by G. Howell
Something was wrong. I’d been asleep, I realized that. But why was I laying on hard wood and not my bed? It took a second or so before other fragments of facts gravitated together and clicked into place. I remembered what’d happened.
When I opened my eyes it was to a blotched and weather stained arched canvass roof stretched over a wooden frame, lit from outside by bright sunlight. There was a small hole in it, way up near the apex. The sun was glinting through that hole, projecting a dime of gold that jittered across the floor, across my face, right into my eyes. It flashed in time with the familiar jarring and shaking of the wooden planks I was laying on. A wagon on a rough road.
I lay still, just taking stock. I was thirsty. I was hungry. I ached and hurt. There was also the horrible taste of old vomit in my mouth, a stinging sensation like nettle-burn on my face and down my throat with every breath. And when I raised my hands to rub my face I found I was also manacled.
All in all, I’d felt better.
There was no doubting I was in the back of a covered wagon. The wagon bed itself was built from rough planks, bleached almost white by weather and age. It smelled of wool and pine resin and wet Rris and rocked and rattled with the characteristic teeth-jarring movement of crude engineering meeting a rough, unpaved track of some kind. Black iron manacles were locked tight around my wrists. There was a weight around my neck that could only be a collar. A heavy chain ran from that to a padlock fastened to an iron U bolt set in one of the boards comprising the side of the wagon. I’d been stripped of my clothes, of everything. Even my moccasins were gone. Down the other end of the wagon, by the tailgate, a Rris was sitting on a bedroll and watching me closely. A female. Not that it made any difference.
She stared at me. I slumped back and rasped, “Not again.” My voice was a croak.
My watcher cocked her head. “There’s water there,” she said, nodding her chin.
I looked where she indicated. There was a green glass bottle within reach, stoppered with a wooden bung. And as I moved my head the links of the chain clinked. The chain from the collar was joined to a big iron U bolt secured through one of the rough planks comprising the side of the wagon. It was heavy and just long enough to let me work myself into a sitting position against the other side. Splinters were a worry and the heavy iron manacles were tight, but at least they had enough flex to let me pick the bottle up and work the cork loose.
And my hesitation to drink didn’t go unnoticed. “Just water,” the guard said.
Well, they could probably get drugs into me other ways if they wanted to, and I was incredibly thirsty. I gulped, coughed, drank again. As she’d said: just water. She’d twitched the rear flap aside, gesturing to someone outside, then looked at me again.
“Would shouting for help do any good?” I asked, my voice still rasping.
“Very little,” she said. I nodded, weighing her up. She looked stocky, tough, dressed in a well-worn padded leather vest and kilt accessorized by a pistol and something that looked too long to be a dagger but too short for a sword. Still looked sharp though.
Then the fact it was a uniform registered. “You’re a Mediator.”
“Yes,” she said and glanced at my hand reaching for my collar. “You won’t touch that.”
I let my hand drop. Mediator... Shyia was a Mediator. We’d been attacked, I remembered that. Had I been rescued while I was out? Or were these imposters? Or was Shyia an imposter? I struggled to sit up, wincing at the aches. I was bruised, all over. The worst were a huge blue-green contusion on my right arm that I had no recollection of getting and some bright and angry clotted gouges on my left, where Shyia’s claws had dug in. Elsewhere there were a few minor nicks. Otherwise... just the same collection of scars.
Which puzzled me.
I’d fought with Rris before and knew from experience what sort of damage their teeth and claws did. I also remembered the struggle in the darkness, the number of times they’d laid hands on me but hadn’t used claws. If they’d been seriously trying to hold me they’d have been using claws and I’d have been as lacerated as if I’d taken a running dive into a briar patch. So they’d been almost fastidiously careful not to damage me even as I was bouncing them off the walls.
New sounds from outside drew my attention. There were voices. I couldn’t make out what was being said, but the wagon slowed for a moment. Just long enough for another Rris to vault into the back with a move as smooth as oil on water. All I saw in the glimpse through the tail flap were trees. The newcomer squatted under the low overhead, hands dangling between legs. Male, I guessed, it was hard to tell. He was dressed as the female was, in leather armor, covered with dust, as were his furry calves. “It’s awake then,” he observed.
I didn’t miss the ‘it’s’
“Yes, Sir,” my guard said. “Seems lucid enough.”
I shifted, aching, feeling my heart picking up, my lips drying out. “What’s going on?” I asked, my voice almost catching. “Who are you?”
I’d been in a bad situation like that before. Back then, they really hadn’t like me asking questions.
The newcomer’s head cocked slightly and amber eyes regarded me, almost lazily. “Us? Mediator Guild, of course.”
Mediator Guild. “Why... am I here?”
“We just saved your hide.”
I felt my mouth move as the right words didn’t come. That made as much sense as everything else that’d happened. “Saved my hide?” I repeated. “From what?”
“You were to be executed.”
That almost didn’t register. “Executed?” I echoed again, knowing it made me sound like a clueless moron, but that was what I was feeling like.
“A,” he said.
Confused, afraid, angry... “You... what are you talking about?! Where’s Shyia? What’d you do with him?”
“Shyia ah Ehrasai?” Small creases marched up his muzzle, an expression I wasn’t entirely sure about. “He slipped away. I’m surprised you’re asking about him, after what he was going to do to you.”
“He... wouldn’t harm me.”
“No?” the Rris looked amused. “You think not? He was certainly delivering you for execution.”
They were fucking with me, they had to be. “You expect me to believe they were going to kill me?”
Now he snorted. “I don’t care what you believe. My orders are to return you. Unharmed, preferably, but to return you. That’s all I’m concerned about. Now, you be quiet and cooperate and we will be gracious hosts. Otherwise, we don’t have to be so hospitable. One trail the same as the other to me, understand?”
The female guard was dangling a bunch of leather straps from a finger, swinging them back and forth, a calculating look on her face.
I almost said something smart, something that I’d probably have regretted. Far simpler to just play along. “I understand,” I said.
Amber eyes studied me, the slit pupils like slivers of darkness in fire. After a few heartbeats his left ear twitched. “Huhn, intelligent enough,” he growled, then waved the flap aside and was gone again. I was left staring at the guard. She stared back, still swinging the straps of the muzzle from her fingers.
I decided it was best not to say anything. She seemed satisfied with that.
------v------
They didn’t go out of their way to be cruel. That’s not to say they were actually kind toward me, but at least, they weren’t in the same league as other Rris I’d encountered when it came to being callous bastards.
Not that anything about that journey was enjoyable. Not nearly. The wagon floor was hard and uncomfortable; the shackles weren’t just locked, they were riveted on and being designed for smaller Rris limbs were far too tight. But they didn’t deliberately harm me. They gave me water. Later that day there were some strips of dried meat that were more like leather than food,
but they made me realize how hungry I was. Each bite had to be chewed for minutes before I could swallow it.
My guard looked amused.
They were taking me north, I could figure that out for myself. And judging by the dust that’d been coating that Rris’ legs and clothing, they were riding hard on open roads. How long had they been going? How fast? How far from Open Fields were we? Where were we headed? Was anyone chasing after us? I didn’t have any answers and my guard wasn’t offering to tell me. She sat at the other end of the wagon on a folded bedroll, leaning back against the sideboard with legs splayed and forearms resting on knees as she whittled away at a stick with a nasty little dirk, peeling away tiny curls of pale wood.
Thanks to my crash geography lessons I knew the names few towns up there, along the southern shores of what I’d known as Lake Huron; just a couple of the more important ones. But I’d no real idea exactly where we were heading. And I’d no idea of what was going on.
They were Mediators. Or they claimed to be Mediators. As did Shyia. Chaeitch had thought he was. Who was lying? Or were they both telling the truth?
“Why’re you doing this?” I asked after hours of hearing nothing but the creaking of the wagon and the sounds of wilderness outside: birdsong, insect racket and the wind in trees.
My guard held up the trinket she was carving, the dirk flicking out of the way between her stubby fingers so she could use forefingers to manipulate the work. It looked like a rough figurine of a Rris. I couldn’t tell for sure. She regarded me over the top of the piece with a silent amber stare that, if it was meant to be disconcerting, succeeded. But she didn’t say anything.
I tried again. “This is right?”
Her head cocked slightly.
I continued. “You say you’re mediators? You’re supposed to be law. You’re supposed to… to be right, to be truth. You’re sure this is the right thing?”
Her eyes flicked, her face screwing up in an almost amused expression. “And you’re sure it’s not?” she rumbled.
“Until I know why, I can’t say,” I protested. “All I know is that you’re kidnapping me for no reason. Why...”
“Because they’re my orders,” she interjected and flicked the knife back into her hands, resuming her slow carving. “That’s a perfectly good reason.”
“That’s your excuse? Orders? You just follow them blindly?”
The knife paused again and the glance she favored me with then was less than amused. “Blindly?”
“If you don’t know why you’re doing this, then yes, blindly.”
Her muzzle wrinkled back, flashing white teeth. “I think you should stop talking now.”
“You…”
“I said,” she growled, “You should stop talking. You want to try the muzzle for size?’
The straps were made for a Rris face - they wouldn’t fit me. But if I pointed that fact out, my captors might try to get inventive. I shut up.
She went back to carving her stick.
------v------
The caravan stopped for a short time later that evening, while the sun was a dying red glow on the horizon. I was allowed a toilet break, allowed outside the wagon. They didn’t take any chances though: the chain leasing me to the wagon was unlocked, but the shackles stayed on and four guards hovered close. They watched, amused or just interested in the differences in plumbing. Trying to ignore them while I took a leak against a tree wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I’ve been through worse than that before.
Seeing the world outside the wagon didn’t tell me a lot. Dusk was spilling across the world, and all that seemed to consist of was trees. A copse of birch or some such, not evergreens. And as the sun sunk, the shadows beneath them spread and melted together. Through the trunks I could see the brows of low hills, silhouetting more treetops against the sunset. A road led away through the trees and wilderness. It was just a rutted track, but probably constituted a main road. Otherwise there were no other signs of civilization: no signposts, buildings. Nothing but my captors’ wagons and animals.
Mediators or not, there were a lot of them. I counted at least two-dozen Rris moving about in the evening gloom amongst four wagons and assorted draught animals. But they weren’t lighting fires, so they weren’t making camp. I weighed up my options. In order to make a break for it, I’d have to overcome four alert and armed guards while manacled and then outrun Rris through night and unknown terrain.
That didn’t look like it was going to be an option. I’d have to wait for a chance.
It didn’t look as if it was going to happen that night. The stop was brief, just fifteen minutes or so before the guards herded me back to the wagon. Inside, the gloom was almost pitch blackness. I couldn’t see much at all, but my captors told me to sit, to keep my hands in sight. There were rattlings of metal, the click of a key in a lock, then furry hands grabbing my skin and bonds, just making sure they were secure. The wagon rocked slightly as the Rris moved and I saw the figures moving against the slightly lighter sky at the tailgate, muted voices growled and hissed, then the flap was closed.
Shortly there was a jolt as we started off again.
I waited. The hard floor rattled and bumped as we journeyed off into the night, further away from the world I knew. There wasn’t a word from my guard who was just a darker shadow against the canvass. Presently, despite the cool air and hard floor, I slept. It was all I could do.
------v------
Darkness
I remembered…something. There was something important.
Light shone through ill-fitting boards. Chinks of warmth shining out into the cold where I was. When I tried to see all I could make out were figures moving and the sound of laughter. I moved along the wall, looking.
There was a door. It opened. Inside was dark, empty. A space with a gritty floor and rows of seats in front of a piece of slate hanging on a wall.
I’d been here before.
“You’re still chasing down trouble,” Chihirae told me from her chair. Jackie was sitting beside her, watching me. She never said much anymore.
Writing curled on the slate. I couldn’t read it, but I knew it was writing. When I touched it, the surface rippled, the distortions spreading away, lapping at the shore. I looked up from where I was kneeling by the dark water. The world had changed. Was deeper.
She was on the other side of the pool, watching me.
“You knew,” I said.
She shook her head. “No. Not I.”
“They’re the same.”
Her eyes didn’t meet mine. “I can’t say.”
The pool was dark again and now there were walls all around, of dark stone.
“Mai?”
She wasn’t there. Then there were Rris, one raising the whip and I screamed and struggled away…
Scrabbling on gritty wood, the echoes of rattling chains dying in my ears.
Cool darkness, jolting rocking motion. I heard my breathing, heard some muted Rris conversation back at the tailgate. An ever so faint glow filtered through the canvass roof, silhouetting a dark outline against slightly lighter darkness. There a furry shoulder limed against almost imperceptible moonglow; a sheen of armor; a feline profile. A tufted ear flickered slightly; otherwise it was perfectly still, but watching me.
I shuddered. The bottle was there when I groped after it, my hand closing around the cold glass in the night. The water was cool. I drank deeply, then slumped back. Sleep came again. Eventually.
------v------
Birdsong heralded the morning. First light struck the canvass roof of the wagon, turning it incandescent. The temperature started to climb, turning from cool night air to a stuffy warmth.
That wasn’t what’d woken me. The cessation of rattling and shaking had. I lifted my head from where I’d pillowed it on m
y arms, blinked into the diffuse glow flooding the interior of the wagon and winced. The first thing that struck me was that I ached even worse than before; my bruises from the previous day and the wooden floor having ganged up on my muscles. The other thing I saw was my guard, peering out through the back flap. She had her back to me.
Tempting, but again it wasn’t the right time.
Moving hurt. I groaned, my stiff muscles complaining and my neck clicking like a castanet as I levered myself up into a sitting position. The guard flinched back toward me, letting the flap fall back into place. She watched as I awkwardly sat back, rolling my shoulders and rubbing my neck as best I could with the manacles, just trying to work some limberness back into them. I caught her look. “What?”
“You’re a noisy sleeper.”
I felt muscles in my jaw twitch. “The beds in this hotel really suck,” I growled.
Her muzzle furrowed briefly but I wasn’t about to explain it. The bottle of water was half full. I blinked at it, trying to remember something from the night, then proceeded to drink it all. I regarded the empty green glass container: now empty, or full of air.
She let me outside to take a leak, along with a heavy guard of course. While I relieved myself I was able to see why we’d stopped. The road ended at a river: a broad stretch of dark water slowly flowing between heavily wooded banks. Down by the waters edge were a small hut and a jetty, the building not much more than a shack really. A thread of smoke curled from the chimney. The jetty looked more solidly built, as did the raft moored to it.
No bridge. We were going to ferry across. I studied the scene while I let my bladder empty.
The ferry was a big raft of heavy logs, planks and caulking; big enough to take two wagons and their teams. A series of block and tackles the size of my head anchored it to a thick skein of rope that ran from a massive block onshore and dipped into river midstream before surfacing across the far side which must’ve been thirty or forty meters away. Not a huge river, but fast and deep enough that they couldn’t ford it. Already a wagon and team were being loaded onto the ferry, a Rris who must’ve been the ferryman supervising the loading. The whole thing rocked as the animals boarded and balked. Ripples spread out across the water, setting reeds to rustling and slapping against the overgrown banks. I didn’t have time for further sightseeing: as soon as I’d finished with my business my guards hustled me back to the wagon.