Write About a Black Winged Moth

If you have to bluff, go big.  No hesitation, no thinking, just jump right in and trust that Lady Luck is feeling magnanimous.  It had worked so far in my life, so I decided to continue riding the great Lady's coat tails just a little longer.  I opened the door quickly and soundly.  No sneaking in, no slinking.  Just squared the shoulders and walked through like I owned the place.  If you look like you belong, who knows?  Maybe you do.  Of course, having Berto at the back helped.  Most people's glance slide right off my face and up, up, up to his.  Tonight was no exceptions.  My brother and I stepped squarely from that dank tunnel into a crowd.  The Lady held me in her arms yet again.  I knew exactly where we had landed.  We were in the back store room of McFreedy's Fine Ales.  The name was a lark.  The place was owned by a swarthy man named Santiago and the only fine thing it served was a wicked hangover.  It was near the docks however, and Santiago was known as a bit of a smuggler.  Nothing big.  Just little stuff slipped under the eyes of the Runners and the Citadel.  I had never known him to traffic in human goods but this was neither the time nor place to ponder such mysteries.  Our entrance had turned the heads of a group of gentlemen who were playing Sharks in the back storeroom.  The stakes looked high and one seat was already vacant.  The trail of blood that ran along the floor to the door I now stood in was relatively fresh.  The strange sticky substance in the tunnel behind me now made prefect sense.  We we lucky not to have run into the removal team.  Even luckier, Santiago wasn't there to alert the gamers to our uninvited status. The goons by the back door had taken a step forward when we appeared.  But they had stopped at our confident entrance.  Bless the Lady of the Bluff.  She was going to save our hides once again.

"Gentleman," I scanned the table, making brazen eye contact with each man present.  A few I recognized by reputation.  Without missing a beat, I headed across the room toward the back door that lead to the public room of McFreedy's.  The goons looked towards their bosses but no one stopped us.  With the same false confidence, I shouldered my way past them, tugged the door open, and left the room of players behind.  Santiago was serving behind the bar and his eyes widened when he saw us emerge.  I made a beeline to him and perched myself on a sticky stool.

"Hey, man, we need to talk," I stated simply.  Berto leaned his back against the bar, arms crossed, eyes scanning the room behind my back.  Santiago nodded to the men next to me and they grabbed their drinks and headed for a table.  The stools around me were now empty.  Time to run the bluff.

Santiago was in his late 40s.  His face and hands were heavily scared.  Whether from hard labor or hard fighting, no one know.  He was a distant cousin to someone in the Duermo organization and as such he was afforded their protection.  I hadn't had much dealings with the Duermos.  They were big time.  I was far to small to register on their business plan.  But it did explain what I saw the other night.  Human trafficking was right up their alley.  Now, I just had to confirm my suspicion.

I leaned into the bar and lowered my voice.  "I saw the 'delivery' that cam from your back room down at the docks the other night.  It seemed a bit...fresh if you get my drift."

Sanitago had an excellent poker face.  He continued to slowly rub the bar in front of me with a damp cloth.  The moment felt like it was stretching too thin so I played my next highest card.

"Heard the Runners were paying good money for any leads about these fresh deliveries.  Now, I'm not one to pick sides, you know that Santiago, but money is money.  If what I saw has a price, I want to be paid.  Don't rightly care where the funds come from.  So if there is someone else I should see about what I know, someone else in the market so to speak?  I'd be more than willing to take my business there first."

Santiago continued with those slow maddening circles.  I was just about to throw down my cards and quit this game when he left the rag on the bar and reached under the counter.  Berto tensed and I had to remind myself to keep breathing.  Slowly, he raised his eyes to mine and slid a card across the table.  Like a dealer in Sharks, he flipped it face up in front of me.  I'm sure I blanched when I saw it.  An embossed black winged moth stared up at me.  With deliberation, Santiago slipped a gnawed pencil from behind his ear, scratched an address across the bottom of the card, and slide it across the counter to me.  The stakes had just turned.  I picked up the small cream card and brushed my thumb over the embossed moth.  Santiago pushed back from the bar with a wry smile and set a shot of something foul before me.  Without hesitating, I downed it in one gulp.  I'd need all the courage I could find.  The Night Moths.  Fuck me.  I'd have been better off in the hands of the Runners.

A history of whispers

The citadel hadn't always been discussed in hushed reverent tones. A history of whispers had taken over its function more than 15 years ago after the assassination of Commissioner Thora. She had been a true believer. The streets safe, the air pure. Or rather, more pure and "safer", thought Finnegan.

The Runner's runner's pace was quick but not too fast for him to keep up with. Over his right shoulder looming over the bay was the trident. Its top just out of sight in the low storm clouds. Windows from two of the spires gleamed with light.

The citadel sat on top a hill that also overlooked the bay, one of five such hills around the city. The wide thoroughfares zig zagged their ways up the inclines to the gates.

Everyone knew the true power of the city ran out the dark spaces in the Citidel even though most public power was located in the Trident. The creation of the runner's runner, a fleet of peace keeping automatons had consolidated that fact and as such for the past 15 years there seemed to be an uneasy truce between those working in the Citadel and those in the Trident.

There were now Runner's runners working the large pointed topped gates where the streets met. A wall had been erected around the citadel since last he'd been there. It seemed to be made of a single piece of basalt twenty feet tall by ten thick and ran in a smooth circle around the hill top, bending out of sight.

Here, finally, he saw human runners as well in their smart polished button uniforms. The runners had started as simple messengers between the citadel and the Trident, then they had become empowered as go betweens able to broker deals. Then they were able to enforce the agreement brokered until finally they served as the main police force ensuring the peace throughout the city. The Runner's runners had been developed as a way for them to remain impartial and unable to be bribed or influenced. It was only now, years later, that people were realizing how much faith they had invested over time to those impartial servants.


Finnegan was escorted by his runner's runner keeping careful eye on the single red gem affixed to the top of its hat-plate as this differentiated it from the myriad other runner's runners scurrying throughout the Citadel.

He was somewhat taken aback that here at the Citadel at least, Runner's runners had grown past their mostly human form and now were working in forms that mirrored specialized functions. Two near the gate he had just walked through had four stout legs, a torso that looked to be more like a bathtub studded with long cables and ominous tubes of various diameter.

They walked across a courtyard that took five minutes to cross. The runner's runner stayed true to a straight path. Inside the courtyard regiments of runners and runner's runners performed drills even at this late time of day.

Finnegan noted that One of the moons had risen but the other two weren't high enough above the Citadel wall to be seen yet.

The wind was gusty and the rain had begun to fall in big fat drops that made Finnegan happy to finally reach the destination. The five story structure sat perched on top of its own hill with easy lines of sight to the bay and behind it to the farming valleys.

He was escorted to just within the front door and told to sit on a long dark wooden bench that ran almost the length of the hallway some seventy feet away. He was the only one sitting on the bench.

Finnegan had just removed his pocket watch to make sure it was wound for the fourth time when a loud voice echoed down the hallway: "Rumor Finnegan, rogue, scoundrel and threat to the empire if there ever was one."

Finnegan looked up to see a large man silhouetted at the end of the hallway making his way towards the main doors. He strained to see through the dim hallway any identifying detail to determine the man's identity. Once the stranger was only thirty feet away A smile spread slowly across his face.

"Cousin Bertram? You work in the Citadel now?"

Bertram let out a laugh that echoed and was entirely too loud for the location.

"Rumor, how long has it been? Six? Seven years?"

"It was at the last Festival of Crumple! You were drunk, had just met some conniving trollop fortune teller who had said something about marrying into riches and both of you were carrying on about eloping to Sarc."

Bertram looked suddenly serious then broke into a grin, "That's no trollop, that's my wife!" and gave Finnegan a hug that squeezed the breath from his lungs.

"You two married? I don't know whether to offer my congratulations or my condolences then cousin."


"Ah you never changed Rumor. Come walk with me."

They walked down several large hallways filled with dark, fading oil painted murals. Sometimes of Citadel dignitaries, sometimes of locations under control of the city. Finnegan was momentarily captivated by two. The first was of the Southern Isles, a plantation growing Fleck's root with Lemur-men workers happily helping the plantation owners.

The other mural made Finnegan shudder. It was a picture of the refinery its single enormous rocky peak rising up out of the ocean, a single point of land this side of the world falls, and area were the ocean simply spilled over into nothing and supposedly fell forever. The refinery and its leviathan turbines stretched into the water on either side of the rocky island harnessing that great power. The buildings on that outcrop smouldered in the picture. Finnegan wasn't' sure if their orangy reddish hue was due to the sun's setting in that painting or the massive energies being dredged and harvested.

After twenty minutes of walking up and down flights of stairs and catching up on old times, Finnegan finally arrived at Bertram's office. There in the middle of Bertram's desk were all of Finnegan's inquiries into the disappearance of the Cuttle grubs. Next to them a stack ten times as high of their paperwork. Bertram followed Finnegan's gaze and said:

"You have been contacted by 8 cuttle families regarding their children's disappearance. I can assure you that while the cuttle have experienced the largest percentages of losses especially recently, all clans across the city and in some other cities we are in contact with are experiencing losses. You know of 8 cuttle losses, our records show it closer to 52 cuttle grubs. 17 lemur children, 9 human, 14 Chiropts and..." he furnished one large file in a different colored envelope to put on top of the stack. "One golem."

Finnegan let out a surprised whistle. There had been rumors of disappearances but this was an epidemic. Bertram signaled that Finnegan should take a seat. In the stack Finnegan could see his own handwritten requests for help.

"What leads do you have?"

"None at the moment. Or rather none I can discuss with you. There seem to be many groups in play here and the citadel is determined to figure out who's on our side and who needs to be eradicated. This many disappearances can rock the faith of a population so its in everyone's best interests to maintain the status quo. Needless to say you will not discuss what you see here with anyone outside this office."

Finnegan felt a brief buzzing in his head just behind his right ear. He knew he'd just been censured.

"Why tell me this then, cousin?"

"We need your help. Your status and placement makes you privy to locales, information and people without alerting various parties that we may be listening. We need you to make some discrete inquires, nothing more, to help us solve this and move on."

"I'm happy to help as any good citizen would be. Why bring me here? Why the pomp?"

"Various parties here were not as convinced as I was that you would need no coercion. You can't know what sort of battle I had to engage in to make sure it was only me you met with. I can't tell you how happy I am that no coercion was needed."

Finnegan shuddered involuntarily.

Bertram rose. "I will be your point of contact here so know that you have a sympathetic ear, here within the citadel. I will provide information when I can. In the mean time, keep your ears and eyes open and we'll be in touch."

"Very well. Its been good catching up with you cousin. Be sure to tell Aunt Fabrice a good hello for me." Bertram paused then regained his composure.

"I'm sorry to say Rumor that my mother passed away quite unexpectedly a few years ago."

"Oh, I didn't know! Nothing was said! I'm sorry for your loss Bertram."

"A slants all to brindle, its all in the past now, and you didn't know."

"Well again, my condolences. And we should endeavor to meet more often than every seven years."

Bertram looked wistfully distant "True cousin true."

A Runner's runner with a red gem, two blue and a purple gem on its hatplate was waiting for Finnegan just outside the office door.

Bertram said: "This fine unit will escort you back home. You'll keep my cousin dry in the rain I trust?" Bertram added to the Runner.

"If it is required then it will be done." was what was answered.

Finnegan's mind swam all the way back to his apartment. He got in and was able to close the study windows just as the nightly deluge began.