Marking Territory

Once I was clear of Petrograd, I walked with no destination in mind. Along the way I put my disguise craft to use and bought clothes off a common household, changing my appearance as I went. Youth had already made me look nothing like my old self, so a further disguise might not even have been necessary — I did it anyway. It wasn't difficult. Wandering this garbage-game world was already into its tenth year, and I was no ordinary drifter. I was a traitor with an imperial bounty on my head. Disguise, and shaking pursuit, were not optional. They were mandatory.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem like anyone's actually on my tail.

I had told her I would come back. I had told her to stay and guard the North. But I knew Elena would not listen to me, so on the spot I had offered only a wager she could actually accept: step back, for now. Tell her never to chase me at all? She would have thrown the bet aside, sworn she had to protect her master, and locked me up all over again. Elena knew that. The head maid probably knew it too. I trusted my disciple — just not in the one matter of her choosing not to come after me. I had been certain she would send trackers at once. She hadn't.

Even so, I couldn't afford to relax. I kept my senses open and reached Dervent, the small city beside Petrograd. I had passed through it a few times myself.

Information guild first.

That was the first stop. I needed a laundered identity, and while I was at it, I needed to confirm whether a tracking spell had been laid on my body. If it was Elena, she would have branded me with one without question. I had only learned how obsessive she was after she imprisoned me. In the original story she had never been a character who clung like that. How had she ended up this way? I must have raised my disciple wrong.

Valerie wasn't like that.

I thought of the disciple I had met briefly, before Elena. Valerie had never clung to me. She had let me go without a moment's hesitation. So why, of all people, Elena? I shoved the stray thoughts aside.

It ought to be around here.

In a medieval fantasy, information pools in one of two places: a brothel, or an inn that doubles as a tavern. The information guild would be in one or the other. As I remembered it, Dervent's was in a tavern. I followed the memory into a shabby drinking house in the underworld, and a bartender wiping glasses looked up to greet me.

"Welcome, customer."

He was a burly man, and even after taking in my boyish face he said nothing. Fair enough. This was an otherworld with no such thing as a drinking age; whether a boy drank or not was none of their concern. The look he gave me was the look of nineties Korea watching a kid sent out on an errand for makgeolli. I took a seat.

"......Flame Dragon's Breath, aged thirty-nine years, if you please."

The bartender's face shifted, just slightly. I had used the line more than once, and waiting on this bullshit passphrase never got any less grating. Couldn't they simply hang out a sign and sell information in the open? Then again, this was a mass-produced fantasy world. You learned to let it go.

"Customer. That drink is kept in the back. This way."

"Lead on."

I stood. He opened a door that looked like a wine cellar, and I climbed a ladder down with him. The door shut with a thud. When he opened the next one, a wider cellar lay beyond, and at a table washed in wavering candlelight sat an old man.

"A customer, is it? Sit. Young one, too."

I sat across from him and spread my senses. Hm. Roughly ten people hidden in this dark, and every one of them a Sword User.

"Information you're looking to buy? Or some other service?"

He worked a corkscrew into a bottle of wine, and a thin stream filled the glass in front of me. It wasn't Flame Dragon's Breath Aged 39 Years, but the quality was passable enough.

"Have a glass. On the house."

"I make it a rule not to drink what a stranger pours me. Let's get to the point." I watched the wine tremble in the glass. "......One identity token, the latest map of the North, and I want this body checked for a tracking spell."

"......Hmm. I see. All of it together, twenty gold."

Coin chimed as I set twenty gold pieces on the table. I had money to spare — Elena had given me far too much allowance. She meant to lock me up so I couldn't even step outside, and an allowance is useless under those conditions. And yet.

Twenty gold? These information peddlers actually named the fair price?

Merchants in this age were all crooks. A mass-produced fantasy world is a barbaric place where shopkeeper and bandit have yet to be told apart, and information brokers, like phone hustlers and used-car men, carried price-fudging, lowballing, and gouging as a passive skill. For them to skip the gouge and quote list price —

Suspicious.

I drew my guard up tighter. The lack of pursuit had already struck me as odd, and kindness this prompt made suspicion the only sane response.

"Very well. We'll start with the tracking-spell inspection. John. Come out."

The dark writhed the instant he spoke, and a hooded man rose out of it. A mage. He recited a spell, and a magic circle surfaced before my eyes. When he spoke, there was a thread of surprise in his voice.

Wait. That last one was what?

"Chastity Verification Magic?"

No. That was a thing?

"A spell engraved, as a rule, on young ladies who have not yet been married off. Lie with anyone even once, and the owner of the brand is notified at once. The client is a man, and yet a brand like this has been cut into him — almost unheard of. Peculiar."

The mage called John said it with his eyes alight. In short, if I had sex, a signal went straight to Elena. I was wearing an invisible chastity belt.

You've got to be kidding me.

Wasn't this a little much? I had assumed a tracking spell, of course. But Chastity Verification Magic? That Elena would lay something this sordid on me — I was going to lose my mind.

"The location is here."

John pointed near my shoulder. Several marks there were swollen red, every one of them a kiss mark Elena had left in the middle of sex. Night after night, as if she were marking territory, she had stamped them over my body without rest, and they were still vivid. I had thought they were only kiss marks. Had she been engraving a brand the whole time? My head spun.

"Ahem. A young man overflowing with stamina, it seems — you and your lover must have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shared a very fierce, very tender love. A spell like this......"

John cleared his throat. Fierce and tender love. Hearing it from him made my face hot for no good reason.

He's not wrong, though......

Elena and I had shared exactly that kind of love. Having someone else's mouth deliver the confirmed kill on it was a pointless shame. Why was the humiliation mine? Damn it. What kind of disgrace was this, courtesy of my own disciple?

"Can you dispel it?"

"Of course. But the brand is complex, so a dispelling rite is required. It has to be done separately, at a workshop nearby."

"Fine."

"Follow me."

I kept my senses open and followed the mage called John. The darkness stirred, and I felt it.

They're moving.

The Sword Users who had buried their presence in the dark were moving with us. John's robe swayed.

"Here."

He opened a door. Traces of suspicious ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mana brushed my senses. I woke my mana aperture, and my sight changed; the flow of mana came clear. What lay inside was a workshop, yes. But that —

"A workshop?"

Steel rasped as I drew. The blade was an iron sword bought cash in hand off a mercenary I had passed on the way — stock from the medieval equivalent of a secondhand market.

"However I look at it, this looks like a trap."

Ten years of wandering. The people who had chased me could have filled a mountain, and I was not stupid enough to miss a simple trap spell. At my words John threw back his hood and laughed.

"......Heheheh. Quick on the uptake, Mr. Hans."

"Why...... No. No point even asking. Elena put out a bounty, didn't she."

"You have it right. His Grace the Grand Duke has placed a bounty on you."

Paper fluttered as he drew a wanted notice from his robes.

A hundred thousand gold. A considerable fortune — enough to idle away a lifetime. By modern reckoning, somewhere around a million dollars, though I couldn't swear to the exchange rate. Beneath it, in small print: execution, should the target suffer even a minor injury. Execution?

"I knew it would come to this."

I sighed. Honestly. A disciple who never listened, not once, not ever. Plan A, using the information guild, was dead. Nothing for it but Plan B.

I raised the sword and tried to cancel the spell with aura. In that instant a flash burst near my shoulder, right where the kiss marks were.

The brand?

I understood it on instinct. It was the brand. The moment the mark Elena had engraved flared, John screamed. The spell was ripped out from under him, and his mana surged backward. So this chastity-belt brand carried a magic defense as well?

A useful effect, then.

A fairly high-grade one, at that — well past the level of a third-rate mage like John. No wonder he hadn't been able to read it properly.

"Gyaaaaaah!"

Paying the price of a failed spell, John crawled the floor like an insect, shuddering through the backflow. Well. I didn't even need to lift a hand. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He was in worse pain than dying of it. He had destroyed himself.

"Attack!"

"Take him alive!"

"Don't harm a single hair!"

Every Sword User hidden in the dark came at once. Sword Users — by an ordinary person's measure, beings you could fairly call superhuman. My mana at present sat at that same level. To me they were nothing. I could see their flow, and the paths their attacks meant to take. I worked my footwork through every strike, broke limbs until they were subdued, and planted them on the floor like refuse.

"Gack!"

"Kgh!"

With the lot of them down, I went back to where the table had been. The old man looked rattled. Selling me out to my own disciple — was "selling out" even the phrase? Despicable, either way.

"Hey. You. You know how this trade works."

It wasn't that I didn't know. The way of the business, or whatever they called it. Was that my problem?

"I don't know a thing about it. Eat shit."

I reached out and planted him on the floor.

"Gack!"

The old man, driven into the boards, sucked in a breath. With everyone in the information guild subdued, I extended my senses and found the mouth of a hidden room. A lock held it. That was no trouble. I drew, sheathed the blade in aura, and smashed the lock apart. Beyond the door sat a safe, with documents scattered all around it. I had no time to gather every paper. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠safe, then.

I lifted the sword again and focused until a very thin aura coated the edge. Aura is a Sword Expert's secret art, made to drive cutting power to its limit, and it is exceedingly useful for cracking safes. My mana was only at Sword User level now, but a Swordmaster's enlightenment still let me call aura. No safe stays whole in front of it. I cracked this one. Inside were a document, jewels, and gold. I cleaned the information guild's safe out entirely and dropped the lot into my pouch. The pouch Elena had given me was proving its worth — a Subspace Pouch, a kind of inventory.

I'll read the papers later, when there's time.

Anything kept in a safe was important information, no question. Having thriftily recovered every coin, I last patted down the unconscious old man, refunded myself the twenty gold I had paid, and left the guild. They had failed to deliver the service. A refund was only proper. This was what you called a rational consumer. A smart consumer.

......I'm not sure this is right. But it's an emergency. Nothing else for it.

I put the information guild behind me and set off to run Plan B whether I liked it or not. My destination was the mercenary guild — a medieval staffing office where contract thugs who would do anything for coin took their commissions. The bell over the door chimed as I stepped through, and hard-faced mercenaries fixed their eyes on me. My bounty poster hung on the wall.

"That guy?"

"Hans?"

"The hundred-thousand-gold man, Hans?"

"Gold just walked in on its own two feet......"

They stared without bothering to hide it, already locked in a staring match over which of them would be the one to take me alive. One of them was smacking his lips. Look at them toasting a win they didn't have. They were going to burst. Of course I hadn't strolled in here boldly without expecting exactly this. From inside my clothes I drew a single gleaming token.

The moment they saw it, every body in the room stopped. Valerie — my disciple, the one I had met before Elena. Her other name.

The strongest mercenary alive, standing at the apex of every mercenary there was. The Mercenary King.