The Mimic Becomes a Merchant King

The further on they went, the more the woodland landscape melted away. It was steadily replaced by rolling, rocky grey plains, where great hulking insects scuttled about and grazed on the grass. Essine, in particular, seemed entranced as they passed by the roaming herds. But eventually a thick fog began to form on the plains, making it hard to see anything beyond a few leagues in the distance.

"What do you know about Gilly Froth?" Coin asked, only barely looking up from the tome in his lap. By now his literacy had grown decently refined, and he only occasionally needed help understanding some of the larger words. And he still had much to learn from the Sensible Young Warlock's Guide to Good Grief What Maniac Gave This Book Such an Absurd Title.

"Hm?" Elijah blinked to attention. On occasion, whenever he was driving, he fell into a trance of sorts, and he'd usually snap to attention as if woken from a dream. "Oh, the buyer. Well I know of him, but I can't say I ever met him in person."

"I'd assume he's another rich aristocrat, like Greatglow."

"Fairly wealthy, by my estimation, but Greatglow stands on a higher level than him in the hierarchy." Elijah clicked his tongue, casting his gaze skyward. "Let's see... Well he's said to be a fan of the arts. Well, that much is obvious," he said, motioning to the crates in the back. "But, particularly, he's a fan of controversial arts. I've heard he has a vault housing many banned paintings and manuscripts."

"Banned...?" Coin asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Elijah chuckled. "Ah, well. The arts have a tendency to inflame people and their passions. And occasionally, a few of those people will get so inflamed by art that they want it removed from the public eye."

Silence fell among the group, the two nonhumans equally flummoxed by what Elijah had just said. "This one does not understand," Essine eventually said.

"Yeah, me neither," Coin replied. Something upset people enough that they wanted it removed entirely from the world, regardless of what other people felt? It seemed rather odd.

"Ha. Well, that makes three of us," Elijah replied. "But it's an unfortunate facet of life. You'll often find that the people who complain the loudest, even if they're a tiny minority, can get loud enough to move mountains. Or, perhaps, an artist will offend someone of considerable power and influence, who will use both of them to eradicate whatever has offended them."

Coin furrowed his brow, trying and failing to wrap his head around the concept. And after a considerable internal debate, dissecting everything Elijah had just said and putting it up with everything he had learned about surface dweller culture thus far, this was the best conclusion his mind could draw:

Humans are strange.

"Well," he eventually said, "what kind of things does he own? What things end up getting banned?"

"Ah, much of it's from the days prior to the rebellion. It perhaps won't surprise you to know that the royal family were not fond of anyone who mocked or satirised them. Hard for me to imagine how he managed it, but Ser Froth managed to smuggle many of these things away in secret over the years, or acquired them from likeminded collectors. And was quite proud to boast about that fact after Velasco took power, now that he could admit as much out loud."

"And does this... Velasco ever banish anything?" Essine asked from where she sat.

"All things considered? Archchancellor Velasco has a bit of a sense of humour for that sort of thing. Generally allows for satire. He does, after all, want to paint a better image of himself than the old Arcadian royal family. Except for..." the old man winced. "There was that one time a playwright put on a show that implied Velasco had sexual congress with his mother and that playwright... was never seen again."

Coin nodded. "I suppose that would piss someone off." He assumed, anyway, because he wasn't sure how bad such an allegation was in the eyes of a human.

"Goodness. Was that man... killed?" Essine warily asked.

"Maybe. I don't know. Doesn't quite matter, I suppose," he said, shrugging dismissively. "Point is, Gilly Froth is a fellow with a passion for these controversial pieces of art. A collector who wants to keep them squirrelled away for his own private enjoyment."

Coin considered this, stroking the pale surface of his chin. He supposed he would make for an interesting man, if nothing else.

He opened his mouth to speak. But, at that moment, a female voice hailed them from further up the road. "Sers! I say, sers!"

Coin looked up, and his eyes widened at the sight of a rider trotting their way, astride a sleek and skinny chestnut horse. He recognised the figure almost instantly by her sleek dark hair and brocaded outfit, and the instrument slung upon her back.

Elijah tugged Dancer to a halt. "Hail, madame. Need something?" he asked.

Coin paled, hunching forward a bit. The woman couldn't recognise him in his human form, surely not. What she had seen last night had been a leonine-shaped mass of grey flesh, veiled in shadows and only barely illuminated by slivers of the moon. Yet he still couldn't help but worry... what if?

What if she saw through him? Recognised him in some strange way, from some mundane thing? His book trembled slightly in his grasp.

"Yes, well I..." The woman flicked her raven hair back. "My name is Pearlovska Strad. Pearl, for short. Though among taverns and music halls they call me Black Pearl," she said , motioning briefly to her hair. "I was captured by a group of brigands for a few weeks, forced to be their songstress."

Elijah gawked. "Goddess! The fiends! Where are they?! Coin, you best be ready to give them a damn good thrashing!"

Pearl smiled and held a hand up to halt him. "No need. My freedom was born from their deaths, and they certainly deserved it. Even if I have no idea what killed them and freed me."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

Coin swallowed hard, the skin prickling on the back of his neck.

"Some sort of... creature killed those bastards last night. Not a wild animal or a mindless monster. Yet it was clearly intelligent! Spoke to me and everything," she said. "Of course, I'm already composing a song about the creature. 'The Moonlit Monster' is the working title. People love alliteration, you know."

"A... monster saved you?" Essine asked, peering over the driver's seat.

The sight of the kobold made Pearl recoil slightly in the saddle, but she quickly righted herself and forced a smile. "A demon from the Bleak, perhaps. I don't know. Regardless, he saved me. And so, I managed to find one of their steeds and have been trying to find my way back to civilization."

Elijah gave Coin a sideways look. It seemed he didn't quite believe Pearl's story. It was, after all, an odd one. But Coin kept silence, clenching his jaws firmly together. But, regardless, he returned his focus to the bard. "Lost, are you?"

"Indeed. Those brigands didn't exactly make it easy for me to figure out my location." She sat upright and squinted down the road. "It's this damnable fog. I keep getting turned around in it."

"Mm. Fog is a bit common in the northern reaches," said Elijah.

"We," Coin swallowed, mindful of his own voice. In his monstrous state, his voice was scarcely close to human, and he hadn't even said a single full sentence to Pearl when they met. But he was still mindful, overly cautious. "We're not too far from Sentinel. Maybe just... a day or two's ride from here."

Pearl tutted, letting out a morose moan and pressing a palm to her brow. "Alas, I fear taking the roads alone! The last time I did, I was captured by brutes."

"Fair enough," Elijah said. "Well, we're still pressing northward for now. We have business with a local toff." Nobody wanted to tell Elijah he was also very much a local toff. "And after that we'll be spending a few days getting supplies further north, in the town of Grafia."

"Yes, well, I don't have anywhere else to go," she admitted. "And company is very much desired right now."

"Strength in numbers," Essine said, glancing to her two companions. "It would be... prudent to provide aid to that one. It is good for the spirit to do good deeds." She looked into Coin's eyes, expectantly.

Right... not too long ago, he had saved her from harm. Now it seemed he'd be her first port of call whenever a good deed needed doing.

Coin didn't know how to feel about it. Maybe it was nice to do good deeds for folks, but he still couldn't forget getting planted like a tree by that damn elf after helping his men.

"I... suppose we could help escort her," Coin eventually said, which earned a pleased smile from the kobold. "It'd be irresponsible to leave her wandering."

Pearl beamed, batting her eyelashes at Coin. "Such a gentleman!"

"Do you... have something in your eye?" he asked. She was doing an awful lot of blinking.

Elijah sighed and shook his head. "Oh lad..." As dense as a stack of bricks.

"What?" he asked, tilting his head like a curious dog.

Deciding not to dwell on it, because his apprentice was perhaps too much of a damn hick to understand if a woman was into him (a side effect of having a face that was an amalgamation of many handsome adventurer faces), Elijah gave Dancer's reins a flick that set the bug to scuttling. "I'm Elijah. He's Coin, my apprentice. The lass back there is Essine, our cook."

"A kobold chef." Pearl wheeled her steed around, setting it to a steady canter alongside the wagon. She managed the kind of smile someone would usually reserve for delivering an awkward or uncomfortable bit of news. "How novel."

"That's not a problem, is it?" Coin asked.

"No, no, not at all," Pearl said, letting out a strained laugh. "I'm sure she's quite wonderful at it." She certainly didn't sound sure.

Essine grumbled, sinking back into the wagon with her ears flattening against the sides of her head. Perhaps good deeds weren't entirely good for the soul after all.

And so they pressed on, steadily progressing toward Gilly Froth's stately home. Only now with some musical accompaniment from a melodic voice.