— The Emperor's Imperial Record, Entry 35 —
I was there again. The smithy.
From what Big Randy had said, my making the deal was a mistake. I just wasn't sure what the mistake was. It was quiet when I walked in, 'it must be their break.' I thought there weren't any holidays today.
Big Randy sat in a chair. Waiting, with Igor, who looked the same as when the overseer came, only with different clothing. When he saw me, he immediately gestured for me to sit down, and they both turned to me. With Igor speaking first.
There were no pastries this time. Only the smiths and Igor's bottle.
Igor leaned forward, clasping his hands over his thighs, and looked me straight in the eyes. "Do you have any idea what you've done, kid?" His voice was more energetic than usual and, from his tone, I was sure this was a rhetorical question. Igor turned to the side and picked up a large, cloudy bottle, forced the cork off the top, and then took a swig. "You were delivering a parcel." He sipped, "How in two worlds did you turn it into a deal with that man?"
If I wasn't sure I had made a mistake before, I was sure now. I didn't remember any time Igor had spoken so much to me. The silence was getting uncomfortable.
Big Randy interrupted, "Leave it for now." He tapped my shoulder, "I said I would have something to show you," he got up and beckoned for me to follow. Igor got up as well.
He walked us out of the room and to a small protrusion in the wall, a long rectangular structure that blended into its surroundings. If I weren't specifically looking at it, I would have missed it.
The old smith pushed a small, little plank at the side, and a bronze crank slowly creaked out of the rectangle. I stepped back, shocked. This was the first time I had seen something like this in my life.
He put his hands on the crank and motioned for me to look away. Shortly after I had done that, a small hole opened in the protrusion. I glanced at it in awe. 'Is this what a blacksmith is capable of?'
I had been under the impression that their only use was to forge swords and other iron weapons.
Inside the hole were some pieces of equipment, gloves, a small, ordinary black rock, and some other things I was not able to see from my angle. It wasn't helped by the fact that I did not want to seem like I was prying, especially not to my benefactor.
Igor took another swig, and the stench of alcohol started to fill the air.
Big Randy pulled out a simple metal ring with a simple black triangle etched repeatedly across the band of the ring.
Igor almost dropped his liquor bottle. "What are you doing, Randy? I thought that thing had been lost." He lifted the bottle and his other hand up to grab his head, as if he were scared of something. Eyes wide. "We were supposed to forget." Igor tried to snatch the ring away, but Big Randy was quicker. "Forget, Randy. Do you know how dangerous this is?"
He put up a hand to silence Igor, and he kept shut, stealing glances at the ring and mumbling every now and then.
Big Randy rotated the ring in his hands, moving it up to see it better in the light. Then held it in front of me. "Do you know what this is?"
It looked like a ring, but I was sure that wasn't the answer he wanted me to give so I shook my head, "No."
"It belonged to my friend." Igor huffed loudly in protest, and Big Randy corrected himself, "It used to belong to our friend."
Igor spoke out, "If you still have that thing, then you shouldn't be giving it to him." His words were punctuated by the bottle, which grew emptier by the minute.
Big Randy turned around, a touch of emotion carving his face. "Do you remember how we got our start, Igor? Why we aren't still some little street urchins?" That last sentence was said with a snarl, like he was angry at himself for the fact.
Igor crossed his arms. A third of the liquid in the bottle left. "I remember. I also remember why we aren't in—" He came to a sudden stop, then looked at me, "We are both here because we wanted to forget. Remember?"
Big Randy sighed, "What would you have me do? Should I have let it rot? We do not control the hands of The Skies," and Igor scoffed.
"Do what you want, but your wife is not going to be happy when she finds out you kept it."
Big Randy responded as if he were trying to justify himself, "It fell…It just happened to roll into my bag while we were running away." Then he gave Igor a hard look, waiting for a reply. "Oh, of course," and Igor looked away taking another swig from the bottle. It was almost all gone now. By now, Igor had started swaying, like a strong tree in the middle of a heavy storm.
"If she asks me, I won't be lying for you. Just remember to get your lies together."
Big Randy put a hand on his face, sighing in exasperation, the ring in his other hand. "Look at the boy, Igor, where do you think he'll end up with a mind like that and no guidance? You think other people would be as kind to the boy as he was to us."
"He," Igor spat, "is dead. We made a promise not to talk about him."
"Fine, we did. But, are you telling me that this is all there is to our existences? Running away, waiting for death?"
Igor dropped his bottle now and covered the mouth of Big Randy, I had never seen him move so fast, "Have you forgotten how to hold your tongue?"
Big Randy shoved him away, "I have no children, Igor, you know what happened to Michelle…to Qin Hua." Igor flinched at the name.
"So what? You want to pretend to be like him, you'll take the boy under your wing? Teach him blacksmithing?"
"No. The boy is too adventurous for that."
They spoke over me like I wasn't there. Somehow, I disliked this more than having to tell Big Randy about the deal.
He continued, "He'll just stay around everyone once in a while, we'll tell him whatever we can about the world, look at the deal he just went and made. What do you think happens when he thinks he's hit a jackpot again?"
– 玄 –
I didn't know it back then, but "Once in a while" would become one of the last stable things in my life very soon.
– 玄 –
"He's not our problem."
"We weren't his problem."
This felt like a standoff, and I didn't feel too good about my chances when both of them stood head and shoulders over me, both of them forged like titans in one of those slave fighting arenas.
Finally, Igor caved, shrugging, "Do what you want. At least we'll no longer owe that debt to him."
Big Randy smiled a big, toothy grin, the kind a child got when he found out his father wasn't going to be drafted into an aristocrat's feud.
"Here, have this," He handed the ring to me. "It used to…it belongs to a friend of ours. For every ounce of wisdom he had, he had more of recklessness and impulsivity to fight it."
Igor, propped in again, this time with a noticeable slur, "Keep it like your own."
"I will," I put the ring on my finger. It felt cold, like it was sucking up the warmth my body gave.
Big Randy nodded his head, seeing as I had taken the gift. He looked at Igor, who was having increasing trouble standing up. "Let's go back. I still want to speak to you."
He quickly locked whatever contraption he had used to store the ring, and it was back to normal, like nothing had been there in the first place.
When we went back to the meeting room, Big Randy sat down, dropping hard on the seat with a grunt and slowly sank down. Igor just fell backwards, not bothering to check where he was going to land on the seat.
He pulled out a pipe with a long draw, and lit it, inhaling the white, hazy smoke like it was air deeply, before lighting another one for Big Randy and then exhaling, relaxing even more into the chair. This was the second time I'd seen Big Randy use it, 'What is that?'
After Big Randy exhaled also, he started talking, "The man you did that deal with. He's called Wan Cheng." Big Randy took another inhale from the pipe. He does all the dirty work cultivators don't want to do. Getting them mortal coins," he held up a gold coin, "finding them ladies for the night, food, experiences…war."
Igor exhaled, filling the top of the room with smoke.
"Do you think cultivators worry about grain? Or where the soldiers come from? No. That's Wan Cheng. He does the work like getting supplies, recruiting troops, controlling supply lines…anything related to war except fighting, that's what he does. In return, he gets paid with whatever he asks for."
"You don't know what he get's paid in?"
"No. But I'm sure for a man like that, its not just silver."
I took all the information in, the more I learnt about this man, the more I wished I never made that deal.
"The two sects will be having a war soon enough. Wan Cheng's job is to make sure that the cannon fodder. The mortal men, who will go die in wars they can't refuse, find traps, eat all the poisonous plants, he lowers the risks as much as possible for those who will actually fight."
"The cultivators?"
"Yes, boy."
"They can be hurt by those things? I thought they were above us?"
"They are. But the cultivators have ranks. The lower-ranked ones can still be hurt by such things. It would make no sense for them to waste valuable cultivators on poison when they could be used to kill a member of another sect." He coughed, the smoke from the tool choking him as it went down. I couldn't understand why he used it.
"What do you think that type of guy hires you for? Fun? To give you a chance? You've tied yourself to a hungry beast, Khan, and you're not getting out of this."
At that sentence, smoke again blew from Igor's side.