Of Bonds Forged Ch. 03

The sound of his voice instantly claimed their attention and they crawled to him, forming a semi-circle around him, again, not unlike a group of needy pets waiting on whatever his next words might be.

"I'm going to go look around and see what our new home has to offer, so while I do that, I want all of you to stay here and keep each other entertained." Before they could pout too much, he turned that off with but a few words as he made his way to the door. "Now all of you stay happy while I go look around. If someone comes and asks just tell them that and don't make any trouble for them."

They nodded and murmured their assent as they watched him go, and they would keep watching until he disappeared from view as they did when he had so much as hopped off the wagon to relieve himself. He turned as an errant thought popped into his head. He didn't think he'd be gone long enough to really make the words necessary, but, he thought it wise to give voice to it just in case. "Ladies, this is very important," he began, gesturing to the table against the back wall with bread and cheese and several pitchers of water. "If you feel hungry, eat something and if you feel thirsty, drink something. I might not be back for a while so don't forget and don't think you have to wait for me to come back to get my permission, all right?"

Once they responded eagerly, Kel made his escape.

* * *

He spent the next few hours touring the little oasis in the wilderness that was this place and he found it felt much like its own little village, which he supposed made sense given that it was some distance from the nearest bit of civilization and there was little if anything along the other compass points. Sale and trading of all sorts of goods happened in a makeshift marketplace in the courtyard. The uppers floor had everything one might want, from specialty food and drink that wasn't far from rooms where visitors could sample the flesh for sale, to gambling dens, to large rooms that looked like almost any other tavern he'd ever seen. There was even a tailor to make the goods they may have purchased fit. He supposed it was all necessary because, no doubt, some of the people this place served had no interest in showing their faces in society because they were wanted either from enemies made in the course of their trade, the law, or both.

Kel took his tour and looped himself back to the tavern and treated himself to a few drinks once he settled in. Old habits died hard so he staked out a table near one of the corners. It was something he always did in a new tavern. Living hand-to-mouth with what was on his person at the time led one to try not to draw attention as the new soul. He had his power, of course, but these people weren't the simple folk along the path. Figuring that most of them had power of all sorts, too, it was best not to test anyone. He nursed his drinks to the point that several had lasted him until the tavern's lights had been raised to mark the setting sun.

With his first drink, Kel relaxed and enjoyed his sense of freedom having been restored, and again imagined the avenues his life could take. By the time his last drink was in his hand the alcohol had taken hold. First, it had left him as a good drink always had, warm and relaxed. By the last, with his rational mind dulled by alcohol, that itching at the back of his skull was back, nibbling away at him, urging him on, to what, specifically, he didn't know. All he knew was that he wasn't learning how to use the gift here in this corner slowly drinking away the day.

In order to choose his path, he had to know exactly how to use what he had and he came to the sudden realization that the girls with him would be no help. They would already think what he wanted when they bothered to think anymore and do what he wanted just for the asking. By the Void, they'd probably hurt themselves or each other if he asked them to, not that he would.

His head tilted in something of a shrug. Yet, anyway. He knew that would be an ultimate test of limits and that could wait until later. Now though, he felt as though he needed someone new to work on. The simple country girls had given him much needed practice, but they were simple he needed more. His mind tingled at the prospect. Yes, that was it. He needed more practice. Maybe everyone was that simple compared to what he could do now, but he had to know and he wasn't going to have his answers sitting here.

And he knew exactly where to go to get it.

With the excitement of purpose he rose, careful to not draw attention and to casually look to see if he had drawn any. Kel kept that gait as he headed back in the general direction of his room long enough to make certain that he hadn't indeed attracted attention, and, once he was sure he hadn't, he made made his way to the nearest staircase heading downward and took it quickly and casually, as though he took the route every day. He quickened his step just as he passed the gates to the courtyard. He didn't expect that he'd come across anyone that would cause trouble a push from the talisman wouldn't fix, but why invite trouble?

He passed by a smattering of fellow travelers and employees, giving them exactly the greeting that he got from them, if any, no more and no less as he searched for more stairs or some other pathway leading down. Even though he was searching for a path, the way the light and shadows danced together in a gap between the doorways to two other rooms, he almost missed the space between that was a little wider than the width of a man on the opposite wall that seemed to mark a path. He was nearly directly in front of it and still missed it.

Deciding that was the point, he slipped through the veil of light and shadow and started down a path of polished wood that he followed as it wound around and down on the dimly lit path, that light coming from where he'd been and a hint of orange that suggested a lamp or torch ahead. The sound of his footfalls disappeared for several steps as the boots found dirt. Then he gasped in shock as the tip of his boot misjudged the rise in the ground as the dirt gave way to a raised bit of wood. He lurched forward and it took several steps before he regained his balance just in front of the next lamp on the path.

He took a moment to catch his breath and be grateful he didn't crack his skull before continuing on to spot an archway ahead with an iron gate before it. Hearing voices beyond, he slowed his walk to a cautious creep forward so as not to be heard. One foot softly in front of the other until he reached the doorway and paused before craning his neck to peer into the hall. There was a wall on his left, and to his right a dozen or so paces away an iron gate with two guards on the other side of it.

The hairs on his neck stood up with the realization and excitement that came with knowing that he was on the path to where he wasn't supposed to be. What, or more correctly, who stood between him and that path hardly presented a problem at this point. The power within the talisman and churned and roiled within him, anxious to be set loose in a frenzy. The itch at the base of Kel's skull intensified from the anticipation of using the power again.

That anticipation became action as the magic tried to come forth in a rush that made him shiver and made his heart pound in a heady, breathless mix of excitement and fear. It wanted to lash forth like a whip and it was all Kel could do to temper it. Kel felt his own ignorance of the power at this moment as he did when he first used it in the woods. He winced as he put forth all his effort to tamp it down from a whip to a cloud. He didn't need to control their behavior, only influence it. He could save the real effort for those he seemed firmly on the path toward.

The power seemingly grudgingly flattened into a widening and thinning from an erratically flowing river to a cloud. That cloud settled over them and he just let it do so. Ordinarily, he simply would have told them what would be done or what they would think and that would be that, but he feared his voice would call attention that he didn't want, and, indeed, this might be good practice.

Instead of speaking, he focused on creating images in his mind. He built the guards from what he could see, from the weathered brown leather that caught the light to the gold studs that held it together. He built the image of them in his mind until it was as clear as the one before his eyes. Then he built the key in his mind and a hand to hold it. He didn't know which had it and perhaps it didn't matter.

The hand in his mind took the key and turned in the lock.

The hand took the key and turned it in the lock.

Again and again with no result until frustration added tension to his body. Over and over again until the cloud darkened around the men as a reflection of that frustration and the power within him scratched at the base of his skull again, wanting out, and he was tempted to let it. He was tempted to let it until the guard on the left side of the gate finally stirred, turning to the gate slowly, key in hand, moving as if floating through a dream. They key hit the lock and turned with a hard click and then simply resumed his place on the left.

Kel grinned and proceeded down the hall with a spring in his step, sliding sideways through the door with aplomb to look at the two men staring blankly ahead, perhaps seeing something in the way the light played on the walls. He snapped his fingers several times at each in turn without a response from either. Pleased with that, he grinned and urged them to, "Enjoy yourselves, wherever you are." He took two steps, then doubled back just long enough to take the keys from the belt of the guard before moving on, just in case.

Down that hall and left down an incline, following the sounds, led him to a long hallway wide enough for three with with cells lining either side. The heady, floating feeling that came after using his power, especially with new people and in new ways, kept him from being particularly bothered by the sights he beheld, though with his conscience largely on the wayside these days, how much it would have bothered him anyway was debatable.

Cells lined the hall on either side either side and had anywhere from two to six women in them while the women themselves represented not only every corner of the known world, but every body type simply because, tall or short, thin or fat, or in between, there was always someone in the market for them, and he could see the appeal in each if not for sex, work in general. He could see something in each that he wanted and, when looking upon it the power stirred within. He could play with those big tits on one or test how those full pouting lips on another would feel pursed around his cock.

They all worse simple, plain gray dresses that had all the style of sacks with holes cut in them, and they were thin, probably to make the elements as much of an enemy as those that would hunt them for trying to escape. Their faces were mostly unblemished though some carried a hint of bruising, fresh or healing. And from the looks in their eyes he could tell how long most had been there waiting for whatever would come.

No one spoke and some looked away so as not to meet his eyes while some still looked upon him with venom, defiance, and restrained rage. They would kill him if they could, but how they looked at him didn't matter. If he wanted, he knew he could just take them no matter what and that felt good. The power was always there.

Then there were the others who looked away, hung their heads, or looked at him without quite meeting his eyes, not wanting to be perceived as challenging him. Some of the light was gone from their eyes, but not in such a way as to suggest it was never there. Those were broken and probably recently so, choosing to remain silent rather than incur more of the whip, lack of sleep, or whatever methods these people preferred. All had cuffs and chains around their right ankles with those chains linked to loops pounded into the walls. If the looks in their eyes weren't tell enough, the skin around the cuffs of those women broken in was largely unmarked. They hadn't even tried to get free.

The sounds of movement brought his attention to his right and his eyes beheld a most pleasant sight in the form of a woman alone in her cell staring daggers at him. The bruises she carried along her jawline and both cheeks were recent, but they had apparently done nothing to quell the murderous anger in her eyes of dark brown with golden flecks that drew him to look into them. Her lower lip was swollen as if stung and made the full lips that accented her small mouth look like something akin to a caricature. With short hair a dark auburn and fine features she was still striking and he thought that once she got cleaned up she might even be as pretty as Rianna in her own way.

"What are you staring at?"

He blinked at the sharpness and anger in her tone. Judging by that, Kel surmised that whatever she'd been through hadn't even made a dent in the girl's resolve.

"Just you. You look like you've been through a bad time."

"Looks worse than it is," she assured him. "Tell your master to bring in some real men to work me over if they want the job done. The old women he has working for him just can't cut it. Or are you here to try your hand?"

"He's not my master," Kel countered with some amusement, "I don't have one of those. I'm just someone who happened by."

She snorted in response, "No one just happens by this place. Are you buying, selling, or just here to get drunk, fed, and fucked on the way to wherever you're going because that's all this place is for. So why are you here?"

"Just seeing what's around," he told her.

She examined his demeanor. In her work, she'd learned to judge people and do it quickly. It helped in her business as a courier for a number of gray and black market business people, and it occasionally had saved her life. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of him yet, but the way he shifted his weight suggested that he knew he wasn't supposed to be here. "Well, this is what's here: women destined for parts unknown."

Kel looked at her, then back at the women in the cages behind him. "Why aren't you in with them? Why your own cell?"

She peered around him to see the icy glares aimed her way from those that still had the anger and courage to look at her. Others looked away and several simply didn't seem to care one way or another, lost in their own brokenness. "We wouldn't get along."

"Did you put them here?"

She peered over one more time just to make certain, "Not anyone in that batch."

Now he puzzled, "If you work with them, why are you in here?"

"I worked with them, not for them. I'm here because they want to move in to areas that are not theirs. What I know would make that easier."

Kel continued to puzzle, trying to put the pieces together, "You could just tell them?"

"I could," she agreed, giving the chain at her ankle a tug. "If I did, the people I work for would kill me, but they know they don't have to worry because, unlike some other people in the world, I understand what loyalty is. I have loyalty to them, so they have loyalty to me. I'm already overdue enough that they'll be sending people to look for me and they'll come here because I was heading here eventually."

"And when they find you?"

"There will be a fight; a large, bloody fight while they try to free me."

"What if they just give up on you?"

"They won't." She sounded sure. They might give up eventually, thinking that perhaps she decided she was done with them and didn't want to risk confronting them if she were one of those that was just too valuable in the moment to be allowed to leave. She wanted a future with them and they thought she held promise, but she wasn't so important just yet that they would call that a betrayal. Under ordinary circumstances, they might have just let her go until such time as they stumbled across her or she used what she knew to encroach on their business.

But they knew where she was going with what she knew and they knew who their enemies were. They would come here, and they would probably use her as an excuse to wipe these annoyances off the map. All she had to do was wait and hold out until they came.

But perhaps now there was another option. She grinned. "You know, if you got me out of here, I could take you to meet them."

"And they would reward me handsomely for your return, I take it."

"Probably not, she conceded. "I'm not important enough to pay an actual reward for. But the fact that you brought me back to them, coupled with my word that you did so, would be a basis for some trust; trust enough that they would make a deal with you for whatever you came here for. I can promise that my employers are far fairer than this lot, no matter what you're looking for."

"But I have everything I need here already, and I'm not sure I want to get involved with getting you out and all the things that come with that."

"I hate to break it to you, but you're already involved. You're new here, yes? I know because I've made the trip here often enough to know the regulars and I don't remember you. So, are you new here or not?"

"It's my first time here, what of it?"

"Did you imagine you were allowed down here? Did you imagine that the guards and locked doors didn't apply to you and you could just go wherever you pleased, mage?" She groaned in exasperation when she saw his somewhat shocked expression. "Did you think it was some secret? How else could you get down here without being seen or heard?"

He came closer to her, "What do you know of mages and magic?" He tried very hard now to keep his face a mask, hoping he might learn something that could help him.

She saw through the guise though. "I know of them and I know some, and that's more than most in these parts can say. You ran afoul of them? Did you poach someone's job? Are the guild's looking for you, outlaw? On the run and you find here, and you just have to come down and see what there is. Solos won't take kindly to that. It'll cost you. Better for you to just open the door, unchain me, and the both of us get out of here. My people won't give a shit that you caused Solos trouble. Pfft, they'll like you more because you did."

Uncertainty began to take hold. He had the magic, but she wasn't wrong. Being down here was its own kind of trouble. It was exhilarating, and fun, and confusing, and frightening. The latter struck him simply because he didn't feel like he'd gotten here entirely under his own power. Yes, he had the thoughts on his own and he remembered taking every step to get here, but it also felt more than a little...beyond him. It was like he just had the idea and rode the thrill of it here. It often felt like that now when he wasn't using the gift outright or enjoying its fruits.

Even thinking about using it and the promise of that rush could make him feel giddy. He felt it even now, mixing with the itch at the base of his skull to urge him.

Drive him.

Tease him.

She wasn't wrong that he didn't belong here and there might be trouble if he stayed. Then he wondered what the problem with that would be. He would bring them to heel just as easily as the little girls on the trail. But what if I can't? She knows from magic and so do these people. And in this moment where the driving, the teasing, and the urging at the base of his skull seemed to be giving way, at least for a moment, to greater lucidity, he noted that whoever they knew probably knew more about it than he did. Perhaps the wisest course was to get out of here and figure out the rest later. And perhaps this woman's connections were better anyway. He was, after all, seeking opportunities.