The Slime Farmer

Defi had thought the night market to be the regular marketplace set up with lamps.

It was and was not.

He could see a number of the regular stalls from the dawn market here and there. The rest were unfamiliar, like the stall selling a range of knives in various shape, and the one professing to sell a hundred types of spices, and the one offering clockwork items.

The dawn market he knew was energetic, full of the vigor of the waking day. The night market was also energetic, but a more languorous kind of vigor, like a stalking cat.

He wondered if it had a similar energy all the time or this night's atmosphere was because of the news of the fall of the Blades.

Groups of people crowded the lanes between the lines of stalls, the conversation between them combining in Defi's ears to add a buzz to the liveliness of the night.

Here and there, the night rang with songs and shouts of cheer.

The ale flowed freely.

A group of soldiers, mugs of foaming drinks in hand, were bellowing out a song, to the accompaniment of a rather exasperated-looking lute player.

"…everywhere I look around, what misery to be found, ah!

"A mist shrouding barren grey rocks in darkness!

"My beloved is in Jebrimea, I always sleep alone, ha!

"Console me, let me drown in brief merriness!

"The pledge of love given to me is at the dice board lost, hey!

"Alas! I dearly want my love and also want my pay!"

From the other end of the marketplace, there was a faint hint of mournfully blowing pipes that oddly went very well between the unsubtle music of the soldier's song. Defi inclined an ear in that direction; it sounded like someone was singing a love song of some sort.

Despite the music and merriment there was a quiet undercurrent flowing through the night market, as townspeople lifted their large mugs of ale, as they put their heads together to gossip, as they chivvied their children to the brighter parts of the night market where most of the food stalls were set up with long tables.

Defi stood at the very edge of shadow and watched the familiar proceedings. He had gone on bandit suppression expeditions before, patrolling the boundaries of the city with the Watch as a senior student of the learning halls.

At the end of every expedition, the warriors would get together for food, wine, song, and company. It appeared that in this, Ascharon and Ontrea were not so different.

Why was today so insistent, he wondered, of giving him reminders of the land and people who were now lost to him?

Warriors relaxing after a battle could be volatile, so Defi wandered a bit further from them, looking around the stalls. A food-seller with a crowd around him caught his eye. He ambled toward it. If there was a crowd, the food should be delicious.

A few minutes later, he was rewarded with a small bowl of what the stall keeper assured him was the best roasted cane-grub in Havare province. He eased from the crowd eagerly waiting their turn. He silently considered the bowl of plump grubs the size of his thumb. They smelled appetizingly of smoke and spices, but admittedly he had never eaten insects before.

He heard an amused snort from nearby.

Cuthes smirked at him, then glanced to the side as his amusement deepened. Defi followed his gaze to see Cor, who looked bewildered as he stared at a similar bowl in his hand.

Jorne was already stoically eating his bowl. He only nodded at Defi, before sticking his skewer into another grub and biting down.

"What are they?"

"Cane grubs. They hatch out of cane moth eggs. Very nice flavor. They're usually crushed to make the Lemnes cream so popular in the cities." Cuthes relished the disbelieving revelation on Jorne and Cor's faces.

"I wonder how my sister and her coterie would react after she learns this," murmured Cor, a look of glee dawning on his face. "These are excellent grubs!"

"You haven't even tasted it yet." Defi pointed out.

Cor looked at the untouched bowl in Defi's hand disdainfully.

Defi narrowed his eyes.

They measured each other challengingly.

In sync, they skewered a grub at the same time and brought it to their mouths.

Defi bit down. The outside of the grub crunched lightly, the smoky spice from the roasting spreading across his tongue. The inside however, burst with a nutty creaminess that had him pause and swirl the thick silky substance around so the taste would last.

Not bad.

"It really is Lemnes cream." Cor stared at his bowl, then skewered another grub. "I thought it was made from the milk of Lemnes cows."

Cuthes shrugged. "It probably is. Only, there's cane grub in it as well."

Cor looked at all the stalls in awe, then a determined look came over his face. He pointed to a stall. "Can we go to that one next?"

"I heard there's a stall selling crickets in sauce around here," Cuthes said casually.

"Lead on." Cor's eyes sparkled.

Defi tipped the bowl of grub into his mouth, finishing them off. Sauced crickets, he'd try them if he didn't see the gleeful look in Cuthes' eyes. He glanced at Jorne, who was looking suspiciously at the adjutant as well.

The man wouldn't let Cuthes have too much fun, so Defi wasn't worried that Cor would actually eat his way through all the strangest Lowpool food he could find.

He placed the container into a bucket full of other used bowls near the stall, then casually slipped away in the direction opposite the stall Cuthes was indicating.

Apart from food, Defi needed to replace the baskets and bottles that were smashed in his underground storage room. The two one-year casks he acquired from the woodshop were destroyed along with the rest of his extra barrels. He could not help the flare of anger again.

At least the barrels of slime extract and most of the slimes had survived.

He took a deep breath and walked along the lanes, focusing on looking at the wares of the night market.

With the mayor's open invitation, it looked like half the town was packed into the marketplace and the central square.

The spots where food stalls abounded had the highest number of people, so the places that didn't sell eatables were relatively quiet.

The night market was lit with lamps hung on stall posts. Crystal lamps were bright, their clear cold bluish white light brighter by far than the warm yellow of oil lamps.

The warm flames from oil lamps, more numerous than the other, flickered to make the shadows dance. The crystal lamps made shadows flee into dark corners with their steadfast sharp glow; the shadows they created were darker and deeper. The two kinds of light battled between the stalls, creating a strange pulsing of light and shadow with every flicker of flame.

The stalls of the marketplace were arranged in parallel lines, with breaks between them that people might freely walk between the main lanes.

In a number of stalls, the lamp-shades were placed as to put the seller in shadow and the wares in light.

There was no delineation, Defi saw, between the stalls that strove to keep to themselves and those that dealt in the bright light. That Jorne would definitely have more suspicions should he see such arrangements.

The night was cold, from the breezes blowing in from the lake and the afternoon rain. But between the lines of stalls, the air was warmed by human heat.

He stopped at another popular stall, didn't hesitate before buying skewers of fried duck gizzard and grilled blood squares, and wandered the night market while eating.

A faintly familiar voice caused him to look over. Jast, the glyph shop owner, was arguing with a stall keeper. Defi wandered slightly closer when he saw that the stall was covered in glyph designs and Emblem patterns.

The stall keeper was shorter than the average Ascharonian. He sported a long braided goatee, and a muscled frame that he deliberately drew attention to as he crossed his arms and glared at Jast.

"It's the pattern that's important."

Jast huffed. "And you think everyone can read an Emblem correctly? How can you be sure these things won't blow up in people's faces."

"You think I'd sell defectives?" The goatee man shook at the insult.

"With such sloppy pen control, everything is defective!"

"What did you say?!"

"Are you interested in the moon peppers, young sir?"

Defi glanced up at the disconnected question. He realized he had stopped at a spice stall to eavesdrop. The moon peppers, pale and curled into crescents, were only one of the many spices in the large stall.

He looked around, noting the serious faces of the buyers. Rocso, who cooked at the only tavern in town Defi knew about, was one of them, frowning at a wooden box full of a golden yellow powder.

By now the town's lone spice shop would be closed, as most shops closed just after sundown. These spice-sellers must be from a caravan. The number of people around the stall said that it was doing brisk business.

The spice-seller who asked the question, one of three who were manning the stall, saw his look and misunderstood.

"Ah, perhaps this one, then? One klaud a grane, blackspice from beyond the Gate!"

Defi paused, looked at the wooden boxes of the spice seller. In one of them, it was indeed blackspice. Something twisted in his chest.

He shook his head and focused on the details. One klaud a grane – that came to fifty silver crescents a kilogar. It was cheaper by at least a fourth when compared to the shop prices.

The cylindrical silver crescent coin was about ten grane of silver. A kilogar of silver made into coin would effect 100 crescents. His lips quirked. He thought Garun was exaggerating, but blackspice in Ascharon truly did cost its weight in silver.

The blackspice looked to be of good quality, well-dried, the wrinkled outer skin of the small circular berries was flexible and not powdery.

"I assure you, young sir, the very finest spice! Carefully grown in the very best farms!"

If it were yesterday, he would acquire as much as he could, wanting to taste once more the flavors of Ontrea. Today, his stomach rebelled at the thought.

Not to mention, blackspice was too expensive for him at the moment. A fine thing, for someone who used to be able to gorge himself on blackspice flavored food everyday.

He thought about his finances and tried not to grimace.

All he had at this point was 102 crescents, 18 klaud, and 6 rond. It was an amount more than many in Ascharon would earn in a year. But considering the one-year casks he needed to replace, it was not enough. A one-year quartel cask would take half of that amount already.

He nodded at the spice-seller politely, and walked off.

He bit into the last of the blood squares and threw the skewers away.

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Notes:

Grane – the smallest unit of weight in Ascharon. A thousand grane makes one kilogar.

Quartel – a barrel size containing 25 litr of volume, a quarter the size of a cental.

Cental – a barrel size, containing 100 litr of volume.