Chapter 2 A Bit of Hot Goss #2
Humans took a chance crossing into the fae realms, full stop.
Even the closest and lowest order fae realm, Obsidian, posed its dangers.
Moonstone was that much worse. The way the six fae realms existed, you had to pass through the lower ones to reach the higher ones.
They were kind of magically nested inside each other.
Not that plenty of smugglers hadn’t figured out how to bypass the import/export depot in Obsidian to trade directly with Moonstone, and the higher realms that worked through Moonstone agents, but it was a bad idea to actually go there.
Like the pixie dust they exported, the fae realms increased in power—and strangeness—the deeper in you went.
The black pixie dust from Obsidian was the lowest test, which made Obsidian correspondingly the least dangerous of the fae realms, at least magically speaking.
From there the dust ascended in power to Moonstone white, Citrine yellow, Amethyst purple, Cinnabar orange, and culminated in Ruby red.
No humans had ever seen—to Cha’s knowledge—the orange dust from Cinnabar or the legendary scarlet dust from Ruby.
Probably because their faces melted off if they came within a league of that stuff.
Very few human magic workers could handle Amethyst purple dust or even Citrine yellow.
Moonstone white dust was priceless for its potency and because more humans could deal with the stuff—like the mages working the racecourse—but Monat had taken a ridiculously dangerous chance, even for a haul of that.
“Getting to Moonstone and back is a fool’s gambit,” Cha pointed out, just in case Garaile hadn’t fully grasped it.
“You know that. I know that.” Garaile shrugged. “Monat knows that. Or she sure does now.”
“Did she make it back out of Moonstone?”
“Unclear. Word is, Monat is still in one of the fae realms—no one’s sure which—in some fae jail. Maybe only Obsidian,” he added, as if to make her feel better.
“Even if it’s only Obsidian, they’re more likely to send human smugglers home with a few added features as a lesson than let them off without punishment.” And that was if they came home at all. Dammit, Monat.
Garaile grimaced, passing a hand over his forehead as if checking that he hadn’t sprouted a pair of curling, brightly colored horns as had famously happened to a well-known smuggler caught out in Obsidian.
Humans marked thus by the fae did not fare well, rarely surviving long.
Mortal flesh couldn’t endure that sort of modification.
Cha narrowed her eyes at Garaile. “Anything else?”
“You know as much as I do now,” Garaile answered, holding up a hand as if denying personal responsibility. “Well, except one thing—some people think the law-hounds have found a way to listen to the underground path-channels.”
Cha set down her ale abruptly, the thunk punctuating her dismay. “Is that verified?”
“Rumor, but a persistent one. Could be paranoia.” Garaile shrugged, taking a thoughtful swig.
Could be. Nevertheless, she cursed. The human mage underground had established the clandestine path-channels so that regular folks could have conversations without going through the heavily monitored public networks.
You never said anything on public path-comms that you didn’t want the fae or human law to know and potentially arrest you for.
The underground path-channels allowed anyone with the reasonably cheap—although also contraband—enchanted path-boxes to send and receive messages.
Despite the name, the path-boxes didn’t depend on mental telepathy, instead working via a magical facsimile of that ability, which only the fae possessed.
Also, the underground path-channels didn’t work for private conversation, as anyone—anyone who knew the channel codes, that was—listening to the channel could hear the path-messages and potentially butt-in.
Most people figured that was half the fun.
An unexpected side-benefit of the underground path-channels being open to anyone with the ability to chime in was that the various channels also allowed for a number of grassroots groups to organize judicious resistance to the iron-fisted control of fae nobles and their puppets, the human councils.
That went beyond smuggling expensive magical goods.
Some people were actually altruistic and cared about improving the world more than making their fortunes. Guess which camp Cha fell into.
If the law-hounds had figured out how to listen in… Well, a lot of people would suffer. Good people, not ones like Cha.
“Think that’s how Monat got caught?”
“Going to Moonstone, anything could happen.” The poor sods who returned mutated were the lucky ones. Only whispered rumors hinted at the dire fates of those prisoners never heard from again.
Garaile raised his bottle with a grim smile and Cha joined him in a solemn toast to Monat.
“Who was she running the dust for?” Cha asked.
“You don’t know?” Garaile asked, squinting at her and apparently unsure if she was yanking his chain. Cute, nicely muscled, young enough he could probably go for hours, but really not that bright. Alas.
“How would I know?” Cha waved a hand at her surroundings. “I’ve gone legit. Mostly,” she amended, since the tourney circuit wasn’t entirely aboveboard. Still, it was as legit as she’d ever gotten.
Garaile snorted, shaking his head at her with a grin. “Oh, right. The day the Bandit turns law-lover is the day I stop riding the lines.”
“Can’t move anything without Dy’s rig,” Cha replied, swallowing back the old hurt and shaking her head. “You know who Monat was running for or not?”
“Yeah. Otto.”
Of course it was. Cha seriously considered opening another bottle of ale, the first had gone down so easy.
It just figured it was Otto. Always happy to profit off the smuggling of contraband magic ingredients so in demand by everyone from minor hedge-witches to the magic academies, then never around when the law came sniffing for the ley riders taking on all the risk.
She was on the verge of asking Garaile if he wanted another ale—maybe he wasn’t all that young and she didn’t need sparkling conversation for a quick pressure-release—when someone rapped on the door.
It could be only one person and he wouldn’t dare.
The door popped open and Otto stuck his head in, round face creased in what he no doubt thought was a charming grin. “Bandit!” he crowed. “Got a minute for an old friend?”