An Archaic Memory (2)

Chapter 2

The Search

NOW

Fien woke with a start. He groaned, shielding his eyes from the sunlight creeping in through the broken window. He lightly touched his forehead with the same hand. Ah Yes, he was still burning up all right. His head reverted its rhythmic throbbing to its original frequency, all the pain returning at once. He tried to stand up but only managed to collapse back into a heap. He shut his eyes again with a sigh.

This wasn’t going to be easy. But he had to get up, he had too many things to worry about. And a lot of work ahead.

He squinted at the heat, his eyes calibrating to the sunlight. He slowly opened his eyes. The bright yellow reflected off the grey of his eyes, which he knew made him look like a pale mummy with white slits on his face where the eyes were supposed to be. He had heard enough complaints about the eyes that he had consequentially reverted to coloring his eyes when he could, especially if the day involved any social interactions. Not today though.

He felt his arms and legs for bruises, trying to discern the physical pain on his long and lanky figure from the mental pain in his head. It seemed that he had escaped the brawl last night unscathed, although there was a soft pain in his left leg. He ignored it.

He balanced his weight over his hands and slowly got up, stretching. The heat felt good on his bare chest. He smiled. How long had it been since he had slept for more than 4 hours?

Here in Alarez, people yearned for sunlight. Most of the year, a storm would be brewing over the island and gloomy days were the norm. On days that did get some sunlight, the people spent their entire days outside. That would hinder his progress. More activity in the city meant more guards and spot checks. The people of Alarez were a suspicious bunch. They never liked outsiders. The local governing body was self-elected, with people being randomly chosen in a lottery. So, it was not uncommon for children to be on the council. To their credit, every child born in the city was expected to learn the ways of the Old in one of the most sophisticated education systems in the east. The system was unlike any other that he had ever heard of. In essence, outsiders were not welcome. In fact, visitors failing to provide verified documents supporting the purpose of their visit were often imprisoned. They also had a strict rule about how many days a visitor could spend in the city, but Fien knew he would not be here for long. He just hoped he would not be caught or imprisoned on the pretext of not having a valid purpose for being here.

He did have a purpose. He had a very demanding purpose. He had been tracking his sister, who had mysteriously disappeared about a month ago. He had been traveling from one city to another following a trail of missing men and women leaving behind an even larger slew of corpses. His smile faded at the thought, but he found some solace in the fact that each time, his sister was not among the bodies left behind. He knew she was alive. She had to be, for him to keep going.

The city bustled with energy below him. He was atop one of the deserted buildings in the older section. Although this part of the city was cut off from the newer, main town, the poor had occupied it. The buildings were not higher than two or three stories given the frequent storms and were densely packed together. The roofs were slanted at an acute angle with drains at their base to allow water to be collected and stored in the sumps underground. Wide pathways ran between rows of houses – perfect straight lines in the new town compared to the chaotic randomness of the old town. A long lake with multiple bridges running across it at multiple intervals separated the two completely opposite parts of town.

“We servin’ lunch at the bar downstairs, laddie.” Fien recognized the hoarse, country slur of the barkeep. The frail old man waved at him from the front of his inn.

Fien nodded his thanks and returned to his things on the roof. He put his only white shirt on and pulled his oversized thick black coat around him, letting it hang loosely from his shoulders. It felt good not to use it for once. He put his side knives into their holsters and carefully tucked them out of sight. Finally, he scooped up his bag and slung it over his right shoulder and made his way to the broken stairs of the building. He leaped across the largest hole in the stairs that had obviously been blown apart in one of the previous storms. Landing with a soft thump, he sighed. The pain in his left leg would be more trouble than he had anticipated.

The barkeep was not at the bar. Instead, he saw a pretty girl serving food at the tables in the large hallway. She was wearing a light orange rekalier* that stretched all the way to her feet. The shades of orange complimented her yellowish-orange eyes well, her awfully red lips standing out. She also wore a grey shirt that was almost completely covered by the rekalier that extended to her elbows. Her shoes were slightly raised, and her black hair was in a tight bun with a velt sitting at a crisp complimentary angle to the ground. When she looked up, she smiled at him and gestured to a table, bowing slightly.

He shook his head at her and proceeded to the bar partition. She followed him and walked to the barkeep’s table behind the counter.

“Nothing to drink, sir?” she said, in a sweet sing-song Alarean accent.

“Just give me some bread,” Fien said. “And a large cloth to carry it.”

The girl proceeded to get some bread from the counter, a large loaf of garlic, erote bread that was a well-known regular meal here in the north. She then wrapped the load carefully into a brown cloth, rolling it in tight circles.

“Your eyes!” she gasped, pointing at his face, and stepping back behind the counter. She knocked over a pot filled with water and it crashed to the ground behind her. Fien glanced at the light bouncing off the window at his face and cursed. A few people glanced in their general direction, hearing the disturbance.

“It’s alright. I got something stuck in them last night,” he grunted, covering his eyes and most of his face with a scarf.

Fien paid for the bread and grabbed it off the counter. He had overpaid for it by twice but walked out. Anything to get away from drawing too much attention to himself.

* * *

The air outside greeted Fien in a warm embrace. He kept the scarf around his bowed head but tied his dark coat around his waist. The buildings around him rose by another story or two as he walked deeper to the center of Alarez, their colors changing from dirty brown to pale green. After another few minutes, the green turned so pale and shiny the walls were almost reflective. The streets were filled, and Fien used the crowd to escape two check points set by the city guard. The clothing here mostly consisted of warm coats and hats designed to shield one’s face from strong winds. But today, in the warm weather, Fien could see the richness of their appearance. Only someone native to the place would be used to the brilliant colors the people donned inside the warm overcoats. He had seen the rekalier worn by the girl at the pub of course, and then there was the colorful sleeveless vest that men wore over their thick plain shirts, but the variations he saw on the streets was another thing altogether.

Men were clad in shirts of different colors, with a skirt-like cloth tied around their waist. The colors were well defined. Men wore either black, grey, white or hundreds variations of these colors. Their feet were covered in straps that seemed like they were cut out of boots and structured around their legs and reached halfway to their shins. It was surprising that they bothered with those bizarre boots at all, it seemed like they were walking around in their bare feet.

The women not wearing the traditional rekalier were covered from neck to feet in a single compact cloth that stuck to their form. Each of these long dresses was entirely of one of the female colors, although no two dresses adorned by different women were identical. They gave a faint glow in the sun at different points, as the women walked about. Some other women were dressed almost like men, in trousers and plain shirts, styled to their liking and colors.

As the center of the city drew near, the spot checks became more frequent, and Fien was forced to change his street more than once. It was hard enough to corner an unsuspecting citizen to get the information he was seeking without the entire population out and about. He doubted anyone apart from the council or the guard would be aware of serial killings in random parts of a city this size, but he had to try.

Fien quickened his pace when he saw the council townhall – one of the largest buildings around. The design was much more modern, with the ground floor consisting of smaller rooms and the floor above it was a single hall with no walls. The white marble pillars rose to extreme heights, with a slanting roof at the top made of a large marble stone. The front of the building had a large set of stairs leading directly to the meeting hall above the first floor.

The council meetings were open to the public, the mild summer being the time when they had maximum attendance. He could hear shouts in thick Alarean accent coming from the hall above as he got closer, the stairs brimming with people entering and exiting the meeting.

Fien avoided heading straight to the majestic stairs at the front. Instead, he slipped into a nearby alley and blended into the crowd, pretending to be a beggar who had lost his way. He fumbled through the streets with his head bowed, slowly making his way to the back of the council. Once there, he sat on one of the streets leading away from the town center. Every meeting ended with food being distributed at the back of the building. Naturally, a lot of people from the outskirts of the city were making their way to the back rather than bothering to attend the discussion. The Council members were expected to stay for the first few minutes of the ceremonial distribution and retreat slowly followed by the read guard. Nobody spared him a second glance once he sat there on the ground, the dirty clothes that covered him from head to foot giving him the much need anonymity. There, he waited.

“…. has not recruited new troops in years,” he heard a thick, oily voice of a woman from the council above. Fien saw she was seated at the long council table, gesturing towards a man on her right.

“That has nothing to do with our army!” he bellowed back. “Surely, we look after our own?”

He wore a bright green shirt, even though the men preferred a lighter shade. As far as Fien could tell, he was the only one on the council who defied the lighter tones.

“We have the best defenses east of Joltenrem! And we are surrounded by water. Honestly, Waqan, your arguments get weaker by the day” the woman retorted.

The man, Waqan, scowled. He opened his mouth to argue but a child held up his hand. The boy was sitting at the center of the long table and could have been twelve or thirteen.

“We stop this matter here” he said calmly. “We will now talk about storm shelters.”

The drums sounded around the building, starting from left and moving all the way to the right, in a semi-circle behind the council. It happened twice before the discussion resumed, the change of pace making it much harder to hear what the people were saying. Fien could hear a word or two in between, but otherwise, it was a low buzz of sounds.

As he waited, Fien had flashes of the previous day. He had spent the day looking around for clues but had failed to find any trace of his sister’s abductor. He had then made his way to the bar and had gotten drunk with the most well-known underworld gang in the city – Kotald and his men. They had not heard of any attacks, but it was not a total waste of time. They had agreed to help him in another way. For a price, of course.

Kotald had a large crew. That meant he had resources. He probably had ears everywhere in the main city. One of the crewmen had informed Fien to be at the feast this morning and he would find answers there. That was not much to go on but, it was his only lead.

***

After almost two hours, the meeting adjourned. The Sun had disappeared behind the clouds again, the gloominess of Alarez back. As Fien stood in the same alley watching the shadows of people around him disappear, he felt his patience waning. He could not see anyone from the crew here. What was he supposed to look out for? Would the men contact him here in broad daylight?

The Council had passed with their guard a few moments prior and other volunteers had taken up the task of distributing the free food to the poor. The line was steadily moving, but the streets were still crowded. A couple of fights had broken out in the past hour among those who waited for the food, but the soldiers had stepped in. Nothing out of the ordinary.

A boy tapped Fien on the shoulder and motioned for him to keep quiet. He gestured that Fien follow him and slipped into a tiny passageway on the right. Fien waited a moment and followed. The smaller alley was deserted. The boy was standing at the edge of the street, his face completely hidden in rags – not dissimilar to the way Fien had covered his own identity.

“What is it that you seek, outsider?”

Fien froze. The voice. It was the same calm voice that had calmed the heated discussion in the meeting earlier. The boy on the Council.

“Kotald tells me you are on the trail of someone. How exactly can we help?” the boy continued.

Fien managed to find his voice.

“So, you are on Kotald’s crew?” he asked, flummoxed.

“My crew. Please, I am happy to trade information,” the boy said.

The boy’s reply was curt. It was apparent that he did not wish to discuss about the crew or himself. He moved closer, revealing his face. The boy was short, with brown hair that extended to his shoulders. His eyes were a deep yellow and he had a small mouth. Underneath the rag, he wore a smart, dark overcoat.

“Alright,” Fien sighed. “I’m on the trail of an assassin. A frequent killer that has struck multiple cities.”

The boy didn’t reply right away. Instead, he studied Fien.

“And why would you think to look for him here?”

“He was last seen in Kellig. I believe he is steadily moving northeast with every strike,” Fien said. He refrained from saying killings. It would be prudent to find out what the Council knew before revealing all the facts.

“There have been no deaths in Alarez in 8 days,” the boy said. “Other than natural deaths, that is. No mass murders or missing people.”

Fien raised his eyebrows. So, they did know more than they were letting on. He considered the situation and made a quick decision.

“Well, if you’re already anticipating the deaths, you’re already prepared,” he said, smiling. “You know, I think I have overstayed my welcome at Alarez.”

The boy smiled. It was a cruel smile.

“I am surprised you didn’t realize the changes we have made in our patrols, Fien Oerengale,” the boy said, making Fien curse under his breath. “But then again, you have never been here before.”

“You do not know how liberal we generally are with our people. If there had been an attack, everyone would be made aware of the situation. We do not keep secrets at the expense of our people. You could’ve accepted the same answer from the inquiries you made yesterday, instead of handing yourself over to me. It’s clear you do not know more about these attacks any more than we do.”

Fien sensed movement behind him. Two men carrying small knives slowly approached them. There were two behind the boy. Another four men emerged from the buildings on either side.

“We appreciate your warning, outsider. Now, we wait,” the boy said. He turned on his heel and briskly walked away from the other end. “Do not resist, it is easier if you just give in.”

“Wait? Wait for what?” Fien shouted after the boy’s disappearing silhouette but he already knew what was coming.

So much for anonymity. The men made their move while Fien drew his own sword.