Brew

Brew

Short Story

A character will soon find that some enemies never die and that in our idleness they can grow strong once more. This is a little bit on the darker side but not quite horror.

The hooded figure looked intently into her mug of beer. At least, he thought the figure was a she and he thought that it was beer that she was drinking. He hadn't really seen when her mug had been filled. He thought he could assume that it was beer but the tavern could have run out of wine glasses. Then again, he had never seen the tavern ever tell a customer they were out of anything no matter how bizarre, obscure, or extravagant the request.

He went back to polishing the bar. He may have been the bartender but he didn't know what went on in the back. There were plenty of customers that came in asking for the owner and he came out to serve them personally. He supposed that there was something that wasn't quite legal going on judging by the heavy bags of coins that these customers deposited into the owner's waiting hands.

The money didn't trickle down to him as much as he would like it to. He wasn't the sort of man that was looking to get a rope around his neck someday. He wanted to have a wife someday, maybe a couple of children. He was eager to get enough gold together to get himself on a boat to the new world and escape the horrors of the old things. This is exactly what made him susceptible to fiends like her.

Brilliant white teeth shone up at her  from the dark ripples in her cup. The sight of it made her grin spread wider and the corners of her mouth twitch. She'd give him what he wanted and ask him to do some meaningless but forbidden task. In exchange, he would spread the very darkness he fled from into the new world.

However, she wasn't the only patron at the bar with eyes on the young bartender. There was a well-dressed man at one of the tables, counting his money. He didn't look as if he had any interest in the dark haired man polishing the bar that never needed it but the hooded figure knew better. She cast a sidelong glance at him in time to catch him casting a sly glance at the young man.

The young man, for his part, was casting ill-hidden glances at the man counting his coins as he envisioned a brighter tomorrow for himself. The man with the money however, was more arrogant than he was experienced. She suspected he'd conned some naive person out of their money and thought he had a great gift at the art. Her suspicions were confirmed when he received his lavish meals. He had been practicing, she mused, but she could tell that he wasn't born into the kind of money he had on his person.

She took a long swig of her drink and let it clank on the bar. The small woman in the shadows, an assassin by the looks of her, jumped at the sound. Not a very good one apparently to be so easily shaken. A novice gone rouge or sent to run errands the fully fledged assassins were too preoccupied to do. With barely a thought, she made out the envelope on the girl's body but couldn't make out the contents. A novice sent to deliver a note so important that it was warded even against someone of her caliber? Her interest was piqued. What could the assassin's guild be plotting? The coin-counter could have the bartender. She'd found something much more interesting.

Much later in the night, nearing the closing time of every tavern save the one she was in, that place never closed, the young would-be assassin slipped out of a side door. No one save the hooded woman saw her, even the owner had not been aware of the girl's presence. The woman exited through the front door and leant against one of the posts that held up a balcony above. She'd give the girl enough room so that the girl wouldn't notice her and then began following her scent. Well, scent was the closest way to describe what she was doing. In fact, she was simply aware of the woman's actions ahead of her.

Most women would be terrified of traveling the dark narrow alleys even in broad daylight. The fear of the novice she was following it definitely made it easier to find her. It was fresh, sharp, new against the old lingering odor of crimes long past. She wondered if the girl would ever make it to full assassin. An assassin had to be sure of themselves. Sometimes, a doubt could cost them the hit if not their lives. Still, she was glad of the girl's fear for it would have otherwise been difficult to follow her through the twisting ways of the street urchin and common criminal.

She'd finally caught up to the girl at the site of an old crumbling well. The woman drew her dagger from her belt, prepared to end the girl's life, but the girl pushed the envelope between two of the stones that made up the old water source. The girl walked away and was spared to someday, perhaps, go about the business of killing.

The dagger slipped silently back into its sheathe. She had no business with the girl, only with the letter she carried. Her senses extended, searching for the dark thrum of an assassin nearby. There was nothing save a few shady characters sleeping soundly in nearby buildings. She slipped out of the cramp alleyway and into the dim glow cast by the sliver of the moon above.

Kneeling by the well, she peered into the thin gap by the two stones. There was nothing there for her to find. Most, would curse the luck on the assumption that the girl had fooled them. The cloaked woman however, knew that the parchment had not left with the girl. She could sense the traces of it clinging to the well but she could neither see nor feel the letter.

She walked slow lazy circles around the well. It looked like any ordinary well and felt no different than the surrounding town but it had somehow made a letter vanish. She cast her gaze into the depths. There was nothing but dirt. It had dried long ago.

From the inner pocket of her cloak she pulled a bag of beads. They were in various sizes, all made of cloudy glass. Their surfaces were uneven and some could barely be called spheres. The work of a very unskilled hand. She picked out one so small that it could more easily be called a marble than a bead and pinched it between her thumb and index finger. The bead began to glow a pale blue as its surface rippled. The ripples subsided.  The bead still glowed but the glass was so clear and smooth that it looked like the small orb was only catching the faint light of the moon coming down through a wispy cloud.

She moved the bead between her fingers, admiring her work. Then, without touching the stone herself, she rolled the tiny ball into the gap the envelope had disappeared into. Like the parchment before it, the glass vanished. Now, however, she had the faintest trail of magic to follow into the night. She was in no rush, the bead would not be discovered for some time. A highly trained assassin would eventually discover it but with any luck it wouldn't be found until she knew the direction well enough to follow it blind.

The sun was a hellish orb in the cloudless sky. She would happily go centuries without seeing it but she wanted to cover as much ground as she could before the trail vanished on her. It had been ages since such a thing had caught her interest. Ordinarily, she wouldn't find travelling under the sun to be worth the trouble but she had become increasingly unsatisfied with her existence. She ached for a purpose, she had lived too long a wandering slave to her whims. So, she dealt with the discomfort of the burning rays and pushed her feet further.

She hated being bound to the limits of her flesh but as she gazed down into the courtyard of an assassin outpost from the crevice in the cliff, she grinned. Now that she was there, she could use her magic. She couldn't risk causing enough ripples to give the people below warning that she was coming and magic always caused ripples. Ripples were how magic works, it was unavoidable.

As shadows lengthened and the ground turned orange with the setting sun, she let herself float down into the courtyard moving as the shadows did. Assassins were an alert bunch but as old as she was, she'd had plenty of time to learn all of their tricks. They were trained to notice things that moved against everything else and she was very good at moving with the rhythm of the world.

The well-oiled leather of her boots made contact with the rough stone of the courtyard tiles. She ran, a shadow amongst shadows, across the courtyard and into the safe shadow of the solitary building. Her hands gripped the sharp stones of the wall and she pulled herself up until she could see into the room that held her sphere.

The parchment was on a table whose polish was worn off in places and gleaming in others. Next to it was the small glowing sphere. The letter was unopened and the room was otherwise empty save for a strange arrangement of vials and beakers on another table. In the dim light, she couldn't make out at first that the floor was covered in the scattered pages of an ancient tome. When she did, she leapt inside the room to investigate.

She crouched in the room, listening for any sign that she'd been uncovered or that someone was near enough to the room to hear her. She was met only with the soft whooshing chorus of distant heartbeats in the floors below. Slowly, she stood, still wary of the absence of people on that floor. After a few more minutes, she regained her confidence and snatched both bead and letter from the table. Swiftly, she put both into her coat before investigating the other items in the room.

Through the window, the light continued to wane and she was no longer afraid of being caught. The glassware on the newer-looking table caught the fading orange light as she picked up a vial to examine it. The thing was filled with a viscous liquid with no scent. In the dim light, she couldn't make out the color but could tell that it wasn't completely opaque. Something about the arrangement nudged at her memory. Like a long forgotten dream returning to haunt her once more. Her hand shook as she returned the vial to its original position. She knew some of the liquids in those vials and she had an idea of what they were used for.

With dread, she looked down at the scattered pages on the floor. She knew those pages though she had never read them. They were a part of her as much as she was a part of the shadows. Her knees bent as she crouched once more. Her right hand caressed one of the pages.

"You were destroyed. I saw this," she whispered to the thin sheets on the floor. They did not reply.

Swiftly, she moved to stand before the table. She raised her hand and fire sprung to life on it, shedding its light into the room. She would be found out now but that didn't matter. With the light, she could now make out the color of the liquids. She picked out one vial in particular. Someone had made ambrosia, the philosopher's brew. Its amber liquid caught the flickering light and taunted her with it.

She would have like to stare at it longer and reminisce but the heartbeats had sped up and were growing ever closer. She slipped it into her cloak, next to the other two objects, and from the fire in her hand summoned two fire creatures to devour all until they burned out.

The night was lit with the fire at her back. She hated walking. Her hand reached into her cloak and caressed the little vial. She walked on. It had returned to her the purpose she thought was lost. She would destroy the knowledge that had created her, scorch the old ways from the Earth or end it trying.