Smith wasn't bad.
He sure wasn't normal, either, but he was easy to talk to, and with every passing moment and snarky remark it was harder to tell whether he was a rich man pretending to be poor or a poor fellow with an expensive and refined taste.
He was fun to talk with, a real shark with a pack of cards, and his best feature was yet to come.
The weatherman, that was how people called him. No one actually believed his real name to be Smith, and Ted was not sure if he was to believe that, either. On the other hand, it seemed like a nice thing to do for Smith. When Ted was nice, he was properly nice, with all the right nods and smirks.
Smith was not a good target for manipulation. He simply refused to move when Ted moved and smile when he smiled.
This was thrilling. Ted thought he would never be able to eat date cakes normally again.
"What you need isn't easy, let alone cheap. I'm going to have to consult a few…people."
"Don't make it a big deal," Ted warned. Just because he was with his equals, it didn't mean he was outmatched.
"I don't want anyone to know that I do not merely predict the weather." He looked at Smith, but it was a bit difficult.
It was almost as if the appearance of the man subtly changed every second.
"No, you control it, and that's even worse," Smith laughed.
Ted knew by now that there were things in this world that even scared him. He was not about to let that show.
"Oh, I know you are scared of me. Doesn't matter. I think you can afford me, but it'll take quite a few days and you will never be able to look a Karshaan in the eyes when I am done."
"Excuse me, do I look like I love to stare at people?" Ted coughed. The heavy smoke in the room was getting to him and he still didn't know where it was coming from. "The less I have to stand people and their shenanigans, the better."
"If you say so. Don't say I didn't warn you."
Ted hesitated for a moment. He could have talked in length about the entities he had faced without cowering, but that would have been too much information in the wrong situation.
"I have my reasons to doubt you," he said.
"Then shut up and either take what I have to offer or then walk away if you get so easily bothered by the truth. I am down to make it rain. Or I can make it shine, if that's what you prefer?"
"Rain is more than fine," Ted said, in a hurry to prevent the most horrible weather of all. "Just make it unexpected and inform me well in advance. What is your price, Smith?"
"You can afford it, but I can't tell you, not yet." Smith smirked, and he was looking very mysterious indeed.
Ted could not understand any of it. He gave Mad an angry look.
"This is making me feel insane," Ted complained.
"Good. You're not supposed to feel sane after talking to me," Smith said.
"Well, we must be going, my experiments will not experiment with themselves," Madorn said, still with his usual, calm, good-natured tone, and for a passing moment Ted was really glad to have him as an ally.
Ted crawled back into his bed, head still spinning from smoke and his clothes reeking of millions of different spices.
It was supposed to rain soon. In the middle of the dry season, such things were not expected, and Ted had ordered Junior to arrange a very public bet that the Society would win.
After a short nap, Ted went to the nearest marketplace, wearing a casual meck and his most confident smile.
"Rain," someone said. "I don't see no clouds."
"Tobias is going insane," someone with a shrill voice shouted from the crowd. "It just got dry! It's about to get even more so! It is the season!"
"It is the season," many voices repeated at once.
Ted thought it was about time for rain to come down. This drought was making people lose their minds.
"How much did the Society bet on rainfall today, again?" he asked Junior, who happened to be nearby.
Junior whispered a sum that would have horrified Ted, had it not been for the memory of a most convincing weatherman.
"That's good, don't want to miss out on the big winnings, am I right, Junior?"
Junior stared with his stupid idiot cow eyes, he stared so hard in Ted's direction yet just an inch away from his head, and it made Ted think that the nurse was perhaps trying to break free from the spell.
Still, such things had always been a part of Junior's general presence, just like smelling like damp armpits after a day of doing nurse stuff was part of the unfortunate sensory experience of meeting him. Ted was not too concerned.
"It is very good for the Society," Junior said with his usual voice. "It's going to rain very soon."
And it rained.
The clouds manifested themselves out of nowhere, billowing up to a stormy sphere just above Neul. They were dark and majestic. The relentless pouring of the rain made Ted really glad he had his sturdy umbrella.
Of course, the handle hid a blade, but that was no one's business, not even Ted's at the moment, because he had his hands full with retrieving two thousand gold coins from people who had conveniently forgotten their gambling hobbies.
Accidentally, Ted happened to spy Eknie strong-arming a man twice her size.
She looked so graceful when she was concerned with firearms and violence instead of that wretched love or lust, whichever caused her to be so annoying.
Ted smiled and went on his merry way, trying hard to avoid grinning as widely as he wanted to grin.
It was raining, all right, the water whipped the faithless Neulians back into the proper order.