Shadows of Valderia: An Urban Fantasy Detective Noir

​​21

Forty miserable, sluggish, minutes passed as they trundled through the rain drenched sludge of evening commuters. At a pace that would irritate an invertebrate, they crossed from the East, back into the beating heart of the city. The change was subtle at first: they crossed bridges from the glitzy and grimy entertainment districts, through the affluent, congested centre, and out North to the Gnome controlled boroughs.

Nairo gazed out of the cab’s window, watching the scenery shift and devolve; the gorgeous grandiosity of the city's heart shrank suddenly to smaller conical buildings. The road became more and more crowded with ugly spiral buildings, uniform in their blandness. Even the trees that lined the streets all became equidistant and pruned into triangles. Every street was lined with the exact same size and number of houses and shops as if some giant hand had dropped a mirror in the middle of the road. Unlike the haphazard poverty of the Eastern Quarter, or the dereliction of the Ratholes, here economic deprivation had led to uniformity, as if all the materials for these buildings were bought in bulk and on the cheap. They were all two story, cylinder shaped buildings with conical red tiled roofs. They were quaint, simple, and fastidiously clean. As they crossed Aber Falls Bridge, Nairo noticed every pedestrian had shrunk a foot. Like their buildings, the Gnome’s were rather uniform. Even though Nairo chided herself for being insensitive, as the numbers of Gnomes around them grew, they became as indistinguishable as a colony of ants. They teemed across the pavements, all heading in the same direction, with little care for traffic, stepping out in front of the cab constantly and seemingly at random. Their cabbie cursed at them and they cursed back in their own broken way. As they continued through the suburbs they reached the far North of the city which was affectionately known as Little Cang. Cang being the capital of Ling in the Gnommish Empire. Here the meticulous planning and spacing had been sacrificed in favour of a utilitarian monopolisation of every scrap of available space. Gnomes had little time for things like grass or parks, especially when there was commerce to be done.

“Here's good,” Ridley called to the cabbie.

He went for the door and was shoved back down by Nairo who slipped out first.

“Your turn to pay,” she said over her shoulder.

Ridley cursed under his breath and hopped out of the cab to fish around for coins in his many pockets.

“Half a gram, if you would,” the cabbie said impatiently.

“Half a gram!” Ridley exclaimed. “You do know she's a copper? Daylight robbery is still a crime!”

“But it’s evening, sir,” the cabbie replied.

“Then it’s… just robbery,” Ridley finished lamely as Nairo stretched her back.

The cabbie looked nervously at Nairo who smiled sweetly back at him.

“No, it's not. Failure to pay for your cab is.” She looked pointedly at Ridley.

He glared at her momentarily then grumbled into his coat collars before he drew a half brown gold coin from his pocket..

“Here you go, you bloodsucker.” He flipped the coin to the cabbie, who tipped his hat and whipped his handsome storm grey horse into a trot.

“What’s with you and vampyres today?”

“That guy was a vampyre and if you let me rub garlic on him I could have proved it!”

Nairo sighed and rolled her eyes at his back as he stomped off ahead of her. Nairo fell in behind Ridley and tried to take in the sights and smells around her while Ridley rattled off his surprisingly in-depth attack strategy for vampires.

Having been raised so deep in the suburbs she could have been considered a country girl, Nairo had never been this far north. Her senses were quickly drowned and then set on fire by the visual labyrinth of bright colours, constant noise, and spicey, earthy smells. Nairo had always seen Gnomes as reserved and muted creatures. They believed so strongly in the collective that they had never grown a sense of individualism. However, as she was realising now, this might have been more of a cloak they wore for outsiders.

Little Cang pulsed with a vibrancy that was unmatched anywhere in the city. The Gnomes favoured bright, colourful, and loud. Every wall and shop front was a wild menagerie of contrasting, bold colours. There wasn’t a single Glowstone in Litle Cang, but that wasn’t surprising given the combative inter-Forest relationship between the Gnommish Empire and the Elves. Instead, the Gnomes favoured brightly coloured mushrooms, some as big as a Human. These mushrooms soaked up sunlight all day and then when darkness fell they came alive and glowed with a ethereal beauty. Some pulsated, others shone brightly, and they were a shocking myriad of neon colours. Combined with the glowing mushrooms, Gnomes favoured some sort of strange paint that seemed to pulse in the darkness and shine like beacons in the drizzle. There was not a word of Forrest anywhere, every sign was in the looping Gnommish scrawl. They also seemed to like bizarre, almost abstract, imagery signalling what every shop was. There was some sort of apothecary that had a six foot picture of Gnome meditating with a leaf on its head, surrounded by a glowing golden aura. Next to that was a noodle bar with a caricature of a Gnome, its nose a giant bulbous balloon shape, sucking down a river of noodles, with stars in its eyes. There was the leather merchant that had a picture of a dying cow on it, and a Magick Stone vendor that just had a picture of a Gnommish housewife giving a big cheesy thumbs up with a twinkle on her teeth. Then there were the bars. There seemed to be some place to grab a drink every three or four shops. There were literal hole in the wall bars everywhere that served drinks to punters right there on the cobbles. Dotted all around her were happy gaggles of Gnomes down half pints of beers and talking louder than she’d ever heard any Gnome speak. Other bars were painted with dark colours and deep reds and purples. Heavy curtains were drawn across the windows with only thin streaks of light bleeding through. Outside these more exclusive venues were always a pair of dark suited Gnomes with wildly designed hair, and if Nairo knew anything about Gnommish Triads, a thin rapier somewhere within arms reach. They glowered menacingly, especially when one of them caught Nairo’s curious gaze. He tapped his partner and they both eyed Nairo with naked hostility until she was out of eyesight.

The pace of the place almost made it impossible for Nairo to take in every wild, glowing image as she simultaneously tried to gawk and dodge the constant stream of waist high Gnomes. Clearly Gnomes did not share her views on personal space, as they constantly bumped into her, pushed past her backside or tangled themselves between her legs. These were all professional looking Gnomes in dark, anonymous suits, all heading back from work. They stopped to chatter at each other, down a half pint, or tuck in to something spicy and hot. Everything in Little Cang seemed to happen at a breakneck pace. Conversations were rapid fire and usually on the move. Drinks were always downed and never sipped. Food was wolfed and not savoured. In every shop, restaurant and bar, speed, not customer service, was king. It was almost maddening in its relentless frenzy of activity.

“Oi! Gormless!”

Nairo snapped her head round to face an impatient Ridley, who nodded his head up the steps he had one foot on.

“Your office is above a podiatrist?” she asked incredulously while she looked at a giant picture of a crusty foot.

“They do other stuff too,” Ridley snapped as he hobbled up the steps. “They do a real nice rice and noodle in the evenings.”

“I bet they do,” Nairo replied with a wry grin.

She followed Ridley up the stairs, grimacing every time her left hip took her weight. She gripped the grimy railing and heaved herself up the steps. At the top was a rather stately stained oak door with a thick pane of frosted glass embossed with golden lettering that read: Mason and Squire Private Investigations.

“Who are Mason and Squire?” she asked Ridley breathlessly as he fumbled through the cornucopia of pockets in his long coat.

“Dunno. Sounds good though.”

As he reached his hand towards the handle he froze, his head snapped up and cocked to the side like a dog. Now Nairo heard it too: there was a shuffling from within the office. With only a subtle shrug of his shoulder a pair of brass knuckles appeared wrapped around his hand. Their eyes met and they nodded grimly in understanding. Nairo’s lips were a firm slash across her mouth, the muscle in her jaw twitched as she clenched her teeth. Ridley took a step back and braced himself.

He raised three fingers. One dropped, then another. They stood ready for anything: Goblin, Troll, Minotaur or assassin. Suddenly, the door flew open. Nairo found herself facing a small wrinkled prune with beady eyes and a mouth that was all gums.

“Reeeedley!” The prune squawked, blinking like a nearsighted mole.

“Oh, Mrs. Paper,” Ridley said with a weak smile. “I thought you'd gone home.”

“I thought you was dead,” Mrs Paper replied, clearly unaffected by the loss.

“Yeah, I thought you would be by now too,” he muttered sullenly as he brushed past her.

“Who's this?” Mrs Paper asked with suspicion. “One of those prostitutes from the Eastern quarter again?”

“Oh” Nairo said in surprise, the beginnings of her warm smile faded as the colour rose in her cheeks.

“She's a cop, you crazy old bint!” Ridley shouted from within the flat.

“Ahh shame, you could make some money with those cheekbones,” Mrs Paper said congenially as she ushered Nairo over the threshold.

“Thanks?” Nairo said, quizzically accepting Mrs Paper’s invitation.

“Here gimme yer coat girl,” Mrs Paper tutted when she saw the muddied state of Nairo’s cloak. “Where have you been, miss? It will take a good soak to get these stains out.”

“Oh, that’s okay, you needn’t…” Nairo began.

“Oh hush!” Mrs Paper snapped crossly as she ambled down the hallway and disappeared into the kitchen on the right of the hall.

“Put the kettle on!” Ridley shouted from the room to the left.

“It’s on!” Mrs Paper cried thinly. “Shut the door girl! Was ya dragged up in a barn?”

Nairo jumped as the disembodied voice of Mrs Paper scolded her. She pushed the door shut and limped down the hall towards the soft yellow glow emanating from the room Ridley was in. She stepped into a cramped but surprisingly cosy office cum bedroom. Stacks of newspapers and yellowing folders towered precariously around the room, some stacks seemed to have deviated from other stacks and multiplied like branches on a tree. There was a small wooden desk drowning in paper and more thick yellowing files. Towards the far side of the room were piles of clothes dumped around the room like little sand dunes in a sartorial desert and a small cot bed similarly entombed in crumpled clothes and papers. Ridley stood in the middle of the room, a cigarette clamped between his lips, while he gingerly shrugged off his long coat. Nairo watched him for a few moments.

“Here, let me.” She stood behind and slowly slid his coat down his shoulders revealing the bloody mess of his shirt.

“Have you had that looked at?” Nairo asked him.

Ridley pulled his good arm free of his coat and eased his wounded arm out.

“Depends what you mean by looked at,” he answered her, flopping into the sagging brown armchair next to the bed.

Nairo, surprised by the weight of Ridley’s coat, looked around for somewhere to dump it before giving up and nestling it carefully on a stack of papers. Ridley had already pulled out a bottle of amber liquid and was prying the cork loose with his teeth. He kicked a brown footstool towards her. Nairo tried for a second to lower herself before giving up. She stiffly kicked the stool towards the wall and then using the wall, and sheer will, she slid herself down to the stool and then dropped the final few inches. Nairo sighed deeply and stretched her left leg out in front of her, her head resting against the wall. Ridley clamped a dirty tumbler between his thighs and poured the amber liquid. He plonked the bottle down and picked up the glass, his eyes transfixed. He stopped with the tumbler to his lips and looked at the battered copper before him.

“Here, Sarge,” he leant forward and offered her the tumbler.

“Umm… I don’t really…”

He thrust the tumbler at her impatiently.

“Fine.” She relented. “Thank you.”

She looked at the almost full tumbler in her hand and raised a quizzical eyebrow to Ridley.

“It’s a double.”

“How many times?”

Ridley smirked and then swigged from the bottle himself.

“What is it?” she asked, sniffing the fiery smelling liquid.

“Rum. Rum can always numb,” he sang as he tipped the bottle to his lips again.

Nairo took a sip, a burst of peppery heat coursed down her throat. It had a sweet taste and was surprisingly smooth. She took another sip and then a gulp, sinking quickly into the soothing warmth and pain relief the rum provided. They sat there drinking in silence as their bodies registered the aches of the day with their minds stomping through the mire created by the day’s revelations. Their thoughts were broken by the rattling of a tea tray in the frail hands of Mrs Paper.

“When will you let me tidy up in ‘ere,” she tutted at Ridley as she navigated the flotilla of paper stacks and heaps of clothes.

“Don’t touch anything,” Ridley grumbled at her.

“Move all that muck… which pile of filth is the coffee table?”

Ridley looked around puzzled for a moment before kicking over a pile of clothes to reveal a squat little coffee table. Mrs Paper plonked down the tray and began to pour tea for them.

“Now I know he ain’t got no manners so he ain’t offered you anything to eat,” she said.

Nairo opened her mouth to politely decline when her empty stomach gargled in acquiescence. Nairo clapped a hand over her mouth and murmured an apology,

“Don’t be silly, my sweet, I’ll order down, Bakshukh should still be cooking fresh,” Mrs Paper said with a smile.

“Oooh, get some of that dry seaweed crispy stuff with the regular,” Ridley said, his eyes lighting up.

Mrs Paper cast a dark look at him.

“When did yer last slave die?” she muttered darkly as she shuffled out of the room.

“Is she your…?” Nairo asked.

“Help… secretary… cleaner…” Ridley mumbled into the bottle. “She keeps the place…”

“Tidy?” Nairo said with an arched eyebrow.

Ridley smirked and knocked the bottle back again.

Nairo sighed and leant her head back. She looked at her tumbler and realised she had drunk over half of it. She gave a goofy contented smile and as she dreamt of the fresh Gnommish food on its way, steaming hot and spicy. Without realising it she drifted contentedly off to sleep.