As the door closed behind Jay, a cloud of smoke, stale sweat, and cooking smells enveloped her. The tavern was already full- of people, laughter, the constant buzzing of the voices and the crackling of fire. Low-level factory workers rubbed their elbows with broad-shouldered longshoremen and other local residents that chose to eat at ’The Magic Lamp’ because they were too poor or too cramped in their quarters to own a kitchen or even a hot plate. The tavern’s namesake glowed brightly, a crystal globe riveted to the ceiling and supported by brass strips. The magical fuel swirled within it, casting circles of orange-tinted light over the tables and chairs and people’s faces.
Jay pushed towards the bar, where a stately woman resided.
‘Little dove!’ the woman called out and in response Jay waved to her.
‘Good evening Abzeda’ she said.
Abzeda was the proprietor of ‘The Magic Lamp’. A Nyrah woman, she was stout like most of her folk. Her face shone like the shell of well-polished walnut. Her thick arms were currently overloaded with the tankards of cheap beer that she was distributing among the patrons that were crowding the bar. She looked like a mother cat trying to feed her numerous kittens, but to Jay she looked like a woman of success. Wasn’t she then? A tavern owner in her own right, even if it was a tavern no one would frequent if they could afford to eat or drink anywhere else.
‘Good day again, huh?’ she said when her arms were finally empty and Jay put down on the counter the second coin she got from Lethe, having spent the first one the previous evening.
‘Yeah…’ said Jay although this was not true. In fact, she wasn’t busy ‘working’ at all today. Too many thoughts swirled within her head, swishing and churning like the magic in the lamp. She was thinking about the strange encounter from yesterday, the unusual Kou, the proposition he made and if she should really show up tonight in that alley behind the old brickworks.
Abzeda wasn’t prying. Instead, she withdrew towards the hearth at the end wall and poured a bowl of something that was bubbling over the fire in a great iron-cast cauldron. Jay sniffed the air. It smelled like a turnip stew. Soon enough, she could ascertain that the liquid in the bowl indeed was turnip stew when Abzeda put the bowl in front of her alongside some flatbread. Jay stirred the bowl with a spoon and was rewarded for her effort with a small piece of fat from the bottom of the bowl.
‘Eat, or it will go cold’ said Abzeda. Jay didn’t have to be told twice.
As she ate, something walked into her field of vision. It was a Kou. It was actually one of the two that Abzeda owned. They weren’t bought from the slave market but caught in the ‘wild’. Abzeda had sent her sons out to abandoned buildings and submerged sub-basements in the Edge and the boys had come back with those two.
Jay watched as Abzeda grabbed the creature by the arm, pulled it towards the bubbling cauldron, and handed it a long wooden spoon. The Kou stared at the cauldron, then at the spoon and, after a minute of staring, seemed to finally understand what was expected. Slowly, it started to stir the turnip stew with deliberate motion.
Jay observed it for a little bit, then looked around, wondering if she could spot the other one. There it was, carrying a wooden ladder easily three times as long as the Kou was tall, as well as a heavy bucket and some rags. The Kou put the ladder under the magic lamp and climbed to the top, as nimbly as a squirrel. It proceeded to wipe the crystal dome of the lamp. It was completely unbothered by the patrons that kept bumping into the ladder and effortlessly kept balance at the top of the rickety ladder.
‘Abzeda’ said Jay to the woman as she was passing by, ‘Your Kou- how long have you had them?’
‘Damarten and Joshul? Oh, it must be going on five years, little dove. Why’d you ask?’
‘Have they… have they ever spoke?’
‘Spoke?’ Abzeda laughed heartily, ‘Kou can’t speak, little dove. Everybody knows that. Just look at them. It took us three months teach them they need to wear pants now.’
‘Really now, I think it is good the boys took them out of the Edge,’ Abzeda continued, propping her hands on the counter. ‘It’s better for them to be here where we can take care of them, isn’t it?’
Jay said nothing. She looked at Abzeda’s wrist. As usual, it was decorated with a red cotton ribbon wound around it. Colourful beads and bells were threaded over the ribbon. It looked charming and cheerful, but Jay knew it was covering an ugly scar- the spot where magical tracker ink had been removed from under Abzeda’s skin. Abzeda, as many of the Nyrah, didn’t arrive to Arklington of her own will, but had once been a slave that went through the Labour Crossroads.
‘It’s nothing like that, I assure you’ said Abzeda, her voice tinted with her memories as a slave- a little bit sad, a little bit hurt. ‘We treat them well and they eat right. They live like decent folk now.’
‘But they cannot leave’ Jay thought to herself, but she didn’t say that aloud. As the wise proverb says: ‘Do not argue with the one that cooks your food’.
She put her head down, only breaking the absorption of her food to look at the Kou that were pushed from one task to another by either Abzeda or one of her sons. It was clear that Lethe was nothing like those two. Not only did he speak, he wore clothes and carried a dagger that he clearly knew how to use. He was also claiming that he could teach her something useful. Something that could at least make her hungry days pass easier. Wasn’t that at least worth her attention?
She finished her stew and got up to leave. She waved goodbye to Abzeda but wasn’t sure that the woman saw her, as she was too busy straightening out two drunks arguing over a card game.
The streets turned cooler now as the sunset barely illuminated the sky. Jay turned to go home, the all-present mud sloshing under her feet even thought it was a few weeks since it had last rained. In fact, Jay could tell that she was in the Drowns just by the presence of the mud. Sometimes, the constant inundation of the street would bring with it small trinkets: little things like lost coins, pieces of brass and iron, dead ferrets and rats, small vials, boots, string, and all manners of things that at one point or another had ended up in a river. So, Jay knew that it paid to look under her feet- literally. Even if it was just to avoid losing her footing and ending up with her face in the sludge.
Long before Jay was even born, during the Abrecari war, the city had sustained a lot of magical damage. The riverbed was altered by enemy mages hoping to destroy the docks and the city’s industry, and the water invaded the streets. The river flooded the Drowns and the Edge. The city deemed the Drowns a place worth saving. The riverbanks had been strengthened and large, magic- and steam-driven dewatering pumps kept them dry. Or rather, relatively dry, since the water kept seeping in anyway, meaning the streets were always covered in fine, river-smelling mud. But the Edge- that quarter of the city was now a home to the rat, the marshland duck, the gnat and of course- the Kou. The Edge was where you’d put things that you no longer needed- all the refuse and broken things. Jay’s point of pride was that she didn’t live in the Edge.
Another point of pride was her home- a structure she had built herself. Just a few streets from The Magic Lamp, there was a blind alley in which there was a shoddy lean-to propped against the wall. Jay had widened it a bit and, with an unprecedented stroke of luck that had landed her a large swatch of oilskin, gave it a new roof. Now it housed a cot that stood tall enough to be free of mud and full of bits of fabric in which she could bury herself during cold nights, as well as a brazier that she had constructed from a discarded table, a rusted food-tray and a pot with a small hole in the bottom. The true testament to her home being better than sleeping in doorways and under someone’s stairs was when Ludd the Nosebleed had come over, one of the many street kids that populated the Drowns. He had deemed the little house worthy and had plans to make use both of it- and Jay too. Jay had beaten him with a piece of rusty pipe while yowling like a ruptured pressure tank until the property was no longer so enticing to Ludd. He called her a ‘loon’un’ and since that day she had had no more trouble with any invaders, barring the occasional stray rat.
Finally at home! Jay slipped inside and covered up the entrance with some cobbled-together boards. She started to build up a fire in the brazier, throwing in the flammable bits and pieces that she had found today- splinters of wood, twigs, pieces of fabrics too frayed for anything else, a piece of fayed oakum rope, and a few pieces of coal left over from a load destined for an industrial furnace.
When the fire was going nicely and she finished warming up her fingers, she dove into the pile of fabric on her cot and watched the flames, thinking of what a difference one day made. One day when she didn’t have to spend the majority of her time searching for something to eat. She let the warmth of the fire and the comfort of her full stomach lull her to sleep.
She awoke with a start and immediately recognized the sound that had pulled her out of the depth of her slumber. Temple bells, the ones from the Sacred Pair of Eternal Promise, was the only way the people of the Drowns were able to keep time, since almost no one could afford a clock- either a magical or mechanical one. With a beating heart Jay counted the strokes. Did she oversleep? Was it past midnight already? One…three…five…nine…eleven…Silence crept in as the last stroke rung in the air. Eleven! She still had time!
She jumped off her cot and snuck outside. The mist rolled in from the riverside and took over the streets, but Jay paid no mind. She spent her entire life finding her way in the maze of streets, and no fog or darkness was an obstacle when where she practically knew the exact number of steps that would take her to the old brickworks alley.
She almost ran, diving from lantern to lantern, from corner light to corner light. The air was cold but she was kept warm by the movement. Her footsteps fell on the cold mud and then on even colder cobblestones. She would not be late! She would not be late for what she now believed would be her chance. Her only chance out of the cold, out of the hunger, out of the promise of a short and painful life. Even if the shadow of the Ostrah Gate would loom over her, she would make a run for it.
Panting, she rounded the corner and stopped abruptly. The alley was illuminated from both ends by the arc lights on the corners of the buildings. It was also empty.
Jay stared for a second. Was she late? Did the strange Kou get bored waiting for her and disappear into the depths of Arklington from whence he came? Or maybe it all was a dream and she didn’t really meet Lethe at all?
The shadows next to the pile of old crates stirred and formed a familiar shape.
‘Hey, kid,’ said Lethe. ‘I was wondering if you’d show up.’
