Mystery of Merrie Part 2

“Burned through your protection just like that, friend. I half expected you’d be dead by now.”
“Truth is, I’d have been fine without it.” Piccaron poured himself a glass, unhurried. “This city was a blur to me at first. But watching those mages work — that acrobatic little display of theirs — something’s finally come into focus. I’m not afraid of this place anymore.”
“Hah! Damn.” The bartender barked out a short laugh. “Your new friends teach you that arrogance, or did you bring it with you?”
“When it comes to arrogance — to selfishness — trust me.” Piccaron’s eyes drifted toward the far end of the bar. “I outdo them by a wide margin.”
He was looking at the woman seated there — the same one who’d come in with Pine’s unit, silent then, silent now, her face carved into something between contempt and disgust, as if the very air of this place offended her.
“Something about all this really turns your stomach, doesn’t it, miss.” Piccaron took another pull of sterin before finishing the thought. “I know your type. Nobility doesn’t wear that particular look — too much distaste, not enough boredom. So that leaves…” He paused, drank again, the words coming slower now, looser. “Someone from a holy order! Ha.”
He was drunk. Not stumbling, not sloppy — but drunk enough that the words came without their usual careful weight. The bartender chuckled at the sight of it.
“The Order of the Golden Cloud.” The woman finally spoke, cool and precise. “We stand against every flavor of heresy and cult there is. And this city—“ her mouth twisted faintly, “—trust me, this city is drowning in exactly that.”
“Here to fix it?” Piccaron’s grin was loose, half-teasing.
“One of my charges, yes. Succeeding here would be no small glory.” Her answer came without hesitation, without false modesty either.
“Bartender.” Piccaron set down ten gold coins on the counter, deliberate. “I know I can’t buy protection from you again. This time I’m here for something else.”
“Outside of liquor,” the bartender said, eyeing the coins, “I’m not sure what else I’ve got left to sell a man like you.”
“Get me a meeting with the mayor.”
Piccaron sat waiting, a cup of tea placed before him — cold, he’d note later, cold as the woman seated at his side. May had insisted on coming along, for reasons he still hadn’t fully worked out. Golden Cloud women weren’t predictable creatures, but the likeliest read was simple enough: glory, the kind her holy order would sing about across the continent. That was why she’d tagged along with Pine’s unit in the first place. That was why she was here now.
Piccaron lit another cigarette — his third, maybe fourth, in the hour they’d been waiting. The smoke curled up between them, slow and unbothered.
“Damn bartender.” He exhaled. “Ten gold coins, and this is what it bought me.”
Then, finally, the man they’d been waiting for arrived. The mayor — old, bald, the bags beneath his eyes about as thick as Piccaron’s coin purse. His hands shook faintly as he lowered himself into the chair, the kind of tremor that came less from age than from a body that had forgotten what it felt like to sleep through a night. He didn’t look like a man who ran a city. He looked like a man who’d been running from something inside his own head for a very long time, and had simply gotten tired enough to stop.
“Well. What is it you want?” The mayor lowered himself into his seat with the weariness of a man who’d done this dance before. “Hasn’t your army already ‘conquered’ my city? First time in five days any of you have bothered coming to see me.” He took a sip of his tea, unhurried. “Here to make it official? Use me to announce it to my own people?”
“You’re a sharp man, mayor.” Piccaron leaned back. “Your word carries weight — represents the whole city, the whole army stationed here, doesn’t it.”
“This city has stood a long time.” The mayor’s voice didn’t rise, didn’t waver. “No kingdom, no army, has ever held it past seven days. Not once. Not under me, not under any mayor before me. None of us have ever issued that kind of announcement.”
“You will this time.”
Piccaron’s tone shifted — the looseness from the bar gone, replaced by something colder, more deliberate.
“Let’s drop the pretense. I already know the mages — the ones who look like the only faction in this city with any real magic, aside from your bartender — actually run this place. But you’re the mayor. The public face. Which makes me wonder if the two of you aren’t working together.” He tapped ash from his cigarette, unhurried. “The missing children. All those notices on the board that nobody talks about. An offering, maybe?” His eyes slid toward May. “What do you make of that?”
The mayor’s expression didn’t so much as flicker — the blank calm of a man discussing weather everyone already knew was coming.
“By the way.” Piccaron gestured toward the teapot. “Could we get fresh tea? This has gone cold.”
Fresh tea arrived without complaint. What kind of mayor, after all, serves cold tea to guests?
“Sacrifice.” May’s voice was quiet, clinical. “Common enough among cults. Usually meant to feed power, vitality, something along those lines. But doing it this openly — this brazenly—“ She let the sentence die unfinished.
“Interesting.” Piccaron’s eyes returned to the mayor. “But there’s still a piece missing. Mayor?”
The old man didn’t answer right away. He turned his teacup a slow half-circle on its saucer, watching the steam curl up and vanish, the silence stretching long enough that even May shifted in her seat. When he finally exhaled, it came out long and slow — the sound of a man setting down a weight he’d been carrying so long he’d almost forgotten it had a shape.
“Fine. Fine. I’ll tell you everything.” His gaze didn’t waver. “It’s not as though any of you could do a damn thing about it anyway.”
“They aren’t the enemy — they’re Merrie’s guardians. Or that’s the story handed down, at least.” The mayor’s voice had settled into something rehearsed, worn smooth by years of retelling. “Long ago, this city was cursed by a great sorcerer — punishment for greed, for arrogance, the old stories never agree on which. What followed was madness. Chaos that ate through the streets like rot. Eventually someone found a solution. A painful one.” He paused, let the tea warm his hands. “Sacrifice. It suppressed the madness. The Guardians of Merrie have held that sickness in check for generations because of it. The children…” His eyes didn’t waver. “It’s a grief, yes. But their deaths bought this city its survival. A fair trade, in the end.”
May’s composure finally broke. Something raw flared behind her eyes.
“You bastard.” Her voice shook, fury cutting clean through the clinical distance she’d worn all evening. “Sacrificing children—“
“Why children, specifically?” Piccaron cut in, unbothered by her rage, tone still even. “If the Merrie guardians’ power is about suppressing madness, why does it have to be them?”
“No one knows for certain.” The mayor’s answer came clipped, final.
“May.” Piccaron turned to her. “Your read?”
“It’s strange.” She forced her voice back into something level, though the anger hadn’t left her eyes. “Their method — I’ve never encountered anything like it. Nothing in any text I’ve studied works this way.”
“So it holds back a great sorcerer’s curse, but never actually breaks it.” Piccaron tapped ash from his cigarette, thinking aloud now. “Mayor. Is there a record — a book, documentation — anything written about the Guardians of Merrie? And I’ll need to know where they’re based. Not hidden, I’d guess. But careful. Very careful.”
“There’s a book. Records everything known about the Guardians.” The mayor’s tone had gone flat, resigned. “You’ll find it in the old library.”
“May.” Piccaron stood, stubbing out the last of his cigarette. “Go back. Check on Pine, the others. I’ll read through this tragedy myself.”
The mayor watched them both, something bitter settling into the lines of his face.
“You understand why we’ve done this, don’t you.” It wasn’t quite a question. “We never had a choice. The Guardians were the only option this city ever had.” His eyes fixed on Piccaron, steady and unafraid. “I don’t trust you. You won’t change this city. No one can.”