I woke up with a splitting headache accompanied by the sensation of both mental and physical exhaustion reminding me once again I wasn’t getting any younger, and every new morning was a new struggle for me all in itself.
Only then did I realize that I wasn’t getting up after the night of rest, albeit not a good one, but after getting almost fried alive by some damned sorcerer. Considering that, I didn’t feel that bad - as an alternative meant I could as well as be dead.
I groaned, forcing my aching body to sit and look around. I was in the prison cell, with bare stone walls, two plank beds, lit only by the lamps in the doorway, and nothing much else. It wasn’t all that surprising I shot the man, even if it was in self-defense and law-keepers would at least try to question me on the matter.
What did surprise me was that they did lock the drunk faery from before here with me. It was highly unusual. They usually separate prisoners by gender and species to manage them much easier, as far as I know.
Perhaps they didn’t think of her as important, or perhaps they did and wanted to keep people involved with the same incident together in one place. I didn’t know. With her plain grey lightweight garb, she didn’t give an impression of a very important person, so they didn’t care she would complain.
Faery sat on the second bed, opposite mine, eyes closed, rubbing her temples. It seems I wasn’t the only one with the headache, except mine wasn’t caused by heavy drinking. I didn’t bother with talking to her. I couldn’t understand her language, anyway.
Instead, I focused on inspecting myself. Law-keepers, of course, took away all my equipment and stripped me down to trousers, probably to inspect me for injuries as well as hidden weapons. Despite soreness in my muscles, the haze of tiredness over my mind, and burning in the scars on my face from the fistfight, nothing seemed broken, and despite the fact I felt battered I was relatively well in better-than-being-dead terms.
“Why did they lock me here with you?” Faery asked.
It actually startled me. She spoke Neridan after all, albeit with a thick accent I couldn’t quite place, but precious pronunciation. It sounded quite strange mixed with the girlish sound of her voice, which I assumed was how all of her kin sounded normally rather than being any indication of her actual age.
“Because you threw a bottle at the sorcerer that was trying to kill me, which allowed me to shoot the bastard?” I offered.
“Sorcerer? Which sorcerer?” She asked, obviously confused, but she seemingly gathered her thoughts quickly: “I don’t even know who you are.”
“Terrence Wicht. I am the bounty hunter.” I introduced myself.
“Svetla. Svetla Starsky.” She answered, “I am a mechanic.”
“Mechanic?”
“Yes. I was sent to the New World because locals have no idea how to deal with wood gasifiers.” She explained readily.
I could hardly imagine a faery to be a mechanic, considering her diminutive figure probably barely able to lift things, and how heavy all that steel machinery tended to be, but I simply guessed it was the knowledge that mattered, not raw strength. It’s not like I was an expert on any of it. I had to know something about firearms, but engines, trains, automobiles were beyond me.
She probably took my blank stare and silence as a sign of confusion. She readily provided an explanation: “Wood gasifiers can power either spark-ignition engines, where all the normal fuel can be replaced with little change to the carburation or feeding the gas into the air inlet that is modified to have a throttle valve, depending on the type of engine…”
Which just made everything worse. Now I had to admit I had zero ideas about what she talked about. It is the reason I dislike faeries. They probably never stop talking - this one gained a chirpy undertone when she rattled about technical things, and from what I understood from my limited experiences, it was a normal attitude for their standards.
“Wood to gas. Gas to fuel. With our dryad comrades, trees are infinite. It proves to be much easier than getting all that refined petroleum here…” She tried to simplify things a little bit.
I shrugged, without saying a word.
This time, however, faery, or Svetla as she called herself, probably got the message and instead of flooding me with the trivia I wouldn’t get, shook her head, and whined instead, “I hate the New World. Everything here is so loud.”
Not allowing her rant about her trade probably reminded her of her hangover. She cradled her head.
“That’s probably the whisky doing,” I couldn’t stop myself from remarking sarcastically.
“I only drink because it dulls the headaches. I can stop anytime!” She argued. Something told me it wasn’t the first conversation Svetla had on the topic of drinking, even though it wasn’t my business to stick my nose into that in particular.
“Thanks for saving my life, by the way.” I decided to change the subject. “If you didn’t distract the bastard, I would be a goner now.”
As much as I didn’t like her kind, I wasn’t ungrateful.
“I wish I had an idea what is going on here.” She said, then paused.
My conversation with the faery was interrupted by the sound of steps down the prison hallway and guards that appeared at the doors of our cell. Both of them were tall, imposing men, humans, dressed in the blue uniforms of the law-keepers with their shining badges. And both with their hands on their guns still in the holster looked at both of us, or rather at me, as my cellmate wasn’t exactly imposing, with a piercing gaze.
“You will come with us, Mr. Wicht.” One of the guards announced.
Faery wanted to say something and hopped up on her feet with her wings buzzing. Not sure what she wanted to achieve, but law-keepers weren’t impressed.
“Hold.” The other guard ordered, slightly pulling the pistol in his holster out, which discouraged faery from doing anything. “Don’t cause further problems. Your release later today was ordered, Ms. Starsky. Wait until they come for you.”
She calmed down immediately. I didn’t argue with the guards, either. Automatically, I extended my arms to put the handcuffs on without further prompting from them, then let them escort me out of the prison block. It wasn’t unusual even for the temporarily deputized Bounty Hunter to find himself behind bars, and it was always best to cooperate and get over with it.
It was situated down in the building basement, damp and dark, similar to the dungeons of old times. Daylight temporarily blinded me when I stepped out into the upper levels. The sun was up high, which means I must have been out for possibly a half of the day, if not more. I staggered, but the law-keeper pushed me forward. I squinted as my eyes acclimated to the change and didn’t fight back. Soon I was filled with the familiar draining sensation I already felt before as my body reacted to the change in the magical flow. It, once again, made me pause, but my escorts once again shoved me forward.
They led me to the interrogation room, where they sat me at the table.
The dryad stared at me with her lavender eyes. An empty gaze like one of the blind, even if I was sure her perception was unimpaired in any way.
I could have guessed it will be either her or her human partner that would want to speak with me about it.
“Remove his shackles. And bring him back the clothes.” She ordered toward the law-keeper that brought me in.
“Ms. De Milos…” He protested.
“Agent.” Dryad corrected him. I looked at her, and then over the shoulder at the guard. She made him pause. She never introduced herself to me, and probably wouldn’t do so even now, but both law-keepers and the military seemed to know who she was, and had a healthy amount of respect for her.
Or rather didn’t want to end up in trouble, as he simply straightened himself and with a simple “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Mr. Wicht.” Dryad said once both guards left after removing the cuffs, leaving me alone in the interrogation room with her, “I am starting to wonder if you are incredibly talented, or incredibly lucky, or if perhaps something else is in play here.”
“I am not certain I follow, Ms. De Milos,” I replied. Though I thought the circumstances of the fight with that sorcerer were incredibly fortunate for me as I would probably be dead if it wasn’t for the assistance of the drunk faery that doesn’t even remember the entire thing. I was certain the agent wasn’t referring to that.
“Agent De Milos, if you must.” She said. Her expression was unreadable and gave out no emotion, and her unnatural eyes didn’t help it either.
“It took you roughly eight, perhaps less, hours to find the suspect in a city as large as Bosona.” She said, “It is impressive, as it is suspicious.”
A guard entered with the rest of my clothes, which he threw at the table, and after the dryad waved him away, left. I put on my shirt back.
My interrogator waited patiently until I dressed, and finally asked: “A suspect? Do you mean one of the drunks? Or a sorcerer that attacked me?”
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“The man you killed perfectly matches the description of the person who delivered the fake potions to the depot at the Precursor’s Gate,” the agent answered, tilting her head in consideration. “A blonde man with green eyes. We had the soldiers identify the body while you were down. It is the person they took the shipment from.”
“Wolfgang Fitz,” I summarized. Since he was obscured by shadows and his powers didn’t illuminate his face, I never took a glimpse of how the attacker looked, and considering the danger to my life, I have had different worries on my mind back then.
“I am afraid, no, that man wasn’t Wolfgang Fitz”, the dryad said calmly. She didn’t say more, almost as if she was probing me for a reaction.
“So you identified him?” I said. Unsurprising revelation, I assumed the name was fake in the first place.
“No. Man had no documents on him.” Was the reply. It felt like she was playing some form of a game with me, which was irksome.
“Oh. So how do you know he wasn’t really Wolfgang Fitz?”
“Because we found out who Wolfang Fitz is. Mr. Fitz, if you like, is…” Dryad said, then paused and corrected herself, “...was, rather, an accountant and business representative of the local Pharmacons manufacturer. Not only he couldn’t sign anything in the past few months, he never handled any property in Lacertia… did you know him?”
She seemed to be probing me.
“I have no idea who that is,” I said. Truthfully. The name didn’t ring any bells. If it did, I wouldn’t waste the time asking around, chasing shadows. “So I assume he is dead, too?”
“We wouldn’t find out who he was if we didn’t demand an explanation from the Governor’s office about the documents the shipment came with. If you didn’t check the crates at random, people in the Old World would blame everything on an administrative error later and no one would know where it came from.” The dryad summarized.
I stayed silent, as no matter how confident I felt with my ability to track people, and possibly find stolen goods, legal matters regarding running a business, and all the paperwork related to it flew above my head.
“So, what happens now?” I spoke after a brief moment of silence.
“Regarding the person you’ve shot?” She said. Even though her facial expression remained unchanged, I could swear I felt a smirk in the tone of her voice. I knew they would certainly be able to blame it on me.
I opted to not answer at that moment. I had to think of something.
“I am certain Hesperia wouldn't miss a rogue sorcerer who was a known accessory to the crime and was eventually killed in an attempt to thwart the subsequent investigation...” She said calmly, almost with this ‘matter of fact’ expression that didn’t betray any emotion, then wondered: “Do you have any specific plan on how to find the missing goods? With the man who could lead us to them, dead?”
I had a feeling they were considering if they put me back in that jail right now. If they relied on that man’s testimony to get hold of the missing cargo they were looking for the entire time, I could guess they would be very displeased with the results.
It reminded me of legal penalties this contract had - which forced me to come up with something. Something that said I will have results even after minor setbacks.
“My plan stays the same as before”, I said, and after pondering on my options for a while, I continued: “Go to Lacertia and look around there. Visit manufacturers, or even following the usual trade routes and stop points would be helpful. Find the goods, the caravaneers, or the soldiers that were supposed to escort them. They couldn’t have just disappeared to the thin air.”
“I suppose they couldn’t.” Agent allowed.
“Whoever that sorcerer was, he wouldn’t tell us where real potions were,” I said confidently.
“Care to explain why?”
“I admit I have more experience with tracking robbers after the fact instead of actually preventing robberies…” I murmured, then spoke more clearly, “I do know that despite the size of Bosona, people usually tend to know when a valuable shipment arrives. They might not know what is really inside, but they know it is valuable…”
“Are they?” The dryad shifted her head again as she was listening more closely.
“...and no valuable shipment arrived in the last five days…” I continued, entirely relying on the information the barkeep had given or at least suggested and I couldn’t verify. Even if I couldn’t trust all I had been told, it would get me off the hook.
“...which you can check out yourself. Even if you can’t tell where the real deal is, you know about all official shipments into the city, and that it wasn’t Mr. Fitz's cargo. Or whoever the guy was…” I paused and took a deep breath,
“Do we know, though?” Agent De Milos mumbled, which I thought wasn’t really directed towards me.
“You can certainly demand the list of all goods that arrived at the city in the last five days from the Governor’s Office. You clearly can demand the information and show you the ledgers or something.” I pressed.
Dryad bobbed her head in agreement, she was considering it
So I continued: “...I assume that someone knew you were already investigating the missing shipments and hastily threw together the crates I opened to placate you, hoping you will be satisfied and leave. There might even be a third fake caravan somewhere. While the real one never came anywhere close to the city.”
“How do you know?” She asked.
“I doubt that your soldiers paid anything directly, so it isn’t a usual kind of fraud with a salesman running away with money for something that wasn’t delivered,” I guessed.
She shook her head.
Actually, I had no way to actually prove any of it, I admitted to myself. It was, once again, a fabrication, a wild guess, or a desperate excuse, but after the unlikely attack by the person who shouldn’t have been able to find me, I was slowly becoming a gambling man in my advancing age.
“Everything they need for that can be procured locally.” I continued, then raised my hand, counting on my fingers to put an emphasis: “Alcohol, flasks, crates, even animals to pull the carts. They didn’t need to get anywhere close to the real deal. Just know you are looking for the potions.”
“And you think we wouldn’t get the sorcerer to talk? We have ways.” Dryad said. It sounded almost like a threat.
It didn’t scare me as it might others, spending my life getting shot at did give me a good tolerance towards death threats, but I was very well aware I am stretching my luck there.
“Yes.” I admitted, “How could they know that either that the sorcerer kills me without problems, or alternatively, I would be a good shot.”
She pierced me with the gaze of those purple eyes.
“Just imagine if my bullets hit a different spot. Let’s say a leg…” I said, with a gunpoint gesture suggesting how my aim could sway away from the target, “You would have a sorcerer with a bullet in the thigh, essentially unable to use his magic due to pain, and forced to tell you everything. Would they allow their plan to have a single point of failure?”
“They?” The dryad frowned at me.
“They,” I said quickly, “You hired me because you are losing valuable cargo left and right and the Governor here was unable or unwilling to do anything.”
“This sounds like a conspiracy…” FDA agent stated darkly.
It reminded me too late that convincing the secret police of the conspiracy wasn't good for someone’s health.