Part 5

Ebony Shadows

           I found something very interesting yesterday while I was walking through the streets of an alien city, arm-in-arm with Iluin as we scoured shops for supplies we never found. It was a pot, a little clay disk with an overlapping lid, being sold by a bored cat behind a counter in one of the open-air markets. Not very interesting, I know, but what was inside had serious implications. You see, this earthen saucer had agar in it, and on that a series of little white dots that smelled like masa.
           What's masa, you say? If you'd had Dr. Emmillio Vasquez as your microbiology professor, as I did, you'd know. Actually, if you'd had Vasquez you'd know a lot more than that, but I digress. Masa is the corn used in southern tortillas and breads. More importantly, it tends to smell a lot like gram negative bacteria. So here's a perfect culture of gram negative bacteria, for sale, on a completely alien world. If the cosmic-diaspora theoreticians could've seen that their hearts would've stopped.
           I guess I shouldn't really be that surprised. After all, there are some ways of doing things that are just better than others. Insects, for example. On both worlds they've had several billion years to develop. Surprise! The flies here are nearly the same as the ones back home. The biggest difference I've noticed so far is that they have eight legs compared to terran insect's six (yes, I know, that makes them arachnids. They better fit the insect's ecological niche. Besides, I have multiple doctoral degrees; I'll use whatever taxonomical structure I damn well please.). I'd never really put much faith into the whole idea that diversity increases endlessly with time, so it's nice to know that there is a fairly set path of how organisms best evolve.
           What interested me more, however, was that Iluin actually bought the germ plate. The vendor looked to be in perfect health, and I know I haven't seen Iluin sick. Later on that evening I watched her as she took about twenty of these plates and cooked them with a candle, then scraped off the top of the agar and stirred it into some unknown solution. I think she was making a vaccine, though that's a dangerous way of going about it. If you use too little heat the bacteria might not all die off, and then you're just giving yourself the disease. On the other hand, if you use too much then the bacteria's cell structures are destroyed completely and there's no benefit. It's a crude, dangerous, and generally ineffective way of vaccinating oneself. Anyway, she made me drink half of that god-awful soup and I haven't gotten sick yet. I thought that was fairly intriguing.
           This civilization doesn't even have organized urban sanitation and here I find Iluin putting Jenner and Pasteur to shame. I'm not even sure they have microscopes. That's a pretty big jump in technology levels - I'm no historian, but basic sanitation had to have predated vaccines by at least a millennia. The same thing is true with the rest of their culture - the vast majority of their metal looks like wrought iron or at best maybe pig iron, but they have these swords that are so sharp they make diamonds look like butter knives. I'm not sure what to think of that right now; it'll take me more time to figure it. In the meantime… well, maybe they have rockets and fusion power. I can dream.
           I add this last paragraph with some hesitation. You see, life today was not all observation and musing. I think I may have killed someone. Actually, I was trying to help him. It's still hard to write about. There are these shantytowns surrounding the city, you see. I met a young child beggar at the side of the road as we were entering; I decided to give him a just coin - just one. As soon as
           it fell into his hand there was a mob of people to take it from him. He died. Iluin tells me that it was their fault and that I shouldn't mind so much, but he's stuck in my mind. A tiny figure buried in a snarling pile of teeth and claws… how are you supposed to ignore an image like that? No wonder Iluin has trouble sleeping alone. Now I'm going to have nightmares too. And you know the worst bit of it? It was my fault. Up until the mission I had practically no regrets, no burden to bear. I doubt my mistakes will stop here; I just want to be able to live with the things I've done by the time I've finished them.
          
           Dr. Rachel Mitchell, diary excerpt from 11/3/2182
          
           It was just her luck. When Iluin had talked the innkeeper into giving them a bed the previous evening, of course Rachel had assumed that they'd found someone reasonable enough to let her sleep in the same room as her friend. But no, it turned out that Iluin had just been a bit slier in getting her past the management. When a servant had come into the room to wake Iluin in the morning and found them in a snoring, furry tangle, he'd yelped and ran for his boss, who had immediately barreled up the stairs to engage in a shouting match with a half-conscious Iluin. End result: Rachel sat on an upside-down bucket in the stable, scowling at the stupid beast across from her that stood in its stall and chewed its cud placidly. She stared at it in all of its bloated herbivorous glory and was suddenly struck by how unequestrian it appeared.
           Once, when she'd been about ten, she'd wanted a pony. Come to think of it, just about every girl at the age of ten wanted a pony. They were glamorous and innocent and beautiful, and she was going to get one for her eleventh birthday and keep her pony in the back yard and feed it spinach and peas. Oh yes, she'd planned it all out. What ten-year-old wouldn't? Instead her father had taken her to a ranch for her birthday. That had been the end of that: ponies were much more attractive seen than they were heard or smelled. Still, she'd take a pony over the overbearingly brutish animals Iluin's kind used any day. Ponies may not have had impossibly thick foreheads, huge digging claws, or enough of a build to carry a half-ton of cargo, but they weren't nearly as stupid, and if a pony hit you with its tail you didn't have to worry about your bones staying intact. Besides, ponies were pretty. These things… ugh.
           She looked away and the moment broke. What had that last one been? A minute? Two? Rachel rubbed her head with her hands, groaned, and stared at the floor. She just had to think it out one more time, was all. Didn't want to: had to. The child, standing before them, dwarfed by the beast - mah'sur was the word for it. Iluin, uncertain. The coin. The mob. The limb, disappearing under a mound of furry bodies, not devoured but trampled underfoot. Then the sequence repeated. She massaged her temples, trying to get her thoughts back to the now-present, but she couldn't work her way past one phrase. She'd killed him. It was going to be a long day.
           The door to her left creaked and gently swung inward, casting welcome light into the otherwise dim stable and breaking her concentration. Strands of something like hay wafted down from above at the disturbance, spinning in lazy pirouettes as they fell to their siblings strewn generously across the floor. Much of the animals' activity stopped as the hisses and spits of a softly mumbling cat echoed across the room. He - she? - came through the door unsteadily as he tried to both to balance three water pails in his arms and maneuver the door with one foot. As he entered his back remained toward her, but after he'd taken a few steps in he kicked the door shut and turned around with a proud, cocky grin.
           Wood thumped hollowly on the hard-packed ground and then rebounded a few inches back into the air, the buckets cracking as water sloshed across the floor.
           "Raury?" he squeaked, hunkered down with ears flat in panicked distress. Behind him his tail was swishing wildly. Rachel observed him silently, but otherwise did nothing to betray her sapiency, not seeing any reason to frighten him further. Instead they simply looked at one another. He stared. She stared. In the background a beast snorted and a pair of the lizard-birds came down from the rafters to lap at growing puddles. After a moment the man moved away, breaking his fear-frozen position to cautiously step back and give her a thorough eyeing over. It took a minute, but then he chuffed at himself and said something rapid-fire, too fast for her to understand. He looked ruefully at the spilt water and broken water pails, chuffed again, then disappeared into a storeroom to the right. Echoing grunts came from inside, followed by a large crashing sound. Rachel thought he might've had something fall on him, but he reappeared pushing a heavy wooden wheelbarrow full of hay, his golden chest heaving with exertion as he grinned at her again, this time confident that she was just an animal. "Hauri nhe saf, fa?" he asked, chuffing to himself.
           They must've gotten odd creatures on a regular basis, because he paid her little mind after convincing himself that she wasn't really intelligent. She watched him as he grabbed handfuls of hay, shoving them into the troughs nailed into the insides of each stall door, then looked more closely as he dug deeper into the wheelbarrow and did the same with handfuls of brown pellets. "Hiateh, hiateh," he said, laughing at the beasts and patting them on the nose. He acted like they were individual people, joking with them and chuffing contently as he made his rounds. As he approached her she smiled slyly and wondered what he would do. Surely he wouldn't try to feed her that, would he?
           "Paor'hy?" the man asked hesitantly, pushing the wheelbarrow slowly closer to her. He shifted slightly, his cheeriness giving way to wary hesitancy. Not bad for someone who'd never seen anything like her before. "Hai…" he said, chuffing once more, then dug out a pawful of pellets and came to crouch in front of her, holding them out gently. "Meiri," he offered again.
           With an expression of utmost seriousness, she reached out a hand and selected the topmost pellet from the pile, then drew it up to her nose and sniffed it dubiously. Didn't smell like much, really. If she'd had to guess she'd have said it was probably whole grains and vegetables with animal fat. Palatable it certainly wasn't. Rachel frowned as she examined it, then 'hmphed' noncommittally and carefully replaced the pellet on the pile in the young man's palm. The expression on his face was timeless.
           "Hai, Rahkl! Food!"
           Iluin was at the door, back heavily laden with baggage but nonetheless holding two plates of breakfast. Rachel went to her friend obediently, interested by the prospect of real food. Behind her there was a small surprised noise; Iluin responded with a question she couldn't begin to translate. The two felines conversed tersely as Iluin handed Rachel a platter and brought them both back to sit against the storeroom wall. Iluin sounded like she was irked but amused with the stable hand's incompetence in dealing with her 'pet'. As for him… bewildered didn't begin to describe the set of his ears and his wide, unbelieving eyes.
           The meal was decent. Gritty brown bread accompanied thick, frothy milk and a bone-laden triangle of thin, dry white meat under a golden crust. Rachel had a feeling that it was a wing from one of the glider reptiles. She gingerly bit off a browned wingtip and chewed the crackling skin and insubstantial meat below, then blinked. It would've been using a centuries-old cliché to say that it tasted like chicken…. No, not chicken. More like squab.
           She grinned at that as she hunched over her greasy breakfast plate and tried very hard not to aspirate on any small bones. Squab. Yeah, it was just like eating squab in an Arabian stable during the dark ages. Squab, cobbled stones, polished wood, gaudy European and Middle Eastern costumes, pair of giant talking cats - it was all there. Just like the dark ages. Right.
           Except that in the dark ages handing out charity didn't make you a murderer.
           "Want to join me on a crusade, kitty?" she asked Iluin, eyeing her morosely. "No, you don't, do you. You'd probably be one of the sheiks anyway. Ah well." Iluin gave her an odd stare; Rachel returned it. "Yes, Iluin, I'm using human babble." The cat blinked lazily, a slow down and up of the eyelids that didn't even pretend to interrupt her vision. Then she grinned too and laughed harshly, a plosive growl that caught Rachel completely off guard. Iluin bit straight into her wing and crunched the bones between her jaws noisily, sucking at her fingers for the juices afterward. Odd one, this cat. Odd one, this species, for that matter.
           Rachel peeled the meat off of her meal's bones and sucked on it, getting out the juices and then chewing on the wing's tough, body-side mass of shoulder muscle. When she'd finished the wing she set it back down on her plate and went for the bread. Iluin noticed this and gave her an elbow in the shoulder, watching the remnants of the wing on the plate. "You want that?" Rachel asked, and Iluin made a one-syllable response. 'Ja,' or something; she didn't hear it too clearly.
           "You want the aweir?" Iluin purred. Rachel blinked uncomprehendingly.
           "I'm sorry, aweir?" she whispered to Iluin, looking nervously at the stable hand. He didn't seem to notice. Iluin found a hairline crack at the end of the bone and split it length-wise, then showed Rachel the results. Inside the bone there was mostly just air, of course - anything as big as one of those lizard flyers had to have hollow wings if it was going stay alight with such a puny wingspan. There was, however, a red-purple residue that coated the bone's insides. Marrow, Rachel realized. Iluin took one half of the bone and ran it against one of her canines, scraping it into her mouth, then lapped at what was left.
           "Aweir," Iluin said, offering the other half of the bone. Rachel peeled off a small wedge of the cooked, gelatinous marrow and hesitantly laid it on her tongue. Tasted like salt: salt gum. She screwed up her face in disgust and waved the rest away. Her companion shrugged and took to the bone greedily. "Ke'mashta," Iluin said unbelievingly. Or maybe the emotional undertones of her voice held something different; Rachel couldn't tell. It was odd; she didn't really care. It'd become painfully obvious that she couldn't predict Iluin well, nor the others at all. Rachel lifted a hand and ruffled her partner's mane as its accompanying head flashed back and forth across the bone's innards. Iluin stopped and gave her that same odd look. "Hai…"
           "Hai," Rachel agreed, and gave her companion another peck on the nosepad. It was amusing; it confused the hell out of her. And it didn't get anybody killed. A furry muzzle wrinkled and Iluin gave Rachel one of her best enigmatic looks, but then those rigidly angular features softened. Iluin leaned forward and playfully nipped at her friend's ear, then chuffed and lapped at the milk in her saucer. When Iluin's head bobbed back up Rachel laughed too. There was an alabaster feline staring at her with a reserved smile, little white droplets falling from her milk mustache. For a moment her concerns were forgotten again - if the stable hand had come over and begun to tap dance Rachel probably wouldn't have laughed much harder. She collapsed onto her friend's shoulder, gasping for air. The ears half-down, slightly bemused expression that greeted her from above was an image that stuck: that was Iluin. That was Iluin all the way.
          

---v---

           "What is it doing?" the young man asked. Iluin looked across the stable to him, watched him regard her as he absently filled a mah'sur's food box. Rahkl hadn't finished twitching and was still making her odd growl-whimpers into Iluin's sleeve.
           "Seizuring, I suspect, or possibly choking. It will recover." She nodded at the stable hand. "You've lived here for a long time?"
           "All my life, ma'am."
           "I want to travel further north, past this province, and I'd like to do so discretely. I'll need a guide. Do you know where I can find one?"
           "Probably," the man answered, rubbing at his sore arms. He leaned back until his lower vertebrae popped loudly. "Ah. Morning stiffness. It's nearly summer and the cold still gets to my bones. Guides, hrrn?"
           "Fa," Iluin said. "You know any?" She put a paw on the side of Rahkl's head and pushed her away. "Hai, furless meddler. Don't hang on my shirt cuffs." The stable hand sneezed, his hands full of hay. A mah'sur had decided that it wasn't going to wait for the hay to be placed inside the pen; instead the great beast was chewing on the clot of dried stems between the man's hands, sending up a cloud of small hay bits all around him. The man couldn't help but sneeze and cough as he wrestled with the mah'sur over the hay, finally giving up and throwing his remaining armful into the pen with the impatient beast.
           "Anemic mah'sur," he muttered, rubbing his nose ruefully. "I'm sorry Ma'am - guides? I don't know any personally. Best I can do is send you to the Hunter's Den. It's the largest meeting place for travelers of your sort, though I'm not sure your pet will be allowed inside. It's in the eastern quarter, between the east wall and the bronze statue of Kharanboug. You'll find it fairly easily. Might be able to pick a guide there."
           "My thanks." She took a final lap of milk, then stood and stretched. "Rahkl?" The pale-skinned woman rose as well, hugging her around the waist. Iluin snorted and held her an arm's length away. "Hai, I'm not carrying your bags." Iluin loaded her partner down with both Rahkl's own pack and one of the saddlebags. The gun she pressed purposefully into Rahkl's waiting hands with a nod. "Hold that." Then she unslung her lleiri from its least uncomfortable position - around her back - and clipped it to her belt. Either way it was mostly for appearance, and either way it made going though doors without looking like a bumbling fool nearly impossible, but with the blade at her hip she could at least draw it. It felt snug against her thigh, an absurdly reassuring weight. She reached up to the neck of Rahkl's new gold-green cloak and straightened it with a few short strokes. "There. Ready to go?"
           "Fa," Rahkl said, enunciating the hrasi plosive clearly. Iluin frowned, unused to hearing vernacular from her partner. The stable hand went silent.
           "Rahkl, you can't keep doing that," Iluin murmured mirthfully. "You're going to scare someone so badly one day that they'll just topple over dead."
          

---v---

           The morning was as beautiful as any could be in the midst of a trading city. People were out in the streets, purring and chuffing and hissing and shouting. Street vendors cried out over common peasant's conversations, extolling the virtues of their wares with vigor renewed overnight. Mah'sur moaned irately as they were forced to stay off of the sideways, and ever-increasing numbers of people crowded up against them. Rahkl was constantly falling behind, not because she was any slower but because she, unlike Iluin, couldn't simply force her way through the crowds. "Iluin!" she'd call, and Iluin would turn around to clear her friend a path with one stark glare at the offending parties. Besides that small annoyance, however, their morning was as perfect as could be hoped for.
           Every few minutes Iluin caught a glimpse of what she assumed to be the Kharanboug statue, a great bronze form in hide armor who had its right arm held high in a gesture to the sky just barely discernable above the rooftops. Together they dodged and dove through the crowd, heading that way, hoping to find the Hunter's Den. Certainly that was the correct landmark; though she didn't know anything about this particular legendary warrior, there were no others in sight. Still, she stopped a fellow pedestrian once they'd gotten through the alleyways and into the statue's clearing.
           "I'm sorry, what'd you ask?" the common woman said, her bag held close to her stomach. The look on her eyes said that she was more concerned with what Iluin might do to her.
           "I asked if you knew whether that statue there was of Kharanboug." The woman blinked, looked to the statue, then back to her.
           "Of course it is, miss. Kahranboug the scout, spirit of Jas'suit'ah It's the only statue that size in the city."
           "Hai, of course," Iluin agreed, then caught the woman's shoulder as she tried to leave. "Do you know somewhere nearby named the Hunter's Den?"
           "It's three streets that way, on the left." The woman pointed towards the wall. As soon as Iluin's grip was gone she turned and fled into the anonymity of the crowds.
           Iluin spun on the ball of her foot, scrabbling across cobbled stones to grab at a dazed Rahkl, who was staring at the statue. She looked unsettled.
           "Who?" Rahkl asked.
           "I don't know. Holy spirit or something - some dead man. Come on Rahkl, let's go."
           More pushing through ornery commoners, then - some snarled at her to her face, others only once they thought themselves out of ear's sight. Must have been market day - even as nearby to the docks as they were, the streets were busy. Heavy hrasi musk permeated her nostrils as she pulled Rahkl out of the current of townspeople and through a troupe of laborers repairing a street corner. "Hai, out of my way, brutes!" They snorted, but moved when they saw the sword at her side. Against Rahkl's vehement but thankfully animalistic protests the two traveled down the street and away from the statue, pressing against the walls of buildings to avoid being caught up in the swarm of people who moved so quickly.
           The winds shifted and suddenly Iluin scented ocean, scented sea-spray. It was salt and fish and the acrid stink of the mauh'hra distillate that sea-goers used to seal their hulls from water rot. Farther inland the incense out on the streets obscured the scents of the port, but now they were just close enough to catch the smells of the harbor and the ocean. Iluin had no particular love for the sea - the mountains were her home - but duty had called her to ports and out onto the waters often enough. These new scents of ships and sails, more biting and bitter than their counterparts in more southern ports, promised sailor drunkards, captains in search of bodies to man their crafts, and spies from gods knew how many nations and organizations, all gallivanting about the eastern quarter. She slowed her pace to keep closer to Rahkl.
           A body hit her from the side and Iluin slid down into an hostile stance. Someone careened away, spinning twice before recovering his figure.
           "Oh, I'm sorry, miss," the offending figure purred. He was a dirty auburn red, shorthaired, with a nondescript shawl and immaculate carriage. A silver rocha hung at his neck. "I didn't mean to hit you like that. Are you alright?" His voice was a light tenor, but had a purposeful quality to it.
           "Don't touch me," Iluin growled lowly. "Do it again and you'll be scrap meat."
           "I apologize," the man replied evenly, then ducked his head with a smile and disappeared.
           "Fool of a man," she snarled. She shook out her pelt with a series of barely restrained hisses, then turned to the worried Rahkl behind her. "Hai. That's one of the city folk, Rahkl. Don't waste your time with them. Come on, the Hunter's Den isn't far. You ever had fish?"
          

---v---

           "Up, get up. The morning's here."
           Vauhya rubbed the bridge of his nose with the back on a paw, blinking his eyes to adjust to the light. The bartender's husband was leaning over him; she was standing at the door of their bedroom. What were their names? He couldn't remember. "Get up," the man repeated. "Get out of our bed. You aren't staying here any longer." Groaning, Vauhya sat up and stretched.
           "Hai, my thanks. Do we have breakfast?"
           "You don't have any more money," The man said pointedly, "and there aren't any dirty dishes left for you to clean. Get your clothes on and get out." Vauhya grimaced, but slipped to the floor and grabbed at his breeches. He dressed quickly, then picked up his lleiri. They were going to attract attention out at a market...
           "Ah, do you have a… ah, a longer cloak that I might have?"
           "No," the man growled.
           "Yes," his wife said softly, then nodded to a chest in the corner when her husband glared at her. "You can have the green one in there if you don't mind wearing scraps." He crossed the room and opened the chest. The clothes inside were old and worn thin with use - he tossed aside a dirt brown shirt that was beginning to lose its seam and started digging. The named cloak was at the bottom, wedged between a rusting dirk and an old pair of hide sandals. Four or five tiny black specks disappeared from the cloak as he held it up. "Been in there a while," the woman said quietly. "Since I ran from the Archer's Corps. It's probably a bit infested. You can have it if you promise not to return." Vauhya held up the cloak's hem and hooked a claw through one of the larger holes there. Disgusting. He shuddered as he put it on, throwing his old cloak aside and fastening the carved wooden brooch at his neck. Then he secured the lleiri at his belt, safely out of sight within the cloak's shapeless folds. The bartender's husband just stared at him with ears back.
           "My thanks," Vauhya began, but he was cut off out by the ill-tempered man.
           "Enough. Out." So out he went.
           The sleepy burg of Norsghar had transformed overnight. It had hardly become the archetypal colorful and gay center of trade that'd been depicted in the stories of his childhood, but it was certainly a sleepy burg no longer. Though the area around him had changed little, as it had already been surrounded by permanent storefronts, he could see lines of stalls at either end of the main street. The village's size had temporarily doubled - a labyrinthine ring of vendors had appeared like weeds in the clearing surrounding the village's perennial structures. Moreover, the town's population seemed to have increased tenfold. Likely every farmer within a few days' ride had come to peddle and purchase goods.
           There was no air of festivity hanging about the newly expanded village, but in its place was a visible vitality. People were in the streets, moving in groups of ten and twenty when only a day ago he had been one of a pawful of citizens moving past the buildings. Suddenly everything had a purpose to it; suddenly everyone had a direction. For the first time in months Vauhya felt strangely invigorated. Grinning like a fool and with the bleakness of his situation momentarily forgotten, he leapt from the doorway of the Hope's End and into the street, heading directly for the markets on the horizon.
           Friendly chatter wafted up from the tents and open-air counters of merchants as farmers and peasants greeted each other heartily. Vauhya walked past it all, looking back and forth from stall to stall as he glided through aisles of tools and fresh foodstuffs. There were few baubles or useless trinkets for sale at this ephemeral bazaar - commoners had little money to squander in such indulgences - but weapons and travelling supplies were bountiful. If he'd been trained as a thief he might've outfitted himself for a journey to Wikedu in minutes, but nobles like he knew little about ignoble tasks. Instead Vauhya busied himself with sampling fruits and meats, stroking iron-wrought blades fondly, and marveling at the occasional steel axe or scythe. Most commoners couldn't afford steel - he certainly couldn't. Fortunately, he wasn't looking for steel. He was looking for slaves.
           A raspy voice called out to him. "Tell you your future, young man?"
           He turned on an old, hunchbacked woman in a brown cloak as tattered as his. She was standing between two stalls, resting heavily on a withered, black wood cane. Her fur was tan and thinning; her amber eyes stared ahead, missing him entirely. When he waved a hand past her face there was no sign of recognition. "I can tell you your future, young man. You just have to know what to ask and how to pay."
           "I don't have any money."
           "No? Then you ought to join me here." She had an alman'queda's cant, gypsy-like, but with a more distant tone. The typical mystic; Vauhya kept his ears up with some effort, though it really didn't matter. "I can show you how to find a person's truths in his blood's pulse, or his path in the shift of his muscles, or his temperament in the way his pelt hangs on his bones." He tried not to sigh aloud.
           "That's a generous offer, miss, but others have need of my presence."
           "Wait," the old woman insisted as he turned to leave. He frowned and hesitated. Well… she was one of his subjects…
           "Yes?"
           "You don't have anything, nothing at all?"
           "No. Only my clothes and my weapons, and I'll part with none of them." The old crone grimaced, ears drooping in crestfallen resignation.
           "I understand, then. Will you let me have a glimpse at your future anyway? There's an aura about you, like the tense before a thunderclap…" He flicked an ear inwardly. If it would satisfy her then he didn't mind. It wasn't as though he had anything left in his pocket to pick.
           "Of course, miss." She smiled and he winced. She had teeth missing, a lot of them, and at her age they weren't likely to grow back.
           "Well, let's have your wrist then." He held it out, brushing the back of his hand against her roughly furred arm. Mumbling incoherently, she shifted her weight off of the cane and ran a hand over his bared wrist. "Hrn. Yes, well, it's as I'd first perceived. You're a person of some note, aren't you?"
           "I was once was," he admitted uncomfortably.
           "And now you are significantly out of favor with the demesnes you once frequented?"
           "Yes..." Some mystic. She was being vague; his answers would've probably held true for half the town.
           "There's something in your blood. Something that shouldn't be there, something that makes you special. You're an anomaly; you shouldn't be here, nor should you have been where you once were. There is a part of your life that is not for you, that never was. Am I correct?" Vauhya frowned. Now he didn't know what she was talking about.
           "I believe so."
           "Ah. Believe. Believe! That's a strong word. There isn't anything you believe in yet. I can feel it in your veins - even your heart beats dubiously, as though doubtful of its purpose. Ask me questions, then. Two will be answered, I think. Yes, two questions." He stood there, staring at the old woman who waited for his reply expectantly. His heart was beating dubiously? What sort of game was this? No, he corrected himself, it didn't matter. He just needed to move forward.
           "I used to have someone close to me: a matron, a guardian. She promised to follow me wherever I went, but when I was forced to leave my old home she was feverish and bedridden. I haven't seen her since. That person - will I ever be with her again?"
           "She may have promised to follow you," the old woman said gravely, "but she has gotten ahead of you. Of course you will meet her again, but until then you will be the follower."
           Vauhya closed his eyes tightly shut at that. There was an old wound, still rawer than he'd thought it. It hadn't been appropriate for this woman's crock wisdom; He wanted a different line of questioning now. Iluin's whereabouts? No, that was even less appropriate for riddles and comforting half-lies. Hahrum's? But he could guess that. The correct path to take? But there were a thousand possibilities. He could become a soldier of fortune, an adventuresome scout, or simply another poor merchant. Merchants…
           "Where is the man who stole all of my money?" the old woman laughed.
           "Trying to cause you more trouble, I suspect. Use bladework to deal with him next time, fa? You seem the type that might make good use of a sharp edge." Then she dropped her arms away from his hand. "How interesting to have met you so soon… well, but that was draining. I have it my mind that I should feel very honored to meet you, but I don't know why. Interesting…. I'm going indoors now; you leave thunderstorms in your wake." The old woman hobbled past him without another word, angling off towards the center of town. Thoroughly confused, Vauhya watched her leave, then held up his hand. He twisted it back and forth, examining it from all sides.
           "Why would a con woman try to work someone who doesn't have any money?" He asked aloud. No one in the vicinity so much as batted an eye towards him. Up above the sky was a bright blue flecked with thin puffs of white - not a single rain-bearing cloud in the sky. "Thunderstorms. Hai…" So he kept moving forward.
           It really shouldn't have surprised him to see familiar figures standing at the slave stall. Really, his reflexes should've been faster.
           Vauhya threw himself out of the street and landed in the dirt between two vendors' tables. They hadn't seen him; their backs were turned to him. He hissed lowly to himself, rolling up to a crouch. On either side of him merchants were staring from behind their piles of wares. They probably thought he was crazy. He scanned the area around him for a place to hide - to his right was a drab brown tent where an elderly man sat against a pile of grain sacks. There. That was close enough. He got to his feet and dashed to the tent, ignoring the hopeful gaze of the trader who sat in its entrance, and waited for a cry to arms and the crash of chain-link boots as swordsmen surrounded him.
           Nothing.
           A minute passed, then another, and finally air gusted from his nostrils in shudders as he let out a pent up breath. The vendors were still staring at him. He shifted nervously. Still nothing. He remained absolutely still for another full minute and the merchants tired of watching. He could hear his heart in his ears.
           There were four people arguing in front of the slave's tent, two of whom were gut-wrenchingly familiar. One was a woman in black with a menacingly long scabbard prominent at her hip; she was arguing with a shorter, younger mirror of herself. The other was the commoner who'd robbed him previously. He was standing alongside both the younger sher'amn and another man who'd adorned himself in richly colored silk robes and golden finery. A slaver…
           Slanting out a cautious ear, Vauhya tried to hunt their conversation out of the market's background murmurs.
           "…other game to hunt, Yulsle. He's not here."
           "I told you, I saw him. He wasn't a commoner. He needed a bond-partner. He had money with him! What more do you need to know?"
           "I agree with him, Saurie. We have sher'amn all throughout this area - we don't need to go searching the surrounding ones. If he's here, as this man says, why not catch him here?"
           "Yulsle, you haven't learned anything. An entire day here and you still want us to stay? This town isn't large enough for anyone to hide from us for that long. He obviously didn't take the highway here; likely he went south instead."
           "But today is market d-"
           "Enough! Young fool. I'm going south. You can come with me or stay here and rot."
           "Miss Saurie, please! I'm sure he's here; I can nearly smell him!"
           "Sher'amn, listen to your apprentice! I've told you he's here, in this marketplace, looking for a bond-partner!" There was a pause before the younger feminine voice cried out again, this time thin and fading into the hum of the markets.
           "Saurie! Wait! Saurie! Sauuuriiie!"
           After that the voices were too soft and much harder to recognize.
           He waited patiently, giving the sher'amn ample time to travel out of hearing's range. The other two speakers, the thief and the slaver, were much more subdued. They talked about marks and politics and who wanted him the most and how best to profit from his capture. There were no pleasantries bantered between the two. They sounded dangerous.
           "Just lend me two of them…" Vauhya heard the thief say, and his ears perked.
           "I won't have twenty six slaves be watched by only four guards. That'd be inviting trouble."
           "You have them chained - they can't even move! It'll only be for a few hours."
           "It's not worth the risk."
           "Just one hour!" Silence, then.
           "Hrrrn… I don't like this. One hour. Then you're back, with the prince."
           "I can do that."
           "Fine. Vei! Jhurie! Go with this one. You're hunting the Yoichi prince - he's here. Go. Be back in an hour."
           There were sounds of acknowledgement and then the metallic crunching of two pairs of armored boots approaching, accompanied by the soft footfalls of sandaled feet. Vauhya tensed and moved away to the other side of tent, pressing up against the canvas. He made himself small and flat. Arching his neck sideways, he caught a glimpse of the man he'd met at the bar striding confidently forward with a long, gleaming silver dagger in hand. Two hrasi of indeterminate gender followed him, their features hidden in brown cloaks and chainmail armor. Vauhya's heart beat itself against the walls of his chest as he stood silently and watched them go by. Any of the peasants or merchants around him could have yelped at him, or even simply pointed, and he would've been killed. They didn't.
           That was two parties gone, then. Vauhya saw them disappear into the market, then waited several minutes longer for them to go elsewhere. He kept himself in a state of worried contemplation. The slaver had not wanted to let only four guards protect twenty-six slaves. That meant that there were five people to stop him if he tried to free a slave, six if the slaver kept a regular bond-partner. Five or six was better than seven or eight, but still four or five more than he could probably manage. Vauhya was no Iluin… A diversion? But the slavers were professionals if they could march three times their number in slaves from town to town. They'd ignore a diversion, or perhaps even raise their guards. He snorted in frustration and bobbed his head out from the tent's cover for a quick look at them.
           At the front they'd set up a raised wooden platform that came to his hips. It had steps on one side; likely it was for an afternoon's public auction. Behind it was a large tent supported by five beams. There was a canopy with a small hole in the middle and wide triangular flaps that hung down to hide the beams from passersby, but there were no walls to obscure the tent's contents. On the far side were three mah'sur with harnesses and two large, unhitched wagons; the great bulks of the beasts and the covered wagons made a barrier around the back third of the tent's circumference. Inside were various chests and crates, a few piles of cloth, and several scattered mounds that moved weakly, sometimes shifting or rattling. From among the heaps of flesh Vauhya couldn't find any individuals; the shadows bled the color from their pelts and reduced them to huddling lumps laced with loops of black iron. Every four or five paces a wooden pole had been put into the ground. Chains led from each globule of slave to the poles, twisting about their bases like serpents guarding their nesting trees.
           To Vauhya's dismay, he saw four guards standing around the tent's perimeter as well as the slaver, who had retreated to the mah'sur and was apparently tending to one's barding. The guards were just as well armored as the other two had been. They held their staffs and swords with a self-assured lethality, kept short bows at their backs, and eyed the hrasi around them with quiet contempt. He doubted that he would be able to manage for more than a minute or two if he ever found himself locked in a room with one of them. And yet there was no discernible alternative. Think, think, think, think, think! The others were going to return. It was only going to become more and more difficult. Vauhya dropped his head, slipped a hand into his cloak, and stepped out towards the nearest guard.
           In Vauhya's mind the world around him became silent. The ground moved under him as he pushed his feet forward; he felt absurdly aware of the warm morning sun at the back of his neck. Behind it all was a tightness in his throat, a panicking "what am I doing?!". He ignored that. Seventeen and one half steps later a metal-covered boot and leg came into his field of view. A voice asked him tersely if he wished to barter or purchase slaves and antiquities. Vauhya stood there dumbly, head down, then looked up and stared into a man's scarred face.
           "No," he heard himself say. "No, not right now." Then he grabbed his full lleiri's hilt and drew the blade in a diagonal slash. The metal's howl was deafening.
           The guard instinctively swung his staff up to deflect any blows to his head, but Vauhya's llieri cut through both effortlessly. It also took him into a dizzying spin that put him off-balance and unprepared for the armored figure that next charged at him, snarling epithets as it went. This guard had a massive two-handed sword that terminated in a woefully sharp point, and she swung it down at him in a vicious arc. Vauhya blocked high and was rewarded by an ear-flattening shriek of metal shearing from metal, then was flattened himself as the front fifth of the blade he had just broken continued its path and spun over his head, carving a shallow trough into his head as it went. He landed on his backside with an enraged figure and her ruined sword above him, pawing at blood that seeped from his skull and trying desperately to catch his breath long enough to roll away from harm. The guard aimed the new jagged tip of her blade at his belly and hefted her sword for a strike, but then howled pain and stumbled back. He slid his gaze sideways and saw a bound man kicking at her from beside him.
           The other three slavers were almost on him then; wordlessly he sat up and turned sideways to hack at the chains that bound the slave's feet. The man sat too and proffered his chained hands - Vauhya didn't bother to aim his lleiri between the man's wrists, as he got to his feet he simply cut down the pole from which the chains ran. There was no time for anything else.
           Again the female guard howled and lunged for his stomach, but this time Vauhya stumbled out of the way and countered with a heavy blow to the woman's head. The blade made a satisfyingly wet squelch, but stuck when Vauhya tried to pull it free. After a moment he abandoned it and drew his short lleiri. The two remaining guards, nearly atop him, charged without hesitation: the well-dressed slaver held back, wielding his short sword with caution. Vauhya struck out in a sweeping arc at the guards who attacked him, his blade jumping only twice as it met the fleeting resistance of their wooden staffs. Almost a forearm's length fell away from the tops of each, but the guards were unfazed. When he swung his sword back to shorten their weapons again it pulled in the other direction, refusing to parry.
           Two wooden fists struck him full in the chest. He staggered back, dropping his weapon and doubling over. That was foolish of him. Their staffs came down hard on his back, sent him to lie breathlessly in the dirt. When he pushed himself up another blow struck him in the chin and his vision blurred. Blood was dripping out of his mouth. He swallowed and spat red into the mud. The third time he heard a staff whistle at his head he threw an arm above him and turned the weapon to strike the ground beside his ear. There was a frustrated snarl from above him, then a cry of pained surprise.
           When he came up the number of people had doubled. Both of his assailants were being attacked by anemic, withered bodies that gripped at their armor and had wrapped limbs around their weapon arms. There were five freed, all of the ones near the pole he'd slashed. Now they struggled impotently, mere seconds from being cast off and slaughtered. More practical people would have run, but he was glad that they hadn't. It gave him time enough to find his sword.
           Of the two guards, Vauhya thought the first had the better end. He'd turned his back to Vauhya in his struggle with the slaves; the only thing he felt before he died was a loosening of tension as Vauhya's lleiri brushed aside slabs of muscle and severed his spine from his head. The other was forced to watch him helplessly as he slid his blade past her chain coat's folds and slashed though her stomach. The slaves didn't let either guard leave without injuring them further; they became two seething balls of blood and snarls. Vauhya backed away unsteadily; his head pounded. The yowling was deafening.
           When the five freed slaves had subsided, the silence became tangible. Outside of the tent every hrasi had disappeared or was trying to. Not a single commoner was willing to stand and protest the slaughter they'd just witnessed. In that one blood-loss-hazed moment Vauhya felt sad to know that, though he had no idea why. Like animals, the slaves were tearing at their former handlers, and no one raised a sword or bow to stop them. The slaver, his robes flecked with dark splotches of his guards' blood, dropped his weapon and backed toward the wagons nervously; if Vauhya had killed him right there, no one would have complained. He discovered that he felt extremely ambivalently about this. Perhaps it was the blood that'd begun to run into his eye.
           "S-Sir, it would be very magnanimous of you to let me li-live," the slaver stammered. Vauhya towered over him, disdainful. Finally he simply kicked the man in the chest and sent him to a gasping heap on the ground. He sheathed his short lleiri after giving it a few compulsory wipes on the man's robes, then retrieved his other weapon.
           The slaves had scattered. They were crouching among others still bound, pressing their naked selves against others not yet free, working frantically to loose one another's bonds before someone decided to enslave them all again. An emaciated group such as theirs had no chance of leaving the city. Once they came out of the tent's shade they'd be beaten back into slavery, though before that most would probably be executed. Vauhya wanted to lead them out, saw their pathetic, mangy bodies and wanted to help them escape, but knew he couldn't. There was a chance for a single pair of hrasi to make the trek to Wikedu, no more.
           "Warrior," called a soft voice from the back, near the wagons and amongst a pile of cloth. He almost ignored it as imagination, but it repeated. "Warrior?" So he followed.
           Strewn out on a pillow laid against a wagon's wheel was a pale, milky gold woman no older than he, clothed in a light haze of colored veils and translucent garb. She was leaning against a dark wooden chest set near the wagon, hands in her lap, knees bent up to her chin. There were small metal loops leading from her three iron earrings into her mane and a larger chain that crept up her side to attach to a gold collar.
           "Yes?"
           "Help me. If you do I'll keep to your side as long you'll have me. Please, sir." He blinked, looked at her collar.
           "Gold's not a very strong metal. You should be able to take that collar off by yourself."
           "I can't. They've been feeding us rahl roots - keeps us weak. Free me, warrior - I swear I'll follow you!" He frowned.
           "I didn't come here for a sickly girl." The panic in her eyes became visible.
           "No no, it's not permanent! I'll be fine in a few days!" And when that didn't seem to much affect him: "I can clean that cut you've got on your forehead. I'm one of the alman'queda - I know how to survive out in the wild. I know how to use a sword. I can hunt for you, or cook, or anything you'd like, just get me out of this!"
           "I'm not interested," he began to growl, but then stopped. "Did you say that you were an alman'queda?" The woman's eyes went wide and she nodded furiously.
           "Y-yes sir. Half desert folk, half not. I know that kind of land, I know how to trade and how to swindle, and I know all the towns from here to the -"
           "Do you know Wikedu?" She stopped.
           "I've heard of it. It's on the coast of Yoichi province, isn't it? I know how to get to the coast from here." Then she cocked her head back an inch and looked at him carefully. "I could take you there."
           Vauhya crouched down to her level at that and pulled out his short lleiri. The thin metal chains they'd used as bonds split like soft wood when put to the blade's edge. There were still shackles on her feet and hands and still the collar on her neck when he'd finished with the chain, but they wouldn't impede her movement and so he left them on. "Thank you," the woman began with relief, but Vauhya ignored her.
           "We need to go, now. Help will be back soon. Can you stand?" She couldn't, really; he put an arm around her neck and slowly raised her up and onto her feet, though she still leaned on him heavily.
           "There should be a medicine bag in the chest. It'd make treating that wound you have easier." He kicked open the chest, saw the bag, and took it. There was belt knife underneath. "That too." He put it in his pocket.
           In the distance Vauyha heard a sudden, furious outcry.
           "We're leaving," he announced, grabbing the girl by the side and pulling her towards the daylight. The girl pulled back with all the feeble insistence that she could manage.
           "No, the mah'sur! We can't just walk out of Norsghar." He nodded and dragged the two of them towards the nearest mount. Its saddle wasn't on, nor was the rest of its tack; instead a single fur blanket had been draped across the beast's rough hide and secured with two leather cords. "He'll do," the woman grunted, wincing at Vauhya's grip. "Just put me up there and I'll be able to ride him." He put his hands on her hips and pulled her up until she could hang to the blanket, then pushed her the rest of the way before scrambling up himself. His head hurt - he pressed a hand to the warmth of his wound and dug into the girl's thigh with the other.
           "Let's go! Now!" Then they were moving.
           As their mah'sur pounded past stunned slaves and into the daylight, the sounds of the town were silenced by a hissing burst of metal on metal. A militia troupe of fourteen or fifteen in rough commoner's garb ran at them, notched ears laid back, waving their swords and hollering angrily. The girl kicked the mah'sur in the side and it veered off towards the distant protection of the forest, charging in fear and confusion through tables of vegetables and throngs of fleeing merchants. They galloped through the crowds, leaving a single straight line of broken glass and wood behind them. When the last tent was past and only green hills remained the girl urged the mah'sur to go faster and they lurched forward. A trio of sharp twangs sounded behind them like the voices of plucked strings. "Turn!" Vauhya yelled at the girl in front of him, but she had heard them too and had already begun to swerve their mount to one side. The first arrow arrived with the vindictive whistling cry of a gale and struck with a thunderbolt snap on some rocks nearby. The second passed overhead with little more than a whisper and seeded itself a hundred paces away. The last Vauhya felt in the lurch of their mount and its moan of pain. The beast went wild, running for the trees in panic and screaming harder as its violent motion worsened the wound. He turned back to see a wooden shaft jutting from the beast's left rear haunch, twisting in the wound and stirring up a bloody porridge as the creature moved its leg back and forth.
           All at once the light went to patches and beast slowed its mad gait, still bleating and bleeding. The sudden change pressed him against his new ally's backside, then rebounded him back to stare at the sky. Leaves. Trees. Forest.
           They were free. He was proud of the escape; not only had he gotten away again, this time it'd been with more than he'd had before.
           Vauhya grinned stupidly, put a hand to his head, and promptly passed out.
          

---v---

           Vision. Was fuzzy. "Uhhhhhhnnnnn…." A figure above him. Gold-white. He smiled dreamily. "Iluin."
           "Sorry," the figure said. The not-Iluin looked a lot like her…. His head hurt.
           "Where?" he asked. Thoughts came back to him. Came slowly. Fragments coalesced into sentences. His head felt like it was full of fur.
           What?
           What the hell was he thinking?
           "I don't know," the White One said. No, not the White One. This was just a white one.
           "You don't know what I was thinking?" he asked.
           "What? You asked me where we were. But no, I don't know that either - no, don't try to move. Not yet. We have to wait for those bandages to set."
           "You're all fuzzy." A hand, not one of his own, pried at his eyes. Other eyes stared into them: dark, mountain forest green eyes.
           "Blink for me." He did. The figure resolved. It was a girl in red war paint. He chuffed at that. Didn't know why. "Gods, you lost a lot of blood. Look at you. Look at me." Oh. Not war paint, then.
           "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I don't mean to bleed on you."
           "Blood doesn't bother me much," she replied, "but I'm going to kill that mange-ridden mah'sur if you die because of this."
           He remembered a mah'sur. Somewhere there had been a mah'sur. Had he been riding on it? The
           girl scowled - he wondered if she wanted an answer. He pondered one.
           "I would be mad too." The girl who was treating him frowned, then flicked an ear backward.
           "Well, don't worry. I dressed it. Cleaned it too. You just need some rest." Rest. There was something wrong about rest, but he couldn't remember exactly.
           "Are we on the path?" he asked plaintively. There were some people chasing them. If they were on the path they were going to die…
           "No," the girl replied. "I pulled us off of the mah'sur, then dragged us both into the bushes. With all of that mah'sur's blood-stink on the trail, I think we're safe. I'll just hide my fur under your cloak." He nodded weakly and pricked up his ears. That sounded good.
           "Will you be my bond partner?" he asked suddenly. The woman laid her ears back at him.
           "I'm female. You're not." Then she narrowed her eyes. "Hai, you mean you want to mate with me?"
           "No!" He protested, then lifted an arm to reassure her. It had a light blue bandage on it. "Not what I meant - why do I have an arm… an arm…." He searched for right word, but thinking was getting to be really hard. "-thing?"
           "You cut your arm when we came off the mount," she explained. "I'm sorry. It was partly my fault."
           "Oh. Why is it blue?" The woman looked herself up and down.
           "I used one of my veils. I don't want them anyway; bad memories attached. I used them all on you." He thought about that for a long time.
           "Oh."
           "Do you feel all right?" the woman asked. "You sounded more articulate before. Do I need to take you back?"
           "No," he gasped. That was definitely the wrong choice. He remembered that much. "I'll survive. You, take my cloak?" Didn't sound right… "Do you want my cloak?" The girl shook her head.
           "Later. I don't want to move you." He nodded again, this time very weakly. "Do you have a name? Or, rather, what do you want me to call you?"
           "Call me?" He chuffed a little, moaned when he moved his arm the wrong way.
           "What's funny?" the girl asked, sounding not angry but worried.
           "This happened to me yesterday. Uhhhnnnn. My name's Vauhya."
           "Mine is Atra."
           "Atra… I'm sorry. I won't remember." She sighed and rubbed off the dry blood that'd caked on his cheek.
           "I don't mind. I'll tell you again later. I'm patient."
          

---v---

           Smoked meat and sea salt were the first scents to greet them at the door. The stink of drunkenness was admirably absent, as was the traditional group of middle-aged men unconscious on the floor. The patrons of the Hunter's Den came from a different pack; they were all in muted greens and drab browns, each trying as desperately as Iluin to be inconspicuous. The room smelled of hull sealant; the White One craned her head to see the structure's entire and then sniffed. It was hull sealant. The building had been built out of ships' bowels. A single great mast served as the main ceiling beam and a bit of the roof itself. Iluin snorted. Well, it would be the place to go if a storm hit port.
           The room quieted when Rahkl appeared from behind her. Iluin clapped her on the shoulder, moving them both towards the front bar counter near the opposite wall, and cleared any trace of expression from her mouth and ears. She looked at Rahkl; Rahkl was watching her, pressed close but not quite touching, keeping a half-step behind her and making no noises. Well, so the Gods sometimes granted small favors.
           There were no chairs at the counter, nor benches nor thrones nor seats of any kind; people stood or leaned there, talked quietly, sometimes placed orders, mostly waited for a opportunity to sit. Seven stood at the counter near her, with six farther down, nearer the door. Instinct had said stay near the door, which was exactly why she'd taken them away from it. Likely everyone else in the room had similar instincts. People who stayed near the door were people who might have reason to flee. She set her hands on the counter, dug her claws into the wood grain, and clawed troughs into it, relishing the feeling of claws drawn through wood. Ten more scars to an already well-scratched surface - hundreds must have left their mark there.
           "Miss," one of the barmen called. She flicked her eyes up to meet him. "No animals in here, miss. Leave it at the door."
           "She'd be all claws if she'd understood that, sir," Iluin said softly. "She's no animal, just a friend from the southern continent. Had an accident. Doesn't know Naman yet, luckily for you." The barman regarded her coolly.
           "Is she paying?" Iluin nudged her companion with her forearm.
           "Rahkl. Money." Rahkl looked at her, then at the barman, then back at her. She reached into her cloak, withdrew one of their gold coins, and set it on the countertop. "There. Convinced?" The barman hissed, soft and low and more out of surprise than anger. He turned to Rahkl.
           "Hai, I'm sorry, miss." Then to Iluin: "Ah, apologies. What do you and your… ah, your friend need?" She shrugged, feigning uninterest.
           "Two saucers of green wine. Oh, and a guide."
           The man looked at her dubiously and ran claws through his nut-brown beard. "Ah, a guide, miss?"
           "One who knows the northern territories." Again, he gave her an uncertain expression.
           "None of the patrons in here who I know are guides, miss. You'll have to ask yourself." He pointed behind her - she turned and followed his unsheathed claw to a table of brown-robed figures sitting at the back. "I don't know them, but they didn't arrive together. I doubt they're a single group. You might introduce yourselves." He craned his neck to examine the rest of the bar's occupants. "Hrnnn… nope, I'm sorry, miss. I don't see any of our regular guide types in here right now." He took the coin. "Ah, I'll pour you your drinks and get you the rest of your money."
           As he moved away Iluin tried to turn her back on the counter leaned against it. Her sword got in the way. She snorted and unclipped it. Anemic thing was like a second tail, only rigid and numb. She dropped her saddlebag at Rahkl's feet, then set her lleiri and its scabbard against the counter. People stared openly as she crouched and dug through the pack for a knife and sheath. Likely no one had seen a lleiri of that size. It was unique to her knowledge. Also damned near useless. Iluin rose, grabbed the top of the scabbard, and swung it to lean on Rahkl. "Keep that," she instructed. Then she put a foot towards the back of the room. Retracted it. Turned to look at Rahkl: "Stay, hear? Don't go off anywhere. Just stay there."
           "Fa," Rahkl said softly. To their left a pair of ears went back. Iluin frowned, but left her.
           She wove through the tables quietly, careful not to linger near any table or brooding individuals. It was not really necessary; almost everyone moved or bent out of her way. She neared the table, saw that there were cards and on it, and then continued to move toward it anyway. Gamblers. There were eight figures sitting there, all in brown cloaks, three with their hoods on and their heads down. All had gold pelts, though the shades ranged from Vauhya's true gold to a dirty gold black. Six men, two women: no obvious pairs. Iluin stopped behind one of them, put a hand on his chair, and examined the table.
           They were playing sha'saari. The table was covered with simple shapes carved from bone and painted in different colors. Cubes, prisms, pyramids, cylinders, spheres with flattened bases - in green, blue, black, red, yellow, white, brown, and grey. They were little bone armies engaged in heated battle. Different shapes for different types forces, differently colored armies with each shape in different proportions. Iluin knew the game well, though was intrigued to find it so far from the royal courts. Sha'saari was tactics training. Sha'sarri taught war.
           The players were not so inept themselves; Iluin observed them from outside their circle. Blue and red were footman-heavy, and clashed side-by-side with green and white, whose players had both opted for riders. Yellow and brown fought their own private war to the side of the battle. Grey had chosen to deploy sher'amn exclusively, and thus maintained a small force which nipped at the edges of the blue-red-green-white battle, taking victories where it could. Black was using ancient Yoichi tactics: It had a block of archers firing into the yellow-brown melee from the table's corner, with a line of sher'amn and riders in front to protect them from direct attack.
           The game ended quickly. Yellow tore brown to shreds, but was by that time too weak to defend itself from black. Red and green fell, leaving blue and white to fight. They caught Grey between them and crushed it, then truced and headed for black. Black fell, leaving a paltry half-dozen blue and white pieces to scrabble for the victory. White took it.
           "Well, looks as though I'm not the one who'll be telling him, friends," white's player announced. "Good luck with the next round." He grinned at their grumbles, then turned and left. Iluin took the vacant seat and they went silent.
           "Care for a quick game of sha'saari?" she asked. "Half armies, half time." They looked amongst one another. Finally the woman to her left spoke up.
           "We're trying to assign responsibility here. Unless you want to risk it, this isn't your table."
           Iluin perked her ears. "Responsibility?"
           "Fa. Responsibility for telling our captain that her cargo is…" She trailed off to rub her nose awkwardly. "…rotten."
           "Rotten?"
           "It spoiled. Went bad. We lost too much time in the storms last week, or so we think. Somehow the fruits in the hold started to ferment. And as a result, ah, we have to go back south for the sake of our passengers, but we don't have enough to buy goods here without selling a full hold of good fruits we don't have, so there'll be no cargo on the way back." She paused and gestured towards one of the men. "Well, Travsa thinks we might sell our load for low-grade prices to beer-maker, but I have my doubts." Iluin considered that.
           "You're the crew of a ship?" They nodded.
           "Crew of the Twice-Blessed Arrow," the woman elaborated. "We pull cargo and passengers along the coast."
           "Well. Have you considered going north?" The woman slashed the air with an open palm.
           "It's not worth it. There aren't enough passengers on the trip northward." Iluin nodded. "You want this game?" the woman asked. Iluin paused.
           "No, I don't think I -"
           "Haaiiiiiii," one of the men opposite her uttered. "Nobody look. We just got ourselves a monk." The remaining crewmembers silently donned their hoods.
           "We've had rough spots with them," the woman whispered. Iluin was paying more attention to the man who'd spoken.
           "What's she doing?" she insisted. The woman snorted.
           "So you're great friends with the church too." But the man who could see the front of the bar was silent.
           "What's she doing?" Iluin repeated.
           "He is trying to look like a commoner, of course. He's wearing his rocha, and a silver one at that. Not too smart. Commoners don't have silver jewelry." There was a pause. "Going to the bartenders - he's looking for somebody." Iluin frowned and turned in the chair. The sailor was right. A man in pilgrim's garb was having a quiet but intense conversation with one of the barmen. He was doubtlessly church - his loose, shapeless jhenai's cloak and red-tinted sandals made that clear enough. There was a bulge at his side, knife shaped and quite large.
           The man dropped his hands to the side and leaned against the counter as she had, staring out across the bar. He looked familiar, with a young but hard expression in his face and that silver bird at his neck. His gaze wove through the room, then came to her table and stopped. "Look away," the same man whispered harshly. Iluin ignored him and continued to meet the monk's gaze.
           "What are you doing?" one of them hissed. She looked at him just long enough to shrug.
           "Let's get him near us."
           "What? You're a fool," the man growled in a strained whisper. She smiled tightly.
           "No, that'll take him farther away from my bare-skinned friend against the far wall." The monk began to approach them.
           "Hai," the man across from the table groaned softly. "Look at that. Here he comes…" Iluin turned back to him.
           "Just act calmly. If he gives us trouble you're safe with me." She waited for a moment, looking at their anxious expressions, then slanted an ear towards the man seated across from her. "How long would it take you to ready your ship for the seas?" His brow furrowed.
           "Well, maybe only a few minutes, but the captain doesn't want us to leave until we've got new cargo and another pair of passengers-"
           "Go. Leave. Now. Have your captain ready your ship. My friend and I will be your final pair; I can pay our fare and twice what you'd profit from any cargo you might manage." She drew a pair of gold coins from her cloak and set them on the table. "There, take that. I have another fourteen for your captain if he can get us to sea." The man stared at the coins, then at her, then took them and hastily stood.
           "Sit down." That voice from behind her. The man stood uncertainly, hunched at the table's edge. "I said sit down." Iluin sat there, her ears purposefully erect. "You, White One, get up."
           "You're the White One?" one of the women still sitting asked incredulously. She turned to look up and couldn't help but flatten her ears. It was the man who'd hit her in the crowd earlier. She got to her feet slowly, pushing the chair back into position, then almost lazily turned around.
           "I won't let just let you-"
           "Quiet," the man ordered. "And don't even think about trying to fight. The inn is surrounded. We saw you in the streets yesterday, White One. Did you really think you could go through this province unnoticed?" She was silent.
           "Don't do this here. There are people here. We shouldn't do this here."
           "I agree," the man growled lowly. "Why don't you come with us? We just want to talk to you about the boy. They're going to make him a 'heretic', White One; the Aghanai are going to act on behalf of the gods to disown him. They'll set all of the people against him - help us now and you might be spared. We just want to know where he is." The man nodded back towards Rahkl. "We've seen that too. We won't hurt it. Just come with us; I've got an escort waiting outside." She feigned thoughtfulness while looking past him to watch Rahkl.
           Her partner had seen Iluin rise. She was watching the exchange intently, sipping wine from a saucer in one hand and holding her gun in the other. Rahkl understood, then - saw the expressions and their terse exchanges. Iluin took some comfort in that; she looked back to the monk.
           "I think you should leave. Now, before I have to hurt you." He laughed at her - not loudly, but a definite chuff nonetheless.
           "You don't scare me, White One. I'm brother Masca Adouni, and I've killed three sher'amn who caused me trouble in the town. You'll follow me, before I have to hurt you." She flicked an ear back, but dipped her muzzle in acquiescence.
           "Fine."
           Supposedly there were unspoken rules of courtesy between veteran fighters, rules like 'don't insult your opponent by trying to surprise him.' Iluin suspected that they, like the alleged nobility of sher'amn, were largely myth - in any case, she broke them and attacked suddenly, bringing her palm up to crush his throat. The monk didn't look surprised at all; he blocked with both arms, then stepped into her guard and kneed her in the gut. Iluin stopped, not so much because she had been partly winded, but because she had been confused. He'd stepped through her guard! No one was that fast! Her decision proved unwise; a knee of fur-cushioned bone snapped into the bottom of her jaw and sent her tumbling backwards. The edge of the table struck the back of her head as she crashed to the floor.
           Cries went up around the tavern. The sailors were scrambling to their feet, kicking their chairs aside and moving to the walls. "Go, get your ship," she howled. The monk planted a foot on her chest, pinning her down. She grabbed for the leg of a chair and swung it into the side of the man's leg, sending him to twist into the tiny aisle of space between tables. Iluin rolled under the table and came up on the other side. The eight were there, brandishing short swords and dirks but pressing against the wall. "Go," she growled. The man who she'd spoken to gave her a nod.
           "North docks," he said lowly, "where the provision shops thin out. We're the ship with the moon sails." Iluin nodded and they all scrambled for the entrance.
           "Brothers!" the monk Masca yelled. Three appeared from the doorway, each drawing a simple long sword. Then he was on his feet. "That's a heretic, a godless sher'amn! On behalf of the church I demand you all: hold that woman!" Well, that was that. The soldiers ran. The rest of the patrons, while doubtlessly afraid of sher'amn, were just as doubtlessly much more afraid of the church; they hesistantly rose and drew their arms. More small blades. The Monk grinned at her humorlessly. "Give up. You're cornered!" She hissed.
           "I thought I warned you not to touch me!" She kicked the table at him, but he stopped it with two hands, then flipped it over and charged her.
           This time she concentrated. He opened with a kick to the legs - she threw herself off balance in response, bodily shoving him back before landing back on guard. Before he'd recovered she attacked herself, swiping at his face, but he threw up a hand and knocked the blow away harmlessly. They both snarled in frustration as they closed once more. Almost a minute of fighting took them into the far corner, the occasional projectile the only thing keeping the monk's assistance at bay. Swipe to the low inside, block, kick to the gut, block, palm to the nose, parry downwards and continuation with an elbow to the chin. He stumbled back, but caught her next swipe at the wrist and bound her arm, threatening to break it. The shouts were deafening. Iluin wrested her arm free, but not before a hard shove to the back of her neck that had careening towards the nearest table. She hit it full on and folded around the edge as it sucked the air from her lungs. Iluin heard the quiet whetstone sound of a blade being drawn and tried to turn around, but by the time she was able to he'd wrapped his clawed fingers about her throat and had his dagger in his hand as far behind and above him as his arm would go, ready to strike. Her mind reeled, demanding motion of her arms that her breathless body couldn't provide. Masca brought the dagger down towards her eye and-
           And shrieked like a cub being burned alive as he dropped the knife and rolled off of her, as the room echoed with thunder, and as the last bits of torn flesh flew from the new, bright pink-red hole in his shoulder. It was as though the gods had reached down and scooped a half-pawful of flesh from his arm. Across the room Rahkl was swinging her gun on the the three monks even as she danced along the counter's patron side back towards the wall. Everyone - Masca, Iluin, the monks, everyone - flattened their ears in pain and dropped to the floor. Iluin collapsed there and spent a few moments gasping as she watch the sailors get back up and disappear out of the entrance. Robed figures outside gave chase.
           Masca Adouni's agonized moaning was the only thing anyone could hear above the thunder, but Rahkl wasn't finished. She fired once, twice, then six times. Shouts accompanied four of the sound breaks. Iluin scrambled to her feet and started running towards Rahkl. She got maybe halfway before others began to rise; a trio of patrons with short swords stood and held to their ground as she neared them and the wall. Iluin jumped onto the hull-wood wall with toe claws out, then used that precarious and temporary footing to vault herself a feet more paces in the air and over their heads.
           The three were in mid turn as she landed; the one closest to the wall she hit first. He was trying to swipe at her head as he turned, so she grabbed his sword hand and pinned him to the wall with her bulk. As the sword slipped from his grip she took it into hers, then swiped in horizontal arc behind her as she turned and ducked. The second attacker planted his weapon in the wall beside the first as her blade disemboweled him. The blade caught; she left it hanging in him and leapt towards Rahkl, landing on all fours. By the time she was up the third attacker was on her, this one a scar faced woman more careful than her companions.
           She cut at Iluin twice, and twice Iluin dodged. The third time the woman attacked Iluin simply stood to receive the blow. As the blade whistled toward her she stepped to the side, then she backhanded the flat of the blade away when it came in for her arm. The women was surprised, and even more so when the full force of her blow dug her blade into the counter. She pulled the blade with both hands in an attempt to dislodge it, but was not quick enough; Iluin grabbed the back of the woman's skull and smashed it against the counter. The woman slumped.
           "Iluin!" Rahkl yelled. She looked up to see her friend standing nervously over the packs, her weapon raised towards a group of more cautious bar patrons. They were keeping at a distance. Iluin crossed the space between them quickly, picking up her lleiri and the saddlebag with the medicines in it as she did so. Rahkl saw that and quickly bent for her pack.
           "Follow me," Iluin demanded, then scowled at the men and women Rahkl had been watching. "You move, she kills you." They didn't move. "Rahkl, let's go!"
           Out into the streets again. They ran. There were crowds in the streets, as there had been moments ago, but this time she knew that there were watchers and hunters among the strange faces. Iluin shoved and snarled a path through the bodies, ducking and weaving and tugging Rahkl along all the while. Down the street, into an alley, out on the other side and immediately to the left, then running in the shade of the covered walkway roofs. A metal snap rang out from behind and above and a trio of bolts burrowed into the wall where her head had been before she'd heard the noise. "Gods!" she swore, and yanked Rahkl's arm so hard that the woman yelped. They stampeded across the street, knocking and pushing and trampling underfoot. More twangs and snaps; five distinct sounds from three directions. Iluin could hear where they coming from and guess where they'd go - she'd mastered the ears of combat better than the rest of it - but Rahkl couldn't, and it was hard to move them both fast enough. An arrow bloomed in red from the chest of a man not a half-pace in front of them. "Go!" She yelled at Rahkl, who tried harder, but her partner just wasn't as fast as a hrasi. Swearing, she hung back to get an arm around Rahkl's chest, then ignored protests as she half-carried her from the scene.
           Into another alley then, and another street, then another alley, then - then the ocean! Iluin skidded to a halt on the gravel street that had buildings on one side and wharves on the other. The waves were eerily silent - boats rocked, but only slightly. In fact, the loudest noise was the gale-breeze whoosh of an arrow passing through the space between and above her ears. Iluin hastily ducked, then tried to find north, gave up, picked a direction, and began running.
           "Halt!" a new voice called out behind her. She didn't bother to look back, just started running faster. Fellow pedestrians looked surprised as she barreled through them, careening from body to body in a zigzag that wasn't nearly convincing enough.
           "Hey, catch that woman!"
           "You, stop her!"
           "Don't let her past you!"
           Several voices cried out their protest. What was this, a whole mange-ridden army? Finally, one more, ths one much closer.
           "Stop it! I want, go!" Rahkl, Rahkl her partner, tripped her and loosed herself from Iluin's grip, holding on just enough so that Iluin didn't tumble to the ground. Iluin was flustered - her legs ached. Hrasi were not meant for long, extended chases. Rahkl spat something that was probably a curse and pulled Iluin to her, then began moving again. She was too slow, worse so with Iluin atop her. Iluin growled, snarled, and hissed her protest among a string of incoherent invectives and caustic commands, but was ignored. They were prey and the hunters were nearing quickly. She was going to have to fight them, maybe lose Rahkl if they had bows. But suddenly Rahkl changed direction. Iluin caught her footing and started to really move again, but why had they -
           "Hai! White One! We're over here!"
           Under silver canvas sails rested a great bulk of a ship, far out at the end of the nearest wharf. And near it a crew of drably cloaked sailors. They weren't even all aboard - one who had boarded was throwing crossbows down to two who hadn't. Iluin saw them and ran with renewed vigor, urging Rahkl forward as well. Three of the crewwomen were running to them, either arming or aiming crossbows as they moved. Each one fired and three bolts careened over she and Rahkl's heads. Iluin heard one of them splinter against the ground, but two more were more meaty thuds, one accompanied by a howl and the other by a shriek cut short. She grinned grimly.
           The sailors stopped approaching, but reloaded; they let she and Rahkl pass them, then stayed a moment to fire another round. As soon as their quarrels were away they scrabbled their claws against the wooden planks of the wood in retreat. At the end of the wharf a gray-bearded man was waiting in front of the rope ladder up to the ship. He flattened his ears as the two women collapsed at his feet, a bedraggled pile of hairless skin and scar-mussed pelt. Iluin was the first up; she met his gaze confidently.
           "So you're the White One? Well, you'll have some interesting stories to share tonight. Where's the money?" Wordlessly she grabbed at Rahkl and yanked the money pouch from her.
           "There. You can have all of it. Let's go." Seemingly undisturbed by the nearby line of church soldiers, the man pulled apart the pouch's top and peered inside, then drew out a gold coin, bit it, and checked the indentations.
           "Fine. I'm the captain. Take your friend here and get onboard. Masry! Keeta! Solye! Get onboard, we're leaving!"
           Iluin took Rahkl and motioned her up the ladder, then followed. As soon as she was on the deck she collapsed - six more bodies clambered over her before the rope ladder was pulled up. As if it was a gift from the gods, a breeze picked up - she could hear it in the sudden tightening of the sails. It didn't matter which way it blew, just so that the boat would start moving. "Get those anchors up," The captain yelled. And from a voice below:
           "You there! We're brethren of the church! Hold your ship and relinquish that woman to us!" The captain sneered.
           "I'm the captain of the Twice-Blessed Arrow! I'll do what I damn well please to!" Iluin watched as he cut a rope that held twenty or thirty crates the size of a man's torso, then hefted up one of them and took it to the edge of the ship. "You want something from me, you dogmatic vermin? Here, take this, compliments of the crew!" He lobbed it higher and farther than Iluin'd expected, and though she didn't see its impact she did hear the crate break open, followed by several hrasi down below on the wharf beginning to swear. The captain leaned over his ship's well worn railing and frowned, his ears drooping.
           "Hai, if I didn't know otherwise, I'd say that those fruits were a bit spoiled."
          

---v---

           The dark, resonant echoes of the evening temperance prayer, which rang from the congregation at the lower level, did much to calm his nerves, as did the graceful young acolyte who gently tended to his shoulder. Masca sat on the bed in the infirmary his feet dangling and sometimes even brushing against the floor. What a fight it'd been. The White One wasn't just a sher'amn, but a real opponent. Catching her arm had been lucky, lucky in the same way that her rescue by foreigner's thunder arrow had been. The sher'amn he'd killed previously he'd surprised; Masca had never before fought with a sher'amn, any certainly not one of her caliber. He'd been lucky that she hadn't had a lleiri. He grinned. Well, but who was the better fighter? He wondered. He wondered and winced when the girl dabbed too hard at his wound.
           "Gods! Can't you do this? This is the simplest job in the temple!"
           "I-I can, brother," she said quickly. Then more humbly: "I'm sorry, brother." Masca snorted.
           "Well then do it, and do it without tearing my wounds any wider! Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't simply speak to Jhen Sadat about having your training here rescinded. You can't do any of the work we assign you, and you're too scatterbrained for a monk's deep meditation. Perhaps we ought give you back to the fur traders we rescued you from, hmm?" The young girl's ears wilted.
           "I'm sorry, brother. I'll do better, brother. Please don't review my training with Jhen Sadat, brother." He only snorted. Pretty, but incompetent. Just the right kind to dress one's wounds.
           Clicks of claws on stone sounded from down the hallway, then loudened. A man emerged in a robe of lush reds and bright golds. His pelt was shortening; the gold rochas scarred atop his hands were beginning to look less intentional and more a sign of old age. Masca favored him with a reserved smile. It was Aghana Sulcil, his original patron. The girl saw him too and her ears went down. Before Masca could send her away, Sulcil closed the door. He had a grave expression, even for an Aghana.
           "Brother Masca." Then his features softened. "Masca-son. I was on my way to Agan when I was met by your two riders. They told me that you'd been injured." Masca chuffed softly.
           "They told you that the White One was involved, you mean." Sulcil dipped his muzzle.
           "Well, yes, they told me that as well. I was told of her escape. I know I am aging, Masca, but certainly you are not as well?" He bared his teeth in mock offense.
           "I'm the greatest warrior who ever lived! Touch me and I'll kill you!" Then he sighed. "That was about she said. Her bravado greatly exceeded her skill. I now suspect that her reputation is mostly myth and bluster."
           "I see. Well, but she escaped. Did you learn anything from her?"
           "I learned to watch for enemy archers hiding in the trees." Aghana Sulcil shook his head.
           "I heard of that too. Most disturbing. Describe this archer to me." Masca closed his eyes and tried to remember details.
           "It was like the pictures in the holy books, father Sulcil, but where it had fur the pelt was thicker, and it had a bigger chest. The mane, especially, was much longer. It was pale white, and its fur was light gold, like watery resin. But otherwise, it was just like the pictures. Father Sulcil, was it an angel, or a demon, or perhaps even one of the gods themselves?" Sulcil stood silently, deep in thought.
           "I do not know. One of those. Masca, I want you to come with me to meet with Aghana De'ruon and the others at Agan. It's important that they hear this from you, the source. Lord Hahrum of Yoichi province may want the White One dead, but if your suspicions are correct, the archer is much more dangerous to the church. It is holy, of course, but we do not control it, and so if it, in all of its holiness, decides to begin preaching and amending our laws… do you see, Masca? We've paid the gods with the blood of thousands to keep the Rrsai religion from fragmenting. If it splinters and a new faction has this holy figure's mandate, we might lose all of our followers." Mascas twitched an ear backward.
           "Martyrdom," he said. "It'd be martyrdom on a whole new kind of scale if it we killed it."
           "I don't think it'll come to that," Sulcil assured him. "It is holy, after all, or at least until our priests say otherwise. Best for everyone if we capture it and take it where it can be safely looked after and observed for its authenticity."
           "I assure you, it's no hrasi, and I've never seen an animal with a weapon." Sulcil nodded.
           "Yes, well, nonetheless. Oh, I am concerned with De'ruon. He is very eager to gain total control of the Council of the Aghanate. I would like to give the council some perspective by inserting you into his schemes. Apparently he has a sher'amn envoy. If you are willing, Masca-son, I'd like you 'help' this sher'amn find the White One. Just make sure that you get the holy figure. Would you do that for me?"
           "Of course, father Sulcil. It would be my honor to serve you again, and a pleasure to meet the White One once more."
           "Good." Sulcil's gaze drifted towards the young girl who was wrapping the final layers of cloth about Masca's injured arm. "Little sister, come here." The acolyte set the cloth on the bed and obediently shuffled towards the Aghana.
           "Aghana Sulcil?" she asked hesitantly. Sulcil reached out a hand and pulled on her young beard.
           "Come closer, young acolyte. There's no rule that insists you fear your elders." He pulled her closer. "You look wise, young one. Perhaps you understood what Masca-son and I were discussing?" She dipped her ears.
           "No, Aghana, I'm sorry."
           "Ah. Well, but certainly you were listening? Could you remember some of it, perhaps?" She nodded slowly.
           "Y-yes, Aghana." He reared his head back.
           "Ah. A pity, then."
           With horrible speed Sulcil sunk claws into her shoulder and spun her backwards, then pulled her close with one hand and drew a sacrifice-knife from the depths of his robe with the other. He put it to her throat.
           "Father Sulcil, wait," Masca said. Sulcil paused. "I enjoy her. You would too. We can keep her with us instead. Besides," he said with a palms-open shrug, "I don't want to have mop the blood." The acolyte remained silent as Sulcil considered that.
           "Well, all right. But we'll not have her talking." And with that he slid the knife across her throat. The girl gasped and crumpled to the floor. Slucil bent down over her, took one of her paws, and moved it to grip at the gash. "There now, let's not be melodramatic. It wasn't so deep." He helped the acolyte to her feet; she stared at Masca with a terrified expression. "Come now, little one, let's put something on that. Look at the mess you're making! You know you're going to have to clean that up later, don't you?"
           Masca watched impassively as Slucil gently shepherded the girl, still clutching at her red-leaking throat, to the cabinet with the blood-clotters and the bandages.