I’d left Ophelia and Yen to look into something else for me, instead bringing Sil along. He’d transformed into a brute-of-a-man and was playing the part of my bodyguard. We’d decided not to bring all the goods with us, as the entrance to the market was in such a publicly open place, and we didn’t want to draw more suspicion to us than needed.
Of course, I still had all the items I might need tucked safely into the inventory that the System had given me.
I approached the man behind the counter, Sil lumbering behind me, his broad-shoulders taking up twice as much space as I did.
“What’s yer poison?” The man asked, brushing a bit of brown hair from his face.
“Shadow’s Kiss,” I said, repeating the pass code that Trevalin had provided me the night before.
The man nodded, his long hair bouncing with the movement, and then he motioned for Sil and I to follow him as he moved around the bar and down a short hallway to a door.
The door was nondescript save for the small window near the top, which was covered with a metal grate. The barkeeper knocked twice, and the window opened, revealing a large, dark-skinned face.
“Got another one for you,” the man from the bar noted, pointing over his shoulder at us.
The person behind the door grunted, and then the window slid closed and a lock clicked on the other side before the door swung inward. The man from the bar moved out of our way, and Sil and I stepped through.
“Come,” the dark-skinned man said, leading us further into the room.
A small entryway gave way to a larger room with three doors situated around it. Lush couches lined the corners of the room, and a table with some kind of gambling game rested in the center of the room. Two other men sat around the gambling table, each of them looking down at the game pieces they had spread before them.
We followed our guide to the door opposite of the room’s entrance, which he opened without a word. Beyond the door was another hallway, which I realized was actually a set of stairs that led into the earth. Flickering magelights jutted out from the walls, casting pale light on the stone steps as we moved down them, the door behind us closing.
I glanced over my shoulder at Sil, whose shoulders almost filled the entirety of the narrow space. It was almost laughable how large he was in this particular disguise. I met his eyes, and he nodded encouragingly as we continued down.
I wondered, for a moment, if he felt as nervous about this as I did. We were walking into a completely different world than anything I’d ever seen before despite hundreds of years running this empire. It was surreal.
The steps felt like they went on for an endless time, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Eventually we reached a metal door blocking our path. I opened it slowly, the hinges creaking loudly as it swung inward. Beyond, the hallway expanded into a massive cavern. The sound of conversation flitted through the air, mixed with that of music and men and women yelling out as they hocked their wares.
A mixture of scents rushed into the narrow tunnel—roasted meat, brewing stews and tonics, as well as the damp earth and rock of the cavern mixed with that smell that always followed human gatherings in enclosed places.
Despite my overwhelmed senses, I stepped forward into the marketplace filled with awe. Bright lanterns hung from the cavern above, mixed with the flickering light of various braziers situated throughout the cavern. Shops and booths littered the space, with a crowd of people moving through the tight-packed market as they went about their business. Tendrils of smoke drifted upward, creating a haze over the area that only added to the allure it commanded. I followed one of the wispy trails toward the roof, losing sight of it as it faded into the blackness.
So many questions rushed through my mind at once. How long had this marketplace existed here, hidden beneath the stone of the city? Why had we never realized that a massive cave rested under us all these years? How did they get the smoke out without drawing attention to the cavern’s existence?
It was almost unbelievable that something like this could exist under my nose with me never knowing about it. But over the past few weeks, I’d come to realize there was far too much I didn’t know about the world I claimed to lead.
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The initial shock at the cavern’s existence faded as we moved into the flow of the crowd. It was a motley collection of people. Merchants shouted about deals over tables of jewelry and armor, while others hocked vials of bright-colored tonics. From the shadows, men and women in hoods watched everyone with greedy eyes.
Sil lumbered beside me, his very presence pushing people away, giving us more space in the crowded path. We passed a man butchering a creature that looked suspiciously like an alligator, blood and guts spilling from the beast as it hung from a pole in front of the man’s stall.
I stepped around the mess and Sil fell into step behind me as we pushed deeper into the throng. I scanned the cavern ahead of us. The market was tiered, stalls and shops rising up into the air on wooden scaffolding, long stairs meeting each tier in what appeared to be random intervals. My eyes took everything in, searching for…
“There it is,” I said to Sil over my shoulder. I pointed at a hanging sign of a hammer striking a coiled snake on the next level up.
We climbed to the tier above us, the hazy smoke in the air growing thicker as we ascended. The sign hung from a single post at the end of a long walkway that jutted off from the main portion of the market toward one of the cavern walls. We followed it a ways down, passing other shops and stalls on either side, until we reached the end, where a stall had been carved into the rock itself.
The dull thud of a hammer hitting metal came from inside, behind a curtain that blocked much of the shop’s interior from our view.
Sil took up a spot outside the shop, as if to ward off anyone else that might decide to enter, and I headed inside. Passing across the threshold, I felt something cool tingle across my skin. A magical barrier of some kind. The rhythmic sound of the hammering stopped abruptly, and a deep throat-clearing sound erupted from behind the curtain.
“If you’ve come to sell me your wares, then you’ll be hard-pressed to get a good price,” a deep voice called out. “I only sell items I’ve created myself.”
“I’m not looking to sell,” I responded, keeping my voice neutral. “I’ve come seeking information and I heard that you’re one of the best in the city.”
The curtain shifted to the side and a man even larger than Sil’s brutish form stepped through. His skin was stained with ash and soot, and his hands were covered with scars as he stepped forward, his milky white eyes settling on me.
He was blind, I realized. Trevalin had not mentioned that during our discussion the night before.
I sighed softly. “It appears I have been misled. I do not see how I blind man can help me.”
The blacksmith let out a rumbling snort. “I may be blind, but I’m at least a wee bit smarter than you.”
“Is that so?” I shot back.
He leaned close, as if he might be about to whisper some secret into my ear. “Aye. I at least know when to keep my flaming mouth shut.” His face contorted as a smile spread across the bottom half, his eyes still locked to me.
Anger flushed through me, but I tamped it down. Something about this man was unsettling and I didn’t need to let my anger distract me. I narrowed my gaze and shifted to the right as I used [Insight].
Name: Darius Blaghmein. Race: Human.
User information: A highly skilled blacksmith who has earned a reputation within the underworld. Though he may be blind, it would be best not to underestimate the smith’s wit or resourcefulness.
Current Status: Calm.
My confidence grew knowing I wasn’t dealing with someone who had System access. That meant whatever he was using to detect me was standard magic. Something I had a much firmer grasp of.
“Anyway,” the man said, growing sober as he continued to stand there, his sightless eyes watching me. “What can I do for you?”
“Beyond anger me? I need answers and I was told you could give them.”
A smile stretched across his face once more. “You should have started with that instead of insulting my lack of sight.”
“I need to know how something was forged and whether or not it can be traced somehow.”
I withdrew one of the black steel swords from my inventory and held it out to him.
His large hands took the weapon effortlessly, as if he could see exactly where it was. Darius lifted the sheathed blade toward his face and his milky-white eyes focused on it.
“Hmmm,” he began, the sound a soft avalance of rock in his throat. His face grew somber, his eyes narrowing slightly as he ran a hand over the hilt of the weapon and then removed it from its sheath.
He hissed when he touched a finger to the blade. “This weapon was forged using unconventional means. I can feel the blood on its blade. Ancient and yet new.”
The blacksmith continued to stand there, his fingers barely touching the dark metal of the sword, his face a cascading picture of different emotions.
Finally, he shoved the blade back into its sheath without hesitation and held it out to me. “Where did you get this?” He asked as I took it back.
“I’m very resourceful,” I told him.
He shook his head. “Resourcefulness could get you killed. I have only ever seen a weapon like this once. It cannot be traced, of that much I am certain. However…” He shook his head and began to turn away, as if he had no intention of finishing his sentence.
“Is that really everything?” I bit the words out, my voice cold.
Darius stopped, his white eyes turning back to me, boring into the very foundation of my soul.
“Weapons like that can only be forged one way. There’s a reason the dragons have never done it before. Blending scales and metal together is a tricky process. I know, I’ve tried it. Not even dragon’s fire is hot enough to soften the scales into a malleable shape. There’s only one thing in the world that can get hot enough to do that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”
“The blood of a young dragon.”