Chapter 10
The next three years went in a breeze I taught her everything I knew about surviving in the streets, and she started to learn, to understand them, and even to like them, but still the wild forests called for her, it is her blood to be wanderer, but she was trapped, with no way to escape, so she learned to live in a place she was not meant to be, to survive and thrive in a city, and in those three years she had become the most important person I have, a friend, a sister, a family, and she felt the same. I know you are wondering if I have Murtok why do I always talk about him second, to Olive and now Pera. It is because I don't consider him a separate entity, he is a part of me. It is like saying my heart is more important than my family. While that is true to a certain extent as I can't survive without a heart without my family my heart will refuse to beat. So to shorten this lengthy explanation, we are one, we are not separate entities but one soul in to vessels.
It was a random day, just like all the others, and I went we went to visit Darius in his shop, and maybe buy some oddities that he came by. Once I reached his shop, I found him frantic and he yelled at me, "BY THE FATHER, WHERE WERE YOU," I was taken aback by this blowup so all I could answer with was, "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Before a coherent word could come up from my mouth, he answered my unspoken question calmly but urgently, "I have been looking for either you or Lily all week, but I could never find either of you, it is as if the both of you don't exist, you should tell me where I could find you if I ever need to…sigh… never mind that, I found the perfect place."
For the life of me I could not figure what he was talking about, so I asked, "perfect place for what?"
"You don't remember? You asked me about a 2 years ago to find you a place to live, inside the city, and I found the perfect place, it is more than you told me you could afford, but I will give you the difference as a loan if you want this place."
"Before I commit to anything I will want to know where it is, how much more than I could afford, and I will want to see it," and as Murtok flew to get Lily to see this place with us I continued, "now shall we go see this place of yours."
"You will not regret this, even though it costs a little extra, it is not even on the wall, it is a middle city house."
"How much extra you keep avoiding the question, and I am starting to fear the answer, so out with it and tell me the price."
With a voice lighter than the air he whispered, "a ruby."
"Speak up man, I cannot read your mind."
More confidently he said, "it will cost you a ruby, I know that when you came to ask me all that time ago you said that you will be fine paying 5 sapphires, but it is of no consequence, I will loan you the other 5 and you can take as long as you want to pay it back."
By this time I had about 7 sapphires and 8 gold coins so I was not as worried as he was about it, and I told him as such.
By the time we reached the house, Lily was just arriving with Murtok, and I caught her up about what was happening, about the possibility of buying this place as well as the price and the possible loan. Darius opened the door and the smell of all kinds of different herbs accosted my nose, and so as we crossed the threshold I asked him about it and he answered, "this front used to be an apothecary owned by a friend of mine, and in the back there is an apartment, two bedrooms a kitchen and a spare room, but his wife recently gave birth so they are going to go back to the country side where he was born and raise their child there, so he asked me if I knew anyone that would be interested in buying this place and I immediately thought of the two of you."
Lily asked the question that I was about to ask, "will the smell ever go away, it seems to be living in every corner of this store, and I don't think I could ever sleep in a place with this many competing smells." And she was right, it was as if we walked into ten different forests all jammed into a single room. He assured us that it would only take a couple days for the smell to dissipate and everything would go back to normal. We looked around the place, and we discussed it, the back is ideal for us, and the location is superb, but we would have nothing to do in the front, it is a shop bigger than the living space and we have nothing to sell, all we want is someplace to live, that will not take us a couple hours to reach. So, we went back to Darius who was waiting in the shopfront and discuss it with him more. We tell him our concern about the shop front and that although it is a very nice place with a better location, we cannot justify buying it with a shop this big and nothing to sell, and apparently he had an answer. So, he told us, "I know that your source of income is how should I say it…less than savory and I was thinking that this could help change things, that you could live a peaceful life without having to look over your shoulder wondering if someone saw you or not," he must have seen the look of both of our faces urging him to continue to stop with the dramatic poses, so he hastily continued, "my own shop has everything as you both know, and it is all of the best quality, a quality for the rich and the and lesser nobles, but that is not everything that I receive, I get a lot of middle quality goods that I cannot sell in my shop, and have been thinking of expanding of opening a shop somewhere in this district to sell them. So I was thinking that, I give you everything that I cannot sell in my own shop, you sell them for your own customers and we split the profits in the middle, half for me and half for you. Look why don't we head back to my shop, let me show you the stock that you will be selling and then make up your mind."
We headed back to his shop and then we went to the back room where he kept his stock, and the second my foot went through the door I felt the tug come back and lead me to the back of the room where the light doesn't reach. I was completely focused on the tug that I barely heard what was being discussed, and the short of it from what Pera filled me on later is that we would buy this stock from him at the price he bought it and then sell it in our own shop and keep three fourth of the profits and the rest goes to him. They were still agreeing on the details when I could stay still no more, as if the tug was physically moving my legs in the direction needed, and when I reached that corner of darkness, I saw the source of the tug sitting on a self. A simple dagger with a hilt of bone and leather and a sheath of wood and the same kind of leather to highlight some particular areas. Although it looked ordinary, I didn't need to touch it to know that it is special that there is no other weapon like this, and that I could never leave this store without it. I didn't want to touch it in the store not where Darius could possibly see me, so I called both of them to the back of the store and when they reached me, I asked Darius about it. His answer, "I do not remember buying this," and picking it up and unsheathing it he continued, "it seems to be an obsidian dagger, you don't want it, obsidian is notoriously easy to shatter, if you want a new dagger, come to the front of the store and see the true stock, I promise you I will find you something suitable." I simply answered, "there is no need I was just curios, it doesn't look like anything else in your store." And then I looked at Pera, those few years we had spent together knowing everything there is to know about each other allowed us to have a silent conversation that Darius was unaware of. It went something like this, me: what do you think about all this, should we do it. Her: it seems like a good deal… it would be nice not to have to take from others to survive. Me: it would. So we turned towards Darius and together we said, "you have a deal". He was so happy that we closed the deal with a handshake, and he told us to come the same time the next week to make it official. But before we were finished I added, "I want that dagger… let's call it a business expense." He agreed and put his hand forward for me to take the dagger, but upon seeing me hesitate to touch it Pera jumped to my rescue and took it from him.
As we left Darius' shop, I felt Pera bursting to ask hundreds of questions. So she started with the simplest, "why did you want the dagger so much." And I answered her simply, "the tug told me, if it was a choice between it and the house, I would have chosen it."
"Then why did you not take it why did you hesitate if it is this important to you," she asked without judgment just curiosity.
"I couldn't not in front of Darius, it will change, come to think of it now would be a good time for me to take it and store it."
So she presented it to me, and with a deep breath I took it from her hand. Immediately it started to change. The bone pommel reformed, and it became a head, a head with no particular features and all the features, it could be anyone or no one, with its mouth pointing upwards. The leather grip shifted and became a breath leaving the mouth, its color changed from the brown of leather to all the colors of the world those seen and unseen. The steel cross-guard changed, and became a new material, a material that looked like shadows and felt harder than diamond. The scabbard, changed as well the wood became burned the color of charcoal, and the leather highlights, became the mark, the mark I wore on my shoulder on both sides of the scabbard at its base. Finally, the blade, and I knew what is was going to be before I unsheathed it, but I had to be sure, so as I unsheathed, where once there was obsidian dagger, now there was nothing but a sword of darkness, a darkness so profound that it made the night sky look like the sun. It whispered its name to me, and I whispered it aloud a single word, "Release." Both of us stood stunned examining the blade, and then Pera asked her question, "why did you say release." And I explained it to her, that the weapon's name is Release that it is the passage from life to death, and showed her how it is depicted by the dagger, the head dying releasing its final breath, it soul, that flies into the veil between worlds, and into death it rests.
I sheathed the blade and it returned to its original size, and put it in the portal, I had the sense that this blade should not be unsheathed without purpose that it demanded a price. We stayed there in that alley a while, not talking just standing, coming to terms with what just happened, after all the unexplainable events that happen to me, this process took us a lot less than it should have. And then we moved on to the happy news, we were getting a home, so we planned a picnic.