Childhood Demons Ch. 02

While A'ishah doesn't know it, her friends plan to spring her.

Also, she gets to know more of the ones that she's coming to love so much.

Especially the younger ones, the mystic Zhaeri and painfully shy Koåhn. 0_o

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The guard noticed someone in the darkness on the other side of the gate and looked to see if he knew them.

"Bring your master, "one of the large ones growled in a low voice, "We wish to do business with him to mutual benefit."

The guard shrugged, "Then come back at a more civilized time of day if that is your wish."

A large hand slipped in through the openings in the wrought iron and took hold of his robe and another one reached around his head to pull him against the bars so hard that his neck cracked and he saw stars.

"Listen hard," the voice said, "for the list gets longer the more stupid that you show yourself to be.

Make no sound or you will die before it is out of you. Open the gate."

He hesitated and felt his own blood running from his broken nose from the second time that he'd been pulled against the bars. What was unsettling to him was that he'd been prepared and resisted that time - and it changed nothing.

"Open the gate. I will not say it again," the voice said. "With a thought, I can summon one who will force you to open this gate even after you are dead."

He opened his eyes and looked and when he saw the gaze that was returned to him from the one whose eyes he could make out, he began to shake and couldn't open the gate quickly enough.

"Go and bring your master," the voice said, "Tell him to come alone, for the sum that we bring him this night will surely interest him. Understand? Alone."

It took a few minutes after the guard ran inside, but slowly, a group of beefy men stepped out into the dimly lit yard. They arrayed themselves in a line facing the two strangers and waited until one older man stepped forward.

"What do you want?"

They were much taller than he was, but the shorter of the two strangers stepped forward while the other one looked off to his left, hearing the sounds of laughter from the owner's harem.

"You possess a Bedouin slave whose name is A'ishah. Please have her brought here. I wish to buy her. I will pay well."

The man smiled as he shook his head, "Friend, you have been given some bad information, I think. There is no such person here."

Yasmikha wore the hood of the cloak over her head and under that, she wore a double veil. She stepped up and looked down at the man as she removed the sheer veil over her eyes.

He stared up into the width of her vertical irises.

"I know that you lie," she whispered dryly - sounding like dead leaves in the wind, "I know that you ate a bowl of figs this afternoon and had a meal of fūl afterwards as your evening meal. I know that you had a shit before your bath just now. I know that the girl grieves for her dead mother and I know that she was whipped - five strokes. Shall I now show you what else that I know?"

She didn't wait for a reply.

She pointed to one man, her voice like a breeze through a crypt, "It was this one who swung the lash."

As they stared at her, the larger of them moved his hand in the air from a dozen feet away. The man gasped once and fell onto his face. There were five lines down his back and each one was wide and gaping, meat missing from his flesh from every one. He began to writhe in agony for a moment and then he was still. The large hooded one said nothing and returned to looking toward the harem window.

Really, he hadn't done a thing but move his hand. Outside of the gate, Zhaeri stood sweating from the mental effort as Koåhn held her up.

Yasmikha looked at the old man, "Now whoremaster, do you recall anything about where A'ishah might be in your large establishment here? I think that you would not like it if I must go inside to look for myself. It would be ... a little bad for your business.

Or must I slay every man here before I turn my thoughts to you once more? Why not just name your price for the girl so that I may pay it and leave with my new slave?"

Wh-what do you want with her?" he asked, "She is nothing."

"That is my affair," Yasmikha said, "There are more of us and we like to keep to ourselves. We find that the property around here fares much better when we do. Send someone for her, and now please, before I think to summon more with my thoughts.

Ah!" she chuckled like dead leaves once again, "Too late. Your foolishness has attracted two more of my kind.

And one thing, see to it that A'ishah is not hurt or treated with even a little force as she is brought, for if it happens, I will know of it in an instant and the very next instant after that, you will begin to die as I remove your worthless skin so that I can hang it over the gate."

The man stared past her and saw two other wraith-like shapes gliding toward him in the darkness. He turned and barked out an order and they stood waiting as one man ran in through the doorway.

"I m-must apologize, he said, "I had forgotten. The one that you want is grieving - as you said. Her mother died -"

"Her mother died four days ago now," Yasmikha said coldly as she reached out slowly to grab his robe and lift him so that he was almost on his toes, "Think before you speak, old fool. If I know that she was whipped, don't you think that I know what it was for and when it happened? You stand on eggshells over my hunger."

There was a flare of light and he looked to see the other cloaked shape from the side as he lit what looked to be the end of his own index finger to get a thick, Turkish-style cigarette going. He waved his hand and the flame was gone and he puffed a little to get the end hot.

He reached into his cloak and drew out a stick of dynamite, holding the end of the fuze a little near to the smouldering end of the cigarette.

"If you lie to me only once more," Yasmikha hissed like the wind through an old graveyard, "he will light that and throw it in through the open window there and you will be the one who grieves. I know who is on the other side of that - your wives and your youngest children.

Now, while we are waiting, name a price for the one that I seek."

He stammered and stuttered and did everything but pass wind before he came up with a number that he was sure that she wouldn't accept. He didn't know why the girl was wanted, but he sought to maximize whatever he could get for her.

"She represents an unpaid gambling debt to you, some years old and to your mind, it can never be paid because you keep it that way. What you named just now is more than seven times the amount owed to you and her father paid you more than half. I will pay you half of what you ask on top and you will be happy, no?"

He nodded, "Th-th-at would b-be f-f-air."

"More than fair," she hissed, "it's an exorbitant sum, but I will pay it. In return, your loved ones are safe this night and you will forget her name and her face if it is your wish that they remain that way.

Are we agreed?"

He nodded, "Let me see the money."

She shook her head, "I am still waiting to see the girl."

One of the others held out a hand in the direction of the other men who stood on shaking legs. After a moment, the hand was closed and yanked away. The men around them all crumpled to the ground and the old one looked around in shock and fear.

"We will not wait much longer," the one who had caused it hissed in warning.

"Are they all d-dead?" he asked.

"What do you think?" she asked in return. "Would you like to see me bring them back? I do not think it would amuse you as much as me."

A'ishah walked out then in her cloak and sandals and she looked fearful.

The man who had been sent for her was pulled to the side by the fourth one of them and after the dull flash of moving metal, he fell without his head.

A'ishah glanced at the old man for a moment and he motioned with his chin, "That one will be your new mistress - once she pays me."

Yasmikha reached into her cloak and drew out a sack to hold out to the man at almost arm's length.

"That is a bag of sand," he said, "That much gold is far too heavy to hold like that. You try to cheat me."

She shook her head, "Idiot, do you not think that I am stronger than you? Here. Take it!"

He reached out and as soon as his fingers closed around it, Yasmikha let go.

The sack dropped straight down next to the old man's foot, with a clinking, heavy-sounding thud and he looked to see the amount of gold that lay scattered in a small ring around the open end of the sack.

"More than you asked," she said, "I did say that I would pay well.

A good night to you. I hope that I do not need to tell you what will happen to anyone who tries to follow us. My advice is that you forget that you ever had this slave."

With that, she took A'ishah's hand and led her away. The man stared as he realized that they were gone before they'd even gotten to the open gate.

He knelt down and reached into the sack, feeling relieved at the shapes of the coins that he felt inside. He pushed his hand in deeply and he felt nothing but solid gold coins.

But he had a problem, since he couldn't lift the sack. He called in through the doorway and a pair of men came out, staring at the bodies there on the ground.

"Help me," the man said, "Take this to my chamber with me. Then, come back out and remove these bodies."

They nodded and a little while later, the old man was in his bed, pleased at the exchange. There was more than the half that the stranger had promised. He'd taken every piece out and counted it carefully before he'd turned to go to sleep.

Unseen by him or anyone, the two men who had helped with the gold were on the floor of their rooms, choking on their own tongues.

---------

"What has just happened?" A'ishah asked, looking from one to the other at them all as they walked in the darkness. "How did you do that - whatever it was?"

"Were you not there? I bought you from your keeper," Yasmikha smiled as she put her arm around her friend's shoulders.

The Bedouin girl struggled a little with it for a moment, "So, am I now free - or am I your slave now?"

Håkan chuckled as he looked down for a moment, shaking his head. Yasmikha shook her head as well. "I think that you have been a slave too long to even know it when you are free again. You are no slave to me, A'ishah. You are my friend - just as you were before.

But to Håkan and the others here... ah well ... that might be a different story."

She smiled a little coyly, "Perhaps I have bought my family a present, though it is not anyone's birthday.

Is it?" she asked to make sure and no one nodded.

"Oh well," she smiled, "then pretend, if you need a reason, A'ishah."

She sighed, "Though we have always been free in the sharing of our toys, it must be said."

A'ishah looked over, wondering what that might be like. She couldn't imagine that it would be even a little unpleasant - as long as no one rolled over onto her. Still, she asked Koåhn if she was their slave and Koåhn laughed a little, though she did shake her head. All that she said was, "No, A'ishah."

"You can be our slave if it is your wish to be," Yasmikha grinned a little hopefully, "but if so, then I hope that it might be a game between us all and no more than that. What we all would like is for you to forget that time."

"I know what you mean, Yasmina," A'ishah said quietly, "It was half my life and my mother is dead. But I am free now and I feel almost carefree because of my friends." She smiled to show them all that she was trying to shake off everything, "So I would do anything that I could for you - all of you for what you have done. There must be something."

Yasmikha looked down, her face filled with the mirth that she felt, "Well if you wish to be a real slave, then the only thing that I can think of is for you to give us all gentle massages. We sometimes get cramps here and there - especially Håkan and I, we are more muscle-bound than Zhaeri and Koåhn."

A'ishah chuckled a little herself then, the feeling of freedom coming to her at last. She thought a little of what Yasmikha had said and she found that she even liked the idea a little.

"For my freedom," she smiled up from one to the other of them, "I'd be happy to do a lot of rubbing, I think."

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The old man was asleep within minutes, and after a little more than twenty minutes, he began to snore softly.

Twenty minutes after that, in the darkened chamber, a scorpion emerged from the otherwise empty sack and it began to crawl toward the edge of the table. Finding no way down, it dropped to the floor and began to walk toward the bed.

There would be much wailing in the morning and a little wonder besides. The only men who'd gotten a look at the strangers or even knew that they were there at all were as dead as the old man would soon be.

And in the morning, there would be the dead husk of a scorpion to be seen and there would be no gold at all. There would be only the empty sack and some piles of sand on the table.

------

A'ishah had a little trouble as they led her through the rocks so that she could get onto the boat again. It wasn't that the path had grown any more difficult, she found, it was that she couldn't see as well as they could in the dark.

Finally, Koåhn stopped and picked her up in her arms. She was just as careful then, even more so and A'ishah found that she enjoyed the ride. Even so, she noticed something as Koåhn went to carry her inside.

"What ...? Where did everything go? I saw the little cove not a moment ago, now -"

"Zhaeri," she smiled.

"I hide us," Zhaeri nodded, "You cannot see the cove, and no one can see us in it. They see only the cove and nothing more."

In the close confines of the little cabin, they hung up their cloaks and sat as they ate and drank a little, telling A'ishah about the things that she didn't know from before she'd gotten to the doorway.

"I was so frightened," she said, "I didn't know a thing about it - any of it."

"We thought that it would go better if you knew nothing," Yasmikha smiled, "and the look of fear on your face was perfect, though it is something that we never want to see there again. We did not want the old bastard to think that you knew us. Zhaeri knew of everything which was hidden and she told me before of the things that I would need to say to that fool."

Zhaeri nodded, "He is dead now from a most mysterious cause - since this is so far from the desert. I had some time to think about the things that went through his mind before you were brought, "she smiled.

"When Yasmikha asked him for a price to buy you, he thought first of every bit that he got for you from your Spaniard boyfriend as well as the others who paid for you sometimes."

Yasmikha held out her hand, "Here, A'ishah. The only gold that he saw tonight was his own. Zhaeri only made it look as though it was ours. When I dropped the sack, I caused some to stick to me and he didn't see it, for his eyes were on the bag which fell.

This is a little more than you earned for him," she said as she emptied her hand into A'ishah's cupped hands - which were driven down a little from the sudden weight, "Sad to me that it is less than you deserve to my eyes."

A'ishah's eyes looked ready to leave her head, "This much? Yasmina, this is ... I could buy - "

"Clothes," Håkan suggested quietly and A'ishah smiled with a nod as she sighed, "I can have clothes. I've had the same rags for years."

She counted it out carefully and then sat back, "This is more than my father owed by more than half."

Håkan nodded as he pointed to her, "Cheated."

Yasmikha smiled, "I have more. My hands are sticky when I go to the market and play the large, silent hooded one. I make the shopkeepers nervous and they do not watch the exchange so closely with me. If they suspect, they say nothing, being glad to see me go.

You will need clothes, because we would like you to come with us when we go. You will need more than that, but we can help, A'ishah. We do not know for certain, but as we see things, there is nothing for you here and no family to return to - even if you knew where to go. Please come with us instead."

A'ishah looked up as she sat with the gold in her hands, "I would go anywhere with you. I wanted to before, but I always had to return to the brotheI. Just now, I was afraid that you wouldn't ask me and I didn't dare to ask. I am too small and weak to keep this much safely. Someone would just take it away from me sooner or later and ... and I want to stay with you all. I was a girl when last I had friends."

She shook off the feeling and tried to be a little light-hearted as she made a point of looking at the beds, "Surely by now, someone must need something rubbed, and I'm the girl for that."

They laughed, but A'ishah saw that Zhaeri was not laughing much, so she asked, "I don't know anything of how you could have done what you all did, but Zhaeri, I think that you played a very large part. What is wrong?"

Zhaeri looked a little pained for a moment, though she shook her head, "It is nothing, or at least, it is not much."

"Zhaeri is like our parents were," Yasmikha said, "She can feel the earth and the sky more than I can. I can do that, but I only feel what they say to me. Zhaeri has it much stronger. She can talk back to them, in her mind. She can do many things that way."

"Yes," Zhaeri said with a slight grimace, "but to make a force in one way, that is easy. This night, I had to do many little things at once while listening to the minds of fools. It makes my head hurt sometimes. I will be better soon."

A'ishah moved and felt the muscles on Håkan's neck quickly in an experimental way. They were larger than she was and they were different in some ways. She thanked him and quickly stepped over to Koåhn to do the same thing, though Koåhn flinched a little and smiled in curiosity.

Then she sat before Zhaeri and reached for the same place and her eyes widened, "Zhaeri," she said in shock, "you are as hard as stone here and even your brother's neck is not this stiff." She sat herself in Zhaeri's lap as she reached out for the muscles, "You need me first, I think. Put your hands on my sides or my hips and think to ease those muscles. I will do the rest."

As she began, Zhaeri groaned deeply and hung her head a little, careful so that A'ishah still had the room. "This ..." she sighed, "you are truly skilled. Ahhhoooohhh, Ahhuuuhh, A'ishah."

She lifted her head and looked into the Bedouin's eyes, "Such a little thing you are to us, and yet ... A'ishah, whatever little that you must weigh, your worth is many times that in gold for how you do this."

A'ishah lowered her head to look into Zhaeri's eyes and she smiled, "A pleasure to help you. Let me lean a little now so that I can reach my fingertips right to the back of your lovely neck."

She hugged Zhaeri gently - well, that was the effect as she reached and she found Zhaeri leaning forward against her, feeling so slack from the way that A'ishah's fingertips pressed in gently as they seemed to walk on the tightly-wound muscles which were causing the majority of the pain.

"Oohhhahhh," Zhaeri moaned, "When you are done - if I can even sit up, I will kiss you for this, my friend."

A'ishah looked at Zhaeri's face and she saw Koåhn looking back over Zhaeri's shoulder. She was nodding.

A'ishah decided not to wait and she opened her mouth and leaned in to kiss Zhaeri softly. Zhaeri raised her hands and pulled A'ishah a little closer and as she began to kiss back, they both moaned for a moment while Koåhn sighed and smiled.

When Zhaeri drew back, she found A'ishah giving up only reluctantly, reaching out suddenly to hold the orc's head still so that she could suck one of her tusks very gently for a moment before she sat back.