The perdu fish weren't biting, just as they had refused to do each of the last eight days that Auddier had scaled the hours long hike to the tarn high in the fledgeling mountains in the north of Haemonine. Each day he'd carted his undara-powered auger on his back and drilled fresh holes in the foot-thick ice that armoured the tarn's surface, only to carry the heavy, serum-stained machinery back to his lab at sunset. It was worth it though, even just for the slim chance of catching a perdu fish.

  Up until three weeks ago, he'd only ever seen them in books, and, as a good scientist would, had questioned their very existence. Then, fortune sent its arrow straight into Auddier as he was visiting Estabrook town down in the valley to fill out an order for supplies, when he overheard an old Bootshiner waxing lyrical about "the most dazzling catch he ever did haul." A humble, polite inquiry with the Bootshiner had led to Auddier being granted entrance to the old man's home, where he looked upon the quickly-decaying corpse of a perdu fish. He'd almost clapped his hands, but held his resolve, when he looked upon the fish's fading, but still beautiful, ripples of colour that moved with the eye.

  Auddier had offered the Bootshiner two whole ryals, one for the rotting fish, and one for directions to the place where the man had landed it. The old man's eyes near about extended from their sockets like a cuckoo clock, and Auddier could have sworn the few white, wiry hairs that remained on his dome straightened out. The Bootshiner then gathered himself, and considered the opportunity. Auddier could about see the cogs working in his brain.

  'It seems, for that price, these be quite a rarity, rare as they are pretty, I'd say.' the Bootshiner had said. 'Perhaps I ought ask around to see what I can get.'

  Auddier was then forced to consider his options. He couldn't outright torture and then kill the Bootshiner, as he had done before in similar past circumstances, due it having been midday when he'd talked his way into the old man's home, and they'd walked all the way through town to the skirts where the run down shack sat at the corner of a side road. They'd been seen by plenty, and Auddier had somewhat of a reputation already. People talked in these mountain towns, there was little else to do, and, drip by drop, rumours about his lab and the workings within had trickled through the streets. No, he'd have to try and talk the information out of him.

  'It shouldn't be too hard, he seems simple enough.' Auddier had thought, as he watched with concealed intrigue as the old man continued to stroke the white whisps on his chin and waffle about a 'reasonable price' and 'trying times yaknow?'

  'I'll try the carrot first, then maybe a thin stick.' Auddier found it rather easy to be charming when needed, and he always impressed himself with how he remained polite even during times of what would objectively be seen as deviant acts. He recalled the time he softly repeated 'I am awfully sorry about this' while garrotting a young soldier with a belt after he'd been caught trespassing on a private estate.

  'I can pay you three ryals and four ducads.' Said Auddier, as he interrupted the Bootshiner's stream of consciousness. He then pulled out the coins from his pocket and counted them with a false but realistic anxiousness, 'I'm sorry it's all I have, and I don't even really have it! This is meant to last me for half a season, but I've been desperately seeking a perdu fish for years now.'

  'I'd heard you and that lab up in the mountains there are flush with cash, out the pockets of the Haemonine people is what I heard.' Retorted the Bootshiner. 'If I'm to tell you of my fishin' spot, I'd think I should be getting that money back.'

  'As if you pay your taxes,' thought Auddier, 'rather then spend it on grain spirits and women.' He put on the most intemerate expression he could. 'It's spent for this season, on the good work, good work for the Haemonine people. And it's a private grant, I must say sir, not taxed from the people.' A blatant lie of course. 'Please, the perdu fish is quite a cryptid. It's said to have fantastical medicinal powers, and my lab is the only place where I can carry out these tests. The nearest medical lab aside from mine is weeks away by carriage, and the body over there...' He pointed to the sagging fish, 'Will be long rotted beyond use by the time we reach it.'

  'But, if I were to tell you of my spot, you could go up there and have as many as you want!' The old man exclaimed the last part excitedly, as if proud that he'd thought of it.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  'It's very very likely there was only one fish in that water. Nobody knows how they enter a body of water, but it's usually only one, maybe two, at a time, even in the Triskellion lakes.' Another lie.

  'I'm sorry,' said the Bootshiner, fanning his arms, 'I'll have to think on it.' He looked distrustful of Auddier, like the stories he'd heard were playing on loop in his head.

  Auddier's mind was smoothly ticking away, plotting options, calculating risk, but his exterior was showing a defeated acceptance. 'I see.' He said. 'Please send word to me if you change your mind.'

  And with that, he had exited the shack, and walked off in the rigid way of his, where his shoulders barely moved and his arms swayed little. The carrot hadn't worked, but he'd changed his mind about the stick towards the conclusion of the conversation, and instead settled on a new plan.

  Each morning after that day, he made his way down the mountainside in the blue darkness just before sunrise, and waited within a cluster of boulders on the slope overlooking the town. There, he'd watched the houses to the south with his expensive bronze binoculars - the ones with his initials carved on the lens cap - and waited for the Bootshiner to leave his shack. He did the same for the next four days, watching as the Old Man ventured to his shining chair outside the Veterinarian's Surgery, then to the taverns in the evening, then home. Like clockwork. He studied the man like one of his trapped cryptids; noting the slight limp in his step, the gaunt malnourished cheeks and potbelly and pasty skin, the scar on his arm that looked like a human bitemark. He considered sending one of the lab assistants to do this, as in its essence it was time-consuming busy work, but the truth was he enjoyed it to some degree. The Bootshiner was another animal to observe from his cosy spot in the hills.

  On the third day, he arrived home to a message delivered earlier by courier. In it, the Bootshiner demanded a whole five ryals for the location of the perdu fish habitat. Auddier had sent a reply, in which he politely rescinding his interest entirely, before packing provisions for the next day's observations.

  Finally, on the fifth day, the Bootshiner broke from routine. Auddier had barely settled into his snug spot behind a flat boulder when he noticed him wandering not towards the Veterinarian's, but up the mountain, in the direction of Auddier. And, more importantly, he had a fishing rod and net slung on his back and carried a dented steel bucket in one hand. Auddier took up his things: His binoculars, notebooks, daily provisions, and packed them neatly in his bag, and donned his hooded coat, ready for the pursuit.

  The old man moved slow, but Auddier maintained his patience. He tried to refrain from using the binoculars too much, for a single flashing reflection of light might give him away, even from this lofty distance. The sun was up now though, and it was a clear late spring day. He'd always been gifted with good far-sightedness anyway, and he estimated that the Bootshiner, in his late age, suffered from poor acuity.

  He tailed the man for several hours, climbing the stony path that wrapped the fledgeling mountain as the air grew thinner and the clean breeze from the snowy peaks gusted down and snagged at his hood. The Bootshiner then took a turn onto a smaller path, one littered freely with weeds and larger rocks, and continued on it for another hour, until he started making his way very slowly down a steep rockfall that weaved into a crevasse with sheer rockfaces on either side.

  The Bootshiner disappeared out of sight for a while after rounding a corner, but Auddier wasn't perturbed, even though he'd never ventured this way before. He could hear a the trickle of a stream ahead as he clambered over the rocks and crept quietly between the bracken growing from gaps in the stones. He was sure he could identify a thin waft of grain spirits as well. Eventually, he noticed small patches of blue creeping behind the corner of the rock wall, before the view opened to a quaint tarn set in a shallow basin laying before small u-shaped valley.

  Auddier was amazed he hadn't found this place before, and quickly reasoned that it must have been occluded by two of the Fledgling peaks to the north of his lab. He watched the Bootshiner shakily set up his little wooden stool out on the ice, from the safety of the rock wall, noting each movement. He'd brought a hammer and a long pike it seemed, to break through the frozen skin of the lake.

  After a few more minutes of revelling in the success of his plan, and the discovery of a new cryptid habitat, he set off on his way home. On the walk back, he turned over in his mind whether to kill the old man, make it look like he slipped and fallen over the edge of the mountain path perhaps, but he opted against it. What would be the point? What would the Bootshiner do once he found out that Auddier had uncovered his secret fishing spot? Nothing. Auddier had then smiled a little at the thought, as he climbed the rock fall.