Chapter 3
“I feel bad,” Rylana said as the delectable aroma of her latte wafted up, a touch of vanilla bean sweetening the drink.
She sat across from Sylin, looking out the window of the coffee shop toward the Dragon Diner while her friend, who had pushed the other chair away from the table, alternately stood or squatted, her back to a ceiling-high piece of roasting machinery that emanated a faint magical glow.
“About what?” Sylin inhaled the scent of her straight black coffee, then took an appreciative sip, letting it linger on her tongue before swallowing.
“This is the best roast I’ve had since we left the southern kingdoms. Most coffee beans are stale and anemic by the time they reach this latitude, but someone must have paid for a dragon to bring this north on its back. ”
“Yes, I’ve heard their kind delight in undertaking freight delivery for humans. More likely, some magical gnomish storage containers were used.”
“However the beans came to be here in such a fresh state, I approve.” Sylin sipped again and smacked her lips a couple of times.
“Based on the robust and nuanced taste, I believe they originated in the equatorial Lazombik Rainforest, from farms at just a high enough altitude in the mountains that the cooler temperatures slowed the bean development to increase the flavor, acidity, and exquisite complexity of the coffee.”
“Yeah, I like mine too.” By now, Rylana knew about her comrade’s obsession with the beverage and didn’t comment on the rest, though she’d often joked that it must have been the scent of coffee brewing in a hunter’s camp that had first drawn Sylin out of the woods and away from the wolves who’d raised her.
“Yours is a latte.” Sylin wrinkled her elegant elven nose. “I don’t know how you can tell anything about the complexity of the beans when they’re diluted with milk.”
“There’s vanilla and sugar too.”
“Loathsome.”
“I feel bad,” Rylana said to bring the conversation back to the topic, “because the dragon—Jildarin, I believe it was—was fined because of me.”
“It was Jildarin-grozanarav. I remember him and his brother Zilek-grozanarav from the war. They were high-ranking dragons in Clan Killcrusher, some of the archnemeses of the joint kingdoms. And it’s not your fault that he lost his temper and shifted.
All you did was walk in. He brought all that upon himself. ”
“I did shoot him last year.”
“During the war. In wartime, shooting your enemy is expected. Your only mistake was in not hitting him in the eye and killing him. Now, he’s nursing a grudge, maybe fantasizing presently about chancing upon you outside of the city boundaries so he can finish what the peacekeepers rudely interrupted. ”
“My incineration?”
“Precisely.”
“He’s probably already forgotten me. He’s got a cooking competition to prepare for.”
“And rent to pay. Who ever heard of a broke dragon? Clan Killcrusher has a legendary hoard, reputedly. Though you’d have to ask a goblin for details. Their kind keep track of all the sizable hoards, just in case an opportunity arises to visit one while clutching a purse.”
“Yes, thieving from dragons often goes well for goblins.”
“So often that their charred skeletons frequently litter the mounds of gold.” After another sip, Sylin shifted to gaze out the window.
“Maybe he’s been disowned. I’d say it might have been because of a poor performance during the war, but those two brothers took out the entire Bloodletters mercenary company. Do you remember?”
Rylana set her cup down with a clunk. “That was them?”
She remembered the annihilation of the mercenary clan, but the Moon Daggers had been fighting on another mountain when it had happened.
“That was they, yes. At the time, I was competing for kills against Salvo, the half-elven Bloodletter assassin who always wanted to show me up but also wanted to sleep with me—strange man. He was one of only three people in his unit who survived to tell the tale. That’s why I remember the dragons’ names. ”
“Well, that doesn’t change anything about today.
Even if all is fair in war—” Rylana waved a hand, not sure she believed the aphorism, “—Jildarin's irritation toward me was founded.” She didn’t think she could pronounce his full clan name so stuck with the shortened version.
“If you want to get philosophical, the prevailing dragon irritation toward all humans isn’t entirely unfounded. ”
“No, humans are almost as good at vexing other species as goblins are. Elves, I know, find your people terribly tedious and tiresome.”
“Yet you honor me by having coffee with me.”
“Elves find me even worse.” Sylin saluted Rylana with her cup.
Rylana had never asked her comrade how many of her own people she’d killed under orders from Captain Maverick and his superiors. It didn’t seem to bother Sylin. Little did. Perhaps one couldn’t be an effective assassin if moral qualms haunted one’s sleep on a regular basis.
“Maybe I can help him somehow,” Rylana mused.
“The dragon?” Sylin set her cup down. “Are you daft?”
“I still need a job. Don’t you? Since the unit disbanded and the war is over, the traditional mercenary retirement plan isn’t going to work for either of us.”
“You mean the plan where mercenaries die on the battlefield before they need funds for retirement?”
“That’s the one, yes.”
“I was well paid with bonuses for my work, sometimes from multiple employers.” Sylin shrugged. “I’ll be fine for a while.”
Rylana couldn’t say the same. They’d lived frugally as they’d traveled, recovering and relaxing and seeing some of the world to help put the horrors of the war behind them, but her funds were nearly depleted.
Since the prosperous city of Tranquility, tucked away between two mountain ranges along its northern lake, hadn’t been touched during the war, she’d believed opportunities for employment would be many.
It hadn’t occurred to her that hordes of refugees and veterans would come up here first.
“Even if you were foolish enough to want to work for someone who couldn’t pay his rent,” Sylin said, “that dragon doesn’t desire to hire you.”
“Only because he doesn’t know about the years I spent being tortured by mathematics and business tutors. I’m an excellent bookkeeper and can do numbers in my head.”
“You almost shot him in the eye. He’s not going to care if you can do the most elaborate and complicated…” Sylin waved her hand vaguely in the air. “What’s something fancy you can do with numbers?”
“Get someone out of debt.”
“That’s not as fancy as I imagined.”
“We could talk about derivatives and differential equations, but I can’t imagine that impressing a dragon. But if I could help him to reconcile his books and streamline his business so he could come up with the money to pay his landlord…”
“When you walked in, there were only three customers, and he threw two out. No amount of streamlining will help that diner.”
“Are you talking about Jildarin's place?” A woman with curly black hair, creases at the corners of her brown eyes, and a broad face walked up to take their empty cups and place cookies they hadn’t ordered on napkins on the table.
“Free samples,” she said, though Sylin delved into her purse to rest two silver coins next to the sweets.
“Yes,” Rylana said. “Do you know anything about the dragon?”
“He keeps to himself. I just know he makes wonderful food and doesn’t charge enough for it.
He would have armies of people visiting if not for the reputation of the place.
Well, actually people are awfully curious because of that reputation, but then he drives them away when his dishes work as…
one would think as he wishes.” The woman slid the coins into a pocket in her apron. “Thank you, lady elf.”
“As an aphrodisiac?” Rylana asked.
“It’s mostly the soup that has that effect. And sometimes the stew. He puts his special dragon spices in them, and most people find them, er, invigorating.”
“It makes them want to have sex,” another woman called from across the shop, heads turning to regard her curiously. She was dumping burlap bags of beans into the great roasting apparatus.
Their server waved at her with a shushing motion. Despite having a head of gray hair and a motherly and mature figure, the other woman stuck her tongue out at her. There weren’t any other employees in the room, and Rylana wondered if they might be the owners rather than staff.
“The spices tend to make people amorous, yes,” the closer woman said.
“I’ve heard they can affect dragons, too, but only in much greater quantities.
I believe dragons only use the spices as a seasoning.
I’m Tezilly, by the way. That’s my loudmouthed partner who tells it like it is, Brella.
Do you want another cup? Or something else?
We’ve got more goods from the bakery next door too. ”
“These came from there?” Sylin, perhaps thinking of the lewd goblin cake she’d seen, eyed the cookies with more wariness, but there wasn’t anything phallic or otherwise sexual about them. Inoffensive disks of chocolate were embedded into the tops and framed by sprinkles.
“Yes, Mya is a wonderful baker and makes treats for everything from children’s parties to holiday festivities to…”
“Goblin stag gatherings?” Sylin asked.
“Quite. Let me know if you need anything else.” Tezilly left the cookies and took the empty cups to the kitchen in the back.
Rylana again considered the Dragon Diner through the window. She hadn’t seen any new customers go in. Jildarin needed help. She was sure of it.
“Why don’t you give up on the job hunt for today?” Sylin suggested, watching Rylana's gaze. “You said you’re tired of sleeping on the ground and want to find a place in the city to stay, right?”
“Yes. I checked a number of hostels this morning, but rooms are as infrequent as jobs right now. Maybe I could stay at the elven enclave.”
“They don’t take boarders, and they would be offended that you not only know me but deign to have coffee with me. Assassins are vile, you know.”
“Oh, I’m aware. Where are you planning to stay?”
Sylin waved airily. “I’ll find a place. I suppose there’s no room for us at your family’s estate? It’s a castle, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s almost directly across the lake from us, on an elevated point that overlooks the water from three sides, offering wonderful views of the magically glowing blue, green, and purple fish and plankton that give Luminous Lake its name.
And room wouldn’t be the problem there, even if my father has remarried or has guests.
” Rylana grimaced at the thought of a strange woman wandering through the stone halls.
“There are eighteen bedrooms and twelve bathrooms. It was reputedly one of the first manors to be remodeled with indoor plumbing when that was invented last century.”
“It’s amazing that you’re not dreadfully spoiled. We worked together for years before I had any idea of your family’s vast wealth.”
“That wealth won’t be left to me. It’s been years since I even sent a letter home. As for spoiling, my father was stern and strict, not lenient or loving, and he never gave my brother or me anything that we didn’t work for.”
“So, you only had, what, eight servants?”
“Hardly. He had a personal butler, but we kids had to fend for ourselves after Mother died.”
“Oh? Who cleaned the toilets?”
“There was a gnomish clockwork scrubber.”
“I knew you were spoiled.”
“The wolves didn’t have any clockwork servants, huh?”
“Not a one.” Sylin peered out the window.
Someone even more impeccably dressed than Jildarin was walking toward the front door of the diner. The man appeared to be of a similar age, with the same bronze skin and silver hair, but his was long and drawn back in a ponytail.
“That’s another dragon,” Sylin said with certainty. “I wonder if it’s the brother. Zilek.”
“He’s a regular in town,” Brella said, cruising past with her now-empty burlap bags draped over one arm. “Goes to the symphony, the opera, the museum galas, the tinkerers’ clockwork ball. He seems to be enjoying the offerings that abound in Tranquility.”
“A dragon who goes to balls and the opera? Is the whole family…?” Rylana extended a hand toward Sylin.
“Quirky,” she said firmly, not making it a question.
“The brothers may qualify in that department,” Brella said, “though I know less about the one who set up shop across the street. As my partner said, he keeps to himself and is a touch grouchy.”
“A touch,” Tezilly said, dropping off coffees at a nearby table, then lingering to chat with the patrons there. The owners seemed to be capable of tending the shop and also following multiple conversations.
“Two or three touches,” Brella said in agreement, then headed to the kitchen.
“I wonder if Jildarin would kick me out if I tried to buy something to eat,” Rylana mused.
“The soup that makes people horny?”
“I was thinking of the bacon that smelled so good earlier. Pork doesn’t have any aphrodisiacal qualities that I know of.”
“It sounds like the spices are the problem. They could be on anything.”
“Does that mean you’re staying here?” Rylana waved toward the wood-beamed ceiling of the coffee shop.
Sylin raised a finger when Tezilly strolled past. “Another cup of the dark roast, please.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Rylana said.
“While I enjoy my coffee, I’ll monitor out the window to see if you’re thrown out.”
“I won’t be gone long.”
“Oh, I’m certain of it. Leave your pack and bow if you want me to watch them.”
“Somehow, I think I’ll need more watching than my belongings.”
“Yes, but they’ll be easier to protect while I enjoy my next cup. Ah.” Sylin almost purred when Tezilly delivered another coffee with two more cookies balanced on the saucer.
Rylana left her bow, quiver, and pack beside the table and stood. “Those dragons aren’t the only quirky ones around here, you know.”
“I’m quick to recognize like kind, yes.” Sylin sipped from her cup. “Excellent. Why don’t you ask the ladies that own this place if they need a bookkeeper?”
“Maybe you should see if they’re hiring and if free coffee is a perk.”
“I might consider that, yes. But working across the street from a dragon sounds almost as unwise as working for one.”
“Mercenaries aren’t known for their abundance of wisdom.” Which was undoubtedly why Rylana felt compelled to check on the dragons. Hopefully, she hadn’t managed to shoot and wound the brother during the war, as well.
“Some aren’t, no.” Sylin pointedly arched an eyebrow as Rylana walked out.