Completed Fickle Freedom

[Kit Rowan]

Day 45-91, Spring, 513 AV Kit found the caravan just outside of Syliras' gate, pulled into a semi-circle. There were about half a dozen wagons, the wear of the road clear on their wheels. As they began to tie their horses to the wagons the horses stamped and snorted in quiet dignity. Kit felt sweat running down her back as she hauled her chest after her, till she just dropped it on the ground, a cloud of dust rising where it'd hit the earth. The workers of the caravan spared Kit a barely a glance before getting back to work, grumbling quietly as they tightened ropes and shifted cargo. Kit bit down on her lip, eyes scanning for the man who was doing the least. It didn't take much to find him. The man was standing, watching the wagons with a hawk's keenness, pointing towards goods strewn across the ground and wagons, shouting; put this there, no, no, there! Do I have to do everything myself? Yep, Kit snorted. He's in charge. "Ho there," she called, raising a hand in greeting as she approached, and he turned to face her for the first time. He was an older man, with a weathered face, his hairline in retreat into the beginnings of baldness. His bare arms with sinew without fat, his face full of deep lines that told a story of a life without laughing. He narrowed his eyes at her in a way that made her wanna squirm, apologize and head right back. "I don't know you," he said, his voice reproach and interrogation both. "Kit," she said, and her smile halfway frozen on her face. "Where are you bound?" But he grunted, narrowed his eyes, weighed her in his eyes for a moment. Touched her chest to the side of the road. "Depends on who's asking," he said. "What's a girl like you doing traveling, eh? What's your story?" "Why . . . ?" She saw the irritation plain on his face and swallowed the question. ". . .My Dad's family comes from Zeltiva," she said, her left foot tracing circles in the dirt. "I was gonna go visit." He laughed. "Suicide alone. Turns out, my wheels are rolling the same way. You wanna come along?" His eyes went sharp. "I'm not inclined to let 'ya. What'dya got to add to the caravan? 'Got no need for idle, city hands." Kit winced. "I'm just an acrobat," she said, very quickly. "But I can pa—" "Acrobat," He said, no tone, no inflection. "Yeah." The caravan leader muttered something under his breath. "Acrobat. That ain't much use. You said pay, right? How much you got to offer for a spot?" Kit tilted her head to the side, disbelieving. "I've got thirty gold mizas with your name on it," she said, falling back into familiar territory. "Forty for the pleasure of our company, not counting the food you'll be eating through, which you'll be paying for." He shot back, and Kit reeled theatrically where she stood, stared at him like he'd gone mad—She didn't actually know the distance proper between the cities. It could have been a generous deal or highway robbery, but regardless, she thought she bring the price lower. "Thirty," she shot back. "Cheap wench," he said, turning away from her. "Want to stay behind? Fine. But Syna knows when another caravan with Zeltiva in mind'll come rolling along. By my wager, you'll never reach Zeltiva before summer. Choice is yours." ". . . Thirty five," she said, with exaggerated reluctance. "I'll give you thirty-five, and not a copper more." The caravan leader breathed through his teeth, frowned severly down his nose at her. He spat to the side and tossed her cloak back in a messy bundle. "Fine, you harlot, thirty-five. But we're not setting up your tent, we're not tending to your wants, we're not stopping to tend to your needs. You slow us down and we'll leave you behind. It's a fair shake for that price. Take it or leave it." Kit stuck out her hand—too quickly, she thought, afraid she'd tipped her hat to her insincerity. Regardless, the caravan leader took her hand in his, grip firm on the edge of crushing. "Name's Micah. Don't cross me and you'll do fine." He looked over his shoulder and speared one of the workers with a finger. "Yes you! Show the little lady where to throw her chest in. We've ourselves a tagalong!"

[Kit Rowan]

Kit did her best to mingle with the caravan, learn their names and get a read of their culture. Micah had a sharp word for anyone who stopped their work on the first day, but as dusks turned to dawns and the world turned, they fell into a steady pattern, like—appropriately—wagons down paths with deep ruts. They proved more than willing to talk to her, so long as she stayed well out of the way. Micah, on the other hand, was more than willing to tell her to stop bothering them. This left her with precious few partners in conversation. The only member of the caravan that Micah would not interrupt was his daughter, Ana. Ana was a slim, boyish girl with short-cut brown hair that dogged her father's footsteps. She was quiet and solemn as the grave, a mystery. Kit could not find even a shadow of family resemblance in their features. She suspected foul play and approached Ana about it sideways. "'Cause I'm not really his daughter," Ana said, with a frankness that startled Kit. "He found me bleeding on the side of the street in Sunberth while he was passing through, took me in, helped me." She raised her shirt up for Kit to see, revealing a filthy scar across her midsection that made Kit want to wince away. "Kept me alive. Kept me safe. Now, I'm his daughter. Less questions that way." Kit turned her eyes toward Micah's back and frowned. "Really? He seems a little . . . cold." "'Course." Ana said, very quietly. "The world's black, and hungry. If you try to hold on to too much good, it'll eat everything you love. So you have to pick a few things to love, and do everything you can to protect them." "Well . . ." Kit scratched at the back of her head, looked away. Though Ana was sharing plainly, Kit felt as though she'd overheard a private conversation, a secret meant to be kept. "Did he tell you that?" The other girl looked Kit in the eye so long that Kit felt the urge to look away. Ana shook her head. "No; he didn't. Learned that myself." A shuddering chill ran down Kit's spine in answer. "So," Kit said, searching for a change in topic. "Do you usually go this way?" "Syliras to Zeltiva and back again. Micah used to go to Sunberth, until he didn't." Kit knew better than to expect an answer after that. It wasn't hard to guess, anyway. "How safe is it?" Ana turned her face toward Kit, solemn and blank. "It's never safe." She said, "Not really. Soon as we can, father and I will stop, in Zeltiva or Syliras, and hire other teams to do the trading for us. Every trip's a flirt with disaster." Ana's frankness, her emotionless acceptance of the danger stirred Kit's fear more than an expert's storyteller's. Kit pulled her cloak a little tighter around herself, stared out into the trees and listened to the meaningless noises of the forests, cracking twigs and screaming birds and blowing leaves. "'Cause of the monsters?" She asked, trying to fill in the missing pieces. Still, Ana shrugged. "Monsters. Men."

[Kit Rowan]

The caravan's last night was one of the best. The men had built a fire and circled the wagons in the caravan around it. Barring Ana and Micah, who had real beds installed in their house-wagon, the rest of them set up their tents inside. Kit tried to set up hers before it got too dark, but fumbled so clumsily through the motions that she was one of the last to finish, though she had been the first, the very first to start. Stick there. Tent laid over the top like this . . . It collapsed. She did her knots a little differently, a little tighter and the haphazard thing stayed up, though it leaned too far to the right and looked likely to fall on top of her in her sleep. When she had finished some of the caravan had drifted off to sleep, but most had taken seats beside the fire, holding out their hands and laughing softly at each other's jokes. Kit approached on silent feet and found a free place for herself next to Ana. "Done already?" One of them asked as she sat down, drawing snorts and muffled laughter from the rest. Kit did her best to smile and held her hands up; what are you gonna do? "Most of our passengers whine by now." Micah said from across the fire, throwing down a swig of something. "Least she doesn't bother us, or hold us back." Kit grimaced; maybe he'd meant it as praise, but she preferred good-natured mockery to backhanded compliments. "I'm not much of a traveler," Kit said, crossing her legs and leaning forward. There were sniggers around the fire. A broad-shouldered man with a smile that never went away—Kit thought his name started with a T—"You said you were an acrobatic, right?" It wasn't really a question. Word got around the caravan fast. "Funny thing, we haven't really seen it since we set out, right?" He held out his hands, asking the rest of the laborers for confirmation. "How about a show?" "Yeah!" "Don't be such a tease." "Show us!" Kit breathed in, sharp and surprised, her body vibrating with an eagerness that made her feel like she was slipping out of her skin. How long since she had actually performed? How long had she been beleaguered with stillness and silence? Stretches weren't enough. Warm-ups weren't enough. She'd been traveling all season, confined to a boat or walking along a caravan. There'd been no chance! Kit breathed unevenly and stared around the campfire, took in the faces. They looked with expectant eyes, all of them. She turned to Micah and saw him stare. Shrug. She'd take it. Kit didn't say a word, reached up and untied her cloak around her neck, let it fall into the dry dirt around her. Usually she liked getting on her performing clothes before a show, but there prawas nowhere she could go that would give her the privacy, unless she was willing to change in the woods. And Kit didn't want money now, she didn't want praise, her body hummed and sang and begged her for motion, like a junky barred from their fix. She stood up and waved the the others apart, till they formed a little semi-circle around the fire that left her room to work. Kit plopped down right in the middle of the empty space and touched her fingers to her right heel, felt the good burn in her leg. Then did the other. "Come on," T said. "Show us!" "You want me to break?" Kit grabbed hold of one food and stretched it back, behind her head, reveling in the tightness along her body. "If I'm doing this then I'm doing it right." Playful jeers, a catcall here and there, then nothing. Kit finished her stretches, her muscles eager to get to the part they really enjoyed. She tried to ignore the stiffness in her limbs as she stood, cracked her knuckles and conjured confidence. Kit breathed in deep, and flipped backward. She caught herself on her hands and pushed, kept the momentum going as she curled into a ball and felt her body's spun quicken as she pulled her feet in. She trusted in her training, trusted in her body. It did not fail her. She extended her feet and landed firmly on the ground, arms held out breathing fast. All around her there were Ooos and Aaahs; clapping and soft laughter. She held her hands up high in the air, feeling the cool air of the night against her skin and smiled at the caravan. Gods, but it felt so good to try again after all this time. Kit tumbled forward in a controlled roll, bringing herself closer to the fire, just slow enough for her to be able to pull off her next stunt. She stopped mid-roll and pushed off the ground with her hands, straightened her legs into the air. She stood on her hands, holding herself stiff and sure against Semele's gravity. Kit teetered, tottered as her heart beat with exhilarated panic. I'll fall, she thought. I'll fall into the fire and I'll burn. But her body still remembered balance well, and it held its place, though it swayed as it did. Kit breathed out, slow and determined, and began to do another split; this time while doing a handstand. There were gasps, one voice she couldn't identify called her mad. But while it was impressive, Kit knew it only helped her to balance. It almost felt like cheating. They clapped again, whooped again, and Kit found another trick to show them. Time passed. When everyone went to bed Kit stopped, stuck around for long enough to gauge their reaction. It was a favorable one, far as Kit could tell. They slapped her on the back and called her a gem, a relief from the tedium, and Kit hoped Akaja's night would keep her blush a secret. Kit had brought a little more color into their lives tonight, and made it all a mite more interesting. She hoped Ionu approved. Kit stretched luxuriously one last time before bed, as a reward. She crawled into her bedroll, listening to her body's thousand little ecstasies. She curled in on herself and slept like a stone, with a smile on her face.

[Kit Rowan]

"Was that the last guard?" "Last one awake." "It'll have to be enough." "Get the nets, and don't give them a chance to fight back." "This one is waking up!" "Hold her down!" Kit's eyes opened wide in animal panic, saw a blurry human shadow looming over her through her drowsiness. He knelt over her and clapped a hairy hand over her mouth. A mistake. Kit reached back with a free hand and drew one of her daggers out from under her bedroll. It wasn't designed for this; her daggers were carefully weighed for throwing, and delicate in close quarters. But in a pinch, the edges were still quite sharp. She drove the hilt-deep into the arm he was using to try to hold silent. He pulled his hand back with the reflexive suddenness of a man who reached for a kitten and touched a viper. Kit screamed anger, defiance and fear and tried to squirm out of her bedroll. "Bitch," the shadowy man spat, hitting the stick holding up her shoddy tent with his free hand and sending the whole thing toppling down on top of her. Noise, crashing, cursing. Kit groped through the darkness under the collapsed tent, grasping desperately at her jacket—the rest of her daggers were there. With it, she could fight. But she never got that chance. Something outside the tent slammed through into her side, once, twice, sent her reeling and rolling. In the stomach, hard. She couldn't see through the tent's fabric, couldn't prepare for the strike. Kit curled up into a ball and felt tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. She wove an illusion of unbroken skin over Ionu's gift to her, as deep and lasting as she knew how. The last blow hit her in the back of the head. The world rang like a broken bell and everything went dark.

[Kit Rowan]

Awareness returned to Kit like a sudden storm and brought pain with it. Kit whimpered, everything else momentarily overpowered by her side; like someone had tried to pry her ribs apart. And her head . . . "—tch stabbed me." A gruff, familiar voice. "If I woke up and saw your ugly mug hanging over me, I'd stab you too!" Clipped, deliberate, female. "What possessed you to make the jump on her while leaving her hands free?" It was hard for Kit to think, like her mind had sprung a leak. She felt steel around her wrists, cold and tight to hurt, and made a low jangling sound as she tried to move it. "Ah, good," the woman's voice said. "You're lucky you didn't break her. Put her with the rest." It seemed terribly unimportant to Kit. She shut her eyes. Then a hand grabbed hold of her collar, heaved her to her feet and slapped her across the face, hard. "Wake up wench," her assailant's voice hissed, and Kit opened her eyes. She saw a big, broad-shouldered man with a tangle of wavy hair sneering down at her. Gods, but her head hurt. Stars still hung in the sky and Leth cast his dim light across the world, outlined the slaver's faces in darkness as the forests came alive with the music of the night. "Go!" He shoved her forward, and Kit walked. The rest of the caravan was lined up in a line, tied up, beaten up. There were men with cuts across their faces, with black eyes . . . Kit tried to find the caravan guards among their number. Couldn't. Her assailant pushed Kit to her knees at the far end, put a wicked dagger to her throat. "One move," he whispered. "And I'll gut you." Kit's addled mind was healthy enough to feel fear. She swallowed, nodded her head once. The man made a frustrated sound in his throat and pulled the knife back. He seemed to prefer resistance. The head slaver marched in front of them, clad from feet to shoulders in tough tanned leather armor, with a sword on one side of her belt. She drew a knife from behind her back, tossed it in the air and caught it. "Usually, this would be the part where I threaten you. Knife to your throat. Curse you, beat you. But brutality isn't efficient, you understand?" She smiled, and Kit could see her face. Rounded, kind, like a child's. "I would much prefer to do this right and bring you all in to Ravok with me, without harming a hair on your cute little heads." She raised a finger and pointed toward Micah. Two of her lackeys flanked the caravan's former leader and heaved him to his feet. "I consider myself a civil trader." The slaver said, and cut Micah's throat open, easy as you please, like Kit might have peeled an apple. "BASTARDS!" Kit heard Ana raise her voice for the first time, turned in time to see the girl rise and get hit from behind with the hilt of a sword. Gloved hands grabbed her shoulders, and the slaver indicated Ana with a finger. "But we weren't expecting a caravan this large. We can't carry enough rations to feed you all on the way back to Ravok, and our buyers are getting pickier. So we're going to have to trim the fat. If you want to live, then you'll tell me why you'll sell well." She leaned down, smiled matronly into Ana's eyes. "What do you do?" Defiance was what Ana did. She snarled and spat in the slaver's face. "Fall into the Void." Their slaver frowned sadly, wiped the spit from off the side of her face with the back of her hand. "Suit yourself." Another cut. Ana fell sideways and hit the ground limp, blood pooling around her body. "Give my regards to Lhex." The slaver pointed a finger at Kit. Hands clasped her shoulders and lifted her from the ground. Kit could, she realized, walk away alive for certain. Drop the illusion on her gnosis, and they would want her bad for it. A little panicked part of her heart insisted she say, say now. No! Kit gritted her teeth. There was a reason Ionu had given her this gift, that they had trusted her with this power. Ionu was free, free to choose their own shape and their own illusions, they were cunning and clever and keen; they weren't servants. They weren't slaves. If she had to subvert her god to survive, Kit would rather die. "Well," the slaver said with a welcoming smile, holding her bloody dagger easily at her side. "What do you do?" Kit remembered Micah's reaction when she had given her profession and felt fear like a knife through her heart. She squelched the coward in her mind that would have her betray her god. "I'm an acrobat," Kit said, eyes trained on the dagger. "A performer." "You are?" The slaver's voice turned up in sharp pleasure. "Then surely you can prove it?" Kit blinked. There was something wrong with that, but she couldn't quite pick out the words why. She opened her mouth, closed it. "I think . . . I think . . . " "Tch," the slaver shifted her knife into a ready position. "It's not nice to lie." She grabbed Kit's shoulder, raised the bloody edge casually toward her. "If you won't cooperate. . ." "I think . . ." Kit said. Gods, how her head pounded! "I think . . . I have a concussion." "What." The slaver's expression went slack. "What?!" Fury overwhelmed the her face, and Kit knew that she was going to die. Instead, the slaver ran a hand across the back of Kit's head, and when she pulled it away, there was blood on her glove. She hissed a word in a language Kit did not know. "Damn you, Wheylin!" "She's lying! She stabbed me!" "I'd keep her breathing just to spite you. We can't test her at all now! I've half a mind to throw you in chains yourself; you're no good to me as you are. Go through her things. If there's proof, we'll find it there." The slaver let her hand drop and made a waving motion, and the hands holding Kit turned her and walked steadily back. Tension leeched out from Kit's shoulders. They turned her around and set her down in the same place. Kit closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see. "What do you do?"

[Kit Rowan]

Days passed, and their diminished party walked into the woods and forests, far off the Kabrin road. As Kit's wits returned she turned over escape in her mind, tested its edges for flimsiness. Her father's 'gift' to her was a feeble, fickle thing. She could pay in the coin of her soul to conjure . . . what? A gust? Send the slavers off balance a moment? Knock them down in exchange for burning color out of her heart? No. But even if she did break her shackles, even if she did escape slavers she'd wager had chased and caught faster prey than her, what then? The slaveress sat them all down at the end of the seventh day's walk and clasped her hands together. "The knights will have found the caravan by now, but by the time they can gather enough others to hunt us down we'll be long gone. Do you know what that means?" There was no energy in the prisoners. Their eyes were hollow and dark, their faces slack with disbelief or despair or just resignation. No one said a word. Kit stared into the dirt in fear defiance might show through her eyes. "It means," she said, leaning forward. "That no one is coming to help you. No one is riding us down, no one is tracking our trail. You are alone, and no one will save you." She clapped her hands together. "Say it with me now; 'I am alone, and no one will come save me.'" Quiet murmurs, barely heard. Kit bit down on her lip and said nothing. More empty eyed stares. The slaver shook her head, still smiling, and drew a familiar dagger from her belt. "Say it." Her voice was a dagger hidden behind soft silk. "I am alone," the new-made slaves said together, in chorus. "And no one will come to save me." The words made Kit's heart tremble as she said them. "Again." Kit grabbed hold of her left forearm and ran her thumb across Ionu's hidden gift. "I am alone," they said, and this time Kit heard raw emotion in the chorus. "And no one will come to save me." Kit was worse than worthless in the woodlands; perhaps, in the city. Perhaps . . . "Again."

[Kit Rowan]

With every day that passed Kit told herself that she was clever. That she was cunning and keen; mouthed it to herself before she fell asleep, never daring to lend breath to it for fear that some slaver might wander close enough to hear it. Every day they worked to disabuse her of the notion. They cut her ponytail clean off and left it to fall in a messy, uneven mess around her ears. When anyone had to relieve themselves the slavers stopped the whole journey, pulled down the prisoner's breeches right there and made everybody watch. When the slaveress decided they were too filthy she ordered them stripped by in a stream not a foot apart and remain still hip-deep in cold water while a slaver dumped water over their heads. There was one who resisted. He had a piece of wood bound behind his back and was forced to squat in the water. It didn't look too painful to Kit . . . Until he started begging. "They like their slaves unmarred in Ravok," she said, chiding. "But I know ways to tame a ornery slave that won't leave one." Kit felt like livestock, put into careful little lines. They destroyed their captured slave's dignity carefully, piece by ragged piece, forging them into the pliable husks they wanted to sell. As they marched the slaveress' led them in their matra: 'I am alone, and no one will save me.' Again and again, until it took root in their minds like a weed. "Your gods have abandoned you," she told them once. "Abandoned you to Rhysol's considerable mercies. He will protect you in all the ways your gods failed. Be thankful." What a joke! Ionu was not a God that swept in and made all the problems go away in exchange for a handful of prayers. If they were watching at all, then it was to see what Kit would do next. How she would get out of it. Kit only hoped that when the time came, she didn't disappoint. She breathed, "Keen. Clever. Cunning . . ." But in her mind the only words she could find were I am alone, and no one will save me.

[Kit Rowan]

"Here we are, slave girl." The man Kit had heard called Wheylin put his hand on her shoulder while the slaveress was looking the other way. Kit looked at him out of the corner of one eye, unwilling to dedicate the whole of her attention to him. But she could see him raise a finger and point. "You see that?" He hissed, "Ravok is out there. In the middle of that lake." The sun shone through parting clouds over the waters. She squinted, peered, tried to catch some glimpse of the city, and her heart sank like a heavy stone. Surely not. How could anyone get to it? Her stomach tried to force its way out of her throat. No, it couldn't be. Right? How do you escape a city in the middle of a damned lake? The obvious answer was; you don't. I am alone, and no one will save me. "Hands off the merchandise, Wheylin." The slaveress called, and the brute let go. Kit expected him to snarl, whisper some secret threat into her ear. But when she turned to look at him she saw him smiling. Just . . . smiling. The knot of fear that had slowly grown in her center blossomed into something terrible and thorny, and she felt despair spill over into her expression. "With me," the slaveress said, seized the chain attached to her cuffs and pulled, yanking Kit forward and giving her the choice between staggering after her. There was a small, flat clearing, with the glittering, tranquil waters of lake Ravok beyond it. There were four things in the clearing; a washpan big enough to watch all a rich man's clothes at once, filled with dark water. A fire, burning bright, a wooden board with a hand's outline painted on, and a man, one of the slavers, with . . . Panic, desperate and animal. "Oh Kel and Wyn," Kit breathed, eyes wide and stopped abruptly in her tracks. The Slaveress' felt her stop and turned around, her stare sympathetic. "Have you never seen a brand before?" He held a long metal pole in a gloved hand, a semicircle in a pattern Kit did not recognize, and shoved the end into the fire. Its end glowed orange with heat, like molten metal. Strategy fell out the window, plans fell out the window. "No," she said, pulling back. "No, no, no!" But the slaveress was having none of that. She grabbed hold of Kit's chain and held her in place, pull Kit slowly closer and closer to her. "You're only making this harder for yourself," she said, in a tone that belonged to an exasperated teacher. Behind her, Kit could hear Wheylin laughing. "Let me go," she cried, stripped of all illusions. "I don't wanna be here! Lemme go, LET ME GO!" The slaveress grabbed Kit's shoulder and forced her forward, pressed her foot against the back of Kit's legs and sent her falling to her knees in the mud. "Put your hand on the board," the slaveress' said, and Kit felt a sudden pressure on the back of her head, a slackness around her wrist as the manacles came loose. "N—" The slaveress shoved Kit's head into the washpan. Kit tried to hold her breath, till she felt a kick in her ribs, forcing the air from her lungs and into the water. She thrashed desperately, trying to force her way up. Her body demanded breathe, and her lungs did, pulling in water. Noise was muted and faded; the sounds of her own feeble struggle was distorted and warped by the water. Kit could hear nothing else. Kit's vision went dark around the edges and . . . An ease on the pressure on her head. Air. Air. Precious air! She lifted her face from the water took a gasping breath of crisp fresh— And then her head was underwater again. Her body screamed keep breathing, and screamed more when it took in water instead. Kit's head was pulled from the water, put back in. Again. Again. Again. There was no room in her mind for numbers. An eternity later, they took Kit's head out of the water long enough for her to shout. "STOP!" They submerged her again. "Stop!" She pleaded, and they submerged her again. "Stop . . ." She sobbed, coughing up water, tears hidden by the wetness of her face. "Stop . . ." "Put your hand," the slaveress said, "on the board." Kit lowered a tentative hand on the board and turned away, eyes closed, but the slaveress was having none of that. She grabbed hold of Kit's head and turned it back. "Open your eyes," she said, her face so close that Kit could feel the slaveress' breath on her ear. She opened her eyes, saw her hand, unblemished, unmarked. It had never seemed so beautiful to Kit before. "There is no 'I,'" the slaveress whispered. "Do you understand? You are a slave. Not a person. Property. Property doesn't get to want. Say it. Say it." "I—I am alone." Kit choked. "And n—no one will save me." The slaver lifted the brand from the fire, hovered it down toward Kit's beautiful hand. "Scream if you'd like. It looks quite painful." It was.