Tales of
Erogenia
Episode 1: The Snow
Princess
Chapter 10:
Lost
They encountered no more
denizens of the underground and Tren led her at a steady pace
through the sewers, until finally he led her up
a flight of stairs. How Tren
found his way in the stygian darkness she had no
idea. “Must be part rat,”
she murmured. Then a glimmer
of light appeared in front of them.
It manifested itself as another grill, this one directly over their
head. The stairs finished about
six feet below it, but Tren had a simple solution to that
problem. “Get on your hands
and knees, Princess, I need to reach the
lock.”
Zenaria hesitated only briefly;
after all, she couldn’t remove the lock and so letting Tren use her
as a stepping stool was the only logical
choice. She was heartily sick
of the stench of the sewers and desperate to get back into someplace where
she could see the sun. It took
Tren only a few seconds to once again remove the padlock and a little longer
than that to push the heavy grate aside.
Nimbly he bounced off Zenaria’s back and through the opening
then lying on his back extended his hand to
her. A few seconds later she
was standing beside him while he replaced the grate.
She looked round
her. On two sides of her were
high mud brick walls. Directly
in front of her was a wall of shrubbery.
“Where is this?”
“The
garden of a wealthy merchant’s
villa. The sewers and drains go almost everywhere
in the city. If you know how
to use them you can go almost anywhere.”
“How is it that you
know of them?”
“Criminals make good
use of them as hiding places and ways of getting about
unseen. I persuaded one of them
to show me around.”
Zenaria could well imagine
the methods of persuasion Tren had used, but she didn’t ask for
details. “Where do we go
from here?”
“We still need
food. And it might be useful
to get something else to carry whatever we take with
us. A trip to the market is still
required, however, I think we will avoid the main market and use one in the
local neighbourhood.”
“We have lost our
camel,” Zenaria pointed out.
“Better off without
it,” Tren said. “We
can always buy another one when we need
it. For now we can just carry
what we need back to the grotto.”
As Tren had been speaking
he had been pushing his way through the
shrubbery. As they got to the
edge of the foliage he held up his hand signalling a halt and put his finger
to his lips for silence. Peering
from behind him, Zenaria saw that they were in a large enclosed
space. About fifty feet away
across a large ornamental pond and several beds of exotic flowers was an
area with a fountain and several stone
benches. It was occupied by a
number of young women in various stages of
undress. Standing behind them
were a couple of very muscular
guards.
“The merchant’s
wives,” Tren whispered.
“He must be doing well to afford eight of
them.”
“I thought Sandak women
were not allowed to show their bodies,” Zenaria replied, keeping her
voice low. “And how is it
that he has eight wives? Is the
merchant lovebonded with all of those
women? Some look young enough
to be his children.”
“Ah yes,
lovebonding. The Sandakar do
not practice lovebonding. A man
is allowed to take as many wives as he can
afford. As for their state of
dress, it is allowed provided only their master looks upon
them”
“Let me guess,”
Zenaria opined, “Sandak women are not allowed the same
privilege.”
“That would be against
Aroo’s will,” Tren replied as he moved back into thicker foliage
and began to circle the pond in an effort to circle around the merchant’s
harem.
“But does that not
leave many men without a woman?
Surely if some take so many there must be many who have no
mate.”
“That is so,”
Tren said, “but Aroo dictates all things.”
“Hmm,” Zenaria
thought. “And I am the one
who is supposed to be a barbarian.”
“What of the guards?”
she said aloud. “I thought
no man was permitted to look upon the wife of
another.”
Tren stopped and looked
at her as if exasperated by her constant questioning, but he finally
answered. “Those are not
men exactly. At least not the
way you and I think of men. Now
could you try to keep silent? We
will have to pass close to the guards to gain access to the outer
wall.”
Zenaria followed in silence,
emulating Tren’s every move.
He was amazingly adept at moving silently through the shrubs and trees
of the garden, however, Zenaria was no less
skilled. As she crept quietly
along she contemplated the values of a society that deprived some men of
female companionship while removing the gonads of
others. Tren’s comment had
shocked her. To deprive someone
of his manhood seemed the height of barbarism.
They gained the outer wall
without incident. Once there
Tren unwound a length of cord from around his
waist. Concealed by his robe,
Zenaria had not even realized it was
there. Tren attached a small
hook to it and with a quick flick of his wrists tossed it to the top of the
wall. He gave it a tug to make
sure that it was secure and then bracing his feet against the wall and pulling
with his arms, climbed to the top of the
wall. Once there he lay flat
and signalled for Zenaria to follow.
A few seconds later Zenaria joined
him. They were overlooking still
more garden, this one even larger.
There were, however, no semi-nude young women in this garden although
there were even more eunuch guards.
“How big is this place?” she
wondered. “Surely it cannot
all belong to just one man.
It’s larger than my village.”
Tren did not move, instead
he watched the movement of the eunuch guards
below. The top of the wall was
about a foot wide, so it was not particularly comfortable, but it was large
enough that she and Tren could lie quietly until there was an opportune
moment. Zenaria watched too,
trying to pick up a pattern to the movement of the
guards. There were four guards
in sight and they walked from one end of the garden to the other, two of
them watching in opposite directions each
time. Each time the pairs passed
one another they stopped and chatted for a few
seconds. It was this brief interval
that Tren exploited.
Dropping lightly from the
wall he landed behind a screen of shrubbery, Zenaria
following. They waited until
once again the guards had passed and crossed to the other side of the
garden. Here there was a small
door, almost hidden in the wall and shielded by a flowering
shrub. Tren moved through the
door, a fairly easy matter since it was locked by a bolt on their
side. Zenaria found that the
door exited into what appeared to be a servants’
area. The smell of cooking food
wafted to Zenaria’s nostrils and she guessed that they were probably
in the part of the merchant’s house where the food was prepared and
the servants lived. Cautiously
they moved forward, pausing each time they heard voices, until they finally
reached one more door which led to a narrow
alley.
Zenaria wondered at Tren’s
knowledge. He seemed to know
every hiding place in the city.
“From here,” he said, “we can walk back to the
market. I suspect the Thuski’s
guards will have stopped looking for us by
now. We can purchase some food
and make our way back to our refuge.”
Zenaria
nodded. In truth, in spite of
her impulsive and adventurous nature she would welcome the cool quiet of
the cave. She was completely
put of her element in Uhra Don, with its neat whitewashed houses, strange
religion, crowds of people, and bizarre places like the
sewers. She longed for the cool
northern forest and the familiar dangers of cave bears and giant hairy
rhinoceri. However, she had decided
that Tren was somehow linked to her vision quest and she would see it
through.
The way back to the market
was uneventful and as Tren had foretold, there did not appear to be anyone
looking for them. How anyone
would have picked them out she did not know, as everyone except the foreign
merchants wore the uniform black covering.
They came into the market
at a different point, not surprising in that the market encompassed an area
large enough to hold hundreds of merchants and their
wares. This time Zenaria found
herself passing by booths of spices.
Their odour filled the air and she couldn’t help staring in amazement
at the enormous variety. In her
homeland the only imported spice had been pepper but there were so many she
lost track counting them after she reached
thirty. It was not hard to understand
why the Sandakar spiced their food so heavily when they had so much of
it. So intent was she on looking
at everything around her, that she did not notice the return stares of a
number of merchants and shoppers as she strolled through the
market. But Tren
did.
“I think you may have
been noticed,” he whispered.
“Remember what I told you about those fluid
hips?”
Zenaria did remember, but
in her wonder at the marketplace, she had completely forgotten to work at
walking like a man. She slowly
reached for her sword, but Tren placed his hand on her arm.
“Just relax and keep
walking.”
Tren might have been right,
but at that moment Zenaria caught her hood on one of the supports holding
up an awning over one of the stalls, flipping it back and exposing her decidedly
un-Sandak features. “A
woman!” someone shouted.
“A foreigner!” cried another.
The shouting attracted more
attention that either she or Tren
expected. Suddenly the market
in front and behind them began to fill with armed men who resembled very
much the Servants of Aroo.
“Come on,” Tren shouted.
Drawing his swords he darted between two booths, spilling a number
of reddish bean-like pods into the
street. As the spice merchant
cursed Zenaria followed, her own sword in her
hand.
She could see Tren just
a few paces ahead of her, dashing between merchants, but moving slowly enough
she did not lose him. Behind
her she could hear the sounds of running feet and the occasional crash as
one of the pursuers knocked over some hapless merchant’s
goods.
Tren suddenly darted to
the left, cutting between two stalls loaded with
cabbages. Zenaria followed, and
then suddenly she was flying through the
air. She landed on her backside,
and slid right under one of the cabbage stalls, scattering cabbages
everywhere. She realized as she
scrambled to her feet, that she had probably stepped on a couple of rotting
cabbage leaves and lost her footing.
Scrambling wildly, she staggered to her feet and took off through
the market, running with renewed energy due to the knowledge that her pursuers
had probably gained on her. A
loud crash and lots of cursing and shouting just a few feet behind her told
her that she had been right.
Confronted by a stall full of ripe red fruit she ran right at it,
getting her foot on the edge of the stall and jumping on top of
it. Her weight tipped the stall
into the street sending hundreds of the fruits into the path of her
pursuers. The fruit turned out
to be particularly soft and squishy as she found out on coming
down. She landed right on several
of them, lost her footing again and landed flat on her
back. She rolled to her feet,
her robe splattered with red juice and pulp and kept on running, dashing
down one row of stalls and ducking under others, until breathless,
she found herself hiding behind a stall loaded with
large round brown fruits that reminded her of hairy rocks more than anything
else.
As luck would have it, she
seemed to have lost her pursuers, although she could still hear them crashing
around in the market a hundred or so feet away.
She was also lucky in that no
one had seen her duck behind the stall and among its
wares. Trying to control her
rapid breathing she crouched where she was and waited for the hubbub to die
down. It was only when she had
regained her breath that she realized she had no idea where Tren
was.
She fought back a moment
of panic. All she had to do was
wait until dark and then retrace her
steps. Surely Tren would be looking
out for her. She settled back
and made herself as comfortable as she
could. Night wasn’t that
far off. It was only a matter
of waiting.
She awoke to darkness punctuated
by flickering torchlight. “By
the Moon,” she muttered.
“How could I have been so
stupid?” There could hardly
be a greater sin than falling asleep in the camp of the
enemy. She sat up and peered
out of her hiding place. Her
stomach growled, remind her that she had not had anything to eat since the
orange Tren had given her. She
was also very thirsty.
She fingered one of the
hard hairy fruits around her. She
had no idea what it was, but it certainly seemed
inedible. She could feel three
small indentations in the hard surface of the fruit, but her fingers could
make no impression in its surface.
As she held it up she heard a distinct sloshing noise from inside
it as if the fruit might be filled with
fluid. Then it came to her that
the fruit might be more like a nut, in spite of its huge
size. That made sense, a nut
that large would almost certainly have a very thick skin.
Taking out her dagger, she
pushed it into one of the three small
indentations. With a little bit
of grunting she was able to force the blade into the nut, splitting it
open. She managed to prevent
most of the milky fluid from escaping.
Tentatively she raised it to her lips and tasted the
fluid. It was cool and sweet,
and she quickly gulped it down. And
then using her knife she pried away the thick white meat inside the
husk. “Mmm,” she
murmured. “Not
bad.” She broke open another
and consumed that one as well. By
the time she had eaten a third she was full enough to think about moving
on. She had to find Tren and
she suspected that he was out there somewhere looking for
her.
The problem was where to
start. She got to her feet and
looked around her. Here and there
torches flickered in the market.
Surprisingly, at least to her, the market was still very busy in spite
of the fact that very few customers were
around. The weekly market in
her tribal compound always shut down after it was
finished. The idea that the various
merchants might have to work during the night to restock their stalls had
never occurred to her. But then,
she had never seen a market that operated every day.
Practicing her “man
walk,” and crouching slightly to hide her height, she moved between
the stalls, trying to remember what direction she had
come. She could remember dashing
through stalls laden with spices, and crashing into others loaded with fruits
and vegetables. She soon realized
that in her headlong flight she had completely lost all sense of the direction
in which she had fled. She also
realized that she had no idea how to find her way back to the place where
she had last seen Tren, which was unfortunately the logical place to begin
looking for him.
“By the tiger’s
teats” she muttered, giving in to one of the few moderately vulgar
expressions warriors of the Snow Leopard
used. Warriors of her tribe
rarely swore when angry, they preferred to cut off people’s heads
instead. She was truly frustrated
and completely out of her element.
Had she been in Erogenia she could have backtracked to find out where
she had been, but any tracks she might have left on the packed ground of
the market had long been eradicated by countless
feet.
This was not
good. She couldn’t simply
wander around Uhra Don searching stupidly for some sign of
Tren. She had to have some sort
of plan or she was simply going to attract attention to
herself. Then she remembered
the place where she and Tren had entered the
city. They had come through the
back of a stable near the area where livestock was bought and
sold. Surely if she searched
long enough she should be able to find that section of the
market.
It was a good plan, but
one she did not get to put into motion.
She suddenly realized that she was being
watched. She tried not to look
at them, ducking behind a stall selling bolts of brightly coloured
cloth. She used the opportunity
to take a quick peek at the men watching
her. They were all armed, and
although their costume was different from the Servants of Aroo, they were
clearly not merchants, their clothing trimmed with red and with conical metal
helmets under their hoods. Zenaria
recognized warriors when she saw them and guessed that they were probably
part of the city guard or something
similar.
In spite of her discovery,
however, she did not panic. Instead
she moved at a sedate but steady pace away from them, hoping to once again
lose herself in the maze of stalls.
This time, however, she was out of
luck. Directly in front of her
was another group of guards, their eyes fixed on her as she strolled toward
them. She realized that the time
for pretending was over. She
took a quick assessment of her situation.
There were about ten men behind her and a similar number in
front. Perhaps not too many to
fight, depending on their fighting skills, but the commotion of a battle
would surely attract more. The
best plan was to run.
Quickly she seized a torch
that was attached to a nearby booth, and running at right angles between
a row of booths selling textiles, she touched the
torch to their canvas roofs. The
dry canvas immediately caught fire.
She delayed her flight a few seconds more as she trotted down the
row, setting fire to awning after awning, and then dropping the torch she
made a run for it. Behind her
rose cries of alarm and shrieks of outrage, along with orders shouted by
the pursuing guards.
As before, she tried to
use the dozens of booths to her advantage, zigzagging among them to throw
off the pursuit. But this time
her pursuers were not so easy to
eliminate. She had hoped that
the confusion created by setting fire to the market would help, but instead
it simply seemed to have attracted more
soldiers. Not only were they
hard on her heels behind her, but a number were running parallel, preventing
her from breaking to either side.
Desperately, Zenaria began to look for someplace - anyplace that she
could use for a hiding place, but none presented
itself. She was like a hunted
animal, with the hunters all around her, and their dogs nipping at her
heels. With an oath she stopped,
hard up against a booth stacked with large earthenware
jars. There was nowhere else
to go. She undid the ties of
her robe and stood revealed in all of her barbarian
glory. Sword in hand she
waited. “Come on you neutered
Sandak bastards,” she muttered.
“Let’s see how well you fight.”
PREVIOUS
CHAPTER
WIZARD'S LAIR
MAIN PAGE
L'ESPION'S
STORY PAGE
NEXT
CHAPTER