R - Rune

The door to the back rooms of the tavern were locked, as he had been told. Amel Pery knocked twice and waited. The hallway was lit only by a row of candles, giving the space a dark foreboding quality that made him want to whistle into the abyss. Something to chase away the gloom that he felt. A moment later, the door opened and Amel slipped the doorman a green-and-white striped chit. He took the token without a reaction, but opened the door fully, allowing Abel to enter.

“Second right,” the man grumbled, latching the door behind Amel, who didn’t answer. He walked the length of the dark hallway. He paused at the second door, listening, hearing muffled voices beyond. Laughter. He knocked twice again, this time for politeness. But not too polite. He opened it before anyone inside could answer.

Three men sat around a table, the air filled with the acrid stink of smoke from imported cigarettes, body odor and the cheap perfume used to mask it. The lone woman was dressed in the manner of a serving girl, with clothes too tight and a touch too revealing. They all stared at him, paused in their motions, the curling smoke of a cigarette rising from the man in the middle. Playing cards scattered the table surface, mingling with small towers of stacked coins.

“I’m Amel,” he said, waving at them. “Close sent me?”

“Pery?” The man with the cigarette said. “He said you would be here two hours ago.”

“Yes,” Amel smiled and closed the door. “I was unexpectedly delayed.” He reached into his coat and retrieved a leather sack that bulged heavily with coins of his own. He shook it at them, showing that it was full. “But, if it helps, I’ve got plenty of doses,” he said. There was one open chair, facing cigarette man. The man on the left, dark-skinned and balding, patted it with a large hand.

“Sit,” he said. “I’m Carvis. This here,” he indicated the heavyset smoker, “is Roge. And that refugee from the grub farms over there is Shenry.”

“Hey, guys,” Amel said. He slid quickly into the seat and set the coin bag heavily on the table. “I’ll take a pulk,” he said to the woman. “A big one. Two of them, in fact.”

“Sure,” she said, letting herself from the room.

“Okay, deal me in,” Amel said, rubbing his hands together.

* * *

In less than four rounds, it was clear that Amel was out of his league with these players. It was also clear that the other three men were working together against him. He also suspected that the waitress, who went by the name of Tyne, was somehow feeding them information. It was by no means a coincidence that Amel sat with his back to the door, where Tyne could easily see his hand as she came and went. It also only took a couple of hands to note that the men ordered their drinks separately, one at a time, necessitating that Tyne make frequent trips to the bar. Some kind of hand signal, then, to identify rank and suit? How many times had these men stripped others of their money in this same seat?

No matter.

He spread the cards in his hand, reading his options. Now was the time to be aggressive. If he read the room correctly, now was the time when they would make sure he won a hand or two, to ease his fears and convince him that he had a chance to make some money. The pile of dose coins in front of him had shrunk considerably since he began the game.

“Let’s see,” he said. The opening bid was his. He had an objectively bad hand, and the stake in the middle of the table was large. He selected three of his six cards and laid them on the table before him. “Advance,” he said, dropping two coins into the pile. “I have the pinnacle and a full army.” The cards showed the image of a mountain and two matching soldiers, one blue and one red. It was a strong hand, in fact the best that he had gotten all night, but it wasn’t a sure thing. There were many counters available that would beat or slow his advance.

“Ouch,” Carvis, to his left, said. “Withdraw.” He reached into the pile and removed two single-dose coins; half of his stake. Under the friendly rules they had agreed upon, that was allowable.

Roge fingered the stubble on his chin. “Fortify,” he said, laying down a single card that showed a city. With that, he survived to play the second hand. Roge slid a single coin to the pile. Maybe a touch too quickly to be believable.

Amel looked to Shenry. If he was right, Shenry would advance, but with a lesser force. The ugly man — and he was a truly ugly man — coughed twice, then mumbled to himself. “Dusting pebbles,” he said. Then he laid down two cards, a river and an eagle. “Advance,” he said, as expected.

“Okay, we have a game,” Amel said. Now the raise?

“Two bird legs,” Shenry said, sliding a pair of single-dose coins into the center. A raise of one, with the expected lesser hand.

Amel nodded. “Gripe,” he said. Then he picked up a dose coin from his pile. “Did you call this a bird leg?” He looked carefully at the coin. It was old. Very old. Hundreds of annum, the raised rune on the front nearly worn flat by the uncountable fingers that had held this coin over the centuries.

“It looks like a bird leg,” Roge said. Amel dropped the coin into the center of the table before the men could accuse him of cheating. From his pile, he selected a two-dose that showed a cross in the center of three circles. “What do you call this one?”

“Poa,” Shenry said. “Like the bread? Because it’s round, and has a hole in the middle.”

“Like that song witch you put a bolt through,” Carvis said, mimicking shooting a crossbow. “Splat!”

“Pinned him to the temple wall,” Shenry said, laughing.

“You all were at the oasis?” Amel asked, his attention on the coin in his hand.

“Hells yes we were,” Roge said, slapping the table. The door opened, and Tyne came in with a glass in her hand. “Fifth infantry, Lozou.”

“All of you?”

Carvis sat up straight. “They were Lozou. I was with the Tudhorans. Outriders.”

“Riding out the battle,” Shenry laughed, slapping Roge on the shoulder. The room erupted in laughter. Tyne set the glass in front of Carvis.

“What about you? Did you serve?” Roge asked. The room got suddenly serious.

Amel chuckled. “Yeah, I served,” he said. “I was at the oasis when it fell.” He turned to Tyne, and flipped her the two-dose coin. “Get a round for everyone, on me,” he said. He turned to face each of them, one by one, making eye contact. “Veteran to veteran.”

Tyne took the coin and scurried from the room, closing it behind her.

Amel selected another coin from his dwindling pile. “The runes have names, you know. They aren’t named after animal parts, or pastries. Or anything else like that. There’s a long, long history behind them.”

“Who cares?” Shenry said. He picked at the mess of coins on the table in front of him. “Bird leg. Donut.” He held up a five-dose coin that depicted a pyramid with an arc at the apex. “Toilet.”

“No one gives a whallet’s ass for what the coins meant a thousand years ago,” Roge said.

“Except them damn song-witches,” Carvis added. “And we killed all of them at the oasis.”

Amel laughed. “Right,” he said. “How do you know that you killed all of them?”

“Because there weren’t any alive when we left,” Shenry said. “I checked.”

“I bet you did,” Corvis laughed.

Amel sighed and picked up a single-dose coin from the center of the pile. “The one that you call a bird leg? That’s known as aray. It means life, or growth.”

“I don’t care,” said Roge, all mirth gone from his voice. “That’s singer nonsense, them coins.”

“Wait a second…,” Corvis said, pointing at Amel.

“This one,” Amel showed the pyramid. “Is wahi, the giver of water. The runes ,they all have a history, and are tied to energies that you can’t begin to understand. To a source of power that is beyond your comprehension.”
Roge and Shenry stood, weapons appearing in their hands.

“You said you killed all of them. You. Not we.” Now Corvis stood, drawing a slender dagger from a sheath at his waist.

“Who are you?”

“This rune is my favorite,” Amel said, still seated. He selected the one that Shenry called poa. “Its name is mata. He set the coin on the table in front of him and stood. “And mata means death.” A sound came from deep in his belly, growing louder as he clenched his hands into fists. From his arms, glowing green energy sprouted like the tendrils of a living thing.

And death came from Amel.

* * *