“My lord, do I have permission to go find the necessary room?” Kestrel asked.
“It’s down the red stairs and to the right,” one of the guards said.
“Don’t be long,” Stuart added.
Kestrel slipped out the door and went back down the hallway, until he found a discreet set of stairs, painted red. The light from the chandeliers and the lanterns was dim on the staircase, and he watched his steps as he descended, then reached his goal and relieved himself.
When he came out of the room and back into the hall, he decided to briefly explore the palace in the vicinity before returning to the nobleman’s box above. He walked down the hall, then stopped as he came to a door at the end of the hall.
He opened the door, and beyond it he saw that he was behind the public spaces; servants were scurrying around, and a pair of the Viathins were overseeing some operation.
Kestrel hastily backed out of the space and closed the door, then went rapidly back down the hallway and past the red staircase into a public lobby, where the last of the invitees were bustling into the main level of the reception hall floor, to see the king’s presentation. Kestrel imagined he heard the sound of Viathins bellowing down the hall he had just exited, so he ducked into the crowd and entered the reception hall.
Every chair seemed to be taken, or was about to be, it appeared as the members of the audience hastened to be seated. There was a sudden discordant clash of cymbals, and Kestrel leaned against the back wall; a red glow illuminated the dais, and suddenly the king strode out onto the stage and stepped up to the throne.
The audience rose and applauded. Kestrel detected fear in the crowd, but no warmth or affection towards the man who stood and listened, then motioned for silence. He gave a regal appearance, like a man in the prime of his mature years, with a large head, thick silver hair, and deep set eyes.
“Today,” he spoke, as the crowd listened in instant silence, “one of our conquests was brought back to us for our use. A weapon that the Destroyer and his minions foolishly thought could help them has been seized, and taken to the temple here in Uniontown.
“And a great beauty, an elven woman who the Destroyer is smitten with, has been brought here to the palace to be our plaything,” the King said.
“It is another example of our ability to defeat the cretin in any fair battle. We went into his own territory and snatched her away from his servants while he flitted about in his foolish fashion.” He motioned to someone off stage. “Behold my entertainment for the evening, the apple of the Destroyer’s eye.”
A pair of Viathins dragged Moorin, wearing a tattered white shift, out onto the stage, to oohs and aahs, and then applause by the audience, just as Kestrel pulled the bow off his back and pulled a pair of arrows from his quiver. He released both arrows with a single shot, not even thinking about taking aim at his targets, as he started to run towards the dais, sprinting with his fullest elven speed, blindly driven to rush to Moorin’s side. By the time the arrows struck the two monsters escorting Moorin, Kestrel was halfway across the room, and he gathered even greater speed as he bunched his muscles and leapt up across the protective pit and onto the stage next to Moorin causing the audience to switch from cheers to stunned silence, and then screams.
He looked up at the king and his bodyguard of Viathins, who were drawing their swords. Kestrel instinctively responded to some powerful internal motive; he raised his hands, and felt the power the goddess had given him burst forth from his palms. Bolts of pure white energy left his hands in a mighty pulse that spread across the room, and diminished every other light, plunging the room into nearly total darkness as only a single candle on a chandelier remained lit.
“Moorin, it’s me, Kestrel,” he said, grabbing the hand of the woman he had come to rescue. “We need to run!” He started sprinting across the stage, his elven vision picking out a path towards freedom. He felt the girl behind him running with him, her own elven heritage allowing her to keep up with him among the darkness and the screams and the confusion that overwhelmed every inch of the reception hall.
He went backstage and down a hall, then cut through a door that took him back into the hallway he had been in earlier.
“We need light!” he said, and a tiny orb appeared just above his head, casting a faint field of visibility as they moved.
“Kestrel, what are you doing here?” he heard Moorin pant, but there was no time to answer, as he cut up the discreet staircase and then back down the hall that went past the duke’s box.
He was retracing the path he had followed upon arrival, going back the only way he was sure could return to the palace gate and escape with Moorin. There were a few scattered candles still lit at random locations throughout the palace, and Kestrel extinguished the small globe of illuminating light that had floated over his head, removing the potential threat that their progress could be followed by watching the moving light. He marveled at how easy the use of the energy seemed to be at that moment.
“Follow me; we’ll talk later,” he whispered back to her. There was a loud buzz throughout the building, as people reacted to the darkness that had overtaken the palace, and Kestrel wasn’t sure Moorin had heard him, but he didn’t bother to repeat his comment as they began to plunge down the staircase where the Duke’s daughter had first noticed his eyes.
There were increasing numbers of people walking about in the dark, and men were starting to light additional candles to carry around. Kestrel and Moorin ran through a lobby area, and then were out the door of the palace building and sprinting towards the gate in the wall, where guards stood in confusion.
“Let’s walk,” Kestrel said as he abruptly cut his pace when they came within sight of the soldiers at the dim gate. He took her hand in his, then stopped, and looked at her.
“Are you real? Is this a dream?” she asked, as her eyes watched his eyes examine her body.
“We’ve got to cover your ears,” Kestrel told her.
“Here,” she said as she reached up and tousled her hair, pulling it into bunches on the sides of her head. “Will this work?”
“Maybe,” Kestrel said doubtfully. “When we get to the gate, put your head on my shoulder.”
She nodded, and they resumed strolling towards the knot of soldiers at the gate. Moorin dutifully rested her head on Kestrel’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her protectively.
“Put your hand on my bottom,” Moorin whispered.
“What?” Kestrel asked, startled.
“Go ahead, grope me; they’ll look at your hand down there, and ignore my ears,” she explained.
Kestrel gingerly allowed the palm of his hand to drop down her spine, caressing her along the indentation of the small of her back, and then come to rest on the roundness of her hip. He could feel his own face blushing in the darkness as his fingers felt the soft curves of her partially human flesh.
They approached the gate and began to walk in among the guards, as Moorin turned her face into Kestrel’s shoulder, obscuring any view of her eyebrows. There was only a single candle in a lantern illuminating the scene
“Hey,” Kestrel heard a voice speak to them, and he felt his heart hammering within his chest.
“What happened in there? What happened to our lights?” a guard asked.
“No one knows,” Kestrel answered. “But it cut off the prince’s audience, so we’re going home.”
“You have fun with that,” a different voice said, and there was a round of coarse laughter, then the pair of furtive elves were under the gate’s dark beams, passing out of the palace, and walking into relative freedom.
They walked along the dim boulevard that began at the palace gates. Among the city buildings there were few lights, but no evidence that the lights had been snuffed, like the illumination in the palace had been; it was simply a city that could muster little light in the evening.
Moorin raised her head after thirty seconds, as they turned onto a side street, out of sight of the palace. “You can
take your hand off my rear now,” she said in a prim tone.
“Kestrel, what are you doing here? In Uniontown? How is this possible?” she stopped him and grabbed both of his shoulders in her hands so that they faced one another.
Kestrel felt her shiver in the cool evening air of the city. She wore only a thin shift and sandals. “I went to Seafare and learned that you had been kidnapped a few days prior. They learned from one of the survivors at the ambassador’s home that you were being taken to Uniontown, so I made it my duty to come rescue you.” He took off his bow and arrow, then lifted his shirt over his head, and placed in around Moorin’s shoulders to warm her.
“You came all the way here to this place to save me?” Moorin asked incredulously. “How could you possibly have gotten into the heart of Uniontown?” She looked closely at him. “You’re on a death wish – they all want to kill you here. You’re all they talked about, all they asked me about – the Destroyer!”
“Let’s keep walking,” Kestrel suggested. He gingerly placed his arm around Moorin’s shoulder again, and they began to walk, as Kestrel started to recount his story.
“You were swallowed by a sea monster?” she asked incredulously, and then interrupted him again when he described saving Hierodule.
“You know what she is, don’t you?” Moorin asked.
Kestrel shook his head.
“She’s a sacred prostitute from her temple. She performed,” Moorin paused, “well, she did things in the temple as part of what they called worship.”
Kestrel walked along, dumbfounded by the revelation. “How do you know?” he asked.
“That’s what her name means,” Moorin said. “It’s a title, not a name, really.”
“It’s the only identity she’s told me,” Kestrel tightened his grip around her shoulder without realizing it, until he heard her wince. “Sorry,” he apologized as they walked along. “Are you sore?”
She hesitated to answer, and he had a sudden insight. “Did they hurt you?” he asked.
“They demanded that I tell them everything I knew about you, and when I did not, they punished me. I did not tell them all, though,” she hastily assured him. “I told them you were belligerent, boorish, and lusty, but also loyal, courageous, and faithful to your gods,” she looked at him in a forthright manner, challenging him to deny her claims. “But still, I did not tell them everything I know about you.”
“We’ll be back at the room in a little while, and I can introduce you to Hierodule and Hiram,” Kestrel answered. “I’m sorry you were hurt because of me,” he added. “We’ll get you someplace safe as soon as possible.”
“Where is safe, Kestrel?” Moorin asked softly, rhetorically. “I’m not sure any place is.”
Kestrel shook his head and they walked further in silence, until Kestrel led Moorin into the flophouse where his companions were waiting, and he took her upstairs.
“Hierodule, Hiram, it’s me, Kestrel,” he announced softly, then opened the door, and led Moorin inside.
“You’re back already, unharmed! But look at your chest!” Hierodule rose to her feet and started to approach Kestrel, but stopped short when Moorin entered the room behind him.
“Is this your beloved?” she asked, as Hiram stared. “Is this the one you came to rescue?”
“This is,” Kestrel agreed.
“You truly went into the palace and brought her out? You are a frightening man, if you are a man and not some greater being,” Hierodule said.
“She’s beautiful,” Hiram spoke for the first time.
“Come in, have a seat,” Hierodule said. “My name is Hierodule, and this is my brother Hiram,” she introduced they two of them.
“Lord Kestrel spoke about you a great deal,” Hierodule told the refugee from the northern forest. “He said you were a great beauty, but I never realized an elven maiden could look so beautiful.”
Moorin walked over to the bed that Hierodule had not laid on and turned to sit, facing the others in the room, still wearing Kestrel’s shirt. The lighting in the room flickered, then dimmed, and Moorin stood before the others, lit by a sourceless light.
“Kestrel, I must use her body to speak to you in these circumstances, in this location,” Moorin’s voice spoke with a deeper timbre than usual, the girl’s eyes staring vacantly at the wall above the heads of the others in the room.
“Moorin? Moorin, are you okay?” Kestrel stepped towards her.
“I am the spirit of Kai,” Moorin’s mouth spoke. “I would not appear to you in my own form here in Uniontown, so close to the temples of the evil god, for that would bring death down upon you from the reaction of the Uniontown followers.”
Kestrel immediately fell to his knees, and Hiram and Hierodule followed his lead.
“My goddess, thank you for being here,” he breathed the words in wonder.
“Do not thank me so quick, dear champion, for I am here to lay upon you a difficult assignment,” the goddess used Moorin to warn Kestrel. “You have rescued Moorin, as your other mother has told you to do. But you must also go immediately to the temple of Ashcrayss and seize the water skin of Decimindion. Without it, you will not be able to win this conflict, and all the world will suffer.”
Hierodule and Hiram clasped one another’s hands tightly at the command from the goddess.
“If you command me, I will attempt to do so,” Kestrel said, just before an unearthly wail began to echo through the streets outside.
“You will attempt, and you will succeed. I must go now, Kestrel – proceed quickly, and do not fail; I do so command you,” the goddess’s voice spoke one more time, and then the lights in the room flickered again, and Moorin fell back onto the bed, unconscious.
“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Hierodule asked in an awed whisper to Hiram. “I’ve never felt such a presence!”
Kestrel rose and stepped over to Moorin, gently holding her hand as he called her.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Kestrel?” she asked. “Your ears! Where am I?
“Oh, I remember!” she said a moment later, her facial features betraying confusion, then shock. “What happened? We just came into this room, and began to speak.”
“The goddess possessed your body, so that she could speak to me. She used you to deliver a message, telling me to go out and retrieve the skin of Decimindion,” Kestrel explained, as the other two members of their little party cautiously approached Moorin.
“I heard them speak about the water skin. They plan to destroy it in their temple,” Moorin told Kestrel.
“The temple of Ashcrayss in Uniontown is the greatest temple of the god. It will be impossible for you to sneak into it,” Hierodule told Kestrel. “Surely there must be some other way for you to acquire this item.”
“My goddess told me to do this,” Kestrel said. He felt his own soul quiver at the thought of trying to go into a second institution of evil on this night in Uniontown, but he knew what Kai had said. “She has done so much for me, I cannot deny her.
“And she relies so much on me, for herself and all her people, I cannot let her down,” he added in a softer tone.
“Then we’ll need to do a couple of things to get you ready. Maybe you’ll have a slim chance, instead of no chance,” Hierodule told him.
“Well, you need a shirt anyway,” she looked at the colorful markings that covered his torso, “so we need to go take a robe away from a priest. That way you can get into the temple. You can keep your hood up and shade your eyes so no one sees their color.
“Then I’ll need to teach you a couple of phrases so that you can get into the sanctorias, and claim that you wish to participate in hostiam sollemnem. That will allow you to go almost anywhere you want in the temple for a little while,” she explained.
“How will he get a robe from a priest?” Hiram asked.
“He’ll kill one,” Hierodule answered matter-of-factly. “Let’s wait a little bit more until it gets later, and there’s less activity around the temple,” sh
e suggested. “And the priests will be that much more drunk, easier to take care of,” she added.
“Hiram,” Kestrel spoke up, uneasy over the cavalier manner in which Hierodule suggested murdering a man for his robes, and more upset that he accepted it as the way to accomplish what he must do. “Let’s go out and get some food for everyone,” he motioned towards Hiram.
“I’ll need my shirt back,” he told Moorin, who removed the garment and handed it to him. Once he had the shirt back on, he stepped towards the door, and Hiram instantly followed after him.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be back soon,” Kestrel assured the two women in the small room.
“Take your time. I’m sure we have lots to talk about regarding you,” Hierodule replied with a meaningful smile.
Kestrel shook his head with a returned smile, convinced that the threatened chat could only be a bluff intended to diffuse the tension they all felt. He was unsettled enough already that the conversation created no fear of consequences; nor did he think the two women had much they could really say to one another about him.
He and Hiram left the room and descended down the stairs, then walked through the streets.
“She’s a beautiful woman,” Hiram said as they left the boarding house. “I can see why you love her.”
“It’s not just her beauty,” Kestrel reflected. “I have no choice. The elven goddess told bme at the very beginning of my adventures that I had to rescue her, and it seems like my life has been devoted solely to doing just that.”
“Would the two of you love each other if your goddess hadn’t ordered it?” Hiram inquired.
“I don’t know,” Kestrel answered. “I don’t know whether Moorin really even loves me, or if she just knows that I’m going to try to save her. She’s almost,” he stopped, at a loss for words, “I can’t describe it, and I don’t know how it will end when all of this is over someday.”
Hiram listened sympathetically.
“Let’s get some food from here,” Kestrel indicated a restaurant.
They promptly ordered a variety of items from the waiter and asked that it be put in a sack. “Your chest is extraordinary!” Hiram spoke as they waited silently at a dim table in a corner of the room. Kestrel’s eyes scanned the room, looking for potential signs of trouble.
The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 05 - Journey to Uniontown Page 17
