Here is part two of the story Holy Orders. The first part can be found here.
Pud led the way through the city, showing me so much more of Lutrethen than I had seen in the two days since I arrived. I followed him down avenues and up alleys. We ducked through narrow doorways barely big enough to deserve the name. Finally we ended in a tiny close with a grungy tavern at the head of it. The sagging door dragged across broken and missing cobbles as we entered the low-ceilinged, smoky room. If the outside was grungy, the inside was so much worse. As a devoted worshipper of Kellean, taverns of all walks were my temples but this one made my skin crawl instead of welcoming me home.
“Street Rat. Why you here?” The thick-accented voice of the emaciated bartender boomed across the almost empty room. Dull light gleamed off of his shaved head, mostly likely shaved to keep the lice away. Yellowed teeth like gravestones filled his wide mouth. With one finger, nail blackened by grime, he pointed at me. “Who that?”
Pud answered. “A client.” To me, “Wait here,” and he strode to the bar, for all the world as if he owned the place.
While they talked quietly behind the bar, I surveyed the establishment. Establishment was entirely too fancy a word for the greasy-walled, blackened-beamed ceilinged, dirt-packed floored room I stood in. No windows to let in sunlight or fresh air but that wasn’t really surprising. A single fireplace belched smoke into the room. A lone gentleman huddled near it’s warmth coughed long and phlegmy every few seconds. When a large black beetle crawled across the toe of my well-worn boot, I could wait no longer.
“Pud! We don’t have time for a social call.”
“Ma–, Lady. This way.” He led the way through the once white, now brown, curtain that blocked off an opening behind the bar.
Following him, I found the expected haphazard stacks of crates and barrels of supplies in the storage room and Pud disappearing behind a particularly wobbly stack against the far wall.
“Wait up.” When I tried to squeeze myself into the narrow space behind the crates, I discovered two things.
One, I had always thought of myself as a thin woman but there was no comparison to a ten-year-old boy. The hand crossbow that hung from my belt under my coat didn’t help matters any.
Two, the precariousness of the stack of crates was an illusion. If pushing through that space didn’t knock them down, nothing would.
“Pud, if you are leading me into a trap or plan on leaving me here stuck behind these crates . . .” I stumbled as the wall behind me suddenly opened up into a dark passage that snaked downward. I cursed when I barked my shin against something that clattered off into the inky darkness. “Uh, how ‘bout some light?”
“It’s that far.” Pud’s voice echoed strangely in the space I couldn’t see.
I put one gloved hand to the cool wall and moisture built up inside the leather while I slowly moved forward. Darkness and Jaydia do not mix. I fiddled with the silver pendant of a stylized goblet, given to me when I was dedicated to Kellean by High Priest Wynret at age twelve. A bit of faith and some words in Ullian and I could have light. Those words burned the tip of my tongue but pressure to keep my minor skills with magic secret kept my lips pressed together. I could deal with sweating palms and stumbling blind through an unfamiliar tunnel if it didn’t last more than another minute.
And that became my mantra. Just one more minute. Just one more minute. When I thought I couldn’t stand it any more, I turned a corner and a golden glow outlined another ragged curtain. This time the curtain hung in front of an irregular opening of an underground tunnel.
Pud swept the curtain aside and gestured to the interior. “Here we are.”
I rushed into the chamber, foregoing any caution in favor of escaping the clinging dark of the passage.
Like my writing? You can find a list of my stories here.
