Just past noon, after leaving the inn, Arjun’s feet, on their own volition, decided to head toward the old Keep. It was easily the largest structure in Shillang, in sheer volume even larger than the Temple of Aimin.
Located on a low hill to the east of the oblong-shaped city, the ancient structure dated back to the 7th century AC, to the days of Aimin, when he’d commissioned it. Directly opposite, less than four miles away on the other side of the valley, the even more ancient Temple sprawled across several acres of land. The gleaming top dome of the temple and the giant five-Nodal sigil representing the Pools of Power on top of it, both made from alabaster marble, were visible from miles away.
Whether by design or happenstance, the massive structures seemed to be competing with one another in a vain attempt to prove their own supremacy, though in Arjun’s mind, the winner in this tug-of-war of grandeur was the one that served a loftier purpose. Judging by the mile-long queue leading up to the side gate of the temple – to the Langar or free kitchen, most common folk would probably agree with him. He’d never seen a larger kitchen; this was easily twice the size of the one in Ajoygar, which fed over five thousand people a day.
All his happy musings were cut short, when hearing a shout and curse, Arjun jumped to the side, and a palanquin borne by four heavily muscled men rushed past him toward the temple. This seemed to be a common occurrence, as the pedestrians, after muttering one or two profanities under their breaths, continued on their merry way without a second glance. Arjun dedicated a portion of his Crown to the ubiquitous noise of the city, and lengthened his steps.
Horses, ox carts, carts pulled by farmers bearing produce and occasional palanquins flowed through the wide boulevard, but no powercars could be seen, as they were banned from entering population centers after the powercell of one had exploded in Aimingar over a decade ago, killing two score people.
Within a fraction of a bell, Arjun was once again reminded why he found large cities so exhausting. Too many people within his range of senses meant too much emotion.
Though not necessarily too many.
For instance, the man directly in front of him on the sidewalk, a human in his early forties with light-brown hair, kept glancing at the woman at his elbow, his wife presumably, then his eyes would dart around looking for something, a palpable feeling of dread emanating from them both. To the left, a half-stonehorn, arguing with a fruit vendor selling pomegranate, kept shooting nervous glances around him, going so far as to claim he’s a native of Shillang, an obvious lie clear even to those with no essence sense.
All too soon, Arjun realized overwhelming majority of the people were experiencing one singular emotion, collectively so strong that he found it hard to process. That emotion being dread.
But this wasn’t his first time in a metropolis. Finding a row of low benches in a small park beside the street, Arjun settled into as relaxing a posture as he could manage, and started the breathing exercise taught to him by his mother – back when he was nine, and she was consistently lucid.
After getting his bearing back, which took a good half bell, Arjun, perhaps for the very first time since entering Shillang, looked around him with eyes devoid of the excitement of visiting a new city, one very close to Kailash. Thinking back on all the emotions he’d sensed since entering Shillang, the conclusion was obvious. He cursed himself for missing the blatant fact that something was profoundly wrong with the fabric of the city – with its people.
They were afraid.
Not of anything in particular, at least not as far as he could determine. It was a strangely nebulous fear, which would require longer to analyze. Vowing to be less naïve in the future, that is exactly what he set about doing while on his way to someplace even more crowded.
Hearing a cacophony of noise and following the rush of traffic, Arjun soon found himself in what he assumed was the main bazaar of Shillang. It was a huge circular open space paved with stone instead of brick, a place he recognized from one of Thurma’s stories – the renowned seven-street-junction of Shillang, called Ajoy Bazaar, named after the Second Emperor. Commemorating his victory over the tribal hordes, an immense statue had been stone-cast at the very center of the plaza by Leopold, the legendary Ascendant who supposedly was a childhood friend of the Emperor. The huge statue depicted a burly man of medium height, brows ridged, lips snarling in defiance, riding his prancing horse, Avik, with his sword thrust toward the sky. Time had not been generous to the statue of the Emperor. Almost a millennium of natural erosion, and of course, the inevitable bird droppings, had degraded the subtler aspects of his visage.
The bazaar was absolutely teeming with people and jam-packed with vendors selling everything from spices locally produced to silk garments from Jialin, honey from Saylia, wooden furniture from Murinia, exquisite cotton garments from Tropia in Arunia, beautiful delicate pottery from Caleil, even tough arrow-resistant leather armor from Maha Aranya, home of the aditarus. About three quarters of shops were on the pavement, sometimes even spilling onto the streets. These were made from bamboo, tarp, and rope. Rest of the shops, owned by more prosperous merchants, consisted of permanent structures made of wood.
“Would you like a nice silken handkerchief for your girl, young man?” An old vendor asked as Arjun’s aimless feet took him past the tidy little shop that was only a couple of yards wide, but dozens deep.
Arjun gave a morose shake of the head. The silk looked soft enough, and the forest-green color vibrant enough, for the handkerchief to be priced at well over a silver. All he possessed in his pocket was a solitary copper. Neither did he have anyone to gift it to, for that matter. So, tearing himself away from all the colorful, glittering clothes – including what looked to be a sherwani fit for an emperor, he continued his wandering, heading deeper into the bazaar.
It was the most disorientating, breathtaking and amazing place Arjun ever had the privilege of visiting. It was also extremely frustrating. Everything he saw, he felt like buying, but couldn’t afford to.
Suddenly remembering the famed Spice Market should be somewhere around here, Arjun craned his neck over the crowd while looking for a side street. As he did so, someone up ahead caught his attention.
Most people in Aiminia had brown skin, the shade varying from deep, almost mahogany in central, eastern, and southern Aiminia, to light-brown in north-east and north-west of the country. Arunians had light-brown skin in general, with people from Suhiria Mountain region having skin almost as light as the aditarus, whose tone varied from light, glowing, almost honeyed brown to pink. This person had light pink skin, but with a tinge of green. She was also several digits taller than even Arjun who stood out in this bazaar with a height of six feet and three digits. The woman, who seemed to almost glide across the ground with long languid graceful strides, was clearly of aditarun descent, though the distance rendered further analysis difficult. Rest of her appearance was just as striking as her skin-tone. She wore a split gown of sky-blue and a leather sleeveless coat which also seemed to serve as some sort of armor. Hair braided with light-blue flowers, her large slanting hazel-green eyes seemed to enthrall those fortunate enough to behold them.
Some humans found their disproportionately long legs and slim build oddly unappealing. Not Arjun. And judging by what he’d read, not poets, human or otherwise. If anything, they seem to dedicate an unusually large number of their works to aditarun women. Before today, Arjun didn’t quite understand why, never having seen more than a handful of them, none from up close.
Then, rising fury enveloped Arjun’s face as he noted that a group of Guards had stormed up to her, led by a particularly obnoxious specimen of a human. Barring her path, they demanded she produce identifying documents. Which she promptly did.
But the event acted as a catalyst that lifted the veil of willful ignorance from Arjun’s eyes. He’d noticed earlier how some people went out of their way to avoid the Guards, but being out of his range meant he couldn’t get a sense of their emotional state. That was not the case here.
Standing in a small patch of street devoid of people, these particular Guards regarded those around them with suspicion in their eyes, and utter disdain in their Heart. The scant few that were both inside his range and in the eye-line of the Guard all but ran out of there, their fear strong enough to be detectable even by a mundane. This was not an isolated phenomenon as Arjun spied another group, about a hundred yards ahead, evoking similar response from pedestrians, most of whom had light-brown hair, or were of either aditarun or stonehornish descent.
So that was another question answered, at least partly, because Arjun was still perplexed as to why the Guards would behave this way, something that was clearly encouraged by the upper brass since it was so widespread.
Arjun didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed when the brutish-looking leader of the Guards spared him no more than a single glance, and the group moved on their way toward the central plaza, the sea of humanity parting around them as they strolled across the street as if they owned the city. He wondered if the conflict mentioned by James had anything to do with this puzzling behavior on the part of the Guards. How alienating your supposed allies – the Balgistin stonehorns, or provoking the notoriously aloof yet frighteningly powerful aditarus helped Aiminia win the war, Arjun didn’t know.
But, possibly he was trying to attribute complex motives to a trivial human emotion. Pride. Or in this case, its little cousin – prejudice. Being certain of the fact that you – your race, country or religion, or all three – were superior to everyone else’s. Unfortunately, it was a sentiment that was all too common.
“So Ben, what’ve you got today?” a rough voice with a heavy mountainous accent dragged Arjun out of his thoughts.
“I…don’t have enough…as I told you yesterday. Please give me another week.”
It was an old fruits-and-vegetables vendor. Arjun happened to be standing right next to the cart.
“Told you yesterday, you been cheating on us, didn’t I?” The same voice answered. It was a tall double-chinned goon that weighed a good two hundred pounds. Two other men, his subordinates by the way they deferred to him, were standing beside and just behind him. One of them was fondling a large knife strapped to his worn belt, while the other gripped a heavy cudgel with both hands, swinging it every few blinks in an overhead trajectory.
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“Birin, my little boy, he been sick, he has,” said the poor man, close to tears and shaking with fright.
The intensity of the emotion was strong enough to drive Arjun several steps back. He cast a confused glance around him. No one seemed to be paying the incident any notice, almost intentionally so.
“Always was on time before,” pleaded the man with sun-burnt skin, hands spread before him in a supplicating gesture.
This produced a guttural sound from the dark depths of the large man’s belly that Arjun interpreted as a non-committal laugh.
“Give me a week,” the vendor said, now on his knees. “You know me Billy. I’ve never short-changed you.”
“That may be true. But, gotta make an example out of you. Tell you what, we’ll take your fruit cart over there as payment till you cough up the coins.”
“But, it’d take me twice as long to pay you back then,” cried the old man in vain.
Unruffled by the kindly vendor’s tears, Billy, who Arjun inferred was the local thug patrolling this particular neighborhood, advanced toward the cart, only to suddenly stop. Then, on an impulse brought on by Sigrid himself, he turned and snatched the leather purse from the hawker’s belt, and in the same motion, kicked him in the gut. “As I said, example.”
The old man tumbled to the ground, holding his stomach, but didn’t utter a single word in anguish. Tears once more pooled around the corner of his eyes – eyes full of hopelessness, eyes that connected two Hearts.
Without further thought, Arjun followed his gut. “Give him the purse back. Or, do you want me to call the Guards?”
Unaccustomed to being challenged so openly in what he perceived as his turf, Billy glanced up sharply, met Arjun’s eyes, looked him over, and then started laughing. The other two ass-licking ruffians soon followed their boss’s example.
The forced laughter ended just as abruptly as it had started. “Go run to your mama, boy. This doesn’t concern you,” Billy said, voice full of menace.
When Arjun didn’t bother contradicting him, the man turned to go collect his other dues, but was forced to stop when he felt a sharp tug around his waist.
After helping the vendor get gingerly back to his feet, Arjun handed him the purse, only to find himself surrounded by the trio of bullies. By now, a largish pocket of space had been formed around the vegetable stall. People seemed to be almost unconsciously adjusting their feet to maintain a distance of at least twenty feet from them. Citizens of Shillang were demonstrably good at this practice.
Before Arjun could even prepare himself mentally, two of them were upon him, blades bared.
Knowing active Manipulation would be unwise, a nagging doubt entered Arjun’s mind as a part of his Crown kept insisting he should’ve left the old vendor to his fate. Then, at the sight of cold steel, all further thoughts were banished as battle-instinct took over.
He managed to partially block one punch, evaded the knife-thrust, twisted his body to avoid the cudgel wielded by the second thug and in the process failed to see the other punch headed for his stomach, and as a result, ended up on the ground with the wind knocked out of him.
Taking a deep breath, Arjun closed his eyes and Healed the bruises. He absolutely detested bullies. So, today he was going to teach them a lesson, consequences be damned.
Slowly getting up, he squared his shoulders and took the stance for the Flowing Earth Sintu technique which was extremely effective for fighting multiple opponents at the same time. This was a slight variation of the base technique of Evasive Earth, which was the only one of the four base Sintu techniques Arjun was familiar with.
As soon as it had become apparent that he lacked affinity for air Manipulation, his father had started drilling the Earth-based movement technique to increase Arjun’s combat capabilities, something that had helped enhance his already above-average agility. This was back when he was twelve. Why block a punch using air-shield when you can avoid it?
With his heightened sense of anticipation – courtesy of his unique talent – and excellent Material Manipulation negation ability, Arjun had started developing his own distinctive fourfold fighting technique that focused on anticipation, evasion, negation and hand-to-hand combat. Only in the past couple of weeks, when he’d faced an opponent other than his father, did it become clear to Arjun how lucky he’d been to have Siman as a teacher.
Forcing the regret of unexpressed gratitude to the back of his mind, Arjun concentrated on the three goons crouched in front of him.
Clearly surprised and enraged by his swift recovery, they shared a quick glance and attacked at the same time, one of them with the knife he’d noticed earlier, another with an ever larger cudgel, while Billy went in bare-fist.
Like the illusive and ever-present earth, Arjun ducked the wild inexpert swing of the cudgel using subtle earth-induced push through the Sole, then followed it up with a solid hit to the throat with the heel of his open Palm, causing the man to drop like a stone while clutching his neck. Then, blocking the knife-thrust of the second man by catching his wrist, Arjun dissolved part of the skin and muscle through rapid degenerative Healing. The knife clattered to the ground as the man went down, screaming in agony.
The third fellow, Billy, seemed slower than before. Arjun evaded the fist with effortless ease, not even needing to use earth Manipulation. Then, as the large thug’s momentum carried him past, another burst of rapid degenerative Healing to the left shoulder blade coupled with an upper hook to the right eye sent him rolling to the stone pavement. The howl of pain that followed was oddly satisfying.
Well, that wasn’t too difficult, though the ease with which he’d dispatched them, and the subsequent feeling of power it engendered, now made him feel like a bully. “And I hate hypocrites more than bullies,” Arjun scolded himself. Then, dusting himself off, he glanced around.
Beyond the boundary of the pocket of space mentioned earlier, a large crowd of shocked onlookers had gathered. Faint whispers of ‘Cleric’ could be heard among them, a word that was accompanied by the emotion that seemed to pervade all of Shillang.
Dread.
In the next blink, as if to punctuate that feeling, a long whistle rang out somewhere in the next street. His senses picked up a couple of squads of Guards, each led by a Cleric, both using active Manipulation to hasten their steps.
Just as Arjun was thinking things couldn’t get any worse, James burst out of the packed crowd, took in the whole scene, then looked at him with an air of resignation.
“Are you allergic to some peace and quiet?”
As the next series of whistles rang out, this time much closer, they both ran with all the speed they could muster without resorting to earth Manipulation.
The overwhelming number of people in the bazaar and James’ intimate knowledge of the alleys and back-ways of Shillang meant they soon lost their pursuers. To avoid suspicion, James insisted on walking swiftly instead of running. While the south-east section of the sky suggested the possibility of a shower, perhaps as early as late evening, the twinsuns’ relentless rays meant they had to walk in the shade as much as possible. Not avoiding the suns whenever they could, might attract too much attention.
“How did your errand go?”
For a moment, James seemed to be in two minds about answering. “Got reacquainted with an old friend who wanted me to take someone with us when we leave. But the situation here is dicey as it is.” And I’m already burdened with a kid. Arjun sensed the unspoken words clear as day. “We might need his help while trying to escape this lion-trap though. So I said I’ll think it over.”
“Did he believe you?”
A look of annoyance flashed across the Battle Cleric’s face, only slightly red with exhaustion. Arjun’s own was beet red. “Of course he did, since I wasn’t lying.”
Skirting the truth. The man had made an art-form out of it.
“I was going to lie low for a couple of days while we both recuperated, and then see how things pan out. Imagine my surprise when, on my way to the inn, I chanced upon a fight.”
Pretending not to hear the clear note of rebuke in the Cleric’s voice, Arjun dodged a horse-cart while the driver shouted something unpleasant concerning his anatomy.
“Hope they haven’t gotten wind of where we’re staying.” James spoke in a low voice after Arjun caught up with him, “Once I make sure no Cleric or Guards are around, we head for the South gate. North is too heavily guarded, especially now.”
“I’m sorry. Guess I wasn’t thinking,” Arjun apologized, not for the first time. “Do you think they sensed my Healing?”
“It would be nothing short of a miracle if they didn’t. This city is crawling with Clerics. Especially the northern quarter.” James pursed his lips.
“But the range….”
“Only limits passive Manipulation.”
“Right.” Arjun gave a nod. “And I broadcast my location for all Clerics within five hundred yards to sense. Still…” he thought back to what he’d deduced, and what his gut told him. “Far too many Clerics in one city. Seems like they’re expecting trouble.”
“Or perhaps, preparing to cause some.”
Arjun glanced up, meeting the Battle Cleric’s concerned eyes.
Yes. That would answer a lot of the other questions that had cropped up in his mind. But it also meant that the war James had mentioned was much closer than he’d feared.
At an alley opposite the inn, in the shade, Arjun waited as James sauntered into the stable. With his back to the side wall of a tailor’s shop, he closed his eyes, trying to focus. As far as he could determine, there didn’t seem to be anyone approaching the inn with any degree of haste or urgency. But the Clerics or Guards could have anticipated or inferred that there was at least one Earth Cleric among the duo. They could be walking at a sedate pace to avoid alerting them, James had insisted. So, Arjun kept mapping nearby people in his head trying to determine if any large groups of people entered his range of senses.
Within tenth of a bell, James appeared with Ria and another docile mare.
“Good old Kevin heard the whistles, and had everything packed and ready,” James chuckled. “Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to leave Shillang ahead of schedule.”
“Or with the Cleric and Guards after you, I reckon,” Arjun said, failing to hold back a smirk.
The Cleric gave a scowl and turned the horses toward the south in a trot. Shaking his head, Arjun jogged after him. James disliked any reference to his espionage activities, even though he never denied it.
Again, the Battle Cleric’s extensive knowledge of Shillang proved invaluable as the neighborhoods they crossed were either sparsely populated, or too dilapidated for there to be any sizeable contingent of Guards present. While passing through one neighborhood that was both, Arjun saw a group of kids lounging on the sidewalk. In an event that left Arjun bursting at the seams with questions, James handed the reins to him and engaged the kids in conversation that ended with them pocketing a couple of silvers and vanishing back the way the two of them had come from.
Since stealth, precision, and sense of direction were more important than speed, from thereon they traveled on foot, a decision aided by the fact that both of them possessed earth senses. The pace set by James was brisk, but not fast enough to attract too much attention. And there was also the fact that Arjun suspected James himself didn’t have a solid plan yet on how to escape this Aimin-cursed city.
Seeing a large intersection up ahead, where four streets converged, Arjun began, “Which way?” Then, not being able to help himself, the question leaked out. “And why were the kids….”
That was as far as he got before colliding with someone rushing out of the street to his right.