Brewing Bad Ch. 182-183

I don't want to spoil anything, but in the spirit of making sure people don't renew their patron subscriptions more than they need to, I will say that this book is only a few weeks from ending. While I love the note the story ends on, it makes me want to write another trilogy picking up where it left off after I edit the series.

You'll see what I mean when we get there. If there's interest/demand that may have to be a 2026 project.

Ch. 182 - A New Story

Lucas made two more visits that night, and in each case, it took longer to find the place than to break into it. He’d asked around about Duke Loffel and Duke Jaravik’s city homes earlier in the week, but on the winding streets at night, all of the homes looked almost the same to him. Since he had no intention of asking for directions, he wasted precious time making sure he didn’t break into the wrong house and threaten the wrong man. 

Still, in both cases, he hoped fences and slid invisibly through open windows to confront the privileged men he sought out. While he didn’t plan to kill either of them, it was always possible he’d end up in a fight with one of their guards, so it was better to be safe than sorry. 

In both cases, he crept into the bedrooms of sleeping dukes and held them at swordpoint while he explained his version of what had happened to Lord Torvin before he lied outrageously about what was going to happen next. 

Although he’d originally planned to use the Blue angle and be his own front man in this part of the plan, the dead mage made things that much easier. Now he could lie his ass off and blame someone else for something he’d done. While that was pretty much the story of his life, Lucas had never enjoyed it less than he did that night. 

“The Mages’ guild is, well, was behind Torvin’s play,” Lucas rasped with a false voice while the shadows hid his identity. “He crossed them, so he had to go.”

Lord Loffel was too panicked by the kiss of cold steel on his neck to do much more than agree to everything that Lucas said and blubber about where his drugs would come from now that his dealer was dead. Lord Jaravik acted a bit braver, but only because he had a beautiful young woman in his bed with him, who was either a servant or a prostitute. Either way, Lucas didn’t threaten her, but he didn’t let her leave, either, not until he’d given the message he needed to give. 

”Rediculous!” the man whispered, trying to sound brave for his beautiful audience, even if Lucas could still hear just enough healthy fear that he didn’t dream of calling for his guards to help him. “Lord Torvin has too many friends for anyone to kill him.”

“You don’t have to believe me,” Lucas warned. “You just have to remember my words when the criers repeat the truth on every corner in the city tomorrow. The guild was behind the duke’s rise, his play for the throne, and ultimately his death. That means they’ll be behind whoever turns out to be the next would-be-king, too.” 

“Mages swear an oath to stay out of such things,” the duke protested as Lucas pressed his sword into the man’s throat slightly harder. 

“Maybe they did, but I expect that agreement died with the Prince and his whole god damned line,” Lucas growled. “They’re making their play, and I’m letting people like you know that playing ball with them is a particularly bad idea. I know that Duke Torvin chained your body with poison, but the mages will chain your souls with magic if you let them.”

Neither man reacted well to that news. In that moment, the reactions of the two very different dukes mirrored each other as they insisted there was nothing they could do. 

“You could resist their blandishments,” Lucas volunteered. “You could buy some alchemical concoctions to free yourself of Torvin’s chains and then stay far away from the throne and save your soul.”

Both of them insisted that they would. In that moment, they were probably even telling the truth, but Lucas wanted more than that. “The only way to foil them is to ensure there’s no king at all,” Lucas repeated in both encounters. “If there is only one man in power, then whoever controls that man controls the kingdom. If instead, things are put to a vote, and fifty nobles, or even a hundred, have a say, then whoever seeks to manipulate events must control a great number of men to stay in control.”

For Lucas, this was probably the best case. Even if he wanted the job, and he very sincerely did not, the only way that he was going to keep his people safe was to introduce a little chaos. No one could hunt him if they were too busy securing their own place in the pecking order. 

He doubted this world was ready for a true democracy, but even some kind of parliament would be a better choice; as an American, he had no idea how a parliament worked exactly, but he knew they had a House of Lords and Lordanin had no shortage of lords, so he was sure they’d figure it out. 

A bunch of greedy noblemen trying to loot the treasury wouldn’t do any worse than the dragoness had done. That would require actual work, and besides the Prince, Lucas had yet to meet anyone above a baron who struck him as someone who knew how to get things done. While he’d never been privy to exactly what the yearly tithe was, Heisenburgle had assured him that it was over a hundred pounds of gold and silver every year. 

Lord Jaravik tried to bring up the idea that the royal line had died because the dragon did, but Lucas dismissed it. One more lie wouldn’t hurt anything. This he hadn’t considered until the man brought it up, so he had to make it up as he went along. 

“You think a dragon controlled whether they lived or died?” he asked mockingly. “That’s just what the mages want you to think. They had to kill her at the same time they killed the prince, or it would have all been for naught; they lost a small army of mercenaries in the process, too. Expert dragon slayers, the lot of them, though I doubt you'll hear about that any time soon.”

“That’s not what Duke Torvin told us,” the duke protested, but Lucas kept up his mockery. 

“The story you’re telling me sounds pretty ridiculous,” Lucas answered with a sneer. “You really think one man could kill a wyrm like Sklara, and a piece of gutter trash at that? You’ve been reading too many fairy stories.”

That cowed the man, but even as he vanished into invisibility and left the way he’d come in, Lucas was less sure that he’d swayed him than the other duke. Still, he was out of time. 

I don’t need to fix this in one night, he reminded himself as he climbed down the outside of the structure and made his getaway. I just need to sow chaos. I can come back on another night and tell another group of nobles an entirely different story if I need to.

That was a dangerous game, of course. Turning allies against each other would be an easy way to cause a bloody civil war, but he doubted that the army or even the mages he was scapegoating would let things slip entirely out of control. Even a bad ruler would be a better choice than one with a personal axe to grind against him, though. 

That is why I pay the Knights of Brass, he told himself. A little blue and a few well-placed bribes should be enough to see us through any hardship. 

That was a nice idea in theory, but by the time he left Lord Jaravik’s estate and made his way back toward the gate, it was already a little light. Even if it had been pitch black, though, he still would have noticed the change. 

The streets in the area were absolutely mobbed with guards. They were stopping everyone at several points, and Lucas had to drink a second mana potion just to slip through without anyone getting close enough to identify him. 

That presence continued for a while, but by the time he reached the gate, the commotion he’d caused at the Torvin’s had practically emptied it of manpower. By sunrise, they should have gone back up to at least four guards on this gate, but he saw only a single young guardsman standing there anxiously, wondering what was going on. He was so distracted that Lucas bypassed him without any real effort. 

Then, after a quick jog to the inn, he was riding back down the road to Meadowin in the predawn light. It was nearly abandoned this time of day, and he saw only a few farmers in the fields. Really, it would have been a lovely day if not for the knowledge that he’d killed two men in cold blood. 

That was a stormcloud he couldn’t escape, no matter how far or fast he rode from his black deeds. Doing what he had to was a great line, but it did little to ward away the emotions that those deeds had inspired. 

By the time Lucas arrived at the farmhouse, Danaria was already up and in the garden, and he was forced to use his ring one final time to sneak into the house. That sent another pang of guilt right through him like a crossbow bolt, but he didn’t have another option. The last thing he wanted to do was lie to her about where he’d been, and telling her the truth wasn’t an option. 

Instead, he avoided the confrontation entirely and got a few scraps of sleep. When someone woke him hours later, he feigned illness, but even that wasn’t enough to send Mort away. “You have to get up,” he explained to Lucas. “The Duke is dead and things are, uhmmm, 'tiltin' toward blasted chaos.' Anyway, Kar’gandin said more, but I don't want to repeat it. He did insist you have to get dressed and come out to the barn right now, though.”

Lucas sighed heavily at that. Of course he’s behind this, Lucas sighed inwardly. He knows what I’ve been up to, and he’s determined that I have to suffer for it, one way or the other. 

Even as he got up and dressed, he ran into Danaria, who was as chipper as always, which forced him to act far happier than he felt. “Everyone seems so serious today,” she offered. “Is there something I should be worried about?”

“You?” he asked. “Nah. These are city problems. They won't reach us out here, and if they do, I got this.” Reassured, she smiled at that, leaving him to get some breakfast before he got another talking to from his crew. 

Ch. 183 - A Patient Urgency

He and his lieutenants and partners met in the barn as they had before because it was the only place on the property with a modicum of privacy that was large enough to contain so many people. Lucas didn’t say much at that meeting beyond what was expected of him. He listened and yawned while he drank strong tea, but whenever anyone suggested the need to do something immediately, he advised his gang that they should just monitor the developing situation.

Every time he used the word, “monitor,” or argued that they “shouldn’t do anything rash,” Kar’gandin glowered a little harder at him. Although he didn’t call Lucas out for his recent assassination of the Baron, it was obvious that he knew he’d done it. “We’ll all reap a bloody hornets nest in this chaos now,” the dwarf complained to no one in particular. “Just you wait and see. Whoever did this has doomed us all.”

He didn’t call Lucas out directly until the meeting was over and the two of them went to his lab to do a little inventory, as Kar’gandin called it. The only inventory he called out, though, was Lucas’s list of crimes, real and imagined, as he ticked them off one at a time with stubby fingers. 

“Don’t ye think there will be retribution?” the dwarf asked. “The Gods damned whisperers might be here already spying on us.”

“Tomorrow maybe,” Lucas said with a nod, “But today, I think they’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Kar’gandin didn’t believe him until he told him about the mage, and how he’d used him to frame the Mages’ Guild and throw the other scheming nobles off the scent, but that only enraged the dwarf more. 

“Bah! Mages!” the dwarf roared. “Bloody mages are the only things worse than dragons! That’s two hornet's nests! Let me ask you, junior, why is it that with so much doom hanging over our heads, we aren’t leaving the city already? There’s plenty of other places to settle down and start up operations!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lucas answered as he looked through one of the miscellaneous crates he had to see what he had to work with. “I’ve got a wedding to plan for.”

“Well, we can pack now, and then after that we can be on our way and—” Kar’gandin started to offer a middle ground approach, but Lucas quickly rebuffed him. 

“We aren’t going anywhere. It’s going to be fine,” he told the dwarf. “Listen, things might get messy, but I doubt the city will burn. There’s too much to fight over. All the power players have died, and the rest will have to reach some kind of accord. And then? Well, think of it, man. Chaos. That's where the money is made.”

“Over your dead body,” the dwarf grumbled. 

“Possible, but unlikely,” Lucas countered. “Lord Torvin wanted me dead for reasons that were both personal and professional. I had a little birdy tell me that he—”

“Ye’ve got your bride to be spying for you?” the dwarf gasped. 

Lucas shook his head. “No, not an actual bird,” he sighed. “I would never involve her. It’s a figure of speech. What I mean is I had an informant tell me that I was about to be taken out as soon as the supply of blue was locked in elsewhere. Maybe we could have run, but for what? The manor might be gone, but this village is our home now, for better or worse.”

“My home is five hundred feet beneath the sheet stone escarpments of the Keldarian Range, where political assassinations are unheard of,” the dwarf scowled. “All of this is just business, and I can do that business anywhere.”

“And if you want to leave, you can,” Lucas answered. “I won’t blame you for it.”

Against a lesser man, Lucas might have tried a little reverse psychology here. He might have said, ‘If you’re afraid of what comes next,’ or something along those lines, but he respected the dwarf too much for that.

“Aye, and if things turn violent, maybe I will, but for now… well, if you’re the one makin’ the product, I can’t exactly move on without ye’, now can I?” the dwarf answered. 

Lucas started to smile at that, but quickly suppressed it because he knew Kar’gandin wouldn’t care for anything more emotional than simple camaraderie or celebration. Still, he knew there was loyalty hiding there behind that profit motive, and he appreciated it. 

Still, there was little they could do beyond sending a little extra money to the Knights of Brass to buy their loyalty ahead of time, and sending out a few free samples and other gifts to some of their best customers in the hopes of hearing some news. The same distance from the city that protected them,  isolated them, and the fact that their little organization was so unimportant to most everyone who was still breathing was a blessing as much as it was a curse. 

Fortunately, Lucas wouldn’t have had it any other way. The situation made him powerless to decide what was going to happen, but the last thing he wanted was to end up in charge of everyone. So, after deciding that there was no true emergency, he went into town to see about a suit and what payment, if any, was needed for a dress so that he wasn’t tempted to go right back to bed. 

The walk did him good, but that was the only part. Mr. Twill was obviously still none too pleased to see him, and his reception was an icy one. 

“I understand my bride-to-be is running up quite the bill,” Lucas started, trying to be magnanimous. “I’ve come to settle accounts.”

“I’m sure you’ll be wanting a suit then too,” the tailor said coolly. “Any specific alterations in this one? Perhaps hidden sheathes for poisons or daggers?”

“No, none of that,” Lucas answered, trying to play it off as a joke even though he knew it wasn’t. “I’m looking to keep the fighting far away from Meadowin.”

“Are you?” the tailor asked. “Perhaps that would be more effective if you were further from it.”

“What makes you say that?” Lucas asked, wondering what he was getting at. It could be a lot of things. One of his men might have let slip his role in the dragon’s untimely death, or as an assassin, he might be able to see killers the same way that Lucas could detect herbs at a distance. 

Mr Twill didn’t give him a straight answer. Instead, he changed topics. “We live in dangerous times, that’s all. Now on to the particulars, I think….”

He was still very professional, of course, but when other people, especially his daughter, entered the room, his demeanor thawed remarkably. He obviously did not like the fact that Lucas knew his real profession, though, and he didn’t seem inclined to forget that little detail any time soon.

By the time Lucas was done, he’d half emptied his coin purse and left only with the assurances that everything would be ready sometime next week, but then that was all he’d expected to leave with. Danaria would have killed him if he’d tried to pick up her dress. 

After that, he visited the cobbler, his favorite herbalist who would be moonlighting as a florist for him, and the baker to see about a cake. All of those errands went better than the tailor had, and he was bombarded with compliments and well wishes instead of paranoid barbs, reinforcing his decision to stay here. 

The closest that Casarra came to implying that he might not be welcome was “What is it about men like you that end up with women like Danaria?”

“Men like me?” Lucas asked, pretending to be hurt.

“Yeah, ruthless jerks that think they’re above the law,” she answered. It sounded harsh, but he could tell by the smile on her face when she said it that she meant well. 

“Above the law?” he laughed, “I don’t think I’m the only one here guilty of making bootleg healing potions, missy.”

“Healing potions are a far cry from where you really make your money…” the redhead countered. 

“Touche,” Lucas admitted, ignoring her look of confusion at the word. “Well, maybe when all this is said and done, we can change that. No one says I have to make blue potions forever. Maybe we can invest those profits in something we can all be proud of, no matter what the guilds have to say on the subject.”

They parted on good terms, but his appreciation for the small town life only increased when he ran into Danaria as he was leaving the bakery. Lucas was dog tired by then, but not so tired that he didn’t stick around to hold her hand and bring back the bread she’d come to buy for everyone’s lunch. The baskets weren’t so heavy that she needed his help, of course, but it was too cute not to.

Maybe I can become the god of villages, he thought hopefully as he enjoyed the walk back to the farmhouse, arm in arm with the beautiful girl that would be his wife in a few short weeks.

That walk, and the lunch that followed, kept him up long enough that he knew he’d missed his opportunity to nap, but he no longer cared. It was a nice day, and he made a point not to waste those. By evening, a few notes from their loyal customers, and one longer missive from Sir Tristian reassuring Lucas that they would be able to rely on each other in the dark days ahead, however they turned out. 

While Lucas had no way of knowing if that was true, the noble’s notes about what was happening behind the scenes were more promising. One mentioned that the fragile alliance that Duke Torvin had cobbled together was collapsing, though the author had little to say about the murder specifically. Another mentioned that they were going to flee to their country estate for the time being because of the Duke's death, but made no mention of who had done it, while a third mentioned that the mages were under suspicion of assassinating the Prince and coopting the government. 

It sounded like a mess, but not a mess that he was mixed up in, and that was good enough for now, because he was way too busy to do any fighting just yet.