Chapter 34

  Dalex’s curiosity got the better of him. He made a new {astral mortar} basket for Balgoth the Boiler and flew both her and Michel into town to visit the Office of Elven Labor. He wanted to ask Balgoth more about who she was and where she came from during the flight, but carrying her in a basket through the turbulent winds didn’t create an environment conducive to conversation, and when they arrived at the Office of Elven Labor, Dalex put his curiosity on hold for the time being.

  Balgoth put her hat back on, hiding her twin horns, before stepping out of the basket. Dalex really wanted to pause and ask her who she was and why all of the elves and beastkin at Michel’s estate had been afraid of her. He wanted to ask why she called herself “the Boiler.” But, he had other things to attend to.

  They all walked through the front door of the Office of Elven Labor together, Dalex pushing Michel ahead of them. They entered into a large, almost cavernous lobby. Several sets of doors like a department store loading dock ran along the left side of the room, leading outside by a different way. It seemed like there were two entrances, one for clients and one for clients’ property.

  Dalex already wanted to burn the place down.

  The room was mostly empty. A male human stood next to a long receptionist desk, behind which was a damekin attendant. Behind the human were two elves chained together, and with them were two beastkin guards from the town watch. From the looks of it, Dalex had walked in on a transaction in progress.

  The beastkin attendant took a moment to wave at her new guests and tell them someone would be out to take their request shortly. While Michel and Balgoth waited in the middle of the room, Dalex walked forward, pushing past one of the beastkin guards to stand next to the two elves. The guards made indignant sounds but realized in the next second that Dalex was a human. They decided to hold their tongues, leaving their boss to handle the matter.

  The two elves looked at the new man intruding on their personal space with fear and confusion. The magically tattooed initials of a slave crest read “C. O.” on each of their exposed forearms. Their human owner did not seem to notice right away that anything was happening. He was too absorbed with answering the office attendant’s questions.

  “Salutations, friends,” Dalex said to the elves. “My name’s Dalex. How are you two doing?”

  Both elves refused to make eye contact with him. They looked down at the ground in subservience. Dalex’s voice finally caught the attention of the other human. He turned around, surprised to see Dalex so close.

  “Excuse me, can I help you? Please don’t bother my workers.”

  Dalex looked him up and down. He was tall and thin, perhaps in his late forties. His hair was starting to thin, and he bore an expression that brooked no nonsense. His outfit consisted of a green waistcoat and gray coat. Dalex’s armor told him something unexpected lurked in one of the man’s hidden coat pockets, but Dalex wasn’t worried.

  “Which one is this, Mike?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Lord Charles Omer,” Michel said, not willing to come any closer.

  Dalex remembered the name. Michel had referred to him as a minor figure in Batulan-bar. Any human was higher in the pecking order than any elf or beastkin, but Omer was just barely above them.

  Omer looked curiously in Michel’s direction and then his mouth fell open in shock. “High Lord Montbell.” He bowed his head in respect. “Who is this… boy? Surely not your son?”

  Dalex shuddered involuntarily. “Of course not. Mike, can you imagine?”

  “He is Dalex of the Expedition Seven,” Michel said flatly.

  Omer looked between Michel and Dalex, the gears turning in his mind. Obviously, Michel expected Omer to know what the name meant. Dalex wondered how many humans in the city knew his name and about his crimes against draconic authority.

  Finally, Omer got the picture. His face paled. “But, Great Lord Castreier—”

  “He ran away,” Dalex said. “Tail between his legs. The Wolf Brigade went with him.”

  Dalex walked up to the man and set a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you step to the side for a second. I’ll be with you momentarily.”

  He pushed Omer out of the way and took his place at the reception desk. He could feel the eyes of the other humans on his back. Curiously, he distinctly felt Balgoth staring at him as well. The touch of her eyes felt a little different, as if she was appraising him rather than fearing him.

  The attendant was at a complete loss. Her eyes flicked amongst the various humans in the room. Dalex wondered if she was used to human power struggles playing out in front of her. She waited patiently for someone to ask her to do something.

  Dalex beckoned to Michel with a finger. “Get over here, Mike. It’s time.”

  But Michel did not move. He stared at Omer, and Omer stared back at him. Were they plotting something?

  Dalex sighed. “Miiiike. I thought we understood each other.” He reached out toward his fellow human and said, “{Lasso of the viper}.”

  A thin rope of the {astral mortar} whipped out to wrap around Michel’s stomach. It yanked him across the room until he crashed into the reception desk, knocking his head against the wooden paneling. Michel collapsed on the floor in a daze. The attendant yelped. Omer cursed and backed away from the scene.

  Dalex used his hands to pull Michel to his feet and helped him rest against the top of the desk, then he turned back to the attendant. “High Lord Michel Montbell would like to annul every slave contract he has established with you.”

  The attendant’s voice shook as she said, “I will need to hear that from High Lord Montbell.”

  “Don’t worry, he’s on board. Can I ask your name, ma’am?”

  “Zola, lord human.”

  “Great to meet you, Zola. I’m afraid I have a busy day lined up for you.” Dalex took a deep breath. “Here’s the deal. Mike and I have come to an agreement. He does what I say and I don’t burn down his home and then kill him. Part of our deal is freeing every slave in his possession.”

  He patted the somewhat disoriented Michel on the cheek and asked, “Do you have anything to add, Mike?”

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  The high lord shook his head, and Dalex gave the attendant a toothy grin. “Once we’re done with Mike here, I’ll be back with every human that calls Batulan-bar home. It’s going to take some time. You might have to stay open past your usual closing hour. But we’ll be freeing every slave in the city.” He pointed at Omer. “And his slaves are next.”

  It took a little more convincing to get Zola onboard. She called for assistance from one of the other employees of the office, and, for a brief moment, Dalex imagined this was what it felt like to be a shopper asking too much of a harried retail worker. That was an experience he had never had in his previous life. By the time he was old enough to go into stores by himself, the only occasion he left the hospital was when he needed to go to a different hospital.

  But Michel did not object to the contract annulments, and, for the moment, Omer was staying quiet as well. Even if the reason for the annulments was clearly coercion by a third party, that apparently didn’t matter in these proceedings. The protocol was clear that it was up to the senior human in the room to make the choice, and Michel was deferring to Dalex.

  Dalex felt a little bad forcing the attendants to do something so uncomfortable, especially since he planned on shutting the place down and putting them out of a job when it was done. But they had chosen to work in the slave shop; They had contributed to evil. He wasn’t going to lose sleep over giving them a tough last day at work,

  The process was straightforward. The Office of Elven Labor kept paper contracts representing the agreements between the slaves and their masters. To enact the contract, it had been necessary to show its terms to more than a hundred people so the power of the contract could be publicized in the same way as a spell or equipment effect, but annulling the contract just meant burning the paper. Dalex could handle that.

  In a sense, each contract was like a piece of publicized equipment—“This paper means I am your slave.” Just as a sword that cast “fireball” would no longer spit fire after being melted down into molten steel, the paper lost its effect upon becoming ash. It seemed logical to Dalex, but he made sure Michel understood there would be a follow up appointment to verify that his slaves were truly free.

  Balgoth watched everything happen quietly. Dalex didn’t think she blinked a single time. He wondered what she really wanted from him.

  As for Omer, the man tried to slip away twice during the proceedings. Each time, Dalex caught him with the {lasso of the viper} and pulled him back to stand near the reception desk. His own recently acquired slaves looked on curiously and cast nervous glances in Dalex’s direction. But when Omer’s turn came and all of his contracts were burned, the slave crest marking them as his property disappeared.

  “You’re free to go if you have somewhere to be,” Dalex told them, “but if you need some help, stick around and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

  One of the newly freed slaves ran out the front door without a word. Dalex let him go. The Office of Elven Labor kept records beyond just the slave contracts, so Dalex could track the elf down later to give him a piece of Omer’s pie.

  He turned back to the attendants. “I’m going to make a visit to Omer’s estate to sort some things out, but I’ll be back shortly with the next human, which will be…” He paused to reference the list of Batulan-bar humans recorded by his armor. “Lord Antoine Margin. Make sure you have his contracts ready before I get back.”

  “Also,” Dalex added, “You can probably see where this is going. You’ll be out of business by the end of the day.”

  Omer chose that moment to draw the flintlock pistol he had been hiding under his coat. He raised the gun to eye level and pointed it at Dalex’s head. For his part, Dalex waited patiently for him to define his weapon.

  “This pistol fires explosive shot,” Omer said.

  He pulled the trigger and the gun popped with a puff of smoke. A spread of projectiles slammed into Dalex’s head and detonated like mini bombs. His helmet had shimmered into existence to deflect the energy of the blast and stop the little bit of shrapnel that might have cut up his neck and shoulder. The helmet even muted the sound of the gun’s report enough that it wouldn’t damage Dalex’s hearing.

  When the smoke cleared, Omer saw Dalex standing there without a scratch, staring right at him.

  “Come on, Omer,” Dalex said, “did you really think I would let you hold onto that peashooter if there was any chance it could touch me?” He walked over to the man and put his arm around his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I understand. You had to try.”

  As punishment, Dalex gave the man a noogie, grinding his knuckles lightly into Omer’s scalp.

  Dalex walked the group back outside and prepared to take both Omer and the remaining freed slave to Omer’s nearby estate. Michel waited nervously nearby. Dalex decided to let him off the hook for the time being.

  “You can head home, Mike,” he said. “I’ll check in with you in a couple days. If you behave, I might even bring you a treat.”

  But Michel didn’t move. He rubbed the back of his left wrist and looked at Dalex’s feet.

  “Is there something else?” Dalex asked.

  “Wh— what do you think are you doing?” he said, finishing the question with a stammered, “B— b— boy.”

  Dalex pointed an accusing finger at him. “Just for that, you have to call me Lord Dalex from now on. You’ll be the only one. But I give you props for bravery.”

  “You— you’re destroying everything. All our people have built in this city over the past century. Why?”

  Dalex chuckled. “Did you build it? Or did you make elves build it and then take the credit? Or rather, did you tell beastkin to make the elves do it? I’m not sure you did anything but get rich.”

  “Answer the question,” Michel said, his voice growing more confident. It still was clear he expected Dalex to knock him around for being defiant. “You’ve taken everything from me already. At least tell me why. What do you get out of this?”

  Reprehensible as the man was, Dalex wasn’t going to punish him for having a spine.

  “Nothing,” Dalex said. “Karma, maybe. If you even know what karma is. I’m doing it because, where I come from, it would be the right thing to do. I value life well lived, and that means I value the lives of elves well lived. Beastkin too. The humans of Gaia are in the way of that, so I’m going to move them. I won’t kill anyone if I can avoid it, but I’m guessing there are going to be a lot of men like Castreier who probably need some killing.”

  Michel stared at him, clearly confused and disbelieving. There had to be more to it than that.

  And then, to Dalex’s surprise, Balgoth spoke for the first time since they took flight to leave Michel’s estate.

  “Pretentious claptrap.”

  Dalex turned to face her. “Pardon?”

  “If you want me to write any songs about you,” Balgoth said, “you’ll have to come up with a heroic motivation more interesting than that.”

  “Is it really that boring?” Dalex asked.

  She nodded, the brim of her hat bobbing up and down.

  “What if I said I also liked looking cool beating up bad guys?” Dalex asked.

  “Less heroic and more human. It is a workable angle.”

  “I’m sorry, what are we talking about again?” Dalex said. “Do you really want to write songs about me?”

  He had brought her along for the day’s errands, but it was mostly out of a desire to know why she had horns. Was she a goat-like beastkin or something else? All he had seen on other beastkin were ears and tails, and those were not made exclusively of keratin.

  “If you are willing to become my patron, yes, I will write you such songs that dragons will roam from the hoards to hear them.”

  “This is going to sound weird,” Dalex said, “but are you a beastkin?”

  A cruel frown touched her lips, and she made a sound almost like a snarl. “If you insult me, the price you incur will increase.”

  “Not an insult, I’m just genuinely not sure what you are.”

  “I am a demon, you upright swine. Do not degrade me further with such inane questions. I demanded sixteen gold pieces a month to pen lyrics exalting Lord Michel Montbell’s name. From you, I will demand twenty.” This seemed to Dalex like a failing business strategy, especially given the customer she was trying to sell to.

  How did a demon fit into this world? Were they as common as elves and beastkin on the other worlds in the realm? Dava had mentioned a race of reptilians, so Dalex knew there were more races than what he had seen. Was a Gaia demon some sort of spawn from hell or just another race?

  “I have some bad news,” Dalex said. “I don’t have any money.”

  The demon clicked her tongue loudly in exasperation. “You will be indebted to me until you do have the coin to pay.”

  “I probably won’t pay.”

  She glared at him silently.

  “We’re going to Omer’s house,” he said. “Do you still want to come?”

  She took almost ten seconds to answer. Dalex was about to assume her silence meant refusal when she said, “Yes, I will accompany you.”

  Dalex smiled. “Brilliant.”

  He piled his passengers into three different {astral mortar} baskets and took off for Omer’s estate. Despite Balgoth’s frosty attitude, Dalex wasn’t unhappy to have her along. Interacting with her was another chance to learn more about this world, and maybe he would get a song or two out of it. Something about him interested her.

  And she had reminded him that he was flat broke.

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