The Path of Poison: Chapter 37

After Sepp and his fellow refugees arrived in the Free City of Farhaven, Sepp’s grimoire of medicine and hexes was stolen, and he has agreed to aid a warrior named Casimir in his own quest to uncover who or what is behind the recent spate of thievery. The party settle into city life as they seek passage to Lundermark…

Check out The Path of Poison sub-section for all previous installments

The rest of their first day in the boarding house, their new home, passed quite comfortably.

Sepp and Barosh made idle chatter and ideas regarding this paladin, this Casimir that Sepp had promised to aid in his search, what he might have to do, how far he’d go, and just what Sepp was involved with. Baseless as it all was, Sepp did resolve to ask Casimir some questions if the opportunity arose. The paladin didn’t seem a bad sort or anything, but there was something fierce to his aspect, just under the surface, that had become more apparent the more Sepp thought and talked about it. Liable to lash out at the wrong remark, maybe. He certainly wasn’t like the funny, chatty little Baletorian merchants, that was for sure. When that talk had passed, they’d poked their heads out to find Seva doing the same—Skivor had apparently fallen asleep, and they didn’t wish to bother him.

So, against all better judgement, considering the meagre measure of thin little gold coins they had between them, they decided to make their first day in Farhaven as good as could be, and headed off into the outer edges of the undercity in search of anything interesting this nexus of cultures might come up with. Street food, they’d come to understand, was a regular way of life across Voerlund, and Farhaven was still a good bit of Voerlund underneath it all. A lot fried cheese was to be found, which they understood to be a favourite in this part of the known world, and one they’d better get used to. Alongside this was much seafood, fins of a dozen shapes and sizes, lengths of darkish things like plants with odd little bulbs on them they’d seen infesting the waterfront in places, and other things they couldn’t identify caught right out of the canals before their eyes and dunked in bubbling hot barrels of strained plant juices, or cooked over rotating iron grills. Everything was sprinkled or rolled in mounds of densely scented spices or savoury sauces, or both, a few of which were familiar from Silverden, some of which they were told came from as far as Minosmir and had legends of Hero-Gods attached to them. It had been a good time to get Barosh and Seva practicing their Voerlunder, too. Seva was a natural, as Sepp expected she would be, while Barosh stumbled and fell into Merchant’s Tongue a lot, but got there in the end.

Some of the eateries were mere stalls, while a good few had stools with barrels, or just taller stools, for a handful of customers to sit at under the light of hanging lamps and braziers. The overcity split a great number of times, letting great shafts of paling light through into the canals and thick-walled structures, mixing with the warmer firelight. But it got dark quicker in the undercity, which was perfectly normal, but for Sepp, when they weren’t up and about, going through menus or speaking with Farhaven and foreign merchants, he had time to think. He found his thoughts returning to the thief. Could be out here, right now. Still skulking about. Hadn’t gotten much of apparent value from Sepp, could be eyeing up other marks. Or, the idea spooked him, had they been targeted as some small lone band new in the city? As refugees, even? It kept him on edge during lulls in their movement and conversation. Seva caught him a few times and nudged him. “You’re looking for shadows,” she said, “stop it and eat or he’ll end up taking it,” she gestured to Barosh who chuckled through a mouthful of battered fin. She was right. Nothing happened, or was going to happen. Not tonight, anyway.

When they’d had their fill, or reasonably close to it, knowing it’d be best to leave some room for the boarding house’s communal later on, they made their leisurely way back through the still-bustling streets of a twilit Farhaven. They got the impression the city only got livelier in the night. They wondered, too, what the overcity must look like, lit by frosty stars, or the weird shadows of moons, or the last beams of the far-off sun, throwing its warm radiance upon the highest towers and roofs, and casting shadows as deep as the undercity everywhere else, broken in long spans by torches and braziers. They’d have to go up there one morning, they decided, get a feel for what might be home for a while. When they arrived at the boarding house, they found, to their immense surprise, Skivor sitting on the thick steps before the house with Dulmila, reclining and silently smoking pipes. They’d arrived just before dinner was to be served, with or without them they were told. In no short order and with little ceremony, pipes were packed away, potential comments hushed by the woodsman’s glare, and they entered into a side room near the back of the ground floor in which was a thick-beamed ceiling over a smoky kitchen. A long, battered wooden table with stools took up much of the room, around it were gathered the four of them, Dulmila, and three other boarders: a silver-haired Farhaven sailor of few, gruff words, and what seemed to be two Baletorian merchants who spent the meal sorting through masses of papers. Conversation did not flow, but Dulmila asked some perfunctory questions for the sake of being a decent host to four witless newcomers. They divulged as much as they felt was reasonable, mostly that they’d travelled with a Dunmarow caravan after having been refugees from the civil war in Silverden. Bad business, was what the sailor said in Merchant’s Tongue, though the way he hung his head and picked at his food said more than his words did. Sepp, backed up by affirmative sounds from Skivor, expressed interest in the house’s history at one point, Dulmila said she had only vague notions that it had stood since before Farhaven became an independent city, and had stood empty for long spans of time, but this wasn’t exactly easy to verify in a city as packed with history as this. The sailor, though, made some remark about the house’s “reputation” which Dulmila passed off with a clearing of her throat.

It was an uneventful and quick meal overall, but, they felt and expressed, about as fine a fortification as they’d had in what seemed, at this point, to be years. Sepp certainly felt as such, and continued to do so as he saw to some simple laundry and bathing during the short remainder of a quiet evening. The only thing he did before retiring to his bed, candle in hand, was visit the small half dome Serpent shrine set in to the wall near the door. Three sticks of incense sat in the perforated holder at the base, and he took the liberty of lighting one. It was a sweet, thick scent, not entirely unfamiliar, but what exactly it was, he couldn’t quite tell. He had no prayers or chants to say, figuring he ought to learn some, so he merely thought and hoped for a minute as the tendrils of smoke felt their way across the entrance hall. Things were in motion, and he hoped the Serpent was watching over them as they made their way into its order, or was gently guiding things into its order, however that worked. Then remembered that was something else, guiding, the Serpent didn’t guide, it guarded, or at least didn’t guide like—what was it? Ah, the Manatarian Sun, that was it. That merchant Saror had said so. Maybe he’d find one of those shrines, they were probably everywhere. He did still feel he owed the deity in some manner for that time in the forest. Ruminations on that took him to bed and through the night, awakening to the dolorous intonation of an hour bell, one of scores across the city calling for the beginning of labours.

Skivor and Barosh had taken breakfast themselves early, and had left to head into the docks, looking for whoever needed some able hands. Seva had booked the washroom for a while, so Sepp scoffed down something beside the drowsy Baletorian and left with a short bow to Dulmila, and into the far-ranging waterfront in search of a healer, an apothecary, even a temple—anywhere he could ply the trade his father has fostered within him. It was still dark out, and no sign of the sun coming near yet, but the waterfront was alive with incoming vessels, the bustle of workhands, calls, shouts—none of that ever really stopped, it just got louder. Priests and venerates and others he couldn’t name tended stands and braziers, lighting flames, burning blocks of incense, intoning prayers. He would have asked some of the foreign ones if there was a Manatarian temple anywhere, but he decided he didn’t want to disturb them. It was around that point he passed the span of stone where the robbery had happened, and something held his heart in a vice. He wondered if such thieves lurked in the same area more than once, and gripped his pack tight, throwing a glance to the side. He knew it was ridiculous, surely. So, he focused on looking for anything resembling an apothecary, and to his surprise, found it to be more difficult than he had anticipated. Dockyard accidents, injuries coming in from ships, he assumed these would be more common and would need to be tended to, but also supposed he knew next to nothing about this place or how its people worked.

It took some searching down winding alleys, a lot of asking around, a few slivers of gold he couldn’t really spare spent on cheap street food, and three failed attempts at even getting some lone waterfront healers to hear him out, but he at last found himself entering the low wooden door into a healer’s hut just as the first paleness of dawn of touched the far off seaward sky—he took that as a good confluence of events. He gazed around at the interior. Serpent’s Breath, the high, bare racks along the walls, the flagstone floor, the hanging specimens, the labyrinth of aromas that was the air, it wasn’t the shop back home, but…

A voice called out a greeting in a Voerlund accent. His head snapped forward, and the voice said it ought to instead greet him in a Silverden accent, which it then did. A smile framed by deep laugh lines in a pale face and wide golden eyes met him as the apothecary, an older woman, came forward with a short bow which Sepp returned with an embarrassed flash of a smile and bow of his own. His head shot to the other side as another voice greeted him—and he was met by the exact same visage. S’eth, he thought, never saw twins before. And a chatty duo they were, too, eager to know if he’d come in from the sea, and especially if he’d escaped the conflict in Silverden. He had, but not by ship, he’d in fact spent a good sevenfold days or more on the road with a Dunmarrow caravan, whose place there, they were rather excited to learn, he’d bought for him and friends by saving the life of one of their number who had been poisoned. It was quickly confirmed that yes, he was an apothecary himself—that he was in truth really only in training was a detail he passed over. He was not here to trade, no, he was here to see if he could help in offering his services.

“Ah, you see,” said the first sister, a slight turn in her tone, “Farhaven, it’s small as states go, the way it works here is that various councils oversee the different businesses in the city, regulate things, make sure no one’s floundering, or breaking laws.”
“But,” said the second sister, “princes usually don’t like unlicensed apothecaries in the city, if you understand.”
“Normally,” the first continued, “you make an appeal to a council, made up of a revolving guard of business owners—not always the same ones, keep that in mind—you prove your knowledge or ability or resources before a panel, then they can go forward with a recommendation to the prince, who then grants a charter.”
“Only at the moment we’re between princes,” the sisters shared a quick exasperated look, “so you can only get a pretty limited license to practice something like medicine, things here are going be slow ‘til a new prince gets in.”
“Any chance a new prince gets in soon?” asked Sepp.
The sisters shared that look again. Sepp gave a short laugh.
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t, you know, give you a look over ourselves, maybe, ah,” the first looked to her sister.
“Work around the rules a little? Could use a young man like yourself to help with all the stuff in here!”
“Maybe you can come back in, say,” the first sister waved her hand in thought, “a day or two? That would be good time, we’ll see if we can do anything, anything to help you Silverden folks.” Sepp was going to take that charity. And with that, he thanked them profusely, said they had no idea how much it would help, no matter how little it was, and left with a deep bow.

Outside, the sun had rushed over the city, and bathed Farhaven in a cool grey light from behind a thin veil of clouds. That felt good—S’eth, that had went wonderfully, in his opinion. “I know you would have wanted a bit more behind me, dad,” he thought, “but look at that, might end up a proper apothecary after all.” He took his time walking down the chilly waterfront. He hadn’t forgotten. He had planned to while away some time beforehand, but right now he felt full of energy. Time to meet the Paladin Casimir and find his father’s grimoire.