Forty

"Oh, I don't know. Any technology unfamiliar to me seems like magic," he said. Shyness. "Such as coming through a wall without damaging it, unless you used a window or door."

Technology? "It was a permanent marker. I drew a hole on a different wall. Actually I think it was a fluke." Great God, what was that about thinking before you talk...

"Is drawing on walls what you do for a living?" the monk asked.

"Not usually." With the vague idea of making this a less one-sided conversation, Grey continued, "Do I want to know who or what you are?"

Overrated, that's what it is. I hope.

Kim interpreted Baskerville's answer mostly as sarcasm and ignored it. Instead, ey contined talking about things being cursed. "I'm not too wild about non-obvious effects that I can't study", said Kim. Listening to what Baskerville said, ey started looking more interested. "Interesting." Ey started wondering how such an effect would be achieved, but ey couldn't of course know for sure, so it was mostly a brain-stretching exercise.
Ey grinned a bit amusedly at hearing how Grey had entered the place, and figured ey should top it by telling what ey had with em. Kim put eir hand in eir pocket and pretty much turned the pocket inside-out. Ey then stretched the "pocket" so that it looked like a hole. "Well, I have a pocket dimension in my pocket."

"I don't know," said the brother, "do you? Well, my - wow, what's that?" he broke off to ask Kim, tilting his head at eir pocket.

"Do you have problems with losing stuff in there?"

Grey remembered some cartoons or somesuch...

Jelly had long since finished his rather unnecessary wash, and as the mortal-type mages no longer saw fit to keep him amused with their discussion about the so-called differences in magic, he jumped down from the railing and sauntered through the inn to the front door, with perhaps some vague idea of harassing the stupid dog-type some more. He emerged into the sunlight again just as Kim opened his pocket dimension.

"Oooooooh. What's that? Looks fun." Tiny legs flailing, he ran across the grass, scampered up Kim's leg, and poked his head inside.

"It's quite literally a pocket dimension", said Kim. "...Yeah, I do lose stuff in there. It's my home and there are all sorts of places there that I could lose things in. But they don't go missing forever, though, unless somebody steals them." Having said that, ey grabbed Jelly between shoulderblades as he put his head in the pocket, and held the thing still, though not pulling him away. "No entering other people's homes without permission."

The inside of the pocket looked like a short tube, sized for a person of Kim's size, and following the tube was a floor on which a carpet could be seen. There was also more, but it couldn't be seen from the entrance.
On the outside, the pocket looked totally black, and Jelly's head seemed to be missing.

"Y'know... what's yer name?" asked Kim from the monk-like thing that had just joined them. "An' you?" Ey looked at the creature that had just peeked into eir pocket.

"My name's Brother Tortile," the youth told him smilingly.

Other than the supplied title, there perhaps wasn't much that said 'monk' about him to the assorted offworlders. No robe (he was neatly, though modestly, dressed in well-fitting silks), no tonsure (a head of quite pretty fawn-mushroom hair, actually), no stuffy attitude, and if he was wearing a religious symbol, it wasn't recognisable.

And he wasn't armed to the teeth. In fact, the only metal on him was in the clasp that fastened the collar of his shirt.

"This place seems to be crawling with kitties these days," Baskerville declared loudly.

"And aren't you a handsome big animal?" Tortile said to him, dropping to one knee in order to be level with his face and offering a wrist to be sniffed. "Yes you are. Nothing like those sleazy chulcs where I live."

The word chulc he'd left untranslated, saying it in his own language, there not being an interworld word for every known form of wildlife yet. Baskerville understood it as stringy, mangy, disease-ridden canine scavenger.

Tortile reflected that chulc was itself a loan word from an older language. The layers of translation amused him. A testament to the persistence of pests.

"Well, nice to meet you then", answered Kim while not looking all that receptive at the animals – ey liked eir sentient beings looking either humanoid or alien, not like household pets, extraordinary or not.

Tortile loathed dogs, but he didn't see what that had to do with anything. Meeting chilly reception from the canine, he appeared not at all offended and straightened up gracefully.

"And are you here on business, honoured?" he asked Kim (well, "madam" or "sir" didn't seem to apply). "Nothing to do with this purported curse?"

Jelly pulled his head out of the pocket, tilted it way way up and grinned at Kim. "I'm Jelly. Nice to meet you too. Don't listen to the dog; he hates me 'cos I'm so much cuter than him. Your home smells nice, by the way."

He turned to look at Tortile and a quizzical look spread across his face, no mean feat for a cat. His claws retracted and he dropped from Kim's clothes, only to bound across the grass and scamper up the monk's clothes to his shoulder. "Ah, a man with taste. That's right, ignore the dog, i'm much more interesting. You may pet me, if you like."

Tortile picked the kitten up, detaching the claws with careful fingers before doing so, and held him at chest height.

He'd seen animals petted before. You passed a gentle hand along the spine in the same direction as the fur lay. You could also tickle the chin and stroke the jawline, but that would be weird, so the monk didn't attempt it.

"You are cute, indeed so," he said. Tortile could speak the most outrageous lies with all the innocence of a child.

They should cover animals in diplomat training, especially if everywhere else allowed them to roam around talking like this, he thought.

Kim made a sly grin and let go of Jelly when he took his head out of eir pocket. "Well, thanks." Ey let the pocket go back to normal before answering Tortile: "Well, my scanner's slightly broken and I'm somewhat stuck in this corner of, erm... the universe. This looked an okay place at first glance, so I came here. Ye don't happen to know people who would have spare parts for dimension scanners, do ye?" Kim looked a bit amused and even more so when the monk lied so tactfully.

"I know of a few firms who might be able to make components to your specifications, though it depends on the materials and so on," Tortile said.

Suitov Iceheart turned a page and waited for the goblins to arrive.

It was some time since the gangly fawn monkling had left. Another monk had turned up in the intervening time. (Their organisation claimed the monks were completely interchangeable. Suitov disagreed.) He had spent most of the afternoon winding this one up and simultaneously regretting not choosing a less headache-inducing project (too late now), and currently...

Currently Suitov, seated on a bench out at the front of the building, was browsing a book of recipes. He had found the section about banquet catering and was paging back and forth through it with a measure of amusement. He had inferred a rough general formula for cooking times of whole carcasses. He was also amused to note that the section on game preparation seemed to have been written by someone who had never been near a real dead deer.

His dog was by his feet, dreaming of rabbits with antlers.

A glowing portal quickly formed, ejected Jaina into the dirt, and disappeared. Her hair hung loose and messy. Her jeans were scuffed and her tank top held together with a few safety pins.

This was not a happy Jaina.

She stood up, stake still in hand, dusted off what she could -- and spotted Weft. Uh-oh.

"Are you always here?" she asked. "I'll have to speak with Suitov about trying to tame the local strays."

She couldn't resist twirling her stake around her fingers, much like a bored office worker might spin a pencil -- but she probably should have.

He was seated on the boards of the veranda, eschewing all possibility of chairs, with tatting shuttle in hand - and, up until the woman's arrival, had looked very peaceable. That changed. Rather than any difference of expression, it was the immediate tension around the face and all down the spine, along with the direct, eyes-open look, that disclosed his hostility.

"I guess he enjoys surrounding himself with guttersnipes," Weft said. The tension extended to his voice, whose tone would have startled anyone who knew the monk as a friend. Sheer contempt. Who did this ridiculous waif think she was?

Jaina stopped spinning the stake and assumed a fight stance, holding her weapon shoulder-height in preparation for a downward strike. "If I did snipe a gutter, I'd hit you there, and doubtless spare your target's life in the process. Tell me, are you scheming to kill everyone, or do you have a homicidal hard-on for my circle specifically?"

She couldn't afford to let her mind drift with an angry assassin before her. She knew it, but still failed to repress the memory of her friend Lance bleeding and nearly unconscious under Weft's ministrations.

"I wouldn't bother sullying my edge on you or whatever other scum you've amassed," Weft said, putting his part-finished lacework away in some invisible pocket or other. "Exactly what threat are you, after all? And anyway, some vampire will save me the trouble sooner or later." He was as intimidated by her aggressive posture as if she'd been reading a book some distance away. Probably even less so.

Oh, this took the cake. She was pissed off and aiming a weapon at him, and he was calmly stowing his little project! For once she had no words.

Jaina stepped forward and brought her stake down hard, intending to pierce Weft's right shoulder and thus disable him somewhat.

This reaction was sort of what he'd been aiming for, if Weft indeed had had anything in mind beyond being hateful.

The trouble was, if he killed the stupid bint, his neck would be next. Say he managed to survive Suitov's irritation; then he'd have botched his mission (which was, after all, to keep close to that idiot in order to keep tabs on him) and would certainly suffer his employer's disappointment later.

His actual thoughts were more akin to can't cut this one, oh bother. He almost managed to dodge, but Jaina grazed his shoulder while he gave priority to tripping her up.

Jaina had been expecting a quick rebuff of her attack. When that didn't happen, her surprise kept her from noticing Weft's trip manoeuvre until she was already falling backwards, away from the veranda and into the dirt.

She spun to dull the impact and kept spinning for several meters, losing the stake halfway along. By the time she managed to stop rolling and look around, she bore superficial scratches from a popped safety pin on her shirt, and Weft had had plenty of time to prepare a new strike.

Instead he'd paused after rising to a half-crouch. Weft now held a utilitarian cutting weapon in his left hand and a fair attempt at a sneer on his face.

"Well, exactly," he said. He hoped he was giving a you're too pathetic to kill impression, rather than Suitov said I'm not allowed to, but he wasn't sure.

He glanced at his shoulder. That was going to need six or seven stitches. His shoulder was scratched too.

Combing his hair at this point might have been overdoing it, so instead the monk said "He doesn't love you, you know."

Even though it was stupid, Jaina turned her face away from Weft before trying to speak. "You don't know that. Liar! Like you care!"

Her voice betrayed her fear. The two males talked together often and Weft was, she had to admit, good at reading others. He would know.

She was too worried to realise that he might not be honest.

Oho, that worked. Weft actually put his blade away. He'd found a better way to stab.

"Right, because you're such a catch the man could never resist you. Sure," he said. "If he's even capable of love, which I very much doubt, the soulless animal.

"You're right, though. I don't care," he lied.

Jaina turned to face him then. Seeing him hold a weapon in his left hand and do so with clear skill had scared her. Even if she had taken out his shoulder, he could have easily countered her. And now he felt he needed no blade at all?

Her hair hung over half her now-dirty face, but she looked him in the eye. "He loves. Subtly, but he loves. I'm not surprised you know so much about soulless animals -- only that you consistently confuse Suitov with them."

After a beat, a new thought occurred. "No, actually something else confuses me. You're drilling this pretty hard for someone who claims not to care. I think you're jealous of me for getting his attention. You want him all to yourself."

She giggled despite the situation. "Weft, are you gay for him?"

His eyes widened. His right hand came to rest on the decking. "What?" Weft said, and there was a touch of yelp in his tone. "No I am not! Monk! Celibate, you idiot! And even if I wasn't, I wouldn't be a deviant. Kha!" he said, clearly a vocalisation of disgust.

How she could ever think he'd have so little taste...

"Celibacy isn't a sexual orientation. How was I supposed to know what you were or weren't?" Jaina wasn't buying this at all, but it was fun to tease him and regain the upper hand, if only for a moment.

She took the opportunity to fish a hair elastic out of her jeans and pull her messy hair into what might generously be called a ponytail. "I would have understood that reason. That's why I suggested it. So if that's not it, do you have a reason for sticking around? Clearly you're less than fond of him and the company he keeps."

"Why do you want to know? You can't possibly think I'm competition." (His skin crawled again at the thought.) "My job is none of your business and nor are my feelings." He scrabbled around desperately for more ammunition. Anything...

Green eyes widened. "Your -- job."

She was used to keeping her occupation secret in certain places, so oddly, she could empathise. Only a little, she told herself, but she could. "Okay. You're hired to be here. When did Suitov find out?"

Hoping Weft was off-guard again, Jaina scanned the space between them for her dropped stake. She made no move to pick it up yet; for now, all she wanted was to know where it had landed.

"He doesn't care," Weft said, with incongruous lashings of resentment.

Jaina eyed him critically. "You expect me to believe that?"

There were little alarm bells in the back of her mind, but she'd deal with them later. This time, she ran up to Weft, stooping into a somersault when she grabbed her stake. She ended upright at the veranda. Her stake continued its motion sharply down at the spot she had last seen Weft's foot.

You didn't take your eyes off Weft for that long and expect him to be where you'd seen him last. He began moving almost the instant Jaina did, was off the side of the deck and well positioned in time to gauge a quick shove that should send the silly woman sprawling.

Happily for him, it could be interpreted as toying with his prey.

"You're right, I was backtracking," he said. "Obviously you managed to tap a secret out of me that that very bright, very persistent, insufferably curious mage completely overlooked. Obviously you are a woman to be reckoned with. Fortunate for him you're here."

Thwarted, Jaina shifted her kneeling position into a runner's crouch, then rotated her position to face the source of his irritating voice.

"You're playing games with semantics," she complained. It went without saying that he was playing her, too. "That wasn't what I asked. I ... wait, where is Ice?"

Don't get scared don't get scared where is he?

"Off plotting to kill babies or break your heart or something. Why do you even bother?" he said, gesticulating exasperatedly.

Jaina couldn't muster the strength to roll her eyes. "Because he's better company than you! Civil, attentive, understanding -- a good man."

She stood up with a weary lurch and started to head around the building. "Since you say he's elsewhere and evil, I'll assume he's inside behaving himself. Good day, sir."

Weft wanted very much to object to "good man", but she obviously wasn't interested in hearing it. It was rather baffling that even someone like Jaina would have the hots for someone who, in Weft's opinion, was so obviously up to something...

"Pale," he said slowly. "Calculating. Cool to the touch. Doesn't drink wine. Thinks books are better than people. Oh grace. That's why you're swooning over him, isn't it? He's like a vampire, except one you're allowed to bed. Madam, that is messed-up."

A distinct shimmer appeared over Jaina's exposed skin as Weft spoke. Her knuckles whitened as every muscle tensed.

"You..." she began, raging, but dropped it for lack of an appropriate term. She tried again. "You horrid..."

She screamed then, wordless and furious, and pounded anything within reach -- shrub, wall, banister -- on her way to treat Weft to the same. This time, she kept her eyes on the little rat as best she could.

That seemed to have touched a nerve or three. The assassin was surprised. Maybe she hadn't known?

"Wait a--" said someone else, then he followed up with a very loud WOOF.

Weft twitched in his skin, but was more intent on the mad necrophile bearing down on him.

It was the woof that broke Jaina's irate reverie. She whirled to pounce the canid, forgetting Weft for the moment. Her glow turned off. (This was very bad vampire hunter behaviour, but somewhat excusable on the grounds that some werewolves were known to woof, and could be equally dangerous.)

When she recognised Basaltine, she quickly broke eye contact with him.

"I'm sorry," she told him softly. "I just-- "

She didn't know how to end that, so she let it hang unfinished. "Where's Ice? Please. Is he near?"

There was a drawn-out hiss of disgust from behind her. Weft folded his arms and pointedly looked elsewhere.

"Yeah, I'll take you to 'im," Basaltine said, showing some tooth, then paused. In a slightly different voice, he added "Weft, I believe I have warned you what will happen if any harm comes to this young lady while you're in the vicinity."

"I never laid a hand on--" Weft got himself under control. "Yes, sir," he amended himself.

Basaltine wagged, cast a conspiratorial look at Jaina and began to walk off.

Jaina grinned at Weft's reprimand while assessing her current state. She had a tank top strap holding up by a mere hem, safety pins torn free of their placements, hair mostly escaped from its ponytail, and dirt and plant stains everywhere.

"This wasn't all his doing," she admitted, still smiling. "I came straight from another scuffle on Terra. Prince Kittenboots there was the least of it. Like he said, he couldn't lay a hand on me."

She stowed her stake within her boot and freed her hair, carefully ignoring her aching knuckles throughout. That done, she followed Basaltine with all the grace of an arthritic.

"What did you do to him? Call him a kitty? I've hardly ever seen him so furious," Basaltine said proudly once they were out of fuzzy earshot.

Jaina preened. "Thanks! I did get in some good shots, yeah; maybe some cat cracks. I don't remember exactly."

She stopped for a moment and re-pinned her shirt together, taking care with her sore hands. Her smile slipped downwards. "I remember what he said, though. He's... good at this."

That was definitely a crack in her voice. She resumed walking despite it.

"He's got nothing better to do than sit around thinking up how to insult folks," said Basaltine, displaying a little curiosity... but he didn't ask.

(Jaina's scene continues elsewhere.)

Weft wasn't upset at all. In fact, he was impressed with how calmly he was taking this. Once the waif had been marched off by Suitov's mongrel, he settled in the third meditation posture and coolly and rationally thought over everything she had said to him.

The insinuation about Suitov didn't bother him. Not coming from Jaina, anyway. Jaina's sexual mores were obviously thoroughly compromised (or she wouldn't be seeing someone far outside her class), so what did she know? No, that didn't bother him. Attacking his job? Again, what did she know - her, with her patchwork work ethic and distinctly amateur organisation? Calling him a homicidal maniac was, well, self-evidently crazy talk, and Weft certainly wasn't about to argue the toss about who did or didn't have a soul. No, nothing she'd said had got through to him. Weft was fine.

Basaltine stuck his head back round the corner. Yes, kitty boy was in a yowling sulk, just as he'd expected. Weft would probably be obsessing all night over whatever it was their little spat had been about.

Suitov, snapping his book closed smartly at his girlfriend's approach, had issued the dog a non-verbal instruction to allow Weft to stew. That was all very well, but it left Basaltine unamused. Ignored. Abandoned. Cruelly neglected.

Basaltine headed back along the road a little way until he came upon a spot without too many sharp stones, whereupon he gave a great yelp, keeled over and theatrically died in the middle of the carriageway. His red eyes were rolled up in his skull and his tongue lolled. After a moment he peeked to see if anyone was watching.

It spoiled the effect, which was just as well, since it saved Sylvie from worrying. Since she could do with a bit of a break, anyway, she approached Basaltine and asked, grinning, "So, what kind of dangerous bug bit you there?"