Feldare Tales: High Society Ch. 05
"How will I be judged?" asked Wenn.
"As a wizard," the tray-bearer said, making it sound almost like an insult, "you're entitled to a peerage trial. Only the One knows why."
"Peerage trial?" asked Wenn. "As in noblemen will stand in my jury?"
"Aye, son," replied the guard, "and it's a damn shame, they rather resent when one of their own gets done in."
Wenn's mood fell further, which said much. He sat heavily on the bed. "Damn," he muttered.
The guard who had brought the food said. "Don't you fret none, I'm sure whatever they choose it'll be quick." He walked out, chuckling and tapping the one carrying the wizardsbane on the shoulder, which turned and followed him out, as well. They slammed the door shut behind them and Wenn listened to their voices retreating down the hall.
Wenn sighed. He had tried now a dozen times to perform some magic, any magic, and so far, it all failed to even begin to form. The room seemed to taunt his very attempts.
- - - - - - - - - -
Peris tied the short elven skirt about her waist. "You own many fine clothes, Crissa," she observed peering past the golden-haired sorceress. "I thought apprentices were unpaid."
Crissa giggled at her. "I do odd jobs about the town for money," she replied. "When people need a bull to mount, or a cow to remain docile, or a prize stud horse needs coaxing to do his business."
The young noblewoman laughed too. "A useful ability, then, no?" she asked.
"Very," said Crissa. "I once used it on an older couple who wished a night of fiery passion, they paid handsomely for the pleasure it gave them."
Peris was giving her an odd look. "You can have any man you desire, can't you?" she asked.
"Yes," said Crissa, though she did not seem to be bragging, "or woman. Or make any man love any woman or whatever combination you can dream of." She turned toward the younger girl. "No, I've never given a human a lust for an animal, either, though I warrant I could."
Peris clapped her mouth shut, leaving her next question unasked.
Night had once again settled on Norboro and the lamplighters were going about their trade. A thin fog was settling upon the town, and seemed to be thickening as the river that bisected Norboro fed more moisture to the mixture. By the time the young women left the house of Marrat, the streetlights were merely glowing disks of lit fog with a bright pinpoint of light in the center that reached only a few feet into the thick, swirling mists.
"I hate fog," said Peris as she clutched her thin cloak about her slender shoulders.
Crissa sniffed the air. "I like the smells it brings," she said.
Peris looked at the taller girl. "It smells of the river," she said.
"Yes," said Crissa, "a natural scent. Not cooking, not smoke, not dung, but a smell of the world."
They walked in silence for a while as they crossed to the northernmost part of the city. Long ago, a wealthy merchant, whose son was undeniably insane, had built the asylum. It was run now, by the city itself, and supported with taxed moneys.
The building itself was threatening, a tall, narrow structure, it resembled a fortress more than a place of healing. Tiny slits of windows, ostensibly to keep the inmates in the building than to provide cover from outside. Crissa noted the similarities between this and the guard building from the night previous.
The brown stones of the building did little to make it seem less somber and sinister. Time and dark mosses had aged it, turning it nearly black over the years since it was built.
Around the building was a high fence of stone, with pointed spears atop it. This wall was built of the same, dark stone and seemed to be intent upon keeping out unwanted eyes.
Crissa and Peris neared the building and Crissa reached out with her mind, feeling the place. She recoiled, stopping her steady pace and gasping. "What a horrible place that is," she said in a quiet voice. "People are in there who deserve freedom."
"I have heard some are kept thus," said Peris. "A friend of my family was put in such a place. It served as prison without a trial to show guilt in some deed."
The sorceress nodded. "Kenett doesn't need to be here," she said. "He's not unwell, he's terrified, I feel him." Her eyes looked distant, unfocused.
The wrought iron gate was unmanned, it's metal bars seemed hostile and subtly twisted as they emerged from the fog. "How do we seduce our way past this?" asked Peris.
Crissa produced a short rod of wood. Runes were carven down its length, spiraling up the wood, then inset with silver traceries. It was, perhaps, the length of her forearm and an inch wide, smooth and polished, with a silver-capped tip. She touched it to the large, heavy locking plate of the gate, where the key would go.
There was an audible snap as the lock mechanism shattered and bits of metal clinked onto the cobbles below it. The rod disappeared into Crissa's cloak as suddenly as it had appeared.
"I thought we weren't to use magics?" asked Peris, eyeing the destroyed lock.
Crissa shrugged. "They will never know it was magic," she said. "They will simply know the lock was broken." She pushed on the gate. It opened with a screech, wide enough for the two young women to enter. It squealed out into the dense fog as Crissa closed it.
"Handy little wand, that," said Peris.
"It's Wenn's," said Crissa. "It is the first magic item he crafted after Marrat taught him enchantment."
They were nearing the large, towering building. Again, they came to a locked door. Crissa had seen that the staff left at night, leaving the inmates to their own devices, usually chained in their cells, though some of the calmer ones were simply locked in their chambers.
The wand appeared again and the lock on the side door broke into dozens of ruined parts. Better maintained than the gate, the door opened without comment and the two girls slipped into the darkened room beyond.
Crissa spoke a word in a foreign tongue, and the wand began to glow with a pale blue light, dimly illuminating the little storage room in which they found themselves.
They crossed the cluttered room, stacked high with barrels and boxes, food and drink for the pitiable creatures housed in the asylum. The inner door was unsecured and opened into a corridor. Narrow, punitive doors lined the opposite wall of the long hallway, and both girls jumped when a pained scream emerged from the doorway opposite the storage room's wider doorway.
An eye glared out of the cell at them from the doorway, behind a heavy oaken door that rattled as whoever was inside tried to pull it open. "Pretty girls," a guttural voice said from behind that door, "Eat them, yes," he added, to their discomfort. "Till they're gone, gone, gone!" he squealed. The eye widened to almost a circle.
"He is on the third floor," said Crissa, nodding toward a staircase next to the storage room they just left.
Peris watched the doorway cautiously as they passed into the hall and started moving down it. They passed another door, this one unlocked and open. A young man sat in the room, a candle flickering on a desk in the corner. He turned to regard the two young women.
Something was odd about his motions, but Peris couldn't tell just what. She stood in the doorway, almost frozen, as the young man turned. He had a beautiful, innocent face. On the desk rested a journal, from what she could tell. He laid down a quill, setting it onto the ink-stained desk.
"Hello," he said quietly, and softly.
Peris' heart was thudding in her chest. "H. Hello," she finally replied as Crissa slid up beside her.
His face instantly turned to an expression of hate and disgust. "Witch!" he screamed, his chair falling over as he lunged toward the doorway with animal ferocity. As he came at the door, his fingers curled into claws and his teeth were bared, as if they were fangs.
There was a collar about his neck. When the chain joining that collar to the wall went taut his body flew out from under him, his feet barely leaving the room as he fell to the floor with a whomp. He quickly clambered to his feet, pulling on the chain like a rabid guard dog.
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LADIES IN NUDE
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