Well Met in Molos

By J. Hepburn

Zerris is a man of many talents: thieving, procuring, and more, peddling his trades in a city at the edge of the empire and between two cultures. He has a built a life and sterling reputation through guile, cunning, and constant vigilance in hiding what and who he is.

Then a cocky stranger barrels through all his careful planning, and a contract goes horribly wrong. As he struggles to recover his plans and save his name, Zerris instead finds his world collapsing, until all that's left is the first true friend he'd ever had.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Hepburn
• Release date: Aug 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463969335

J. Hepburn

J. Hepburn is a speculative fiction writer from Queensland, Australia. They live with their girlfriend, two cats, the ghosts of four giant grey shaggy hounds that take up a lot of space, and innumerable visiting magpies, kookaburras, parrots and carpet pythons.

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Zerris is a man of many talents: thieving, procuring, and more, peddling his trades in a city at the edge of the empire and between two cultures. He has a built a life and sterling reputation through guile, cunning, and constant vigilance in hiding what and who he is.

Then a cocky stranger barrels through all his careful planning, and a contract goes horribly wrong. As he struggles to recover his plans and save his name, Zerris instead finds his world collapsing, until all that's left is the first true friend he'd ever had.

Well Met in Molos

By J. Hepburn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by James Loke Hale

Cover designed by Kirby Crow

This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

Second Edition August 2019

First edition published by Less Than Three Press, LLC

Copyright © 2019 by J. Hepburn

Printed in the United States of America

Well Met in Molos

J. Hepburn

Ill Met in Darkness

The sun has sunk below the horizon, the streets and markets of Molos have returned to life, and Tiglis has travelled halfway across the city for a party. The season is the uncertain in-between, with the year turning towards its hottest months, yet the people of Molos still remembering the cool season when business could be conducted not too long before or after midday. As growing heat makes more and more of the daylight hours intolerable, the people of Molos become short-tempered, their business frantic and their fights vicious.

Tiglis sees that about her even now, surrounded though she is not by the poor, the honest, the hardworking, and the occasionally criminal, but by the richest, the most powerful, the most indolent, and those most likely not to break the law but to live outside it. For tonight, the merchant Gabrio has thrown open the doors of his opulent mansion to all who can win, beg, steal, or be granted as their right an invitation. Tiglis employed more subtle means to acquire hers, and the name upon it—the name she wears tonight—is Orianna.

Tiglis knows about Gabrio: He was not born in Molos and certainly has nothing of the desert in him through blood or upbringing. However, he has lived so long in the Empire's westernmost and northernmost city, and has been so generous with spending his fortune among its artisans and traders that the wealthy—their coffers full—have graciously forgotten he is not its born son. He helped their forgetfulness by fitting in. He did not buy as his home one of those mansions most closely mimicking the architecture of his home city—those buildings nauseatingly irregular of outline. No, Gabrio selected as his home a house like Molos in miniature: with massive walls all around (although only half as high as those protecting and securing Molos), with great imposing doors upon the street (although dwarfed by those gates keeping out the desert to the north and the soft wetlands to the south) and with every room and doorway opening inwards to the centre of the house, where an open courtyard mirrored the great market square in Molos's own centre.

The one thing Gabrio has never sought to conceal is the source of his fortune, and so it is that tonight Tiglis joins the men and women strutting through his mansion and its great internal courtyard. Around her, the rich and avaricious drink Gabrio's imported wines, eat his imported delicacies, and conduct their games of insincere flattery and calculated manipulation.

The fashion for men has been, this past year, for elaborate shirts within even more elaborate coats but tights that expose the calves. Women, having bared most of their breasts and arms for several years, are now sheathed in fabric from neck to ankles and shoulders to wrists, with loose styles that hint, rather than display, and are coy, in contrast to last year's boldness, yet seem somehow to display even more than they used to.

Young and old, men and women, all follow the changing patterns. Thus are the traders, tailors, and dressmakers of Molos kept in employment.

Thus dressed as Tiglis never would, Orianna mingles with the crowd. She knows only a little about who is who but is quickly able, as she flits past conversations and studies guarded expressions, to sort Gabrio's friends from his enemies.

She is aware at all times of the faces around her and what their expressions reveal. Although she has taken great pains to make sure she is well worth watching, she needs to know what those who watch her see.

She is slender and young and short enough to appear delicate, and has chosen this night to appear barely older than a girl, with breasts pushing modestly at her blue cashmere dress. Her desert skin she has lightened to a gentle olive hue that surprises Molos natives but is recognised by some Molos visitors as hailing from the far side of the Empire's lands, in the east where land ends. Her bright blue eyes, bequeathed to her by her desert-born mother, she has no way of changing, but has no need to: Among those who hold themselves haughtily above the desert-born and expect dark skin to always be matched by dark eyes, blue adds to the impression she has come from a far-distant city. An even more effective disguise than her powders and oils is her bearing and her manner, which tonight are cultured and refined and rare to Molos, where the desert seeps into even the most effete soul. She carries herself nervously and gazes about her with wonder that attracts glances of mocking condescension or calculating avarice.

She flits between rooms and through the great internal courtyard as lightly and unpredictably as a lacewing fly, conversing only briefly with other guests and speaking always in a breathy, excited, carefully precise voice tinted with an accent recognisable as foreign to Molos. To most of the assembled company, she knows she is merely a naïve, if pleasant, novelty among the mass of guests with their brittle laughter and their constant verbal sparring for social, economic, or political advantage. Yet she is no more naïve than they, and knows full well that some are scheming how to take her for themselves, for their sons, or for service in their private harem or public bordello.

Such treachery is only to be expected; all desert-born know that the wetlands of the Empire breed deception, dishonesty, and dishonour. In Molos, desert and Empire blend uneasily, and although the city's heart pumps desert blood, its money and civil power are entirely wetland in origin.

Orianna comes at last, in her apparently random journeying, to the room where the choicest of delicacies are served, the finest of wines poured, and the sharpest envy most openly revealed. For there, behind the glass panes of a locked case, the pride of Gabrio's collection outshines his mosaic floors, the peacocks that squat haughtily in the trees of his courtyard garden, and even the most colourfully dressed of his wealthiest guests.

Orianna slips easily between the few guests present, employing her beauty and her short stature to mollify those who might have been offended at her boldness.

She gazes with unaffected rapture at an opal the size of a large man's fist, carved to the shape of an egg and inlaid with finest golden script she cannot quite, from the other side of the glass, read.

The Egg of Valmong, a no-longer-young man tells her, speaking as to a promising child. Gabrio acquired it some years ago, the Devils alone know how. It seems to be enchanted—his fortune has only grown since. A canny man of business, Gabrio, but he has been even more successful since that Egg came into his possession. I can't imagine how much it's worth now. The man chuckles. I heard tell thieves have set its price higher than a prince's ransom!

Orianna stirs, as though just realising she is being addressed. Oh, I know the Egg's story, she says, effortlessly dismissing the unintroduced speaker and all his pomp and confidence. It is rather more famous in the Empire than Molos is.

She flits away, mothlike, leaving the man apparently dumb with shock at her tone.

As she moves on, no hint in the line of her smile, the set of her eyes, or the motions of her head, reveal that she is quite aware of all those schemers attempting to follow her, to corner her, and to quietly, without fuss, acquire her like merely another jewel. As the bells of Molos toll midnight, she leaves them all baffled and frustrated as, soundless and wraithlike, she slips past attentive guards, through a locked door, and into Gabrio's private chambers.

Walking even more lightly but much more quickly, she passes without hesitation or uncertainty along passages lit only by moonlight filtered through skylights or by lantern light leaking through shutters. She runs up a set of stairs with less noise than a mouse.

Double doors at the top of the stairs lead into the antechamber of Gabrio's bedroom, where close friends are entertained privately. On one side, doors carved in an ivy-like latticework are shut over a balcony overlooking the courtyard garden, letting in not just noise but also light, which paints the ceiling and opposite wall in elaborate shadows.

Set into that opposite wall are the grand doors to the bedroom itself.

Halfway to those doors, Orianna freezes. She stays that way for some time, poised on the balls of her sandalled feet, her head cocked to one side and her hands holding her gleaming black hair away from her ears. She knows she made no sound, so where did that faint creak of moving wood come from?

Her face far less radiant and soft than it had been before, she creeps towards the doors with the stealthy fixation of a hunting cat. She listens intently for many heartbeats, then eases open one of the large doors. It gives the faintest squeak, a sound that could have been wood settling in the cooling night.

She had been expecting darkness on the other side—or perhaps, if she had truly heard the creak of the floor shifting, a torch. Yet she sees moonlight. The room's inner balcony doors, solid and massive enough to withstand a siege or keep out the fiercest midday heat, are cracked open, admitting light through the outer doors of privacy-protecting lattice.

Her darting eyes see nothing. She turns her head carefully to the side.

A knife touches her throat, cold against her skin. She freezes, her own knife already half-drawn from its sheath concealed within her dress.

Please do not hurt me, kind sir! Orianna says, her voice wavering, her wide eyes brimming with incipient, affected tears.

I have no interest in hurting you. I am here purely for business reasons. As, I believe, are you. Take your hand off the knife.

The voice, cocky and amused, is pitched so only Orianna can hear it. It is warm and friendly and, she realises with a start that does not reach her body and especially not her neck, it is faintly familiar. She obeys his directive, slowly pulling one long-fingered hand out of a slit cunningly concealed by the cut of her dress.

Her invisible assailant's spare hand slips through that concealed opening with no fumbling at all to take her knife, rough glove brushing lightly against her belly.

Taking care to keep her neck as still as she can, Orianna slowly begins turning her head. When he does not warn her to stop, she eases slightly backward away from the blade, which does not follow her.

Gabrio's bed, writing desk, and cabinets are faintly visible, but the figure holding the knife to Orianna's neck is mere shadow. Not even a face is visible. Not even eyes glint in the dark.

A fair comment, sir, Orianna says, her voice steady but still soft and breathy. Her skin tingles where he touched her, but she is ignoring that as she furiously dredges her memory for who this voice might belong to. May I ask, are you here for opportunity, or something specific? There seems no value in continuing to act frightened. Although Orianna is confident in the sincerity of her acting, this shadowy thief seems to assume it is an act—a sensible assumption, and one Orianna herself would make were she in his situation.

Merely opportunity, the figure replies. I have no interest in items that may be difficult to dispose of. Gold I can spend and food I can eat, but artworks are such tedious things.

Orianna tries to peer down, but the knife's blade has been so blackened that even with her eyes adjusting to the moonlight, all she can see is a patch of thicker shadow.

But you, the figure continues, look as though you are here for something specific.

Before I answer that, may I beg you, sir, to remove this knife from my throat and let us speak with greater ease?

The figure is silent for the space of a few steady heartbeats. Can we agree we have no quarrel here, merely the misfortune to intrude upon each other's work?

I do so hope, sir, Orianna says.

Very well then, your request is fair.

Orianna feels more than sees the knife withdrawn into the darkness.

She releases a long breath that shifts her breasts beneath their covering of finest wool. When she turns to face him, she sees only darkness in the shape of a small man.

I thank you most generously, sir. May I ask: Have you been here long?

Long enough to have found a tidy enough sum to justify this night's adventure, and to feel satisfied.

I must warmly congratulate you, sir. Have you found, in your search for gold, a complicated and no doubt well-hidden key?

A key? I do not believe so. I might keep such a thing if I thought I could determine its use and find its lock to my profit, but as I am not familiar with this room, let alone this house, it would be a troublesome and vexatious effort I would rather not go to.

If the shadow-concealed figure sees how much tension flows out of Orianna at his words, he makes no sign of it.

I thank you for your honesty, sir, she says, a hint of sharpness in her words as she stresses the honorific. It is a desert custom to flatter those you are suspicious of, for is it not written that a dishonest man will cringe to be given the respect owed an honest man, and reveal thereby their deceit for all with eyes to see?

Think nothing of it. My honesty costs me nothing to give, but has frequently been very expensive to withhold. You may have it for nothing, and my warmest regards. Now, I will not keep you longer, for time may be of the essence, and you look far too lovely to go unnoticed from the party. I ask only this, what is your name?

For several heartbeats, Orianna is unsettled by the flattery and does not answer.

Orianna, sir, she says at last.

I am your humble servant, Orianna. My name is Kalle. The name's two foreign syllables, both percussive, are as strange to Orianna's ears as the name itself. A hand seizes one of Orianna's, raising it to unseen lips.

She feels fine fabric, lighter even than her dress, cool against the back of her hand, through which lips caress her skin. It could not be silk, surely? Could a thief ever be so richly dressed? So willing to draw attention to themselves?

His courtly manners in such an unlikely situation unnerve her so much she fails to suppress a warm shiver at his touch.

I will leave you to your business, but I beg your forgiveness for my interruption of your endeavours this night and hope we will meet again under better circumstances, affording us more time to converse in a more civilised fashion. What is it you say in Molos? 'May the night find you under safe stars.'

Orianna sees his slender figure rushing across the room in complete silence, almost before she has registered he is no longer standing before her. He pauses to open the sliding lattice doors enough to slip through, then is gone.

Kalle? Orianna whispers, pronouncing it Molos fashion, with softened consonants. She stands wide-eyed in the gloom as the hand he had kissed stays raised. By all the Hells, who are you and where did you spring from? Not a local by your name or manner, and you have not been long in Molos or I would know of you by now.

She lowers her hand, then shakes herself, not unlike a dog, the expression on her face shifting from wry amusement to concentration. Then she lunges for a painting against one wall.

Her fingers, operating in near darkness, seek around the frame until a latch clicks and she can pivot the painting away from the wall to reveal a safe.

She reaches inside her dress, then freezes before her fingers find her lockpicks.

No!

She grabs at the safe's handle. It turns under her grip.

Orianna reaches in first one hand, then both, frantically sweeping the entire floor of the safe, then up, searching with increasing desperation but no success for a shelf, or recess, or even a box attached to the safe's ceiling or a hook on any surface.

There is absolutely nothing inside.

No! she gasps. She lunges for the desk, finding in quick succession and with no hesitation five concealed compartments, but ends her search no less frantic. As she closes each compartment, barely remembering not to slam it, a No! in progressively higher and more hysterical pitch escapes her lips.

She opens the desk's wide drawer, needing merely a few twists of a delicate-looking pick to defeat the lock. But that compartment gives her no more satisfaction than any of the others. Kalle, you goat fucker! Her voices rises in pitch even as its volume remains at a whisper. I will find out who you are, I will find you, and I will cut your balls off!

A shout sounds from a guard on the roof, a challenge and an alarm both, the sounds filtering down to the bedroom dimly through the balcony doors. A heartbeat later, the sound of running feet can be heard across the substantial ceiling, echoed much more loudly by running feet on the stairs.

Orianna looks around her wildly. Outside, she hears running footsteps. A voice, rough and authoritative, calls, Who's there? Show yourself!

Downstairs, the great doors boom closed.

*~*~*

When the doors of Gabrio's house are