Slightly shorter chapter here. After this, I’ll take a little break from Aerie’s quest and maybe focus a little more lightheartedly on one of the other characters.
There was a slave lord named Praxis in another story I wrote a long time ago, but although I'm reusing the same name it is a different character and unrelated.
Phoenix, Part Three
~*~
The remaining slavers had indeed scattered, vanishing into the corners and dark alleys of the city. Upon returning safely to the guild, Imoen arranged for a little tip to be surreptitiously left on the desk of one Lieutenant Aegisfield; by morning, guards would be crawling all over the ship and asking deep, searching questions of all the crew.
It seemed a lot effort to go to just to transport one family, but since there were few places in the city that would welcome half-orcs, Imoen let them rest in the guild and decided to leave any questions until morning, when they were a little less likely to be grumpy. They all needed rest anyway, but sleep just wasn’t coming for at least one member of the group.
Still sore, Aerie sat at the end of her bed, knees up to her chest, replaying the fight with Amra over and over again. As an avariel, her eyes were somewhat more sensitive to movement than others; she could see every twitch in Amra’s muscles as she drew back her fist and swung it, could slow it down ten times and note every detail… but still, the blonde’s body just reacted too slow to do anything about it. She was watching a nightmare even though she wasn’t asleep.
The avariel remained up half the night wondering if she could have done anything differently. She had spent a lot of energy fighting the other slavers, but still… Amra was so much faster, so much stronger, and had over a hundred years more skill and experience. The more Aerie thought about it, the deeper her heart sank. Already physically exhausted because of the day’s events, the things her body was telling her eventually managed to break through some of the cloud in her head, and sleep finally came. But it brought no comfort.
She was a child again. It was dark; too dark and cold even for her infravision. There was no in the room but her; no other warmth. Just her, bound by rope to a chair that was nailed firmly into the wall and floor. And the dripping. Across the room was a small pipe protruding high up on the wall, constantly dripping into a bucket below.
Of course, she had tried to break free. She had pulled and pushed and tried to shake the rope from her. All it achieved was leaving bleeding burns on her arms. So having exhausted all those options, all she could do was sit and wait and try to think. All she could think of was home, her mother, and what she must be going through.
At first, the drip-drip-dripping of the pipe didn’t really bother her. But hours passed, and as the only sound she could hear, it seemed to grow louder, becoming like the steady beating of a drum.
She tried to ignore it, to concentrate on something else, but there was nothing else. Trying to think of home, to be held in mother’s arms, soft white wings closing protectively around her… drip…
She renewed her struggle to break free… make it stop… the beating inside her head… make it stop… within a minute she had exhausted herself again, her head slumped as she sobbed uncontrollably.
And then, a creak, and a tiny slither of light crept into the room. A door opened, and three silhouettes marched in. Two adults and one child; a girl, about twelve or thirteen… about the same size as Aerie, then.
“You understand why you had to be punished?” The man said. Aerie winced, the light hurting her eyes as she tried to look up. “You continue to bite the hands that feed you, and that’s just… that’s not nice.” He leant over her, wearing a loose smile. Aerie had never heard of a half-elf then, but he was one, his ears just slightly betraying his elven heritage although mostly they were hidden beneath his feathered brown hair. He had a small stud on his chin that he kept touching.
“Oh,” he stood up and looked at the pipe. “Is that bothering you?” Aerie didn’t see exactly what he did; he twisted something and the dripping stopped. He then swept by her, yawning and stretching. “I think she’s learnt her lesson… untie her.”
The elven woman let her knife hover in front of the blonde girl for a few seconds, before cutting the rope and then shoving her roughly toward the man, who was now leaning with his arms folded against some shutters. The other girl they’d come in with padded toward him, and then he pointed to a stool in the far corner to which she went and sat, then waited, staring sorrowfully through one eye at the bedraggled avariel. The other eye was covered in scar tissue. Aerie knew the girl; she often brought bread and water to the slaves in their cells and cages, and was one of the few other slaves who spoke elven. She had tried to comfort Aerie when she’d first arrived here, advise her on how to survive through all this… of course, Aerie hadn’t yet heeded all that advice. Still, she was the closest thing the avariel had to a friend here.
“Play,” the man said. The girl hesitated and he turned his head, nose twitching angrily as he stared hard at her. “It would be a shame if you went completely blind, wouldn’t it? Play.”
Again looking back to the blonde, the girl sighed sadly, before pressing a small flute to her lips.
“That’s nice,” the man said, closing his eyes and swaying slightly. “Makes me think of summer…”
Aerie struggled to walk, her legs stiff and swollen, but the elven woman kept prodding her forward. The man, who she had heard the others call Praxis, pushed away from the shutters, and then with both his arms flung them open. Aerie stopped, recoiling and curling away at first as the bright light suddenly hit her eyes. But then, it was if the sun’s warmth touched her feathers and her wings naturally responded by starting to spread. She found herself standing in front of the huge window, staring out at trees and hills, and the sky… it been so long. She could easily have fit through, but of course, she knew something had to be wrong…
“Go ahead,” Praxis said, flapping his hand. “Fly away, if you want to. There’s nothing stopping you.” She turned and looked suspiciously at him, knowing it had to be some kind of trick.
He rolled his eyes. “Well… apart from the archers on the walls and those towers over there. Still, if you’re fast and lucky and get really high, you might just get by them before they even know what’s going on.”
Aerie squinted with one eye. It was true… if she got out the window and gained enough height, any archer that spotted her might just think she was a bird. She didn’t trust Praxis… but it was a chance, at least. She shouldn’t be wasting time thinking about it. Yet… something was holding her down…
“Of course, do you even know where you are?” Praxis grinned. “Which way is home from here? Hmm? You don’t know, do you?”
Heart rapidly sinking, Aerie realised that she didn’t. After the wagon, they had put her on ship, below deck… she had no idea for how many days or in which direction they’d been travelling…
“I can tell you, home’s a pretty long way away,” Praxis told her. “Very unlikely you’d make it back on your own. Maybe there’s someone you could ask for help, maybe… but you have no idea, do you? No idea what’s between here and there. How could you possibly know who to trust? How do you know you won’t just scare anyone you meet, like you scared that boy… hmmm?”
She… she didn’t. She could still barely speak a few words of common herself; not enough to begin to explain to anyone who she was or what had happened… her body jolted as the shutters slammed shut.
“So you see,” Praxis continued, “you’re stuck here. Perhaps not for very much longer; buyers have been contacted and will be coming from far and wide to look you over… you’ll probably be sold to a wizard who will dissect you for their experiments… but even so, we would really like it if you were on your best behaviour. The important thing to bear in mind is, there are only two ways of leaving…”
There was a large, plain, heavy wooden desk. Praxis sat behind it, leaning forward with his fingertips touching each other. “Clara… stop playing…” he instructed. The one eyed girl lowered her flute. “Now come here…”
Hesitantly, the girl padded across, standing by his side. He turned his head, saying, “you’ve been a naughty girl, haven’t you?”
Stunned, she started to shake her head. “N-no, sir. I don’t under…” she stopped, her eye wide as Praxis’ hand snapped out, clamping around her small throat. She immediately started to gag. On the other side of the desk, Aerie moved to try and help her, but hadn’t taken a single step before the elven woman grabbed her arms from behind, holding her firmly in place too despite her struggles.
“Sneaking a little extra food to your friends, hmmm?” Praxis tutted. “Personally, I would have let it go. But, the boss found out and she’s far more of a stickler to the rules than I am. So, I’m really terribly sorry…” he let her go. But still, she kept gagging and gargling as blood poured through the hole in her throat left by a spike in his palm. Aerie screamed, trying with she could to get to her, but it was still futile. Slowly, the girl slumped to her knees and fell forward, the last of her life fading from her.
Praxis leant forward once more, staring at the teary eyed avariel as he smiled. “That was one way…”
Aerie gritted her teeth, staring back. “Amin…” she said, gritting her teeth as the elven woman started to pull her away. “… ndengin llie…”
Grinning more widely, he slowly stood, his arms outstretched as if inviting her to try and take his heart from his chest. The girl screamed frustratedly, but still could not break the grip she was in as she was slowly dragged back to her cell.
--
“Gorn, that’s the dad, didn’t really know a whole lot more,” Imoen yawned as she, Aerie and Skie, sat around a table having breakfast the next morning. Skie was poring over sheets with columns of numbers on them. “He said they were from a tribe somewhere to the east, and were been taken to work in some sort of mine. They were going to pick up others before getting there, but that’s all he’d been able to discern from them. He didn’t where it was or what they were digging for.”
Aerie heard her words, but was staring intently at a cup. Not really at the cup; she was thinking back again. Praxis, the girl… she had tried to make herself forget. When she had talked it over with Uncle Quayle, they had agreed that she couldn’t them dominate her life anymore; she had to carry on living for herself, helping others when she could, so that no one else suffered like she had. But now, knowing that he was still out there… but not knowing where…
“Aerrers?” Imoen snapped her fingers in front of the blonde. “You okay?” The elf nodded slowly. “You know, if you wanna…”
“We’ve got to make some cuts,” Skie announced suddenly. “Do you really need to buy so many cookies?”
“Yes. Yes we do,” Imoen nodded affirmatively. “Renal’s always sending thieves over to be trained. The promise of a cookie if they’re good is the only thing that keeps ‘em from robbing everything.”
“Well… why did you order all these animal hooves? What in the world was that for?”
Aerie sighed again, trying to focus on the present. “Y-you use them to make jelly,” she explained.
“We’ve never had jelly…”
“Well,” Imoen fidgeted a bit, “it was a… a present I sent to the Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, when they got their new swimming pool… it was a one off.”
“Okay. What about custard? Do we need this much custard?”
“Cutting the custard is not an option.”
Skie shook her head. “Look, our profit margins are razor thin here. If you won’t cut anything, then we’re going to need more income from somewhere.”
“Any ideas?”
“I’m guessing you don’t really want to rob people, even though it’s a thieves guild,” Skie balled her hand under her mouth, tapping her cheek with one finger. “There is that shop at the front… that’s never really making any money.”
“Well, that’s because it is just a front…”
“Still, no reason why It shouldn’t be profitable,” Skie was already standing up, gathering her documents. “Let me look around, see if I can think of any ideas…”
“Hey,” Imoen said, smiling across at Aerie who was still not fully here. “You were right, kid. At least, I hope she knows what she’s doing. But how are you doing?”
“I-I… I was,” Aerie sighed. “I lost.” She shrugged. “When I saw her the first time, I-I started to imagine it was going to be revenge and justice, but… I wasn’t ready…”
“We’ve all lost fights before,” the redhead leant across, putting a hand on Aerie’s shoulder. “Listen… d’ya think if you’d killed her, you’d have felt better at all?”
“I… I-I don’t know…”
“Trust me,” Imoen said with a lopsided grin. “You wouldn’t have. I mean… there’d have been a moment when you felt really good ‘bout yourself. But after the rush of battle is gone… you’re just empty again. You realize no-one’s been brought back to life, none of the injustice has been undone. All that stuff about catharsis, it’s just… buffleheaded.”
Aerie looked back at her friend, and saw the sadness hidden behind her smile. “You’ve… been through it. Twice...”
“And both times were the same.”
The elf had talked about it before, with Quayle, and read several books on the subject. Slowly, she nodded. “I… I-I know you’re right. But… there is a man… Praxis…”
“You mentioned him before.”
“He… h-he used to torture, and kill people… and he didn’t care. They were less than animals to him. I-I don’t know what he’s doing now, but… I-I know a lot of people have suffered, and will keep suffering because of him.”
“Maybe. But, unless your mysterious stranger comes back, we haven’t any more leads…”
“Yes,” Aerie nodded and slowly stood, “I-I hope it’s not too soon.”
The elf started heading to where her spell books and scrolls were kept, and maybe stop to hit the heads off a few practice dummies on the way. But Imoen was still a little confused.
“Why’s that?” She asked.
“Because… next time… I want to be ready.”
Well, she did quite well!
