The Name of Evil Chapter 6

Vinegar of the Four Thieves

The quiet pair made the long trek out of the tunnels, their minds trying to decipher the deal just made. They carefully followed their path back to the surface, spilling out into the dark, quiet street.

Immediately, the two friends noticed a small band of Parasites hanging out in the nearby shadows of the tavern alley. Dressed all in black with soot blackened faces, the Parasites were the worst of the worst. Most of them were bastard children of the Chara class, outcasts from nobles who lived their gang life with few rules. The Parasites came out only at night, usually high on the jusa vapors.

Charax’s old mines created an intoxicating and addictive gas from leftover waste for reasons no one understood. The ancient vents streamed up the vapor consumed by thugs who hung out by the vents and fell under the addiction. Because the Chara learned sword fighting from an early age, the addicts who banded together were especially dangerous. They roamed the dark backstreets looking for victims who presented an easy target. Unpredictable and vicious, they enjoyed torture and killing using their preferred weapon, the rapier. Their proficiency at fighting even forced Regaar’s thugs to remain in groups when the gang came near the tunnels.

For the Amryno authorities, they killed the black-faced Parasites on sight if they came anywhere near the higher elevations of the island. However, the ruler remained content to let the Parasites prey on the tunnel dwellers. Only the traders and merchants in the area had the means to hire Regaar’s people to remove the threat.

Avoiding trouble, Hilko and Silna moved away from the shadowy figures, walking to another dark alleyway several blocks away. On either side of the alley were rows of dilapidated structures once used to house mining shops, mining equipment, and even unneeded steam engines. The pair pulled a makeshift ladder they hid between the narrow confines of two brick buildings.

After climbing on the overhang of the first level, they pulled the ladder up, leaving it on top of the slate roof. The pair ascended two levels, following a narrow walkway between the buildings. They followed the walkway until it stopped at the outside wall of a small dome structure. The room had windows of unbroken glass, a rare commodity on that part of the island,  

Silna cupped her hands and gave Hilko a boost to open the window. With practiced skill, the young man silently pulled himself inside. A rope ladder uncoiled from above, and Silna soon joined her friend through the window. Hilko lit a candle after rolling up the ladder while Silna covered their entrance with a thick ancient curtain like the other windows.

“Home at last,” Silna said with a yawn as the pale-yellow light filled the small room.

Hilko remained quiet as he quickly surveyed their home. It was empty and quiet. Long before Silna saved Hilko, he found the place accidentally when he climbed the warehouse roof to avoid the Parasites. He also used it to hold smuggler items until it was safe to sneak out of the city for Regaar. After developing an arduous path to the secret room, Hilko eventually told Silna about the place. She agreed to leave the tunnels for some unknown reason after telling her it gave him some control over his life. It surprised him when the woman said she would join him. Only later did he come to believe Silna used the room to monitor his activity for Regaar. Hilko remained confident that Silna never betrayed his secrets. Still, he carried a nagging suspicion about her loyalty.  

The room reminded him of a crow’s nest on the largest ships he could watch on the occasional sunny days. Hilko guessed the past owners used the dome on top of the abandoned stone warehouse to monitor the cargo transfers from the larger ships. Inside, there were two oblong pieces of lumber jutting from the wall, which Hilko used for their hammocks. An original iron stove cooked their food and warmed the room when the storms blasted the island. The thick wood trap door on the floor opened to the warehouse below. By the pattern left in the wood, the smuggler guessed removing the stairs occurred long ago. There was only one way into their home, and it came from the roof.

Hilko looked down upon those poor tunnel rats who knew nothing but damp slavery. The price for living in the tunnels meant doing what Regaar’s men wanted when they wanted servitude you could never get away from. Trying to live anywhere else within the buildings of Soimex’s Nest might mean your death unless you could afford guards.

“Why so quiet?” The large woman asked as she stripped off her clothes, leaving only a tight smock. The garment showed him the outline of her nipples.

“You shouldn’t have accepted that one-eyed rat’s offer.” He told her, glancing at her breasts again.

The woman shook her head, mumbling under her breath while she continued to change. Hilko wished she wanted a lover, but he sensed her mood. He went to the wall instead to peek out the curtain to look over the roofs of the other warehouses. Not worried that a watchman might look up there, Hilko noticed a small band of night watchmen smoking their pipes under the light of an oil lamp. Hired by the traders and merchants, Regaar used his men to ensure the goods remained inside the warehouses. The tunnel leader also took a cut off the goods when the occasional ship arrived to offload items. Nothing went through the docks without his approval. Otherwise, fires and accidents happened.

He remembered back to the day the pirates first attacked the island. The bandits sent three burning ships into the entrance to the narrow bay. Once the vessels sank, the harbor could no longer support anything but small craft. As the pirate blockade continued, the food and trading materials gradually became scarce. The pirates and the Chara authorities remained at a standoff, with neither group strong enough to overpower the other. It meant that smuggling was the only option for supplying the island. Secadem and other crystals got off the island through a protected convoy of small vessels when the Chara allowed it. The same armed convey would return with goods and food, mainly for the Faters and their allies.

Hilko heard Silna get in her hammock, yawning again.

“You’re telling me you don’t want 500 hamar of gold?”

“Curse you. You know that’s not it. I don’t trust the one-eyed rat. I was thinking about it as we came back. Why me? I’ve never been his favorite. I was telling the truth that he has better thieves.”

Hilko went quiet for a moment.

“There’s something else to consider. Regaar invited you along with me. If I’m going after it, why do you need to be there?”

“He’s just being cautious. Probably guessed that you’d have second thoughts like right now. He knows I’ll get you there.”

Hilko glared at her.

“Yeah, you’d throw me off this roof if he ordered you to.”

Her broad face scowled, then she looked at him.

“Only if he paid me enough,” she grinned. “Would you quit worrying?”

“There’s one more thing. His thugs don’t like you much since you beat Makra to a pulp. I thought Regaar might give you to the Parasites for that.”

She laughed again.

“Regaar understood; he told me so. That little dick deserved it. He wouldn’t pay up after pumping my hole behind the tavern. I don’t spread my legs for nothing.”

She looked over at him.

“Regaar knows I help his business with my deals, and I always pay him part of the cut. After it happened, he told his people that everyone must pay for the women in the tunnel. Nothing is free!”

Hilko’s face went sour at the thought. He didn’t like his friend selling herself any more than her work as a thug for Regaar’s brothel. While he understood that working as an enforcer was survival, volunteering as a prostie made little sense.

“Look, you don’t have to act that way. You’ve got status over those women, and you tell me you don’t like men giving you the hornpipe that much. Why do that?”

He saw her face harden.

“I’ll do what I want when I want to. You’re not my boss. If they pay, I’ll jump any man I get an urge for, especially if they got a large rod. You get that?”

Hilko nodded. He recognized when Silna turned into a ruthless witch before.

“Alright, you made your point. But I still say I don’t trust Regaar. We stay outside his world; we’re independent. He knows that, just like the rest of his thugs. Just tell me, when does Regaar give me something for nothing?”

Silna closed her eyes.

“If it’s as big of a snatch as he says, he needs you. I’ve seen him talk about the lepers. He’s afraid of them. You said it yourself; you’re better than all the others. Regaar needs you to do this for him. This could be our way of moving up in his eyes.”

“I don’t want to move up; I want to move out,” the young man grumbled as he went to the small table holding the candle, picking up a small bottle.

“You know, as long as we stay in Charax, we’re nothing more than Guryo. Curse the gods; we’re always the doomed ones in this rotten place.”

He went to the windows, sprinkling small amounts of the liquid on the curtains. Then, he sprinkled some on the trapdoor before finally putting some on his hand, which he flicked up to the dome, splattering liquid on the dusty curtains.

“It’s better to be higher on a small mound than the bottom of a gigantic mountain.”

The homely woman nearly dozed off as she watched his nightly ritual. Finally, she rolled over to her side.

“Why must you do that before you go to sleep? That stuff smells.”

Hilko shrugged his shoulders while avoiding her gaze.

“Habit, I guess. They say that Vinegar of the Four Thieves will ward off evil. With Regaar as our ally, we definitely need it.”

He placed the bottle back on the table, waiting for her to say something. When he finally turned to look at her after a moment, she was asleep.

He looked around the room one more time. His focus remained on the strange shadows that filled the room. Finally, he blew out the candle, then Hilko made his way to his hammock, too tired to care about removing his clothes.

As he lay on the scratchy, intertwined strands of hemp, he waited for the dreams of sailing away from the island. He knew Silna would never understand his nightly ritual. No one saw the things that he did. Hilko slept well because Vinegar of the Four Thieves kept away the ghosts who haunted Charax.