The Crimson Gold

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  “To have had that dream,” she murmured, “and to discover her here, with all the ramifications that this discovery heralds, is not possible. Unless this is exactly how it is supposed to happen.”

  “Mistress?” Milos questioned. Naglatha was not normally given to randomly speaking aloud, so she forgave him his impropriety.

  “It is nothing,” she assured him, and she beckoned to her younger bodyguard.

  “Heraclos,” she said softly, “I need your assistance.”

  “Anything,” he replied properly, “and everything at your wish.” The instructions that followed were inaudible to everyone else but Heraclos. She spoke so softly, she was sure even Milos was not able to hear her words. Heraclos nodded quickly, and Naglatha knew he would do his best to fulfill them. Naglatha repositioned herself in her chair, arms folded, and smiled wickedly. What was about to happen next was critical.

  Her bodyguard made his way across the large, poorly lit room and stopped a few feet short of Tazi’s small table. Naglatha placed one finger against her lower lip and watched the scene unfold with growing excitement. She could see Heraclos motion to the empty seat opposite Tazi and say something. The woman declined to let him join, as Naglatha knew she would. After all, she had made it clear to all those around her that she was unavailable. Then Heraclos leaned in closer, placing his hand under Tazi’s chin, and Naglatha leaned forward in her chair out of anticipation. Heraclos tilted Tazi’s head up slightly. His face was only a few inches from the woman’s ear, and Naglatha had a good notion of the offer he was making. In fact, she had suggested a few descriptives she knew were guaranteed to provoke any woman, whether they were barmaid or noble. In the ruddy glow of the candle on her table, Tazi’s face twisted in anger. Naglatha had to hold back a laugh. It was perfect.

  Tazi reacted as if on cue. As soon as Heraclos propositioned Tazi, Naglatha watched her hand drop to her boot once more. Faster than anyone could follow, Tazi had the blade unsheathed and under Heraclos’s chin with deadly precision. Naglatha saw, from her vantage point, that Tazi had even drawn blood. That was the signal she had given Heraclos to move forward.

  “You dare strike me?” Heraclos demanded indignantly.

  Before the first drop of his blood hit Tazi’s grimy table, Heraclos had shrugged off his expensive cloak and revealed a large scimitar sheathed at his waist. He drew it with deadly precision. Naglatha saw that he wasted no time. With incredible force, he brought the sword screaming down at Tazi, splitting the oak table right down the center. At the same time, Tazi pushed away from the splintered table, crashing with her chair to the floor. She used her momentum to summersault backward and away from Heraclos’s imminent threat. When she rose to her feat, Tazi had one of her Sembian guardblades withdrawn.

  Heraclos pivoted and swung his blade with both hands. Tazi parried the blow. At the sound of crashing steel, the other patrons had stopped their activities and turned to watch the excitement. Naglatha was quite sure that it was not the first time a brawl of this nature had erupted here. In fact, her own table leg looked as though it had only been recently repaired. She suspected the break had nothing to do with the heavy food they served at the tavern.

  Heraclos easily outweighed her by over a hundred pounds, and Naglatha was curious to see how Tazi handled herself against a larger opponent who had the advantage of surprise on his side. Her bodyguard did not give Tazi a moment to catch her breath. While Naglatha knew he lacked the finesse and overall skill that Milos possessed with the scimitar, he never tired in his assaults. Each of her two servants had his strengths, and they were learning to work together over time. Naglatha considered sending the older bodyguard into the fray as well, but she knew they didn’t have much time. Fights as destructive as this one was shaping up to be invariably brought the attention of the local enforcers. Naglatha could see some of the tavern’s clients leaving already, some afraid to be around when the reinforcements arrived.

  A cowardly lot, Naglatha reflected disgustedly, and not a single one of you raise your hand to help the girl. Naglatha even thought she saw the auburn-haired man that Tazi had so eloquently rejected smile at her misfortune as he gathered his companions and gear and hastily retreated up the wide staircase that led to the rooms above. Fools, she thought.

  Tazi matched each of Heraclos’s blows, but Naglatha could see that her bodyguard was forcing Tazi back. The two knocked over tables and chairs in their deadly ballet, but Tazi never cried out once for aid. Naglatha suspected the girl wouldn’t as, technically, she had started the fracas. You take care of your own problems, don’t you? Naglatha deduced. Good.

  Heraclos forced Tazi toward the stairs with a series of blows that grew in intensity. It was clearly visible to Naglatha that her candidate was tiring. She appeared so fatigued that she was unaware of her surroundings and tripped on the wide stairs behind her. Tazi fell back onto the staircase and lost her sword. Heraclos raised his scimitar high overhead and swung the huge blade whistling down. Naglatha momentarily thought she might have to interview another candidate until Tazi hugged herself and rolled quickly to her right. The force of Heraclos’s swing was so strong, his blade became momentarily embedded in the stairs. Tazi used the opportunity, as she lay stretched out on the steps, to kick savagely at his knee. The blow was enough to topple Heraclos, and it gave Tazi the chance to bolt up and rush past him. By the time he had recovered his feet and his blade, Tazi had retrieved hers as well and the duel continued.

  With all the patrons gone, they had the run of the bar. Naglatha watched as Tazi, who must have found her second wind, danced around Heraclos. She jumped onto chairs and swung around support timbers, making good use of whatever shields she could find to block his powerful arm. Resourceful, Naglatha said to herself, and she was more certain than ever that this woman was the one she needed.

  Heraclos’s color rose in his face, and Naglatha suspected it was not just because of the physical exertion of the swordfight. He was becoming enraged at the girl who spun around him and was still standing despite his best efforts. What expertise he had mastered was evidently lost under his growing anger. Naglatha saw that his attacks were becoming more bullish. He was relying on his strength alone, a shortcoming Naglatha had pointed out to him on more than one occasion.

  His pendulous swings forced Tazi to back peddle toward Naglatha and her other bodyguard. Naglatha nodded to Milos, and they made an expedient retreat behind the bar. Heraclos continued to push Tazi back to the now-abandoned table in the corner. She rolled backward along the length of the table and landed on the floor in front of Naglatha’s empty chair. Heraclos leaped onto the tabletop and stomped his way to the end where Tazi was crouching. Naglatha saw the woman look around and suddenly smile a lopsided grin. She kicked out at the mended leg, which gave way at once. As the table listed to one corner, Heraclos lost his balance. He dropped his scimitar as his arms pinwheeled about in a frantic attempt to keep his footing. It was no use, and he crashed back full length onto the table. He was dazed and breathless. Tazi did not waste the chance.

  She braced her left hand against the cockeyed table and placed the tip of her blade up under his chin with the other. Breathing hard, Tazi cocked back her sword arm but then stopped. Naglatha was prepared to lose the bodyguard as an unfortunate business expense; however, she was surprised at her candidate’s lack of action at that point. Naglatha could see hesitation cross Tazi’s features, and she deduced that killing did not come easy to the raven-tressed woman. It was something to note.

  Before Tazi was forced to make a decision, a small garrison of the tharchion’s guards burst into the tavern. The five well-equipped men rushed over to Tazi and Heraclos. Two of them seized Tazi, each grabbing one arm and pulled her away from the prostrate servant. Naglatha smiled at Tazi’s shock as they yanked her roughly to the bar. She argued with them and struggled. Naglatha was certain that if they had arrived earlier, Tazi would have put up a better fight, but she was clearly winded now. They slammed her against the bar and pi
nned her there while their comrades helped Heraclos to his feet. Naglatha’s other bodyguard used the commotion to retrieve and secret Heraclos’s fallen scimitar.

  “I was defending myself,” Tazi sputtered to her captors. Naglatha smirked at her distress. “He left me no choice.”

  “Shut yer mouth,” one of the guards snarled back at her.

  “I have a right,” she demanded. “Ask that woman over there,” Tazi demanded and nodded in Naglatha’s direction. “She saw the whole thing.”

  Naglatha slowly walked over to the captain of the tharchion’s garrison, who was standing a few feet in front of Tazi. The other two guards had walked Heraclos back over to Milos, and they remained stationed there. Naglatha could see Tazi’s face brighten as she turned to look first to the guard on her right and the one on her left with a certain amount of smug satisfaction. It was obvious she was certain Naglatha’s testimony would absolve her of blame. As she looked toward the Red Wizard incognito, Naglatha returned her smile warmly.

  “Milady,” the captain addressed her, “what has transpired here?”

  Naglatha looked at Tazi and watched the captive woman stand straighter in expectation. She turned to the captain and replied, “I am glad that you and your men arrived when you did. This was an extremely unfortunate situation and entirely my fault.” She paused and regarded Tazi once more. She could see the younger woman’s confidence grow.

  “I had been warned about the types that frequent establishments like these, but I was certain I would not have trouble since I was accompanied by my servants. As you can see,” Naglatha paused and pointed to Heraclos and Milos, “my eunuchs are hardly a match for anyone, unarmed and so obviously out-of-shape as they are.”

  “What?” Tazi shouted, and the guard who had warned her to be silent struck her in the mouth.

  “Milady,” the captain responded, “I am only sorry we could not have arrived before your property was damaged. We will see to it that this ruffian is properly punished.” Then he tipped his head deferentially to Naglatha and turned in militaristic fashion toward his men.

  “Take her,” he ordered. The men restraining Tazi started to drag her toward the main door. She pulled at her captors as they hauled her away, and she twisted her torso to look back at Naglatha.

  “That’s not how it happened,” she shouted at the Red Wizard.

  As they yanked her out the doorway, Naglatha waved farewell sweetly to the furious woman.

  “Just perfect,” she whispered.

  Tazi stood in the center of a small chamber with her arms bound behind her at the wrists and a guard flanking her on each side. Her lip, where the guard had struck her at the tavern, had finally stopped bleeding. Only a thin trail of dried blood remained between the corner of her mouth and her chin. She looked calm, but Tazi was seething inside. She had been standing roughly in the same spot for over an hour and hadn’t been allowed to move or speak during that time.

  The room she had been taken to was in one of the inner studies of Pyrados’s magistrate’s office. It was dark and somber, devoid of any windows. Along three of the four walls were floor to ceiling bookcases in a rich, ebony wood. A few sconces dotted the walls and cast odd shadows along the tomes and floor. It reminded Tazi of one of her father’s rooms, crammed full and somewhat stuffy. Each shelf was bursting with scrolls and manuscripts, but Tazi doubted that Thay could actually possess that many laws and bylaws. She wondered if, along with the black wood, the shelves of books were meant to intimidate the less intelligent of those dragged before the ‘court.’ Tazi refused to be such a victim.

  She stood facing a large desk, almost like a podium, made of the same wood as the bookcases. It was set on a raised section of the floor, similar to a dais, so when the magistrate sat behind it, he always looked down on whoever was brought before him. All she could see of the official who was perched back there was his bald, wrinkled head with its single tattoo and his cloaked shoulders. The Thayan sat bent over some documents that he was ostensibly reading through, accounts of various transgressions, Tazi imagined. She had tried to crane her neck once to get a better look and was cuffed for it. She kicked at the guard who did it and was struck again. She had settled down over the last hour, realizing that struggling at this moment was not in her best interests.

  Her weapons, including her boot dagger and even her lock pick, rested on a small table to her left. Her worn, leather sack containing the crimson gold was also amongst her things, and she occasionally cast a longing eye toward them. But one of the guards caught the direction of her gaze and moved closer to Tazi. She knew she had little chance of retrieving her weapons quickly and decided it wasn’t worth the risk for now. Not for the first time since she was taken into custody, Tazi berated herself for not paying closer attention to the Rashemi barmaid back at Laeril’s Arms.

  She tried to warn me, Tazi thought morosely, about how things worked here. I should have listened more closely. I should have had a plan just in case. The magistrate’s artificial cough snapped her back to her present situation.

  “I have given this matter a great deal of thought and consideration,” the older man began as he opened a large ledger and made a show of selecting a quill.

  About an hour’s worth, Tazi mused to herself. And never once talked to me.

  “It is fairly clear that a terrible crime was committed,” he continued, unaware of Tazi’s internal monologue, “and reparations must be made. In addition, suitable punishment must be meted out. It is the law, after all.” He began to scratch some words onto the parchment pages.

  Unbidden, Tazi responded, “I agree with you. I was assaulted.”

  The old man looked up. It was plain to see he did not appreciate what he viewed as an interruption and continued speaking. “Because you, young woman, did visit damage upon the property of a high-ranking Thayan citizen, all your goods and possessions are now forfeit.”

  “What?” Tazi shouted. She made a step toward the desk, and the guards pulled her back. “You can’t just take my things.”

  “They will go to the woman whose goods you damaged as her compensation,” he explained. “Furthermore, injuring the property of a citizen is the same as injuring the citizen herself, and that is a grave offense in these lands. Because of that,” he paused dramatically and looked Tazi straight in the eye, “it is the decree of this court—”

  “How can you call this a court?” Tazi demanded. “I never heard the details of my ‘crime,’ never heard the woman I supposedly injured tell her side of it, and I never got to tell my accounting.” She shrugged out of her captors’ grasp and moved right over to the desk and stared up at the official defiantly. “Just what kind of court is this? Please explain that.”

  The two armed men each grabbed a shoulder, but did little else to Tazi other than to pull her back to her original spot. She suspected they were simply saving up their anger for later and didn’t even want to contemplate that. Blackly, she saw only one way out and she detested playing that game. But she recognized she was running out of any other options.

  “As I was saying,” the official continued as though there had been no outburst, “it is the decision of this court to commit you to eternal service to Thayan country and people.”

  “Slavery?” Tazi sputtered. “I don’t think so!”

  “You may now have an opportunity to say your last words for the record before you cease to exist as a person,” the magistrate magnanimously allowed and held his pen poised over his ledger.

  Tazi bit back on the first thing that came to mind, knowing that it would be a mistake to say. She reigned in her temper and pulled out her trump card, though she hated to have to resort to it.

  “How much?” she asked simply. “How much will it take?”

  “Excuse me?” the magistrate questioned her, genuinely shocked.

  “I have coin,” she told him.

  “That pittance over there?” he asked and pointed to the pile of Tazi’s effects on the small table. “Perhaps I spoke
too quickly for you to understand. That now belongs to the Thayan citizen you assaulted. It is no longer yours to bargain with.”

  “No,” Tazi sighed. “I have access to a near limitless amount of funds. I am Thazienne Uskevren of Selgaunt. My family will gladly pay whatever price you can dream up to free me. Name it, and it’s yours.”

  “You were Thazienne Uskevren,” the old man corrected her. “Now you are the property of Thay.”

  “No,” Tazi said and struggled against the men who restrained her. “I am not! My family will find me,” she warned him, “and there will be hell to pay! Trust me on that!”

  “Let me explain something to you: you have broken Thayan law. You have been tried and found guilty. You have now been punished and no longer exist as a person in your own right. Do you understand?”

  “They will find me,” she warned him.

  “Even if they could, which I seriously doubt,” the magistrate wheezed, “there is nothing for them to do. You are a slave, and slavery in Thay means in perpetuity.”

  Tazi cocked her head at the pronouncement.

  “You are a slave and will die a slave. The decree is irreversible by our laws. And should you and another ever mate, any issue of yours will be a slave, as will their issue and their issue’s issue until time’s end. Slavery here in Thay is final.”

  Tazi blanched at the ramifications of the decree. It was most definitely not how she had expected the situation to resolve itself. For the moment, she was at a loss as to how to proceed. However, as a slave, that was not even a concern of hers any longer. She had lost all rights and others would decide what she could and could not do from then on. Tazi could not fathom the turn fate had taken.

  “You may remove her now and take her to the pens,” he ordered. The guards began to tug her from the magistrate’s study. Tazi tried to dig in her heals and slow them down. “I’m not done yet,” she shouted over her shoulder.