A Way With Words - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Oromikalis had no true days and nights, with its everpresent luminescence, but they were now outside of the peak commercial hours and into the time when most people slept. Some specialty merchants hired staff to stay open around the clock, but most of the businesses open now were coffeehouses and colahouses and pubs, with occasional theaters and brothels open as well. The street lamps were dimmed, leaving the city bathed in the faint ambient glow of the swirling, multicolored sky. Scowling guards patrolled the streets, carrying lanterns. Nighttime was something that people who came from a real world knew and expected, and so even here a semblance of it was enforced.

"You're awfully quiet now," Hannah observed after they had walked several blocks in silence. "What's on your mind?"

He couldn't tell Hannah that the focus of his thoughts was her. Kale was enjoying her company, his mind drifting in a hundred fanciful directions at once, all of them leading to her. It was a lapse of the guard that embarrassed him when he forced himself to confront it in his mind, and he couldn't, couldn't tell her. He had to tell her something else, to throw her off.

"Just feeling a little self-conscious," Kale said. "You were so amazing, back in the room, and I never got the chance to reciprocate." He stopped in front of a brothel and gestured at the door. "If you're still all hot and excited, we could pay a visit in there. I'll treat."

Hannah scowled and kept walking, and this time it looked like her annoyance was starting to win out over her amusement as he kept stride beside her. "What is it with you?" she asked. "Every time I try to talk to you, you make some joke, or make it about sex, or make some joke about sex."

Kale shrugged. "You want a little crumb of truth?" he said, walking with her.

"Perhaps, but only if you have some to spare," Hannah said, rolling her eyes. "I wouldn't want to take your last bit."

Kale walked for a few seconds, turning his next words over, and then closed his eyes and spoke them aloud. "I'm not taking us to a colahouse to lower your inhibitions," he said. "I'm trying to lower my own."

Hannah's brow knitted. "Now what am I to make of that?" she asked. "Are you being serious, or is this the set up for another joke?"

Kale shrugged. "If you stick with me long enough, I think you'll find out," he said. "And in the meanwhile, I've got you listening and waiting to find out." He smiled, trying to win her back.

Hannah glared at him. "Kale, at some point I'm just going to lose patience with you completely," she said wearily.

Kale let out his breath, then put an arm around her waist and gave her a gentle squeeze. "Naturally," he said. "All the more reason to make the most of the time we have."

Kale could tell by the momentary stiffening of her body that Hannah held back a reply, and instead just pressed in a little closer to him. They walked on.

At length they arrived at the Indulgence, an upscale colahouse in Oromikalis's luxury mercantile district. Here there would be no destitute, desperate cola fiends, only a room full of rich people and nobles all holding court, each convinced under the heady rush of the cola that he or she was the most interesting, charismatic, and fuckable person in the room, if not the entire multiverse. The doorman was a hulking brute in fine servant's attire of a white shirt with black vest, with greased black hair and a mustache as thin as a flamestick. He took note of Hannah's missing hand with a scowl, but Kale raised a practiced patrician eyebrow at him, and he waved them in.

The lamps here were orbs of pink and purple glass suspended in nets of fine black thread. The tables had ornate, curvy wrought iron bases supporting tabletops made of thick glass with swirling patterns of translucent gray and white over their clear surface, and the walls were adorned with paintings and sculpture in the Romantic tradition, grand displays of men and women, gods and goddesses, splendid and vital in life or sprawled dramatically in death, depending on the work. The clientele was, unavoidably, boisterous and loud, but kept their outbursts within certain lines of decorum nonetheless, and there was seldom a credible threat of spontaneous physical violence. These were, after all, upper-class cola fiends, and there were standards to be upheld.

Kale took a small table with Hannah, and they were almost immediately visited by a serving-woman in billowing black and white formal garb. "May I bring you anything?"

"Certainly," Kale said. "For me, a glass of your eight-year Jyamoran Black, served Tesparine with a shot of Utcourse Silver Rum?" Cola served in the Tesparine style was poured over ice with a splash of cream and a sweet-preserved cherry; Kale was no cola fiend, but as far as he was concerned it was the only way to drink the stuff.

"Um... same for me?" Hannah said when the serving woman turned her eyes to her. She seemed totally lost here.

"I always liked the Jyamoran Black," Kale said. "You'll see when you try it."

Hannah smiled sheepishly. "I've never had cola in a place like this before," she said. "Only a couple times, in the colahouses down by the Labor Yards. I guess I don't really know what I like."

"Those poor places serve tar syrup scraped off the sides of the barrel and stirred with lukewarm water, and people drink it right up because it's cheap," Kale said. He chuckled. "This will be a completely different drink to you, I suspect. And the lift you get is cleaner too. Not all tense and twitchy like the bad stuff."

"You have a lot of experience, I take it?" Hannah asked, her eyes carrying a mirthful accusation.

"As much as any bored rich kid," Kale said. "I was looking for a vice to keep myself entertained, as rich kids do. But this one wasn't mine."

Hannah leaned in, her smile a challenge. "And what is your vice, then, Kale?" she asked, her bearing like a hunter closing a trap on her quarry.

"Sex," Kale said. "Specifically, I like to meet sharp-tongued city girls and give them multiple orgasms until they can't walk straight." He wagged his eyebrows at her again with a smirk.

Hannah rapped her hook on the table, scowling, and it made a ringing sound that carried through the room and caught the attention of several patrons at other tables. "That's your vice, you son of a bitch," she said, and the anger in her voice sounded genuine. "Smart-assed comments that put a stop to any attempts to actually talk and connect!"

The serving woman arrived with two full glasses. "Here you are," she said, setting one in front of each of them. "Is everything quite to your liking so far?" She looked warily at Hannah, but directed the look at Kale, the unspoken question plain: is she going to be a problem?

"Everything is wonderful," Kale said, giving the serving woman a warm, broad smile and a gentle touch on the arm. "Thank you so much."

Hannah glared at him as the serving woman left. "Thank you for protecting me from the guards earlier," she said in a hardening voice. "I hope that... what I did back at your room counts as sufficient repayment."

Kale took a sip of the cola, tasting the burst of acrid, musky flavor carried on the back of a wave of sweetness. The softness of the cream made it flow over his tongue like silk, while the chill of the ice and the bite of the rum gave it the slightest hint of teeth. He raised his eyebrows in appreciation, then took another drink. "Damn," he said. "Maybe this is my vice after all."

"Did you even hear what I just said?" Hannah asked. "What the hell are we doing here?"

Kale lowered his glass. "Yeah, I heard it," he said flatly, and made a face against the fading of the heady sweetness on his tongue. "It sounds like this is the part where you throw that in my face and storm out." He gestured to her glass. "But before you do, just take a drink. It's really good stuff."

"Is that's all that's on your mind," Hannah asked, "you smug, mocking asshole son of a bitch?" She pushed her chair back and rose from the table.

Kale's hand caught the wrist of her intact hand before he had time to think about it. "Hannah, wait," he said. "There's something I have to say to you."

She scowled at him.

He took another drink.

"I swear to God, Kale, if this is another sexual comment or smart-assed remark, I might hit you. I didn't come out on this date so the grand, witty, wealthy archmage could talk circles around the dumb little street girl, okay?"

People were looking. She would be kicked out soon if this continued.

Kale chuckled. "I'm surprised you came out at all," he said softly. "I wasn't expecting it." He took another drink.

"Yeah? Well, I'm pretty sure it was a mistake," Hannah said, scowling. She had not taken her seat again.

"I guess," Kale said, and he took another drink.

"Is that what you wanted to tell me?" Hannah asked impatiently.

"Wait a second," Kale said. "This isn't very easy for me."

Hannah stood, watching.

He took another drink.

"Well?" she said.

"Why don't you sit down?" Kale said. "That might help."

Slowly, her glare never wavering, Hannah returned to her seat. She watched Kale impatiently as droplets formed on the side of her cold glass.

Kale felt the beginnings of the cola lift beginning to take hold in him. He took a deep breath. "It's not my vice, all right?" he said. "The way I talk to you, I mean. It's a shield." He took another drink. "Drudgery is my vice. After I scare you off, I get to go back to work tomorrow, and it'll keep my mind busy until they give me another pass."

"A shield?" Hannah asked, and despite her scowl she was now engaged once again. "What's that mean?"

"You know, because being close to people is hard," Kale said. He shrugged. "I got hurt a few times, I guess, and it's easier not to do it any more." Some remaining reserved corner of his psyche screamed at this sudden exposure, but the incoming cola lift covered it with a mask of heady confidence that enabled him to say it matter-of-factly.

"So you drive everyone away because you had a couple of bad relationships?" Hannah said with a scowl. "That's... kind of pathetic."

Kale shook his head. "No. Well, I mean, it is pathetic," he admitted, "but they were good relationships. Not bad ones."

Hannah gave him a quizzical look, then finally took her glass and drank from it. Her eyes widened. "That's... really good," she said slowly.

Kale smiled at her. "Told you," he said.

"Don't leave me hanging," Hannah said, sipping from her glass. "Let's have details."

Kale was truly in the throes of the lift now, and felt the momentum at his back. He had never told this whole story before, not all of it. He hadn't even meant to go into any great detail tonight. But he was about to.

"As you like," he said, and the cola lift gave him the confidence to look deeply into her brown eyes as he began. "Well, my parents had three girls before me, first of all. So when I finally showed up, I was The Boy, and that counts a lot where I come from because the laws on marriage and inheritance are made for men. Lots of pressure, and my father asking his friends about daughters my age by the time I was eight. As a person, he didn't really like me much. I was stubborn and defiant in the wrong ways, and I guess not manly enough." He rolled his eyes. "But he loved the fact of having a son more than anything, you understand? I was the special one. I'll bet you can guess my sisters didn't like that either. I was the evil prince, the usurper. And our mother was on their side.

"So first there was Darin, the son of the local cooper," he went on. "At first, we were just friends as kids; I was the little rich boy and he was the little poor boy, and we had the kind of adventures growing up that you might expect. Then we got older, and we weren't just friends. It was my first love, I guess. Everything was great, until one of my sisters was spying and walked in on us. You can guess what my father said when he found out I was bent over a barrel for this peasant boy. The important part is he ran Darin's parents out of town, and I never saw him again."

Kale raised his glass again, took another drink. "Then there was Sanjia," he said. "So: a few years later. I got away from home by having magical talent. They let me go off and study at the Academy. I met a girl there: smart, pretty, and funny, with this sexy accent. We teamed up, and I'm sure you can imagine we were a real pair. The other students hated us, but they admired us. And she had other guys on the side, of course. After a while, I had a few other girls myself. After a while, it felt like we both had a small harem. Neither of us minded; that's just how it was. At least, until one of my girls was a friend of hers, Kiara, that she wanted to keep in her place. Then she blew the whole thing up, made it public that I cheated on her, and the way it came out, everything that was bad landed on me, while she got to be the victim that I dragged into it all and mistreated. And you know, I didn't want to hurt her, and I was guilty enough, that it seemed like a waste of time just to make her look bad, so I wore it all. I dumped Kiara too, even though..." He took another drink. "Well, I had to, under the circumstances."

"So you were a spoiled rich jerk who had trouble making real connections," Hannah said, frowning, "and it hurt when everything caught up to you."

"Pretty much," Kale said with a shrug. With nothing more to add, he moved on. "The last one was Aralyn. I met her in the Adelcot Guardians. Workplace romance. I was pretty prickly, but she was persistent, and eventually I let her through. She was a warrior. Like, that wasn't just her job, it was her spirit. She was tough and brave, and full of energy and joy. We had some really good times, for nineteen months. Then finally I asked her to marry me. We worked together often. She was a real hero, jumping in and risking her ass in the thick of danger while I'd stand back with my magic and either be useless or win the battle practically by myself. Funny thing is, there's not much middle ground with magic."

Kale stopped and drained the last of his drink. "Then she got torn apart by a pack of ghouls right in front of me," he said. "The funny thing is, as an enchanter I can't cast spells that are necromancy - anything to do with the dead; or evocation - which is energy blasts and magical destruction, mostly. Those spells might have helped. Instead, the ghouls didn't care much about my few little enchantments and conjurations and illusions."

Kale needed to be done there, to fall silent as he nursed Aralyn's memory, but the cola lift kept him talking. "Then there's you," he added. "Just met you today, and a spark went off right away. You're beautiful, independent, resourceful, and just as sarcastic as me. But not as cynical and worn out as I am, even though you have more reason to be. And even though I've done a fine job getting wrapped up in my work, I start having feelings again. But you're on borrowed time. You already lost a hand to the law, and they almost got the other one today. You'll end up starving or hanging in a year or two, if you're lucky."

"So you don't want to get close to me because you're sure I'll just die miserably," Hannah said, her voice low with rage. Her dark eyes glared at him almost hatefully. "That's a really shitty thing to say, Kale." She looked down and sighed. "You're probably right, but it's still a shitty thing to say."

"I know," Kale said. He swallowed. "I didn't mean for you to take me seriously about the date, and the girlfriend talk, when it was just to fool the guard." He paused. "Mostly to fool the guard."

She looked at him. Neither of them quite believed it.

Kale shook his head. "Well, partly to fool the guard anyway," he said. "That, and a little fantasy. I should've pushed you away when you came to my room. It was wrong that I didn't. The trouble is that I'm feeling something again, and I just met you, and under the circumstances, I just put my shield up without thinking, because I can't do that again right now. Maybe not ever." He sighed. "The thought of something happening to you now already makes me sick, and we just met."

Hannah set down her glass, now half-full, and took his hand in hers, now cold and damp from the cola glass. "I'd never ask for your charity," she said, "but if it's just that you're worried about me starving or hanging, and that's all that's stopping you... it's in your power to change my way of life, isn't it?"

Kale laughed, too loudly. "Is it ever!" he said. "Don't get me started! I can see you descending the stairs from the gallery in the main hall of a country manor, or twirling on the dance floor at an Adelcot formal, or making the comment that lets the stuffy air out of the room at a crusty upper-class wedding." He tried to drink from his glass, but found it empty. Not that it mattered; the cola lift was surging through his veins in full fury now. "But you're right. You'd never ask it. You tried to give back five golden eagles. What would have happened if I gave you five hundred, upon our first meeting, and told you to change everything about your life, when I like you the way you are?"

"Probably I'd have found a way to blow it or get it stolen from me," Hannah said. "I don't have the knowledge or the mindset or the connections that let people stay rich. Last windfall I got bought the magical hook." She squeezed his hand and pressed, more urgently, "But that's not what I meant. Giving me money and changing my life aren't the same thing."

So then what?" Kale asked. "Whisk you back to my mansion upon the windswept moors and give you whatever your heart desires?" He laughed bitterly. "What would you do then, other than wander up and down the halls and go a little stir crazy? And don't ask me for help answering that. I don't know what I'd do at home all day myself! That's why I never go there!" He sighed ruefully. "And wouldn't it feel like I had bought you like a slave? Or a whore? Like it was all just an advance payment on your pussy?"

That last comment was a little too loud, and it had come at an unusual lull in the background noise, so that he had practically shouted it to the entire room.

Hannah recoiled, and gasps arose from several nearby patrons. "Kale!" she protested.

The serving woman was at his side, the massive doorman looming behind her. "Sir," she said, in the polite, apprehensive tone one uses when one has no other choice but to sternly rebuke someone who has a lot of money, "it would very much be better if-"

"Ah, my good woman!" Kale said with inflated cheer. "Just a moment." He turned back to Hannah, and said in a low voice, "I'm sorry about this, but I simply can't do this right now, and I've said far too much to go on. That's your fault; you spoiled it by not throwing your drink in my face and storming out." Then, he turned back to the server, "Everything was splendid, and your hospitality has been wonderful, but it's time I was going. I'll show myself to the door." He produced a golden eagle from his pouch. "For the drinks, and for your excellent service." He flipped the coin into her hands, then grabbed Hannah's cola, downed the rest of it in two swallows, and strode out into the night.

Continued in Chapter 4...

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