Book 4 Chapter 20: High Society in Low Places

++It is considered paradoxical, by some, that the nobility of Garamon can hold such esteem for its magical artefacts but such contempt for its magical practitioners. These people invariably lack a true understanding of the noble brain.++

- From ‘Magic and Mundanity’, a commentary on the role of the arcane in an advancing society.

Blakely was as good as his word. He gave me specific, direct instructions as to the whereabouts he needed to be taken to, and the lengths of time for which he needed privacy. I granted him these, and within a day of my picking him up he reported that he had both located a meeting of the underground market and secured me a place among its guests.

“How did you manage it so fast?” I asked him, genuinely impressed. There were few things Blakely could do to surprise me with his competence anymore, this was one of them.

“Oh I just gave them your name,” he said.

All thoughts of how adept he was turned into confusion, shock and rage.

“You what!?”

“Relax,” he told me, taking a step back as he saw my growing rage. “It’s normal, it’s the standard thing to do. They don’t share them. That’s their one ironclad rule.”

It did not come naturally for me to trust in anyone, however ironclad they claimed their rules were. “Did you get any names in exchange?!” I asked him, trying to contain my fury.

“The name of the host. Earl Elqarth. Know him?”

I racked my brain and found that I did, by reputation only. He was not known to be the most progressive of men. In Garamon.

This was going to be quite an unpleasant affair.

“And you managed to gain entrance for both of us?” I asked. “Not just me.”

Blakely snorted.

“What?” I demanded.

“I didn’t get myself entry at all,” he told me. “I barely ever got to contact these people, let alone show up to their exhibits. I had to mention your name to get an invitation. When I did, it came instantly. I got the impression they were very eager to meet you.”

I decided that I did not like that.

It was entirely possible that the reason was innocent, or at least as innocent as anything in Garamon ever was. They could simply have wanted to attract a patron of my now-notorious wealth.

It was possible.

But it was also possible that they had a more sinister reason to ask for me by name, and the stakes of such a possibility were high indeed.

“What do you think?” I asked my bodyguard at last. It felt strange to do so, but it should not have. On matters of attempting to avoid being murdered, there was likely no greater expert alive than David Blakely.

His face spasmed.

“I think they’re probably not planning anything,” he told me.

“How can you be certain?”

“I can’t be, but I think they aren’t. If they were, they were very obvious about giving the game up with how enthusiastic they were at the mention of your name.”

“They could simply be planning to kill me and stupid,” I pointed out.

“They could be, that’s always a risk.” Blakely was in one of his calmer states, clinical and focused but with none of the uncontrolled bursts of paranoia that sometimes struck him. Which was to say, Blakely was currently giving me advice that was as close to superhuman as it could be in usefulness.

That did not mean I was enjoying this much guesswork, however.

“A stupid set of enemies would likely not set so effective a trap,” I noted.

“That’s also true. You’re allowed to bring a plus one, I think, for what it’s worth, so you could show up with backup. Sethira maybe.”

“No,” I shook my head. “Best not to risk that. Sethira already manages my refinery, when Paula isn’t, and works as the backup muscle for it.”

That, and her connections to Sakhent’s cult meant that she was the best possible person to bail me out of danger if this did go wrong, but I did not want Blakely knowing too many details about my operation. When one was hiding from the Gods, one quickly learned the importance of compartmentalization.

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Blakely nodded. “Alright then. Who…who will you…Oh.”

“You are probably the best suited,” I noted. “You can spot traps better than I can.”

“Fuck you, you’re trying to kill me,” he snapped. Ah, we were back to paranoid screeching. That was inconvenient.

“You just said it was likely safe,” I pointed out.

“What if they’re just pretending to be stupid to lull us into a false sense of security!?” he countered.

I knew at that moment that this conversation was going to eat up a considerable amount of my time.

Fortunately, Blakely still needed me. Partly to pay him, and partly to secure residence in his sentry tower, which now seemed to be the only location in existence that had offered him some semblance of peace. As a result it was never really in doubt whether he would be agreeing to come with me.

The event—really nothing short of a party—was scheduled two days from now, and that provided me with ample time to prepare. I actually enjoyed dressing myself now, and commissioning a suitably grandiose outfit for my entrance was rather fun.

On Blakely’s end, dressing him proved more difficult. It was rather like attempting to bathe a stray cat. No matter what attire was suggested, he had one issue or another. Not one of which was related to style of course.

“Too tight,” he said about one. “Any stashed weapons will be too easy to pick out.”

“It’s too stiff, I can barely move.”

“What sort of thread is this? Looks like it’ll go up in a fireball if a magician so much as grazes me!”

It actually proved easier to fork over the funds for a rush-job commissioning the closest thing to a black-tie-combat-uniform than it was to persuade my bodyguard to tolerate a more appropriate set of clothing. Even with my compensating the tailors for the rush job, it was barely finished in time.

We spent one last hour ensuring that everything was up to scratch before departing, which largely consisted of me admiring myself in a mirror and Blakely repeatedly fiddling with his collar and scowling.

“Two guns,” he muttered. “And one stick of dynamite. What do you expect me to do if we get attacked by something serious? A Highmage, or a warrior of the fourth order.”

“I am sure you will find some suitably creative way of dealing with the situation,” I sighed as I began to step out. Blakely muttered something under his breath while following me. I did not catch every word, but I thought it was something about inserting the dynamite into a rather particular location.

We had already flown to the city in which the meeting was to take place, the old city of Brichat. It was, like Cadnich, a port city, which had first grown to prominence back during Garamon’s flourishing slave trade. Though it did not see nearly as much wealth passing through it now as it had back then, it was still quite a significant growth of buildings.

Home to several million people, most of which lived poorly, as was the case in so many decaying centres of Garamon. The most overwhelming feature of the city was the scent of sea and docks as my vehicle made its way through the streets, pungent enough that I actually conjured a thin barrier around myself and Blakely for fear of having the scent cling to our expensive new clothing as we entered the event.

Walking would obviously have been beneath us, and so I had rented a carriage to carry us over to the place. I was not at all surprised to find that a paved road led directly up to the location in question, doubtless built for the Earl’s own convenience. It was lit on either side by rows of gas lamps, whistling and crackling in the night. Blakely growled as we rode between them.

We had been told to find a mansion on the western edge of town, and even were it not for the road, it would not be at all hard to locate. Indeed, the thing was large enough that I wondered if palace might have been a more suitable term.

The grounds alone looked so vast as to be more easily measured in square miles than acres, and the wall and railing around it looked rather like it had been designed to stave off an assault from the Garamon army.

“Ruining my night vision,” he muttered as we drew closer to the mansion. “Might’ve been put there deliberately, the lights. Stop us from seeing things lurking in the dark.”

I could feel him reaching for one of his guns, and spoke up quickly to avoid that.

“There is nobody beyond them,” I told him. “I can detect people with magic.”

He settled down at that. Slightly.

I was telling the truth of course, just because I was not at the brink of losing my nerve like Blakely, did not mean that I in any way trusted this meeting.

This distrust was not diminished as we moved through the gates, not as we passed no less than a dozen pairs of armed guards. Each was equipped with a gun that I could see glowing with magic. Heat rays, much like the ones I had purchased for Blakely, the one he was now bemoaning having been deprived of for this meeting.

If this was a trap, I realised, I would not be able to count on my shield easily staving off even the common doormen of this mansion. Each of them had a weapon that would not be terribly hard pressed to defeat an inch and a half of steel armour plating, or to take the head clean off an elephant.

We continued riding, and the tension grew right up until we parked outside the mansion’s main entrance. It was a thing of bright marble and dark basalt, all worked together with a contrast that had to be intentional. I wondered how many millions of crowns had been placed into the construction of this place.

Earl Elqarth was, after all, one of the relatively few men in Garamon who still had more money than I did, and by no small degree.

“Last chance to back out,” Blakely grumbled as we dismounted. “There’s open skies above us now, if you take us both into the air we’ll probably make it before anyone can plug us.”

So help me, I was almost tempted.

But there was more at stake than my own safety here, even assuming I was in any danger at all. And that was quite the assumption given I was now one of Garamon’s most powerful Highmages, and had recently acquired a body that could take quite the beating.

“We push onwards,” I told my bodyguard, who seemed neither happy nor surprised.

Onwards proved to be a much warmer and more aromatic direction than backwards. No sooner had I crossed the threshold of Elqarth’s mansion than I was bombarded by the scent of perfumed air and the distant hum of music. There were more servants ahead, these ones armed with smart suits rather than enchanted weapons, directing us down the corridor, and I saw no reason to deviate from their guidance.

Blakely, on the other hand, was far less neutral about the whole affair, and I noted that several of the servants we passed were flinching back from my bodyguard as he stared, glared, or, once or twice, actually growled at them like some sort of feral beast. He fell short of outright attacking, however, so I decided the problem was ignorable for the time being.

I was soon given more pressing concerns in either case when we reached the main hall and found ourselves in the heart of the party.