----------------------------------------
> Tingling skin sense the tingles
>
> Witness the sallow tree fronds cuddle ripples
>
> Fear and longing feel the same on yer nipples.
>
> Near a black-gravel lake
>
> Rest not yer head dear
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Black gravel Lake
>
> -The dead adventurer’s song-
>
>
>
> -
>
>
>
>
>
> Sir (posthumously knighted by the Duke of Raoz) Dominique Valwarin, the Carmine Bard.
>
> Member of Ebenezer Framtond’s inner Circle and a childhood friend.
>
> Sponsor of the adventurers’ guild headquarters in Castalor, Altarin and Asturia. Original and only(?) surviving member of the ‘Wicked quartet’ party. The four adventurers being a Lorian, an Issir, a dwarf and a female(?) Gish.
>
> Born in the summer of 45 NC to a wealthy Issir family in ‘The Crabs’, near the then village of Tollor, in Kaltha.
>
> Died aged four and sixty from severe liver failure in the winter of 109 NC in Altarinport, in Raoz.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Whisper ‘Pretty Nose’ Jinx
A matter of State
Part II
-The Monarch’s bird-
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Don’t fall to yer death, Jinx advised herself, looking down from the second floor of the square tower. This is solid fucking granite down there.
The Gish had gone a story higher than she intended initially because the first story window was covered with a grille, the opening large enough for a pigeon to go through, but not a Gish. So, Jinx had scaled higher, Phina and Assara looking smaller and a bit strange from above, the blushing Zilan whispering her poem to the enthralled sentry.
First Jinx had tried the door, but that was closed. Then she had gone for the window.
Fished an old turd out of the tub.
The second story window was cracked open thankfully and no annoying grille had been installed yet. The fact it was ten meters high at least, made the likelihood of someone actually attempting to gain entry from there an absurd notion.
Damn.
Yet here Jinx was, the toes of her feet touching the stool of the window, left hand grabbing the head frame and the right reaching to open the wooden panes more. She had her laced boots hanging from her neck to use her nibble toes to climb, but the darn leather things were heavy and messed up with her balance. The weighty rope she’d looped around her shoulder probably equally responsible for that.
Eh.
The window creaked, sound of birds cooing coming from the inside and Phina’s singing with the help of Assara reaching her from below. Holding her breath Jinx stepped into the dark smelly room, almost toppling forward as the stupid frame was much higher than she expected from the floor.
“Fuck,” she whispered, a lot of bird eyes staring at her in the dark.
The Gish took a step forward, gawking back at the cages and all the birds started ruffling their feathers disturbed. The ruckus raised ear-splitting.
Shite.
Literally.
The room reeked of it.
Knowing she needed to reach the last floor Jinx went straight for the door.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
She found it open and escaped the maddening cacophony of all the disturbed carrier birds into the tower’s staircase. Jinx dashed up the stairs in the dark, keeping her left hand on the wall and hissed in frustration finding the last door locked with a chain and padlock.
The Gish riffled through her satchel, found a bronze pin and along with her dagger she started working on the sturdy padlock.
Come on, she thought working feverishly, sweat rivulets running down her back and forehead. An annoying loose pink curl scratching her left eyeball.
Don’t be a fucking dick.
Glen could crack a lock open pretty fast, almost as fast as Alix and Jinx knew the late Gish thief far longer than the islander.
Just let it happen pink divinity, Alix’s baritone voice counselled and Jinx chuckled at the weird memory, since it was even odds, or just as likely, the Gish was talking about lock picking there, or them fucking.
The lock clicked loudly, the birds had calmed down downstairs in the meantime and with a loud metallic sound popped its shackle free. Jinx unclasped it from the thick iron chain, pulling the latter out of its metallic loops.
A lot of clanging and banging was involved. The sound traveling down the empty dark staircase.
Dammit, she cursed and pushed to open the door. Fuck is wrong wit ye girl?
Coo, the birds inside the first cage, the one to her right, greeted her. Beady eyes shining eerily at the moonlight coming through the open large window. Also open, since now the drop to the granite tiles of the square was almost fifteen meters and that would give even an alley cat pause.
The other caged birds replied from her left side.
Six birds in the right cage, seven on the left.
There’s a symbol, Kamat-Fin had told her the other day. For each city, or home as we call it. We have to mark them for us, as they don’t really need it. In a sense homing back is their special power.
This dude fools around wit the birds, Jinx was sure of it and stood undecided in the smelling of bird poop narrow corridor between the large cages, hearing the fat pigeons call each other and ruffling their feathers nervously.
The cage on her right had a blue ribbon on it and Jinx reached for a lightstone to see into the cages. Sure enough, the residents had a similar ribbon tied on their thin legs. She had to poke one with her dagger –softly- to get it to move. The bird flew away using his wings more than it had to and send dust, shit, old hay and little pebbles in her face and mouth.
“Blah!” Jinx gasped and jumped away. She started spitting the bitter foul material down, her stomach lodged in her throat. “Little shit!”
Fuck.
Too much noise.
Was Kamat-Fin a heavy drinker?
Surely yes.
Who isn’t?
Jinx paused, her heart beating wild, to listen for sounds coming from the staircase, the room lively with the disturbed carrier birds in the two large cages. There were another two smaller cages inside the third floor of the Post Tower, nearer to the window, but those appeared empty.
The Gish turned to the marked with a red ribbon left cage and stooped to read the tiny scribblings on it with the help of her light.
LZK, the label read.
Great.
Leave at ze kanal? Jinx chanced unsure. Those Lesian dudes have pretty heavy accent.
Then again Kamat is a Cofol.
Jinx sighed deeply, but it turned into a small shriek hearing a door opening downstairs and dashed at the window to check on the girls. Phina was still talking with the sentry, but there was a patrol now parked there, the four newcomers pretending to laugh at something she said, whilst gawking at the Zilan’s fit long legs. The sneaky Ticu rifling through the sergeant’s satchel undetected.
Nesande’s tits.
Jinx turned her head right and found a large ball of feathers looking at her. The bird had lowered its neck into its rich plumage, leaving only its black beady eyes showing and a bit of its bald head. Its neck and shoulders swollen, either by fat or muscle, if birds have that.
No ribbon tied to its cage, but wearing that leather tube-like sheath on its back like all others. The chalk written word a capital M.
The bird snorted and cooed once, its tone hoarse.
Another smaller padlock locking the iron grid-like walls of its cage.
Hmm. Jinx thought and inserted her dagger into the padlock’s keyhole.
Once, twice.
A frustrated Jinx slotted the dagger in the shackle and yanked it open via the time-tasted manner of breaking it.
“Are you?” she asked the bird reaching to grab it with both hands.
“Who is that?”
Jinx stared at the bird unsure at the question. It took a moment for her brain to register the simple fact that the pigeon hadn’t uttered a single word. It couldn’t. The agitated Gish shoved the big bird and the lightstone in her satchel and jumped from the now empty right cage to the always empty left one.
She found her rope and unfurled a couple of meters of it on the floor. Jinx worked fast just as someone was heard climbing up the stairs, making her extra nervous and sweaty. She looped one edge of the climbing rope around the smaller bird cage and tied a fast knot to it, keeping the rest of the coiled thin rope in her right hand.
A figure had appeared in the open doorframe, a lit torch making its long shadow dance on the dark floor. Jinx glanced at the open window nervously, hunched over her knees to become as small as possible.
“Is anybody here?” A hoarse Kamat-Fin asked. “I’ve heard you walking about.”
He took a step inside the room, the oil torch lighting up the first cages.
“Speak thief,” Kamat grunted and walked further inside. “Shit,” he gasped in horror. “Who did this? The Monarch’s bird cage!”
Hah!
Several things happened in the next couple of moments in very quick succession.
Kamat rushed forward into the narrow corridor between the bird cages for starters, but his eyes were locked on the ‘unlocked’ cage and missed the poorly hidden next to the other cage across from him Gish.
“What a disaster,” Kamat gasped seeing his worst fear coming true. “The bird is missing.”
Coo-Coo.
The bird went snapping its beak audibly and scratching at the inside of her satchel like a cat in heat.
The Cofol mail official turned towards the sound alarmed, Jinx cursed jumping up, her right hand tossing the coiled rope out of the window and then followed after it with a distinct very loud whistle.
Fifteen meters below her Assara paused chewing on the sergeant’s spicy lamb-sausage, the action more creepy than lewd, spat it down and took a real bite out of his belt resting hand. The man’s pained scream matching Jinx’s –hers a bit more hysterical- as she dived out of the open window, line looped once around her right forearm.
This is gonna fuckin’ hurt.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
The small-bodied female blasted out of the open tower third story window, legs kicking underneath and arms pumping. She flew almost six meters in a straight line afore the rope pulled her violently to the side, the iron birdcage behind her uprooting from its stand, bouncing once off the floor and lodging on the window obliquely.
Severing the diving to stop her Kamat’s left arm above the wrist.
Yank went the taut rope, a shrieking Jinx’s shoulder popping out with a squelch as she traveled with enormous speed in a downwards at first arch, Kamat’s desperate squeal of blinding pain mixing with the angry shouts of the bleeding sergeant.
“ARGGH! SHE BIT ME!” The man bellowed besides himself.
“She’s just nervous!” Phina assured him in a high pitched panic-riddled voice, pulling a snarling Assara from him. Blood trickling down the kicking Ticu’s chin. “It’ll close back up again!”
“She fuckin’ took the pinky! GAH!” The sergeant protested vexing to stop the bleeding, the startled soldiers trying to get a look at his injury missing Jinx’s spectacular flight over their heads just as the arc went from a dive to a lunge on the opposite direction, when the rope run out of give.
“Ugh,” Phina frowned in shock and glanced at the Ticu that had retreated under her hood. “I don’t see—”
“SHE FUCKIN’ SWALLOWED IT! LOOK!” The sergeant growled and went to grab the Ticu only to realize Assara was long gone.
“Ugh?” The sentry grunted seeing the shadow of Jinx going over their heads and then hearing Kamat’s desperate screams of alarm.
The swinging perilously Jinx was soon going to run out of rope and lose her right arm. She just couldn’t take another yank at her hurt shoulder. The Gish saw the houses at the other edge of the street, a good twenty meters away. The newer less roomy, garden-less human variant and grimaced, used her good arm to free her numb-one mid-air, felt the rope vibrating and let go of it afore the shock reached her.
The Gish somersaulted across the street, over ten meters off the ground in one of the biggest long leaps ever attempted without a safety net.
One somersault.
Two somersaults.
Three full somersaults and a half, with four being the Gish record Jinx would break afore leaving this world.
The manically screaming Jinx went through the window with her arse and lower back, dislodging the frames and tearing sheer fabric, feet scrapping the wood, catching a nail with her big toe and her head banging on the bed’s edge, when she crashed between the couple furiously fucking.
Coo-Coo.
COOO! The freaked out bird cried out from inside her satchel. Jinx’s face sandwiched between Luthoris tit and Nix’s tongue, the latter licking her eyeball once.
“ARGH!” Jinx cried out half-blind and feeling so rattled she couldn’t feel her teeth. “STOP! Ye dumb cunt!”
“What?” Luthoris, or ‘mother’ gasped pulling away on the creaking and finally collapsing under them bed with a floor-shaking bang.
“Ahm, Mum?” A half-delirious Nix mumbled feeling up Jinx’s boob over her shirt just to be sure? The fuck? Jinx’s slap catching him right at his right ear.
Down goes Nix, Jinx thought seeing the male Gish rolling half-unconscious away on the mangled hay mattress and she tried to get up groaning, her knees shaking and something sticking out of her big toe.
A bloody nail.
Whoa!
What?
“Have you no shame?” She admonished the still bewildered Zilan prostitute that blinked trying to figure out what had happened and why the bed had broken in so many pieces. “He’s fucking yer daughter in the brothel!” Jinx grunted and banged her shoulder on the wall to get it back in.
Ugh.
Aaah.
Luthoris stood up and kicked a moaning and disoriented Nix in the ribs, sending him across the room. Then the frustrated Zilan turned to eye a shocked Jinx with a scowl.
“I was doing him for free,” she explained and Jinx nodded, managing a pained smile.
“This yer place?” she asked with a groan.
“His,” the Zilan explained with a hiss.
“Back door?”
“Back window,” Luthoris retorted with a coy smile and crossed her arms over her perky breasts. “What you got in the bag?”
“A fucking bird,” Jinx grunted and stumbled out of Nix’s bedroom, leaving bloody footprints behind.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
A hobbling Jinx entered Hulanor’s office and apartment located behind his ‘arena’, two streets and fifteen minutes later, the sleeping Taras already waking up at the sound of gongs. The alarm raised the moment she walked out of Nix’s house.
“Lady Jinx,” the plump Zilan grunted and made to close the door. “We don’t have an event today.”
“Nor will you have one on the morrow,” Jinx growled and kicked the door in. She shoved him out of the way to get inside with a grimace.
“You’re hurt,” Hulanor noticed, closing the door behind them. “I can have a chamomile readied.”
“Fuck you,” Jinx grunted and found a chair to sit on. “I need to get out of the city. Not for long, just long enough to do something.”
“You want more coin?”
“I want your help, or I’m telling everyone your events are fixed,” Jinx spat and wiped the sweat off her face.
“My help to get out,” Hulanor said, without denying her accusation. “I assume all this ruckus is for something you did?”
“Listen up,” Jinx told him with a hiss. “I know yer thinking to stall me, or some other bullshit, but I mean it. I’ll ruin you. All I need is to talk to Garth and he’ll close you down. Folen will have to drop your arse and good luck finding such a nice connection again here.”
Hulanor grimaced, then used his finger to scratch his cobalt-colored eyebrow.
“Folmon shall travel to recuperate near Nesande’s Temple. He had to take a solid hit to make it believable. Eh, it’s part of the sport. Sen’s Lake is a quiet place, now she ain’t using it.”
“Sen has a lake in Goras?” Jinx gasped.
“Lady Sen-Iv bought the tiny island at its center. Which she used aplenty in the summer. But the name was catchy, so we slapped it on the whole thing hehe. The island approach is usually guarded, but it’s a big place around that has a bit of tourism. Temple at the near for those seeking absolution and the fucking divine. Everybody profits,” the Zilan finished with a toothy smile.
“What do you have there?”
“A small Inn, I call the ‘Distant Celestial Visions’.”
Ye ever expanding motherfucker.
“Lofty name. A bit disturbing.”
“Lofty neighbors across the water, or so people want to believe. It is what it is,” Hulanor replied modestly, afore turning serious. “I’ll tell Folmon to take you with him, but this is the last time you blackmail me Gish. If there’s a next, I might decide to just risk it. Play the freaking odds. You could say I have a bit of a gambling problem.”
Uhm.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
The driver of the oblong covered wagon, two mules dragging it clicked his tongue to stop it in the back alley, behind Hulanor’s arena. Jinx’s greeted him, but the sinewy hooded man pointed his arm at the back without a word.
All the city's crooks are right under Folen’s nose it seems.
Or in his embrace.
Jinx hobbled there with a grunt and climbed the back of the wagon. It was crammed with sacks and boxes of produce, the two benches on its longer sides packed as well, but leaving a small free spot at their edge for a person to sit on unseen from the outside.
One of the two spots occupied by a bandaged Folmon.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Hey,” Jinx said and planted her tired arse across from him, resting one hurting shoulder at the front hardwood-wall of the wagon-bed, right behind the driver, the other shoulder touching a row of onion-smelling heavy sacks. They had barely enough room in there to turn. “How long is the journey?”
“Less than a day, but I never used this thing afore,” Folmon replied with a grimace, right side of his face very swollen and darker in color where that elbow had caught him. The wrist heavily bandaged.
“How’s the head?”
“Manius broke my wrist on accident,” the Zilan wrestler explained. “By the time I realized I had to roll with the blow, his elbow was digging in my skull.”
“Damn.”
“Yep,” Folmon offered her a toothy grin. “Hulanor and I had pulled this trick a lot of times in the past. We’re just rusty and Manius is new.”
“Right,” Jinx retorted, the wagon shaking and creaking as it moved through the empty alley, the sound of City Guards scouring the city audible in the night outside. “You guys had stopped?”
“Due to the events. Did a bit of gardening for a while, a return to our bucolic roots. You know fishing and the like, so no tricks but mostly for sustenance after we run out of… ehem, food.”
“Ever eaten a Gish?” Jinx asked him point blank. Folmon offered a smaller grin, showing just his pairs of fangs this time.
“Not fresh, I haven’t,” the Zilan admitted looking at her.
“Didn’t you guys had stopped or something?” Jinx queried.
“Not really. The streets of Goras were pretty violent Gish, not as well monitored as the palace grounds, or the rich neighborhoods. Haven’t killed one, if that’s what is worrying you. I don’t remember your name,” he added sitting back.
“Jinx,” Whisper retorted. “And I have killed plenty of you.”
Not really, but she doubted Folmon was being fully honest here.
“Folmon,” the Zilan replied with a relaxed smile at the taunt, then switched to the Imperial tongue. “To the heavens our greetings Skilled One.”
“Our hearts and songs,” Jinx replied, having learned pretty good Imperial from Maeriel.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
They got out of Taras sort of, as the road leading to the ‘Favored Hills’ and Nesande’s Temple was still part of the sprawling city, Jinx falling asleep at some point, after she’d shared a potato with Folmon. The Zilan had eaten an onion they ‘liberated’ from the sacks as well. They had enough produce in the wagon to last them a month.
Jinx woke up late the next day, the road turning rougher and the sound of water near. She wiped the drool from her mouth with a groan, her shoulder numb still and eyed the Zilan that had stood to check outside, pulling the closed rough leather fold at the back of the wagon aside.
“You’ll stay at the inn?” Jinx asked him with a yawn.
“I’ll sleep outside. Swim in the lake a bit. So that’s my stop,” Folmon replied. “Hulanor gave me the week off.”
“Lucky you,” Jinx said and stood up to check at the bird she still had in her satchel. She’d fed it earlier and other than the fact it had dropped shit inside her stuff, the little bugger looked fine. “Hey, I need a quill and ink.”
“The inn has,” Folmon replied and jumped down. “Luthos favor upon you Gish,” the wrestler told her and walked away.
The Gish thought she heard a gnome’s naughty chuckle, when the flap closed after him.
A preposterous notion.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
The wagon stopped again half an hour later, the dark had returned again and Jinx had barely seen the sun all day. With a sigh, she navigated the narrow opening between the sacks and reached the back of the carriage to get out.
Hulanor had cleared an opening in the heavy woods near the shore of the lake, flattened a hundred meters of beach and poured white gravel over it that ended at the front of his two-story redwood and stone inn.
Fuck. That’s pretty impressive, she thought. Jinx walked to the front of the wagon, the inn’s lights off as the season hadn’t really started yet. A small wooden fence circling a small yard before its entrance, filled with sturdy tables, nicely shaped stools and stands. In a couple of months, or in the summer this would be a fantastic place to visit.
Jinx stopped on the left side of the driver’s seat and glanced up to ask him if he had the key to the venue. She’d rather not have to break inside another building so soon.
There was no one in the wagon’s seat. The Gish frowned, stood back and glanced at the dark inn’s fence and then turned towards the nearby lake. The woods on each side of the empty beach, so idyllic a moment afore, now appearing sinister.
Jinx felt her skin crawl from the hair follicles to the pink tips of her tits.
Tingling skin sense the tingles, the old adventurer song went.
Witness the sallow tree fronds cuddle ripples
Fear and longing feel the same on yer nipples.
The Gish swung around, clenching her teeth and ogled the big wagon again. She took a step back, then another, her eyes searching nervously for any sign of the driver, but finding none. Then the two moons appeared at the top of the wagon’s taut leather cover and a lean hunched figure was highlighted there. The long hooded cloak flapping in the breeze coming from the lake.
It looked like the driver’s cloak, but it wasn’t.
Shit.
Jinx narrowed her eyes, lips pressed tight and readied her muscles to bolt it as fast as she could, a hand reaching sneakily in her satchel and getting stabbed repeatedly by the hard bird’s beak.
Fuck’s sake, seriously?
“Don’t,” Din said, his voice coming to her ears from within her head, as the Zilan assassin’s thin lips -visible under the raised hood- never moved.
Jinx did.
She dashed towards the inn, the brilliant lightstone hitting the gravel and the shades hissing disturbed around its light.
----------------------------------------
Jinx leaped over the fence, the bird rattling her satchel and cooing crazed. She landed in the small enclosed yard, the dark heavier here and all the windows apparently closed shut. Jinx cursed Luthos and rushed towards the nearest one to test the wooden shutters, but a shadow dropped from the roof of the inn two meters from her.
The Gish shrieked in panic, boots sliding in the leaf-covered tiles, when she changed direction. The shadow breathed, Din getting out of it and Jinx kicked a stool in his legs and run the other way. Across the small yard, zig-zagging to avoid the bolted tables and jumping over the last one, arse gliding on the polished surface.
Jinx landed with bend knees and then leaped over the fence again, her bandaged toe bleeding anew and making the inside of her boot slippery. A breath and she turned the corner, Din waiting for her half-in half-out of the building’s shadow.
For crying out loud!
Din reached with an arm to grab her by the throat, but Jinx stooped lithely, forehead diving for the ground, a leg planted firm down, the other rising in a scorpion kick on the Zilan’s jaw.
Her boot’s wooden sole connecting fully.
Crack went the assassin’s chin bones, his head snapping to the side and Jinx dived away from him. She landed on a knee, rolled over a shoulder and catapulted on her feet again to sprint into the woods.
A hand grabbed her flapping ponytail and yanked her back violently putting a stop to that plan. Jinx screamed in pain almost getting scalped and landed on her back with a thud.
“Gah!” she gasped and saw a scowling Din stooping over her. Jinx made to move away, a hand reaching for her dagger, but the assassin pulled hard at her hair again to pin her down and grab her satchel. So Jinx slashed at his hand, the one holding the hair that is.
She missed, but ripped her tail off, the pain blinding and brought her knees up to smack Din’s other hand away.
“Ah, you little cunt,” Din hissed in her brain furious. Jinx twisted under him and tried to knife him in the jewels, but he jumped away with a snort. The Zilan opened his cloak to reveal his weapon harness and picked a blade out of many out. A long thin dagger.
Jinx blinked, sweat burning in her eyes as she stood up and Din was suddenly on her. He slashed at her face, but she jerked away from it, a pink curtain getting in her eyes. The nibble Gish kicked at his knee, but missed in her turn, as Din danced to her right and tried to stick the dagger in her kidneys.
A desperate Jinx twisted away from the blade and slashed at his gut in turn, but Din moved just enough to avoid the blade. Then punched her in the chest hard and shoved her back. Jinx groaned pathetically, almost biting her own tongue off and realized she couldn’t win this.
She twirled trying to get away, her arm slashing wild to keep him at bay, but Din blocked it early cracking her wrist, the dagger clattering down and then touched the tip of his own dagger on her left shoulder. With a heave he shoved it in through shirt, skin and flesh, the blade angling upwards and her arm turning numb.
“ARRGH! Rot in yer cock!” Jinx yelled both her arms useless and Din yanked his blade out, a thin spray of blood painting his face and smiled, afore punching her in the mouth. The Gish lost a tooth, which was bad, but she managed to snap her head and roll with the punch, a jolt of pain numbing the nape nigh worrying, but still the lesser of two evils.
Ugh.
Jinx dropped on her knees dazed and thoroughly beaten up. The Zilan stepped back and gave her a vicious kick right in the ribs cracking two of them, apparently not of the same opinion. Then another to make it three ribs.
Fucking limp dicked leprechaun!
Jinx coughed up miserably, tasting blood in her mouth mixed with grit and tried to get up.
“Stay down,” Din warned rounding the fallen Gish. “The bird is in the bag?”
“Fuck… you care?” Jinx retorted, bloody spittle flying out of her mouth, a gap in her teeth.
“I don’t,” Din replied and grabbed the satchel. He cut the strap away quickly and reached inside to get to the bird. “Blame the Sibyls.”
Jinx had no idea what he was talking about and ogled in shock when the Zilan brought the pigeon near his face, opened his mouth and ripped its head out with his teeth.
Good grief.
“Bitter blood,” Din said spitting the severed head away, along a couple of bloody feathers. He was properly covered in gore now. The assassin tossed the dead bird down, licking his lips. “Never liked it,” he added and reached to dip his finger in Jinx’s shoulder wound. “Now Gish blood on the other hand,” Din licked the gory finger thoroughly, savoring the taste.
When he came about Assara was gnawing at his boot trying to reach his ankle.
----------------------------------------
The Zilan recoiled and kicked his leg out to get rid of the Ticu. He managed it losing a good amount of boot leather and skin, but other than a low-guttural grunt Din remained unfazed. Assara jumped on his back, but came up empty as the Zilan dissolved into a shade, the smell of incense burning reaching Jinx’s nostrils.
Din reappeared behind the Ticu and despite Assara’s timely reaction, he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up. The young female fought him hard, kicking and hissing, but the Zilan’s grip was steely and it slowly drained the gasping creature of her strength.
“Please don’t,” Jinx begged him shaking, her ribcage feeling wobbly.
“Why?” Din asked and glanced her way unsure. “Do you know what that is?”
“A friend,” Jinx croaked.
The Zilan lowered the unresponsive Ticu down and stooped to check on her pulse.
“Two Queens, he’ll crown,” Din droned looking at the pale face of Assara curious.
“What does that mean?” Jinx asked to stall him from doing whatever it was, he’d come to do.
“It’s a divination,” Din replied and stood up. “If you believe in such things.”
“You don’t,” Jinx groaned trying to move her swollen wrist, feeling lightheaded. “Who does?”
“Hmm,” the assassin said and sheathed his dagger to get his axe out. “I’ll just keep some parts. Use the lake to dispose of the rest.”
“No,” Maeriel’s voice said coming from the corner of the inn. “You’ll step away from her.”
Din grimaced, not believing he was being interrupted yet again and glared towards the spot the voice had come from. A clenching her teeth Jinx trying to make her fingers close around her dagger while he was distracted.
“She’s a danger to the Monarch,” Din reminded her, using his left leg to kick the dagger away casually.
“Not for you to decide,” Maeriel hissed.
“You’ll never get out of the woods ranger,” Din grunted. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“Sen knows I’m here,” Maeriel retorted simply and stepped out of cover, bowstring drawn. “You’ll never step foot in Goras again.”
“Haha,” Din chuckled and shook his hooded head. “Next time ranger, I’ll know,” he warned.
“Next time,” a cold eyed Maeriel retorted. “I’ll shoot afore speaking.”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
“How bad is it?” Maeriel asked her, the moment Din retreated into the shadows to leave them. Not that Jinx could be certain about anything. She groaned too shaken by the encounter and eyed the mutilated bird with a deep frown. “Drool?”
“He was going to kill me,” Jinx told her. “Check on Assara.”
“The Ticu? You’re bleeding,” the ranger hissed.
“How did you know I was here?” Jinx groaned watching her checking up on the unresponsive Assara.
“Phina talked about your plan,” Maeriel hissed, letting her anger show on her pretty face. “Hulanor talked even faster.”
Eh.
Jinx kind of expected that. She just needed a bit of time to write something down.
Dammit.
“Are there any other birds in the Post Tower?” she asked and tried to get up. A rib pressing her skin funny forcing Jinx to abort that idea.
“Are you serious?” Maeriel blasted her. “Kamat lost his hand! What is this? Have you gone completely insane?”
“What’s wrong with Sen?” Jinx croaked, her shirt turning slowly red.
“I don’t know!” Maeriel grunted, grimacing in exasperation and rushed to help her patch up the wound. “I’m guarding Inis-Mir. Bohor deals with her security. Far as I know, nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Ah, ask Soletha. We are going straight there anyway,” Maeriel retorted, her face flushed with anger. “Don’t ever do this again.”
“I did nothing,” Jinx replied stubbornly, although Kamat losing his hand was kind of shocking and not in her plans. “Open your eyes darling. There’s something going on here.”
“If you want to get in trouble Jinx, then you will,” her partner whispered, eyes gloomy and hurt, while working on her wound. “This needs stitching. Goddess what’s wrong with your ribs!”
Eh, Jinx thought fading away. Most of them are fine.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Damn my mouth tastes like cotton, Jinx thought opening her blurry eyes. Soletha's face appearing over her slowly, the healer’s nibble hands fondling the underside of her tits.
“Mmm, I knew ye liked me Doc,” the groggy Jinx murmured, having trouble moving her tongue. With a snort Soletha slotted a finger in her mouth, dug inside there for a couple of awkward moments, until she found a piece of thin cloth and removed it causing Jinx to gag a bit.
“Is she better?” Maeriel asked, standing out of her peripheral vision.
Oh crap! Loose lips sink ships!
“Honey, it didn’t mean anything,” a blushing Jinx tried to say standing on her elbows. Soletha stopped her from moving too fast. The Gish’s torso was tightly bandaged up to her armpits. Her wrist and shoulder as well.
“The rib will need time to heal and no gymnastics,” Soletha declared. “The shoulder is saved, but it’ll be a while before she can use the bow, or climb.”
Jinx looked about her confused. “Where are we?”
“Shouldn’t we tell Sen about Din?” Maeriel asked disregarding her and Jinx frowned.
“You task a killer to retrieve a thief,” Soletha retorted. “There’s a chance the thief would get killed.”
Jinx decided to intervene.
“It was Din’s idea. He said Glen would crown two Queens—”
“What?” Maeriel interrupted, the ranger’s mouth open in shock. “Jinx are you insane?”
Jinx realized they were inside Glen’s villa.
Hmm.
“Din said that?” Soletha asked gathering her needles and vials. Jinx felt the stitches pulling her where the healer had made a cut to set up the rib and on her shoulder. “Interesting.”
“What does it mean?” Jinx asked with a grimace of pain.
“Jinx you’re not having this conversation here!” Maeriel hissed furious and Jinx noticed the soldier standing guard at the door of the small servant’s room.
“Soletha?” Jinx probed the skeptical priestess and healer.
“Each of the three Sibyls had its own prophecies. Similar but not exactly,” she murmured. “Edlenn was a traditionalist and she followed after Sintoriela’s divinations. The Moon’s Daughter grandmother was the First Sibyl of the Coven. Not everyone did. This sounds like something Galadriel, the Second Sibyl would have said. People always try to shoehorn the future into their own wants. Sibyls as well, or their followers. And I suppose gods too.”
“You don’t know?” Jinx asked curious.
“It’s been many centuries since I visited the Library, as many eons since I’ve set my foot in Wetull afore Hardir came,” Soletha explained. “I simply don’t remember Gish. I live in the present.”
“What about the third?” Jinx probed narrowing her eyes.
Soletha furrowed her brows. The Gish noticed streaks of white and purple in her blue hair.
“Ena was strange. Then again both the Cydonia witches were like that.”
“Edlenn’s bloodline was from Cydonia also,” Maeriel reminded her and Soletha nodded once getting up.
“True, but she lived in Elauthin for so long, I believe her memory of the old places faded.”
“Din,” Jinx started, but Soletha stopped her with a soft touch on her bandaged shoulder.
“I’ve written to Vaelenn about him. She’ll talk to… Garth,” Soletha replied with a small hesitation.
“Why not tell him directly? Why not just tell me what’s going on?” Jinx grunted and put her feet down. She noticed the big toe on her right foot was bandaged as well. Damn.
I probably look like a mummy.
“I can’t talk about a patient’s delicate situation child,” Soletha scolded her. “Be sensible. Nor risk a confrontation with Aenymriel, when she stands so near Garth.”
Whoa.
“Is Sen in danger?” Jinx hissed.
The Healer stooped near her face and whispered so only she could hear. “All pregnancies are difficult. You’ll learn it when your time comes. Pain is part of it, as much as love. A mother knows and must take precedence,” she added her face darkening.
Jinx gulped down.
“Are you sure?” she asked the gloomy old Zilan again and Soletha sighed.
“I’m not. Nor am I the one calling the shots here,” she replied and Bohor entered the room. The Cofol commander’s face a mask.
“Lady Jinx, Lady Soletha,” he said. “Can she walk?”
“She can,” Soletha replied.
“Follow us,” Bohor told Jinx and gave a standing from the edge of the bed Maeriel a hard look. “You can resume your guarding duties.”
“I’ll come with you,” the ranger hissed, pressing her lips into a thin line. “Wherever it is you’re taking her.”
“No reason to get all flustered about it Zilan. Lady Sen is in the throne room,” Bohor replied with a snort. “Isn’t that right Castellan?” he asked over his shoulder.
“That is correct.”
Metu’s answer coming from somewhere outside the door.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Jinx hadn’t seen Sen-Iv up close in months. The famed Cofol beauty and Glen’s wife was visibly pregnant for a second time, but she had managed to keep her weight gain reasonably down per usual. Where her face glowed with health back in Eikenport though, Sen appeared dead tired and strained this time around. No amount of makeup could hide that, or light trickery.
Bohor stopped ten meters from the throne chair, four large braziers behind her casting their light on the silent Cofol woman indirectly. Whether on purpose Jinx didn’t know.
Fikumin’s large table was missing, since the dwarf had moved the Council meetings inside the finished part of Morn Taras, to give the Goras’ first family their space and peace of mind. Gradually Fikumin had moved his stuff out of Glen’s villa as well.
There were at least ten armed soldiers inside the hall. Everyone facing Sen, but a scowling Kamat-Fin, his left arm in a sling and visibly missing the ‘finger part’ of it- a rigid Angrein and the impressive jet black Nimra Lion Glen had named Paws curled afore her bejeweled feet.
Paws snarled warningly at the approaching crowd and Sen-Iv used her painted toes to scratch a spot between the raised tricorn ears, the big cat –Paws was bigger than a dog already- grumbled licking with a nibble pink tongue his black-red lips and the protruding down its mouth long white fangs.
“Is this safe?” Jinx taunted the sitting female and Bohor snapped his head to glare her way furious, a tick starting on his left slanted black eye so severe, he had to put a gloved fist on it.
“Nothing is safe,” Sen told her. “Some of it is guesswork, the other skill and experience,” she paused and allowed the lion to stand up. Paws strolled near them, sniffing and growling, everyone tensing up immediately.
“I’m sorry about yer hand,” Jinx said. “I was never going to attack you.”
“You stole the Monarch’s Bird,” Metu said stepping forward. “Injured an official in the process. Why, the man’s a cripple for life and the bird is dead.”
“Shut your mouth,” Kamat growled. “I need no props from you!” He grimaced and bowed his head to a silent Sen-Iv. “Apologies for the outburst mistress.”
“Kamat shall seek no compensation, but the one I provide him,” Sen said her voice coming out strained.
“Ahm, I’m not sure…” the mail-official started, but then yielded with a sigh. “Of course, noble mistress,” Kamat said and gulped down trying to keep the emotions from his face.
“The bird we will replace somehow,” Sen paused as if she was short of breath, afore continuing. “But you can’t be forgiven Jinx. You went against my wishes.”
“Yeah, I’m not buying all that crap honey. I ain’t yer slave,” Jinx hissed, too tired and too injured to play nice.
“Give us the room!” Sen-Iv snapped furious, her voice cracking. “Bohor its okay, Master Angrein shall protect me and Jinx won’t assault a pregnant woman either way. She’s just posturing.”
“I’ll stay by the door, Lady Sen,” Bohor grunted and glared at Jinx afore leaving, taking that small crowd with him.
Jinx set her eyes on the muscular robe-wearing Imperial Blacksmith.
“Why is he here?”
“Maeriel is upstairs,” Sen murmured dodging like a seasoned diplomat. “I trust her, but you’re sharing her bed. I can’t best you in her heart for obvious reasons,” she added with a grimace of discomfort.
Not because I couldn’t if I wanted to, was her meaning.
Which was straight up mean, Jinx thought.
“It’s good to know yer true colors,” she taunted and Sen-Iv sighed tiredly.
“Soletha can’t find anything wrong,” the Cofol woman finally said after a small pause. “But it hurts me all the time. When I walk and when I eat. When I rest and in my sleep,” Sen continued and Jinx’s stance deflated. She didn’t want to be right that was never her intention. “In my dreams, I see a piece of wood with sharp edges.”
“Sen, you could ask Soletha to term—”
“The baby is fine!” Sen-Iv cut her off angrily and stood up from the throne with a groan, using both her arms for leverage. “Soletha can feel it moving. I can.”
“If something’s wrong,” Jinx tried again, but Sen wouldn’t hear it.
“Some pregnancies are difficult,” she reasoned with a hiss and lowered herself back down again. “Inis-Mir wasn’t, but she is a girl. This must be a boy then,” Sen explained with a grimace of pain. “It is just different. A test even. I have endured worse.”
Or it’s not.
“Nothing is safe,” Jinx repeated her words. “But some things are dangerous to risk. Glen should know about it.”
“Glenavon crossed the Canal,” Sen-Iv replied tensely. “Anfalon controls Abarat and they’ll welcome him there with open arms. If Goras is a Grand Duchy, then adding another city, or two to it, he has a kingdom. A king fears no man Gish and gazes upon the realm’s kings eye to eye.”
Jinx stood back, her ribcage gnawing at her innards.
“Sen,” she murmured softly.
“A king shall have a proper heir,” the Cofol woman declared, her tone absolute. “I won’t have him decide the fate of a kingdom with fear in his heart, or worry about something that’s my responsibility. Mine. Not yours, nor Fikumin’s or any other vulture circling us. There’s no other wife Jinx, this is my task to fulfill.”
“Glen already has an heir,” Jinx said hurt at her words. “We’re not with him for rewards. There were none on the horizon when I met him.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sen half-hissed half-groaned and Jinx realized the woman was in constant pain. “Everyone follows him because they see the lord. Whether its Reeves, or Hardir, it matters naught. It’s how things are and a lord needs a son in this world. Gish rules don’t apply outside your isles.”
“They apply here.”
“I wouldn’t trust a Zilan if my life depended on it,” Sen spat bitterly. “They don’t have to kill you to take what you have. They can just wait for you to age and die! I can see it in their eyes Jinx. I can feel it in their fucking thoughts!”
Jinx glanced at the frowning Blacksmith standing by her side.
“What is your remedy Angrein?” She snarled angry and moved towards them. The door burst open with a bang at the other end of the hall and heavy boots were heard approaching behind her.
“I serve the throne the Wyvern built,” Angrein replied sternly, as ambiguous a statement as Jinx had ever heard in her life. “We are all on the same side Gish.”
And as big a lie.
No we’re fucking not!
“Let it die,” Jinx hissed and a pale Sen-Iv recoiled in shock at her words. “It isn’t worth your life. Let Soletha cut it out Sen,” she shuddered feeling Bohor’s heavy hand on her hurt shoulder. “Whatever his solution, don’t do it!”
“Enough!” Bohor growled bodying her roughly away. Jinx fighting hard, many arms coiling around her injured body.
“LET GLEN KNOW!” Jinx screamed hoarsely at the top of her lungs, gloved fingers trying to keep her mouth shut as she was dragged away from the throne. “YOU’LL RUIN HIM!”
“Stop!” Sen ordered and pushed herself up again, the agony she was experiencing visible for all to see for a moment, afore her face turned into a beautiful mask again. “Glen is a lord of the Realm not some sentimental weakling. Born into it Gish. He knows what must be done to hold on to one’s title!”
You don’t know him as well as I do, a younger Sen had told her in the summer of 189. Almost three years ago.
But Jinx knew Glen better. She remembered him fumbling with a lord’s sword back in Oakenfalls even earlier than that and heard her younger self deciding to spare him the arrow.
Not because she’d seen a haughty lord’s scion fighting for his lofty rights, but because she’d seen a desperate street urchin like herself in him that had come from nothing.
Clinging to life with everything he got, because he had nothing else.
Her gut had never been wrong.
Jinx was a Gish.
You err, yer fucking dead in the Sinking Isles.
Abrakas never fooled around.
“You know that’s not true,” she mumbled hoarsely. Feeling her wound leaking where Bohor had grabbed her. “In yer heart you knew it since the fuckin’ start. Open your eyes Opal of the Peninsula and see the truth. A man who has nothing fights for himself, but the same man will fight harder to protect what’s his,” Jinx grunted. “And break apart if he loses it, never to be the same again!”
“Lady Sen?” a heavy breathing Bohor grunted in her ear.
“Take her away,” Sen replied thoughtfully. “Keep her under tight watch, so she can do no more harm to herself and unto others.”
“DON’ DO IT!” Jinx kept screaming as they dragged her kicking and fighting away. “HE WANTS NOTHING ELSE! HE HAS EVERYTHING!”
You can’t add more to it, she cried desperately. This is the mummer’s trick. Luthos fills it all up to empty it all down. You can’t play with the scales! You can’t win, but you can lose him everything!
A haunted Sen-Iv watching her from the throne shaking. Her famed eyes sparkling, face a brilliant white amidst the shadows cast by the braziers.
Jinx thought for a moment her skin had cracked.
Like an ancient painting, or a beautiful but crumbling statue.
But it was probably just an illusion.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------