Chapter 17
Drenched in a bruised, waning amber, the city lingered in that fragile interim where the exhausted day surrendered its last breath to the coming dark. As the last of that heavy light bled from the sky, shadows stretched across the alleyways, swallowing the brickwork where Shiro stood.
He leaned against the back wall of a building not far from the temple, a spot he and the priest Antonein had agreed on after the man had, against all of Shiro's better instincts, somehow talked him into giving him a chance to fix his problem.
It was a decision he found himself regretting a little more with every passing minute.
Well, he told himself, I can always just get my money back, same as I did with those three at the temple. Then a second, less comforting thought followed right behind it. He didn't actually run off with my money, did he?
He'd handed the man three T. Baelor. Three. That was enough to cover fifteen days at the Bower for both himself and Chaska.
For a moment he wondered what Anya, the actual source of these funds, would think about how they were being spent.
Meh. She'd understand, he decided. Her money was going toward a good cause: undoing a sick evil.
That's why. His hand drifted toward the grip of his revolver.
Any attempt to derail this particular quest, he decided, would be met with appropriate and immediate consequences.
He was hoping, for Antonein's sake, that the man wouldn't make that mistake.
Luckily for him, since Shiro was already mentally sketching out a wanted poster in his head, the priest chose that exact moment to arrive.
"Sorry for—"
"You made me wait. I was already starting to consider giving you a fourth hole to breathe through."
"What?" He frowned.
"Forget it. You got my stuff?" Shiro asked, eyeing what the man was carrying.
"Yeah, I've got your stuff," Antonein said, glancing around the alley with a furtive energy that had the unfortunate effect of making the whole exchange feel far more shady than Shiro suspected it actually was.
"I really wish we could've done this back at my usual spot in the temple instead of out here," Antonein muttered.
"I've had just about enough of temples for at least a decade. Now show me the stuff. Right here, right now."
"Alright, alright," he sighed, unbuckling a large traveler's bag on the ground. "Here's your stuff," he announced, with pride and confidence.
Shiro hadn't, in fairness, fallen for the man's charm alone, or rather, he sort of had, but not the same way he'd fallen for the trio of healers earlier.
What Antonein was offering wasn't magic.
He'd come across as a little humbler than that, admitting up front he didn't understand the kind of issue Shiro was dealing with, but confident he could find something to counter it. That honesty, at least, was what had loosened Shiro’s coin purse.
The bag's contents delivered on that pitch, at least in volume and appearance. Potions filled it. Several dozen, packed into small glass vials and corked flasks holding liquids in a rainbow of colors.
"Since you can't get it up, I—"
"Hey, not so loud," Shiro hissed, glancing around the empty alley as if it had suddenly filled with eavesdroppers.
"That's exactly why I wanted somewhere more discreet than the street," Antonein said, entirely unbothered, already digging into the bag. "For your problem," he continued, dropping his voice by approximately nothing, "here are several solutions. Aphrodisiacs."
He held up a glowing, neon-pink vial like it was a small, expensive jewel.
"This one is, hold on, let me check," he squinted at the label, then at a note from his pocket, "this one is called Gristmill's Torrent.
Thins the blood until your veins hum like lute strings, apparently.
Guaranteed to force the leverage right where you need it, my friend. "
Shiro wasn't sure what to make of the word apparently, but nodded anyway, letting the man continue his pitch.
"This one," Antonein said, holding out a jagged, crystalline vial wrapped in a chain of small warning pendants, "is called Kraken's Awakening.
My supplier told me to warn you, drink it immediately once it's exposed to air, the liquid's volatile.
Aside from that, guaranteed immediate erection and Olympian performance. "
"Olympian?"
"Just repeating what I was told. No idea what that means.
" He uncorked a dark green oil in a squat glass flask and brought it under Shiro's nose, who recoiled bodily, the smell hitting somewhere between mint and compost, with none of the charm of either.
"This, my friend, might actually be the one you need.
Your ailment could be physical, but it could also be stress, and if it's stress, this," he said, waving the abomination, "the Morpheus Brew is your friend.
Allegedly relaxes the central humors, releases tension, including down there.
Just take a sip and let nature take the wheel. "
He went on introducing one more with the same theatrical enthusiasm, before finally reaching the part of the pitch that produced a smile Shiro was fairly certain had no business existing on a priest's face.
"Now, for the seven and half Baelor you gave me, you get two samples of each aphrodisiac I just mentioned."
"Two?!"
"What, you think that's unfair? Fine, I'll throw in two twenty-centiliter vials of holy water as a goodwill gesture," he said, gesturing at a flask of clear liquid he hadn't bothered introducing yet.
"Holy water?!"
"Ten Deor a vial normally. But as a reward for your patronage, free of charge. Really, this is a sweet deal."
"Is that an aphrodisiac?"
"Huh? No, of course not. It's holy water."
"What's holy water do? What is even holy water."
"Water that's been blessed."
"By who?"
"By a priest. Obviously."
What priest? Shiro didn't need to guess. The man was obviously talking about himself. "You know magic?"
He shook his head.
"So it's just water. Like water. What am I supposed to do with water?"
"I don't know, whatever people usually do with it. Splash some on your meal, makes it a holy meal. Pour it in your bath, cleanse the soul a little. Don't look at me like that, it sells better than—"
"Forget the holy water. I don't need that. I need something to fix my actual problem. When I saw you with that bag, I expected you to hand over the whole thing, not a handful of samples."
Antonein looked at him like he'd said something deeply, almost charmingly unreasonable. "Do you have any idea what this bag is worth? All of it?"
"No," Shiro said, frowning, catching a slight waver in the man's conviction as he asked.
"A lot. A lot, lot, lot more than seven and half Baelor."
He repeated “lot” enough times that Shiro noticed the certainty behind his eyes dimming with each repetition. The whole bag was probably worth more than seven and half Baelor, sure, but clearly nowhere near what the man wanted him to believe.
Shiro was about to press further, then remembered something and decided against it.
"Assuming any of these are actually legitimate, and I hope for your sake they are, none of what you've shown me sounds like it fixes anything permanently.
Didn't you say you'd check with your supplier for something that addressed the problem at the root? "
"I tried to find something like that, but..."
"But?!"
Antonein just shrugged. "I think that was too much to expect, don't you think? Something like that would basically have to be a miracle potion."
Annoyingly, Shiro found he had no immediate counter to that.
He winced anyway, since the whole arrangement put him somewhere he didn't like: if this stuff actually worked, and he wanted to keep “working” going forward, he'd be stuck coming back to this man again and again for more, unless his actual problem got treated at the source. Because there had to be a source.
"This is on purpose, isn't it?"
"What, the fact that I couldn't find a miracle potion?"
"Yeah."
"Listen, I, actually, we could work something out. As you know, I'm just the middleman. What you get is what your money can afford, and right now your seven and half Baelor can't afford something like that. So hand over more for me to make the miracle happen."
"More?"
"How much are we talking?"
"Let's see. Three, no, four, ideally five times that."
"What?! That's absurd!"
"Hey, I don't make the rules," Antonein said.
Shiro wanted to argue the point.
"That's why I say, let's start with this," the priest said, gesturing at the bag. "Oh, right, almost forgot, no wonder you thought I was fleecing you." He reached in and pulled out a small jar. "Here! What you actually asked for. A healing item, just strong enough to mend a broken collarbone."
Shiro eyed the thing, which looked nothing like what the man had shown him so far.
"Sorry, I said I would get a potion but a baume was the readiest available thing so…
Apply the whole jar directly to the wound and it should heal right up.
Fair warning, it'll sting like hell, so whoever's on the receiving end should probably be held down for it. "
"You didn't have anything a little less—"
"I did. Had to work within your budget."
Shiro gave him a long look. This guy was clearly turning a serious profit, and hearing him try to skimp on top of that made something in Shiro snap. "Your greed sickens me, priest."
"We're all just trying to make a living here, my friend. I provide what people can't otherwise afford. Trust me, that pricing is me looking out for you."
Shiro didn't believe a word of it, which made him ask, "Wait, how am I even supposed to know any of this does what you claim?"
"Erm, I mean, isn't that kind of the point of the samples I'm giving you? Try them at home, see which works for you. Okay, from your face I can tell you’re clearly not buying it."
"Can you blame me? You're telling me seven and half Baelor bought samples?"
"Plus the healing balm."