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The Aethyr Machine

©2023 Bruno Hirschkoff

*

_The following is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences. If you are not an adult, this isn't for you. All characters, situations, settings, locations, names and concepts are the intellectual property of the Author. Do not repost, distribute, alter or copy any element of this work without the express written permission of the author. _

_All characters, settings, religions, histories and geopolitical structures are fictional and resemblance to real-world characters, settings, religions, histories and geopolitical structures is purely coincidental. _

*

Chapter 1

Recruitment

Magpie

Magpie strummed a chord on his lute. Tiny filaments of pure Aethyr flowed from the diminutive dragon's claws and coiled tightly around the instrument's strings, sending its song with greatly enhanced clarity and quality through the bustling Stillwater Cove market. Some distance away, across the marketplace, a tall and slender Lupa woman raised her rebec and played a similarly enhanced note. Dozens of heads turned toward the dragon and the wolfess, most of them horned or antlered. This was Rhocarn, after all. The coastal town of Stillwater Cove clung to the rim of an ancient caldera, which provided it with both a natural landward defence to the east, and a sheltered, relatively deep harbour ringed by treacherous rocks, islets and reefs to the west. Beyond that seaward barrier lay the shallow sea of Bàgh Dwr Llonydd, the island of Emerald, and the rolling vastness of the Mare Viridium, across which only the sturdiest deepwater galleons with the most fearless--or desperate--crews dared to venture.

Stillwater Cove was a bastion of safety for many. Symbolic of the farthest western reaches of Doregallian civilisation, on the edge of the wilds of the Aethyrfiodh - the Great Forest - it was a popular layover for sailors who plied the trade routes between Emerald, Rhocarn, and the northern and western coasts of Valasea. Its geography also made it a melting pot of cultures, unique in Doregal for its closeness both to the mystical verdancy of Emerald, and the arid, sun-baked plains and rolling hills of Valasea. It was the very reason that Magpie and Trygve returned here, time and again, over the years.

Magpie and Trygve's partnership had been forged some years hence, when the dragon had discovered Trygve playing sea shanties in a stinking tavern known as the Busty Barrel in the city of Vigo, on the south-western coast of the Mare Internum. It was a notorious den of piracy and smuggling, into which the ebony-furred wolfess fit seamlessly, in her way. But then, as Magpie had since discovered, she fit in seamlessly almost anywhere she went. That was her skill. A chimera she was, dark and mysterious, while her charisma and effortless sensuality blinded many to their own suspicions of her presence. At the time, she had been in the employ of a small-time black marketeer with ambitions well above his station, whose particular skill set Magpie had been seeking for his own ends. The arrangement had not ended well, and Trygve's employer had fallen foul of his competitors. The overland smugglers' road between Vigo and its sister city of Messa on the Mare Ossium was littered with the unmarked graves of those who had fallen out of favour. Trygve had, in those moments, proven her skill with the small crossbow she habitually carried on her hip, in addition to her musical prowess.

Magpie had, at first, been guarded as to his motivations. As a dragon, he was already an unusual sight almost anywhere he went, and Trygve had quickly noticed the way in which nobody seemed to pay him much attention. As though he did not exist, or did not appear as what he was, to others than herself.

Even years later, Trygve still did not feel like she knew the whole story. Magpie was coy and often spoke in riddles, which he referred to as simply the way of his people. The pair of them travelled far and wide, using their music as a front for their other activities, which generally revolved around relieving smugglers, merchants, pirates and power-hungry nobles and artisans of their wealth in a non-discretionary fashion. Trygve had no moral qualm with theft. She was Ithenorian by birth, from the far-flung region in north-eastern Doregal known as Suriyiskali. The city of Varskifell was home to the most notorious thieves' guild on the continent, and the city had a dark reputation from a number of folk myths, as well. Theft, when perpetrated for the betterment of society, was in the interest of the greater good in Trygve's eyes. But where Trygve accumulated some degree of wealth over the years, secreted away in caches and invested in various operations around the Mare Internum, Magpie never seemed to gain anything from their exploits. Wherever he travelled, however, things seemed to change in his wake. Power structures crumbled and reformed. Trygve learned not to ask too many questions of this behaviour.

Some years previously, they had recruited an elk by the name of Börgen Truss to their adventures. Börgen bore the mark of a Black Hammer, an ancient and loosely aggregated society of mercenaries, outcasts and warriors who had, most famously, sacked the ancient Heladian capital of Vinegress shortly after the Empire had relinquished Venium, eleven centuries ago. The Hammers were no longer a fighting force, but a community which practiced and preached the revival of the old animistic faiths of northern Doregal--those which had been widespread before the Arahanic Crusades that had marked the centuries following the fall of the Heladian Empire.

Börgen had been a mountain of an elk. His great woad-dyed antlers dwarfed almost every other Cervid he met, and his roaring bellow was both a performative masterpiece and a handy deterrent to any who wished the party ill.

But Börgen had demanded too much of Magpie, culminating only a few months previous in an attempt to blackmail the dragon into sharing whatever it was he was truly invested in. That was the first time that Trygve had truly _seen _him, after so many years on the road together. Magpie was not truly the demure, diminutive, slightly eccentric little dragon he appeared. Börgen had left suddenly in the night shortly thereafter, or so Magpie had told Trygve. She did not question him further, and he reassured her that he was no threat to her. She was free to leave any time she wished. But she stayed. Magpie was virtually family, after a fashion. Their relationship had been romantic at times, flat-out sexual at others, but mostly it was a professional convenience for them to remain together. Magpie gave Trygve purpose and direction, not to mention protection, and Trygve helped the dragon to accumulate his own kind of treasure, whatever that was.

Trygve would have been happy to remain as a pair, just the two of them. But Magpie was insistent that they recruit new members to their group. It was, he claimed, far more reasonable to travel as a troupe of musicians rather than a simple pair. So, they journeyed across the width of Doregal yet again, from Arhanifell to Fràwic and beyond, searching.

*

Magpie and Trygve moved around through the crowd at first; playing a lick here, a jig there, garnering attention among the largely ungulate crowd. They allowed their music to mirror and enhance the natural rhythm and bustle of the marketplace, weaving tendrils of Aethyr through a thousand horned and antlered heads.

_Look, to the back near the bookseller, _came Magpie's voice inside Trygve's skull.

That always unnerved Trygve, the way the Aethyrborn dragon could just clamber into her brain from across a crowded space. It was, he claimed, because they had been physically intimate. Trygve was not sure if she believed him. She gazed out across the milling crowd. Through a forest of antlers, two sets stood out even to her. Their owners stared directly at her, almost into her soul. Trygve got the sense that she recognised them--then again that wasn't unlikely. Stillwater Cove was a small town, and she and Magpie had played here numerous times over the years.

_Twins, _Magpie observed. _That is rare, and a good sign--and you are right, you have seen them before, although they were little more than fawns at the time. I shall approach them. _

Trygve curled her lip in discomfort at Magpie's telepathy, and drowned him out by launching into a ballad about a god whose death spawned the Great Forest which sprawled the length and breadth of the continent of Doregal. It wasn't quite accurate to the commonly shared creation mythology of the region, but it was sung in Sabarinian, so few would have understood the words Trygve growled out. She and Magpie were right in the centre of the marketplace, beside a brick and marble fountain, when the duo 'found' one another, and the ballad reached a lively crescendo. Several of the crowd cheered, and some even began to dance along with arms interlocked around the fountain. This was what Magpie seemed to live for. His face was a picture of joy as he spun and sang and played, so much so that even the taciturn Trygve found herself improvising. She leapt up onto the rim of the fountain and launched into a solo, which Magpie soon mirrored until the pair of them were seemingly competing for who would play the ballad's closing notes. When they did finish, in the end, they did so together, to a wave of cheers.

The twins who Magpie had spotted were nowhere to be seen.

*

Twins

Some hours later, Magpie walked a narrow path through the ancient woodland behind the Artisan District of Stillwater Cove. It was well worn, although unpaved. It led inexorably to an oak of unimaginable age--at least to the people who had constructed a treehouse in its boughs. To Magpie with his Aethyrborn senses, the tree blazed with light, a beacon in the forest. A natural Aethyr portal. For millennia it would have been the place at which an Aethyrborn would have manifested, if they chose to take a corporeal form and live among the mortal peoples of the world. Its owner was probably long dead, thanks to the Arahanic crusades that had decimated the Aethyrborn over many centuries. Magpie fondled a small, smooth stone in the pocket of his tunic.

"Soon, my dear," he murmured.

The treehouse was solid and well-constructed, evidently by a master carpenter. It showed probably a decade of weathering, and had been sited to allow the ancient oak to move and grow around it. The door of the treehouse was open, Magpie saw, and from within it the dragon could hear the sound of a concertina being played. It was the Sabarinian ballad he and Trygve had played in the market square a couple of hours earlier, and the player was replicating it near-perfectly.

Magpie listened for a moment, and then climbed up the sturdy wooden ladder to stand on the narrow platform that surrounded the treehouse proper. The music within abruptly stopped.

"Who's there?"

"Ahh, my gravest apologies for the intrusion, my boy--I was merely passing by and heard you play, and my curiosity got the better of me," the dragon said, stepping in front of the open doorway and peering within. "I am Magpie."

A young elk sat cross-legged within the treehouse, one of the twins Magpie had pointed out to Trygve in the market square. He was perhaps in his early twenties, but had an air about him of someone far older.

"You... you are the lutist from the market square!" the elk observed.

"Aye, that I am. A fine rendition of _Waldmorgen, _if I may say as much. Is it a favourite song of yours?"

The elk rose to his knees--it was not possible for him to stand inside the treehouse without stooping, as low as its ceiling was. "In truth, today was the first time I'd heard it."

Magpie's lips drew back into a delighted smile, and the dragon stepped into the treehouse. He was tiny; maybe four and a half feet tall, and wore a colourfully embroidered jerkin and cloak over his belted tunic. Several baldrics, shoulder-straps and belts adorned his torso, each laden with the accoutrements of an itinerant bard. It somehow offered him an air of industriousness even as it made him seem unimaginably ancient, as though projected into the present from another time. Tiny gold-rimmed spectacles clung to his ochre-scaled nose, and Dieter saw his lute was strapped across his back on one of his shoulder-straps.

"Play it again for me, if you please?" the dragon asked, reaching for his lute.

The elk's eyes widened and he stammered an excuse.

Magpie strummed a chord.

The elk paused, but then swallowed his shyness and began to play. His concertina was not perfectly tuned to Magpie's lute, but the dragon subtly adjusted his key to match it. The notes seemed to flow like honey from the concertina, and by the time the ballad drew to a close, the elk was embellishing his accompaniment with falsettos and moments of improvisation just as Trygve had done.

Magpie stamped a leather-booted foot on the floorboards by way of applause, and the elk bowed his antlered head in thanks.

"You have the gift. Dieter, is it not?"

The elk spluttered. "How do you know my name?"

"I have my ways, Dieter Hirschkoff, son of Bruno," Magpie said cryptically. "I wonder if you w--"

"Who are you?!"

Magpie whirled around.

"Ahh, Kristian?" Dieter said from behind the dragon. "This is Magpie. From the market square earlier? He heard me practicing that song... it's called Waldmorgen."

Dieter's twin brother opened and closed his mouth in something that might have been awe, for a long moment.

"A lovely treehouse you brothers have, here," Magpie observed.

"Y-yes, uh... our father built it for us, when we were fawns," Kristian replied.

As fawns, the twins had been nigh impossible to tell apart, but as adults there was no confusing them. Kristian was flamboyant, with the cheekily ribald demeanour of a young man exceedingly comfortable in his identity and sexuality, and unafraid to display it. Dieter, by contrast, was quick-witted and sharp-tongued, but more introverted than his twin. Both the brothers had grown their hair long in the style of the day, but while Kristian wore his loose around his face, Dieter habitually tied his with a strip of silk at the nape of his neck, which combined with the goatee beard he'd indulged in gave him a rakishly handsome appearance. Small chains of gold hung between the tines of Kristian's antlers, while Dieter tended to dye his with woad. Likewise, Kristian's clothing was less modest than his twin's--where Dieter wore an artisan's tunic shirt and waistcoat over dark trews, Kristian wore a billowing, almost translucent chemise that was open to his diaphragm and a pair of trousers that were either made from silk, or a fairly convincing facsimile.

Magpie glanced back and forth between the two of them, and then addressed Kristian, his eyes falling to the chanter pipe, flute and whistle in a holster strapped to Kristian's thigh.

"I was just about to ask your brother if he might like to join myself and Trygve this night, share a tankard and a meal, and perhaps to play a few reels at the Hairy Fig?"

Dieter gawped. "You want... me? To play with you?"

"Aye, why not? You have a skill, and as you may have noticed since the last time we were in town, our little troupe is a little short-staffed at present."

A distant memory of a giant, growling elk as the little band's vocalist crystallised in Dieter's mind. Magpie's eyes twinkled knowingly.

"Oh Dieter, you're going to _love _the Hairy Fig!" Kristian lilted. "It's one of my favourite haunts."

"It's such a cesspit of vice that the local priests won't go within a hundred paces of the place," Dieter replied, "so it suits you perfectly, dear brother!"

"Well... that's not entirely accurate," Kris smirked. "The priests like you to _think _they keep their pious nethers clean, but there's an entrance under the bridge they'd rather you didn't know about!"

"And how exactly did _you _come to know about it, then?" Dieter said.

"I hear things," he shrugged. "The younger Arahanic acolytes aren't bound by those stupid notions of abstinence yet, and they do get somewhat chatty."

"So you will join us?" Magpie interjected. "Trygve and I shall be there in any case. There is something we must do there, but you would be very welcome to join us for some entertainment. Both of you, of course. Kristian, are you any good with those pipes?"

"He's most adept at playing the skin-flute," Dieter said without a moment's hesitation. "But he isn't half bad on the smallpipes."

Magpie laughed, a husky sound like wind through a reed-bed. "But it is easier to pull a note from a chanter or whistle than from a man, yes?" he grinned.

Kristian's ears twitched and he glanced between the dragon and his brother. "I suppose you might say that! Depends on the man. And on how good your finger work is."

*

Dagmar

Trygve crouched in the shadows behind the crenelations that edged the roof of the Stillwater Cove customs house, as still as a wild tigress awaiting her prey. The metaphor elicited a smile from the Lupa woman, particularly given that her 'prey' was indeed an ungulate. A Tyrecan galleon was tied up at the dock, a hundred paces from Trygve's vantage point. _La Leviatán _was a large, lumbering merchant vessel whose bulbous hull and sheer weight prevented her from navigating the waters outside of the relatively calm Mare Internum. That she was docked here at Stillwater Cove, having navigated the treacherous Rinn Rhòc headland a hundred or so miles south-west of the town, gave credence to Trygve's intelligence that she was running something other than the linen, silk and spices on her cargo manifest.

Asantrea's twin suns hung low over the western horizon, glinting off of the sea and turning the string of islands that sheltered Stillwater Cove into great black silhouettes. She watched as the crew of _La Leviatán _and the Stillwater dockers unloaded her cargo; bolts of cloth and barrels of spices were carried ashore by hand, and stacked on pallets to be loaded on barges and carried up the Artisans' Guild Canal to the warehouses and workshops along its length. The Lupa womamn had a narrow window of opportunity, she knew, when attention was turned away from the unloaded galleon. It came only after several hours, once darkness had fallen and turned the sky inky black, shot through with the great smear of glittering stars that made up the Firmament. In the short window of time between the suns' setting and the moons' rise, Trygve swung into action.

She stood from her eyrie and stretched her cramped muscles to loosen and warm them. Then she descended from the roof of the customs house by a drainpipe in an alley, and ventured cautiously out onto the wharf.

_La Leviatán _loomed over her from this lower vantage point, riding high in the water with her holds emptied. The gangplank had been left unattended. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a sailor's fiddle and raucous laughter indicated the direction most of the crew had taken--away from the dock, to Trygve's relief. On silent paws, the Lupa woman stole aboard the galleon, and made for the captain's quarters at her stern.

A candle was visible through a latticework of leaded glass panes, and Trygve paused to listen. She could hear two voices within. A female voice that was a harsh whisper, and a male voice that shook with forced defiance.

Trygve slid a bolt into the stock of her small crossbow and wound back the lock. Then she pushed open the door and stepped into the cabin.

La Leviatán's captain, a stocky bull with the ebony fur typical of a Bastian, was tied to his chair. There was no one else visible in the room. Trygve took a cautious step to the side, scanning the dimly lit cabin.

"And who are _you?!" _the captain snarled. "By Arahan's rancid ballsack, I shall _never _put in at this port again if I am to be accosted by assassins in my own cabin!"

Trygve was shaken. She had not anticipated anyone else being here. She hesitated, and sucked in a sharp breath when she felt the point of a blade at her throat and a hand on her wrist. She risked a downward glance. The hand was furless and ochre-coloured, with dark claws. Like Magpie's...

"Best keep your silence, wolf. What brings you here?" came that harsh, female whisper from behind--and slightly below--Trygve.

"The ship is empty but for you, me and... this creature," Trygve replied, gesturing with her free hand towards the captain. "And I was expecting only him. Silence is not necessary. Judging from how you have treated him, we are not enemies. You are a dragon, are you not? Curious. I travel with one, also. Never expected to see two in one place, outside of Tahamasset."

"What would you know about it?" the dragoness snarled, twisting her dagger at Trygve's throat and digging her claws into the wrist with which the Lupa woman held her crossbow.

"That depends on what _you _know about it," she replied. "May I release my bowstring? It is not meant to hold tension for long."

The dagger slid down to Trygve's chest as the dragon reached downward, her hand sliding over Trygve's to relieve her of her crossbow. Then, with all of the weapons in her possession, she released Trygve. The Lupa woman turned slowly, keeping her hands within sight, and came face to face with an ochre-scaled, wild-haired dragoness. She was tiny, perhaps less than five feet to Trygve's six and half an inch. She wore a sailor's tunic and breeches, a boiled leather jerkin and a ragged tricorn hat. Rage, vengeful and wild, burned in her eyes. But it was not directed at Trygve. The Lupa woman stared at her for a long moment, directly into her eyes, and something silent was shared between the two women.

At length, the dragoness relaxed somewhat, although the fire in her eyes remained. "I seek this arseling's death. There are manacles and chains in the hold, aforeward of the bulkhead. Silk from Tyreca, spices from Viania, plundered gold from Nabu-Shar and slaves from Marqash. Much more than ever is recorded on the official manifests, but here..."

The dragoness reached inside her jerkin and pulled out a small, ragged book.

Trygve took it, and thumbed through its pages. She gave the dragoness a quizzical glance. "What is this?"

"All the unofficial cargoes _La Leviatán _has carried under Niko Halassie's command. Slaves are marked in red. Gold and silver in black. Other cargoes I cannot identify in green."

The book was mostly filled with red ink.

Trygve looked up and down from the pages of the book to the dragoness. "It is not the entries in red I am pursuing. It is those in green."

"Then our causes are linked, but do not cross."

"What will you do with him?"

"It was done before you arrived," the dragoness said.

Trygve turned.

Captain Niko Halassie was dead.

"You are lucky my dagger did not break your skin, wolf."

"Poison."

"Aye."

"Very neat. Although now I am at a disadvantage. He had knowledge I require. The green entries."

"He will not be the only one who knew," the dragoness said, kneeling beside the body of the captain and retrieving the ropes with which she had restrained him. "Help me turn him around. Make it look like the bastard had a heart-burst."

The two women rotated the captain's chair to face his desk, and arranged him such that he was slumped forward over it.

"Where did you prick him?" Trygve asked, raising a hand to her throat where the dragoness' dagger had been. "I should like to avoid any of that poison."

"Unless you're planning to gargle on his stinking nutsack, you're in no danger," the dragoness replied with a toothy grin. "Threaten a man's fruit and he'll tell you anything."

Trygve could not help but laugh. "Aye, there's the truth of it. Although I am still at a loss as to who to threaten in his absence."

The dragoness laughed, then. "Speak to Waldrein Burr. He's the duty watchman in the customs house. All taxation passes his sticky little hands, so you can be sure he's taken bribes from Halassie. Keep the ledger, it will be of no further use to me."

"My thanks. It has been... an unexpected pleasure," the Lupa woman said, holding out her hand. "I am Trygve."

The little dragoness took Trygve's hand and gave an elaborate bow. "Pleasure's mine, tis a rarity to meet a woman with an edge as steely as yours. Now, unless we're going to suck each other's rugs over there being one less slaver in the world, we should leave, and part ways."

Trygve's mouth fell open, and she felt an entirely unexpected thrill of excitement. "I... am going to be at the Hairy Fig later. Once I'm done with Waldrein Burr, I suppose."

"Is that a proposition?" the dragoness said.

Trygve snorted. "Let me buy you a tankard and see how the night progresses..."

The dragoness looked Trygve over slowly, as if appraising her. The usually ice-cool Lupa woman found herself fluttering like a teenager. There was something about this rough-edged, salty dragon. She was Magpie's opposite in so many ways. She did not confirm that she would seek Trygve out, but somehow that only stoked the furnace. The two women left _La Leviatán _cautiously, just as the great glowing disc of Seilyr rose above the rooftops in the east, bathing the world in its ghostly green luminance and dispelling the shadows that were the rogue's refuge.

"Wait," Trygve hissed as they were about to part ways. "You never told me your name."

"So you know what to moan in your fantasies? I am Dagmar."

Dagmar flashed Trygve another toothy grin in the brightening moonlight, then lifted the Lupa woman's hand to her lips. The briefest flutter of a kiss, and then she returned Trygve's crossbow, turned tail and padded silently away.

Trygve exhaled slowly and raised her knuckles to her face, brushing her lips over the trace of moisture Dagmar had left there. Then she shrank backward into the shadow of the customs house to calm herself before confronting Waldrein Burr.

*

Waldrein

"Forty pounds of precious stones? Of what variety?" demanded Waldrein suspiciously. "The value of gemstones varies enormously, how am I to know how much to levy your cargo if you will not tell me its nature?"

The Caprin duty watchman's sharp gaze flicked between the two sailors before him. This was not unusual. Bribes were never paid directly by the captains of the ships that came and went with the tides. Something about plausible deniability in a court of law, as if smuggling and piracy were ever prosecuted. The Duke of Fràwic was up to his armpits in it himself, Waldrein knew. Not that he would ever admit to it, of course. Like the merchants who supplied him with a continuous stream of off-the-books revenue in the form of bribery and corruption, the Duke's hands were nominally clean.

The two sailors, clearly juniors--probably pressganged into service somewhere up the Mare Ossium, Waldrein speculated--shared a glance. All they had been told by Niko Halassie was to carry a small pouch of Rhocarnian silver coins and a letter to the duty watchman, in addition to the formal taxes levied by the customs house. They were not so stupid as to not recognise a bribe when they saw one, but they were putting on a good act.

In truth, it did not matter a jot to Waldrein Burr what the stones' actual value was; he was paid by retainer, so the only variable was how much he could skim off the top of bribes without being noticed. He'd amassed a small fortune doing exactly that. It was a dangerous game, he knew. He slept with an Aethyric lock on his chambers, and paid handsomely for his various proclivities to be overlooked by those connected to who he perceived to be his enemies.

All told, Waldrein was a shrewd, yet paranoid official. The goat stroked his wispy beard habitually while he watched the two sailors attempt to formulate a coherent thought between them. It was like watching a ship sinking, Waldrein thought.

"They are just... stones," one managed.

"Aye, not very precious."

"Barely precious at all."

"Then why the secrecy? There is no law in Rhocarn against the duty-free importation of small volumes of stone or mineral-bearing ore. Unless it is gold-bearing, in which case the King would require its purchase, as the Crown is the sole distributor of all gold in the realm."

"Definitely not gold, sir."

"More like black, than gold."

"Aye. Pure black."

Waldrein pinched the bridge of his muzzle and stood. "Bring me a sample."

"Can't, sir."

"Chest's locked."

"Who has the key?" Waldrein persisted.

"Cap'n H'lassie."

"Show me those ledger copies," Waldrein said, holding out his hand. The sailor passed over the papers, through which Waldrein thumbed irritably. "All it says here is 'void.' Do you expect me to believe this chest is void, and thus empty?"

"Yes--no, sir."

"Very well, if you cannot tell me what its contents are nor bring me a sample, I shall be forced to levy it as though it were the highest value stones--you say the stones are black, ergo we shall assume they are black fire-opals. The volume is forty pounds, you said? Forty pounds of black fire-opals..."

This was the part Waldrein really enjoyed. He thumbed through sheafs of papers and scrolls--valuation sheets. Locating black fire-opals, he did some arithmetic in his head, added an extra twenty per-cent, and grinned at the two sailors.

"Fourteen pence and three farthings per ounce... sixteen ounces per pound... forty pounds... that comes out to... fifty-two pounds of silver. By my estimate, you have about forty pence in that pouch," Waldrein said triumphantly, his heart rate escalating at the very thought of so much money.

There was no chance that any ship carried so much currency. Fifty-two pounds of silver was a vast sum, more than most artisans would earn in a year. The sailors were appraised of this fact, and then sent back to their ship to negotiate how the sum would be paid--most likely, Waldrein knew, it would come in the form of cargo from the ship's hold.

The slow, rhythmic creak of soft leather boots on floorboards caused him to freeze. There had been no one in the room but he and the two sailors from _La Leviatán. _Thus this new person was very stealthy... and in Waldrein's experience, stealth rarely implied anything good.

"If you want money, I keep none here," the goat said with a sneer, twisting to peer over his shoulder to get a glimpse of the shadowy, cloaked figure who had emerged from seemingly nowhere.

"Money? How dull."

Waldrein's ears pricked up sharply at the feminine voice that replied, and he turned to see a tall, slender, dark-cloaked Lupa woman approaching him with a loaded crossbow in one hand.

"If I wanted your money, Waldrein Burr, I would have visited your residence in Row Seven of Dragon's Farthing, entered via the loose board in your larder, bypassed your security with an Aethyric voidstone, and picked the three-barrelled lock on your strongbox, which is built into the wall behind the tapestry depicting two emphatically male centaurs in a very intimate embrace, over your bed."

Waldrein bleated. "You have no idea what you're talking about. You think you have done your research? My Aethyric wards would fry you to a cinder before you could take breath to scream. And it would be a pity to waste such an enticing body as yours."

"I hear things, in a small town like this. Your sexual proclivities are of no interest to me, I simply found the centaurs amusing. It's the corruption that will get you, in the end."

"So what do you want? You have my undivided attention."

"Good. All I need is information, little goat," Trygve said, sidling up to the seated duty watchman and placing her ebony paws on his shoulders, her claws raking his jugular.

Waldrein whimpered. But he did not seem as frightened as many might have been, in his situation. "Tell me what you wish to know," he said, "and how you will make me tell you!"

Was that... _arousal _in his voice? Trygve suppressed a moment of surprise. She knew some men got off on being dominated, but it made extorting information from them _hard, _in several ways. She grumbled under her voice and decided it would be the easiest way to get him to cooperate. She leaned down behind him to breathe into his ear, capturing his knee between her thighs. He squirmed and bleated shakily.

"The Voidstones on the manifest of _La Leviatán. _Who has them, where are they bound, and when?" To punctuate her sensually worded question, Trygve slid her hand down Waldrein's front and pressed her palm firmly into the hardness in his groin. "You little pervert, you enjoy being threatened, do you?"

"Ahh! Of course not, you monster! You'll have to tie me down and whip me to get the answers you seek!"

"Do not tempt me," she growled, grinding her hand roughly into him. "It's a little on the small side, isn't it?"

"Nnnh... yes... weak and pathetic..." Waldrein whimpered. "Forgive me, it has been some time since such an entertaining diversion walked through my door."

"My forgiveness is easy to earn, you slimy little bastard. Just tell me what I need to know... Oh, that is...wet. Did you just...?"

"Ahh! N-no, that is just... Gnnh... Feel how much I need you..." Waldrein captured Trygve's arm in both hands as she tried to pull her hand away, and ground his suddenly dampened crotch into her palm.

She pulled away forcefully, and raised her hand to her muzzle to performatively breathe in the musky scent of his excitement, knowing it would turn him on all the more. "Tell me where I can find the Voidstones from La Leviatán."

Waldrein trembled. His eyes were half-lidded, and the crotch of his leggings bore a stain at the peak of his arousal. Breathing heavily, he stared hungrily at Trygve's lower half, and groped for her hand again.

Trygve pulled away and growled. Waldrein's veneer of professional corruption was thin, indeed, if he could be turned into a drooling reprobate so easily. Or perhaps it was _her _who was being led astray. It was possible that the goat was more intelligent than he let on, and was deliberately acting up to throw her off her game. Either way, it seemed like extorting information from him was going to end with a mess. Perhaps he would regain a semblance of clarity after he'd fired his shot, Trygve considered.

She scowled at him. He was masturbating through his leggings while staring at her crotch and bleating about wanting her to tie him up and flog him. Trygve conceded after a moment. She lifted him bodily by the collar of his tunic, slammed him onto his back on his desk in a loud scatter of coins and parchment, and snarled bestially into his ear. "Tell me!"

Waldrein squirmed, kicked, bleated, and jolted rhythmically, abruptly spilling his seed in his leggings. Left a slimy, panting mess, he slowly returned to a semblance of clarity. But Trygve's hand remained on his throat, and she raised her crossbow to his temple with the other. The very real, very non-theatrical danger he was in seemed to crystallise in his mind, and he froze in place, breathing heavily.

"Voidstones, you say?" he managed.

"What else would they be? Black fire-opals, my arse."

"Your arse indeed. Oh, I shall be dreaming of it tonight..."

"Focus! Arahan's balls, you just slimed up your trews with barely a touch and you're _still _making lewd comments? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I didn't have to suck your cock to get you to cooperate, but I am still waiting for an answer... and I am running out of patience."

"Was that on the table?!" Waldrein moaned. "If I tell you everything I know, will you...?"

Trygve cursed robustly in a variety of languages. She needed that information. Time was not on her side. If it had been, she would have gladly hung the little goat by his fetlocks for a few hours to loosen him up. Begrudgingly, she nodded. Waldrein bleated obnoxiously.

"Lakesh be blessed! My runner, a dim-witted but very loyal Equid called Cael, is holding the chest in his room at the Hairy Fig until Halassie's contact arrives to collect it. It was pre-arranged, as it always is. Please understand, I have no interest in what is in the chest. Only in the money it can make me."

"Aye, and you're breaking every corrupt oath you must have made because a Lupa woman turned you on? I am amazed you have lasted as long as you have in this... profession."

"It is moreso because you are holding a loaded crossbow to my head. Being turned on by danger is an unfortunate consequence, but one which I very rarely have the chance to truly explore. Believe me, I shall be fantasising of you for months. Especially since you clearly find me...appealing."

"You are as appealing to me as a fresh turd on a blanket!" Trygve snapped. "When is the contact due to arrive?"

Waldrein was silent, and fixed Trygve with a penetrating stare, the ghost of a smile on his muzzle.

_"When?" _Trygve snarled, transferring her hand from his throat to his balls, through his slimy leggings, which she squeezed roughly.

Waldrein bleated and his eyes rolled back in his head. He raised his arms above his head, wrists together, as if pretending he was restrained. In a vastly different scenario, Trygve thought, he might have been passingly cute. His hair-trigger wasn't going to win him any endurance contests, but in another setting Trygve might have taken it as a sort of compliment. With carefully choreographed begrudgement, the Lupa woman untied the lacings of Waldrein's leggings and reached inside to draw him out. He wasn't large, but his sheer excitement made up for it. She surrounded him with her hand and rolled his foreskin back, exposing his sensitive head to her palm. His previous emission ran down into his fur, and she smeared it around him before wiping the excess off on his leggings. _Ugh, I'm really going to have to blow him, _she thought.

Trygve did not truly begrudge these moments. In the depths of her mind was a conflict between subtly enjoying herself, and a second inner voice screaming at her for being so easy. A whore. A common street bitch. But she had learned after several years of using such encounters to her benefit to suppress that accusatory, self-shaming inner voice. It was a means to an end. And occasionally it was pleasurable for her, as well as her target. Stillwater Cove seemed to be a place where it happened more often than some others, though. Perhaps it was the city's 'melting-pot' culture, or its relative isolation from the instruments of power further inland, that gave its inhabitants and passers-through a sense that inhibitions could be shed, even if for a short time.

Trygve mounted the desk. She swung her leg over Waldrein's chest, kneeling astride his shoulders to position her posterior over his face. She was clothed, of course, but it didn't stop him from shoving his muzzle into her crotch and inhaling lewdly. She didn't bother to mention that whatever he could smell was not because of him, but because of an enigmatic little dragon she'd met an hour previously. She let him believe it was him. Men loved that.

Her claws raked down his thigh, while the other hand gripped the root of Waldrein's manhood. She didn't have time to tease him. She took him into her muzzle easily, and sealed her lips around him. The goat bleated noisily and kicked his legs and pushed his hips upward into her mouth. His endurance was little better on the second round, but just as he felt like he was about to go off again, she released him and shoved her knee into his chest.

"Tell me when the contact will be there and I'll let you cum in my mouth," she offered.

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Morning! Early!" Waldrein bleated, humping wildly into the air.

Trygve squeezed the root of his cock firmly and plunged her muzzle onto him again. She performatively rolled her hips over his face, and even slid a hand down to pretend to touch herself over her leggings. That seemed to set him off. Waldrein bleated shakily and grabbed her buttocks in both his hands. She bobbed and suckled for a moment longer, and then felt him tense and buck and tremble while he spilled himself over her tongue.

She gave him a moment to calm down and release her, and then she stood. He stared at her in something akin to shock. As if he did not quite recall how much information he had volunteered in the throes of an unexpected sexual encounter--one he had not had to pay for. Yet.

Trygve grinned, and leaned in close to exhale across Waldrein's muzzle.

"If you promise me you won't breathe a word of this to anyone, when this is over and I have what I need, I will break into your house in Dragon's Farthing, tie you to your bed, whip you senseless, and ride that little cock of yours until you can't feel it. But if I hear you've told anyone of this, I'll cut it off with a rusty blade, shove it up your arse and sew the hole shut. Clear?"

Waldrein shuddered and nodded, perhaps a little too eagerly for Trygve's liking. But, she reasoned, that thought should keep him in line. Unless he was more of a masochist than she was counting on. The alternative, however, was much more permanent and a customs official employed by the Crown turning up dead would turn the town into a wasps' nest.

As an afterthought, Trygve picked up a small purse of silver coins and weighed it in her hand.

"Extortion _and _thievery?" Waldrein bleated.

"It will give you an excuse. Some way to explain... all of this, when you are asked about it."

He could not argue with that.

The promise of reward, Trygve hoped, would appeal to the duty watchman's greed... and his perverted desires. The Lupa woman swung her cloak over her shoulders once again, raised the hood over her head, made a show of tucking the coin purse down the front of her leggings, and vanished into the shadows whence she had come.