32. Traders Bay
Traders Bay
“ T wo weeks!” Mila exclaimed as she bounced along in the carriage. “You might have told me this yesterday. I don’t have nearly enough clothes.”
“We can buy you more clothes when we arrive,” Culis said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t have agreed to come.” He gave her a wry grin. “But, now you’re here. And if you enjoy this trip and decide to accompany me on future ones, then you’ll need more than just those few smocks in your room anyway. We’ll be visiting numerous taverns, of both shining and dubious reputation, to conduct business and advertise the new demons. I need you to be able to blend in at both. Depending on the circumstance, I may even need you to play a role. You’ll need clothes for everything.”
“Working with you sounds intimidating.”
“Yes, you are.” He grinned again, and then returned his attention to the passing countryside .
She studied him intently, wondering how to take him and his words, but came away from that effort with no real clarity.
“You’re staring at me, little demon.”
“Just trying to figure out where you store all the arrogance. It can’t be in your head. It’s far too small to contain all that.”
“There is one part of my body you can’t see right now, that I assure you is large enough to store it all.” Culis winked.
Mila choked on her laughter, annoyed that she’d rewarded him with it. “Ah yes. Juvenile humour. How apt.”
“Well, what do you expect for someone with a head as small as mine?”
“True.” She turned and faced the window to hide her grin.
When they finally arrived at Traders Bay, Culis wasted no time and took them straight to their first tavern, The Bonny Bosom. It was an eclectically designed taproom that featured a wall of wide, thick, glass cubes, each of which had been filled with water. These, when struck by the afternoon light from the street outside, created rainbows that danced across the tabletops in a very pleasing way.
“We’ll stay here this afternoon,” he said, settling into a seat. “And move on to another tomorrow.”
“How do vendors know where to find you if you move to a new tavern each day you travel?” Mila asked, watching as Culis calmly thumbed through an old book of numbers and picked absently at the hot fried bread that was placed before them.
“They always end up figuring it out,” he said cryptically, “and if they don’t know how to keep an ear to the ground in a town like this, then I probably don’t want them working with me in the first place.”
Sure enough, it must have spread like wildfire that the legendary trader Christopher Culis was in this part of town, for it didn’t take more than an hour or so before the bell on top of The Bonny Bosom’s front door clanged, and a large, rooster of a man entered, identified Culis, and barrelled over to him with enthusiasm.
Thus began their week.
* * *
Mila’s existing memories of Traders Bay were not pleasant.
As a young outcast from Prious, she’d lived on its formidable streets for a short, miserable time. Those had easily been the darkest few months of her life. Newly ostracised from her highly conservative family and community, with nothing but a young mind that had been trained to see sacrilege in even the most mundane interactions, she’d stumbled into the bustling city in a state of shock and had been promptly overwhelmed. Drowning under the weight of her new identity as a demon, trying to accept the reality of it, had sent her into a deep state of self-loathing. She’d done many things to survive in this place during those months, most of which only served to reinforce the vile thoughts she already felt for herself. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Natalee had saved her life on the day she’d taken her in and educated her on the true history of the ikarei.
Her only other notable visit had been when she and Culis had come for the demonstration at Central just over a month ago, and that had been traumatising in its own way.
This visit was different to both. This time, Culis seemed to relish acting as a kind of vanguard, leading her with delight into the watering holes of both the upper and lower class. Demonstrating how he effortlessly blended into the society of each. It was fascinating to watch.
They moved from tavern to tavern each day, with Culis preferring to walk the connecting roads rather than to hail one of the many horse-drawn cabs. This allowed Mila to see more sides of the city than she’d ever seen before, but with Culis always at her side, it was impossible to sneak away and talk to someone about securing passage to Keras.
It was not all frustrating though.
With Culis’s generous purse at her disposal, she was now able to shop and sample all sorts of unique and fashionable foods sold by small vendors on street corners they passed. Culis also funded her a new wardrobe, and when he noted her interest in the shop fronts, he indicated that she should purchase whatever she wished. She bought three items: a comb carved from a ram’s horns, purported to carry the oils from the keratin that would smooth even the tightest knot; a small glass bead with a blue and white swirl inside that she threaded through a small, silver chain and strung about her neck; and a small bone-handled pocket knife that she tucked into her sock. It was the first time Mila had ever bought anything for herself simply because it pleased her.
She was particularly taken with the necklace, absentmindedly fiddling with the bead, rocking it back and forth across the chain with amusement, until she looked up from her drink at the next tavern to find Culis watching the action intently, as though hypnotised.
“Culis?” she asked.
He jumped at her voice, shaking himself free of wherever his mind had wandered. “It’s pretty,” he said with a small smile, and then his next client arrived, and with the speed of a released bowstring, his attention snapped back to the task at hand.
As the week progressed, Mila began to learn more about Culis’s business acumen and techniques. Despite having no background in trading herself, she found herself fascinated by his work and the way he shaped each meeting with his steady stream of clientele. He conducted himself masterfully, sometimes haggling like a common fisherman over stock, other times acting so posh and conceited that he barely spoke a word and communicated almost solely through raised eyebrows and minute shakes of his head. Very occasionally, he looked genuinely happy to see someone, as if he wanted nothing more from their time than shared ale and a story.
He was generous with some folk, and brutally stingy with others. When it came to procurement, Mila noticed that he rarely traded in the ordinary and preferred the exotic. When it came to people, his preferences appeared to be similar.
“I generally prefer to let the Guild of Merchants worry about transporting the goods needed by common folk,” he explained to Mila after placing an order with the captain of The Reckless , which would require the man to travel half the world in order to retrieve a shipment of crockery that was luminescent by night. “If it’s not fun, or doesn’t come with a grand tale to recount in my old age to my lap full of engrossed grandchildren, then why bother?”
He was utterly in his element when it came to negotiating, and Mila sensed equal amounts of respect and fear exuding from his associates. If he didn’t already have an established rapport with a trader, then he could usually rely on his reputation to precede him. However, Mila noticed with interest that, on occasion, when this did not seem to be the case, he’d find a way to do something wholly unexpected, or occasionally downright cruel, always for the purpose of reinforcing his infamy.
She also noted that, regardless of the trade at hand, he never ceased dropping hints regarding the demons currently in his possession.
“I cannot tell you the specificity of their powers,” he’d say cryptically to everyone. “Not without a deposit laid first. I’ll only say that they’re each immensely powerful in their own way. There truly is no comparison. The secrecy is half the reason for the exorbitant price. A demon’s power should be known only to their master. That way, their powers can be used to their fullest extent and to their master’s advantage.”
He relied on the intrigue and conspiracy to advertise for him – and his instincts were correct. In their second week in Traders Bay, they had a number of envoys from rich, anonymous buyers approach them, inquiring about the demons and how to acquire one.
“This is all one big game to you, isn’t it?” Mila noted aloud one evening, as the two of them retired to a small cabin on the upper floor of their evening accommodation, The Harried Hare. This particular establishment was situated conveniently beside the port, and the day’s business dealings had mostly centred around long-haul freighting over the Windless Seas. All day, Mila had heard the soothing sounds of waves lapping against the western wall of the common room, accompanied by the sounds of the moored boats as they clunked arrhythmically.
It was here, staying so close to the dock, that she realised that, over the past few days, she’d been enjoying herself so much that she’d stopped thinking about ways to get passage to Keras.
The upstairs cabin she shared with Culis was quite small, but probably still one of the largest in the small establishment. It contained two separate sleeping cribs, a tiny fireplace, and a humble writing desk that was pressed against the far wall beneath a tiny round window. From there, one could see nothing but the blackness of the vast bay beyond them. It wasn’t the first time this week they’d shared a room, but this was by far the cosiest.
As they entered, Culis moved swiftly to draw the curtain across the window, as though concerned someone might look in at them from one of the docked ships. Once satisfied of their privacy, he set about stoking the fire. The innkeeper had left them a small flask of wine and some salted herring as an evening snack, but Culis ignored it and withdrew from his traveller’s satchel his own flask of rich port.
Mila accepted a glass and sat cross-legged on one of the cribs to drink it, while Culis took the seat by the fire.
“A game?” He repeated her words with a wry smile, leaning back on the chair and placing his hands behind his head. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s just something I’ve noticed,” Mila said. “Your enthusiasm is entirely authentic, but I can tell you enjoy playing the role of ‘Trader Prince’ a little too much.”
Culis laughed heartily at that, but didn’t deny her accusation. “Trader Prince? Is that what you read from me?” he probed.
She just shrugged, still not wanting to reveal that she found him impossible to read without his touch.
“Well, I do enjoy games, some more than others.” He raised an eyebrow, and his quiet smirk suddenly made the response more flirtatious than perhaps the words themselves implied.
Mila instinctively reached out with her powers to try gauge his intentions, but again, she was met with what mentally felt like a thick garden hedge, one which allowed glimpses of the energy behind it, but prevented the formation of a full picture.
“What’s the scowl for?” he teased lightly, sipping at his port. “Aren’t you having fun?”
“It has been fun,” she agreed. “And I’m not scowling.”
He returned to stoking the fire. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. Are you glad you decided to come? At the start of this trip, your fear of the place, and dislike of me, was palpable. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to bring you here again.”
“No,” she admitted. “I’ve come to see a new side of it. It’s not a terrible city, although it certainly has pockets I’d never want to venture down again. And you…” She halted, searching for the words. “You’re…impressive to watch. It’s been entertaining, to say the least.”
“Good.” Culis seemed very pleased by her observation. “It’s a youthful city,” he continued. “It’s got an energy to it. That’s why I like it.”
“I think that’s why I found it so overwhelming the first few times I was here,” Mila replied. “Especially when I was younger. I didn’t even really know what my powers were for a long time. I was picking up everything, with no way to filter my own energy from everyone else’s around me.”
“That sounds…awful.” His happy mood shifted, and he studied her seriously.
She wondered if the sympathy was genuine. The firelight cast dancing orange shapes across his handsome face, and she hated that she couldn’t tell. She found herself hoping it was.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Why did you come here, of all places?”
“I didn’t really intend to. I grew up in Prious and knew nothing else of the world. On the morning my horns and power emerged, my father tried to lock me in the house while he went to fetch the local acolyte. I escaped through a window and knew I needed to flee, so I simply picked a direction that didn’t seem too obvious, in case I was pursued. After a number of weeks of walking, I arrived in the Swilder’s Quarter.”
Culis’s eyes widened in concern. “The Swilder’s Quarter is the last part of the city I’d ever send a newcomer,” he said softly. “You would have just been a child too.”
Mila pursed her lips and nodded, looking away from him, unable to witness the pity in his eyes. “I nearly didn’t make it out. It was thanks to Natalee that I survived. ”
“Natalee?” Culis looked uncomfortable at the mention of her name.
“Yes.” She turned to face him again. “She was here too. We worked in the same factory. She realised what I was when she found me clutching at my head in horror as the man who preyed on the women in my sharehouse passed by my door. She took me under her wing, taught me the true history of my people, not the Church’s lie. It helped me to process it all, to forgive myself for what I was.”
“What is the true history?” Culis asked, leaning forward, earnest interest written across his face.
Mila considered the question, and the asker for a long moment. “I’m not sure you really want to know,” she finally replied. “It’s far easier to simply write us all off as demons.”
“I do want to know! You forget that Arran has been a longtime friend and associate of mine. I am among the few who know that the zoi exist elsewhere in the world. It’s never made sense to me that one would ‘choose’ to sell their soul for a…paltry mimicry of Midas’s powers in their sleep. Never felt right to believe that every demon’s existence is some deliberate heretical display of mockery, or challenge, or whatever it is the Church says it is. I’m good enough of a liar to generally know when I’m being lied to. So, tell me. What’s the truth?”
Mila was careful to not let the shock show on her face, cautious even now that Culis might just be saying something he knew she’d find favourable in order to earn back her approval.
“You are truly interested?” she said slowly.
“Yes. Please share… Wait.” He moved to the door of the room and flung it open. “Hendrichs!” he called out into the corridor. “I’d like some of that stew I saw cooking downstairs…two bowls, please. Yes, and both served with some of the thick bread that Orla makes. Surely, she’s still got some from this morning. The thick kind, you know it. Yes. And three, no… four peaches and – ” he glanced over his shoulder at Mila and looked her up and down before adding to the hallway order, “ – a few squares of chocolate. Dark, with a side of sea salt.”
Mila’s stomach rumbled at his words.
Once she’d eaten, the food sat warm in her belly. Despite the fact she knew the chocolate was an obvious bribe, she couldn’t help but enjoy it.
“Now we’re ready,” Culis said eagerly. “Please, tell me the story, the history. Everything. I want to know it all.”
Mila remembered how it had felt when she’d heard it from Natalee for the first time in that dingy room in her apartment.
She’d still been so far gone in the Church’s teachings, still so caught up in her own self-loathing, that she’d initially shrunk away from the blasphemous words.
“You struck no bargain in your sleep with the devil,” Natalee had said, holding her close, wiping her tears. “You did not fall from grace. You are not evil. That is all a lie. A wicked lie. The truth is that you are a being known as an ikarei, and we peacefully existed alongside humans long before Midas arrived and declared us all to be demons.”
It had taken some time for Mila to eventually believe her. Of course an evil demon would say these things! She’d initially pulled away from Natalee’s attempted comfort.
“Get away from me!” she’d cried out. “Demon! Heretic!”
“Neither of these,” Natalee had replied calmly with a sad shake of her head, letting her go, but not letting her gaze drop. “When Midas arrived and announced himself, it was the ikarei who challenged his rule. Many believed that having powers did not make one a god – no matter how destructive those powers are. In response, the Church wrote the Heretical Behaviours, and created the mythology of Viah and the Rotting Muds. Creating a punishment for religious disobedience was a masterstroke. It meant that humans were so frightened and confused that it was easier to believe than to resist or question the message. But it is important that we ikarei remember this story, Mila. No Church should ever teach you to hate yourself or be fearful of questioning its doctrines. We are all uniquely and wonderfully made, no less or more than the animals and plants around us.”
Mila looked up at Culis’s shadowed, earnest face and took a deep breath as she opened her mouth and shared this story.
* * *
Later that night, as Mila lay back in her crib, she listened to the soft thwucking of bobbing boats below and wondered what Culis had made of it all. He’d sat and listened quietly for the whole story and had spent the rest of the night seemingly engrossed in his journal, writing furiously and silently until the candle burned low and he went to bed. It had felt good telling him. Felt good reminding herself that Midas and his Church were branding ikarei as demons for their own purposes.
She looked over at Culis’s sleeping form and wished for the millionth time that she could sense his energy. She wondered if he inadvertently utilised rubane upon his person. Perhaps he used it in a soap and that somehow blocked her powers from sensing him from afar?
She mulled this over, and then sat bolt upright in the darkness as a new thought suddenly occurred to her.
Rubane.
She knew now that the weed affected more than just her own power. It also blocked Flue’s. What if it blocked all demon powers?
She considered this revelation for a moment. It made sense, and when they returned to the other demons at Culis Manor, it would be a relatively easy theory to test out .
She lay back on her bed, excited, and for a moment, she delighted silently in the power and mystery of nature. Who would suspect such a small and humble weed could have such an impact? She thought for a moment about the tonics or oils she could distil with rubane to help other demons with more obvious powers stay hidden in society. It could change everything for them.
But it was the following thought that came later in the night that truly made her blood still.
Just as sleep was about to grip her, the most dangerous thought she’d ever had came to her: what if Midas’s gloves were made of rubane?
She hadn’t been able to sense anything from the God-King while she’d been in his grasp. At the time, she’d attributed that to both her own fear and his divinity, but in hindsight, she now identified the sensation as a muffling one.
Rubane.
If it was, indeed, in the gloves, then it had almost certainly dimmed her power, in the same way the gloves dimmed his and enabled him to touch things while he was wearing them.
It made sense. In fact, now that she had come to this realisation, no other explanation could satisfy the question of why the gloves did not disintegrate into sand at his touch. It had to be rubane.
The next logical thread of thought that flowed from this revelation came cautiously and was pulled from the mire of her mind, like a sticky strand of hair from a pot of thick honey. If this was true, if a simple weed such as rubane could mute a God-King’s powers, then what did that say about his supposed divinity? His Divine authority over all? His invincibility? His immortality even? If he could be defeated by a weed, surely, he could be defeated by death itself? Had her ikarei ancestors been right? Was Midas not quite a god after all?
Perhaps, he was a demon .
An absurdly powerful demon, who had managed to implement, maintain and uphold the greatest lie in all of Artor’s history.
No. She reined that insane thought back in carefully, her mind desperately seeking familiar purchase.
The cats, she reminded herself. The Testing Cats that could not see demons. The cats that loved Midas. They worshipped him, were devoted to him.
But the seed of doubt that had been planted had rooted quickly, and suddenly, even the behaviour of Midas’s cats was starting to seem like poor proof of divinity. Cats as a species were impressive, intuitive and ethereal creatures. But their adoration alone did not make someone a god. What if, as Culis had jokingly inferred back in the Highlands, there was a way to trick the cats?
Mila blinked in the darkness, processing these thoughts, trying to make sense of them. What about the Church? The devotion of the priests? The entire way of life in Artor was built around the worship of Midas and avoiding the Heretical Behaviours, avoiding sacrifice.
Surely, if Midas was a demon, there would have been some sign of it over the decades. And where were his horns? Had he removed them somehow? Could they even be removed? She had once tried to cut hers off. Never again. It had been excruciating…and it hadn’t worked. They’d grown back. She blinked that flashback away.
What if he’d found another way? A more permanent way to remove them?
The questions crashed like angry waves against Mila’s mind and flooded the structure of everything she’d ever believed about her world. It was uncomfortable and frightening, but now that the door had been opened, she could not stop the barrage that seemed determined to surge in and overwhelm her .
Her breathing quickened and she began to sweat. She sat up in bed and clutched at the blanket, willing herself to be steady, to feel the fabric under her hands, to smell the air of the room – a smell of salt, incense and Culis. It grounded her. She took a long breath in and out, and slowly was able to gather an ounce of calm.
“They’re just thoughts,” she whispered to herself. “No one need know you’ve had them. You never have to act on them if you don’t want to. They’re just thoughts, and they can’t harm you. They can’t betray you. No one need ever know.”
It stabilised her to hear the sound of her own voice, but found she couldn’t quite believe the words, because the next thought that came to her was not just frightening, it was one that, if true, would demand that she take action.
If the rubane muted Midas’s powers, then perhaps a demon doused in the herb could resist destruction at his hands.
Time seemed to stand still as she pondered this, and she realised in horror that, if she was the only person who knew about rubane’s powers, then she was responsible for somehow testing this theory.
Suddenly, the world tilted.
Mila hit the floor with a sharp bang. She’d been accidentally holding her breath and had toppled out of her crib.
Culis roused immediately and struck a flint to light a lantern. “Mila, what…?”
He took one bleary look at her anguished expression and leapt from his own bed to be beside her in an instant.
“What’s the matter?” he asked softly, brushing wet hair from her sweaty forehead. “What happened? A nightmare?”
Mila just shook her head, and to her horror, as she sucked in another breath, she began to shake uncontrollably .
“Hey…hey. It’s okay.” Culis asked no further questions. Instead, he sat on the floor behind her and pulled her up against him, at the same time taking the blanket from her bed and wrapping it around both of them.
With the heat of his chest against her back, and the pressure of his arms wrapped around her, his energy sank into her, uninhibited. It was so strong and powerful that, for a moment, every fear and horrid thought of the evening was utterly swept away.
Care, concern, attachment, fear.
It flowed into her with the heat of a raging furnace.
Are you alright? his energy silently implored. Please be alright.
Mila sent her power greedily hunting through his body, searching deeper, seeking any indication that this concern was born of selfish reasons, perhaps out of fear for the success of his demon trade.
It wasn’t, she realised with relief, as she found not an ounce of selfishness inside of him at this moment. This wasn’t the same fake pretence or care that he’d shown Jezebel. This was genuine.
The cold and hard thing that had been curled up defensively around her stomach began to relax its grip and unwind a little. Eventually, she was able to steady herself and felt her breathing return to normal. She pressed herself into the circle of his arms and allowed herself to enjoy it, closing her eyes and resting her head against his shoulder.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked softly against her ear after a little time had passed.
“Maybe one day,” she whispered back and felt him nod above her.
“Do you want to get back into your bed?” He seemed hesitant, his energy thrumming through her with his true intent: Don’t go, don’t move. I’m enjoying holding you . His thumb slowly stroked the back of her hand in a wide circle. “Or do you want to stay here?” With me, his voiceless energy beseeched her.
Mila felt the stirring of heat in a place low in her belly as her body responded to an invitation she’d never expected to receive, or to want.
But she did want it.
Didn’t she? She didn’t know what she wanted. A large part of her wanted to lie here and investigate this new development, to luxuriate in the ease of her new access to him and enjoy his protective, caring energy. Perhaps explore the way it was transitioning into an appreciation for the smell of her hair and the feel of her body.
The other part of her knew that, despite her undeniable attraction to the man, she still had some ways to go before she could trust him, and when the vasium necklace reminded her of its presence by bumping gently against her neck, she made up her mind.
“I probably should get some sleep.”
Even still, it was a slow extrication from his arms, and when she finally stood up, he seemed loath to remove his hands from her.
When he finally did break contact, the absence of his energy was a cool shock to her system. Mila regretfully rolled herself onto her own mattress, and Culis made a show of pulling up the blanket and tucking her in firmly, overdoing it to the point that Mila couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“Thank you,” she said softly, watching as he finally returned to his own side of the room.
“You’re not the only one haunted by the past,” he said softly. “In my experience, sometimes it helps to have some human connection to help pull you through it.”
She let him believe it was a flashback, grateful that she didn’t have to explain that it had been more like a premonition – a horrifying mental image of her standing naked before Midas, her body drenched in rubane-infused oil, watching his hand descend towards her.