by Paul Heisel
“No one,” Quin said quickly. “She’s an artist we employ who is Owori’s friend. No one.”
“I’m not going with you. You can’t make me go anyway. I will not choose this life.”
Quin drifted away two steps. “You must,” he said. “If you don’t, you’ll die.”
“Who is going to carry out this threat? You? Your small army of protectors? Do you know what I can do with my chi? I will fight you if I have to!”
“This is too amusing,” Yan said, laughing. He grabbed the ebony box and tossed it to Quin.
Quin opened the box and pulled from it the black belt she had seen earlier. It glinted in the lantern light. Quin held it up, revering it like a holy object, and offered Owori a closer look. It was enchanting to her. She felt a tickle, magic, then she realized the belt was connecting with her. The link was strong, a sensation she had never experienced before. It was as if it was feeding her and feeding off her.
“You are bound to this belt,” Quin announced. “If you stay away from it for too long, you’ll die. This is no threat and there is no need for armies or violence. You will go with Yan to Daiwer-dar, or you will die. The magic of the belt gives you strength and will sustain you if you aren’t far away from it.”
“You’ve sold me to his family?”
Quin nodded, his plump jowls squashing against the rolls of fat on his neck. “Furies serve the families; most are willing to serve and are responsible enough to perform their duty. You, as we guessed, resisted. We used the magic of the belt to bind you to the family. There is no turning back, there is no way to reverse what has happened. You are now in the service of the Nutahi family. Furies have served the families for hundreds of years. You will be treated no differently.”
“I didn’t make this choice. I was told I had a choice!” She shot a glance at Yan, yet the simmering anger she wanted to unleash softened. “No one tells me what to do.”
Yan laughed at this and waved his hand, shooing them toward the front door. He stood on wobbling legs, used the chair for support and propelled himself toward the direction of the bedroom. “Remove her,” he said to Quin. Then he stopped in front of Owori. “Unless she wants to remain here and please me until the morning arrives. The bed is big enough for three.”
Owori slapped him. “Next time I won’t be so gentle!”
Yan’s face turned red with a handprint and he shook his clenched fist at her. “When we arrive in Daiwer-dar, I’ll make sure you’re disciplined for your defiance. You may have skills and talent we require, but it won’t preclude us from punishing you.”
“I’m not going with you.”
“We’ll see about that. Get her out of here! Now!”
The two Furies from outside of the door appeared and they walked toward her in step. Quin put the belt back, closing the ebony case with a loud snap. With steel hands, Owori grabbed Quin’s shirt and yanked him to the side. His bulk was hard to move.
“You have to undo this!”
“I can’t,” he said. “It’s done. Let me go!”
The Furies took Owori’s arms and forced her toward the door. Quin lost his balance and fell over, smashing against a small table. Metal trinkets, candle holders, and glass figurines shattered and clattered. He lay there groaning, the black case hugged tightly to his massive abdomen as if it were a precious child.
She was angry, but not strong enough to resist the Furies, and she couldn’t stop the Furies from pushing her out of the doorway. The belt must have drained her magic, and she knew that she wouldn’t last a moment against these Furies if she forced a confrontation. She would have to sort this out and talk to Paq, perhaps he could fix this. There had to be a way to reverse the connection to the belt. With a forceful shrug, she slipped away from her escorts. They stood in the doorway behind her, the two Furies giving her looks of what appeared to be sympathy. Owori adjusted her red robe, straightened her back, and unclenched her fists.
One of the Fury's bowed to her and spoke, voice clear and melodic. “Perhaps the trip home will soften Yan’s view of you, and your defiance of him won’t cause you further trouble. His punishments can be elaborate. I can’t believe you slapped him.” The Fury smiled.
“Leave her be,” said the other one, tone serious.
“I’m not going with you,” she said.
The serious one spoke up. “If you’re too far from the belt, you’ll weaken. You’ll die as he has said. They weren’t trying to scare you, it’s the truth. You should have come willingly, like all proper Furies do.”
“We,” the other said, “are bound by the Nutahi family, our job is to serve and protect Yan, to act as his personal bodyguards. It’s our duty ensure his safety and to serve however we can.”
“I’m not a servant or a slave! I won’t be!” Owori turned on her heels and walked away, the fabric of her red robes swishing. She stopped and wheeled around at the end of the stone path. “I’m not going.”
Her parting words had no effect whatsoever and the two Furies closed the door. Owori found her way back to her room and sat down on her pallet. How could this happen? Where was Pearl? Where was Paq? She leaned back and stared at the ceiling. There had to be something Paq could do to help her. Before she could go find him, she drifted off to sleep and didn’t wake until morning.
#
She was up as soon as the sun brightened the island. The magic filled her again and it gave her strength and confidence to fight. She had to find Paq, as he would be the key to fixing this. He wasn’t in the main temple, so she went to the gardens where the servants were cleaning up from the celebration, and she extended her search to the buildings closest to the temple. When he didn’t appear she meandered through the grounds, going by the quaint cottages and wooden storage buildings, but he wasn’t there either. No one knew where he was, even threats to the servants didn’t have positive results. He had disappeared. Quin was locked in his room, surrounded by guards, her pleas went unheard. Later that morning she walked to the docks, the other Furies mistook her arrival for acceptance of what was happening. None of the other Furies were willing to defy Yan as she was, and they asked Owori to join them because it was her duty. She refused. The entourage loaded throughout the day and they asked one last time for Owori to board, and she still refused to be a part of this. The other Furies begged her to get on the boat, as it was true, she would die if she didn’t stay close to the belt she was bound to. The boat departed without her mid afternoon.
In the evening, she experienced dizziness and tiredness, her arms and legs felt like lead. She fought it, determined to battle the connection to the belt. Meditation helped. At least it kept her magic intact. The next morning it was worse. It was difficult to wake up and the urge to stay asleep was powerful. Later in the morning she emerged from her room in a daze, wandered around, and looked for Paq. Everyone she saw told her to get on another boat and go to the shore, that she could catch up with Yan and not feel any lasting effects. She refused.
She found Paq on the outskirts of the villages heading away, going on an unknown excursion through the virgin forest. At first he tried to avoid her, but he wasn’t good at evading an experienced tracker like Owori. She followed him farther into the forest to a dilapidated structure that at one time had been a tree house. It had fallen from the tree long ago, and the broken remains hadn’t been repaired. The walls were listing and the roof was missing many shingles. The exposed interior was filled with grass, moss, and signs of animal activity. Paq leaned against the tree that had held the tree house, his back turned to Owori.
“I made a Fury mad once and he destroyed my tree house,” Paq said as she approached. “I’m frightened to think what you’ll try to do to me.” He turned. “You should have gone with them. Willing or unwilling, you should have gone with them!”
“Paq, firstly, I’m not going to hurt you. Or your tree house,” she added.
Paq sighed with relief.
“I am angry. You and Pearl both owe me explanations.”
&n
bsp; He shrank at the words.
“Why did you let this happen? Pearl gave you instructions! Why did you do this?”
“My father and grandfather made the decision, not me. I’m not the head of the family.”
“Pearl told you to keep me safe until she returned!”
“She doesn’t run our business,” he said.
“I don’t want to be bound to Yan! I don’t understand.”
“Follow me. I’ll explain the best I can.”
They walked across the forest, away from the lake and towards the center of Salt Island. They intercepted a worn road that had seen recent use from heavy carts and they walked toward what Paq indicated would be their destination. The trees and plants encroached on the road, and in places the road was too narrow for a cart to get by without striking the limbs of trees. Paq made small talk, indicating they had pruned back the vegetation, then he went into an explanation about how the more they pruned, the more it grew. Ahead there was a guard post, a ten-foot-high wall made of fieldstone that encircled the area, and guards standing at the ready. The gate was closed.
He had Owori stay five steps behind and he spoke to the guards in soft whispers. The gate came open at their signal. After they were through the gate it closed. They were on a four-foot-wide wooden bridge that went over a crevasse that didn’t look natural to Owori, so it was more like a pit. How deep, she didn’t know nor did she want to find out. After fifty feet, they came to a landing. There was another road through open land that ended at a second fieldstone wall twenty feet high. More guards. The same procedure applied; Paq spoke with them and they opened the gate. Through this gate and within the innermost circle of protections was a squat building with stone walls, the wooden roof was a patchwork of repair jobs and new shingles. The walls looked only four feet tall, but then Owori noticed stairs to one side and ramps leading down. The building was set into the ground. The pitched roof had vertical teeth, like a saw, with window panes. Workers were on the roof cleaning the glass with buckets of water and scrub brushes, guards were on the roof as well watching the workers. The cleaners paused momentarily to gaze at Paq and Owori's approach, a stern ‘get back to work’ drew their eyes away. Owori looked left and right, trying to figure the size of the building. She estimated the windows were every thirty feet, and counting twenty of them made the building six hundred feet long. The panes looked to be three feet wide, she counted and did the math – it was one hundred and twenty feet wide. It was a big building. She and Paq finally went inside through the unlocked doors.
“So, what’s this all about?” she asked, then it dawned on her as she saw the contents of the first bay.
There were chests, boxes, and crates all neatly stacked in rows and columns. A few areas had coins and wealth, along with furniture and strange objects put into piles. Paq motioned to an area one bay down from them. There were more boxes and chests, left half unloaded by laborers. There was a table with thick ledgers on it and chairs. A heavyset woman with ink-stained hands scribbled on pages, acknowledging Paq with a nod, then went back to taking inventory of the received wealth.
“All of that came with Yan to pay for you,” Paq said. His fingers went through his messy hair.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“I’m trying to explain. I’m trying to help you understand.”
“So what, who cares about this stuff?”
Paq plowed on and ignored the question. “It’s said we have more wealth than anyone in all of Pyndira, even the Emperor. Personally I don’t believe that we have more that the Emperor, but it’s a subject my father talks about often. My father also negotiated additional red dragon blood, which we will use to make red dragon ink. We used up our stores for your marks. The replacement of it is difficult. Taking the life of these dragons is not easy and it’s dangerous. Yan brought blood of a red dragon with him, rare indeed, as part of the payment.”
Owori stepped forward into the main aisle. She could see enormous amounts of wealth down the length of the building. It was staggering, and it sunk in. Paq’s family had been doing this for hundreds of years, collecting fees for marking Furies. She wondered, though, what could they use this for? Wealth or no wealth, they were prisoners on this island because of the service they provided.
“Each Fury’s payment is set aside, separated and not commingled. We withdraw gold to purchase supplies, but as you can see we could spend thousands each day and not be able to use it all. We also have swords and armor, as well as skins of magical beasts, rare furniture, and gemstones. I spend time in here searching for odd things we’ve acquired. The strangest thing I’ve found are three preserved heads, supposedly they are former Warlords of Pyndira. I doubt it though, but it’s creepy.”
Owori swooned and had Paq not been there, she would have fallen. Her insides felt odd, like she was tumbling into a chasm, but hanging on by being stretched thin. The feeling persisted and her legs became weak. “I don’t feel well.”
“The farther the belt gets from you, the weaker you’ll become. You must get on a boat. We have soldiers who can escort you to Daiwer-dar.”
“There has to be another way. I don’t want to be bound to a family. Pearl told you! I don’t want this!”
“I’m sorry, what’s done can’t be reversed. The only way for you to survive is to stay close to the belt. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t seem sorry,” she said, hauling him close for support.
“This is our family business. This is what we do. My father and grandfather are in charge. I can’t go against my family, no matter what I think or how much I love Pearl, I must support the family. Someday you’ll understand.”
“You haven’t helped me to understand what is happening, you’ve only showed me how wealthy you’ve become selling Furies into slavery.”
“Furies aren’t slaves.”
“What’s the difference?”
“We have a responsibility to mark Furies, for that we collect a fee.”
“It’s still slavery.” Owori’s knees buckled.
“Let’s get you back to your room. There will be a boat for you tomorrow.”
“I’m not going. I’m staying here.”
Paq supported her as they walked out of the stronghold. Going up the steps was a struggle for them both. Paq was a thin young man with little muscle, and Owori was having a hard time staying on her feet.
“Paq, help me,” she pleaded.
“You must get on a boat. I beg you, please.”
“I won’t go. I refuse. I’m staying here until Pearl comes back.”
“You’ll die. Furies who are directly bound to a Most Favored belt will die if they are not close to it. They all die. You have to believe me, they all die!”
“Do something,” she said. “Please. Help me. Please. I can’t believe you would let me die because of that treasure. If I were Pearl, you would help her escape this madness? Wouldn’t you? What would you do if I were Pearl?”
Paq made no response.
As if struck by a stone, Owori stumbled forward and pulled Paq with her. They both went to the ground. Paq pulled her upright, trying to get a grip on her. She was like a limp fish. He got her up and walking, and that made it easier. The guards came and helped him escort her away from the building. Halfway back to the temple she was unconscious.
Paq had them take her to the marking room, where they put her on the table. He dismissed everyone and told the servants to make sure no one interrupted him. As the doors closed, Paq rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He would experiment to save Owori, not for her, but for Pearl. It was clear that Owori would never accept being in the service of the Emperor, had she willingly accepted the invitation none of this would have happened. His only choice was to find a way to keep her alive and hope Pearl didn’t flay the skin off his body when she returned, whenever that would be.
Chapter 5 - Return
“How long has she been unconscious?” Pearl asked.
“Weeks,” Paq answered. “I
used more ink and additional marks to help keep her alive. She’s weak, nearly at the end. I took her to the stronghold to explain things to her. She passed out on our way back to the temple. She refused to go with Yan.”
“I gave you specific instructions! Why did you let this happen?”
“My father sent a message to the Emperor as soon as he figured out who she was, telling him he had a dragon for sale, and it was the same small child he had insisted they mark years ago. My father told him that the only way she would go with them was by force. Yan came right away to claim her; he brought the Emperor’s belt to make sure she was bound. I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop it from happening. If it makes any difference, I didn’t know they were going to do this.”
There was no outburst or anger displayed, just a slight nodding of the head. Pearl gazed at Owori. She looked dead except for the slight movement of her chest. It would be a long recovery and rehabilitation would take weeks. If only she hadn’t gone back to Malurrion, none of this would have happened. No, then things would be even worse. What happened was for the greater good no matter what had happened to Owori. That she realized now, and despite Owori’s condition and her being bound to the Emperor’s belt, things were better. “She wouldn’t go on the boat? You couldn’t convince her serving the Emperor was the better than dying?”
Paq looked to the ground. He couldn’t meet Pearl’s bright eyes.
“Do you know what I could do to your father?” Pearl’s mood darkened. “He did this against her will. He did this against my will. You know that any Furies that I bring back are mine, either to stay here to live in peace or to go back to Malurrion. They are not to be bound to families unless it is their decision to do so.”
“She’s a Fury, just like you,” Paq said. “Furies are either bound to a belt or they serve willingly and faithfully, binding them to the family either way by magic. Magic that can’t be broken. I’m sorry it happened, but there’s nothing we can do about it. I was able to keep her alive, you should at least be thankful for that. If you can’t be thankful for that, I’m going to get angry.”
