Hoodwinked

[Conrad Jamboy]

Hoodwinked

It’s a funny thing, power. Ask any of Karim’s common folk, scurrying about their daily lives as bottom feeders scurry over sediment, and they will point to the city’s palatial manses, home to guildmasters, wealthy merchants, and high-ranking clergy members, to indicate power. Men and women of great renown, whose names echo in nightclubs and bathhouses, stewhalls and sprawling marketplaces, as often with derision as respect. Indeed, their entire existence is predicated on the admiration of fickle commoners and fickler peers. And, more often than not, that very celebrity proves to be their downfall—politicians succumb to more charismatic challengers, merchants to more cunning competitors, and clergymen to the ever-shifting tide of hollow religious principle.

True power does not reveal itself to the public eye. It cannot be seen on television screens. It does not give political speeches, hawk wares, or preach from pulpits—though, truly, is there a difference between those three things? No, true power is entrenched in the shadows, ever watchful, silently nudging those social actors to maximize their own benefit.

Take, for instance, Mr. Conrad Jamboy—the halfling known affectionately as Hoodwink. A small fish in a big pond, no doubt, and yet Conrad holds more power in the diminutive fingers of one hand than any of Karim’s aristocracy. Even now, resting easily in the high-backed chair of one such notable merchant, furry feet kicked up and warmed by a warm fire, he plots the exchange to come—senses how he might manipulate the strings of the man’s precarious perch atop the city’s hierarchy to climb further the ladder of dominance, each rung of which promises greater wealth and influence than the last.

Indeed, Conrad’s ascent over the last three decades has been a sight to behold. Karim, a unique jewel in the heart of an unforgiving wasteland, is often accommodating of those who come from nothing. It is not uncommon for the many crime syndicates of the city’s underworld to haul in orphans and street urchins as a miner hauls in coal, producing, as from coal, diamonds. Beneath his unassuming facade, the pint-sized pilferer houses a clever mind and an exceptional nose for profit. Indeed, his fledgling enterprise has established connections in every corner of the Crossroads, and his penchant for alchemy has yielded illicit poisons of no minor acclaim.

Hark! Footfalls in the distance, approaching fast. Bear witness as the formidable halfling expertly navigates the encounter to come, with wit and aplomb in equal measure—as he corners this reputable figure with exceeding cunning, manipulating the man like clay in the hands of a potter. Bear witness, fair reader, and do try to contain your amazement.

*****​

Torn from his idle musings by the approaching footsteps, Conrad’s heavy-lidded eyes popped wide. Licking two fingers, he swiftly doused the guttering candlelight, plunging the room into darkness, save for the low fire. Tall shadows writhed on the walls as the halfling settled back, swinging the chair around to face away from the door. A smile crept onto his lips as he anticipated the arrival of Ajax Whittaker. He pictured the man’s narrow, ash-gray eyes, the close crop of his hair, the swarthy tones that suggested foreign shores and mixed origins. But mostly, he pictured the look of astonishment he would see on the man’s face when the merchant entered his private study to find the grinning halfling enjoying the heat of his fire and a snifter of his finest brandy.

The door creaked open behind him. “Greetings, Ajax,” the halfling said loudly. “What a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance after all this time.” Sweeping one hand through his unkempt hair, Conrad gingerly sipped the potent drink and waited a few tantalizing moments—1… 2… 3...—before swinging back around, eyes dancing with amusement, to come face to face with the old merchant—

—and half a dozen armed and armored guards, the tips of their feathered polearms mere inches from his grinning face.

 

[Conrad Jamboy]

A lifetime of crime hadn’t lent Conrad Jamboy any composure in the face of certain death. With an audible squeak, the halfling pushed off the desk with his furry feet, toppling the chair and spilling him into a backward tumble. He crashed hard into the stone mantle, blasting the breath from his lungs, but he maintained the presence of mind to pull the small crossbow from his shoulder. With a flick of his thumb, he engaged the weapon’s rapidfire mode, prepared to spray poisoned quarrels into the ranks of the approaching guards.

“Hold!” The thin voice of Ajax Whittaker was music to Conrad’s oversized ears. “I need not the blood of a thief on my rugs.” The glinting spearheads held fast, still too close for comfort.

“A thief?” Conrad echoed, feigning disbelief. “Hardly.”

The old merchant, coming around the desk to stand before the prone Conrad, fixed the halfling with an intense. “Not a thief?” he said. His skepticism was apparent in his tone. “Pray tell, little halfling, why then I am so fortunate as to find you lounging in my private chambers?” The guards snickered.

“Why, I come with a proposition, of course,” Conrad said, regaining his oily poise. “A rather sensitive proposition, as a matter of fact.” He waved one tiny hand at the gathered guards, indicating they should leave the room while the grown-ups discussed their business.

Ajax snorted. He eyed Conrad with continued disdain, but the halfling marked clearly the glimmer of curiosity in the shrewd man’s eyes. Predictably, as with most of Karim’s greedy merchants, it seemed his avarice might override his sensibilities.

There was no proposition, of course. While Conrad’s unlawful lifestyle clearly had not kept the sword tips from his throat, they had at least afforded him the wiles to weave a convincing tale. The halfling could layer lie upon lie into a convincing tapestry of deception, a skill that had allowed him to weasel out of many an impossible situation—situations much like the one he now faced. After all, he had not come to be known as Hoodwink for no reason.

“I trust these men with my life,” the old merchant said, his lips set in a sharp line. “What makes you think I wouldn’t trust them with your… proposition?”

Conrad flashed a convincing grin. “Nothing at all, of course,” he lied, oozing charisma. “I merely hoped they might give me some breathing room. I am not accustomed to discussing business at swordpoint, you see.”

“Nor am I accustomed to finding halflings skulking around my study.” Ajax met the halfling’s hard stare, but Conrad could see his resolve softening, his interest piqued. Ever predictable were the merchants of Karim. “Very well,” the merchant continued. “Put down your weapon and my guards will do the same.”

“Sir?” one of the guards, the oldest of the six, his supple chainmail emblazoned with the horned owl crest of the merchant’s organization, asked incredulously. “I do not think it wise to—”

Ajax scowled. “I pay you and your men to guard my home,” he snapped, “and at that you have failed already. I do not need a lecture on wisdom. Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir,” the guard replied quickly, dropping his gaze back to the halfling. “My apologies.”

Slow to trust, Conrad clicked the crossbow back to single-fire mode and eased up on his white-knuckled grip. He did not relish the idea of relinquishing his weapon in so vulnerable a position, but, in truth, what choice did he have? Possibilities whirled through his mind, different routines the wily halfling had run in the past to slip out of difficult situations such as this. In truth, he knew little of Ajax Whittaker on which to predicate a compelling, if fictional, offer. Whispers in the underworld suggested the man had arrived suddenly and quietly in the desert city a few years earlier, and idolized his meteoric rise from seemingly humble beginnings to nearly unrivaled wealth and prominence.

For his part, Conrad had another theory. His agents had been dispatched across the city, to gambling halls and illicit, underground marketplaces, seeking wares only Conrad himself should have been able to provide—exceedingly rare herbs and other apothecarial components, used exclusively in the production of poisons, a facet in the criminal economy the halfling believed, and rightly so, that he had cornered. That is, until Ajax Whittaker came to town.

Gradually, Conrad’s agents began to hear Ajax’s name as often as Conrad’s in response to their subtle questions, suggesting the halfling had stumbled onto some unwanted competition. While far from the most powerful black marketeer in Karim, Conrad Jamboy had carved out his niche with great effort, and more than a little blood. If Ajax Whittaker was indeed smuggling poisons into the city, the halfling simply had to know.

But now, facing the very real possibility of death by polearm, he began to second guess the necessity of that knowledge.

“What say you, little halfling?” Ajax pressed. “I said I did not need your blood on my rug. Do not take that to mean I eliminated it as a possibility.” At last, the crossbow clattered to the ground in front of Conrad. The halfling raised his empty palms, and with a sweep of the merchant’s hand the guards stepped back, mercifully retracting their wicked spears. “Now, speak your words, Conrad Jamboy. My patience runs thin.”

Conrad gaped at Ajax, stammering through an series of garbled responses. The mention of his name had rendered him speechless, a rare occurrence indeed.

The old merchant grinned wickedly. “Yes, I know who you are. Do you think you are the only one in Karim with agents in the marketplaces—the only one asking questions about the source of… certain products? If so, you are a greater fool than I expected.”

That certainly got the halfling’s attention. Conrad considered himself to be many things, not all of them favorable, but he was no fool. He shook away his haze of astonishment and returned the merchant’s grin, his confidence returning. “I am surprised—humbled, truly—that a man of your stature would deign to inquire after a lowly smuggler such as myself,” he pandered, “nothing more.” All pretense dropped, a plan began to form in Conrad’s mind.

“Lowly smuggler?” Ajax echoed, arcing an inquisitive eyebrow.

“I possess but a single ship,” Conrad replied, “and a small shop in a crowded district.” He waved his hand around at the Ajax’s study—the rich mahogany furniture and plush rugs. “You, on the other hand, have a fleet of ships and, I’m sure, more than a few mansions such as this to call home.”

The tables had turned, Conrad knew, as the wealthy merchant’s chest swelled with pride. He kept up the momentum, casting his gaze around the room in feigned awe. “Yes, I only dream to one day be on the level of Ajax Whittaker,” he said. “And that is why I need your help.”

“My help?” Taken aback by the barrage of compliments, Ajax seemed more a parrot than a man in that moment, dumbly repeating back Conrad’s words. “Pray tell, what do I stand to gain from helping you, little halfling?

That was the opening Conrad needed to produce his low-hanging fruit. “Two words: Midnight Tear.”

Now it was the merchant’s turn to gawk. “Impossible,” he breathed. “There is no Midnight Tear in Mesa Roja. Trust me, I’ve—”

“Not in Mesa Roja,” Conrad interjected, adding yet another layer to his ruse. “You must think more broadly than that, good sir. No, I do not wish to sell you the herb. Rather, my ship is too small to carry it all! I seek a partnership only, ships and men to harvest the herb and bring it back to Karim, where we may both become richer men by far.”

The glint of hunger in the old merchant’s eye was unmistakable. Internally, Conrad congratulated himself on the choice of Midnight Tears as his bait to lure Ajax in. One of the rarest herbs in the Crossroads, Midnight Tear had but a single purpose: to manufacture a poison so insidious it had been used throughout history to topple empires—to kill kings and incite civil wars. A single flower fetched a price that could keep Conrad fat and comfortable well into old age.

And he had just promised Ajax Whittaker so many of them, they could not even fit in a single ship.

The lie unraveled before Conrad’s very eyes, the old merchant’s curious expression giving way first to suspicion, then to outright rage. “Liar,” he hissed. “I should have known not to listen to a filthy, lying halfling. It seems your blood will stain my rug this night after all. Guards… kill him.”

Before the words had even left Ajax’s mouth Conrad was in motion, scooping up his crossbow, tucking into a backward roll, and reengaging the rapidfire mode in one fluid movement. Luck, as it seemed always to be, was on the halfling’s side in that moment, as two of the guards lunged at once, their spearheads clashing with a teeth-clenching screech of steel on steel. Sparks flew, but the momentum of the weapons stopped well short of their diminutive target, allowing Conrad to skitter to his feet and unleash a barrage of crossbow quarrels. As many missed as hit, the halfling cursing the wasted coin as precious poison skipped harmlessly off furniture and walls, but by the time the dull click of an empty rack of quarrels echoed through the chamber, three of Ajax’s guards were down and groaning, the paralytic poison carrying out its insidious work.

With no time to reload, the halfling slung the crossbow back over his shoulder. He sidestepped a lunging guard, diving between the man’s legs and coming up fast in front of the next guard, driving his fist into the man’s unprotected groin. He went down in a mewling heap, his spear clattering to the ground. Conrad’s dagger hissed from its sheath, knocking aside a mailed fist that would have splattered his face and laid him low. His larger opponent bullied forward, sending the halfling sprawling to the ground. When he stood, the two guards who remained on their feet had given ground, flanking Ajax Whittaker, who now held a slender wand.

“An impressive display,” the old merchant drawled, staring with disgust at the four men still groaning on the floor. “It ends now.”

Conrad chuckled, trying not to stare hard at the threatening wand and give away his evolving plan. “I could have made you rich,” he said, stubbornly maintaining his charade. “Well, richer, at least. The jungles of Kraw are full of wonders far more valuable than a few shiploads of Midnight Tears, you know.”

For a moment—a single, scarcely recognizable moment—, the merchant lowered his guard, buying back into the halfling’s ruse, however slightly. A moment was all Conrad needed to somersault backward, sprinting for a window at the far side of the room. The guard who had taken the shot to the groin staggered to his feet right in Conrad’s path, but the halfling spun right past the man as the thunderous retort of the merchant’s explosive wand erupted behind him, filling the room with heat and howling wind.

The next few seconds were a blur. The hapless guard, having taken the brunt of Ajax’s attack, slammed hard into the fleeing halfling, their combined momentum lifting them both into the air and right through the window with a crash of shattering glass and splitting timber. Then they were falling the three stories to the street below, Conrad twisting to get out from underneath the bulk of the unconscious man, his little arms and legs grasping and pulling to reorient himself. Just in time, he managed to climb atop the guard. They hit the ground with a thud, Conrad bouncing painfully away and scrambling to his feet, bruised, singed, and bleeding, but miraculously without any major injuries.

The halfling looked back to the window—to the furious visage of Ajax Whittaker, leveling the wand at him once more. “Catch ya later, dickhead,” he yelled, his oily salesman’s facade long gone.

“You will pay for this, Conrad Jamboy!” the merchant howled. “Mark my words, little halfling. Your entire world will crumble around you!”

“Too late,” Conrad chuckled, ducking into an alleyway as the air filled with the keen of approaching sirens.

 

[Conrad Jamboy]

Conrad slipped into the Whispering Tankard soon after midnight, the open door and low-hanging moon framing his silhouette in a foolscap rectangle of pale light. The bar’s patrons stared at him as he sidled up to the counter. He patted himself down in a futile attempt to look presentable, dust and slivers of glass falling freely from his torn and smoldering clothes. With great effort, he pulled himself up onto a human-sized stool and pulled a pouch of coins from a deep pocket.

The encounter with Ajax Whittaker weighed heavily on Conrad’s mind. Not for the first time, and likely not for the last, he cursed his insatiable curiosity. Of all his less than reputable traits, his inability to let sleeping dogs lie had landed him in the stickiest situations by far. Now he had made an enemy of the old merchant, by all accounts a formidable man with an extensive reach into Karim’s criminal underbelly. The halfling would have to look over his shoulder for quite a while before feeling safe in his usual haunts.

“Why if it ain’t Conrad fucking Jamboy,” boomed a familiar voice, pulling the halfling from his contemplations. “How are ye, ye little runt?”

Conrad bristled and looked up. “Evening, Davroar.”

The barrel-chested bartender approached. Davroar Milner was a huge man, with hands like dinner plates and a shock of greasy black hair. Known to indulge in potent herbs, he regarded Conrad with heavy-lidded eyes and an almost feral grin. He looked the halfling up and down, and his grin grew wider. “Looks like ye been through a war, pipsqueak.”

“More or less,” Conrad huffed. “You should have seen the other guy.”

Davroar offered his characteristic belly laugh, the resounding chuckles drawing the curious looks of more than a few nearby drinkers. “What’ll it be, small fry?”

“Something to make me forget.” The halfling rubbed his bruised jaw, wincing. He wondered if the guard who cushioned his fall had survived the night. He wondered if any of the six men who let him slip through their fingers had survived the night, for that matter. But most of all, he wondered about his next move. Clearly he had underestimated the sphere of influence of Ajax Whittaker. No doubt, the merchant would seek revenge, in one form or another. Seeing as they both dealt in poisons, that seemed the most gratifying solution for the old man. Then again, Conrad knew poisons better than anything, and wasn’t likely to be fooled. The entire line of thinking made his head hurt.

A minute later, a frothing pint glass and a shot glass slid in front of him. “The little one’s on me, little one,” Davroar snickered, turning away.

“Much obliged,” Conrad muttered. He eyed the drink warily. Logically, he knew Ajax couldn’t possibly have caught up to him so quickly, much less convinced the portly bartender, who was a long-time acquaintance if not a friend, to spike his liquor. But still he hesitated, worried that, even if the drink was clean, dulling his senses at a time like this might not be the wisest decision.

In the end, as he always did, Conrad took up the shot glass and tossed back the strong drink, coughing and spluttering. Somewhere across the room, Davroar’s booming laughter echoed back at him. The halfling glowered, settling back into his contemplations.

*****​

The pastel hues of dawn lit up the sky when Conrad staggered out of the bar, his head swimming with incoherent thoughts. He squinted as he stared up at the bright sky, before dropping to his knees and spilling his guts into the gutter.

“Son of a bitch,” the halfling groaned, when the contents of his stomach had been completely emptied. As he did every time he left the Whispering Tankard, he vowed never to set foot back in the place—to give up drinking entirely, in fact. Then he laughed at the absurdity of it all. Miraculously, as he descended deeper and deeper into the bottle over the past several hours, none of Ajax Whittaker’s goons had showed up to haul him back to the merchant’s mansion. Perhaps, he mused, the man had been more bluster than true cunning.

Climbing back to his feet, he walked down the alley running parallel to the Whispering Tankard, sidestepping piled trash and snoring bums, humming a discordant tune. All he wanted to do now was get back to Gulliver, his beloved ship, engage its stealth mode to keep out any unwanted visitors, and sleep the day away, just like he always did. Parked in a subterranean lot a few blocks away, a lot owned by none other than Davroar Milner, the ship was his pride and joy—the one possession he could truly call his own, since his alchemy shop had been shut down years before after a run-in with a particularly vindictive guildmaster. Now it served both as his home and his primary means of income.

Yes, Conrad thought with a sigh, he had certainly fallen far from the height of his power those years before. Aside from a handful of contacts and good old Gulliver, he could hardly be called a criminal at all.

Approaching the lot, he reached into the pocket that held his ID card, which gave him access to the building. He rifled around for several long seconds, feeling every inch of the coarse fabric, his panic growing. Empty. The rest of his pockets yielded the same results. Sometime between leaving his ship the prior evening and returning to it now, he had lost the card.

With one balled fist, he pounded on the door. After a few moments, he pounded again, more insistently. Finally the halfling heard shuffling from within the building.

“Coming, coming!” a voice rang out. “If that’s you, Conrad, I’m gonna skin you alive. Always losing that fucking card.”

“Just open up, Fenny!” Conrad called back, rolling his eyes.

The door creaked open and an emerald green eye peered out, crackling with rage. “Five o’clock in the fucking morning, Conrad. I ought to let you sleep in the road! An old woman needs her beauty sleep.”

“Old?” Conrad echoed, slipping right into his charismatic alter ego. “Why madam, you don’t look a solitary day over thirty.” When the door cracked open to reveal decrepit old Maggie Fennister, both of the old friends shared a hearty laugh.

Older than dirt, Maggie hunched low, held up only by a rickety cane. Still, she regarded Conrad with the lively green eyes of a much younger woman. “Gods above, Conrad,” she said, taking in his filthy, disheveled clothes and bruised face, “what mess have you gotten yourself into this time?”

“Merely a disagreement.” They both knew Conrad was lying, but the little halfling had always had a penchant for downplaying his dangerous situations.

“Disagreement indeed,” the woman cackled skeptically. “Well, get your ass to bed then. We’ll talk about it at supper.” With that she turned away, hobbling off back to her small apartment behind the lot’s office with a loud yawn.

Conrad grinned, looking forward to a shower and a warm bed. He would worry about finding his key later. Likely it had slipped from his pocket in the Whispering Tankard. He winced when he thought of the ribbing he would receive from Davroar when he inevitably returned to the bar the next night, wasting his few coins on another round of heavy drinking. His furry feet padded along the corridor to the elevator. Descending a floor to the small lot, where a handful of ships and other vehicles huddled beneath the retractable ceiling that allowed them to take to the sky or the street, he ran a hand through his curly brown hair, groaning when they came back smeared with blood. He turned the corner into the lot, as he had done so many times before, where the familiar hulking form of Gulliver would greet him.

Except the ship wasn’t there. The halfling’s eyes bulged as he scampered across the lot to the same spot where Gulliver was always parked. He glanced wildly around the room, wondering if—praying that—he had landed somewhere else after his last supply run, before settling on a folded piece of thick paper right in the middle of his usual spot. His stomach lurched. He felt he might vomit again on the spot as he bent down and picked up the piece of paper, unfolding it, although he already knew what it would say. His fears were confirmed when his ID card fell free and clattered to the ground.

Trembling from head to toe, the halfling dropped to his knees and threw his head back with an agonized wail, the letter, with its neat cursive writing, drifting down to the floor in front of him.

I warned you, Conrad—your entire world will crumble around you. —AW

Quest Progress: 3,510/10,000