'A Hunter and His Prey' Chapter Two- The First Assignment

Jonah Staples followed the Bounty Hunter’s broad back to a run-down, ramshackle apartment building, the inside hallway walls yellowed with age and tobacco smoke from pipes and the recent product of the Gnomes’ collective ingenuity, smoke sticks. The floorboards creaked and groaned under his feet, but curiously enough, no sound came from the rotting planks of hardwood when Portenda stepped on them. The faint trickle and splash of water leaking through the building’s roof echoed through the halls and stairwell as he and Portenda ascended to the third floor. The smell of ozone filled Jonah’s lungs, as nearly a dozen assorted Humans, Jafts and Minotaur residents sat on a long bench on the third floor, smoking their own pipes.

Portenda stopped at a solid, off-white door, pulling a set of keys from one of his various pockets. Without even looking at the smokers, he selected an oblong key with a diamond-shaped head. Inserting into the lock, the Bounty Hunter turned it, turned it back, and turned it again, unlocking, locking, and unlocking the door.

Strange little ritual, Jonah thought.

Opening the door, Portenda leaned in, peered left and right, and then finally entered, waving Jonah along with him.

The apartment was Spartan to say the least: a single huge bed to accommodate the Simpa’s thick frame, a fold-down cot for guests, a set of candles on a low topped table, and a single bookshelf stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Otherwise, the apartment was empty.

Jonah looked to the left, finding the door leading to the Gnome engineered bathroom. Indoor plumbing, he thought with a sigh of relief. Though many of their inventions and ‘inspirations’ tended to backfire, indoor plumbing was one Gnome Race project that had never failed for design reasons.

Taking a few steps into the room, and leaning forward, he saw a toilet, a sink, and a shower stall. Good, he thought. All of the basic necessities.

A cooking pot hung over a set of unburned logs in the fireplace against the far wall from the bed and the cot, which Portenda was now lowering to the floor. The pot looked pristine, and there were no ashes in the fireplace. Of course, there was the Dwarven stove and countertop on the left, probably used just as seldom as the cooking pit. Then again, the whole apartment was very clean. The wood of the floors looked new, freshly cut and laid, and then polished. The tabletop holding the candles almost shone, and the candles were all new, unlit.

Jonah took his rucksack off and tossed it to the floor near the cot.

Portenda picked it up and set it neatly at the end of the cot.

Hum. Opening his rucksack, Jonah spilled the contents across his threadbare cot, making sure to jumble everything together in general disarray.

As Portenda walked out of the bathroom, he entered. Closing the door, he crouched and peered through the keyhole.

Through the small hole, he watched Portenda remove his own rucksack, setting it squarely against the wall near the head of his bed. He then took off his weapons and began setting them around the apartment in what appeared to Jonah to be a random fashion. On second observation, there was a weird sort of logic to his placement of the weapons. Portenda placed the ancient firearm under his pillow. On the floor next to the bed, he placed the broadsword. Jonah shifted his position and watched Portenda set his spear upright against the doorway leading into yet another room, presumably empty, Jonah thought.

The Simpa was strategically placing his weapons around the apartment. How could the Bounty Hunter be so paranoid? Jonah wondered.

Jonah realized he had spent too much time in the bathroom to feasibly just be using the toilet.

Portenda, he noted when he put his eye back to the keyhole, was nowhere to be seen. An instant later, Jonah nearly died of fright as a huge, gray eyeball filled his field of vision. “Holy shit!” He stumbled backwards, hitting the backs of his knees on the edge of the tub, falling in and hitting his head on the back wall. “Ow,” he groaned as the door flew open to reveal Portenda, sans his black leather upper armor.

Jonah looked at the thick, muscular Simpa, his golden fur slightly wavier than most and with a strange set of gray stripes. Scars crisscrossed the entire front of his torso, permanent despite his lycanthrope ability to regenerate wounds. Small patches of fur were gone, somehow unable to grow. And those eyes, Jonah thought. Those eyes held a quiet ferocity at that moment.

Mortal fear slammed into Jonah with the force of a charging bull.

“Very good,” Portenda said in his calm, level voice. “You’ve already taken one lesson in. Observe your target, no matter who or what it is.”

Portenda offered his hand, and Jonah reached for it. As the Simpa lifted him up out of the tub, his hand slipped effortlessly out of Jonah’s grasp and on to his throat.

Eyes wide, Jonah clutched at Portenda’s wrist without result, trying to pry himself free.

“But lesson number two is a harsh one.” Portenda narrowed his eyes squeezed the Human’s throat. “Never trust your enemy.” An instant later, Portenda let go, dropping Jonah in a limp heap of tangled limbs on the bathroom tiles.

“Right,” Jonah gasped, rubbing his hurt throat. “Never trust your enemy.” Jonah closed the door again, using the toilet and coming out a minute later to find Portenda sitting up in his bed with a book in his hand, and a pair of reading glasses on his face. The werelion looked almost ridiculous with the spectacles, but Jonah suppressed the urge to howl with laughter. He didn’t want another ‘lesson.’

“So, what do you keep in the other room?” Jonah asked, noting that the door had been shut.

Portenda looked up over the rims of his glasses, then back down at his book. “Go see for yourself.”

His attention focused on a book, entitled, Jonah noticed, ‘The Dreams of Men’, a fiction novel that Jonah had read the previous year. He remembered struggling with the underlying concepts of the novel, looking for the hidden messages and metaphors while he read the book, having to read through it a second time before he had any success. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the Bounty Hunter wasn’t all business and gruff, cold demeanor. Perhaps he could even drum up an intellectual conversation on the subject, though conversation was not one of Portenda’s strong points.

Curious about the contents of the other room, Jonah walked over to the door and, without thinking, turned the handle and opened it. He heard the click of the door opening, and as he pushed the door open, he heard a second click.

Hmm? A bag of sand swung down, slamming into his face and upper torso and throwing him back onto the hardwood floor of the central room.

As he looked with blurred eyes at the ceiling, a huge, golden face hovered over him, upside down.

“You’re fortunate I changed the trap attached to the swing arm. I normally keep a woodcutting axe there. You should have noticed the copper wire bound around the doorknob.” Portenda used that cold tone, but actually gracing Jonah with a smile before returning with a heavy thud to his bed, his book in hand and his reading glasses on his face.

“Lesson number three, I’m guessing.” Jonah rubbed his jaw and wobbled to his feet. The sandbag still swung in the doorway, and as Jonah pushed it aside, he noticed the woodcutting axe, its edge looking sharp enough to split a hair from his head, leaning against the right hand side of the doorway. Inside the room itself, rows of bookshelves filled the tiny room. Reference guides and textbooks lined bookcases on the left and half the far side of the room, blocking the windows. The other half of the opposing wall and the right hand side of the room was lined with fiction novels. So many books, Jonah thought with excitement. Is that all the man does when he’s not on the job? Read and sleep, occasionally eating and laying booby traps around the apartment?

Perhaps Portenda wasn’t such a bad guy after all—little anti-social maybe, and certainly lacking in tact, but not bad overall. Jonah strolled to one of the fiction shelves, watching his step and training his eyes on the ceiling and floor alternately, watching for more traps or pitfalls.

Finding none, he selected a book at random, and pulled it free. Or rather, he tried to, but had trouble doing so. So many books filled that particular shelf that he had to give it several heaves before coming away with a copy of ‘Vampire Legends’, a novel written several hundred years before.

In the main chamber, he found Portenda asleep with his face buried in his book.

That didn’t take long, he thought. Then again, it might have been another ploy to catch him off guard. Leaving nothing to chance, Jonah moved slowly, keeping an eye on Portenda. Kneeling, he set the book slowly, silently, on the floor. Half turning away, he groped for the spear that Portenda had propped against the wall, clutching nothing but air. He turned away from the Simpa for a moment, located the spear a foot away from his grasp, and grabbed it.

As he did, he heard a loud click, and turned back to find the ancient firearm once again leveled at his head.

“Last lesson of the day. The situation is rarely exactly as it appears. But very good of you to try and take advantage of a situation. I heard your heartbeat start to race, counted your breaths.” The Simpa stalked over to the bed, putting the pistol back under his pillow.

Jonah stood there, the spear still in his hand, marveling once again at the Simpa’s powers of observation.

“From exiting the library to the spear is always two of my steps,” the Simpa reported. “I compensated for your stride, knowing it would take four and a half strides for you, but I only counted three when you stopped. The airflow of the room shifted, and I knew you had turned your body sideways to me. That’s when I chose to strike. You also failed to notice that my reading glasses weren’t on. Someone who wears glasses for reading seldom takes them off if they fall asleep with the book in their hands. But that’s all right. You’ve done surprisingly well for your first day.” Portenda actually paid the Human a compliment. "I underestimated your willingness and rate of knowledge acquisition.”

“Well, thank you very much.” Jonah rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “I’d like to think that am an apt pupil.”

“And this is the first time I’ve ever taught anyone.” Portenda peered over the rims of his glasses before removing them and marking his book, lying back on his bed. “I’ll remember not to be so easy on you tomorrow.”

Jonah laughed before realizing that there was no joke to be found. The Bounty Hunter intended to take things up a notch in the morning, and Jonah would have a whole day with him, learning in the harsh manner that the Simpa chose to teach.

“Gods in heavens, get me through the day tomorrow and I swear I’ll pay each and every one of you tribute,” he whispered, making every holy gesture he could think of before laying back on his cot in the dim light of one candle.

* * * *

When Jonah opened his eyes the next morning, he still couldn’t see anything but the darkness behind his eyelids.

“What the hell?” He yawned and reached for what felt like a blindfold.

As he grabbed it, a huge, furry hand clamped down on his.

“Leave it on,” Portenda said in a hushed whisper. “This is the day’s first test. Let us see if you remember how to navigate my den.”

The Scholar/Alchemist was at a loss for words; he had at least expected a meal and perhaps some coffee if the Simpa had it lying around, maybe in one of the many cupboards that Jonah had failed to investigate the night before.

“Isn’t this a bit much?” Jonah swung his feet off the edge of the cot. He hoped that the Bounty Hunter would reply, giving him an audible clue to his location. He heard only the sound of the toilet running in the bathroom. “I mean, I haven’t even eaten anything yet.”

Once again, he failed to get a response from the Simpa.

“Hmmm,” he grumbled, getting shakily to his feet. He could hardly recall the layout of the main chamber, which was sparse and mostly barren. But the Simpa may very well have laid caltrops or littered the floor with obstacles. Jonah crouched and reached for Portenda’s bed, but it wasn’t where it should have been. Taking one step forward, he waved his hands, searching for the bed.

While his attention was on the missing bed, his foot landed on something round and slippery. The world spun around him as he launched into the air, a bird falling quickly to the hardwood ground.

As he flopped about the floor, grasping for whatever had tripped him up like a sack of marbles, his hand found a metal pole. He slowly felt up the length of the shaft, not finding the spearhead he expected to be there. It was just a pole, nothing more—but he could use it to his advantage.

From one knee, he probed the area around him with the pole, contacting something wooden, judging by the sound. Portenda had moved his bed a good five feet from its original position.

Getting to his feet, Jonah used the pole as a walking stick, like a blind man navigating his own home. God, he thought dismally, I never realized how much I depend on my eyes to tell me everything.

Tapping around, he found several more obstacles, making his way slowly and cautiously across the room to the wall. As he pressed one hand against it, the blindfold was removed from his eyes, and the light temporarily blinded him again.

Rubbing his eyes, he looked at the smiling countenance of Portenda the Quiet.

“Very good, Mr. Staples.” Portenda held out the man’s identification papers.

“Are you all right?” Jonah had expected a much harsher judgment. “I mean, I fell, and had to use a pole to help me get over here. That’s all for now?”

“It is.” Portenda moved over to the cabinets after Jonah took his papers back. “For now. As for my attitude,” Portenda’s voice slid toward the same gray, cold tone as his eyes. “Well, I’m a morning person. I get over it fairly quickly. Now come over here and eat.” He opened a cabinet door and pulling out a hunk of bread and from a separate drawer, a cold wedge of cheese.

Jonah approached and looked down, seeing that the second drawer was an icebox of some sort. Yet he saw no blocks of ice, just steam from the cooled compartment.

Portenda looked at his puzzled expression, then slid the drawer shut. “Enchanted. A business acquaintance of mine exchanged services for services. An Elven Aquamancer. I found his missing daughter, and he made me an unending icebox. Come on, eat. We’ve a long day ahead of us.”

Portenda didn’t any food for himself, Jonah noted. When did the man eat? How early had he wakened? According to Jonah’s Gnome timepiece, it was only eight in the morning.

“You don’t talk about much outside of your trade, do you,” Jonah asked between mouthfuls of bread, as Portenda watched him eat with detached interest. The air felt suddenly chilled, and Jonah knew that the Bounty Hunter’s attitude was returning to the glib, reserved mode he had been in the evening before. Quick change over, Jonah thought bitterly. Maybe that’s why he didn’t wake me up at the same time as him, aside from setting up the little ‘test’ as the Simpa had called it.

Portenda simply shook his head, pulling one of the drapes open a bit. The Simpa had already armed himself, leaving his rucksack at the head of his bed.

Jonah moved over to his own rucksack, removing his mortar and pestle, his alembic, his calcinator and his small scales. All of his Alchemy equipment was now arranged neatly at the foot of his bed, and he rifled further into his bag, locating the individually wrapped ingredients but finding that he was out of scuggle root. “Damn it all,” he muttered, popping the last of his cheese in his mouth and chewing slowly. He had wanted to make a quick sensory enhancing potion, but without scuggle root, he was out of luck.

“What’s wrong?” Portenda loomed over the Human Scholar/Alchemist.

“I don’t have any scuggle root.” Jonah assumed that Portenda knew what the plant looked like and what it could do. He found that the Bounty Hunter now wore puzzled expression he’d had earlier. “It’s a, uh, a sort of plant root. We Alchemists use it in potions of all sorts, and I wanted to prepare one before we went anywhere. It’s fairly important to me, and I’ve got none left.” He opened the small satchels and pouches of ingredients and showed them to the Bounty Hunter, who looked with mild interest at the assembled petals, powders and plant parts.

“I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

He sounded uninterested to Jonah, who quickly started to pack the ingredients away.

Portenda clasped Jonah’s wrist softly. “Leave them out. We’ll see if we can find your scuggle root at an apothecary.” He stalked to the front door, checking his key ring as he opened the door.

Jonah stood, put his rucksack across his shoulders, checked his belt for the potions he had on hand, and nodded before exiting the apartment.

“So, where are we going so early in the morning? Is anything open around here?”

Portenda looked at him and harrumphed rudely.

“This is Ja-Wen.” He performed his locking-unlocking ritual in reverse. “Nothing ever closes. Come.” He stalked down the hall nodding to a Jaft neighbor, who sat outside of his apartment, dragging off of a smoke stick and puffing smoke in Jonah’s face.

The Human Scholar coughed haggardly, his lungs suddenly on fire. He followed Portenda down the stairwell and out into the morning sunlight, watching as the Simpa stretched and yawned mightily.

The neighborhood was already alive, the streets filled with laughing and playing children of various Races, children whose peoples had warred with each other for generations. A Jaft child, a boy no older than eleven, chased an Elven girl of comparable age. By the calendar, Jonah thought, she was probably around forty years of age, but Elves aged the slowest of all the Races. And they cherished their youth more than most. Traditionally Jafts, the blue skinned, brutal warrior people of the mountainous regions, didn’t get along well with the fair skinned, magically inclined Elves of the woodlands.

Jonah enjoyed watching the children play, thinking back on his own youth. He hadn’t paid much mind to the Race of his friends, the few that he had. Now, after years of travel, working, and hearing the opinions of his father and mother, he had a slightly different view of the Races of Tamalaria.  Back then, leisure time was leisure time, and he was willing to spend it with whoever would give him the time of day. He recalled having a Draconus friend, one of the mighty dragon-men of the southeastern plains and desert region. He hadn’t told his parents about the boy for fear that they would forbid him from playing with him. But Talok, the Draconus, had simply stopped showing up in the fields where they played their simple, childish games. Jonah had learned later that Talok’s parents found out he was playing games with a Human child, and had forbidden him from ever going out and playing with Jonah again.

“What are you doing?” Portenda waved a huge, golden hand in front of his face.

“Oh,” Jonah stammered, coming back to the present day and place. “Sorry, just remembering. Lead the way.”

Portenda turned his broad back and stalking away at a brisk pace.

Jonah found the pace that Portenda set reasonable, even heartening, as they took turns here and there, stopping briefly at traveling merchants’ wagon stands. Back and forth through the city streets they walked, and Jonah was surprised to find that several Dwarves were already coming out of a tavern, loaded with alcohol and good times shared, stumbling and bumbling down the road. He went out of his way to avoid them, sprinting ahead to walk side-by-side with the Bounty Hunter for a minute. “Those men were already drunk! It’s not even,” he said, looking at his timepiece. “It’s not even ten in the morning yet.”

“Overnight miners.” Portenda didn’t look back at them. “The layer of black and gray soot on their clothes, the drooping of their eyelids, give them away. Imbibing spirits does not make a Dwarf tired. Typically it wakes them up, no matter how drunk they get. Those men are tired from work. Their heart rates are slowed, their muscles tense from cutting rock. Their mattocks were covered in fresh dirt.”

Portenda’s words sent Jonah into a spiral of confusion as he looked over his shoulder at the fading Dwarves.

“How in the world did you notice all of that? We only walked past them. How do you do that?” He threw his arms around.

“You are drawing unwanted attention to us, Jonah. Please stop waving your hands around or I shall be forced to break your arms.”

Jonah ceased his ranting and tried to pay attention to his surroundings. Too easily distracted or put off, he thought to himself. Must aspire to be more like this man. I must. For a while longer, they simply ambled around town, covering about a quarter of the city before returning to the area where the Bounty Hunter resided.

“What was that all about?” Jonah set his rucksack down. Too much walking at too brisk a pace had made his shoulders and calves sore. “I mean, we didn’t stop anywhere, talk to anyone, or really do much of anything. What was the point?”

“The sign in front of the apothecary,” Portenda said without turning to face Jonah. “What color was it?”

What the hell sort of question is that, Jonah thought vehemently. But he breathed in deeply, calming his frayed nerves, thinking back on the sign. He couldn’t remember for the life of him! Most apothecaries and Alchemy shops had the same colored sign though, a dark, verdant green.

“Green,” he said, hazarding a guess.

“Good, even though you don’t really remember.”

“And how would you know I don’t?” Jonah asked indignantly, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“Your heart rate jumped and your jaw bone gnashed your teeth together. You were obviously drawing on other knowledge or memory.” Portenda turned to face Jonah once again.

“You’re making this too hard. This isn’t fair at all.” Jonah crossing his arms and threw back his head like an offended noble of the court.

Before he could apologize or explain, Portenda hefted him off of the ground, holding him a good foot over the street by his shirtfront. He was nose to nose with the deadly Bounty Hunter, the hot, reeking breath of Portenda’s unclean teeth charging up his nose like a herd of stallions.

“Life, isn’t, fair.” The Simpa threw Jonah to the ground. “Lesson one for the day.”

Clearly Jonah had offended the Simpa, but he was simply stating an opinion.

“That’s a worldly truth that you’re going to have to suffer with learning,” the Simpa said, his eyes opening wide once more as he twitched and helped Jonah up off of the ground. “My apologies,” he said flatly. “I lose my temper sometimes.”

“Probably from bottling up your emotions all the time,” Jonah said smugly. “I read somewhere that that isn’t healthy for you.” He had in fact read a well-respected Gnome healer’s report on the subject of emotional stress and the effects it could have on a person. Without releasing one’s emotions, the healer had written, one might very well experience a psychotic episode, as the broad Simpa just had.

“Let’s just forget that it happened, okay,” he offered.

 “No. It was uncalled for. Come. Let’s go get that, that, whatever it was you called it.”

“Oh, yes,” Jonah said, pointing his finger to the sky. He had almost forgotten. “Scuggle root. But let’s not go the apothecary, Portenda. I much prefer Alchemy shops.”

Portenda shrugged, then indicated that Jonah should lead the way.

Jonah took the lead for the first time, and the pair walked to the business district.

It took Jonah little time to locate the dank little store: they all looked the same from the outside, a single little shit hole building among two or three story ones. A wooden plank sign with a pentacle drawn inside of a square designated the shop, and they walked in.

Rows of candles lit the shop dimly, and scents of assorted spices and herbs filled the air. Portenda’s nose shrank back, but he took a deep breath of the air, and appeared to be fine afterwards.

Oh, right, Jonah thought. Lycanthropes have sensitive noses.

“Greetingsssss,” the Lizardman proprietor hissed as Jonah gazed around like a child in a candy shop. “What may I interest you in, fair student of Alchemy?”

Jonah had visited this store once or twice before, and each time it had a new owner or shopkeep. Probably blew themselves up, he thought with a wry grin.

“I need some scuggle root, sir,” he replied, taking a look at a shiny brass calcinator. His steel one was getting old and beaten from heavy use, and he seriously considered getting a new one. He picked it up and tested it with his thumb and forefinger. Good balance, a fairly standard adjustment lever. But the tool didn’t have the required range of measurements and adjustments that he needed. It was definitely designed for apprentices of the trade. “And would you happen to have another of these brass calcinators? Maybe one of a Midcuran rank?” Midcuran rank was generally accepted as the fourth of five ranks of Alchemy practitioner, and finding equipment of Midcuran or Uptcuran rank was difficult. Most Alchemy shop owners carried the goods and supplies meant for mid-level understudies, as the owners were more often businessmen first and Alchemists second.

“Asssss a matter of fact, I do,” the Lizardman replied, much to Jonah’s delight. He looked excitedly at Portenda, who was holding an alembic and eyeballing the tool with a mild sense of curiosity. The proprietor left through a veil curtain, and returned several moments later, a Midcuran rank brass calcinator in hand. “And here is your scuggle root, young man,” he hissed, practically slithering over to his adding pad. “Now let’ssss sssee. Carry the two,” he muttered under his breath, making Jonah a tad anxious about the overall cost of this endeavor. He might have to ask the man to remove the calcinator from his purchases. “That will be two hundred and seventy-five gold pieces, Human,” the Lizardman said with a toothy grin.

Shit, Jonah thought. I don’t have that sort of cash on me.

Before he could respond, three heavy leather pouches flew through the air and landed squarely on the counter in front of the Lizardman. Portenda looked at Jonah, who stared at him in shock. Portenda nodded slowly at him.

“Wait, you’re paying for thesssse,” the Lizardman asked, his scaly forehead raising what would have been an eyebrow.

“Yes. Now give him his order.” The enigmatic Simpa Bounty Hunter exited the shop, letting vibrant sunlight into the store for a moment before he disappeared.

“Your friend is a sssstrange one, Human,” the Lizardman said from beneath his purple robe hood.

Jonah tied the pouch of scuggle root to his belt, and grabbed the calcinator, collapsing it to its travel arrangement and using the metal loop to connect it to his belt as well.

“He’s not exactly my friend,” Jonah said, looking the Lizardman in the eye. “But I agree wholeheartedly,” he said with a wry smile. “He is a strange one.”

* * * *

It was nearly noon when they arrived back at Portenda’s apartment.

While walking back, Jonah tried to think about why a Bounty Hunter like Portenda the Quiet, who easily had vouchers and gold amounting to hundreds of thousands of gold pieces, would live in a place like this. The man could have had a house built to his design for a fraction of his earnings, so why did he live in a dilapidated apartment in a run-down building in the most poverty-stricken part of the city?

Deciding to focus on his work, Jonah sat on the floor of the apartment and set to making himself a pair of sensory-enhancing potions. He needed no guidebook or reference material for this task: he knew how to make dozens of potions and chemical tinctures and compounds by heart. He just needed some water, which Portenda provided, his ingredients, his tools, and some time. An hour, hour and a half, and he would have produced the potions in question and been done. Though he could have been considered an Uptcuran rank Alchemist, he considered himself lacking in that he still knew so little about the semi-magical arts of Alchemy known as Focus.

While Jonah worked, Portenda moved about the apartment, practicing sword techniques, spear attacks and defenses, and his quick draw with his ancient firearm. The man brimmed with energy, a fact that he kept reserved from the general public.

Don’t let the target have any idea what you can do, Jonah reasoned. That sounded in his head like something the Simpa would say. He turned his attention back to his labors.

After a while, Portenda set his weapons down and looked at the Human. Interesting one, he thought. He removed his lead-lined leather armor, laying it softly across his bed, and walked into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him.

Inside, he looked at the patchwork of scars that littered his torso and arms. So many battles fought, he mused. So many targets neutralized and brought into the accepting arms of the justice system. Not all of his contracts had been confrontation driven. Some of them, like the Aquamancer and his missing daughter, hadn’t required a single blow. And certainly this job wasn’t like any he’d had.

Once, he had vowed never to reveal his secrets. But that had been almost thirty years before, when he took up Bounty Hunting. He had only been fifteen, barely an adult. But he had learned early on in life how to fight, how to defend himself. People like him often had to.

“Thanks a lot, father,” he whispered as he looked balefully at the thin, gray stripes on his forearms. He took a washcloth from the cupboard at his feet, drew hot water over it and washing his forehead and underarms. The thin fur of his face was left clotted to his cheeks and neck, and his underarms no longer stank of sweat. How long had it been, anyway, he wondered. How long since he had actually allowed anyone into his abode? Five, six years? And that had been an unexpected visit from the man he hated most—his father.

Enough of this. He slapped himself hard in the face. Get dried, get out, and get dressed. Check on Jonah, make sure he hasn’t turned himself into a frog.

Using the single red towel he kept in the apartment, he dried his face and underarms and opened the door that separated him from his Human pupil.

When he came out, he stood frozen where he was. Something revolting filled the air, and he nearly gagged on the stench.

Smoke plumed from one of Jonah’s tools, but the Scholar/Alchemist didn’t seem concerned. Rather, this appeared to be a part of the whole process.

Jonah turned and smiled brilliantly at Portenda, who quickly donned his leather armor and excused himself for some air.

“I need to get him a breathing mask or something,” Jonah said as he watched Portenda slam the door shut on his apartment.

Looking back down at the smoldering liquid in his alembic as he finished the whole process, Jonah glanced at his timepiece. Fifty-seven minutes, he thought excitedly. A personal best. Taking two shatterproof vials from his rucksack, he carefully measured and poured an equal amount of the finished potion into each, corking them when he was done. “Not bad if I do say so myself.”

“You can come back in,” he yelled to the Simpa, opening a window to vent the room. As it slid open, he heard another of those horrible clicks—but not in time to prevent himself from being doused with tar from a concealed spout in the wall next to the window.

Portenda opened the door and stepped in, stopping in surprise when he saw Jonah. Hmm. Forgot I put those in.

Shrugging his shoulders at the seething glare that Jonah gave him, Portenda stalked into the bathroom and drew warm water for the Human to take a shower. “Hope you have a change of clothes in there.” He pointed to Jonah’s rucksack.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” Jonah replied, wiping tar from his face. But he also knew one of Alchemy’s many semi-magical tricks.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, mentally focusing his energy on the arrangement of the fabrics he wore. He made several gestures in the air, and with a whoosh of air and a glow of red light from his fingertips, his clothes were suddenly clean, free of tar.

Of course, now Portenda’s floor was covered in it. “Whoops, sorry,” he stammered, rushing into the bathroom and locking the door behind him.

Portenda sighed wearily, and got out his mop and bucket.

* * * *

An hour after that incident, Portenda strapped on his weapons and rucksack. “It’s time I gave you your first assignment,” he told Jonah as the freshly cleaned and shaven young man came out of the bathroom in a clean tunic shirt and forest green pants.

The ruffles on the collar and cuffs of Jonah’s shirt gave him the semblance of a poet or an actor, though clearly he was neither of these things. His boyish look did lend him the illusion of perhaps being a young noble, however. Aside from the way he carried himself physically, he could very well have played the part. Had he been a Rogue, Portenda thought, he could use that sort of background as a set up for his lies and cons. Luckily, though, Jonah was no thief. The man had asked for permission to use the Simpa’s towel, something a Rogue or any other thief for that matter would take for granted.

“My first assignment?” Jonah’s eyes went wide. “But I’ve hardly learned anything! What sort of assignment could I possibly complete?” The Scholar was certain that the Bounty Hunter was mocking him.

“It’s a simple assignment.” Portenda opened the door to his apartment and let Jonah step through before doing the lock-unlock-lock routine. “Being a Bounty Hunter isn’t all about combat and confrontation. Some contracts are simply requests for information, or the collection of an item or retrieval of a person. You’re a talkative person, and believe it or not, that’s to your advantage,” Portenda said in that cold monotone of his. “People are more willing to part with information if the person asking is, amiable.  Are you ready?”

Puffing out his chest, Jonah’s eyes sparkled. Maybe this wouldn’t be so rough after all. “Yes, I’m ready. What’s my objective?” He tried too hard to sound professional and instead sounded hokey.

“Your task is to find me before sundown.” Portenda put a blindfold over Jonah’s eyes once again. “Keep it there, and count to two hundred. I will be hiding someplace in the city. If you run into trouble, don’t worry.” He retrieved a whistle from his pocket, the one his mother had used to call him in for dinner.  It was all he had left to remember her by. “Now, bear this in mind. This item is very important to me.  Lose it, and I will kill you.”

Jonas laughed half-heartedly, hoping it was a jest.

“That is not a joke. I will kill you if you lose that. And remember, I’m very good at finding people.”

The thinly veiled threat struck a chord in Jonah, sending a wave of darkness through his mind and soul that the sun’s bright rays could never pierce.

“I completely understand your position,” Jonah stammered. “But, what if it’s stolen?”

“I will find the one responsible, and kill them,” Portenda replied without pause. The quality of ferocious, territorial instinct in his voice did not escape Jonah’s notice. He nodded, and accepted the blindfold without complaint, counting aloud. As he counted, he tucked the whistle into a small pouch he kept around his neck, which held a single ring, an emerald set in the middle of it. His only sister had given it to him as a parting present when he had left home three years before she too had briefly gone out into the world. He wondered for a moment how she was doing, and resolved to write her a letter when he had the chance.

When he finished counting to two hundred, Jonah removed the blindfold and tucked it into one of his pants pockets. All right, he thought. I have an entire city to search. He checked his timepiece once again. Six hours, roughly, before sunset.

He darted down the hall, to the stairwell, and out past the many residents of the building. Outside, he looked left and right down the main street, trying to think of where the Simpa might take shelter in this little exercise. He tried to clear his head and think like Portenda the Quiet, but found it too difficult. He hadn’t yet formed a full impression of the man’s mannerisms and style, so he decided to head where he himself would most likely never go: the labor district.

The labor district of Ja-Wen lay on the opposite side of the city, but it took him only a little more than half an hour to negotiate the crowds of people and traveling merchants and find himself at the outskirts of the labor district, where most of the city’s blue-collar residents worked.

There was a printing building for the town crier, filled with Gnome and Dwarven mecha from the Age of Mecha, when technology and science were at their height. That was eight hundred and some-odd years previous, though. Hence the A.F. on everyone’s calendar, standing for After the Fall of Mecha.

A foundry, where the city’s crops were compressed into canned foods, stood in the center of the district.

A mecha junk shop stood adjacent to the looming foundry, a Gnome shopkeep standing out front, trying to attract customers. And off in the distance, almost outside of the city, was the entrance to the iron ore mine where most of the Dwarves of Ja-Wen worked.

In addition to these places was the city’s prison, a mammoth of a building, standing easily ten stories high. Ja-Wen seemed to attract some of the land’s most dangerous and foolish criminals, and Jonah decided to keep as far away from that building as possible.

Several city constables, a Human, an Elf, and a tan furred Werewolf, stood near the junk shop, chatting amiably with the Gnome out front.

Werewolves, Jonah thought, have the keenest noses of the lycanthrope Races. He resolved to question the officer about a Simpa scent.

He approached with loud, clear footsteps and the trio of officers turned to face him.

“Good afternoon, citizen.” The Human constable’s chain mail caught the sunlight and reflected it into Jonah’s eyes.

All three stood straight, their duties to the general public brought back to mind as they adjusted their uniforms. Each wore a wool overpiece, open on the sides and without sleeves, over their armor. The cloth had an emblem of a wolf’s head on it, the red background edged with a yellow trim around the wolf’s head insignia, indicating that they were indeed Ja-Wen constables.

“Good afternoon, sirs,” Jonah said, hands clasped behind his back. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

“Certainly, citizen.” The Elf’s three bars indicated he was a Sergeant, while the two men with him had no such stripes on their persons. The Ja-Wen constables, preferring not to wear sleeves, wore badges on their collars instead, like regular army officer ranks. “How may we assist you?”

“Well, I’m looking for somebody, as a part of a sort of test, you see. I was wondering if any of you have seen or smelled a Simpa in the area recently.” He tried not to be too specific. The constables might not be so willing to help if they knew Jonah was associated with a Bounty Hunter.

“No, can’t say as we have.” The Elf looked to his companions for confirmation, but both agreed that they hadn’t seen or smelled anything.

“You said this is for some sort of test? Perhaps we shouldn’t give you too much help. Proving your own capabilities is important in any society or Class. You should try talking with the common people,” the Elven man suggested politely. “They tend to notice non-criminal activity much better than we can.”

Jonah nodded in agreement, thanked them for their time.

Damnation, he grumbled inwardly. Five and a half hours left, and he had the whole of the rest of the city to search.

Jonah held tight to the straps of his rucksack, and jogged back toward the business district of the city. Perhaps speaking with bartenders would work, as it had the evening before. He wouldn’t be going back to the Flaming Tongue, however. He didn’t want to risk yet another encounter with the half-Orc brute. Portenda wasn’t there to help him out, and he sincerely doubted that the thug would give him the time to use the whistle and call for help.

Keeping his head up, Jonah stopped in a circle surrounded by eateries and grocery stores.

Speak with the common people, the constable had said. Everyone needed food, even the most humble of folk.

His stomach growled at him as he approached a dining hall labeled ‘The Meeting Place’. Perhaps he could stop for a quick bite to eat while he was at it.

Jonah pushed open the solid oak door, and found himself standing in front of a register.

The place was set up like a buffet restaurant, plates and containers of steaming food set on long benches and tables. A perky young Human girl at the front counter bobbed her head as she came up to him.

“Just one?” she asked in a high, bubbly voice.

Gods, he thought, unable to stop the perverse images from flooding through his mind’s eye. How long has it been, Jonah? Three long years, he thought in glib response.

“Yes, just one please. Oh, and have you had any Simpa stop by, or seen one coming through the area?” He was going out on a limb here, but was more concerned with filling his stomach at the moment than finding Portenda the Quiet.

The girl cocked her head to one side.

“We have one sitting in the dining room. Is he friend of yours?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Is the man in there armed to the teeth?”

“Oh, no,” the girl replied with a bounce and a giggle. “He’s just a local we get in every now and then.” She used the Dwarven adding machine to calculate his cost of a meal. “That’ll be two gold and five silver.” She held her hand out.

Jonah hurriedly paid her, and grabbed a plate, loading it with whatever caught his fancy.

Seating himself at the far end of a long table from the solitary Simpa customer, he began eating like a starved man.

“Easy there, sport,” a familiar and unwelcome voice said from his left. “Too fast and you’ll choke.”

Jonah found himself looking at a tall, elegant Elven female of young adult age. Her skin was pale, like that of the Illeck, or dark Elf as they were commonly called. Raven black hair hung loosely about her shoulders. She was short for a woman of her Race, with sultry, dark blue eyes peering out from beneath a high forehead. Her slim, angular nose jutted in his face. Her trim, slender arms propped her head up on her palms, the sleeves of her navy blue dress practically hanging off of her gaunt frame. 

Nareena Finch, an old friend of Jonah’s until the two of them began to compete for dominance as the area’s greatest Alchemist. In the short time he had lived down the road from her in Palen, they had become good friends, until each found out the other, too, was an Alchemist of some considerable skill. Since then, they had shared a bittersweet rivalry.

“Of all the places to run into you, Nareena.” He had never been comfortable being close to her after finding out that the Elven girl created poisons of all sorts, as well as narcotics for commercial sale. The high demand for her products had made her a financial success, while Jonah had failed at even being a part-time vendor of healing potions. “What in blazes are you doing in Ja-Wen? What do you want with me?”

“Oh, nothing,” the Elven woman cooed mockingly, letting her breath flow against the side of his neck and ear.

Gods, he thought, trying to control the urge to spin on her and take her then and there for everything she’d give.

“I just couldn’t believe it was you, after so long. Tell me, Jonah,” she said, inching a tad closer to him, and rubbing his back with her right hand. From years of hearing tales about her particular methods, Jonah put down his fork, reached back suddenly, and grabbed her wrist with his own scrawny left hand, pulling her hand up on the table.

“What the Hells are you doing?” she stammered. Jonah used the spoon in his right hand, and tapped Nareena’s now clenched fist.

It sprang open, revealing small, thin sticking implement, like a thumbtack or pushpin. But this object had the slightest trace scent of vinegar and wildflowers—a truth serum.

“How very droll, Nareena.” Jonah stripped the sticker from her palm, placing it in a separate, empty vial from his belt. “Thinking to slip it up under my shirt, or say the Hells with it and go through it. This wasn’t some chance encounter, was it? You’ve been looking for me.”

“Yes, actually, I have been.” Nareena reached into a satchel on the floor at her feet, beneath the dining hall table and took out a modest sized book, bound in a yellow cover of some sort of animal skin. She set it down on the table, and pointed to it. “Jonah, I found this a couple of months ago in a set of ruins in the northwest, just north of Desanadron. Now, try as I might, I’ve never been much good with languages, and nobody else would help me.” She ground her teeth for a moment, “I need your help.”

“Piss off,” he replied through a mouthful of food.

He stopped then, shocked at his own rude behavior. What has come over me, he thought. I used to practically be in love with this woman. Why am I treating her so unkindly?

Easy, a little voice in the back of his mind told him. Because she tried to use truth serum on you!

Oh, right, he thought in response. “What makes you so sure I’ll be able to make heads or tails of the thing?”

“You’ve always been good with languages, and things that don’t make much sense.” Nareena picked at her own food with mild disinterest.

For nearly five long minutes, the two Alchemists sat in silence, the only sound the digging and scraping of Jonah’s utensils as he ate his meal.

After he finished, Jonah pushed the tray and plates away from him, and got to his feet.

“Tell me Nareena, do you still have that carrier bird, the one that can deliver letters?” he asked as he picked up the yellow bound tome.

Hope flickered in the Elven woman’s eyes.

“Of course. Writing to your sister again? What was her name?”

“Eileen.” Jonah perused the book. He had the advantage of a more thorough personal education outside of Alchemy and Nareena often came running to him for help on matters outside of their chosen art. Letters by postman took too long to get where they were going. Even if the rider didn’t get mugged on the way, a few letters always went missing by the end of his or her route. Nareena’s trained crow, in contrast, never failed to deliver quickly.

“I’ll tell you what,” Jonah said, mentally translating the ancient Cuyotai script as he flipped through the pages. An arcane and unused form of the werecoyotes’ tongue, the text came easily enough to him, though a few characters remained beyond his ken. “I’ll translate the text for you, in return for the use of your bird. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” Nareena replied with a genuinely warm smile.

Jonah put the tome in his rucksack, along with his other belongings.

His whole world was in that bag, he thought dismally. But he found himself smiling back at Nareena for a moment, their past troubles and rivalry set aside for this one, perfect moment.

Then Nareena stood and got too close for comfort again, and Jonah found himself reflexively stepping back, his left hand easing toward the only weapon he kept on him, a steel long knife.

Sensing his mistrust, the Elven woman gave him an awkward smile.

“So, how long should it take?” She scanned the room briefly. People had been watching them since Jonah had grabbed her hand and fairly slammed it down on the table. His reaction had been more violent than anything she would have expected from this calm, polite and quiet little man. He had changed—and recently from the feel of the air around him.

“Three days, tops.” He took in a deep breath. Gods, that same perfume as before, with the trace hints of jasmine and sage. It radiated off of her, and combined with her pale complexion, vibrant eyes and graceful, bountiful curves, Jonah found himself once again attracted to her in a way that made him almost blush. “Meet me here in two days, around this time. If I’m not finished, I won’t show up. Just come the next day, and I’ll have everything ready for you.”

“Jonah.” She put a gentle hand on his shoulder to stay him for just another moment.

He half turned to face her, determined to deal with whatever she said or asked in a fashion akin to the Bounty Hunter. After all, he was trying to be more like Portenda the Quiet.

“Do you ever wonder,” she asked, “what might have been? If we could have, you know, gotten past our differences?”

He saw the genuine, heart-felt interest in her eyes, heard it in her voice. Her touch was almost a plea for a positive answer, but unfortunately, he had no positive answer for her.

“Yes, I’ve wondered. But then I remember that you make your living by helping others take people’s lives.” Gods, he thought. How can a man live like this? Always putting people off, not keeping any friends to speak of. Did the Simpa have any friends? He resolved to ask him when he found him.

Checking his timepiece, he saw that he only had about four and a half hours left to do so. He refused to fail this first assignment.

* * * *

Jonah’s scent wafted through the air, mingling with many hundreds of others, but Portenda had no trouble catching it.

From the building he stood atop, he looked down over the sprawling masses of the people going on about their business and their personal affairs with the ease that comes from being common civilians. He wondered what drove them, what kept people going from day to day. Most people led common, uneventful lives, filled with the tedium of routine and familiarity.

Then again, so did he, jumping from contract to contract, bounty to bounty, without much of a break in the pattern. Only once before had he taken time out from his business, and that had been when his father had stopped by to visit.

“The bastard,” Portenda growled, leaning against the edge of the roof and clutching the cement barrier that kept people from just falling off of the building.

Portenda had been in his apartment, minding his own business, reading through his first copy of A Tall Tale by Whitney Rogers, an autobiography about a Giant’s life among the short Minotaur tribes of the north central mountain ranges. His father had kicked down the door, and stood there smiling like a drunken idiot, which nine times out of ten, he was.

His father, a slightly more beige hued Simpa, had fallen flat on his face, affected by something that the Humans referred to as ‘alcohol poisoning’.

Portenda had been forced to go and buy a cot and treat his father’s sickness for three days, listening to the offensive banter he spewed about Portenda’s mother and how much Portenda disappointed him.

“I, am ashamed, to be your father,” the old coot had growled at him on the second day, spitting a huge wad of phlegm right in Portenda’s eye.

The icy Bounty Hunter had wiped his face with a rag, and for the second time in his life, lashed out at his father, screaming and raging like he never had before. So enraged was he, so livid at his father’s insults, that he had hurled a novel at the older Simpa’s head, striking him in the forehead with the spine of the book.

The old man had fallen silent then, and the two didn’t speak again, even when Portenda showed him out of the building on the evening of the third day of his unwelcome and unexpected visit.

For a solid week after his father’s departure, Portenda had scrubbed the floors of his apartment to get rid of the stench of his vomiting. In the end, he had given up and torn the floorboards up, replacing them with better cuts of hard oak.

That had been his last visitor until Jonah Staples showed up at the Flaming Tongue.

Few members of the smaller Races intrigued Portenda quite as much as the diminutive Scholar/Alchemist. The man had intelligence, that much had been obvious from the start. And he possessed a sort of sophistication better suited to the upper classes, though he appeared more like a blue-collar laborer than nobleman. Portenda had never before met a man who could easily browse through his personal library and tell the Bounty Hunter, ‘well, I’ve read most of these.’ Yet Jonah had. An interesting man, indeed.

But the Human only had about four hours left to find him, and Portenda felt genuinely worried for him. If he had time to use his chemicals, the Human posed a threat, but his reflexes were simply too slow. How Jonah had dismantled the ancient firearm in the blink of an eye still puzzled him, but Portenda was starting to think he knew how it had been pulled off. Firearms were the result of science, mecha on the forefront of history’s progress. And Jonah had told him that he was a Scholar and Alchemist from the start, both Classes of scientist type. Perhaps there was a natural connection between the nerdy Human and mecha. Many mages believed science to be a part of nature, defined by logic and reason. Natural connections, in that case, weren’t impossible.

Portenda stalked across the rooftop to the access door that would lead people up to and down from the roof, leaning against the stone structure. He felt suddenly fatigued. His body slumped, and he slouched against the side of the stairwell access, his muscles burning as though he had just run for a week straight without stopping. He had almost done such a thing when he was nearing the completion of his self-training, before his career as a Bounty Hunter. He had run six days flat-out, making the trek from Palen to Ja-Wen in a record time for foot travel. Of course, no one documented his achievement. Like most of his accomplishments in life, it had gone completely unnoticed and unrecorded. Yet, Jonah had kept a record on him. A record of two years out of the thirty he had been in this line of work.

With no preamble, and no real reason to stay awake, Portenda let slumber carry him off.

* * * *

“Screw it.” Jonah drew out one of his sensory enhancing potions.

Pulling the cork with a loud pop, he drank. The taste of week-expired custard and thyme washed over his palette, nearly causing him to gag. Swallowing hard, his eyes squeezed shut with disgust, Jonah mentally adjusted himself as the liquid took immediate effect.

A loud clack-clack-clack resounded in his eardrum, and he opened his eyes to look at the building wall to his left. A large wolf spider, its web not yet constructed, shuffled along the brick outer wall of an eatery. He focused his attention on his vision, and could immediately see the swollen membrane along the spider’s underbelly. It was about to be a mother.

He scoured the area with his eyes.

Prismatic rays of light filled the central area of the dining sector, the slowly waning sunlight trickling gracefully through the sky. He could detect the faint scent of perfume, and turned to see Nareena walking out of the diner area.

Wait a minute, he thought. I don’t even know what a Simpa smells like. Jonah raced back past the hostess and stopped behind the Simpa customer. Taking a mental note of the particular scent, he dashed back outside.

Ah, he thought excitedly. A trace of it, due south from here.

Sniffling at the air every few yards, he walked down the street, calm and collected.

When he reached the midpoint between his start and his final destination, something that reeked of stale food and booze blocked his path.

Following his nose, he had ceased to pay attention to where his feet were taking him.

He was in a long, narrow alley. At the far end stood the half-Orc brute from the Flaming Tongue. This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid, a confrontation that he might not be able to get out of easily.

Jonah spun around, but found a menacing Human patting a club on his left palm in a threatening fashion.

Go ahead, the man’s rough, oft broken countenance said, try something funny.

“Hey there, bub,” the gruff half-Orc intoned to his back. “Remember me? We have business we didn’t have a chance to take care of at the tavern,” The stepped forward and drew a long knife from his hip.

It cleared its metal sheath with a deafening shriek of metal scraping metal, but Jonah knew that this was only his perception of the sound. With his senses finely tuned, he could hear the two thugs’ labored breathing as they approached.

Think, Jonah, think. You can take care of this on your own.

“No more hesitation,” he whispered. The Alchemist drew out and threw a vial of blood-red fluid.

The fragile glass vial broke open against the half-Orc’s chest and the tincture engulfed him in roaring flames.

Shrieking like a banshee, the green-hued humanoid flailed about, thick black smoke pluming from his clothes.

Whipping around and facing the Human thug, Jonah hauled back his left arm, a green powder from one of his many pouches in his hand. “Just try it, villainous cur,”

The bruise-laden man stopped in his tracks, his club poised to strike.

“Go ahead! Your organs will be turned into a collection of flayed meat and pools of blood when I blow this stuff in your face.” Jonah felt rather proud of his bluff. The powder was Cutsen Powder, made by grinding the bones of a dead Aeromancer. It would turn into a set of Aeromancy cutting blades. The damage they inflicted would be minimal, but this brute didn’t know that, just like he didn’t know that the half-Orc wasn’t really on fire. The chemical compound in the vial that Jonah had hurled against the green man created flames that only consumed cloth and metal. Lethal against a Dwarf, due to the nature of their skeletal structure, with the traces of iron ore in their bones, it was harmless to other Races or animals.

The Human turned around and ran, his heart hammering in his chest like a horse running at full tilt.

Jonah chuckled softly, put the powder back in its pouch, and turned to face the half-Orc, whose flames were petering out.

Jonah drew the long knife from his belt with casual ease and leaned against one of the alley walls. As the last traces of the flames snuffed out, the half-Orc glared at Jonah with murder in his eyes. “Is that all? A cheap trick?”

“Not exactly cheap,” Jonah said, smiling to himself and peering at the man from the corner of his eye. “It cost you plenty. Notice a draft?”

The half-Orc looked down, saw that he was standing there in the nude, and immediately broke out in a cold sweat. He grabbed a trash can lid and covered his shame, keeping his rear end covered with one hand.

“You’ll notice your weapon is gone, too, as well as all of your money. That stuff just eats right through everything but flesh, bone and soil. You may want to consider leaving.” Jonah pushed off of the wall, twirling the knife in his hand inexpertly. Still, the overall look of the action made him seem rather nonchalant and quite deadly, or so he hoped. “Or perhaps you’d enjoy having a few body parts go missing. Or rather, one, body part go missing.” He smiled like a demon as he pointed the tip of his long knife at the trash lid the half-Orc held.

Looking to where the weapon pointed, the half-Orc stumbled backwards, shouting in panic as he turned and fled through the city streets of Ja-Wen.

“Idiot,” Jonah muttered as he put the weapon away and reviewed his stock of Alchemical compounds and mixtures.

The whole incident had taken little more than four minutes, but Jonah was overwhelmed by the adrenaline flowing through his system. He had to sit down, take a moment, and breathe deeply.

His thoughts came into line, and his sense of logic honed itself down to a fine tip; everything seemed clear, and he found himself trying to think of the simplest, quickest way to find the Bounty Hunter.

Wait a minute, he thought excitedly.

He drew the whistle from his pouch at his neck. He had the means to get the Simpa from the very get-go, but he had never thought to use it that way.

Neither had Portenda the Quiet.

* * * *

Somewhere between sleep and consciousness, Portenda heard the high-pitched tone of his mother’s whistle. Jonah was in trouble.

He shrugged off the shackles of sleep, checked his equipment hastily, and darted toward the edge of the rooftop, leaping over the shin-high stone barrier and flying through the air like a huge, graceful bird. Or rather, he could have been said to fly like a bird bearing down on a small army. By itself.

Landing in a skidding crouch, sliding along the next rooftop without making a single noise, the Simpa wondered what situation Jonah had gotten himself into. The Alchemist’s pride scurried along behind his eyes, trying to remain hidden and unnoticed, Portenda thought.

He hurried along to the iron fire escape steps, jumping off of the side of the building he’d landed on and latching onto the lowest railing as he fell like a rock.

The Bounty Hunter had miscalculated the height from which he dropped. As he latched onto the railing of the fire escape, he heard a loud pop.

His body dangled from his failing right handed grip, his shoulder out of joint.

Terrific, he thought, disgusted with himself. He looked down to the dirt alley below him, dropped in a three-point stance, and rose to his full height.

Holding his right arm across his torso at an angle, he slammed his shoulder into the nearby wall. Another pop, and his shoulder was reset.

Portenda paid little or no heed to the shocked and frightened faces of the people he raced past. Men, women and children leapt to get clear of his path. A heavily armed Simpa with a face full of worry and rage was flying down the street at them. Of course they cleared the way.

Once more the whistle sang out, sending mental images of the Human’s impending beat-down through his head.

Portenda the Quiet ducked down an alleyway, and stopped abruptly, sweeping the area with his eyes, nose, and ears. He heard a human’s racing heartbeat and could smell Jonah. He was close.

Portenda closed his eyes, and felt the flow of the air around him. He reached out, grabbing something solid.

When he opened his eyes, he had Jonah in his hand, the Alchemical effect of his temporary invisibility potion having run out.

Jonah smiled at Portenda, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Found you.” The Human grinned.

“What? I,” Portenda started, at a sudden loss of words. Something had happened here that he hadn’t thought to factor in. He had allowed it to happen, because he hadn’t made very basic ground rules.

“You gave me a very useful tool.” Jonah held up the whistle, which Portenda snatched out of his hand. “You let me have something that would give me almost instant access to you at any time I chose, and you never thought to restrict me from using it in such a fashion. One of the quotes in the unwritten rules of the Bounty Hunter is, ‘Use everything at your disposal,’ isn’t it?”

Portenda looked at the whistle before he tucked it away, and he let out a sound that nobody had heard from him for nearly ten or eleven years: he chuckled, a low, growling laughter deep in his stomach, rising up and stopping at his clamped mouth. He turned, put a huge, hairy arm around Jonah’s shoulder, and began to walk with him that way.

“Very good. You’ve passed your first assignment with flying colors, Mr. Staples.” Portenda let Jonah go before they exited the alley.