Read Aethosphere Chronicles: The Rat Warrens for Free Online Page B

Skylight
that’ve paid a well bench-rent to be enjoying the light, and
dangermen and bruisers’ll do worse to you then I for disturbing the
peace, so mind the line and bee it straight to the stairs.”
    “I got’cha, chum,” grumbled Fen, “It’s not my
first go-about in the Node. I know the deal.”
    Passing by rough-cut benches chocked-full of
loungers, Fen glanced right, towards the nearby bay windows of the Claw’s Cradle , and found a host of smartly dressed dangermen
sitting just on the other side of the greasy glass. They seemed to
be enjoying the tavern’s vices, and Fen tried to imagine his father
doing likewise, but then Art never could hope to afford a window
seat. He’d had probably done all his drinking in the subbasements
with the rest of lowly ratties. So Fen turned his attention back to
the benches lining the stairwell and instantly spotted the one him
and his family had stood on that day, years back. Now, it held two
fat traders, a haggard consort, and a block of muscle that must
have been a bruiser owing to his square jaw, mashed-up face, and
the cauliflower ears. With his arms around the consort, the violent
look the brute flashed Fen all but cried his profession aloud, and
it was with relief when Fen mounted the stairs and sprang past the
other scroungers, trollers, and trudgers all heading down on route
for the Bartermen’s.
    The Exchange existed in what must have been
an old brick cistern at one time; a deep and cylindrical borehole
from which a broader, but low-ceilinged arcade ran off to the north
once you hit bottom. For the sake of the bartermen, and the
hundreds of traders who conducted business down there, some rat
lord ages ago had swallowed the expense of running electricity.
Around the perimeter he’d strung globe-arcs that came spiraling
down from the ceiling, and then took to stretching back and forth
across what the regulars called the Boulevard.
    Beneath the arc-lights’ jaundiced glow, the
Bartermen’s Exchange grew into a hodgepodge of stalls, booths, and
tents all crowded together into one giant, elongated market, and
all of it officially ‘licensed’ under the rat lord. Beyond the fact
the bruisers tanned the hide of any thief caught stealing from the
Exchange, Fen didn’t much know what the difference was between
trading down there and, say, trading with mongers and flea-peddlers
in the various slum boroughs. Though the fact Fen was here braving
the Exchange said it all. No one outside had much to trade when it
came to notes (except scamps, and Fen still liked to believe he
wasn’t in danger of losing his thumbs).
    Down in the crowded market, Fen floundered
through the crowds looking for some inconspicuous stall to trade
his goods at. In the beginning he wanted to find the best rate of
exchange, but the hustle and bustle made his head spin and soon he
was just looking to get it over with. Though the rest of the
Warrens were crowded through and through, the byways and corridors
were seldom this noisy. After all, the poor hadn’t much to say to
one another beyond a few simple pleasantries…or insults depending
on the circumstances, and when they moved about it was usually with
purpose, and in one direction. But down in the Exchange, the person
walking in front of Fen was liable to suddenly cut right or left or
stop altogether when something bright and shiny caught their eye.
People were constantly bumping into him, and then would yell at him for being in the way.
    Eventually Fen happened upon a stall with an
older gent who had a wrinkled face and a kind smile, but then he’d
undercut him on the exchange and gave Fen just two tokens for one
note. He’d seen others, even at the stall next-door, hawking at
three per, and yet in the end he’d only gotten the two with that
deceptive old scoundrel. So then he tried a middle-aged woman,
thinking her maternal instincts (or whatever), would work to his
advantage, but she went ahead and robbed him even worse. The old
cow only