The Ghost's Crusade

XXI. Akkali (cont.)

Thankfully the streets of Wessinberg were relatively quiet but still full of enough people to blend in with. With her hood up and her sleeves down past her fingers it was easy to disappear into their shadows; it was one of the more useful things about being an overly tall Enkiri. Forcing herself to focus on something other than the slowly building irritation she was starting to feel she headed for the apothecary, knowing that she had to do something about her hand. She had been ignoring it for the most part as the pain was nothing more significant than the constant ache of her markings, but the smell was starting to infuriate her.

It had been years since she had purified anyone's blood of Pandemonium poison, and saving Tiernan's life was the only time she had done so willingly. The infection that lingered while her body dispelled the magic had a distinct odor like that of stagnant swamp water. It reminded her of her years in the Empire, locked away in cellars or in actual dungeon cells to suffer through having her own blood appropriated and used to cleanse Galenfyr's stupidest mistakes. After all, as a magic-wielding Enkiri, she was a prized possession and his most grand experiment—if he thought he could survive long enough to grab hold of someone else he merely murdered one of his sister's nameless Enkiri slaves which she kept for her own distractions rather than risk damaging his magnum opus.

The memories only incensed her further and she found herself stalking through alleyways and overshadowed streets hoping to run afoul of a Returner or even a simple cutthroat that she could unleash her anger upon. There were none to be had, unfortunately, and she was not so incensed as to begin slaughtering the few pickpockets that tried and failed to deprive her of her coinpurse. Either the brigands had fled the city knowing it was going to be invaded soon or they were busy sifting through every unguarded treasure hole they could find in preparation to flee. Rats always did have a good sense of exactly when to abandon a sinking ship.

She gave up stalking the shadows and found the apothecary she had originally set out to locate, squeezed in between a haberdashery and a tea shop. Judging by the number of poisonous roots and leaves stuffed haphazardly into the display box resting in the single small glass window, she decided she would not be trying anything the tea shop brewed. None of it could kill her, of course, but that did not mean ingesting poisons was any less painful. That there was so much of it on display in a shop she had expected to be hocking nothing but pepper, tobacco and poultice herbs was a bit alarming. What exactly did the people of Wessinberg do that their apothecaries profited more from advertising their stockpiles of widow's root rather than vials of healing ointments?

Entering the shop she found it looked like every other apothecary she had ever been to in her life, walls lined floor to ceiling with small drawers for ingredients with bushels of others hanging from hooks drilled into the open beams overhead. The counter was tended by a fat-nosed man wearing one of the ridiculous white ruffs she had seen most of the remaining men in Wessinberg wearing. As she walked in he was fiddling with the folds, apparently trying to make them line up just so beneath his stubbled chin. He looked up and saw he had a customer, then smiled at her with a set of false ivory teeth.

"What ails you this day, miss?"

"Just preparing for a sojourn north," replied Akkali, taking care to disguise her Imperial accent beneath a layer of what she hoped sounded like a Warshaven servant. "I'll need some dry healing poultices, some coneflower leaves, a few lengths of bandage, and a stick or two of cinnamon if you've any."

"Ah..." The apothecary slid off his stool and moved towards the back of his shop, dragging his left foot as he walked. "Most of my medicinal supplies were taken by the soldiers for that ridiculous attempt to take Baedorn. Not that any of the fools will repay me for my 'donation' to the Ovan's cause."