The Pharoah Contract

To the side, Ruiz laid out a selection of pipes, for anyone who couldn’t wait for a taste. There was a small water pipe of greenish porcelain, decorated with a stylized carving of a lyretongue lizard. There was a glass bubble pipe, a tangle of frivolous tubing through which the smoke would flow confusingly.

There was a simple pipe of brass, its long stem wrapped with colored leather, and a stubby redstone effigy pipe made to resemble a rearing striderbeast.

These things had a certain use-ingrained beauty, and Ruiz took some pleasure in handling them, and admiring the careful craftsmanship that each revealed. He took out his smoker’s lamp; the tall silver casting depicted a slender naked woman dancing in flames — which on closer examination proved to be a nest of serpents. The wick emerged from a tambourine she held aloft. Ruiz peered at the tiny face, which seemed to laugh madly. He polished away a bit of tarnish and filled the reservoir, then lit the lamp. It burned with the smoky yellow flame to be expected from a chimneyless lamp, but the fuel was pleasantly scented with sweet musk. Ruiz leaned back, for the moment content to wait.

His first customer drifted in just before noon. A short truculent-looking man bearing the tattoos of the steamfitter’s guild slipped in and stood by the door for a moment, apparently allowing his eyes to adjust to the cool dimness of the common room. After a moment, his glance settled on Ruiz, and his dour features broke into a wondering smile, as if the sight of Ruiz and his vials and pipes and lamp were a vista of surpassing beauty.

“Ah,” he said, in a delighted voice. “A new oil man.” He strode briskly over to Ruiz’s table and seated himself. He sat peering at the vials, a gloating expression suffusing his face. “You have the pink gracilic!”

“A connoisseur, I see.” Ruiz sat up, arranging his face into a mask of friendly expectancy.

The steamfitter sat back, abruptly frowning. “But I don’t know you.”

Ruiz shrugged. “Pharaoh is broad. A humble man such as myself can garner only enough fame to cover a small part.”

His customer smiled, a bit sourly. “Indeed. Well, we’re away from the press of commerce here, so we’ve had no regular oil man since Efrem displeased the Lord and Rontleses broke his legs. I may buy, if you convince me you can be trusted.”

“Why should you not trust me?” Ruiz brought out his plaque, which the man examined carefully.

Finally the man nodded. “It seems proper. But I’m not brave enough to risk bad oil — I don’t want to end up frothing and biting the flesh from my hands. Will you smoke with me?”

Ruiz made a lofty gesture of acquiescence. “If I must, to gain your trust and trade. But first, price!”

After fifteen minutes of spirited haggling, they reached a mutually acceptable price for the pink vial.

Money changed hands, and the customer picked up the pink vial in careful hands. “By the way,” he said. “My name is Nijints.”

Ruiz nodded. “Wuhiya, your servant.” He took up the brass pipe and uncovered a small brown stoneware humidor, from which he took a pinch of shredded punkweed. He packed the tiny bowl and waited until Nijints had selected the porcelain pipe and prepared it.

There was a comfortable expectancy in Nijints’s broad red face, and he seemed in no hurry. He handled the vial lovingly, holding it up to a beam of light that flickered through the roof thatch. Finally he sighed and tapped the vial’s neck against the table edge, until it cracked off. He allowed the smallest possible drop to fall into Ruiz’s pipe.

Ruiz fixed a look of proper anticipation on his face, and tipped the pipe toward the flame of his lamp. He drew the sweet smoke deep into his lungs, and Nijints broke into a sunny smile.

“You smoke with decision,” Nijints said, and dripped a larger dollop of oil into his own pipe.

The oil filled Ruiz with appealing perceptions. The ranks of vials looked for an instant like blazing suns in the blackness of space. “Starlight is the most dangerous drug,” he muttered. Nijints’s face seemed almost beautiful in its blunt acquisitive intensity.

Relia the doxy swept into the common room, and Ruiz for an instant was overwhelmed by her grubby perfection. Then, mildly panicked, he clamped down on his sensorium, using expensively acquired cerebral reflexes, and the scene in the common room returned to near normality.

Nijints lit his own pipe and sucked blissfully. For a moment his eyes drooped and he seemed on the verge of passing out, but then his eyes snapped open and he looked about with a heightened intensity. He spotted Relia where she stood scrubbing a table, bent over, her smooth round thighs showing, and his face blossomed with joyful purpose. He capped the vial with a bit of rolled-up leather, and set the burned-out pipe aside.

“You’ll excuse me,” Nijints said politely, and Ruiz nodded solemnly.

Nijints trotted over to Relia and made arrangements; a moment later both had disappeared into the back of the inn.