The trouble with spies, Aurélie Cerveau reflected, was that they were all liars.

They had to be, of course. Lying was their métier. An honest spy was as unlikely as an abstentious consort, or a teetotal vintner. And the best spies were artists whose medium was deceit.

But that very quality which made them effective also made them dangerous. A spy’s loyalty was always for sale, and, as much as one might pay, one could never be certain that someone else hadn’t paid more.

Which was why, even as Aurélie felt the weight of the purse she carried in one hand, she kept her black-bladed dagger in the other.

Beneath the vaulted pont, moonlight reflected across the slumbering river. In the distance, crickets chirped, and a single mule brayed.

The spy was late.

Aurélie slipped back into the shadows beneath the bridge’s cavernous arch, and she found herself wishing acutely that Patrice were with her. Her hood-eyed spymaster had been cultivating this particular contact for months, and knew the woman on sight, whereas Aurélie had naught but a second-hand description to work from. More than that, though, Patrice had been a master of finely-calibrated deceit. If spies were artists who worked in lies, then Patrice was her maestro. He had seemed to understand – almost intuitively – what would motivate any particular agent to do his bidding, be it belief, or conscience, or gold. And, while Patrice was a master at winning the loyalty of those who entered into his service, he was equally adept at finding out those guilty secrets which he needed to keep it, too.

Aurélie had been able to rely on Patrice, and, by extension, his vast network of agents. But now he was dead, and she was left to make such judgments on her own.

Aurélie trusted her judgment. It was, on the whole, quite good. But it was not infallible. And, in the months since much of the Standing Committee of her People’s Revolution had been put to the sword, she was beginning to worry that it might also have become overtaxed.

Still, there were certain problems which Aurélie Cerveau knew she could not entrust to anyone else. Not Beatrix. Not even Remy. Certainly not Henri.

No, Aurélie thought. Some problems required a Committee of one.

Just then, Aurélie heard rustling in the rushes along the opposite bank. A hooded figure materialized from the darkness at the foot of the bridge, before stepping forward to the river’s edge.

On her side of the river, Aurélie did likewise. She adjusted her grip on her dagger, which she kept ready behind her back, and she made no move to show her face from beneath her hooded cloak.

“Do you often fish at night?” the figure on the opposite bank asked, in a voice just above a whisper.

“I do,” Aurélie replied. “But the trout seldom bite.”

With their exchange of passphrases complete, both women regarded each other silently for a moment. Then the spy cleared her throat, and spoke.

“I thought I made it clear in my letter,” she said, “that we were never to meet. My position is delicate – particularly now. By summoning me here, you have exposed me to grave danger.”

“My apologies,” Aurélie said, “but it has become essential that we speak.” She held up the purse, and gave it a small shake, so that the gold within jingled. “I am well aware of the risks you take on the People’s behalf, and, for those risks, I can promise that you will be properly compensated.”

“Put the purse on the ground,” the hooded woman said. “And step away to one side.”

Aurélie did as she was told.

Another moment passed in silence. Even the crickets seemed to grow quiet.

“What do you want?” the woman asked.

“The preparations you note in your report,” Aurélie said, “are impressive, and it seems you have followed Patrice’s instructions to the letter. But I fear the situation has changed.”

“Changed?” the woman asked. “How?”

“The timetable you propose will not work,” Aurélie said. “It must be brought forward.”

The woman shook her head.

“What you ask cannot be done,” she said. “This affair has been months in the planning. Commitments have been made, bribes have been paid. The Vicomtesse’s soiree cannot simply be rescheduled.”

“Precisely,” Aurélie said. “Which is why we must alter our plans. Perrine Labelle is no fool. She will have spies of her own. No matter how discreet you have been – and I have no doubt you have been the very soul of discretion – she will have learned of our plans by now. So we must assume that she will be ready for us. And that means that our strike must come from a different place.”

The hooded woman shook her head again – angrily.

“You would abandon months of preparation – months! – on the ground that our efforts may have been compromised? Not have, mind you, but may have?”

“It gives me no pleasure,” Aurélie said. “But it must be done.”

“I have made preparations which cannot be unmade!” the woman insisted. “My people are in place. I cannot pull them out without raising suspicion.”

“Rest assured, an alternative plan has been devised,” Aurélie said. “One which cannot be traced back to you.”

“Even so,” the woman said, “the Vicomtesse will not return to Voûte-Sud before the soiree, and she will depart again directly after. I have arranged to place no fewer than three agents within arm’s reach of her. Alternative plan or not, you will get no other chance of this kind.”

“Again, it gives me no pleasure,” Aurélie said, “but I fear it must be done.”

“The decision is yours,” the woman said, unhappily. “What would you have me do?”

“For the present, nothing,” Aurélie said. “Simply maintain your position, and do not draw unnecessary attention to yourself. You will receive further instructions nearer the time, at your usual drop.” She nudged the coin purse with her booted foot. “In the meantime, I pray that this small token of my appreciation will ease any discomfiture you may have suffered.”

Aurélie bowed – a courtesy which the hooded woman did not return.

“I suggest you count to one hundred after I have gone,” Aurélie said, “before crossing the bridge. It would not do for us to be seen together, even in passing.”

Then Aurélie bowed again, and walked off along the riverbank.

There was a recess carved into one side of the abutment, where the bridge master kept her odds and ends. Once she was out of sight, Aurélie slipped inside that little void, and pulled her cloak tight. Breathing silently through thick fabric, she counted in her head.

She was on one hundred and seventy-seven when the spy came into view.

Aurélie waited for the hooded woman to bend down to pick up the coin purse. Then she crept up behind the spy, and slit her throat.

Aurélie Cerveau held her hand over the dying spy’s mouth until her struggling ceased, and the woman went limp in her arms. Then she wiped her dagger on the dead woman’s coat, until the charcoal-black blade was clean.

Aurélie cut the dead spy’s cloak open, and fished through the pockets of her blood-slick uniform until she found what she was looking for: a gold signet ring, with an amethyst in the shape of a fleur-de-lis.

Then Aurélie took the coin purse from the dead woman’s hand, and she rolled the body into the river.

The trouble with spies, Aurélie Cerveau reflected, as she watched the corpse bob along on the current, before being swept away, was that they were all liars. A spy’s loyalty was always for sale, and, as much as one might pay, one could never be certain that someone else hadn’t paid more.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. There was one way to be certain.

Aurélie Cerveau slipped the signet ring and the coin purse into her own pocket, and she disappeared back into the night.

Aloise Hartley took a step into the room, then stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oh, my,” she said.

A gently-glowing orb appeared above her head, from where it bathed the high-ceilinged loft in soft light.

“Oh, my,” Aloise said again, as she craned her neck to survey the scene. “Was she…? I mean…?” Aloise’s mouth hung slightly open. “Oh, my.”

Beryl stepped into the room behind Aloise, and her gaze followed the blonde’s.

“Yeah,” Beryl said, and sighed. “She was here.”

With a wave of her hand, Aloise sent her light to hover beneath the tall rafters, from where it illuminated the whole, sordid tableau. Bottles of all colors and sizes carpeted the floor like a glass mosaic. They seemed to being in widely varying states of fullness, and, in more than one place, puddled wine stained the timbers red. There were two tables in the center of the room, although one of them was on its side, and a faded settee lay wedged in the corner nearest the window, with all its cushions gone. At least one of the pillows seemed to be somehow perched up among the rafters; the others were nowhere to be seen. And the entire room was festooned with bits of hastily-jettisoned clothing, which hung from the fixtures like flowers at a wedding.

“Yeah,” said Beryl, as she picked her way between bottles to the middle of the room, and picked up a lacy undergarment from one of the few upright chairs. “She was here.”

On the table next to the chair, there was a glass of some potent-smelling liquid, and also a mug of tea. Beryl dipped her finger into the mug. The tea was still warm.

“She was here recently,” Beryl said. “Very recently.”

“Well, she certainly isn’t here now,” Aloise said, as she charted a similarly-careful course through the glass minefield. “What does that mean?”

“It means she saw we were coming, before she left,” Beryl said. “It means she… doesn’t want to see me.”

“Why?” Aloise said. There was a door on the opposite side of the room, which she was working her way towards. “Why doesn’t she want to see you?”

“I don’t know,” Beryl said, quietly, and shook her head. “Maybe she… Maybe I… Maybe we…”

Beryl sighed, and closed her eye. She shook her head again.

“I’m afraid that… that maybe I hurt her,” she said. “That maybe she needed me, and I… let her down.”

“How?” Aloise said. “How did you hurt her? How did you let her down?”

Beryl sank into the nearby chair.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

She glanced up at Aloise, who was looking back at her.

“She needs help, Aloise,” Beryl said. “Only, I’m not sure I know how to help her. But what I do know is that I have to try.”

“I know,” Aloise said, softly. “And you will. But first, Beryl, she has to want to be helped.”

“Yeah,” Beryl said. “I know. I guess I was hoping that, maybe, now that a little time had passed?” Beryl’s voice trailed off, and she gestured around the room. “But I guess she just… didn’t want to see me.”

“We don’t know that for sure. She could be—”

Aloise’s voice cut-out in mid-sentence. She had opened the door, and taken a peek through it, before slamming it shut again. She put a hand over her mouth, and made a small, startled noise.

“Beryl,” Aloise said, her blue eyes wide as saucers, “there’s a mermaid in the next room!”

Aloise again opened the door by a crack, and cast a second, furtive glance into the room beyond, before slamming the door closed again, and pressing her back up against it.

“Beryl, there are two mermaids in the next room,” Aloise said. “Sleeping. And a merman, too. And they’re all naked.”

Aloise’s face was beet red, and, in spite of herself, Beryl smiled.

“Yeah,” Beryl said, and laughed. “She was here, all right.”

“Beryl,” Aloise said, quietly, before trailing-off for a second.

She cleared her throat, then tried again.

“Beryl, did you and she…? I mean, when the two of you were together, did you and she—”

“—No,” Beryl said, quickly. “No. We never did. Never.”

Aloise looked Beryl in the eye.

“But you did…?”

“Kiss her,” Beryl said, before looking away. “Yes. I did kiss her.”

“Twice?”

“Twice.”

Aloise was silent, and now it was Beryl’s turn to blush. She could feel her cheeks burning as she prayed for Aloise to understand.

Beryl could see the air around her starting to shimmer, could feel the fire licking at her fingertips, and she carefully slid the open glass of liquor further across the tabletop, lest it ignite.

“And… did you like it?” Aloise asked, voice quavering. “I mean, did you like kissing her?”

Beryl looked up, and found Aloise staring at her.

“Yes,” Beryl said, and she forced herself to look straight at Aloise, and to keep looking at her, even when she saw the hurt flash across Aloise’s blue eyes. “I did like kissing her. But…”

“But?”

“But I didn’t love her,” Beryl said. “I don’t love her.”

She shook her head.

“I love you, Aloise,” Beryl said. “I have only ever loved you.”

For a minute, the two women just stared at each other. Then Aloise smiled, and blinked, and, when she opened her eyes again, the hurt was gone.

For a second, Beryl closed her own eye, and she felt her heart start to beat again.

“I love you, Aloise,” Beryl said again.

“I know,” Aloise said, and smiled. “Took you long enough to say it, though.”

“I know,” Beryl said, and smiled back.

Aloise crossed the room to where Beryl sat, and bent her knees so that the two women were at eye level.

“Aloise, I’m sorry,” Beryl started to say, but Aloise put a finger on Beryl’s lips, and she fell silent.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Aloise said, “as long as you like kissing me, too.”

Then she leaned forward and kissed Beryl on the lips – softly, at first, but then not-so-softly, and, the longer they were together, the more Beryl felt the desire that she felt whenever Aloise was close, until her heart was pounding in her ears like a stampede, and her whole body was on fire.

By the time the kiss ended, and Aloise drew away, Beryl could feel her breath coming in short, needy gasps, and her skin tingling. Beneath her fingertips, the wooden arm of the chair smoldered.

“Did you like that?” Aloise said. Her blue eyes flickered, and the corners of her mouth drew up into a grin.

Beryl opened her mouth to speak, but she found that her voice did not work. So, instead, she pulled Aloise to her, and she kissed her again, and again, and again, until the rest of the Multiverse faded away into nothingness, and there was only light, and heat, and Aloise.

When Beryl’s hand finally slipped away from the back of Aloise’s neck, Beryl saw a smile on the blonde’s lips.

“You do seem like you liked that,” Aloise said.

“Yeah,” Beryl said, in-between breaths that were close to gasps. “You could say that I did.”

“In that case,” Aloise said, “we need to find this friend of yours, so that I can thank her for bringing you back to me.”

Then Aloise gave Beryl one last kiss on the cheek, before standing back up straight, and stretching her sore legs.

“So,” Aloise said, as she raised her arms over her head, and flexed her back. “On that topic, how do we find this friend of yours?”

“I don’t know,” Beryl said, and shook her head. “We barely managed to track her down this time, and that was mostly dumb luck. I’m honestly not sure how to find her again – especially if she doesn’t want to be found. It won't be easy. Maybe–”

It was only then that Beryl noticed something which she hadn’t noticed before.

Earlier, when she had slid the drink across the table, she had apparently disturbed its other contents as well, and now, peeking out from beneath the folds of a discarded silk chemise, she could see what looked very much like the corner of an Aubedore card.

Carefully, Beryl extracted the card from beneath the wine-stained chemise, and she held it up in the air for Aloise to see.

It was The Magician.

“I may not know how to find her,” Beryl said. “But I know someone else who might.”

It was nearly midday when Daneera found herself at the edge of the pond, and she was surprised to see that the orc was there, too. He didn’t seem to care much for the heat, in so far as she’d been able to tell, and so she usually only bumped into him in the early morning, or in the evening twilight, after the sun had crossed beneath the distant, purple treeline. To find him still sitting on the bank at the height of the day was rare, particularly given that summer was now in full-flower, and the sun was making itself well-known.

“Catch anything?” Daneera asked, as she knelt down on the mossy bank, and began filling the water jugs she’d carried with her from Kerik’s cabin.

“Not so much as a nibble,” the orc said, without sounding overly put-out about it. “If that changes, you’ll be the first to know. Well, the second anyway.” He drank something from the cask which he held in one hand, before waving to her from across the pond. “You sure you won’t join me? I have an extra pole.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Daneera said, as she stoppered the first of the water jugs, and began filling the second. “Fishing has never been one of my vices.”

“Well, that probably makes you wiser than I,” the orc said. “I happen to find it a suitably diverting pursuit, just so long as you don’t actually care about catching any fish.”

The orc laughed at his own joke, and Daneera offered him a polite smile.

Daneera wasn’t quite sure what to make of the orc. He was the only orc she had met on Mortava, and her previous experiences with his kind on other worlds had been almost uniformly negative. Orcs tended, in her experience, to have an unfortunate predilection for trying to eat anything which they thought might fit inside them, which was usually coupled with a high opinion of their own ability to digest people of Daneera’s size. Such encounters tended to end poorly.

But the fisherman orc was unfailingly genial, on those occasions when she had run into him, and, if he harbored any digestive intent towards the huntress, he was keeping it well hidden. Instead, his only preoccupation appeared to be angling, even though it was a pursuit he was conspicuously unsuccessful at.

The orc had grayish-green skin, of a tone which Daneera wouldn’t have thought could be found in nature. He invariably wore a straw hat with a broad, floppy brim, and a shirt which looked like it might once have cost money, but had since faded into terminal disrepair, until it was really more patches than shirt. The orc always wore a pair of waxed canvas waders, but Daneera had never once seen him enter the water. And, even had he been so inclined – which he did not appear to be – he had anyway cut holes for his feet in the bottom of each pant leg, which rather defeated the purpose of wearing waders. Instead, the orc would be sitting on the bank, with three fishing lines simultaneously in the water – one pole in held normally in his hand, the other two gripped somewhat precariously by green, curled toes. His “free” hand always held a cask of some sort, and, while Daneera had never actually asked as to its contents, she assumed they were potent, whatever they were.

“Drinking is the best thing about fishing,” he’d once told her. “Find a drunk, put a pole in his other hand, and, suddenly, he’s not a drunk anymore – he’s an angler.”

As Daneera finished filling the second jug, the orc started whistling a tune, which Daneera couldn’t quite recognize, but which seemed familiar.

“You know, I don’t actually know your name,” Daneera said, as she dipped the mouth of her third and final jug beneath the pond’s still surface. “I’m Daneera, by the way.”

“Well met, Daneera,” the orc said. His intonation took on a pretend formality, and he punctuated his words with what Daneera thought was – for someone who was holding three fishing poles and a cask – a very creditable salute. “As for my name, I fear it is problematically orcish. Some of our words can be difficult to pronounce without a throat full of phlegm – which my people usually have.” He looked thoughtful for a second, before his gaze came to rest on the bits of brightly-colored cork which marked where his lines vanished into the murky pond. “Why don’t you call me Bobber?” he said. “That seems like a good enough name, and we can both of us say it without spitting, which tends to make for a more polite conversation.”

“Well met, Bobber,” Daneera said, doing her best to mimic the orc’s overly-formal tone. “I accept your proposal.”

“Marvelous,” the orc said, and laughed again. “Our newfound accord represents my sole achievement of the day.”

Daneera glanced at the orc’s cork bobbers, which sat conspicuously still.

“When was the last time you actually caught something?” Daneera asked.

“Longer ago than I care to remember,” the orc said.

Daneera smiled, and shook her head.

“I think you may have to face up to the possibility that there are no fish left in this pond,” she said.

“The thought had occurred to me,” the orc said. “Believe you me.” He adjusted the brim of his hat, and took another drink from his cask. “But I choose to remain optimistic, and I am also stubborn by nature. So I continue to bait hooks, on the off-chance that the lunker is still down there somewhere. Can’t catch him without a line in the water, after all.”

“I suppose you can’t,” Daneera said. With the third and final jug full, she wedged the stopper into its mouth.

“Still, I don’t suppose you’d have a spell for me, then?” the orc asked. “Summon a trout or two, maybe? I’d even take some minnows.”

Daneera cocked her head a bit to one side.

“Now what makes you think I would?” she said.

“Oh, just a guess,” the orc said, and grinned a toothy grin. “I have some sense for who you are – and what you are. I’ve been around, you see, and I’m not quite so dumb as I look.” He shrugged. “Now, normally, I wouldn’t intrude – everybody’s got a right to keep themselves to themselves, that’s my philosophy. But, seeing as we’re now on a first-name basis, I hope you don’t find it presumptuous of me to inquire.”

Daneera took a moment to consider her reply. In the end, she decided on truthfulness, partly because it had the virtue of being the path of least resistance, but also partly because she had genuinely come to like the fishing orc, albeit in a weird sort of way. His companionship was easy, which was more than Daneera could say for most sapient beings she’d encountered. And, as far as she could tell, the orc was hardly dangerous, except in so much as he clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice, and, if he got going on one of his interminable stories, there was always the risk of falling asleep of boredom, and rolling into the pond.

“Afraid you’re out of luck,” she told the orc. “Fish aren’t really my thing. Probably the closest I could do for you would be a giant crocodile. Or maybe a marsh boa.”

The orc laughed.

“I won’t lie,” he said, “I’m almost tempted by the crocodile, if only for the experience. But prudence counsels that it wouldn’t do to try to make a meal of something which has similar designs on me, and even bigger teeth than mine. So I suppose I shall decline.”

Daneera hoisted the filled water jugs onto her back, and waved the orc farewell.

“Goodbye, Bobber,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you again next week.”

“It is a distinct possibility,” the orc said, returning her wave. “Fare thee well, Daneera.”

The huntress was about to turn and leave when, suddenly, the surface of the pond rippled, and one of the colored corks bobbed anxiously up and down. The fisherman orc looked almost taken aback, and it took him a second before he shifted the relevant pole from a foot to his hands.

“Got something?” Daneera asked, lingering by the edge of the pond to watch.

“Only one way to tell,” the orc said, as he began reeling in the line.

For a second, then, the water danced, although it was difficult to tell if that was due to the movement of the line, or whatever might be waiting at its end. Soon enough, though, an odd shape could be seen just beneath the pond’s surface.

With a laugh, and a chagrinned expression on his face, the orc gave the reel a final spin. What he extracted from the water was not the lunker of yore, but an old, dripping cask, which his hook had somehow snagged.

“And here I’d been wondering where that had gotten to,” the orc said, as he disentangled the waterlogged container from his line. “Suppose it serves me right, for not keeping better tabs on my rubbish.”

“Not exactly the big one,” Daneera said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” the orc said. He turned the cask upside down, and poured the water out. “I might just have this one stuffed and mounted. I think it would look good above my mantle.” He nodded at Daneera. “What do you think?”

“I think you should keep baiting those hooks,” Daneera said. “That’s what I think.”

“Hope does spring eternal,” the orc said.

“That it does,” Daneera said. “That it does.”

Daneera spared one last glance back as she returned to the forest. The orc, she saw, had already re-cast his line, and was sitting contentedly on the bank with cask in hand and bait on hooks, as he waited for the lunker, just in case.

Orcish Fisherman
- M
Creature - Orc

: Draw a card. If the drawn card was a Fish, you may reveal it. If you do, Transform Orcish Fisherman.

0/1
"I'll keep baiting hooks, on the off-chance that the lunker is still down there somewhere."

///

Bobber, Veteran Angler
- M
Planeswalker - Bobber

0: Put a 10/10 Legendary Fish creature token named "The Lunker" onto the battlefield.
-1: Draw a card for each Fish you control.

3
"I'm not quite as dumb as I look."

“How much?” the woman said.

“Ten thousand,” the man said.

The woman pursed her lips.

“That’s too much,” she said.

The man wagged a finger.

“You are in no position to bargain,” he said. “I have something you want. Either you meet my price, or we have nothing to discuss.”

The man smiled. His smile was not kind.

“I don’t have the ten thousand,” the woman said.

“That’s most unfortunate,” the main said. “When we last met in Aureg, I was clear about terms.”

“Things change,” the woman said.

“That’s as may be,” the man said. “But I don’t see why I should be made the worse for it.”

“I can raise two thousand, at most,” the woman said. “Given time. And I will pay. But I need your half of the bargain now.”

“The full ten thousand,” the man said. “Or I walk.”

“I don’t have it.”

The man shook his head, finished his drink, and made to stand up.

“Since it is clear we are not going to come to an agreement,” he said, “I will bid you good day.”

He nodded at her.

“Feel free to look me up when you have the money,” he said.

She was on him before he could shout.

Moving behind the man, she slipped one arm around his neck, then swept his legs with hers and took a step back, so that she had him at an angle, and was carrying his weight. His face turned red, then blue, as she choked him, and he thrashed with his arms, but there was little he could do. With her free hand, she pressed her gun into his back.

“Since you don’t seem to grasp the terms of our new arrangement,” she said, “let me make them clear. I am leaving here today with what I came to get. That is not open to negotiation. The only thing that is open to negotiation is whether you give me what I want, and I let you live, or whether I take it off of your dead body. Do you understand?”

The man tried to say something, but he could do little more than choke.

The woman took a step forward, so that the man was more upright, and less of his weight was on her arm.

“Do you understand?” she said again.

“Yes!” the man croaked. “Yes.”

“Now we’re making progress,” the woman said. “Is she alive?”

“Yes!” the main said.

“You know this for sure?”

“No,” the man said, before hastening to add: “But I have it on good sources.”

“Is she alright?” the woman said. “Are they taking care of her? Did they hurt her?”

“I don’t know!” the man said, then said it again when she pressed the gun harder into his ribs. “All I know is where they took her!”

“Where?” the woman said. “Where did they take her?”

“There’s an envelope,” the man said. “In my coat pocket.” He was gasping for breath, and his face was swollen blue.

The woman flipped her gun back into her sleeve, and, without loosing her grip on the man’s neck, she reached around and inside his coat, where she found a paper envelope, which she took.

“This it?” she said, holding it out for the man to see?

“Yes!” he said. “Yes!”

“Good,” the woman said. She slipped the envelope into her own pocket.

“You got what you want, dammit!” the man said. “Now let me go!”

The woman flipped her gun back out, and pulled both triggers.

For a minute, she listened to the whistle of stale air escaping the man’s lungs. Then he went slack in her arms, and she let his body fall.

The woman loosened her neckerchief, which she used to wipe the man’s blood from her black-and-white coat. Then, once her hands were clean, she took the envelope from her pocket, and tore it open.

Inside was a single train ticket to someplace called Fortune’s Folly. One way, second class.

On the back, someone had written: “Talk to the station master. Ask for Red.”

“I intend to,” the woman said.