Topic: All That Glitters Is Not

Vivien Farell

Date: 2010-09-09 20:36 EST
The warehouse workshop rang with the sounds of smelting and casting. The air was acrid with the smell and taste of metal filings, coal smoke, sweat and blood and men working closely together. It was a dark, seemingly forbidding place to the untrained eye, a place where magic and science combined to create something subversive and unpleasant.

At the doors of the warehouse complex, a man stood; tall and forbidding in character, clad in the most sombre of black suits. He paced the floor as he waited, impatient by proxy for his employer. She could not be expected to come herself, naturally, and his task was to bring her proof of the workshop's progress.

The foreman of the area came into view, metallic and coal dirt clinging to his clothing and sweat-slicked skin. He was flushed with the heat of the place, his face and arms smeared with grease and coal dust. His hands, however, were scrubbed clean, and with those cleansed fingers he proffered a cloth bag, the knots sealed with lead. The waiting man took it with a silent nod, secreting the pouch inside his suit jacket, waiting until the foreman moved away before making any motion to leave the place himself.

As he stepped out into the cleaner air of the streets, he withdrew a cell phone from his jacket, pressing a single button to speed-dial a number he was not allowed to learn. Waiting for him was a car, non-descript but for the colour, which like his suit was a dark, unassuming black. He climbed in, wiping the sweat and dirt from his face as he spoke into the cell.

"Yes. The package is in transit. Estimated time of arrival, forty minutes."

He hung up, knocked on the ceiling of the vehicle, and it pulled away, rumbling quietly through the streets as though on some innocent errand. Its destination was on the other side of the city, through the richer areas, the merchant streets, the slums, to a row of terraced houses, upper middle class in nature, built of grey stone and red brick. To the fourth along that row, where it disgorged its passenger.

The man paused at the base of the steps which led to the house, making certain that his appearance was the best it could possibly be. He moved quickly to the door, which opened as he arrived, and was ushered inside by a comely-looking maid. She showed him into a study lined with bookshelves, where another man awaited him, grey-haired and stern, rising out of his high-backed leather chair by the fire.

"Do you have it?"

There was a pause as the dark-suited courier withdrew his precious packet from inside his jacket and handed it over. The grey-haired man took it, weighing the pouch thoughtfully in his hand. Then he nodded, and turned away. There was a sound like the sharp implosion of a plastic can, and the courier went down, blood pouring from the bullet wound in the side of his head. The grey-haired man glanced over at his companion.

"Deal with it," he ordered as he left the room.

His steps took him down into the kitchens, and further down, into the cellars of the old house, where yet another man waited. The pouch was handed over, no words were spoken. The grey-haired man returned upstairs to his study; the recipient of the lead-sealed pouch turned and let himself down into a tunnel which connected to the city sewers.

He travelled in silence, walking briskly but quietly along water-slicked stone, until he reached a passage of water which could not be crossed by one man alone. There was a tiny boat, barely one foot in height, bobbing on the water. He knelt and secured the pouch into a heavily locked and warded box on board the little boat. Then, with one spoken word into the radio at his shoulder, he stood back, and watched as the boat moved away from the stone walkway and out into the water system, transported under some remote control.

It was over an hour later when it came to a halt, at the edge of an outlet to the sea. A woman this time unburdened the remote-controlled boat of its boxed package, moving without speed to climb up and into the Docks to where a car, similar to the one before, waited. She handed the box through the window to an unseen passenger, and stepped back, not bothering to watch where the car headed to.

Once again, the mysterious pouch was in the hands of a dark-suited courier, a man who held the box in which it was contained securely upon his lap as the vehicle rumbled over uneven cobblestones. When it stopped, in a darkened alleyway around behind some of the more pre-eminent buildings in this city, he rolled down the window and handed the box out to the woman who waited there.

A moment or two later, both passenger and driver were dead, and men were moving to dispose of the evidence. The assassin turned and let herself into the building in question. Through dimly lit halls she walked, turning to enter through a locked door and into a room that was bare but for a workbench of tools, and a man who looked bored.

He took the box from her, applying skill and brute force to open it. The pouch was lifted out and given to the female assassin, who nodded and left the room once more. Again, she moved briskly through the corridors that honey-combed the building, coming to an elevator. Up she rode four floors, stepping out and into a far brighter corridor than the ones below. Seven doors down on her right, and she entered an office, where a bespectacled man awaited her.

Under his supervision, the pouch was opened, the leaden knots unsealed, and the contents of the pouch transferred to a svelte, polished wooden box, lined with rick green velvet. At this point, custody of the package changed hands yet again; the bespectacled man took the box and its precious contents with him as he left the office, taking the elevator to the topmost floor of the building.

His footsteps from there took him through a series of antechambers, in which he was searched, his credentials checked, and his intentions examined, until finally the door was opened to allow him to enter another office. This office, however, was far more richly decorated than the one he had just come from.

Works of art, sculpture and paintings, lined the walls between bookcases heavy with leather-bound first editions. The desk was mahogany, its surface lined with green leather, and uncluttered by the paperwork stacked neatly in piles at each corner. A computer stood silent and dark on this same desk, behind which was a comfortable leather-padded chair of comparable colour. To his right the wall was lined with large windows, allowing the sun to shine brightly through the room. To his left, a couch and chairs stood about a coffee table; behind them was a drinks cabinet. This was a place where business was conducted, and that business was the work of the woman standing by the windows.

She was young, in her mid-twenties at the most. Her blonde hair was curled and tamed back off her face, leaving the most piercing of blue eyes clear of any cover behind which to soften her expression. Dove-grey was the colour of her suit, pressed and smart, pale blue the hue of the shirt peeking from beneath her jacket. Beige stockings hugged her legs; pale blue court shoes boosted her height. She did not look around as the final courier entered.

"Leave it on the desk," she ordered, and the he did as he was ordered, turning once this was done and closing the door behind him.

She waited long moments after his departure before moving away from the windows. A snap of her fingers, and the silent man who had been lurking beside the door moved forward, drawing the blinds over the porticos and shutting out any prying eyes.

Lowering herself down before her desk, she reached forward and opened the box left for her. There, nestled into a pre-determined indent in the green velvet lining, was a single gold coin, of the minting currently in circulation in the city of Rhy'Din. Gloved fingers lifted it from the box, examining every detail, the colour, the casting, the milling at the edges, feeling the weight.

Her lips twisted in what could have been a smile, but for the faint suspicion painting her expression. The other hand reached down and opened a drawer in the desk, lifting from it another gold coin. She compared them, laid them both on the desk, and stared at them.

Long moments passed, and she finally seemed to relax, a small genuine smile of approval touching her face. The piece from her desk was replaced there, the other returned to the box, and a nod to her companion had the blinds opened within a minute. Then she called her personal assistant in, smiling as the box was handed over.

"Dispose of this," was her order.

The girl nodded and smiled, pleased to see her employer in such high spirits. "Certainly, Miss Farell."

She turned and left the office, making her way down several floors, and back to the office of the bespectacled courier, who recieved her without surprise. From the recesses of his cabinets, he produced a glass jar which seemed half-filled with clear liquid. Sliding gloves onto his hands, he took the gold coin from the box and laid it on his solid desk. A large metal hammer was produced from his pocket, and he brought it bearing down upon the coin with significant strength.

It shattered. Assistant and courier looked at one another with satisfaction, and between them, scraped the powdered remains of the coin into the jar of liquid. It fizzed and spat, and when the bubbles cleared, there was no sign at all that any solid metal had ever been introduced to it. Infinitely pleased with themselves, the pair tidied up, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that even as they worked, this latest design of their employer was making its way onto the streets, and into the hands of the fools for which it had been created.

After all, why should a fool be allowed to play with real gold"