A Suspicious Pet (1)
Stanis stared at Lucian in silence. For the first time all evening, that utterly expressionless face took on something like a human cast. He held the look for a long while, then spoke, the menace behind his words impossible to miss.
"I trust you are well aware that I am acting in Prince Chris's stead."
Lucian answered with a smile and nothing more.
Stanis dragged his decision out until the very last tick of the auctioneer's count. By then, however, the momentum had already slipped from his grasp — Lucian looked genuinely prepared to pay fifty thousand, even a million — and in the end, Stanis abandoned the bid altogether.
"Sold! Sold to Table Three!"
Cheers and applause rained down from every side. Lucian raised his glass high, as though to gather the crowd's acclaim into it.
After the auction, we met again backstage.
"Lord Lucian Grey?"
The auction manager called him over. In his left hand hung a metal cage.
"The juvenile lava spirit."
Inside the cage squirmed a small lump that radiated heat and light all on its own. The only evidence that it was a lava spirit's offspring was the magma pooled at the bottom of the cage — magma that, even now, seeped out of the creature bit by bit and dripped to the floor.
"You are to give it not to me, but to the young lord here."
"Ah — my apologies."
The cage passed Lucian by and settled into Vitten's hands.
"Then allow me to explain how to raise a lava spirit."
To summarize the manager's lecture: we would need to recreate an environment as close as possible to the creature's natural habitat — which, apparently, meant a magma zone where lava erupted around the clock.
Stack firewood, light a blaze, stuff the thing into a pit of heat by any means necessary, then melt down stones and feed it the result, and it would grow, little by little. Or so he claimed.
Thalia's misgivings had hit the mark dead center. All I needed was the core — and somehow I'd ended up saddled with a cumbersome pet instead.
The creature was far too small for its core to be seen at all. Where the core should have been, there was only a spot that glowed slightly brighter than the rest of its body.
"How long do we have to raise this thing?"
"Two or three years? Five at the very most."
The manager sounded far from certain. He had apparently put the lot up for sale simply because it would turn a profit, and clearly didn't know the details himself.
Fair enough — who would ever have studied a lava spirit's ecology in depth? Out in a volcanic zone where the magma boils without end?
"Vitten, take it back to the palace and explain all of this properly to the servants."
"Yes, my lord."
Cradling the cage with care, Vitten left the auction hall.
Lucian produced a sheet of paper from inside his coat and handed it over.
"The certificate of purchase."
The document listed the lot's name and the final hammer price, and made plain not only that the enormous sum of 500,000 barts had been paid in full cash, but that the taxes and the house's fees had been settled down to the last copper.
"And..."
Borrowing a pen from a servant, he drafted a contract on the spot in his own hand — a transfer of every right to the creature I had received.
"And this is the deed of transfer," he said, offering it over. "I have done my part. Now it is your turn to keep your promise, young lord."
I gave him a nod.
"Then let's find somewhere more suited to conversation."
"You mean, right now?"
"No reason to put it off, is there?"
"As you wish... As it happens, I own a restaurant nearby. Shall we have dinner there?"
"Good."
I rode Lucian's carriage to the establishment he called his own — an upscale restaurant five blocks away, sprawled across an entire city block.
Word must have reached them ahead of us somehow; the vast dining hall stood empty, cleared for me alone. Better still, several dozen employees stood lined up out front to welcome me — me, and no one else.
"We are deeply honored by your visit. We shall attend to you with our utmost devotion."
The manager led us to the very center of the hall. As Lucian settled into his chair, he asked:
"Have you a drink you prefer?"
"Anything made from fruit will do."
Lucian gave the order with a flick of his eyes. When the manager returned with my drink, he set an hourglass beside the glass.
"It runs one hour. I don't care for ambiguity."
Of course he didn't. This was a man far too successful to have any patience for vagueness.
"First, let me apologize for my subordinate's failure to recognize you and the offense he gave. Whatever his reasons, he should never have imposed upon a person of your standing."
"Him failing to recognize me, I can forgive. What troubles me is that he's been deceiving people this way all along."
"...I suppose one could see it that way."
He smiled faintly.
"You were wondering why I had to spend so lavishly merely to arrange a seat at your side, weren't you? Allow me to give you the reason."
I had, in fact, drawn up a few scenarios beforehand — the sort of proposals a corrupt swindler might make to a future grand duke.
But if he opened with something like Adras's line — share your Awoken Ability with me, and I will multiply your fortune — the conversation would have ended right there.
"Please show mercy to Adras."
...Huh?
"Adras stands accused of two crimes: fraud, and insulting the nobility. For the fraud, his sentence can be reduced if he returns every coin he swindled and pays a substantial fine. But the charge of insulting the nobility cannot be commuted without the forgiveness of the very noble who was insulted."
"And you spent 500,000 barts for that?"
"Adras is a capable subordinate, worth more than 500,000 barts."
"You looked ready to spend a million. Like you meant to pummel Stanis with money until he surrendered."
"'Pummel him with money' — what an amusing way to put it."
He smiled thinly.
"People love to point at merchants like me and call us bloodless monsters who put profit above feeling. In truth, it is exactly the opposite. Trade is, in the end, the business of people. A man who cannot win hearts will never be a good merchant. The 500,000 barts I spent on a subordinate matter far less than the reputation of being a man who would spend 500,000 for a subordinate without a moment's hesitation. That reputation will return more than the money ever could."
"Funny — sounds exactly like putting profit above feeling to me."
When Lucian burst into loud laughter, the staff turned to gape at him.
"So you are asking me to pardon that conman?"
"Yes. I am merely requesting your mercy, young lord."
"Our agreement says nothing about pardoning Adras."
"Was 500,000 not enough, then?"
"No — it wouldn't matter how much you paid."
If I let his crimes slide in exchange for a lava spirit, how would I be any different from the officials who had taken his bribes?
"I did expect you to say that, but hearing it in person makes it rather harder to bear."
He scratched his cheek.
"Is there truly no way at all to change your mind?"
"Well — maybe, if you pull out of your dirty businesses. No more fake Awakened Potions, no more miracle cure-alls. And that includes the trading company you set up through your lackey."
"That alone would suffice?"
Lucian gave it long, careful thought.
"Well... I suppose if one wishes to move a man's heart, one must be prepared to go this far."
He nodded as though he had accepted it.
"Olga."
"Yes, Chairman."
A woman in a crisp uniform approached and bowed her head.
"Tell Jeremiah to be in my office. We will be discussing our withdrawal from certain businesses."
"At once."
For a moment I thought I had misheard. Pulling out of his businesses was a condition I had named precisely because I was sure Lucian could never accept it — the plan had been to raise my real terms once he balked and refused.
"Ah, the food has arrived. I cannot promise it will suit your palate, young lord."
He said it with perfect composure.
"Can a chairman really decide on a business withdrawal just like that?"
"You are the one who demanded it."
"Still, that seems extreme — how many people's livelihoods hang on you?"
"It's quite all right. We would merely be withdrawing from the dirty businesses; no one is about to go hungry. My people are capable to a man — they will adapt splendidly to new circumstances."
He laughed to himself again, as though my expression were endlessly entertaining.
"That said, you did surprise me a little, young lord. Doing business in the fortress city — isn't that terribly far removed from your world?"
"I needed the money."
"For the lava spirit, I imagine? I'd heard you needed monster materials for your Awoken Ability, but even so — reckless. You are a man meant to command merchants, young lord, not to become one."
"I didn't have any merchants to command."
"Finding one is no difficult matter. All that's required is that our interests align."
Lucian leaned his upper body close and lowered his voice.
"I could introduce you to a merchant."
"Any merchants clean enough to be worth commanding?"
"How does a merchant who is about to become clean suit you?" he asked, with the ease of a man laying down a winning card.
"Ten years ago I came to Esterji Fortress City with nothing, and within five years I built the fortune you see before you. Thirty percent of the merchant caravans that leave this city every morning bear my name. Even after winding up whatever business you find distasteful, there would be more than enough left over."
So that was the real point.
Of course. This was not a man who would toss away 500,000 barts over a mere subordinate. He had staged this whole affair from the very start to win my favor.
Not that I didn't need a merchant — my stipend for keeping up appearances had already proven useless for getting anything done.
But his reputation was every bit as formidable as his talent. Grasp that hand carelessly, and the losses would far outweigh the gains.
"I don't need a merchant who will soon be clean. I need one who already is."
"So you dislike ambiguity as much as I do."
Lucian smiled and nodded.
"Understood. Once I am clean, I will come speak with you again," he said, setting down his glass.
"By the way — are you pleased with your new pet, young lord?"
"It was an expensive gift. I'd better raise it well."
"Something about melting stones and feeding them to the creature, wasn't there?"
"That's right. And keeping its surroundings as hot as I can."
"Well... you have my support."
Lucian's expression was a curious thing.
Like a man straining to keep a straight face, somehow.
He clearly knew something about the lava spirit — but his mouth stayed shut until the meal was over.
From its very first day in residence, the lava spirit became the palace's white elephant.
Told that the creature had to be kept hot, Vitten promptly dropped it into the kitchen hearth. The head cook, predictably, was not happy about it.
Oh, the pots heated wonderfully fast — but holding a steady temperature while cooking, she said, had become a nightmare. Thanks to the thing, one meal in every two arrived at our table scorched black or barely cooked through.
The real problem was that no matter how long we peered at it, we couldn't tell whether the creature was growing at all, or whether it was genuinely eating the molten metal.
It did seem alive, at least. The palm-sized thing would wriggle atop the molten pool, or roll about shedding light — but that was the whole of it. Even after a month, its size hadn't changed a whit, nor was there any sign of a core beginning to form.
Once the second month had come and gone, Vitten finally came to me with this:
"I should have been more careful."
His tone had gone past frustration into something close to grief.
"Turns out the seller was a conman, not an adventurer. I seized the master of that auction house by the collar, but all he would tell me was to be patient."
"What about the ones you hauled in? The people who consigned the thing to the auction house."
"We can't reach them. I'm about ready to put out a warrant."
Just then, Caroi came strolling in with a glass bottle in hand. He was rummaging through the kitchen, apparently planning to mix himself another drink, when he happened upon the creature wriggling in the hearth.
"What's this?"
"A lava spirit. The one I said I'd bought."
"What? You're calling this a lava spirit?"
Caroi let out a long, low whistle.
"What? You've never seen one?"
"Don't be absurd. Lava spirits are everywhere in the Demonic Realm. This is no lava spirit."
"If it isn't a lava spirit, then what is it?"
Caroi bent down and studied the mouth of the hearth.
"A lava golem? No — far too slight for that... A fire drake, then? But creating its own magma..."
He muttered to himself for a good while, then tilted his head.
"...If it isn't a dragon, that shouldn't be possible."