“A new game?” Kesara asked, her old Vudrani hands already sweeping the drouge pieces off the embroidered cloth, milk-pale jade and black onyx figurines vanishing like magician’s coins between her bony fingers.
Guan Kai shrugged, smiling, and uncapped his flask of blackdream liqueur. He waved it at Kesara, chuckling when she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the offer, as she always did. Unoffended, Guan Kai sipped the murky, anise-scented drink. “What choice do I have? You’ve cleared the board. Just when I was winning, too.”
“There was no winning that game.” Kesara dealt new pieces onto the cloth with the swift flourishes of a professional gambler, which Guan Kai supposed she was, after a fashion. “This one will be better. New pieces, new board. Very friendly.” With a motion, Kesara substituted the black jackals from the original set with a pair of lions from her near-inexhaustible supply of alternate pieces. Playfully, she set two pennies carefully on the lions’ heads like little copper crowns, then spun them with a flick of her fingertips. The metal disks twirled momentarily atop the figures before clattering dully onto the cloth.
So, Guan Kai thought, she wants to bargain a secret about some instability in Taldor.
“Speaking of friends,” Kesara asked casually, “do you still have yours in the Chrysanthemum Court?”
Guan Kai took another pull from his flask. “Naturally. A man as old as I either has no friends, or too many to count. One’s habits add up to the sum of one’s life, as the sages say.”
Illustration by Mirco Paganessi from Pathfinder Lost Omens Absalom, City of Lost Omens.
“Do they? I wouldn’t know. I’m a dewy spring blossom, myself.” Kesara’s eyes vanished into her wrinkles when she laughed. She plucked the white jade elephants from the board and made a show of hesitating before she replaced them. “Now which of my little pieces would best serve your side? I presume, after a lifetime’s likeability, you could name 16 close friends in the Court?”
She was feeling him out, trying to see which of the Successor States of Lung Wa might offer the best price for her information. Guan Kai pretended to ignore the bait. It was ridiculous for him to offer anything; Kesara hadn’t even hinted what secret she was trying to sell. How could he know who wanted it? “I’m an easy man to like. Even in Shenmen, I might find a few friends.”
“Oh, no, not Shenmen. Just the name of that haunted place gives me chills.”
“No need to worry. It’s very far from here.” Information about the Imperial Court of Taldor was unlikely to be of value to the Successor States, he meant.
“The Court isn’t far at all.” Kesara lifted her chin, nodding to the high white tower of the Starstone Cathedral behind them. “Just on the other side of that great gaudy sundial.”
Ah, so her secret wasn’t being dangled for the Successor States themselves, but for their envoys. The Chrysanthemum Court was the unofficial embassy for dignitaries from all the many kingdoms of Tian Xia. Business that was too risky or sordid to pass through diplomatic channels often wound up there.
This game had suddenly become more interesting. Guan Kai took another sip from his flask, then capped it with a flourish and set it aside. His blood was warm enough without the liquor. “I can hardly choose a piece without seeing the sample available for selection.”
“I suppose that’s fair.” Rather than offering him a choice of white pieces, however, Kesara plucked an onyx boar from her case and set it between the lions. It was an ugly, pugnacious thing, its glittering tusks thrust out in belligerent menace.
Baronet Ghazolain. His family crest carried a boar against crossed spears, and he’d recently arrived in Absalom as part of the Taldan diplomatic delegation. Scarcely a month had passed since the baronet arrived in the City at the Center of the World, yet already foul rumors followed him. Tales abounded of stained altars covered in clandestine artifacts, inhuman chants and cries from his quarters at night, and grim-faced servants who nursed unexplained wounds and then disappeared altogether.
Or so people said. Guan Kai had learned to dismiss most such rumors—they were true only rarely, and useful even less. But now, it made sense why Kesara was angling for a buyer from the Successor States: the baronet was also said to be urgently litigating some kind of family claim in Amanadar, a former Taldan colony now counted among the 16 Successor States of Lung Wa.
“Interesting,” Guan Kai said. “I would have thought the boar should go on my side.”
“I assure you, the boar is opposed to any piece you might choose,” Kesara said. Her rheumy eyes were sharp and intense beneath their clouds of age as she split her fingers into a triangle around the boar’s head. An old sign, from when they’d first played at spycraft, as children.
Danger. Danger that would seize your throat and twist your head off without trying.
Guan Kai smiled. “Really? Fascinating. Then I shall choose a devil, for a beast so fearsome deserves an equally formidable foe.” He’d kept his answer malleable on purpose. The devil could certainly represent Chu Ye, ruled by oni, but it could just as easily mean Cheliax. The Western devil-binders were always willing to pay for dangerous secrets, even those that didn’t concern them.
Kesara shook her head. Her gaze lingered on a pair of dogs pulling a wagon in the street. The animals greeted one another cheerfully, interrupting their own work to wag tails and exchange sniffs. “Look there, behind you. Some creatures understand the value of loyalty. Some people, too. I said this should be a friendly game—you’d be well advised to keep only true friends on your board, and fiends are never that. But, of course, you’re free to choose the pieces that suit your strategy. I can only make suggestions.”
Ah, so. Guan Kai felt peculiarly warmed by Kesara’s warning. Seventy years they’d played the game together, though she owed him no favors. They’d been rivals as often as allies, and each had betrayed the other far too many times for any attempt at tallying to be worthwhile.
Still, in this, she warned him. This information was too explosive to be entrusted to treacherous hands.
And now he understood. Kesara didn’t want to sell her secret after all. She wanted help. Baronet Ghazolain was involved in something so terrible that the 10,000 whisperers of Jalmeray were reaching out to Guan Kai, and his friends, for aid. And they were sending that request as secretly as they knew how, lest the baronet’s spies catch a whisper of their plea.
“Very well,” Guan Kai said. “I choose the dragon and the rat.”
Kesara nodded. A tiny knot of tension softened in her shoulders. She must be terrified, Guan Kai thought, if her worry shows so plainly.
But Kesara had spent 70 years learning to control such fear, and her voice was calm as aloe. “Let our game begin.”
About The Author
Liane Merciel is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Nightglass, Nightblade, and Hellknight, and a contributor to other books including Nidal: Land of Shadows, Faiths of Golarion, and the Lost Omens World Guide. She has also written for Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, and Bioware’s Dragon Age franchise. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two dogs, and a small child who is extremely into baking projects.
About Tales of Lost Omens
The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction and including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.
