The Mists of Sorrow: The Morcyth Saga Book Seven (64 page)

By the time Brother Willim makes his
appearance, James has the basics down and should be able to pass
himself off as one. Entering with his bowl in hand, he pauses a
moment when he sees James there. White skin contrasting badly with
the tanned areas of his body that had been exposed to sunlight, he
almost glows in the dark.

James can see how Brother Willim is trying
to fight back a grin that’s threatening to break out. “Go ahead and
laugh if you want to,” he tells him.

Unable to restrain it, the grin breaks
forth. “Sorry,” he says as he comes forward and begins applying the
mixture to his pale skin with a cloth. In fact, he applies a
coating to every square inch of his skin, including that which is
under the loincloth. “With this on, you’ll be able to blend in with
the other slaves.”

James stands there and endures it. The
mixture itself doesn’t have all that bad of an odor, sort of smells
like the forest on a hot summer day. It takes Brother Willim ten
minutes to adequately apply the mixture, and when he’s done he
steps back to look.

“That will do nicely,” Miko says. “You look
just like a slave off the streets.”

“Do I?” he asks.

“Yep,” replies Miko. “Now, let’s go back to
the others.”

James gets a slight panicked look at the
though of others seeing him like this, but what else can he do?
Face slightly red, he follows Miko out of the room and then over to
the room where the others wait. He hesitates just a moment before
entering behind him.

Every eye is on him and he feels very self
conscious. “Well?” he asks.

“Remarkable,” Aleya says. “If I didn’t know
it was you, I wouldn’t have recognized you.” The others nod their
agreement.

“Are you ready?” the young man asks.

“No,” he replies. “But let’s just get this
over with.”

The young man moves toward the door and
James steps aside to let him pass. “Be back as soon as I can,” he
tells them.

“Good luck,” offers Shorty.

As he leaves the room and closes the door
behind him, James turns to follow the young man.

“Just keep your eyes down and follow me,” he
says.

“What if someone tries to speak to me or
stop me?” he asks.

“One person isn’t likely to accost or bother
another person’s slave without their approval beforehand,” the
slave explains. “That would be a severe breach of etiquette. In
fact, depending on whose slave it is, there could be more serious
repercussions.”

Descending the stairs, James hears the noise
from the common room. In his loincloth, he feels very exposed. If
it wasn’t for the mixture Brother Willim put on him to darken his
complexion, he’s sure his skin would be beet red in embarrassment.
Stepping off the bottom step, he follows the slave as he skirts the
edge of the common room and leaves through the back door. He was
sure that everyone in there was staring at him, but having kept his
eyes lowered in proper slave fashion, he couldn’t tell.

Out in the street, he soon realizes just how
tender his feet are. Walking barefoot as the other slaves are, he
tries to ignore the rocks and other hard items that seem to find
their way under his feet with every step.

“How far is this place we’re going to?” he
asks.

“Not very far,” he replies. “Just down a
couple more streets.”

As he continues to follow the young man, he
glances to the people on the street. Almost unbelievably, not one
of them is even giving him a second look. He could be a bug
crawling on the ground for all they care. Growing in confidence
that he’s not going to be found out, he begins to relax. He even
grows accustomed, to a point, in wearing nothing but a
loincloth.

If this had been the middle part of the day,
the sun would have burnt him to a crisp. But seeing as how dusk
isn’t very far away, it kind of feels good to have this much skin
exposed.

After the slave leads him down one of the
side streets, he begins to notice that they are moving into the
poorer section of town. The streets are not nearly as kept up as
they had been where they came from. Also, the people on the street
begin to get a more bedraggled appearance.

Up ahead and to their right lies a narrow
alley. Barely wide enough for two men to walk side by side, it’s
wedged in between what looks to be a tannery and a rendering shop
where they separate fat from animal remains. The smell coming from
both places is appalling. To his disgust, the slave turns and leads
him to that narrow alley. Having no choice, he follows.

“Stay close,” the young man says as he
enters the alley.

Holding his breath against the stench of the
two businesses he’s passing between, James steps into the opening.
Several times during the course of moving deeper into the alley,
his bare feet squish into something soft and feeling very nasty. In
the faint light which illuminates the alley, he’s not sure if it’s
human excrement he’s stepping in or something else equally
offensive. He tries to control his rising gorge as he hurries to
catch up with the young man.

The alley grows lighter as they approach the
other end. James actually tries to hurry the young man along a bit
in order to get out into what he hopes is fresher air. As they
reach the end and step from the alley, he takes a deep breath of
air that is only slightly better than what he had to endure in the
narrow passage. He glances down at his feet but he’s unable to
determine what exactly he stepped in.

They’ve come out into an area completely
blocked in by the backs of buildings which are only one or two
stories tall. Maybe forty feet by thirty, it looks like what may
have been a plaza at one time before some of the abutting buildings
were built over it. Oddly enough, no windows are present in any of
the buildings encompassing this area. Only the alley from which
they passed through and a single door in one of the walls are the
only apparent ways out of here. It’s to the door that the young man
is leading him. Other than themselves, this place is deserted.

“This way,” the slave says to him.

Stepping in behind, James crosses the vacant
area. The slave pauses at the door until James catches up with him
then says, “On the other side of this door, say nothing. Even
should someone come to you and begin talking, say nothing.
Understand?”

“Why?” James asks.

“Just do it,” he replies. When he gets a nod
from James, he opens the door.

James follows him through and is surprised
to find a tall stack of broken pieces of crates, boxes and old
furniture no more than two feet before the door. In fact, the stack
is higher and wider than the doorway. They are forced to
practically squeeze out from the doorway due to the lack of room
between the door and the stack. Then the young man closes the door
and James is again surprised to discover that the door melds into
the wall perfectly, concealing the fact that the door is even
there. Whatever this place is, this entrance probably isn’t known
by too many people.

Without a word, the slave moves to step out
from behind the stack and enters a courtyard bustling with
activity. Slaves under the watchful eye of men are hauling crates
and other items from a warehouse and stacking them on four wagons.
The young man moves over to where two small boxes are stacked not
too far from where they entered from. He picks one up and motions
for James to do the same. Then he makes a circuitous route around
the courtyard and finally brings James to the wagons being
loaded.

Placing his box within one of the wagons, he
nods for James to do the same. Then they turn about and enter the
warehouse out of which the rest of the slaves are hauling boxes.
Once inside the warehouse, they encounter a man who is directing
the slaves in picking up boxes and crates to be placed on the
wagons.

No sooner do they enter the warehouse than
the man in charge directs them to pick up a rather large one that
takes two. Not hesitating, the young man does as directed and James
joins him in lifting the crate. He glances questioningly to the
young man and only receives a shake of his head in response.

Crash!

One of the slaves further back in the
warehouse has dropped his box and is now lying on the ground
holding his leg. The way he’s holding his leg and crying out, James
thinks that it may be broken.

Then from out of nowhere two slaves come and
immediately take the crate from them and continue hauling it out to
the waiting wagons. Startled by their sudden appearance, James
doesn’t immediately realize the young man has turned and is walking
quickly toward a stack of boxes sitting at the rear of the
warehouse. Seeing him moving away from him, James quickly moves to
follow. He casts a quick glance to the man in charge of the slaves
and sees how his attention is now fully on the slave lying with the
broken leg. From the set of the man’s face, he feels sorry for the
fate of the slave.

Half a minute later, they squeeze through a
gap between the stacks of boxes. Sidestepping, James passes through
and comes to a small cleared space between the stacks of boxes and
the rear wall of the warehouse.

Moving to a set of three boxes, two set side
by side and the third on top of the other two, the young man says,
“Give me a hand.”

James comes forward and the young man has
him grip the stack of three boxes in two specific spots. Then
together, they lift the edge of the boxes up. The edge comes up to
reveal that the three boxes are secured to the top of a trapdoor.
Once the trapdoor is raised sufficiently, the young man has James
pass through first. There’s a drop of three feet and then a series
of steps leading down into darkness.

James hops down onto the steps and holds the
trapdoor open while the young man hops down beside him. Together
they lower the trapdoor and are plunged into darkness. James has an
urge to create an orb, but resists it. The last thing he wants to
do is to let whoever is down here know what he’s capable of.
Keeping that information secret has proved beneficial on several
different occasions.

Once the sound of the young man moving down
the steps comes to him, he slowly follows. Step by step, he
descends ten steps before coming to a narrow passage. Keeping a
hand on one wall as a guide, he walks forward, all the while
allowing the sound of the young man’s footsteps to lead him.

“Where…?” he begins when the young man’s
voice says cuts him off with “Keep quiet!” So keeping quiet, he
continues to follow him. At one point, the passage they are in
makes a sharp turn to the right. James didn’t realize it quickly
enough and wound up stubbing his toe on the wall in front of
him.

“Shhh!” the young man whispers when James
began cursing his throbbing toe.

After that, he kept one hand out in front of
him as well as the one to the side. A good thing he did for it
saved his toes another stubbing when the passage abruptly curved
back to the left. A faint light can now be seen coming from further
down this new passage. It steadily grows brighter as they move
toward it until James recognizes that the light is making its way
through the cracks around a door.

He quickens his pace when he sees the young
man is already at the doorway. Light floods the passage as the door
is opened and he has to squint for a few seconds until his eyes get
readjusted to the light. Moving out of the passage, James enters
what appears to be an ordinary cellar beneath some building.

Two other men are in the room, both dressed
as slaves. One of them is the same slave as Scar and Potbelly had
nabbed keeping an eye on them in the hallway outside their
room.

“Go on in,” the slave says to the young
man.

Without a word, the young man steps toward
the opening on the far side of the cellar. An archway separates the
room they are in with the one lying on the far side. Many candles
are lit within the next room and as James passes through the
archway, he sees a middle aged man lying on a series of cushions
upon a rug on the floor.

“I brought him,” the young man says to the
other.

“Leave us,” the man on the cushions
says.

Bowing to him, the young man backs out
through the archway.

Indicating a cushion sitting on the floor
near him, the man says, “Please be seated.”

“Thank you,” replies James. Moving to the
cushion, he settles down on top of it.

“It’s not often I have guests here,” the man
tells him. Lifting up a plate bearing slightly squishy sliced fruit
that’s turning brown, he offers it to James.

Really not wanting any of the old fruit, yet
not wishing to offend his host, he takes one. Placing it in his
mouth, he chews it and can taste the slight rancidity of spoiled
fruit. “Thank you,” he says as he tries to swallow without spewing
it back up again.

The man smiles and nods. “A pleasure to meet
one such as you,” he says.

James arcs an eye questioningly at him. “Oh,
I know who you are,” he explains. “James I believe your name is.
And a mage of some power.”

James eyes him suspiciously and remains
silent.

“Oh you needn’t try to hide the fact,” he
says. “But who you are doesn’t really matter now does it? You
wanted some information I believe?”

“Who are you?” James asks.

“Ah, that is a question many would like to
know,” he replies. “Suffice it to say that I am the
Slavemaster.”

“Slavemaster?” asks James.

“More of a title than a profession really,”
he says.

“I see,” says James.

Without expanding any further on who he is,
the Slavemaster says, “I understand you are planning on entering
the temple here in Zixtyn.”

“That’s right,” he says. James is more at
ease now. Seeing as how the man knows him and has yet to either
dispatch him or turn him in, he doesn’t feel there is any immediate
threat.