The Far Wild

5 - I Think, Perhaps, You Know Of Me

* * *

Senesio

Dawn was creeping over the horizon as I took another slug from my tankard and stumbled out of the drink hall.

“You’re all a bunch of lightweights,” I shouted to the passed-out guards and laborers I’d spent the night buying rounds for. Half of them had shifts in a few hours but none of them were conscious. Except, of course, for me. And the wonderful irony was that I had absolutely nowhere to be.

Perhaps back to my room. Catch a nap and sleep off the oncoming hangover—which was sure to be massive. Then I’d figure out where I was going to find another biographer. And how much it was going to cost to ship one all the way out here.

Ah, but first, another drink.

The rum burned on the way down, but probably that was on account of how much of it I’d accidentally sucked into my lungs. Oh well. Wasn’t much but a mouthful left anyway. I raised the tankard for one last drink.

“Thief! Stop that man!”

I snapped toward the shouting—or would like to think I did. Probably it was more of a stumbling spin. Someone—no, wait, several someones—were sprinting across the rooftops. The man in front was doing well enough, running along the central support beam of the courier post’s roof with a bundle of papers pressed to his chest, but the woman chasing him was faring considerably worse. Less sprinting and more tumbling forward in a constant near-fall. Honestly, it was impressive she was even staying on her feet.

“Thief!” the woman shouted again, then caught her foot on something. She tumbled to the side, hit the palm fronds covering most of the roof, and disappeared down into the courier post with a series of crashes.

The hooded man she’d been chasing paused at that. He looked back and gave a mock salute before turning to continue his apparent escape. There was a jump ahead of him now, a big one clear across the street. He bent low, loaded up his knees, and—

My pewter tankard slammed into his cheekbone.

“Ha. Still got it,” I said with a chuckle. “And I’m even better when I’m sober.”

The apparent thief stumbled to the side, papers flying into the air as his arms flailed, then all at once he toppled off the roof. He landed shoulder first in the street with a thump and a meaty pop.

Ouch. Even in my... reduced state, it was hard to mistake the sound of a shoulder dislocating.

The man groaned, then pulled himself up. Papers rained down around him, spinning in quick loops as they fluttered to the ground. He stared at them, groggy-eyed, then turned toward me. I stepped forward and made a show of reaching for my sword. The man bolted, half-sprinting, half-stumbling down the hillside.

“Ancestors above, thank you!” the woman said as she rushed from inside the courier post, a few scratches reddening her cheeks and arms.

“Should I apprehend him for you?” I asked, looking back and forth between her and the retreating thief. Considering the past night’s events, a breakneck sprint didn’t sound like the best idea. Would probably end up being literal.

“No, get the report first.” The woman said, much to my relief. She couldn’t have been older than twenty or twenty-one, I realized, as she began collecting the papers. “Oh no. No!” she hissed as she pulled several from the mud of the street. “These are going to be ruined!”

“These pages must hold some value,” I said, swiping and missing several times before managing to snatch one from the air. “The whereabouts of a buried treasure or a fertile new land, surely, to be worth—” I gestured to the rooftops, then down to where the thief had disappeared into the jungle. “—such effort.”

“It’ll be even more effort if I have to rewrite them all from memory. And worse yet if Kamil learns I’ve lost all of his work... ” She trailed off, then raised a brow above one pale olive eye. “What?”

Staring was decidedly impolite, and I was well aware I was doing it. But I had recently found myself in need of a new biographer.

“You’re lettered?” I asked.

“Well, of course.” She said it like it should have been an obvious conclusion.

I frowned all the more. She made for an odd sight, this woman, what with palm splinters sticking from her hair at all angles and her haphazard stack of pages. But no, that wasn’t it. It was something else. She was thoroughly out of place in Lekarsos. Wasn’t a sunbaked sailor nor a scar-laced guide. Neither a laborer nor fisherman. No, she didn’t look like the rest of Lekarsos’ inhabitants.

Bookish, was the word that first came to mind, which made sense considering her lack of prowess up on the rooftops. Not exactly an athlete, this one. She was slender to the point of fragility, and shorter than average, though she made up a bit of height with her rigidly straight posture. And she was definitely Cyphite, what with the hallmark frizzy hair—hanging in tight curls to her upper back—and naturally tanned skin. Though, on closer inspection, it was lighter than most. Not sun-kissed from manual labor. So, someone of status, then? Or... and then it clicked. An academic.

“You’re with the college?” It was the only explanation.

“Naturalist division, Lekarsos branch. I was there when you brought in the lung scorpion,” she said, then took the page I offered up. She added it to the stack of others in her arms, and brushed a twig from her hair. “I’m Suni Koudounas, Naturalist’s Apprentice.”

“Naturalist’s... apprentice.” I stumbled at the thought. Of all the academic pursuits, naturalist was the most, well, rugged. And Lekarsos wasn’t exactly a welcoming place to those from more... comfortable backgrounds.

“Naturalist’s apprentice, ah, of course.” I got a hold of myself and said it with more enthusiasm this time, forcing a smile. “A wonderful choice of profession, if I may say so. And in Lekarsos, no less? Why, there’s no finer a place for discovery!” Or for recording the exploits of the world’s most successful gentleman adventurer, eh? How was her writing, I wondered. Maybe I needed to read a page of that report?

“It’s a true wilderness out there,” she said, nodding, her eyes distant for a moment. “Uh, in the Far Wild, I mean.” Her attention snapped back to the present. “I don’t believe I caught your name?”

“Of course! My sincerest apologies. It seems my stay here at the edge of the map is eroding my manners already.” I gave a little laugh at that, though there was probably more truth to it than I cared to admit. “Do forgive me. It is a most extraordinary pleasure to meet you, Suni Koudounas. I am... ” I paused, then smiled. “Well, I think perhaps you may know of me.”

I snapped into my famous pose, eyes confident and upturned to the horizon, chest out, hand resting casually on the hilt of my sword. I’d commissioned a drawing just like this for the cover of the book of my adventures. The collection of stories Leon had penned. Suni would surely recognize me: the book had sold extraordinarily well, after all.

“Um, I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you... posing?”

Okay, well the collection had sold a few copies.

“Like on the cover of my book?”

“Oh, you’re a writer?”

“No, no. My biographer did all the... ” I sighed, then let the pose fall away and settled instead for an ever-reliable bow with a small flourish tacked onto the end. “I am Senesio Suleiman Nicolaou, at your service.”

“How... nice to meet you, Senesio.” She seemed flustered, but that wasn’t unusual. I tended to have that effect on people.

“So, Suni, if you don’t mind my asking, why was someone so interested in stealing a report from a naturalist’s apprentice? Not exactly a big black market for descriptions of local wildlife?”

“This,” she said, looking down at the pages in her arms, “is a report on magnesia ore deposits in the Far Wild. It was stolen from Professor Symeos’ desk and could be very valuable in the... ” She trailed off, then frowned at me. “Actually, never mind.”

“Ah, well, sounds boring anyway. Say, how’s the pay for naturalists these days?” I took great pride in the fact that my charisma made a good many people eager to befriend and work with me, but when that failed, I’d found simply offering more pay than my competitors was a foolproof solution. Of course, I had no idea if this woman could actually perform well in the role of biographer, but all that could come later. The mere fact of having found another lettered individual in Lekarsos was boon enough.

“How’s our... pay?” Her eyebrows furrowed.

“I know the college is known for being enthusiastic in their spending—backed with a ridiculously large budget by the emperor and all—but how much are they actually compensating you for your work here? I mean, surely it must be a staggering sum to warrant living, well,” I made a show of looking around, “here.” I nodded out toward the horizon next. “And then, of course, there’s the hazard pay you should be getting every time your work takes you into the Far Wild—”

“Oh no!” Her eyes went wide, panic overtaking her features. “The expedition! I’m going to miss the expedition! They’ll leave without me!” She turned and ran down the hill, toward the skyship fields. “Thank you again!” she shouted over her shoulder as she disappeared into the jungle.

Silence descended in her passing.

“Well great.”

There I was, alone in the street. Abandoned for the second time in as many days and by seemingly every lettered individual this side of nowhere. The only thing that wasn’t going to abandon me, I was sure, was the oncoming hangover.