Néjimbé had arrived in Crystabell one fine day. After a few questions to the guards, she was directed to a beach where, no doubt, the tryker was bubbling. She went there. He was fishing, or something like that. He seemed to be doing pretty well.
She had thrown the report at his feet:
- What does THAT mean?
Feinigan had looked at the booklet, glanced bubbly at Nejimbé, obviously oblivious to the temperature which must have dropped below zero since her arrival, and smiled:
- Shall I read it, my ice cube?
- Read on. And explain yourself.
He'd taken the document and gone through it, smiling more and more. Then he had a fit of giggles, which degenerated into a terrible cough. Néjimbé thought he was going to die, for real, so hard had the tryker struggled to catch his breath, coughing up a mixture of blood and what really looked like goo. She couldn't understand how Haokan and Zhen could stand the smell; Haokan especially with his kamist "I don't touch those things" side.
(At this point in the story, which she told without sugarcoating, Haokan pouted, but didn't interrupt).
When Feinigan had finally caught his breath, long minutes later, he had declared:
- Never... believe... drug... addicts.
- It's confirmed.
- I'm not talking about myself. Of course you don't believe me, you're not crazy. But Canillia... your spies told you she was injecting her product, didn't they? She gave us a demonstration. Very impressive. It completely froze Haokan, and I think he wiped it from his mind right away, it was so crazy. She probably wanted to convince us of the harmlessness of her product. Can you imagine if I'd done the same with everything I've sold over the years?
- Feinigan, you as tasted everything you've sold over the years.
- Yeah, but long after I stopped selling it. Therapeutic, you know? Nah nah nah, a good dealer doesn't take his own product unless he wants to have a very short career.
- Don't divert the conversation. The result.
- Look, if there's goo in my medicine, it's not my fault. I'm crazy, okay, and maybe even a little reckless sometimes, but I'm not a complete idiot either.
- It's because I don't trust your reasoning abilities that I'm here. Nor in your word. Where's your syrup supply?
- Ask Hao... he usually brings it to me, and as far as I know, it's direct from the Theocracy's healers.
Then he laughed:
- He's poisoned me on occasion, but not with this kind of stuff. He's too uptight about goo. Nah, my guess is Canillia just hallucinated and mistook sap for goo or something.
- I'm going to run a few more tests of my own. If I find out you're deliberately poisoning yourself, I'll sell you back to the Black Circle.
- Hey, easy there, ice queen! I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with it. Not only that, but I don't believe for a second that there's goo in my syrup. Especially active goo; who puts active goo in a drug? Unless you're dead wrong. It's an apprentice alchemist's trick who thinks it works like that, but they don't usually last long. And even if that's what Zhen brings me sometimes... Hao goes back, he'd have snorted if there was any goo or anything. You Zorais are superhuman at spotting this stuff.
- From the smell around you, Feinigan, no zorai could tell if it's from what you're taking or what you are. In the Theocracy, you would have been banished from the cities a long time ago.
- I know, I know... it's a good thing I'm not there, huh? Here I can go to the bar, and most of the homins aren't even bothered. Only the zorais wince. And there aren't many of those in Crystabell. But test my vial of the day, go and ask Hao for more samples... you'll see. Canillia's product is stronger than she sold it to me. I'm not unhappy about it, it's given me a hell of a buzz! I've been able to make progress on a lot of things that were slipping! But I think it also finished activating the goo. Well, that's probably irrelevant. Who cares? Anyway, she said "no hallu", but I promise you I got some, and it was fun. I felt like I was growing wings, ready to ignite the bark and all. I even wrote some great poems on occasion! But when I got back down, I realized that writing them in the sand AND underwater wasn't quite as good an idea as it had seemed at the time.
- We'll see.
- Poems? Not a chance.
- Goo in your syrup!
- So what? Someone poisoned his syrup?
- I know you'd like to find someone to swing that axe at, Haokan. But no, there was nothing. Either it was just the sample Canillia got, or Feinigan was right, she did her tests completely drugged and abused herself. This is probably the correct hypothesis.
- I'd hate to have to suspect the Theocracy of goo trafficking.
Néjimbé had no answer to that. She doubts the zorai is as naive as he claims; he's been around long enough, and done enough snooping, to know that the relationship between the Theocracy and the Scourge is highly ambiguous. She's not here to talk politics, anyway. But, in this particular case, it wouldn't have made much sense for the Theocracy's remedies to be poisoned.
Unless, of course, someone had wanted to make sure Feinigan didn't escape.
She had thrown the report at his feet:
- What does THAT mean?
Feinigan had looked at the booklet, glanced bubbly at Nejimbé, obviously oblivious to the temperature which must have dropped below zero since her arrival, and smiled:
- Shall I read it, my ice cube?
- Read on. And explain yourself.
He'd taken the document and gone through it, smiling more and more. Then he had a fit of giggles, which degenerated into a terrible cough. Néjimbé thought he was going to die, for real, so hard had the tryker struggled to catch his breath, coughing up a mixture of blood and what really looked like goo. She couldn't understand how Haokan and Zhen could stand the smell; Haokan especially with his kamist "I don't touch those things" side.
(At this point in the story, which she told without sugarcoating, Haokan pouted, but didn't interrupt).
When Feinigan had finally caught his breath, long minutes later, he had declared:
- Never... believe... drug... addicts.
- It's confirmed.
- I'm not talking about myself. Of course you don't believe me, you're not crazy. But Canillia... your spies told you she was injecting her product, didn't they? She gave us a demonstration. Very impressive. It completely froze Haokan, and I think he wiped it from his mind right away, it was so crazy. She probably wanted to convince us of the harmlessness of her product. Can you imagine if I'd done the same with everything I've sold over the years?
- Feinigan, you as tasted everything you've sold over the years.
- Yeah, but long after I stopped selling it. Therapeutic, you know? Nah nah nah, a good dealer doesn't take his own product unless he wants to have a very short career.
- Don't divert the conversation. The result.
- Look, if there's goo in my medicine, it's not my fault. I'm crazy, okay, and maybe even a little reckless sometimes, but I'm not a complete idiot either.
- It's because I don't trust your reasoning abilities that I'm here. Nor in your word. Where's your syrup supply?
- Ask Hao... he usually brings it to me, and as far as I know, it's direct from the Theocracy's healers.
Then he laughed:
- He's poisoned me on occasion, but not with this kind of stuff. He's too uptight about goo. Nah, my guess is Canillia just hallucinated and mistook sap for goo or something.
- I'm going to run a few more tests of my own. If I find out you're deliberately poisoning yourself, I'll sell you back to the Black Circle.
- Hey, easy there, ice queen! I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with it. Not only that, but I don't believe for a second that there's goo in my syrup. Especially active goo; who puts active goo in a drug? Unless you're dead wrong. It's an apprentice alchemist's trick who thinks it works like that, but they don't usually last long. And even if that's what Zhen brings me sometimes... Hao goes back, he'd have snorted if there was any goo or anything. You Zorais are superhuman at spotting this stuff.
- From the smell around you, Feinigan, no zorai could tell if it's from what you're taking or what you are. In the Theocracy, you would have been banished from the cities a long time ago.
- I know, I know... it's a good thing I'm not there, huh? Here I can go to the bar, and most of the homins aren't even bothered. Only the zorais wince. And there aren't many of those in Crystabell. But test my vial of the day, go and ask Hao for more samples... you'll see. Canillia's product is stronger than she sold it to me. I'm not unhappy about it, it's given me a hell of a buzz! I've been able to make progress on a lot of things that were slipping! But I think it also finished activating the goo. Well, that's probably irrelevant. Who cares? Anyway, she said "no hallu", but I promise you I got some, and it was fun. I felt like I was growing wings, ready to ignite the bark and all. I even wrote some great poems on occasion! But when I got back down, I realized that writing them in the sand AND underwater wasn't quite as good an idea as it had seemed at the time.
- We'll see.
- Poems? Not a chance.
- Goo in your syrup!
***
- So what? Someone poisoned his syrup?
- I know you'd like to find someone to swing that axe at, Haokan. But no, there was nothing. Either it was just the sample Canillia got, or Feinigan was right, she did her tests completely drugged and abused herself. This is probably the correct hypothesis.
- I'd hate to have to suspect the Theocracy of goo trafficking.
Néjimbé had no answer to that. She doubts the zorai is as naive as he claims; he's been around long enough, and done enough snooping, to know that the relationship between the Theocracy and the Scourge is highly ambiguous. She's not here to talk politics, anyway. But, in this particular case, it wouldn't have made much sense for the Theocracy's remedies to be poisoned.
Unless, of course, someone had wanted to make sure Feinigan didn't escape.