No slave. Only wind was lord on the dire platform ahead; leaves scuttled as crabs and scarabs. Everything that was not held or heavy was blown and thrown. The season had somehow changed between one chapter and the next, as Autumn’s chill claimed the air. Those remaining passengers, travellers and tourists trapped by the ‘two nasty-lookers’, unable to pass them, preferred standing nearer to Panzjrah The Killer than his opponent. They hid behind their hands out of not fear but horror, hating ‘being watched’ by it.

“Shoot it now!” they pleaded of The Killer, (whoever they thought he was), whose laser pistols were drawn and down their sights he glared through his distinctive goggles. Panzjrah’s stature was short and stocky in frame. None were or are sure why he did not shoot immediately. His worn duster jacket draped barely to his knees.

∞

It took Shay some while to understand what she was looking at. Panzjrah was being questioned by something almost human, but tortured far-from. It was Shay’s height to the shoulders, though its helm made it towering: the helmet without discernible shape, a dome perhaps with better light, bored by thousands of small holes for all the eyes inside. The helm dug with teeth into the flesh of his bare shoulders, his barer body scarred from whips and knives and burns and worse. And from those wretched shoulders hung draping a weighted net of coarse fabric that too was a wretched cloak, and the poor thing was shivering with cold against the icy wind, holding a broken sword that in Once Ago was long.

“Do you get the feeling, those holes in the helmet are for eyes?” Woid whispered to Shay who was already nodding, keeping Serib close.

“I recognise him now, he’s from the arena, a slave made to fight. Some former Court official that went against the main. The grain? The main.” He couldn’t find the right word. “Doesn’t look the same up close as on the screens. He came by your shop. Monks his escort.”

∞

Storming clouds full with thunder shook the fragile station, and Serib tried to hide her lightning-gaze.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“He’s the one you distracted away?” Shay asked.

And now it was Woid’s turn to nod. Serib meanwhile stared now through the high roof, the gaps in it were as those between leaves, revealing high the churning sky. Rotten adverts of forgotten events peeled into the air and the oldest specs of glass fell from their frames. Useless grandclocks lay desperate on every floor and level of the station, as only one stood tall above the others. Watching.

∞

The fighter’s voice began. Even Panzjrah grimaced to hear it, keeping still his aim. He had seen this creature known as ‘The Ersecutor’ in the arena, and knew his pistols would struggle to pierce the layered scars. The helm impervious. Serib and all the passengers shook and cowered, covering their hearts from The Ersecutor, that his very words had eyes they could feel:

“By Decree! High Courtdom has scrambled after The Murder, but I will navigate the scattered tatters… By Decree I ask again and last… those seeds you bear… are of an importance I cannot recall. Hand them to me!”

Serib remembered another riddle-sort of Lay’d Payn: ‘Do not hide from the Watchers’ eyes, and see what Shadows do.’ The holes in The Ersecutor’s terrible helmet must be for eyes all around, as Serib peeked out from behind Shay, and without his body facing this way still he knew that she was there. The Ersecutor’s helm completely over his shoulders, he turned his entire body to point out his broken blade this way.

∞

“By Decree… I recall you.” he addressed Shay. “Hand the girl to me and stand with the righteousness, stand with the Hope against the Despair. You have been kept unaware by Fate and Pain, the two forces that duel beyond all this. Serib is a flesh-piece in the page-and-age games of Lay’d Payn to come; we all are. And may we here in allegiance thwart all evil that dare would pass? For I am The Foresight of The Court, and The Reign of Payn did I foresee from my Towers Nonillion inside this helm, and from my Observatories, and By Decree I brought only Truth as Courtdom-way into the halls of Heir! Aside was I cast out and enslaved. Hear me! Listen to me!”

Shay held Serib closer and replied instead to Woid, nodding at him:

“As I’ve no weapons… change of plan?”

"He just wants a chat, I think." Woid tried.

"If Courtdom cast him out that should be enough for us." Shay nodded ready.

Serib felt Watched and she wondered still from Lay'd Payn's riddle - ‘what Shadows do’.