Without Rhythm (The Lament)

by P. S. Power

  At first she nearly shot them, then came very close to screaming for help, before she recognized one of them as the woman that had been with Bard Benjamin the day before. Apparently she was busily doing something similar at the moment, with a man that looked only vaguely familiar from the night before. He'd come to listen to her play for a while.

  From the amount of clothing they had off it was pretty clear they were either total master spies or really inept lovers out for a secret tryst. While she was tempted to think the latter, Pran pointed her weapon at them anyway. They were in an area that everyone knew not to go into after all.

  "Halt. Get your clothing pulled up and stand please. If you try to go for a weapon or run, I'll shoot you."

  They were both too embarrassed to say anything, at first, though they both managed to rally after a they had clothing on.

  "Um... Is there a problem miss?" The man said, his eyes going first to the rifle, then to the bit of fuzz on her head. It was pretty distinctive, meaning he obviously recognized her.

  "This is the guarded area. Which you clearly know. I need to turn you two in, in case you're spies."

  The woman grimaced then, her face going tight.

  "Damn it. You're just nothing but trouble, aren't you? First you catch us out in the forest sneaking back from town and now this. Do you hate me? Is that it? I slept with your boyfriend so now you want revenge?"

  The funny part wasn't what she said, but how she said it, as if it were a real thing, and not just her trying to make herself seem like less of an idiot.

  "Which one of the men is supposed to be my boyfriend?" It just came out, she figured that it would be Bard Benjamin, or even Clark, but got a bit of a surprise.

  "Apprentice Roy? Aren't you two an item? Sharing a room and all?"

  "Nope. Do you recommend him then?" She meant it to be flip, but the mental state of focus she was in made it come out sounding serious and a bit practical.

  The woman shrugged.

  "For someone his age he actually wasn't that bad. A bit on the homely side, but have you seen his body?"

  She had, so Pran didn't answer, just gesturing for the two in front of her to walk.

  "I'll take it under advisement. Face me and walk backwards. If you stop I'll shoot you." It sounded pretty tough, but she probably didn't need to be. The woman was just a little catty seeming, so she didn't want to give her any ammunition to start name calling with.

  They did what she said anyway, looking properly concerned about the whole thing, even forgetting that they might be in trouble for sneaking off like they had. If they were going to do it, well, at least one of them had to have a bedroom, or a handy supply closet or something. Then she remembered that the woman, Tammy, was being punished already. That probably meant she wasn't supposed to leave the ship at all.

  It wasn't Pran's problem though.

  On the good side they didn't get halfway to The Lament before a real Guardian came running up, Kinetic pistol in hand. Mara.

  "Caught them trying to attack?" The words were so dry that they nearly sounded real, even to Pran.

  "Having sex. Back in the brush. I need to get back to my watch, in case that was just a distraction. I doubt it, but you know, I don't want to look bad."

  "Got it. You should be going off shift soon anyway. The meeting is over, I think that..." She pointed as a group of six men and women, all adults, jogged toward them.

  They had to explain the situation again, but one of them, an older woman with solid brown hair, but a lined face seemed to think it might be a real threat.

  "Could be spies. I've used that ruse myself when caught before. I was younger, but people normally cut you a lot of slack if you're having sex when they walk up on you. Or look like you were. We should take them to The Conscript and have them locked in the cell there for questioning."

  Oddly enough the rest of them agreed. Well, not the two that were going to be locked up, but if they were really innocent they could take it as a chance to finish what they'd been doing. Mara helpfully pointed that out as they both walked backwards toward the ship in question.

  The whole thing suddenly seemed a lot more serious, with the Guardian taking over, keeping her pistol trained on them the whole time. Pran followed suit, but doubted that she'd get a shot off if they tried anything. Mara would probably shoot them both first. They, for all they were shipmen, seemed to get that idea as well.

  "Come on Mara, you know me... We've been on this whole tour together..."

  "I do. Notice how we didn't just kill you already? That's the slack you get for being a shipmate. You'd better have your story straight. What the heck you were thinking I don't know."

  The woman, thankfully, didn't bother trying to explain it. She just walked backwards as carefully as she could and followed directions, her face looking hard and more than a little scared when they locked her in the cell along with the man next to her.

  The interesting part, for Pran at least, was that Mara left her to guard the cell, and came back about half an hour later, with not one, but three Judges in tow. It would have made more sense for the Captains to be there, so they could rake their crew members over the coals or put them on potato peeling duty for a month, or whatever the punishment was really going to be. Instead it was Judges, dressed in white robes and looking as serious as anyone Pran had ever seen.

  "Allow us into the cell please, miss." The woman that spoke was older than Claire, who stood slightly behind her, but only about the same age as Mara, who she was speaking to. The door got opened and they all entered, which made the dimly lit place a little hard to see in.

  That was, it seemed, a problem for the Judges, who needed light to work. It seemed odd to her, but they decided to move the whole thing to the dining room, which meant that everyone could sit down and relax a little. Not her, of course, or Mara, but the others. Even the prisoners, who weren't restrained at all, just sat in chairs at the same table as the others.

  The oldest one of the three, a man that might just be moving toward fifty from his appearance, but who was decently trim and fit looking, if not handsome, stared at them as he started to ask his questions. Almost from the start it wasn't going well at all.

  "Now, please tell us why you were outside in the bush, on the guard line." He sounded calm, like Claire normally did, but his focus on the man didn't shift at all.

  The male prisoner shifted a little and touched his nose.

  "I was meeting with Tammy, you know, so we could, uh, share a few moments." It was an odd way to put it, one that everyone seemed to catch instantly.

  "Lie." Claire spoke the word quickly, as if it were a race to see who could do it first.

  The man nodded and kept going.

  "Lie. What were you doing out there?"

  "Having sex, like I said." The tone had moved from embarrassed and shifty to surly in less than a second. No one liked to be called a liar. Especially if they were innocent.

  But they didn't normally growl about it. Not that fast.

  "Lie." This time it was the other woman that responded first, with Claire coming in just after she did, echoing the word.

  The staring was hard then, watching each of the people so closely that they had to be feeling the pressure from it. The man coughed, which, oddly enough got Tammy too as well. It was strange to Pran at least. Not that they couldn't both do that, but that they did it at nearly the same time. That and the fact that they'd both clearly taken something from their mouths and tucked it into their fists. She didn't know what it was, but her classes in simple stage magic had demonstrated the move over and over again.

  "Mara... They have something in their hands..." She didn't exactly yell the words, but Mara reacted like she had , bringing her pistol around as they both threw whatever it was they had to the floor on opposite sides of the room.

  Pran blinked, seeing the brilliant light through her closed eyes, hearing the sound of scuffling before things died down enough for her to see again. When she opened her eyes
there was a blue-black spot in the center of the room, where her eyes just couldn't see anything. Both of the prisoners were fighting with Mara, who was pretty clearly blind. The three Judges didn't make a sound, but they were groping around as well.

  "Halt!" Pran made her voice into steel and stone. It was a good enough job of it that people actually stopped for a second.

  "Judges, get on the ground! I can see. Let go of the Guardian... or I'll shoot!"

  That got a low growl in return, and Tammy spoke, her voice much harder than it had been before.

  "Oh, will you now? The little Bard girl that wants to play-pretend-Guardian is going to shoot us with her little ouch gun? That thing is hardly enough to kill a rabbit. Now this..." She hefted the Kinetic pistol. Mara's weapon that had been pried from her hand, the two still able to see having the advantage over her.

  "This can kill. If I set it right, let's see here..." She started fiddling with the controls on the side.

  Pran shot her in the stomach. That had seemed to work pretty well on the Creedy fellow after all. It got a reaction, rabbit gun or not. In fact it took the woman all the way to the ground. Her friend grabbed Mara, which was a mistake. The contact was enough to let her know where the man was and even though he obviously knew how to fight too, he wasn't ready for a full Guardian at all. Not even a blind one. It didn't last ten seconds, the man's head finally impacting with the table that he'd been sitting at. It made a sickening crunch sound and the man didn't shake or twitch at all.

  Dead then, most likely.

  Pran held her rifle on the moaning woman.

  "Mara, can you see yet?" She could only hope they wouldn't all be permanently blind. She still couldn't see straight ahead and her eyes had been closed.

  "Not a bit. Everyone else? Report please."

  "I'm blind. Seeing some sparks..." This came from the man.

  "Same here." Claire didn't sound upset at all, just matter of fact about it all, as if it might happen on any given day and was just another thing.

  "Blind." The last one sounded a little scared at least, but that seemed to be over the death, at least she was trying to work her way toward the moaning sound coming from the floor. Pran had to look out the side of her eye, but she was able to get the Kinetic pistol from the floor next to Tammy.

  Then she moved to the door and screamed for help.

  She just didn't know what else to do.

  Chapter 13

  It took a few minutes for everyone needed to get to the room. The Conscript had a Doctor too, that was one thing that all the ships had in common. They didn't all get a Guardian, or a Bard, but they had a Doctor. In a way they were one of the most needed types of people after all, especially in isolated towns and villages that couldn't afford their own. It wasn't a perfect system, but it worked better than what they'd otherwise be getting.

  "Which would be some random man or woman that was promoted to the position based on the fact that they don't pass out at the sight of blood." The woman was decently young and wore a sturdy gray dress. She was about as plain as possible, her face looking almost emotionless as she worked to stop the bleeding to Tammy's middle.

  After a few minutes she slapped the downed woman on the arm.

  "Oh, stop moaning, I'll have the bullet out in a few seconds. It's barely in the muscle. The biggest danger is infection...." There was a moment of quick work with a special tool taken from her leather bag. It was bigger than the one Doctor Millis had.

  It was an odd thing to notice, feeling as tense as she was, but the next words were a relief.

  "Not that you'll get one. This is an easy fix." A few minutes of moaning later she finally moved to the Judges, treating them as she got to the closest one, rather than treating anyone as more special than the others. For that matter Mara just happened to be standing by the door, acting as if she wasn't crippled. It was a good act.

  Pran had to point it out to the lady Doctor so she didn't miss it.

  "Ah, Guardians. Horrible patients. Never scream or admit to pain. So, do your symptoms sound like the others?" It was curt, almost a blunt question, but Mara responded without sounding angry in return.

  "Just about. I don't think I'm as bad off as the Judges. I was looking toward the prisoners, but I'd just glanced over, I wasn't staring and I got my eyes closed pretty quick. I can sort of make things out. It's mainly black. Especially in the center of my vision." She didn't move for a few seconds, which made sense to Pran.

  "I can't do what you said. Resting in a dark room for a week isn't an option for me."

  The Doctor rolled her eyes, and more to the point Pran noticed that she had, her vision almost having recovered already. That was a good sign. She liked it anyway, but didn't mention her own condition. It seemed like rubbing it in. The Judges were all taking the news very calmly, but they'd been told flat out that they might actually be blind forever. Probably not, but when they went into an observing trance their irises opened up a lot, meaning that they'd gotten way more of the light than even Mara had.

  "Of all the stupid, bone headed, moronic..." The Doctor, who hadn't given her name at all, seemed prepared to keep going on, when Saran stepped in.

  "You're on guard for the Judges then. Pran, can you take her duties?" It was of course, a silly question. The obvious answer was simply no, wasn't it?

  Pran decided to just go with the truth on that one, knowing that Mara would make fun of her if she didn't.

  "I can put a body in the right place and try to pay attention. I can't really do the rest of it, but..." She almost added that she could see, then just shut her mouth and looked at the older Guardian. She nodded her head twice.

  "It will have to do. You did manage to notice that something was happening earlier and responded well in an emergency situation. That weapon isn't up to the task, but we don't have time to teach you to use something stronger right now. Can you use anything else?"

  "Cudgel a little. That's about it unless someone has a stone hammer around. I've been known to do some pretty mean work with one of those."

  Saran looked around the room and then at the woman on the floor, who got a grimace.

  "Very good. I'll send for one and then you can help me question the prisoner. Too bad for her. If the Judges could see we wouldn't have to resort to other methods." It sounded serious and got a gasp. Not from the prisoner, but from the Doctor.

  "You can't do that!" She sounded ready to fight, even though that was stupid. She even stood up, looking both intimidated and ready to tackle Saran if she had to. It was nearly perfect, if the goal was to freak out Tammy.

  Pran caught the thread and ran with it, just to see where the scene would go.

  "Can't she? Emergency powers. In the case of a situation of unprecedented danger or unknown factors, all laws are temporarily suspended. Not only can she be beaten to get her to talk, a whole lot worse can be done." Pran made herself shiver a bit, striving to keep it low key, but realistic. She did cross her left arm over to grab her right though.

  "Hopefully that won't have to happen. I don't think I can take the nightmares from doing that... again. Maybe we could just bribe her? Offer her something nice, or... I don't know, give her a cushy work camp assignment somewhere, so it won't be too hard on her..." She looked at Guardian Saran, who frowned and shook her head ever so slightly and then Mara, who stood with her eyes closed, smiling.

  It was her that spoke though.

  "Bitch left me blind. She doesn't deserve that much kindness Pran. You can take a few more nightmares can't you? For me?" The last words were very nearly sweet sounding, which got Tammy to moan again.

  The Doctor just stood and watched this all taking place, not moving from where she'd placed herself, still looking half ready to try and stop them, if they were really going to hurt her patient. Pran didn't think that was really the plan at all. It was all about fear of being harmed. She hoped so anyway. Crushing the woman's fingers with a rock hammer would work, most likely, but it really would give her bad dreams
. It was the older male Judge that really sealed the deal though, playing along perfectly.

  "We... Can't prevent a Guardian from using the emergency clause. Especially in a case this potentially dire. I'm sorry miss..." He really sounded like it too. As if it were something very serious indeed. The other two Judges nodded, almost in unison, which added weight to the whole thing. Tammy looked at them wide eyed, almost as if they were going to start in right then.

  "Whoa... Hold up everyone... Tammy hasn't said she wouldn't help us protect everyone, she's just been moaning a bit. I'm sure she wants to help, right Tammy? Tell them that you'll help keep everyone safe. You want that right? You aren't evil or anything..." Pran didn't actually know that, but it seemed to fit her part in the scenario.

  The others could act all tough and she'd play the reasonable one that the audience could identify with. It was probably too obvious but the woman stopped moaning for a second.

  "I really don't know much. It wouldn't be worth it to torture me. All that will get you is me screaming."

  Mara smiled again.

  "Sounds fair." Then, blind or not, she walked across the room and kicked the woman in the leg, hard. Pran moved in and tried to pull her off. Not very hard, letting her get another two kicks in first. They moved lower down the leg, not up. No matter what she was doing, or how mean her face looked, Mara knew exactly what she was doing. The problem there was that the Doctor didn't.

  "Stop! I can't let you hurt her!" She scrambled in her bag and pulled a needle, one that she tried to plunge into Mara's neck. That lasted for about half a second, since Saran moved in and took it away easily.

  "None of that now. I understand that you want to safeguard your patient, but this is Guardian business. If you do that again I'll have to lock you in your quarters." This threat sounded very serious, as if she'd really do it if she had to.