Clasq was tormented by a bedevilment of imps. Clouds of the little bastards swooped about his head and exhaled their sulfurous breath around his ears. They were a screeching cacophony, half a hundred foul-smelling, cantankerous denizens of the Infernal Realms diving and rising like starlings. "Begone!" he shouted, "Begone with you!" Clasq swiped at them with a rolled-up broadsheet, but they were quick to rise beyond his reach. Each time he missed, he was greeted to a horrific face in miniature making some mocking expression or, sometimes, the exposed crotch and a puckered Infernal asshole.
"Suck my cock, pact-slave," piped a diminutive voice from somewhere in the haze of devils. Clasq knew that sing-song tone, would have known it anywhere, for it was the very voice he heard each night when he crawled into bed. The other imps squawked at him to purchase only the finest oak gall ink from Alasart's Inkworks, or to relieve his aches with Vyeran's Balms (Prepared With Real Chimera Heart), or to head to the Crimson Whore and give himself the sweet relief of oblivion; despite their grimaces and the gestures they made to their genitals, the other imps were under an iron interdiction only to hawk the wares of their masters.
Azu alone was free to curse him and spit the foulest meanness, because Azu alone was his.
"Come down here, you disgusting creature," Clasq demanded.
Despite the fact that Azu (self-styled Azumaryndor, Seventh Marquess of the Infernal Realms) was nominally Clasq's slave, assigned to him by the machinations of the debt-bond and the Armorian government through the contract some high-placed magus had made with the Infernal Princes, Azu spent most of his time reminding Clasq that he was in the bonded service of the Commerce. The mystical power that Clasq wielded hadn't come free. The price tag, in fact, was a ten-thousand thaler debt. So, the devil was determined to engage in the most irritating schemes and pranks to put him, Clasq, the master, in his "place"; for instance, today, he had somehow convinced what appeared to be every single imp in the third-rate city of Trantz that Celendaro Clasq had both the money and the interest to buy from each of the shops, manufactories, or warehouses to which they were bound. This, despite the fact that Clasq wore a somber black suit with black buttons, and despite the fact that the Empty Throne was sewn in silver over his heart.
"Do you see these?" he shouted at the cantankerous cloud, pulling on the patches affixed to the shoulders of his long outer cote, each of which displayed the scroll-and-sword of the Embassaria. "I'm on a salary," he shouted. "Buzz off!"
Azu flapped down to settle on his shoulder. "As for you," Clasq grumbled, "I have half a mind to feed you to the grinder."
The imp, like all Infernals, was a hatchet-faced gargoyle with a smirk to match his hateful temperament. "Aw, you din't like my friends, boss?"
Clasq bit back his response. Trantz was a cold city. He hated it. If he hadn't signed his warlock's indenture all those cursed years ago, he would never have come to this gods-benighted region of the earth, far from the warm winds of the White Stone Sea. Trantz was perched in the alpine slopes of the Thousand Rivers, the very doorway to the fabled Black Plain and its barbarous, backwards kingdoms of Leznyy, Czaravakan, and Zamorzh.
Instead, he adjusted the high collar of his cote, which came up almost to his chin, and glared at the imp. "Disperse them, before I disperse you. You know we aren't supposed to be attracting attention."
It was hard to believe they were in their eighth year of their little partnership. Things had never been smooth, per se, but it seemed like they were headed toward a cliff. This posting in particular was a snub. Why would the Embassy send him here? Surely there was some fresh-faced scribe - a real scribe, not someone imbued with mystic powers who had signed an indenture - they could send to handle their affairs here.
"Oh, right, boss," Azu agreed, his voice dripping condescension. "Because we're working."
The fact of the matter was, Clasq hadn't done any real work for months. He was masquerading as a low-level Embassy courier, but his real assignment had essentially run out and he hadn't received any new orders. The Commerce, through the Ambassador, had dispatched him to Trantz to distribute false documents among the Blacklanders. Clasq didn't know what they said (he didn't read their ugly block lettering) but presumably it had something to do with the troubles the King of Leznyy had soon after Clasq's arrival. The thing is, once the things had made their way into circulation by way of a network of paid agents, Clasq was just supposed to monitor things. The worst part of the job.
That meant living just like a low-salary Embassy clerk. At least he didn't actually have to transcribe anything, but still, he wasn't supposed to suddenly flash money or do anything out of the ordinary.
Clasq was, generally, good at his job. None of his agents in Trantz knew who he was or had any idea they had been working for an Embassy factor. He was a non-entity in the city. He had installed himself in a little run-down tenement a few blocks from the Embassy and tried to keep his nocturnal activities to an absolute minimum. Oh, he drank, and he gambled, and he even whored, but he never wore his Embassaria suit while he was doing it, and never let it get so out of control that he was known for his dissolution.
Or rather, that's how it had been. Before his overseers in the Embassaria had abandoned him. Lately things had been out of hand. He would be the first to admit that, although not, of course, in any official capacity or documentation. He would admit it to Azu, anyway, who was with him every step of the way. It would be hard to conceal it from the imp.
The thing of it was, this morning he'd received new marching orders. New purpose! And now Azu was here acting like everything was a game, like his cover didn't matter, like it would be fine if everyone in Trantz recognized his face. And that would make things hard, if not impossible.
Rather than argue with the little devil in the street where the carters and drovers would splash them with mud and the public nature of the dispute would expose them to even more scrutiny, draw even more attention to them, Clasq clucked and strode quickly away from the warehouse he'd been poorly attempting to surveil. "You stupid little creep, get rid of them!" he hissed. To his credit, although the spindly imp rolled its enormous yellow eyes, Azu did wing up to the cloud overhead and begin to send them back to their shops and stoops.
Clasq hurried away, glancing over his shoulder and scowling as the imp went about undoing its own chaos.
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