Aeon Wind

By Ryan Howse

On a sweltering summer night, the black market arcana merchant Ilher Saligari is confronted by an agent of the Ministry. A memory-storing alchemical device he created is a key piece of evidence in a murder that may implicate the criminal underground. But Ilher has already fenced it, and the Ministry won't care for that answer. Now he needs to get the device and solve the murder while avoiding both the Ministry and the criminal syndicate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan Howse
• Release date: Oct 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999545451

Book preview

Aeon Wind

An Ilher Saligari Story

Ryan Howse

Cover photo done by Diana Meister of Meister Designs. Photos available at https://www.shutterstock.com/g/dianal Used with permission.

It was the kind of hot, humid Aeonian night that drove people mad. This was heat that would turn a shove into a brawl, and a brawl into the Sisters Penitent picking glass out of faces. Lovers circled like vultures, waiting for the moment to strike. Emotions lay like dried kindling, ready for a spark.

I sat uncomfortably in my shop. The one concession I made to the heat was the unbuttoning of my fine charcoal-gray suit. Another day had gone by with no customers. It hurt the wallet, but not the will. No one wanted to barter over relics and reliquaries on a night like this, least of all me.

I have little patience for the vast majority of my empty-eyed customers, drifting from aisle to aisle in the hopes of finding that one deal that could turn their miserable lives around. As if they'd just stumble across an Economicon for a handful of royale. It's worse when they try to haggle. I have four generations of merchantry in my blood and have studied it all my life; they have half-sketched ideas from some play where the hero uses the merchant's avarice against him.

Their value doesn’t come from the pitiful trinkets they buy, which earn little profit. They provide me legitimacy in the eyes of the Ministry. Most of my money comes from less regulated sources, but I don't sell that to people I can't blackmail.

I could have gone home, but since home was two dingy rooms above my shop, there wasn't much point. The wind kept me cooler here, even if it did ruffle the papers I had spread on my desk. Given the downtime, I should have been doing my receipts and ledgers. Mostly, I was taking swigs from the whiskey flask and wishing I’d spent the extra coins on the good stuff.

Two quick raps hit my