The sweaty man sitting before my master was a bad lot. Not only did he look sweaty and greasy so did his aura. It was dirty green that looked like pus from an infected wound. It had probably once been a brilliant grass-green, but now do to his corrupt nature it had become just as infected as his personality.

However, he was sincere enough in his proposition for business with my master. I didn't see any of the shifting of energies an aura gets when people are being deceitful or lying. Not that was a foolproof method of detecting deceit. It was just better than going into business blind. My master knew this and understood.

In a minute he would ask me to leave to make tea. While out of the room I would write down my impressions and leave a note on the tea tray. The note would be passed off as a simple business message that had been left while Master Juriya was in his meeting. He'd read it, then he'd make his decision based on my impressions and his own business instinct.

This combination had been successful. Since I'd been brought to the counting house profits had soared. It was both a blessing and a huge problem.

At the age of 12 I'd been sold to a woman who wanted a girl to specifically care for her vast collections of wigs. In the hot heat and with the frequent sandstorms they got nasty rather fast. My job had been to delouse and clean her wigs and style them to her preference. By the age of 15 I'd been sold again because she didn't like the look in her husband's eye when he looked at me.

I'd been bought by Juriya to clean the counting house. I performed my duties diligently and quietly trying always to remain unnoticed. I messed up though. I'd felt the need to warn my new master about one of the men he was planning to do transactions with. It was obvious to me that he was a murdering bastard, but from all outward appearances he was just a normal middle class businessman.

Not even a week after my warning the man was arrested for murdering seven adolescent boy slaves. The bodies were found only after a bad sandstorm unearthed them from their graves.

Master Juriya, ever the businessman, sat down to question me extensively.

The Slave Rings made lying to my master impossible when asked a direct question.'

A Special Skill, one that I was born with, Aura Sight. It allowed me to see the magical energy that surrounded a magic user and depending on how you were as a person the color of the energy would change.

A good person usually had a clean aura. The color usually gave a hint at what sort of magic the user was best at. The density of the aura was how strong a person was magically. Auras acted similar to their users main magical attribute. A wind user had an aura that would shift around as if blown by a breeze. A water user would ripple.

Emotions were also displayed in your aura to some extent. Teenagers were the worst. Their auras were typically in constant flux. The auras bending and shifting to the moods of their owners. It was this specific aura attribute that help me detect when people were being deceitful. Aura's of people lying always dim slightly when a lie would be told.

This combined with judging how dirty and polluted an aura appeared is how I judged people. People would collect a certain amount of dark energy in their auras everytime they did something that went against the gods.

"Lanissa, tea," my master ordered. I placed my pen on the small lap desk I used to record these meetings and stood.

"Yes, Master," I bowed and backed out of the room.

As I waited for the tea to steep I pressed my back against the stone of the wall. A chill ran up my spine. It was a hot day and I was grateful that I could get some relief from the heat. Many slaves weren't so lucky. Master Juriya's counting house had been carved into the wall of the canyon. It wasn't in one of the tented pavilions or wooden buildings that were built along the banks of the Yurina River.

Yurina was a unique city in that it was elongated to fit inside the canyon and to spread across both banks of the river. The upper half of the city was where the wealthy lived. The river flowed south into the lower half where the slave markets, delta farms, and the route to the ocean were. Master Juriya's counting house was placed somewhat in the middle of the two main districts. He could do business with both the wealthy and the middle class who made their businesses in the lower district.

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We were only two ladders up in the canyon. It was prime real estate. We were above any risk of flooding if the Yurina happened to overflow it's banks but we weren't so high up that it was a hardship to climb. Two ladders up from ground level was ideal. Seven or higher were usually housing for lower middle class or for freed slaves.

The ground level usually housed slaves not worthy enough to be kept in the master's main house. Usually, those whose job it was to put up and then take down the tented market stalls that went up along the banks of the Yurina every day.

I knew I was lucky. For a slave I was extremely lucky. I had a decent master that due to his own sexual orientation had no interest in using me sexually. I was allowed to live in the counting house instead of being housed in one of the lower houses. I was also fed at least two decent meals a day. I was also given a bathing and clothing allowance. I was visible to clients so I had to have a clean appearance. No rags or louse ridden hair would be allowed to be seen by my master's clients.

No, I was lucky. At the same time very unlucky. I'd become so useful to my master that he never let me do any errands on my own. I would always have one of the counting house guards with me. Always. Most people assumed it was because I was a favored sexual slave and he let people think that since it helped hide his own sexual inclinations. Made it damned hard to plan an escape though.

I had to plan. When the time came I had orders to go north. The gods tended to forget that slaves weren't free to go wandering across the continent on whim. So when my Lord popped up one night when I was still working for the wig lady I was at a loss for how I was supposed to accomplish his directives. When a god told you to do something it was usually a wise idea to do it. However, there were a few logistical hurdles. The Slave Rings were a big one.

At the time I'd had my ears pierced with regular rings. They told everyone that I was a slave, but they weren't Slave Rings. Slave Rings were magical earrings that prevented the slave from disobeying a master's orders. Master Juriya had put them on my once he realized my usefulness. I literally could not disobey him or the rings would activate and start sending pulses of pain into my head.

So I couldn't escape as easily as when I was 13 and my Lord appeared before me.

I stacked up flatbread and fruit onto the tea tray. Then added the pot of hummus. I recalled that night four years ago with a shake of my head. My Slave Rings bumping against my neck at the movement.

It had been early in the morning, I'd been piling up a basket with wigs to carry up to the top of the canyon to bake out in the sun. The sun would help with the delousing. My mistress wouldn't wake for another few hours so I had some time to get them cleaned and ready for her. I was picking a louse off my arm and smushing it between my fingers when a voice behind me startled me into dropping the wig I was holding.

"How many wigs does one woman need?"

I turned and found a child standing behind me. Not much younger than me. Maybe 10 or 12 years old. Who was this child? A friend of one of the mistresses sons? They were in their late teens so it was hard to believe they'd have so young a companion.

More importantly, why didn't he have an aura? Was he one of the magicless ones? Most of the ones with no magic were slaves. This boy wasn't dressed as a slave. Who was he?

"My son is usually the one who does these things for me so you'll have to excuse me if I'm a bit rusty at the social niceties." The child pulled out my stool from under the table and sat down. Then from out of nowhere he made a pear appear in his hand. He took a bite of it and looked at me.

"Would you like one too?" Another pear appeared and he handed it to me. As he did a louse jumped from the wig I was holding to his hand. He frowned at it.

"Disgusting, this habit of wearing wigs. They always end up infested. I don't know why humans bother. Let nature take its course. No hair is better than being bitten by fleas and lice." Then he waved his hand around and a pulse energy vibrated through the room. "That's better."

I looked down and noticed a few lice had fallen out of the wig I was holding. Then as I turned my head lice that had infested my own hair fell and landed on my tunic. I shook my head and more bugs fell out of my hair. I hadn't realized I'd had so many. I was always trying to comb them out but it was a never ending battle since the mistress would just bring more fleas and lice home with her.

"All dead," the child confirmed my suspicions. "Now we can talk." With that he folded his leg over his knee and proceeded to tell my about my future.

I had to wait for a sign from the north. When the earth shook and it began to rain ash I was to make my way north. No real destination, just keep working my way north.

I tried to ask why I had to do this but I was told that he couldn't be more specific because it would conflict with my freewill. Not that a slave girl had much freewill, but I think that point escaped him.

He was interfering with the future. Something gods rarely did. As such he couldn't be more detailed. If he told me specifically what was going to happen in the future something I did could cause things to get worse not better. It was safer all around if I didn't know and just went north, but not until it rained ash. That was important.

At the time it didn't seem like such an impossible task. I'd try to get myself sold to one of the caravans heading north. My mistress was amiable enough to listen to the request of a slave. It wouldn't be anything to replace me after all and the odds were high that she'd be able to make a profit from selling me if I grew up to be pretty enough.

She had sold me, earlier than I'd anticipated. I was grateful that Master Juriya wasn't the sort who abused his slaves, but I was still left with the problem of how to escape now that I had real Slave Rings and a guard at all times.

I still hadn't worked it out when the first earthquake hit and the tea I had made crashed to the floor shattering pottery and food everywhere.