He sat on a bench to the side, reading a book. The big seat, which looked like an improvised throne, was empty. The whole room was overly decorated, in a rather kitschy fashion. As if the gold paint and fake inlaid jewellery were aimed at proving he had the status of a worldly leader. It was something that kept his minions happy he figured: the feel of having a rich and important leader. In the end he figured that fear and bribery were the real incentives, but he played along with the flashy display of luxury. It was the sewers after all, anything shiny stood out from the muck and mud…

Sentinella came walking in that overly ornamented room. Not her decorating style, at all. She let her fingers glide over some of the stones set in the wood of the balustrade. A touch of frost remained. How fake could you get? It was so far from her own flowers and natural element it hurt her eyes. There were mirrors everywhere, in all shapes and sizes. She straightened her hair and checked her dress for blood marks. Meanwhile she observed him sitting there reading.

‘Good book?’

He ignored her.

‘I came to get the boy.’

Still he said nothing. As he turned a page, he first looked at her.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, but there is no boy here.’

‘We saw you take him away at the bridge. So now I’m here to take him home.’

‘Look, I’m reading here. Try getting your facts straight without my help for a moment.’

A ball of ice was forming in the palm of Sentinella’s hand. Without as much as looking at it, the man on the bench continued: ‘First of all, you saw nothing. That priest did, and maybe even the little girl. Speaking of which: is she for sale?’

The ball of ice hit the man straight in the face. Blood splattered on the impact, yet he seemed unmoved. He wiped the blood from his forehead and there was no wound to be seen. Sentinella seemed puzzled for a moment. Only at that point he put down the book. He had indeed been holding it all through that hit to the head. Puzzling her apparently was his main aim.

‘People call me just Q, but you can simply bow for me.’

She sneered, ready to strike again.

‘Just Q? Does that make ‘Just’ your first name than?’

He chuckled, clearly unimpressed: ‘Your wits get worse once you start doubting your actions mylady. Being witty when being wrong is probably what makes a good leader a great one.’

Sentinella hated this guy more by the minute, she was ready to knock his head straight of by now.

‘Two things mylady. First of you didn’t see a thing. Second: that priest saw the boy being carried away when we were attacking.’

Sentinella waited, he was stating the obvious so far.

‘Now, for the sake of argument: let’s say the ones attacking, being us, weren’t in the same party as the ones snatching away that boy, being not us, if the first assumption is correct.’

He had her there. Shaandra had told her Kyell was being taken away by this gang, but what if it was a third party indeed? Sentinella had no way of knowing what had in fact occurred precisely. She cursed herself for going on Shaandra’s word this easy. What was worse: she sensed this man, this ‘Q’ wasn’t lying to her.

‘You have the boy or not?’

‘See above.’

Sentinella was furious, mostly at herself. She turned around in a forced silence.

‘Sorry for the intrusion into what must surely be your deepest thoughts, my dear lady, but do you actually hold it possible to simply walk out of here after, for lack of a better word: slaughtering my best men?’

‘I only took out those that came into my way.’ She knew she was justifying herself at this point. She felt a minor nuisance, like a headache getting worse. She ignored it.

‘You must be a laugh at Sunday markets…’

Sentinella looked at him. As much as she hated admitting being wrong, she still welcomed any excuse to silencing this gang leader forever. Even ‘just’ for speaking too much.

Q stood up and without a warning a lance of ice struck him. Sentinella had lost her patience. She wanted to get this over as fast as possible and go look for Kyell.

Q’s body slammed against the wall, pulling several curtains down with him. The ice lance pierced him and dissolved. His hands were covered in blood as he pressed the wound. The bleeding stopped as soon as it started. He coughed, more to clear his voice than anything else.

Sentinella’s head was pounding, her knees felt a little wobbly too.

‘Not that I wouldn’t roll over and die for you mylady, but haven’t you forgotten a little detail?’

She looked at him amazed. No one had ever survived such a strike before, and there he was barely scratched. That headache had gotten worse, and her stomach was upset now as well from all the emotions.

‘I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but I indeed think that you forgot to ask me who it was than that snatched the boy away from all of us.’

‘Do you know?’

‘That’s beside the point. The issue I was pressing for is: do you want to know if I know.’

It was a rain of small ice knives, she didn’t stop before even the smallest piece of ugly ornament was pierced. Not one wound he could lay his hands on, his entire body seemed ripped to shreds.

Skin deep. Not deeper. Like a bunch of thumb nails exploded in his face. The ice melted down to water and washed the little wounds clear. Scratches, and than even less. Sentinella’s stomach felt like it burned. She was ready to throw up any moment. That headache was pounding hard now, thinking clear was getting hard. Her legs could barely hold her up. She did her best to cover up that her nose was in fact bleeding.

‘I’ll help you out here: I actually know.’

Sentinella was at a loss now. She let him do his speech, or whatever it was he was doing while surviving her most brutal attacks. The worst part was standing straight upon her feet. Her nosebleed getting worse and painfull, her stomach throwing up acids worse than gall. The pounding in her head was unbearable by now. On top of it all every single of her teeth ached like it would fall out any moment. Still she bore with him, keeping herself from collapsing.

‘I’m not going to tell you.’

He sat down again and picked up his book, focused on finding his page back that he lost on that first hit to the head.

Sentinella was forcing out her last strength to strike at him, but she threw up blood instead. Her nosebleed was making her head light, while the headache hammered her brains down. She sighed to her feet as he looked over the edge of his book. He didn’t get up, but he observed her collapsing with a keen and interested eye.

‘I’ll tell you, seeing as it’s the last you’ll ever hear. Scaramance himself put a price on getting his hands on that boy alive. So apparently a playful couple of lovely lovebirds decided it was a good opportunity to cross me. It seems they found it good sport to take our prey from us.’

Sentinella gasped for air but only swallowed her own blood.

‘That young couple will pay for their betrayal of course, once we found them that is.’

This man really talked too much, Sentinella hated that more than anything else she was going through that moment.

‘Now doesn’t that make you wonder? What makes that boy so interesting that Scaramance wants him so bad?’

‘Why don’t you ask him than?’

Two backsides of small but very heavy axes hit Q on both sides of the head. He got stunned so bad by these knocks he couldn’t do a thing to recover. Next moment Muredin cut his throat and dropped him helpless to the floor. He had a way with magicians like that. Nothing to be proud of, but very effective nonetheless. For a moment he hesitated to cut of his tongue too, but than he rushed over to Sentinella who was smiling at him with red teeth, still coughing up nasty.

‘Think we both need a cup of tea.’ Muredin took the woman in his strong arms and ran out. Leaving Q for dead.

She adressed his throat with a cold balm. The wound got stable.

‘Where did that dwarf fit into your plan?’ Q’s voice was hoarse and weak.

‘He didn’t. You were supposed to kill her. But I guess the other way around works too.’

‘Note to self: I’m not dead yet.’

Q felt his throat to make sure. He immediately felt something was wrong here, in a way his healing touch couldn’t help. The wound at his throat was indeed closed again, but inside he felt a poison burn him. It was out of reach: it didn’t touch his skin at any point.

His skin was where the healing came from. His hands were merely the tools he used the most easily to get in touch with his skin. But for what it mattered: his entire skin was where this healing magic was active. Nothing could pierce him permanently, and any wound healed back up merely from coming in contact with his skin. The only way Muredin had been able to cut him up like that, was because the dwarf knocked him unconscious first. Q still had to be somewhat active to do his healing, he could be distracted but not entirely unconscious.

Now this poison burned him up from inside, unreachable to heal exactly because of his regenerating skin itself.

‘Balance must be. And you just fell on the wrong end of it my friend.’

Shaandra left him behind scratching his skin open, it healed up at every scratch. Even with a knife he wouldn’t reach the poison inside. The few weak curses he threw at her, she easily cured drinking a potion or two against headaches and stomach pains…

25-04-2010 om 00:00 geschreven door Kim  

The plants on the wall opened their ranks as soon as Muredin arrived with Sentinella. The scent of her garden alone already cleared the air for her. She was still coughing up blood and couldn’t stand up straight without help.
One flask from that shelf, a piece of cloth from the cupboard, a seed or two from a little plant near the window, and of course: tea. Sentinella meddled about, almost blindly. The headache was cluttering her vision, but in her own House of Scents she knew where everything was by heart. Muredin helped her where he could, but as far as all the meddling with herbs and flowers went, he stuck to putting the kettle with water on. Sentinella lied down on the sofa only after putting the tea in the pot. She held up that flask and tried pouring a few small drops of it in her cup. Things didn’t go smooth yet, but at least it wasn’t getting worse anymore. With a faint gesture she motioned Muredin to sit down as well, and maybe have a cup of tea and a biscuit.

‘Where are Shaandra and Leki? I could use their help at the moment, I think.’

Muredin stood up and took a paper from the table. He handed it to Sentinella who tried reading it as good as her headache allowed. The small drops she had put in her cup of tea were showing their beneficial effect already. Things were clearing up somewhat in her mind.

‘Well I’ll be darned, if you don’t mind the expression.’

Muredin nodded ever so politely, agreeing on the use of such a word for the occasion.

‘Have you read it? Oh, of course you have, how else you would know where to come look for me…’

‘Indeed, the mentioning of you going to get Kyell back from that gang in the sewers at the bridge side, sort of gave me a hint.’

‘Thank you for that by the way. It would have taken an eternity to get that blabbering idiot down.’

‘To be perfectly honest here, he did have you nearly dead with sickness and all.’

‘I still had a trick or two up my sleeves.’ Sentinella inspected those mentioned sleeves, they were filthy from all the blood she coughed up, as well as the constant nose bleeding.

‘I’m sure you did, but I figured I would speed things up. Sorry if I interfered where I shouldn’t have.’

‘You did fine.’ She smiled at the robust dwarf holding the porcelain cup. He chuckled, sipping from the tea.

The paper Muredin handed to Sentinella was a letter from Leki. After Sentinella had set out to find Kyell, Shaandra too had left the house. It seemed Shaandra miraculously recovered from her poisoning rather fast, once Sentinella was gone. Leki didn’t say it in so many words but she clearly found this suspicious enough not to stay behind herself.

Muredin was going over a lot of things in his mind, most of which neither he nor Sentinella had an answer to. One thing he did ask though: ‘May I inquire how that little girl managed to get past your plants on the outer wall? I would imagine them letting Shaandra pass, but clearly they should have stopped Leki from leaving on her own.’

‘That girl probably just asked them or something. She has a way with living things I have not often seen.’

‘Funny enough Laynah mentioned something likewise, but in fact she said that Leki felt things but could not control them.’

‘Hmm, could be right. Than indeed it’s a mystery how the plants have let her pass.’

‘Shaandra can enter and leave the shop at will?’

‘Yes, but only the shop.’

‘The letter was pinned to the backdoor of the shop, at the side of the hall.’

‘Are you saying she followed Shaandra out through the shop? That is very unlikely my dear rescuing friend. This could not be done without Shaandra being aware of this.’

‘Exactly my point.’

‘You mean that Shaandra knew Leki was about to follow her, and she deliberately let her?’

Muredin finished his tea and stood up.

‘This can’t be true. Why would Shaandra do this? What does she have to gain by having Leki run after her? She might as well have taken her with her than, whatever her motives were for having Leki out with her.’

‘First question is: where is Shaandra now. Only than we can get an idea of where Leki could be.’

Sentinella coughed again, as she tried to get up.

‘I think you should stay and recover. I’ll go looking for them alone.’

‘Oh well, I only tend to blow things up anyhow. Not my style to do discrete investigating.’

Muredin nodded again, very understanding.

‘If I would have control over this city, I would clear out those sewers entirely.’

‘Than you would have clean sewers and other places filled with hiding criminals… And are you planning to run for mayor next elections than?’ Muredin chuckled at the idea.

‘You know, I might. Who has been controlling the most powerful resource this city has, for all these years?’ Sentinella referred to the well at her courtyard. This was where the true magic of her plants and flowers came from. The well was the point where the living veins of this city came together. The water in those veins made everything living flourish. Its power was so great, that Sentinella had dedicated her life to guarding it.

‘Well, good luck on the campaign and say hi to the Nuncio from me when he establishes your post.’ That last part he said with a sneer. Any mayor of the city, or any official at all for that matter, had to be acknowledged and approved by the Nuncio.

Sentinella didn’t want to start an argument about the Nuncio versus the Queen. There would always be someone in power, and they would always have something powerful to force their will upon others with. The Queen was gone for years now. Maybe it was time if people accepted the fact power had shifted, for better or for worse. Simply living in the past did not help anyone.

Sentinella kept her thoughts to herself though. She knew Muredin was of Kildur’s clan, and that old dwarf clung to the Queen till his last breath. Sentinella was more practical in these things: she cared about the day to day life of people, and what they needed was stability, not an ongoing subversive war. Not that she liked the Nuncio one bit, but in the end they had to accept the fact that the Queen was gone.

‘One more thing, the thing that Q said: did you know that Scaramance had put a price on Kyell’s head?’

‘No I didn’t Muredin. And I never could stand that Scaramance fellow. There is no telling what dirty business he is involved in. Not that I know him personally. But isn’t that the whole point: no one seems to know him…’

Muredin kept silent.

‘It seems that Kexon and that girl of his have Kyell, two vagabond nobodies. The children had met them in the park earlier. Q mentioned the boy being snatched away by a pair of lovebirds.’

‘Never heard of those two. But if they were brave enough to take Kyell away in the midst of an action by Q’s pack of muttons, they sure got some nerve.’

‘I don’t like the fact that Scaramance would be after the boy Muredin, if Q was indeed right about that whole bounty thing.’

‘Do you think he was lying?’

‘He wasn’t lying, I’m sure. But he could be misinformed. Who says for sure that Scaramance wants the boy alive?’

‘Sentinella, we both know that when it comes to bounties, the gangs in the sewers are never misinformed…’

Sentinella didn’t answer to that last part. She closed her eyes and tried to rest.

Muredin went out through the shop, first he had to pick up Shaandra’s trail, than find Leki. As for the boy: if Scaramance wanted him alive, he could at least be sure no one in his right mind would risk hurting but a hair on the boy’s head. Kyell seemed safe for now, wherever he was. Muredin spit on the ground when he got outside: ever since Kildur had assigned him with guarding the children, he had done nothing but lose track of them.

Leki had followed Shaandra. From the shop all the way to the narrow streets at the market. She had felt Shaandra was up to something. With Sentinella looking for Kyell, she saw no other option than going after Shaandra herself. Her only regret was that she didn’t dare to take Petta with her, but a big horse like that surely wasn’t fitted to follow someone discretely in the city.

Many people were about in the streets, especially as they approached the market place. Not many were selling things there since it wasn’t a Sunday, but the shops were open and the atmosphere in that part of the city was lively. Leki had a hard time trying to stay far enough behind not to be seen, yet close enough not to lose track of Shaandra. The priest seemed in a hurry, but she tried to walk at normal speed to not draw attention. Why was she going this way, Leki wondered. She remembered the way they took to the bridge where they were attacked and Kyell was snatched away. Now they went a different way altogether. Odd, since Shaandra had urged Leki she went out to look for Sentinella.

The narrow streets were a maze. Leki had to rush each turn to be just in time to see which way Shaandra turned. They entered that maze further each of those turns. It felt like she was getting caught in a spider’s web. Leki could feel the hostility of the people she crossed, their cautiousness, and their fear even. Several times she had to go down stone steps, or under little bridges. Those moments were the hardest to remain out of hearing range of Shaandra. At the first of several small tunnels, she hesitated. Either way: it was too late to turn back now. These had to be the Sewers, or almost. It seems Shaandra took an older route to the sewers, entering from where they first originated, in the old part of the city. Leki clenched the rope in her fist, but than relaxed her grip as she entered the shadows. Meme Uzuela had stressed it often enough: no rope can fly if you grab it too tight.

At first it was easy enough to follow the sound of Shaandra’s footsteps through the water echoing on the stone. A lot harder was it to not make those same sounds herself. Leki stayed clear of the water and took of her shoes. She had been hopping around barefoot her whole life anyhow. Shaandra turned up the pace. She went from one tunnel to another and sometimes even changed direction just like that. Did she know Leki was trying to follow her, or was she unsure where to go herself? Whichever it was, Leki couldn’t keep up without revealing herself. In the end she lost Shaandra. The tunnels were grimmer than before, and more desolate it seemed. Things were getting pitch dark, wherever this was, not many others had been there before…

Leki never noticed anything of the fight going on between Sentinella and Q’s gang, even though it was closer than she would have believed. Nor did she find Shaandra again, who had found her way to Q’s throne room by than.

Leki was lost in the dark, wandering the tunnels for what seemed hours on end. Aware of every drop of water that fell or every piece of stone that scratched. Doing her best to sense whatever living things were in there with her. For the most part she could feel none, but fear surely cluttered her perception of things. After a long time, she felt nothing anymore. She saw nothing and she heard nothing. Nothing except for the small drops of water from the ceiling. Trickling down, always one, never stopping, until they made the loudest noise in the universe.

20-04-2010 om 00:00 geschreven door Kim