Brick the Prick

Tales from the Cataracts, Brick pt. 1

Brick sighed as he opened the tavern door, not because he was afraid, but because he’d have to fight down the constant attempts to make him change his ‘no’ to a ‘yes.’ That was always the hardest part—telling some dickhead who had no idea how his job worked that his scheme was unworkable. It was always nobility who proposed the dumbest jobs. Why they didn’t just get a necro was a mystery to him; except it wasn’t. The city held five live burglars worth a shit, and he stood atop the mound.

Brick immediately identified the clients. Gods. Should have picked a posh bar if you’re gonna dress like that. How many problems could be fixed by forcing every noble son to work for two years with the peasants? Just two years would set them straight and make them know the common lot. As it was, they were overdressed by two levels at least, with way too much gold on their fingers and in their ears.

“Hey!” the blonde nobleman shouted, signaling Brick to join him at the table he and three others occupied.

Brick nodded and sat. They were out of the brighter light of the torches, at least. “Fellas,” he said.

“We’d like to propose—”

Brick raised his hands. “Nope. Not here. We sit. We drink.”

“I assure you, we’re gonna drink, but we also need—”

“No!” Brick, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Too conspicuous. We meet, we talk, we see where we stand? I don’t like you, I’m not doing the job.”

The dark-haired man, the one who sat in the furthest shadow (smart) laughed. “I like this guy.”

Blondie didn’t seem as impressed. “Look, you little—”

Brick stood, bowed, turned on his heels and left, out the door before the first indignant “Hey!” could impress anything onto him, numb behind the door and him in the street. Couldn’t even get a proper drink, those fuckers.

He stopped and chuckled. Might be time to retire, hit the bricks and fantasize in the countryside, butcher hogs and fuck farmers’ daughters instead of this danger work. But you’re good at this, Brick. Yeah. Good at it because he turned down the dumbest schemes.

Let ‘em come back with some sort of respect. Fuckin’ nobles never got it right the first time, never understood what sort of job he did. It was a simple exchange, but you can’t just go around being obvious like that.

He went to bed. Tried not to think about it.

---

It was two weeks later Brick got a message, weird though it was, something he’d have to get read for him. That wasn’t fun—a temple climb, and he’d have to get the right currency. That he could have read it at home his-own-damned-self was just an added insult, but he had to hold cover. Deception was its own special magic.

He mounted the temple steps and made his bows. Abstemiously, he performed the rituals, dropped his coins, and entered the chamber.

Brick suppressed a wince. This fuckin’ guy. Indeed, he’d been previously acquainted with the man, this halfshorn hem of a jester’s cape, this absolute—

“You have a message you need deciphered?” the fiendishly foppish freak phrased.

Brick handed it over.

The dipshit arched his brow, a performance, and stepped into the candlelight, then read.

“You’re to meet someone—he doen’t identify who—at twelve-fifteen Overmoon tonight after sunset.” The fop gave Brick a disappointed frown. “I can’t but wonder why someone would pay to have such a banal message enrobed in magic.” The ‘magician’ looked around. “Am I being pranked?” He smiled flirtatiously. “I rather like that.”

Brick was already out the door; he had what he’d needed.

Overmoon was a four-hour walk; he barely made it in time (wait, they knew how long it would take to get it read, where I’d get it read, and then how long to Overmoon?) That was… admirable.

Twelve-fifteen wasn’t far inside the gates, something old and palatial. There seemed to be several doors, with more entrances wrapped around the sides of the place. He located the most impressive looking one at the front and knocked.

The door opened, and behind the door stood the dark-haired man who’d laughed when he said he wanted to know if he like the crew or not before he did business. “Come on in.”

Brick stood before the threshold for a half second, searching his intuition, reaching out into the universe to see if he tasted anything awry. Benign as a fawn from everything he could tell. He stepped inside.

The smell of freshly baked bread oozed from the kitchen, and also something caramel, umami, inviting, intoxicating to his senses now, specifically because he’d been a day and a half without food.

The dark-haired man beamed at him.

“I get it. We eat after we—”

“Not at all. I invited you to dinner—this is what civilized men do.”

Brick squinted, unsure whether the man was speaking sincerely.

The dark-haired man took Brick’s meaning. “Men of all classes, truly. Is this not the way of you and yours?”

Brick tried not to smirk. The man’s accent was hard to place. “Dinner, then.”

They sat. Brick tried very hard not to betray how unbelievably delicious the food was. The wine, which was also amazing, didn’t help.

The dark-haired man, whose name was Bertold—“just-call-me-Bert”—did not pry, instead letting Brick enjoy his meal. They discussed dogs, both men confessing they were fans, Bert calling in his Enstairy Hound, a long-haired breed high in fashion amongst the wealthy. Absentmindedly, Brick pet the man’s dog, which remained remarkably well-behaved despite the food in plain view, not at all like Brick’s mutt, Harbo, who’d already be whining if not pawing the tablecloth. Fault of the owner.

Brick’s curiosity got the better of him in the face of Bert’s gracious and gregarious character. Apparently stripped of the preposterous entitlement shared the world over by nobility, Bert intrigued him. “If you’d done more of the talking, we could have had a drink together the other night.”

Bert laughed. “Arnaut is…”

Brick raised his eyebrows.

“Well, he’s haughty, isn’t he?” Bert finished. “There’s no tactful way to put it.”

“He mistook me for his servant, I think.”

Bert frowned. “He did, and that was rude. That’s why I invited you to come tonight.”

Brick cut a bite of his steak and chewed. “Apology accepted.”

Bert clapped once, keeping his hands together as if in prayer. “Wonderful.”

An easy silence took over and Brick was the first to break it. “Now I’m curious. What was the job?”