Read Online Wartorn: Resurrection by Robert Asprin, Eric Del Carlo - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Asprin, Eric Del Carlo
Tags: Fiction, General, Grief, sf_fantasy, Fantasy fiction, Fantasy, Epic, Fantasy Fiction; American, Revenge, War stories, Magicians, Weapons, Adventure fiction, Warlords, Imaginary empires
Ads: Link
from their distribution exclusively.
Radstac could have purchased her
mansid
leaves in the market. Could have laid out twice the silver for the three leaves she'd gotten at that fetid lair, paying the merchant's licensing tax for him. But the quality would have been mediocre. She didn't need to actually sample any of these legitimate leaves to know this. It was the way of things. Drag dens, like the one she'd visited, depended on the return business of addicts; addicts, having built up inhuman tolerances to every recreational poison in existence, required the highest potency. Thus, better profits were made by the lairs' proprietors—who got their product through the black market—than by licensed merchants in the marketplace.
Ah ...
and it was fine stuff, she thought, still chewing the blue leaf. Clarity, clarity. The
sense
of things, unfolding all around her now.
As she walked, she didn't examine that thought that surfaced, that nagging one ... the one that said she only came north to the Isthmus because only here could she find leaves of this quality. After all, the
mansid
that the narcotic traders brought back to the Southsoil at the end of every summer were dry, stale, their potency gone.
Mansid
leaves did not grow anywhere but on the Isthmus.
The thought didn't last long. She turned off the street, into a pub. She ordered tea and took a table. Spirits were for weak people looking to be strong by killing those perceptions in themselves that proved, day after repetitive day, that they were powerless. She did not drink. Wine and the like provided an illusion of clarity, when in truth clarity receded with every sip, until everything became a false comforting lullaby.
The pub was fairly crowded, and that crowd was talkative. Radstac listened.
The landlord apparently didn't care for her taking up a valuable seat while drinking only her single cup of tea, which she nursed nearly an entire watch. When she finally grew tired of his malevolent glares, she crooked her finger at him, put her head close to his, and told him that blood that spurted from a suddenly opened heart was much darker than what one saw when, say, a face was sliced
wide. Then she smiled, which she knew was her most unnerving expression. The man hadn't come near her since.
In the meantime the effects of the small bite of the
mansid
leaf had mostly worn off. As with everything else about the narcotic, she handled the comedown ably.
"U'delph is a story. Something to frighten children. It makes no
sense."
The overdressed merchant sported ridiculous, elaborate facial hair—shaved here, waxed to points there. Must have taken him the better part of his morning to put his face together, and he was still old and ugly, despite the fine clothes.
Actually, Radstac thought, most of this pub's clientele looked to be on the affluent side.
Radstac had listened to the talk. It was dismaying. It was intentional blindness, not to see what was so surely coming. Sook was doubtlessly the next target for the Felk. It would put them one more city-state closer to Petgrad, though still some distance away.
"It's reliable news," said a man in a grey cowl. His voice was strong but neutral. Radstac hadn't been able to get a good look at his face, but his body was firm, and he moved in a way that spoke of sword training.
"Reliable."
The merchant made it a contemptible word. "What does that mean?"
"It means credible, believable, trustworthy." His tone was as flat as before. The effect was droll, and a few titters rose among the assembled drinkers. A pair planted in one corner was playing a round of Dashes—one of those juvenile Isthmuser games of chance—as if to emphasize then-blasé attitudes.
The merchant's face moved in a way that caused the points of his mustache to sneer. "I know the definition, lad." Half to himself he muttered, "By the sanity of the gods, when I was a youth, we didn't handle our elders so." He took a swallow of beer, fixed the younger man again with
Radstac could have purchased her
mansid
leaves in the market. Could have laid out twice the silver for the three leaves she'd gotten at that fetid lair, paying the merchant's licensing tax for him. But the quality would have been mediocre. She didn't need to actually sample any of these legitimate leaves to know this. It was the way of things. Drag dens, like the one she'd visited, depended on the return business of addicts; addicts, having built up inhuman tolerances to every recreational poison in existence, required the highest potency. Thus, better profits were made by the lairs' proprietors—who got their product through the black market—than by licensed merchants in the marketplace.
Ah ...
and it was fine stuff, she thought, still chewing the blue leaf. Clarity, clarity. The
sense
of things, unfolding all around her now.
As she walked, she didn't examine that thought that surfaced, that nagging one ... the one that said she only came north to the Isthmus because only here could she find leaves of this quality. After all, the
mansid
that the narcotic traders brought back to the Southsoil at the end of every summer were dry, stale, their potency gone.
Mansid
leaves did not grow anywhere but on the Isthmus.
The thought didn't last long. She turned off the street, into a pub. She ordered tea and took a table. Spirits were for weak people looking to be strong by killing those perceptions in themselves that proved, day after repetitive day, that they were powerless. She did not drink. Wine and the like provided an illusion of clarity, when in truth clarity receded with every sip, until everything became a false comforting lullaby.
The pub was fairly crowded, and that crowd was talkative. Radstac listened.
The landlord apparently didn't care for her taking up a valuable seat while drinking only her single cup of tea, which she nursed nearly an entire watch. When she finally grew tired of his malevolent glares, she crooked her finger at him, put her head close to his, and told him that blood that spurted from a suddenly opened heart was much darker than what one saw when, say, a face was sliced
wide. Then she smiled, which she knew was her most unnerving expression. The man hadn't come near her since.
In the meantime the effects of the small bite of the
mansid
leaf had mostly worn off. As with everything else about the narcotic, she handled the comedown ably.
"U'delph is a story. Something to frighten children. It makes no
sense."
The overdressed merchant sported ridiculous, elaborate facial hair—shaved here, waxed to points there. Must have taken him the better part of his morning to put his face together, and he was still old and ugly, despite the fine clothes.
Actually, Radstac thought, most of this pub's clientele looked to be on the affluent side.
Radstac had listened to the talk. It was dismaying. It was intentional blindness, not to see what was so surely coming. Sook was doubtlessly the next target for the Felk. It would put them one more city-state closer to Petgrad, though still some distance away.
"It's reliable news," said a man in a grey cowl. His voice was strong but neutral. Radstac hadn't been able to get a good look at his face, but his body was firm, and he moved in a way that spoke of sword training.
"Reliable."
The merchant made it a contemptible word. "What does that mean?"
"It means credible, believable, trustworthy." His tone was as flat as before. The effect was droll, and a few titters rose among the assembled drinkers. A pair planted in one corner was playing a round of Dashes—one of those juvenile Isthmuser games of chance—as if to emphasize then-blasé attitudes.
The merchant's face moved in a way that caused the points of his mustache to sneer. "I know the definition, lad." Half to himself he muttered, "By the sanity of the gods, when I was a youth, we didn't handle our elders so." He took a swallow of beer, fixed the younger man again with
Similar Books
