Chapter 40 - A Provincial Delicacy

Anua’s gunsmithy was unlike any of the other buildings around it. It sat in the narrow middle-space between the port district and the modest mansions of Sebastopol’s second-lowest tier, yet adhered to the architectural conventions of neither.

Roulette took an immediate liking to it, as she did with all things and people that didn’t quite fit in. There was something about its short stature, domed roof and spindly cast-iron chimney stack that seemed downright irreverent of the city’s orderly nature, and the fact that it stood partly shaded and partly illuminated by the wall-filtered rays of the late afternoon sun only accentuated that quality further.

Anua let them in, setting dust motes aswirl. The room they entered–Anua’s forge, from the look of it–was dark and absent of any light fixtures. The light seeping in through the eastern window was too dim to see by, so she moved to stoke the coals right away, leaving her guests to wander as they pleased. Roulette appreciated the freedom. The place was too small to warrant a grand tour anyhow, she reckoned.

She peered first into the semicircular room opposite the front door. It mirrored the layout of the forge itself, but had considerably more floor space available. Unlike the forge, whose walls bore two doors leading to what Roulette assumed to be the women’s bedrooms, this room harbored only one at the far end. A pantry, maybe? she guessed. Or a storage closet? The former seemed more likely, given that the room was crowded with tables, chairs, counters, cupboards and cooking implements. A kitchen and a dining room both, this looked to be where Anua and Mimi took their meals whenever they had the time.

Having finished with the stoking, Anua breezed into the room and made her way toward the far door. “With so many hungry travelers on my hands, I suppose I should get around to fixing dinner,” she huffed, leaning forth into the darkness of the pantry. “Mimi! Make yourself useful, will you? Come and set out my things for me!”

Mimi stalked into the room with her arms folded, blessing Roulette with a scowl as she passed. “Just stay out of my room, okay?” she sneered. “I work very hard to keep it smelling pleasant.”

“Awh, shut up and make my dinner,” Roulette countered. Then she headed back into the forge area, eager to avoid any further unpleasantness. The girl found Morgan and Marka chatting quietly by the fire. Near as she could tell, they seemed to be discussing the merits of Morgan’s recent break-up.

“Gettin’ tired of holdin’ us hot-headed Wessoners back from doin’ violence yet, Marka?” she joked.

He smiled ruefully. “Would that I had someone to do the same for me in my wilder days,” he lamented. “I do not mind, really… Though I admit I would expect a man of your years to have more self-control, Morgan.”

“Why don’t you try havin’ that shrew moon over you for half a week,” he replied. “Then get back to me about that ‘self-control’ of yours.”

Roulette couldn’t help but snicker at that. “He’d handle it better than you did, Morgan. Luckily, you and Mimi weren’t making a go of it for real. There’s no reason to get all hot’n bothered over it.”

“No reason? No reason?” he snapped. “That damn banshee lost me everythin’ I had! I’m broke, now! Destitute! I bet she tossed all my loot in a ditch on purpose, just to draw the leash that much tighter ‘round my fool neck!”

“You were broke before too, were you not?” Marka reminded him. “So you have lost nothing. No–better than that, you have gained back your freedom. How much longer would you have had to keep up your false relationship if she had not angered you?”

“Probably forever,” Roulette chimed in. “Most men I’ve met can grouse about the fix they’re in ‘til they’re blue in the face, but do they ever make a single move to change it for the better? No. Not ‘til they’re backed into a corner, at any rate.”

Morgan furrowed his brow, looking between them with obvious distaste. “Well, ain’t you just a couple rays of grade-A, bonafide sunshine?” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Here I was, wantin’ nothin’ more than a sympathetic ear, and instead I’m gettin’ raked over the coals again as usual.”

Marka scratched his head. “I thought I was being sympathetic.”

“You were, Marka, don’t worry,” the girl reassured him. “What ol’ sourpuss over here means is that he’d like somebody to tell him what he wants to hear.”

“Ol’ sourpuss??”

The ribbing went on for some time, until the scent of freshly-baked bread overpowered the sooty aromas of the forge. Roulette and the rest filed into the kitchen in short order, desperate for their share of the vittles. Nobody had been eating well out on the sea of sand; all they’d had available was a handful of salted jerky, and the group had burned through Anua’s meager supply within the first twenty-four hours of wandering.

This was different. This was real food. Mimi distributed a hunk of bread to each of them on a lacquered clay plate, with Morgan and Roulette receiving the smallest portions. Roulette hardly cared. She bit into it right away, coating the inside of her mouth with a mass of molten cheese and unknown spices. Her eyes watered, but she chewed on through the scalding loaf despite the pain. So did Morgan, she noted. Only Marka had the necessary patience and strength of will to wait.

By the time Mimi and Anua joined them at the table, she and Morgan both had already cleaned their plates. Anua wrinkled her nose in disapproval but said nothing. Rude or not, such behavior was to be expected after a long, sun-scorched stroll through the dunes. By contrast, Mimi and the two Truvelans took their time, savoring the meal. It was only then, during those long minutes of watching them eat, that Roulette came to regret her haste.

“What kind of cheese was that?” Roulette asked as they finished up, seeking to distract herself from the continued rumbling of her belly. “Had a nice, salty taste to it… But I couldn’t quite place it.”

“Mmh,” Marka began, taking a moment to swallow his last mouthful of bread before continuing. “Dustsnuffle cheese. Straight from Fancy’s breasts, I would guess.”

Roulette steepled her fingers. “Ah.”

Morgan looked like he was going to be sick.

“Thank you for the meal, Anua,” Marka said, sinking back into his chair with a contented sigh. “I can see why your recipe has spread so far beyond Sebastopol’s walls. You are truly a woman of many talents.”

Anua waved a hand to conceal her near-imperceptible blush. “Nonsense. Forging and baking are not so different–I merely know my way around a hearth… Though it is nice of you to say so.”

“She’s being modest,” Mimi interjected. “I get to try all her experimental dishes, and there hasn’t been a single dud yet. Honestly, I’m surprised the Bomb Bread is the one that people fawn over. It’s just so… Simple. So blatantly provincial.”

“Not everythin’ simple is worse off for it,” Roulette observed.

Mimi winced through her artificial smile. “Yes, you would think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Ah! Thank you, girls,” Anua cut in. “Your tiresome sniping has reminded me of my work. Has everyone had their fill? If so, I would ask that we all retire to the forge for a moment. I have something to show you all.”

There were no objections. Mimi hung back to clear the table while Anua led Roulette and friends back into the vicinity of the forge. The room had grown even darker in their absence; the sun had disappeared from the sky, leaving only the soft glow of indirect moonlight to accompany the flickering light of the forge.

Roulette saw the master Gunsmith reach into her sleeve to produce a small key, which she fitted squarely into the lock of a cabinet in the far corner. The doors creaked open to reveal a small bundle of blankets, which Anua pulled from the cabinet with a level of care that verged on reverence.

“Over the course of my long career,” she said, “I have fashioned many weapons. Are you all familiar with how a Gunsmith forges a Gunslinger’s arms?”

“Yeah. You do it in a kind of trance, don’t you?” Roulette recalled.

“Correct. We Gunsmiths call this trance ‘arcane inspiration’. Nobody knows how or why, but we simply… Lose ourselves to the flow of mana within us. And, if we are fortunate enough to be around our tools and materials at the time, this typically results in the creation of a unique weapon–one fit for a Gunslinger.”

She rested the blankets on top of the cabinet and proceeded to unfurl them slowly. “Usually, this act is followed by ‘the Call’–an instinct, a kind of ringing in our senses that leads us to the weapon’s true owner. But not every weapon we craft is accompanied by a call. I have long wondered why that is. But now, with your arrival, I believe I finally understand.”

The blankets finally parted, revealing the gleaming contours of two meticulously-crafted firearms.

“The weapons know,” she said. “They knew their destined owners would come, one day, to claim them…