars, and women in fine dresses, though not ones that would have been allowed in any finer company, not with that much skin showing. The people did not seem disturbed by being in the company of their social betters or inferiors; Semerrans rarely were.

Another thing they were apparently not disturbed by was knife fights on life and death; one was going on right now on the far side of the room. Everyone had moved away from the two combatants, and a few were watching them, but without much interest; it was entertainment of sorts, but hardly the best kind there was to be had. Just for one thing, the big, scarred man in the black-and-red uniform coat would doubtlessly prove to be the winner; the slimmer, more delicate-looking man was already bleeding from several shallow cuts on his chest and lower arms. Too bad, Sira thought; he was kind of cute.

She tapped a man in a leather vest on the shoulder.

"Yeah?" he grunted and turned around. Then he realized that the shoulder-tapper was a well-curved blonde, cleared his throat and repeated "Yes?" in a far more polite way. Sira grinned. Men were so funny sometimes.

"I'm looking for a guy named Carn," she said. "Is he around?"

The man pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.

"For about a hundred more heartbeats," he said. "Screwed with the wrong guy, it looks like."

The soldier was pressing his enemy � Carn? � towards a corner, moving in for the final kill.

"Thanks," Sira said and started running. She threw herself at the soldier's back and pushed him to the floor. He gave off an enraged roar that was quickly cut short as he got all the air beaten out of his lungs. Sira drew her own belt knife and pressed against his neck. The cold touch of sharp steel had the calming effect it usually had.

"Hey, gorgeous!" someone at the other end of the tavern shouted. "Aren't you going to come sit on me for a while too?" A few people laughed.

"Not unless you've got an appointment!" she shouted back. She noted with some satisfaction that more people laughed at her joke than at his. Of course, people who successfully tackled scarred veteran soldiers five inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than they often made onlookers feel that laughing at their jokes might be a good idea.

She looked up at Carn.

"You okay?"

"Cut his ugly throat and I will be!" the magician snarled.

Sira considered it. The closest thing Semerra had to a city guard was the Paladins that served under the local Cleric. If one of the people around here told them about a murder � which she assumed it had to be classified as � they might cause her some grief. But she was part of a Triangle, which made her more or less invincible to anything members of the church might do; they would hardly kill or imprison one third of humanity's greatest hope in the war against the vampires.

However, Tianna would yell at her until she got hoarse, and Sira would rather not put up with that. Tianna was good at yelling.

"Sorry, can't do that," she said, making a regretful face. "Tell you what, though. If you give me what I want, I'll break one of his legs before I go. That should give you a decent chance to get the job done."

The soldier gave off a shout of protest as Sira talked about breaking legs, but he did not move. He was clever enough to realize that a leg was better than a neck.

"Okay, sure," Carn said. "What do you want?"

"The spell to break Tabaal's power," she said. "I've been told you know it."

"I do," he said, with a slight grin of pride. "Can you sit on Bavon the Bloody Bastard for a moment, so I can write it down?"

"Sure," Sira said, smiling happily because things were going so easy. Then she realized that things never ever got this easy, and also in which way they would complicate themselves this time. "Hang on there. Did you say Bavon? As in Bavon of Lis?" She knocked the soldier on his greasy-haired head. "You're Bavon of Lis?"

"Yeah, that's me, you crazy fucking bitch!" Bavon bellowed. Sira slammed his head against the floor, not all that hard really, just hard enough for him to understand that those adjectives and that noun were not good words to use around her.

Still, this was a fine mess. Getting the spell would not do her much good if she got the only one who might tell them where to use it killed.

"Okay," she said. "Right. Er� Tell me where Tabaal is hiding or I'll cut your throat."

"You said you couldn't do that!" he growled.

"I've changed my mind."

"No you haven't! You just think that I'm some kind of wimp who you can scare an answer out of. Well, you can just go�"

"Ah?" Sira said, letting her hand tighten on his head.

"� and forget that!" Bavon said, without losing any of his momentum and almost nothing of his force. He seemed to be the kind of person who could get even perfectly innocent words to sound like profanities. Sira had always envied those people. "You want me to talk, you get the fuck off of me!"

"If I do, will you start over where you left off and kill Carn?" Sira asked. It was almost a rhetorical question.

"Just you come here and try!" Carn growled.

"What's it to you?" Bavon said, ignoring the magician.

"He's got a spell I need."

"Get it from him first," Bavon suggested. "Then get the Hell off of me."

"Good idea." She turned to Carn. "Can you give me the spell?"

"Sure," he said with a shrug, "but if you're not going to break his leg, what do I get out of it?"

Sira considered the question.

"I could pay for a decent burial," she suggested. "That's pretty much the only thing you'll need after I've let him get to you."

"I'm not afraid of him!" Carn growled.

"That's sensible of you," Sira said conversationally. "Personally, I've always said that you should make sure to die before you start getting wrinkles, and you've already got a few lines underneath your eyes." Carn blinked and felt on his face with his free left hand. "But, just so we're clear on this, you do realize that he'll kill you, right?"

"No, he won't!"

"Hah!" Bavon said.

"Much as I hate to agree with the Unwashed Wonder here, he's got a point," Sira said. "I mean, I'm sure you're great with spell-casting and stuff, but you stink like a three-weeks-old goat carcass with that knife!"

Carn gritted his teeth and looked at the knife in his hand. There was no blood on it. He had not gotten in a single hit.

"Okay, so you've got a point," he admitted. "I need one of his legs broken. That way I'll stand a chance."

Sira was aware that she had not exactly acted like the clever woman she felt sure that she was here. She could have gotten both spell and location and spent the rest of the night exploring what Semerra had to offer. But it just felt like it would be such a shame for a perfectly agreeable guy to be killed by a vampire's mercenary for something as stupid as male pride.

Besides, he was cute�

"If you break anything on me, I won't tell you where Tabaal is!" Bavon said. "Tell you what, though. You just let me up, have a beer or something while I finish him, and I'll make sure he tells me the spell before he dies. Then I'll sell it to you along with the address. I'm good at getting people to talk."

"I'm sure you are, but you can't test a spell except by using it," Sira said. "He'd just lie out of pure spite, and then Tabaal would kill me when I go up against him."

"Yeah? Well, all the rest of the guys are fucking cowards!" Bavon grunted. "They're scared shitless of him! They won't tell you nothing!"

"Oh, I don't know," Sira said. "I'm pretty okay at making people talk myself."

"Yeah, well, Tabaal's good at making them shut up."

"Point taken." She grinned at Carn. "May it be taken to the record that this is one Hell of a situation to be in."

"I'm not crazy about it myself," the magician mumbled.

"So get out of here," Sira suggested. "I'll hold him down for half a glass. That's enough for you to go home. I've seen your place. It's got more wards than Black Hand Tower itself. He can't hurt you there."

"I'm not running from him!" Carn snapped. "I'm going to kill him tonight or die trying! Now, if you want to help, great, otherwise let him go and I'll try to do it myself! But then you're not getting any spell out of me, and Tabaal is going to do this," he pulled up his shirt and revealed a stomach that was crisscrossed with fresh scars, "to you when you try to fight him!"

"Okay. Okay. Got the picture," Sira sighed. "Oh, pull your shirt down, people are trying to drink here! Thank you. Let's see if I can get this straight. Why are you two not playing nice with each other right now?"

What a mess. Both of them had information she needed, but one of them had to die tonight. One of them would not share his knowledge unless she helped kill the other one, and the other one would not share his knowledge unless she spared his life. Was there any possible way out of this situation?

"He stole the love of my life!" Carn shouted.

"So she wanted a real man," Bavon sneered. "Can you blame her?"

Carn gave off a scream of rage and threw himself at Bavon, his knife slashing down in a deadly arch towards the mercenary's throat.

Sira was on her feet in less than a heartbeat, hit the magician's hand with a kick that sent the knife flying, punched him in the chest hard enough to make him lose his breath and his momentum, and turned around again just in time to push Bavon, who had tried to get up, back down to the floor.

"Oh, no, you don't," she growled. Having secured the soldier again, she rolled her eyes at Carn. "So it's about a woman, right? Men! You'd never see me attack some woman twice as fast and strong as I just because some guy liked her better than me." She grinned smugly. "For one thing, I don't want anything to do with a man with that bad taste�"

"He took my one solace in the world," Carn gasped, still not recovered from being hit by Sira, "my only�"

"Please skip the melodrama. What you're saying is that your girlfriend left you for him?"

"� yes�" said Carn reluctantly. He obviously did not like to hear the situation described like that.

"So you jumped him with a knife?" Sira said.

"No, damn it, I challenged him!"

Sira sighed.

"This is getting worse and worse. Look, you're a magician. Why not just put a curse on him? Hell, put a spell of impotence on him, that ought to get the gal's interest in him to drop�"

"I want him to see my face as he dies!" Carn snarled. "I want him to realize, as he takes his last breath, that I'm the better man of us!"

Sira winced. Why did men always assume that the better man was the better fighter? Personally, she figured that she could do her own fighting, so she tended to judge men according to other standards. Not that those standards were that much less shallow, but still�

"I see," she said. "Now, out of curiosity, how can anyone possibly lose a woman to this guy? He's ugly. He smells. And he uses phrases like 'a real man.' Speaking as a female, let me say that that's just not attractive."

"Watch it!" Bavon growled.

Carn's shoulders sagged.

"People stay away from Tabaal's employees," he said sadly. "And just in case, they stay away from their women, too."

"And guys Tabaal don't like aren't as fortunate?" Sira guessed. "Okay, so the girl's got some brains. No guts, but brains."

Carn did not have a knife anymore, but he tightened his hands into fists.

"Don't you dare talk about Saraana that way!" he snapped.

"I talk any way I want to. Want to make something of it? No? Then shut up." She thought for a moment. "Okay, can I just bring to your attention that this guy, son of a bitch that he is, hasn't really done anything wrong? Actually, neither has this Saraana. Couples break up. It happens. Sometimes one half of the couple goes right over to someone else with no transition period, and while that is generally considered bad form, it's not exactly wrong. It's nothing to get violent about, and it's certainly nothing to get suicidal about."

"You don't get it!" Carn shook his head, halfway between exasperated and disgusted. "You're not from here! You don't know how hard it is to find someone you can actually love in Semerra! Someone who won't sell you to the highest bidder at first opportunity! I've been waiting my whole life for someone like that, and then he comes along and�"

"Okay, okay, okay!" Sira sighed. "Tell you what. I'll stay in Semerra for ten days at least. Maybe more. If you get your ass home right now and give up this stupid vendetta thing, I'll spend all the nights in your bed. Sounds good?"

Carn blinked.

"This isn't about sex!" he said.

"It's not?" said Sira, who pretty much always assumed that everything was, ultimately, about sex. "Look, you want someone to sleep with who won't sell you out. I don't sell people out and you're kind of cute when you're not talking nonsense. Perfect solution."

"I want someone to love!" he said, shaking his head.

"Er� difference being�?" Sira said. Carn studied her face.

"You really don't see it, do you?" he said flatly. "You really don't."

"No," Sira admitted. "I really don't."

Carn sighed.

"You might be from out of town, but you'll fit in just fine here�"

"How'd you know I'm from out of town?"

"Because if you'd lived here for more than a month, with those looks and those fighting skills, you'd own half the city by now," he said.

Sira started to wonder if maybe Semerra might not only be a nice place to visit, but also a place where she could actually considering settling down. Too bad Triangles were always on the move.

"Could you two stop it with the fucking chit-chat and actually get somewhere already?" Bavon snarled. "My back hurts!"

"Okay, but can you at least cooperate a little?" Sira said. "Say I let you up. Can you promise not to kill him?"

"Fine." Bavon rolled his eyes. "I'll just beat him up real good, so he doesn't come at me with any more knives. That make you happy?"

"You do that and I won't give you the spell!" Carn snapped. "Or if you torture me, I'll give you the wrong spell!"

"You two are driving me nuts!" Sira howled. "You're arguing over a woman, for the sake of the God! There are millions of women in the world! What's so special about this one? No!" she screamed as Carn opened his mouth. "It was a rhetorical question, so don't you give me any of that lovesick shit!" She thought of something and looked down at Bavon. "Hey, at least you're not lovesick. Can't you dump her? She'll go back to him, he'll calm the Hell down, and everyone will be happy."

Bavon glared over his shoulder at her.

"If I do, will you get off my back about it?"

"Funny guy. Yes, yes, I'll get off."

"She's history."

Sira beamed at Carn.

"Problem solved?" she suggested.

Carn seemed to be struggling with himself. Conflicting emotions drew in waves across his face, and he blinked repeatedly like he had just stepped out of a dark house and into the sun.

"But�" he said.

"No, no, no!" Sira said quickly. "But nothing! You were mad because he'd stolen your girl, now he'll return her, so stop being mad already!"

"Er�"

"It's perfectly simple," Sira said, well aware that if she talked quickly enough he would not have time to think about the problems with her solution. "If he doesn't want her, she won't have any reason not to get back to you. He gives you the girl, you give me the spell, he gives me the location, and all four of us go our separate ways. Except you two, of course, who'll go your separate way together."

Of course, Sira would not be caught dead with a man who would abandon her that easily. Or rather, this being Semerra, dead was probably just how she would be caught with a man like that sooner or later. But if you accepted attacking the man your girlfriend had dumped you for as being sensible, this solution was perfectly logical. The only way Carn could argue against it was to admit that he was not being reasonable, and in that case she would easily convince him to start being reasonable and go home before someone got hurt.

Sira sometimes got scared when she thought about how clever she was�

"Right�" Carn said. "Well� that's� that's good, then�"

"Exactly!" Sira said happily.

"Will you now get the fuck off of me?" Bavon said.

Sira got off of him. He was not that comfortable a chair, anyway.

"Rightie," she said, rubbing her hands. "Now, you start writing down the spell. As for you," she turned to Bavon who was getting to his feet, muttering and grumbling all the way up, "how much do you want for the location?"

He glared at her.

"Fifty gold-pieces. I'm charging extra for having my head beaten against the floor."

"Oh, come on, it's not as if it's something you have much use for in your profession," Sira said reasonably.

"I'm also charging extra for all those insults you've been so generous with."

Sira sighed. Speaking your mind was costly sometimes. Well, she had the money� just about�

"Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen," a refined voice said from the door. "I do believe that I have been the main cause of this little debate. Perhaps my presence might make things easier?"

Bavon stared past Sira's shoulder and went pale as a corpse. Carn was trembling where he stood by a table. He had dropped the quill pen he had started to write down the spell with, and a thick dot of ink was spreading across the parchment.

Sira marveled at the universe's way to keep on messing up what she had originally thought would be a rather nice night. She smiled humorlessly.

"Lord Tabaal, I presume?" she said without turning around.

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Replies:

Tabaal -- Baeraad, 14:58:54 02/03/02 Sun

Re: Tabaal -- Ashera, 11:34:29 02/04/02 Mon

Re: Tabaal -- Ashti, 05:24:55 02/05/02 Tue