"Well, well, if it isn't my old friend Rokan."
Ashan's voice was warm and concerned, the voice of a man who had been wondering where his dear friend had gone and was only now, at last, finding out. "Where have you been? You don't look good. What happened?"
Rokan's face twitched. His jaw tightened. He muttered something under his breath—a curse, a prayer, a wish—and his face had grown paler than it was before, the dark circles under his eyes like bruises left by something that had been squeezing, squeezing, squeezing and had not yet let go.
Fuck him...
"Now that I remember..." Ashan's smile widened, his mockery wrapped in the softest, most sincere concern. "I haven't seen you in the Chaturanga area for a while."
Rokan's face darkened. His hands, at his sides, clenched into fists, then relaxed, then clenched again. The veins in his neck stood out, pulsing with the effort of keeping his voice low, his composure intact, his rage contained.
The man with him coughed, the sound sharp and pointed, the sound of someone who had been waiting for the pleasantries to end and was tired of waiting. "If you two are done with your reunion, I'd like to inspect your goods."
"Sure!" Ashan spread his hands, the picture of the simple, eager shopkeeper, the novice craftsman, the boy who had no idea what he was doing and was just happy to have customers at last. "These are my finest creations."
The man stepped forward, his movements slow and deliberate, the movements of someone who wanted the crowd to see how carefully he was doing his work, how thorough he was, how fair. He picked up each charm, one by one, turning them over in his hands, holding them up to the light, sniffing them, squinting at them, weighing them against some standard that only he could see.
Rokan remained standing behind him, a silent pillar of spite, his arms crossed, his face set, his eyes fixed on Ashan with an intensity that was almost physical.
.....
After his examination, the man stepped back. He shook his head slowly, the motion theatrical and exaggerated, and coughed pointedly.
"Not good." His voice carried, reaching the ears of the crowd that had begun to gather, the curious, the bored, the hungry. "The charms you've crafted are of poor quality."
Rokan seized the moment, his voice rising, his eyes gleaming. "Poor quality? How poor are we talking?"
"The lowest of the low." The man's voice gained a performative edge, the voice of someone who had been doing this for many years and knew what he was talking about. "I have been crafting charms for many years. The quality of the charms this... friend..." He let the word hang, heavy with meaning. "...has crafted aren't qualified to be called charms." He shot Ashan a cold, disdainful gaze and raised his voice, letting it carry to the farthest edges of the crowd. "You can't fool anyone with skills like this!"
Rokan didn't lag behind. "You fraud!" His voice cracked, rose, and became something almost shrill. "You want to cheat your fellow members!"
Their shouts were loud, deliberately amplified by a trickle of prana around their throats, carrying across the market, reaching the ears of everyone who was passing by, everyone who was shopping, everyone who was looking for something to break the monotony of the day. Soon, a crowd began to gather around Ashan's small stall—the curious, the bored, the hungry, the ones who had come to see what the noise was about and stayed because they smelled blood.
Ashan didn't panic. He observed it all with a calm, detached expression, his eyes moving across the faces of the crowd, the sellers who had left their stalls to see what was happening, the buyers who had abandoned their purchases to watch, the children who had slipped through the legs of their parents to get a better view.
If the crowd was forming because they were excited to be my first customers, that would bring me joy. He let the thought surface, cold and clear. But this crowd... is here for another reason.
"What's happening?"
"I don't know, but I heard this shopkeeper is a cheat."
"I've seen him win streaks at Chaturanga." The voice was sharp and certain. "He must have been cheating there, too."
At the mention of Chaturanga, Rokan's ears perked up. His face, which had been pale, flushed with color. He shouted with renewed, excited venom, his voice rising above the crowd, reaching for something that had been just out of reach and was now, at last, within his grasp.
"Yes! Yes!" His hands were gesturing wildly, his whole body moving with the force of his words. "He cheated in his matches! He cheated in our match!" His voice cracked, rose, and became almost a scream. "He's a fraud! A cheater!"
He flashed Ashan a mocking, triumphant smile, the smile of a man who had been waiting for this moment, who had been planning for this moment, who had been dreaming of this moment for weeks.
Ashan replied with a calm smile of his own, the smile of a man who had nothing to hide, nothing to fear, nothing to prove.
Hmm. He let the thought surface, darkly amused. Well, technically, I was cheating in the matches.
Seeing that unshaken calm, Rokan grew perplexed. His smile faltered. His hands fell to his sides. His eyes, which had been bright with triumph, clouded with something else, something that might have been doubt or might have been the first stirrings of fear.
Acting tough even now!
The charmcaster inspector shouted in a grave tone, pointing dramatically at Ashan's wares, his voice rising, his hand shaking, his face flushed with the righteousness of his cause.
"You can all sense it! The urja in his charms is fluctuating! It will bring danger to the user the moment it's activated!"
He paused, letting the words settle, letting them spread. "How can he sell such dangerous items here? He's not just a cheat—he's endangering the lives of his customers!"
"So despicable!"
"Punish him!"
"We should teach him a lesson!" The voices rose, overlapped, and merged. "Make an example of him!"
The crowd, which had been a loose gathering of the curious, became something else—a pulsing entity of shared outrage, of righteous anger, of the particular joy that comes from finding someone who deserves to be torn down and joining in the tearing. They took up the chant, their voices rising, their faces set, their hands raised.
Scoundrel! Cheater! Fraud!
A torrent of insults poured forth, each one louder than the last, each one more certain, each one less connected to anything that had actually happened and more connected to the story they were telling themselves, the story in which they were the righteous and he was the wicked and there was nothing in between.
Rokan sneered coldly, his face half-turned to the crowd, his voice low and satisfied, the voice of a man who had been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
How's that, Ashan, you little fucker? He let the thought surface, let it warm him. If I hadn't lost that match, I wouldn't have fallen to this state. My whole fortune bled out to you that day. But today, you'll lose more than money. His smile widened. You'll lose your reputation. And reputation is the supreme currency in this world.
.....
Ashan's gaze swept over the angry, sneering faces. Throughout the entire spectacle, he had said nothing, merely observing, waiting, letting the crowd's outrage build, letting it peak, letting it begin to exhaust itself.
He watched them—the ones who had come for blood, the ones who had come for entertainment, the ones who had come because they had nothing better to do and this was something, at least—and he saw the same thing he had seen a hundred times before, in a hundred different places, in a hundred different forms.
Why do people do this? He let the question surface, let it drift. Jealousy? Envy? An inability to see someone else walking a path they gave up on, so they must drag them down? Insecurity? Is it a bad thing?
He watched them, and he understood.
Well, people do strange things to soothe their hearts and accept their mediocre reality. Seeing another's misery excites them. It lets them pour their own failures onto a convenient target. And they grow ravenous for the misery of those who seem greater—it thrills them to know the seemingly lofty also have a vulnerable side.
A faint smirk touched his lips.
Insults. Badmouthing.
They're just the words of people who stopped walking forward.
I don't care now. He let the thought settle, let it become part of him.
I won't care in the future.
The charmcaster who had been with Rokan closed his eyes for a moment, his face going still, his breathing slowing. When he opened them again, his expression had changed. The performative outrage was gone, replaced by something else—confusion, uncertainty, a dawning realization that something was not as it should be.
He stared at Ashan's charms, his brow furrowed, his lips pressed together, his hands reaching out, then drawing back, then reaching out again.
"Why do you look so confused?"
Ashan's voice cut through the noise, calm and cold as a winter stream. It was the first time he had spoken to the crowd, and the crowd, which had been so loud, so certain, so righteous, fell silent.
"If you want them activated..." He let the words hang, let them settle, let them spread. "I can do that for you."