Pathfinder Tales: The Redemption Engine Read online

  "Father," the man said again, sending a fresh shower down into the sopping mess of his tunic collar. His eyes were wide, pleading.

  Feeling awkward, Salim bent closer, careful to keep his robes out of the spreading mess. "Yes?"

  "P-prayer..." The man wheezed, then licked his lips and tried again. "Last rites. Please."

  "Ah." Salim reached down and wiped his sword clean on the man's shirt, then sheathed it. He took the thief's hand, then placed his free hand on the man's chest. He rummaged around in the dying thief's shirt for a moment, then found what he wanted.

  Salim withdrew his own purse from the thief's clothes and tucked it safely back into a pocket in his robes. He squeezed the man's hand once, then stood. The would-be highwayman stared up uncomprehendingly.

  "Sorry," Salim said. "I'm not that kind of priest."

  Then he turned and walked on into the city.

  paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas , Aug 10, 2014

  Chapter Two

  City of Strangers

  The city went by many names: The Asylum Stone. The City of Strangers. The City on the Cliff. Yet to most, it was simply Kaer Maga—a settlement as old as recorded history, and perhaps a little more. Salim had found plenty of time to read about it on the long ship ride to this cold northern shore, and even more on the passage up the river to the foot of the Storval Rise, the great cliff on which the city stood.

  Perhaps "squatted" would be a more accurate term. Despite their majestic perch atop a thousand-foot-tall expanse of sheer stone, Kaer Maga's white walls lacked even basic artistry. While windows had been carved for the convenience of the residents—what good was a cliff if you couldn't empty your waste over it?—the hundreds of randomly spaced openings did little to ameliorate the walls' stark lines. Kaer Maga's face was perpetually blank, its walls concealing and, in that aspect, perfectly describing its residents.

  Yet the real oddity of Kaer Maga's walls wasn't in their lack of adornment, but rather their thickness. Supposedly already standing when the first explorers arrived, established by unknown builders for even less known purposes, Kaer Maga's walls were hundreds of feet thick, joining seamlessly to create a hexagonal stone ring two thirds of a mile across. Inside that blocky monument, chambers ran every which way, in places riddling the ring as thoroughly as an ant's burrow, in others opening up into huge caverns almost as wide and tall as the walls themselves. Though some who came to the city preferred the open sky of the ring's center, around the little lake that made life in the city possible, most residents took fuller advantage of the situation and crammed into the hollows inside the walls, carving new corridors and building whole neighborhoods in the larger vaults.

  To say that the city was settled would be an overstatement. Rather, the population accreted, growing over centuries like mold on bread. There was no mayor, no governor-general, no distant king that the people swore fealty to. Rather, Kaer Maga had always been a squatter's town, a rough-and-tumble hidey-hole where those who needed to disappear could do so easily. The people came in ones and twos: escaped slaves, convicts on the lam, exiled scions of noble houses. They came to Kaer Maga to start over, to remake themselves or lose themselves entirely.

  More often than not, it worked. And in this sanctuaried nature, a refuge for the weirdest and the worst, the hodgepodge and warring residents of Kaer Maga found a common sense of pride. In the famed City of Strangers, your business was your own, and no trade or lifestyle was too taboo to find a berth within its walls. Commerce ruled, and while various gangs and guilds balanced each other out with knives and treaties, formal government was an abomination the city refused to tolerate. According to Salim's books, the few times would-be lords or nations attempted to conquer or annex the city, they found that the inhabitants fought like the cornered rats they were, retreating into their tunnels and digging in tight. Every army that broke on the walls of the Asylum Stone quickly learned a basic truth: that the thief with nothing left to lose will outlast a paid soldier every time.

  Independent, anarchic, simultaneously a hellhole and a shining refuge, Kaer Maga had stood for thousands of years as a beacon of hope to outcasts everywhere, its legend stretching even across the Inner Sea to the land of Salim's birth.

  It also stank. Despite the space Salim's sword and bearing accorded him, throngs of people packed the narrow streets like cattle in a chute, and the smell was remarkably similar. Salim was relieved when at last the slum-lined main road widened and spilled out into the open-air districts at the city's center.

  Tents and stalls collided with each other in a riot of color. A vast patch of mud and grass cut through by stone walkways, the market seemed to cater exclusively to temporary structures, ranging from hawkers carrying their wares in huge backpacks to well-to-do merchants with full wagons and fold-out awnings. Packed between them were men and women selling from sledges, wheelbarrows, dog carts, or directly out of their horses' saddlebags.

  It was chaos, but a chaos Salim understood. Keeping his hand visibly on his sword's twisted hilt, he got his bearings off the only obvious landmark—a cluster of stone towers that rose like a bundle of arrows from the market's far end—and stepped forward into the crowd.

  And what a crowd it was. Salim was no stranger to the bazaar, or even to the bizarre—he had been a child of the streets, and seen more in his years than most people on Golarion ever dreamed of. Yet the residents of Kaer Maga were hardly your average market-goers.

  They were mostly human, yes, but of every color and shape, from the coal-skinned Mwangi of the deep southern jungles to the flax-bearded northmen and the almond-eyed Tians. Mixed in were representatives of other civilized races: haughty, long-lived elves and hard-drinking dwarves, and halflings who flitted beneath and between the larger races like children. Once Salim saw a green-haired gnome, as manic and indecipherable as all her kind, dancing wildly atop a wagon that appeared to sell nothing but dried fish and elaborate hats.

  Yet even these were not surprising. Cosmopolitan, to be sure—as eclectic a group as any city could boast, save perhaps for great Absalom at the center of the Inner Sea—but nothing Salim hadn't seen before.

  It was the stranger faces that caught Salim's attention. As he passed the filthy cages of a slave market, Salim was astonished to note a group of orcs—not merely the hulking half-breeds, but actual orcs, their gray faces painted with tribal markings and skin pierced with the tusks of warriors they'd slain in combat. Instead of raping and pillaging, these were haggling with the auctioneer, who seemed completely unafraid of being hacked apart and devoured.

  A sedan chair came shoving its way through the crowd, its sides hung with thick canvas that didn't quite manage to hide the reptilian tail poking out beneath its bottom edge. Salim stepped aside to let it pass—

  —and almost ran directly into a looming mass of green-skinned muscle.

  The beast was easily twelve feet tall, with tusks as long as Salim's hand protruding from its porcine muzzle. It wore a toga of white linen, the cloth torn and spattered with blood.

  A troll. Even injured, the thing might well take apart half the market before someone put it down. Salim's grip tightened on his sword, and he prepared to spring sideways, perhaps pulling down the nearest tent in hopes of tangling the beast's legs, giving him time to reposition himself.

  The troll ignored him, shoving past without a backward glance.

  "Fortune," it rumbled, in a voice like the hooves of a cavalry charge. "Portents. Auguries. That which may be, and which, in the seeing, may yet be prevented."

  The crowd afforded the hulking shape a respectful space, but without fear. Even as Salim watched, a well-dressed man with a thick gold chain around his neck stepped into the troll's path, inclining his head and holding up a leather purse. The two spoke together for a moment, the troll's voice dropping to a bass murmur. At last the beast nodded.

  Without warning, the troll reached down with one massive, claw-tipped hand and tore open its stomach, spilling its ent
rails into the street. It followed them down, squatting to examine the mess, and the man did likewise. The troll prodded with thick fingers at loops of steaming intestine, still speaking in its slow, stentorian cadences. The merchant's head bobbed enthusiastically. At last the troll stood and scooped up its bloody, dust-covered viscera, packing it roughly back inside its gaping wound. It accepted the proffered purse, pushed it inside its torn stomach as well, and moved on down the street, leaving the smiling customer to carry on about his business.

  Salim realized that he hadn't moved—was, in fact, staring like a poleaxed cow—and that every passing second marked him further as a stranger, someone for the local pickpockets and barkers to take notice of. Grimacing, he turned, put the handful of towers on his right once more, and continued on.

  After a few streets, the crashing surf of colored tents gave way to more substantial structures of wood and stone. Though they still crowded close together, jostling for every tiny patch of open space, these buildings rose several stories high, tall and narrow. The actual stone walls of the city still towered above them at the district's edge, but at least the building's owners could look out a window and catch a glimpse of sky.

  It didn't take long for Salim to locate the place he needed. Five stories tall, the inn had long, sloping eaves that cascaded down each other in a shower of sharp angles. In contrast to the dark wood of the walls, each roof edge boasted a wide board painted brilliant yellow, outlining the mass of gables and giving the whole thing a gilded look.

  At ground level, the front face of the building was curiously blank, without the windows or screened porches common to inns in Salim's warmer homeland. Instead, there was only a wide set of double doors, their faces bound in whirls of metal that shone like real gold. Above it rested an even larger inlay, ornate and finely made, showing three birds perched on a branch, their tails twining together and then extending in a wide arc to become the very branch upon which they sat.

  The inn's gaudy affluence was matched only by that of its clientele. Though the sun was barely past midday, the queue of people waiting to enter stretched all the way down one side of the building and around the corner. Those who stood wore the clothes and anxious looks of those unused to waiting in line—women in fine dresses and hairdos their slaves must have started on at sunrise, dripping from the arms of men with bright silks and brighter rings. A few folks bucked the trend—a small knot of hard-looking women with swords, or two black-clad men wearing the inverted pentagrams of Asmodeus. Yet all were clean, and most wore what were undoubtedly their best outfits.

  Salim made directly for the head of the line, ignoring the angry stares of those he passed. Where one would normally expect to see a bouncer—most often a burly half-orc with more fingers than words in his vocabulary—there was instead only a slight, dark-skinned man perched on a wooden stool. At Salim's approach, he broke off speaking with an obese, clearly irritated merchant and stood, smiling broadly.

  "What's this I see?" the man asked. "A fellow man of the south, here in the land of northern barbarians?" He put out his hand.

  "Indeed." Salim grasped the man's forearm and squeezed it. He combined the man's skin and accent and made an educated guess. "Zenj?"

  "Just so!" The man laughed easily and widely, showing teeth. "From Kibwe originally, though I confess that it's been many long years since I've seen the jungle city. And you have the look of the desert written all over you."

  Salim nodded. Now that he was closer, the man's heritage was clearly more complicated than he'd first guessed. His skin was a rich black, far darker than Salim's own sun-baked brown, and shone like polished ebony. Where Salim wore the black robes of his profession, this man wore a blousy shirt of brilliant yellow to match the inn. Both it and his dark pants were finely made, but clearly found no need to scream their pedigree the way the folks in line did. Yet Salim's eye snagged on the pointed ears that sprang up to either side of the close-shorn, wiry hair.

  The doorman caught his gaze and gestured to his ears. "A gift from my father. One of the few I'm left with, I'm afraid." He clapped his hands. "But I forget my manners! Alaeh A'kaan, owner and humble proprietor of Canary House."

  "Salim Ghadafar." Salim inclined his head politely. "Water for you and your family."

  "And yours, Father." A'kaan nodded to the spiral pendant still hanging openly against Salim's chest.

  Salim let the appellation pass without comment. When it was clear that no blessing was forthcoming, A'kaan pressed on. "You're a long way from home, Salim."

  "So are you."

  A'kaan smiled and spread his hands. "This is Kaer Maga, cousin. Everyone here is home." He let his arms drop. "But as much as it pleases me to see another man of Garund, even one with the goatish beard of the north coast, I fear that my pleasure is not the reason you've sought me out."

  "I need to get inside." Salim's words were flat, without hesitation.

  A'kaan's shoulders slumped slightly, as if he'd expected such a thing but was disappointed anyway. He seated himself on his stool once more. "I'm honored that you would patronize my establishment, Father, yet I fear that it takes more than dark eyes and a whisper of home to jump the line. Not that the other customers wouldn't allow it, of course." He turned to the fat man at the head of the queue—a dyer, by the stained fingernails—and twitched his head. "Go," he said. "You can try again tomorrow."

  "But—" The cloth-merchant puffed up his gold-brocaded chest and seemed ready to say something, but his bejeweled consort hissed and jerked hard on his arm. Without another word, the two left the line and disappeared into the crowd moving along the street. A'kaan turned back to Salim, smiling mischievously.

  "As you can see, none of them dare question my decisions. But at the same time, the greatest power is the one least exercised. I'm sure you understand."

  "Of course," Salim said, but made no move to leave. "But I'm here to meet someone."

  "So are most people," A'kaan said evenly.

  "The name's Ceyanan."

  Dark eyebrows rose. "Now why couldn't you have told me that earlier, before I'd shamed myself by treating you like a common guest?"

  "My apologies," Salim said.

  A'kaan flicked the words away. "To these uncultured northmen, we are brothers. Let us act as them." He stood and turned to the doorway. "Karus!"

  A half-orc of the sort Salim had originally expected appeared in the door. He wore a vest of brilliant yellow, its arm holes cut wide but still straining to accommodate the bulging gray-green shoulders. A thatch of unruly hair had been slicked incongruously sideways above the sloping brow, and one tusk was made entirely of gold.

  "Take the door," A'kaan said. "I'll be escorting Master Ghadafar in personally."

  The half-orc grunted and nodded, settling his vast bulk precariously on the wooden stool. The next people in line blanched a bit under the weight of his frown, but held their ground.

  "Come," A'kaan said, and led Salim inside.

  The ground floor of Canary House was large and open, its layout more appropriate for a theater or cabaret than a simple common room. Avian-themed mosaics and inlays like the one above the door hung thick on the walls, and feathers from birds that would shame a peacock sprouted from vases or stretched upward and outward from the cornices. To one side, a long bar jutted out into the room like an isthmus, curving back around the bartender and surrounding him with two lines of drinkers and rows of clean, fluted glasses dangling from long racks above it in a crystal curtain. A freestanding spiral staircase led to the upper floors and provided several young ladies with a banister to lean over seductively. The rest of the room was filled with a swirl of polished wooden tables where guests sat and drank. The place was busy, and just packed enough to imply both excitement and exclusivity.

  Most of the patrons weren't talking to each other, however. Instead, they had their heads tilted back, listening to the music. Salim followed their gazes.

  Golden cages dangled from the high ceiling, interspersed with hangin
g arcs of yellow silk. Inside each cage, a beautiful girl wearing still more of the saffron silk—albeit not much of it—sat on a short trapeze, swinging lazily back and forth.

  And the music. Salim felt his breath catch in his chest. There were easily a dozen cages, the girls ranging from A'kaan's black to skin so pale that Salim imagined he could see the blue tracery of veins. From each throat came a different note. The song shifted and danced, rising and falling, yet every note was not simply a note but an incredibly complex chord, a wall of music that struck like a fist covered in goose down.

  A'kaan smiled. "I see you like my Songbirds."

  Salim made no effort to hide his reaction. "They're amazing."

  "I train them myself," A'kaan said, his pride obvious. "Purchased as children, mostly, and raised to the song from the time they can speak. It takes years to teach them to weave such harmonies."

  Now Salim noted the slim golden chain dangling from each girl's ankle. "Slaves?"

  "Of course. What other child would have the patience? And I can hardly let years of investment go wandering off, or get knocked up by the first carter's son who makes eyes at her."

  Salim said nothing, but A'kaan must have seen something in his face. He shrugged. "You would prefer they were whores? There are worse ways for a slave to spend her day." He turned. "Come, I'll take you to your friend."

  Salim followed A'kaan through the maze of tables. As they went, he studied Canary House's clientele.

  Inside, the patrons were even more eclectic than the line outside suggested. There were still many of the richly dressed merchants and would-be nobles, laughing loudly and sometimes falsely with others of their ilk, yet they were far from the majority. One of the trolls Salim had seen earlier sat in an oversized booth with its eyes closed, ears pointed like a horse's toward the singing girls. At another table, two bearded men in robes sat talking with a woman bearing the many pockets and pouches of a wizard, with what appeared to be a tiny dragon curled around her neck and puffing jets of warm air into her curly blonde hair. A longer booth held three men in the rumpled gray-and-brown uniforms of the Duskwardens, the rangers who had earlier that day led Salim safely up the cliff to the city through a series of tunnels.