Chapter 4 (Part III): Snake Oil

The woman who’d been accompanying boorish young man retrieved Azraea's knife and handed it to her, “Well, I guess, he won’t be the first man to leave this neighborhood with a burning sensation down there,” she commented, “but I think people will be telling this story for a while.”

“I’m glad to provide some entertainment,” Azraea took her knife, “Thanks. Have a nice morning.”

“Wait up!” The woman said as she quickly walked to catch up.

“I’m just passing through,” Azraea said.

“I’m not trying to sell you anything,” the woman said, “I mean, unless you’re buying…? No? No, of course not. I just... are you the woman from the market?”

Azraea paused, “What woman?”

“You are, aren’t you?! You’re the one that mouthed off to the dragon in the downtown market!” That drew some interest from other passersby, but the woman hooked her arm through Azraea’s and hurried her further along the street like a client.

“How do you know about that?” Azraea asked.

“It was in all of the papers!” the woman explained, “Have you been hiding under a rock since then?”

“I nearly got into a catfight with a dragon,” Azraea said quietly, “Wouldn’t you?”

“Ha!” the woman said, “Fair point. Where are you going?”

“I was trying to find my way to Old Town…”

“Not spent much time in this part of the city? That’s okay, just follow me!”

“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your plans for the day…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that – my last shift ended when you cooked that John’s sausage.”

“I’m sorry…?”

“Don’t be; he paid half up front,” the woman pulled her briskly down the street, “I’m Samantha, by the way!”

“Hi Samantha… I’m Azraea… why are you…”

“Helping you leave as quickly as possible? My boss doesn’t really like it when new girls come in to the neighborhood, especially if they aren’t in his ledger. Really doesn’t like it when they light customers on fire.”

“Has that happened often?”

“Never, actually, but I think it’s a safe bet I’m right.” She slowed down as they entered another residential area, “But for real, you’re the one in the papers?”

“I haven’t seen the papers, but I guess so. What’s been going on?”

“Oh what hasn’t been going on?” Samantha said, “The heralds went crazy over all of that stuff. The Gnoman gold, the fire, the dragon getting angry – depending on which street corner you go to, you’re either a minor folk hero or a terrorist.”

“Well, if we could avoid the terrorist corners that would be good.”

“Huh? Oh yeah!” Samantha stopped, “Yeah, there’s people looking for you. There are posters of you and everything.”

“Ah, that’s how you recognized me.”

The woman laughed, “No. I’m sorry honey, but that poster they’ve spread around looks pretty much like every black girl in the city to me. It was the attitude you displayed back there that was unmistakable.”

“That’s good, I guess?”

“Oh, you’ll laugh when you see the wanted poster. I think the dragon must have been the one that provided the description. Under ‘height’ and ‘weight’ it just says ‘human’.” They walked a little further chatting when Samantha excitedly pulled Azraea over to a corner; there was a flyer pinned to the wooden wall with an arrow, to signify its importance. Samantha pulled it down to show her, “See! They don’t bother putting up many of these here in the north end but there are a few.”

Azraea took the paper from her and studied it as they continued walking. She was right; the picture of her was very generic. Kaira’s picture was a little more distinctive, simply because of her explicitly non-elvish hair, but with Kaira safely out of town, that was a nonissue. She read through the text; apparently they were both wanted for questioning in an investigation pertaining to a Gnoman plot to destroy Caelia’s economy through “terroristic alchemy”.

“There’s no reward offered,” Azraea said, “I feel a bit insulted.”

Samantha shrugged, “You ask me, she doesn’t want you brought in yet.”

“She?”  

“Oh, yeah, under-a-rock; right. The king’s appointed Syliva as his chief counsel, and put her in charge of investigating the conspiracy. These posters went up right afterward.”

Azraea paused for a moment. They had entered the residential portion of Old Town. It was a very different environment from the rough neighborhood Samantha had whisked her away from. While the streets in northern Old Town were technically public, they felt distinctly private and intimate. The buildings were so tightly spaced that laundry lines crisscrossed overhead, people shouted to one another from balconies, and children played safely on the cobblestone streets, which were too narrow for any carts or wagons to navigate. The neighborhoods south of Old Town were places where everyone knew everyone else – even though some of the people here shared her skin tone, everyone here would know she didn’t belong here.

“What makes you say she doesn’t want me brought in?”

“Oh, I’m not especially knowledgeable about these sorts of things, but it all seems a lot like a set up to me.”

“A set up?”

“Yeah, a hustle,” Samantha said, “My dad used to say that the two most important things you had to do to sell snake oil was to convince someone that they had a snake, and then to convince them that said snake was inadequately oiled.”

“Really?” Azraea was amused, but wasn’t sure if the young prostitute was trying to make her laugh.

“Oh, yes ma’am. Now, I’m no hustler, but I’ve bedded enough straight women and gay men to know that the premise is true. You want to sell something you got, you gotta convince people they need it, even if they don’t. The way I see it, she’s selling something, and needs people like you in the headlines to create demand.”

“People like me?” Azraea raised an eyebrow.

“Well, you know…” Samantha didn’t seem to know a tactful way to finish the sentence, so she just let it trail off.

Azraea didn’t know how to feel about this. She’d come here wanting to get Syliva’s attention; she'd wanted to rattle the dragon's cage and she had apparently succeeded greatly in that regard. She was also grateful that she hadn’t rattled Syliva out of the city yet, since it sounded like they weren’t exactly ready for her in Defiance. 
That said, she hadn’t intended to hand the dragon a quiver full of political ammunition. At this rate, she might as well be the reptile’s accomplice.