Summer 9th, 505
Aquillar Hot Springs
I woke up to the sound of a rattling wagon chassis and the smell of sulfur- faint. It was afternoon from the light on my face. There was a knot in my head where the slaver had clobbered me, and one in my gut where I knew I'd got got. I was stuck between a rock, a hard place, and another rock hurtling towards me from the sky at the speed of one horse drawn cart. Every minute I stayed, I got further away from Sunberth and closer to being a slave for the rest of my life. Well, I decided a long time before this it wasn't gonna go down like that so I was ready to sit up and make my next go at it, but somebody in that cart with me musta seen me squirming too, and he stopped me. “Hey, you.” He grumbled in a kinda old and grumbled way, you know that raspy voice old hobos have. Anyway, “Hey, you,” he said, and I didn't get up from where I was layin and instead I just kinda tilted my head upwards to where he was sitting. Well, once my eyes adjusted I could kinda make him out through the glare of the sun, sittin there as he was with his back up against the bars on the cart (did I mention that? The wagon had bars and a roof on it too). He looked just about like you'd imagine with kind of grizzled features and a face like leather covered in wiry silver hairs before their time. To my observation, he was probably some sort of bum they'd snatched off the street, too drunk to do anything about it. Now I didn't say anything because my mouth was real dry, one, and two, I didn't want to catch any unwanted attention as I still didn't know where exactly I was, besides being in the back of some slaver's cart of course.
I guess the old hobo saw me there trying to clear away the dryness in my throat and the look on my face that I didn't know what the fuck was going on so he goes on to explain how he heard the slavers talking about making an example of me as soon as I woke up. Of course, I wasn't looking forward to anything like that happening as I had already seen enough “examples” to know what their kind were hoping to exemplify, so I just closed my eyes and sat real still there in the cart for as long as I could. I counted my breath in and out real slow, to make it look like I was out cold. I managed to do that for a good few chimes, but anyone that knows me would say that I can't stay still for long, at least not when I'm supposed to, and so I opened my eyes back up half-ways and started looking around the cart to see who else was in there with us. I saw two guys, young men, with the same square faces, shifty eyes and red hair, though one's hair wrapped all the way around his chin and neck and the other one only had the beginnings of some sideburns. Too close to be father and son, I figured they were brothers. The were down in the corner by my right foot, and over on my other side was a woman nursing a baby, just kinda out in the open. She wasn't bad looking either, but it was kinda odd since she was fat pregnant with another baby already. She, I guessed, was probably a prostitute or something, on account of having babies so close together. Besides that, we all know it's only a few steps from hooking to being somebody's chattel.
Having taken inventory of the whole little slave crew, I went back to faking sleep, but soon I noticed the smell of sulfur was getting a little bit stronger and the light was getting more yellowish orange, like the smell. Soon, we'd stopped, and I heard a commotion amongst the slavers about what was going on. Two or three of them wanted to keep on heading down the road and make camp on the road. The others wanted to stay put for the night, rest up, and start off in the morning. There was more of the latter camp I guess, and so eventually they all unhooked the horses and led them to stables somewhere, double checked the locks on our cages, and then things got quiet for awhile. I whispered “They leave?” and heard a throaty “mhmm” from Jeff.
Oh, his name was Jeff, the old guy who told me to keep still. After the slavers all went inside Jeff introduced himself, and I met the others, Lefty and Tuck were the brothers in order of younger to older, and the woman was Tina, and her baby was Sam Jr. The one that was already born, obviously, because she hadn't named the one in her belly yet. So, it was all of us in the one cart but there were two more and ours was the least crowded, fortunately. There was seven full grown people in one cart and six in the other, and we were all spread out in front of this place we were at. I figured out we were at Aquillar, from the steam I saw going up, and because of the big sign over the entrance that said as much. The slavers had decided to bed up there for the night and we could all hear them from outside getting drunk and splashing around in the hot springs outback. Soon a lady came out though, and she was old and kind of wrinkly, and I could even see that in the dying light of the evening. She had this look on here face like she'd drank some milk that had gone off bad, and she just stood there for awhile with here arms crossed and gently shaking her head as she looked from one cart to the other. She shuffled back inside, only to come out a few ticks latter with an equally wrinkly man, and she started pointing now and shaking her head, and the man just kinda stood there and nodded at whatever she was saying. After they went in, the sun was down, and I decided it was safe for me to stop pretending to be sleep so I sat up.
I noticed Lefty only had his left hand, and Tuck explained it was because they got caught stealing by some Ephyrian merchant, and that was his idea of justice. I agreed it was pretty harsh and just typical of their kind; of course an Ephyrian's gonna be the kind to go around, lopping peoples hands off for something like that. Apparently, before that Lefty was something a smooth hand at pick-pocketing, and back then he'd been called 'Lucky'. Of course, the name didn't really fit so well these days. That had happened a good few years ago, they said, and they were here for something else. Apparently, they stole from the wrong guy, over on Slaver's Row, and he didn't think killing them was a fitting punishment. Tina was a whore -her words- who got knocked up by a regular. Then, it happened again, and when she wouldn't do her boss the kindness and throw the kid into Baroque Bay, her pimp decided he could get more coin off of her in the slave market. Jeff was exactly as I'd thought, no story there. I asked them if any knew where we'd be going, and Tuck said we were on the road to Zeltiva. Lefty said he thought slavery was outlawed there- a funny concept to me, certainly- but Tuck said it didn't really matter what the law said, as long as there was coin to be made. He said they weren't really gonna sell us there anyway, just that good ships were easier to get there and for cheaper. I mentioned I how didn't much want to get on a ship, and Jeff pointed out that I didn't really have much of a choice at this point. Tina asked us to stop talking, cause we were waking Sam Jr. up, and so we all got quiet except Lefty and Tuck who were so close they could whisper to each other real quietly. I laid back where I had been and tried to get back to sleep. It was hard, considering everything that was going on, and I started thinking about all the different ways I might escape. I thought I might use projection to snatch the keys in the morning, but then again I'd have to outrun a bunch of full grown slavers, and I don't think they'd be as kind to be as that Ephyrian was to Lefty. Eventually I pushed those thoughts outta my head and nodded off.
Latter that night, though, I woke back up. It pretty bright outside and Leth was fat, and looked like he was floating just a few feet above us all he was so low on the horizon. That wasn't the only light I saw though; there was this big fire going over by the door to the place. They had their backs to us, and everyone was sleeping but me, but I could see it was the old man and woman from earlier. He was standing up, and fanning the flames with some kind of wide wooden board. Every so often, he'd take this woolen looking blanket and kind of bag it above the flames and catch the smoke, which he let out at intervals. I followed his gaze upward and could see that to somebody looking from the west, they might see the silhouettes of those smoke clouds floating in front of the moon, if they were looking real hard. I thought that was strange, but the part that nearly made my eyes pop out of my head was the woman. She was kneeling on the ground, tending the fire. Now, I watched her for a few seconds and didn't see her put any kindling on the fire or even poke it with a stick. What I did see, was here sitting there with her fingers fanned out, and her wiggling them and her swaying her hands back and forth until sparks crackled out of her hands and flames shot out of her palms. Now the hair on the back of my neck was sitting straight up on end and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I could feel it through the air that this was some kind of magic, and a powerful kind too. I watched closely as they did their work, and soon they were done, and had put the fire out. I could hear the woman saying “I hope that crazy fool sees it.” The old geezer set his arm across her shoulders and said. “Oh, I'm sure he will, if Zulrav and Leth abide, and Sylir is as just as I know him to be.” The woman said she'd put in prayer to each of them tonight, just in case. After they were inside I rolled over and clenched my eyes shut, deciding I had seen enough and too much at once for the day. |
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by Gad on March 13th, 2014, 7:15 am 
