“Unless Rheen is a lead,” said Gillio. “Maybe she ended up in the same place as all of the other missing people.”
“Unlikely,” said Jekka. “Like I said the last time this happened, she’s been talking like she was going to leave. She’s trying to avoid being forced into making a decision. Maybe she’s succeeded.”
“Yes, or maybe she’s being hunted down by sniws to be torn to pieces,” said Gillio.
“Imagining the worst that could happen isn’t going to get us anywhere,” cut in Bierno. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do.”
But Jekka was right. There really wasn’t much they could do. They finally decided it would be most helpful to catch up on lost sleep, so they retired to their bedrooms to sleep off what was left of the night and part of the next day.
Chapter 9
Rheen awoke to the sound of Kenn and Jess arguing. She got up and joined them in the corner where the food was stacked.
“Finders, keepers. Finders, keepers. How many times to I have to tell you?” Jess was taunting.
“That’s what I’m saying,” said Kenn, trying to pull a little yellow fruit out of Jess’s hand. “I found it yesterday and wanted to keep it to eat today.”
“Then you shouldn’t have put it somewhere that I could find it today and keep it from you,” said Jess, dancing around him and dodging from his attempts to grab it from her. She looked over in Rheen’s direction. “Good morning!”
“Jess, you’re stealing Kenn’s food,” said Rheen. “And you woke me up.”
“Well, I’m sorry for waking you up,” said Jess with a laugh, and then she took a bite of the fruit.
Kenn groaned and stopped chasing her. “Now it’s no use. I’m not going to eat it after you’ve had your mouth all over it.”
She took another bite and ignored him. “So, what do you want to do today?” she asked Rheen.
“I don’t know,” said Rheen. “I wouldn’t mind just walking around for a while – see what’s changed since I left.”
“That sounds good to me. Rove!” she shouted, walking over to the couch Rove was still sleeping on. She shook his shoulder. “Wake up! We’re going out.”
It took some convincing to get him off of the couch, but a little later they were all four walking up the road. It was already early afternoon.
“Another whole block has been abandoned,” Jess told Rheen. They were a few blocks north and west of the house they were living in, and the once upscale and well-kept houses were boarded up with landscaping gradually overtaking the yards.
“Nobody wants to live next to abandoned houses, so they leave their own for a better part of town,” said Rove. “It makes me wonder if this abandoned area is going to keep spreading out. Last year it was this block, maybe this year it will be the next, and so on.”
“And eventually all of Vree will be abandoned,” said Jess.
“Or just turned over to people like us,” said Rove. “I wouldn’t mind that so much. Whether you have a place to live and food to eat would only be determined by how hard you’re willing to work for it, not by what family you were born into and how much coin you have.”
“Or how smart you are,” added Kenn.
“Or whether or not people like you,” added Jess.
“You are smart, Kenn,” said Rheen, “and plenty of people like you, Jess. You were both just terribly misunderstood by narrow-minded people.”
“Well, anyway,” said Jess, “Vree isn’t going to be totally abandoned in our lifetimes at the rate things are going, so unless it picks up the speed to more than a block per year, we’re just going to have to keep making do with how things are.”
They all nodded in agreement and walked along in silence for a while. Eventually, Kenn and Jess trailed behind and then ran off on some errand. Rheen found herself walking alone with Rove in a nicer part of town. There were medium sized houses lining the street on either side with little fenced in yards full of flower and vegetable gardens.
“It used to be my dream to one day buy a house like that,” said Rove.
“I know,” said Rheen. “I remember when you would talk about it. You were going to get married and have a family.”
“I imagined I’d marry you. I never told you, did I?” he asked.
She blushed a little. “I don’t think you did,” she said. “I used to hope that you felt that way.”
They had stopped and were leaning against a fence in front of a little blue house, both staring at the ground.
“I was devastated when you disappeared, and I was so upset that I never told you,” said Rove. “I thought I’d missed my chance. I’d basically come to terms with it and then you showed up two days ago.”
“I’m really sorry for leaving without saying anything,” said Rheen. She was quiet for a minute. She wasn’t really sure what to say or what to think. “Do you still feel the same way?” she finally asked. She asked more out of curiosity than out of wanting to hear a specific answer.
“I don’t really know,” he said. “I’ve definitely given up on the house and that whole idea at least.”
“Why’s that?” asked Rheen.
“It was a childish ambition,” he said. “In reality, hard work doesn’t pay, and the only people who really succeed are swindlers and tyrants.”
“I know what you mean,” said Rheen. “What are you going to do instead?”
“I haven’t figured that out,” said Rove, “and I’m starting to lose hope that I ever will.”
“I can definitely relate to that,” said Rheen.
“Is that why you went south?” asked Rove. “To try and figure that out?”
“I suppose so, yes,” she answered. It was part of the reason, anyway. She wasn’t going to tell him that his temper was the other part, especially since he was in an agreeable mood. In fact, he hadn’t really been that bad since she’d come back, and she hoped he had changed for the better over time.
“What did you find?” he asked.
She thought for a second. “Fewer swindlers and tyrants but all of the same goals and ambitions.”
They stood in silence for a moment and then Rove looked up at the sky.
“It looks like it’s going to rain soon,” he said. “Let’s go to my uncle’s saloon. It’s the closest roof we can get under that I can think of.”
“Alright,” said Rheen.
They backtracked to the first south-going street and walked briskly a few blocks before they felt a few drips from the sky. They started to run, and soon it was downpouring. Rove grabbed Rheen’s hand and pulled her along faster than her small frame could carry her until they arrived breathless at the front door of the saloon. They stepped inside of the smoke and noise-filled room and walked up to the counter.
“Rove, my boy, it’s good to see you,” said a plump man with thinning pepper-colored hair behind the counter. “And Rheen! She’s back!”
“Hello, Uncle Mal,” Rheen said with a smile.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing to some empty barstools nearby. “I have some customers to take care of and then I’ll be back to talk to you.”
Rheen and Rove sat down on the stools, and Rove finally let go of Rheen’s hand which he had been holding onto since their dash through the rain.
“This place hasn’t changed at all,” said Rheen.
“It hasn’t,” said Rove.
“Is your mother still here?”
“Yes. We can go upstairs to see her later if you want. She doesn’t like the crowds so she’s hardly ever down here.”
“And your father?”
“He’s been back twice for a month each time since you left. Nothing new with him. Still running some shady business that involves a lot of travelling to do who knows what.”
Uncle Mal came back and plopped two mugs on the counter in front of them.
“So, Rheen, where did you run off to?”
“I went south,” said Rheen, “to the other side of the wall just to see what it w
as like.”
“Well I hope it was worth all of the concern you caused around here,” joked Uncle Mal. “How did you like it there?”
“It was different,” said Rheen. “It was much greener and richer than here.”
“That’s what I’ve heard,” said Uncle Mal. “I’ve also heard there’s a race of man there that’s twice as big as us and a castle that reaches as high as the wall.”
“Both are true,” said Rheen. “I’ve seen them with my own eyes.”
“Well, isn’t that something? I’ll have to go down there sometime if I ever get away from serving these demanding customers.” With that, he hurried off to break up a fight.
After finishing their drinks and having a short meeting with Rove’s mother (she had expressed her pleasure at seeing Rheen again but hadn’t had much to say after that), they found themselves standing back at the front entrance and staring out into the pouring rain. It was just starting to get dark.
“It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop,” said Rheen.
Rove shook his head. “We mind as well just accept that we’re going to get wet.”
“We haven’t fully dried off from earlier, anyway,” said Rheen. “Are you ready?”
“On the count of three,” said Rove. “One, two, three!” They both hesitated to make sure that the other was actually going to leave the doorway. When neither of them did, Rove grabbed Rheen’s arm and shoved her outside. As he did, she caught hold of his sleeve and dragged him with her. They walked down the street laughing and getting thoroughly drenched.
**********
The warriors all stood together in the downstairs of the inn gazing out the front window. They had slept into the early afternoon and had spent some time just washing clothes, checking on the horses, and getting things in order. It was now almost evening.
“I’m afraid my gift won’t be of any use until the skies are clear again,” said Aenin. He had been watching for Rheen from the sky during their search the night before, but it had become more and more difficult to see into the city streets as more clouds gathered.
“And it wouldn’t be wise to venture out to visit families, either,” said Bierno. “We would get caught in the rain for sure.”
“This is maddening,” said Jekka. “We have a bunch of missing people, no leads, and now we’re stuck here.”
They stood in silence for a few more minutes. The clouds had just broken a moment earlier and the rain was now coming in torrents. Suddenly, they saw a figure come sprinting from the stable across the street. It burst into the door in a shower of water droplets.
The warriors looked over and were pleased to see it was Davick. He threw off the hood of his cloak and shook the rainwater off.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re here and not caught out in the storm somewhere.”
“It is good to see you,” said Bierno. “Do you have news?”
“I don’t,” said Davick. “I was going to ask you the same.”
“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” said Bierno. “Rheen went missing again last night. We were up for hours looking for her and spent most of the day catching up on the sleep we lost.”
“Oh, no!” said Davick. “That is terrible news!”
“It is possible she left of her own accord and isn’t in any danger,” said Aenin. “We discovered she used to live here somewhere in the city and might have gone to reunite with people she knows.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” said Davick. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“We found her yesterday morning with three people who looked similar to the three who stole the wagon two days ago,” said Aenin. “They seemed to be friends of hers, so we think she might have gone to find them.”
“But that is just speculation,” said Gillio.
“Of course,” said Davick. “We should search for her when the storm lets up in case she’s in any trouble.”
They nodded.
“In the meantime, would you like to join us for dinner?” asked Bierno.
“I would most definitely like to,” said Davick. “I was hoping to have an excuse to stay here for a while and dry off.”
Over plates of steaming roast and potatoes, they continued to go around and around in conversation about what to do about the mission.
“None of the families of the missing people have any leads,” said Bierno, “and there wasn’t anything connecting them to each other. They were all different ages, from different backgrounds, different parts of the city, and there was no consistency as to how they were acting before they disappeared: one was acting completely normal, another was starting to act depressed, and another was spending more and more time away from home.”
“I still feel like Rheen is connected to all of this somehow,” said Gillio. “Why else would she be ordered to come on this mission with us?”
“Maybe for no reason,” said Jekka, “or for some reason we’ll never find out. All I know is that we were sent here to find a missing girl who we know is or was or will be locked up in some dungeon at some point because of the vision. That is our mission, and that is what we need to stay focused on.”
“You have a good point, Jekka,” said Bierno. “And the vision itself is a lead of sorts. Davick, can you think of anywhere that would have dungeon cells? Picture small rooms, stone walls, multiple iron-barred cells in each room, a heavy wooden door…”
“There’s the city jail,” said Davick. “Or an old fort on the southwest side of town that I think has a dungeon. It hasn’t been in use for centuries though.”
“That you know of,” said Gillio.
“Well, we at least shouldn’t rule it out,” said Bierno.
“This is great,” said Jekka, getting excited. “Finally we have at least something to do.”
“And you’re going to venture out into the rain to follow up on these leads?” asked Gillio.
Jekka deflated and looked out of the window forlornly. Lightning flashed.
“Don’t be too upset,” said Bierno. “It’s late to be going out anyway, and maybe the storm will be cleared up in the morning.”
The room had gradually filled as they ate, and they were just thinking of retreating to their rooms upstairs when Davick announced that he was going to get a room in the inn that night to avoid having to ride through the storm. They stayed at the table to wait for him to make arrangements with the innkeeper. While he was away, the woman who had bothered Gillio two nights earlier came out of the crowd and sat in the seat Davick had been sitting in.
“Fancy seeing you here again,” she slurred. “I hope you’re in town for a long time. I wouldn’t mind getting to know you better.” She pointed at Gillio who was thankfully two seats away with Jekka between him and the woman.
“Who are you?” asked Bierno.
“Charlemaine,” she said. “I was named after the poet.”
“We met her the other night while you were talking with the innkeeper,” Jekka said to Bierno pointedly. Bierno thought back and remembered that he had missed some incident that night and pieced things together.
“I see,” he said. “Well, Charlemaine, it is nice to meet you and we would be happy to talk with you more sometime, but we were just waiting for a friend to get back, and then we were going to leave for the night.”
“Well that’s no fun,” she said. “Now’s when this place comes alive. You should stay for a while.” She was answering Bierno but looking mostly at Gillio.
“Thank you, but we’ll pass,” said Gillio.
She started to protest further, but Davick returned. When she saw him, her face changed. She looked down, quickly apologized for taking his seat, and then bustled back through the room to join the people she’d come with.
Davick watched her go and then turned to the warriors.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” he said.
“It’s fine,” said Bierno. “I wasn’t quite ready to get up yet after eating so much anyway. I’m read
y now though. Did you get everything worked out with the innkeeper?”
“I did,” said Davick, “and I’m ready for a warm, dry bed. It’s been a long day.”
**********
Kenn and Jess were already back at the house when Rheen and Rove returned late in the evening. They’d gathered some food (Rheen didn’t ask where or how they got it) and Jess had brought Rheen’s green dress in from the backyard to start drying.
“I suppose you can borrow another set of my clothes while you dry the one you’re wearing, too,” she told Rheen.
Rheen was very grateful a few minutes later when she was in dry clothes and wrapped up in some blankets sitting on a couch with the others. Rove had taken the seat next to her again, and Jess and Kenn were sitting across from them. There was a cluster of candles on the table between the two couches.
Jess passed around bread and cheese followed by a few pastries and more of the same kind of fruit that she and Kenn had fought over that morning.
“Kenn showed me where the tree was he got them from,” said Jess. “There were a bunch just lying on the ground. Nobody’s even going to miss them.”
Rheen was quite hungry after being used to at least two meals per day for the last week and then missing breakfast that morning. Everything was delicious.
“And that’s not even the best part,” said Jess. “We also found this.”
She proudly pulled a Dragonlord board from behind the couch she was sitting on.
“It was in somebody’s trash,” she said. “It’s in perfectly good condition except that some pegs are missing. Or maybe we just didn’t find them. We spent a long time rummaging to get all of the pieces we could, and some of the cards are stained from the other garbage. And it kind of smells, but that will go away with time.”
Rheen laughed. “That’s wonderful, Jess.”
“Especially with it raining and everything, it will give us something to do for a while. Does anyone know the rules? I’ve played it a few times, but I can never remember how it goes, exactly.”
“I actually just played recently,” said Rheen. “I think I remember everything.”
“When did you play?” demanded Rove.
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