Farlander

CHAPTER TWO

Boon The foot prodded him again, more insistent this time.

'Your dog,' came the voice through the thin material of his blanket. It was female, and sour. 'I think it's dead.'

Nico forced his eyes open a fraction, so that a glimmer of early sunlight tangled within his lashes. Too bright, he thought, as he hunkered further into the warmth of his own body. Too early.

'Leave me be,' he mumbled.

The blanket swept away, leaving him beached in the daylight. He clamped a hand over his eyes, squinted through the crack between his fingers, to see the girl standing over him, her hands on her hips. Lena, he recalled.

'Your dog, I said. I think it's dead.'

It took a few moments for her words to make sense. He was a poor riser these days; mornings were always a sombre, unwanted affair, and he did not like to face them.

'What?' he said, as he sat up and frowned at the girl, frowned also at a sun that shone several hours old in the sky. Boon was by his side where he had lain down last night. The old dog was still sleeping, surely, but flies were climbing over his muzzle, his blond fur. 'What?' said Nico again.

He scattered the flies with his hand, and ran it along Boon's coat. The dog did not stir.

'He was like that when I woke up,' came Lena's distant voice. 'I tell you, we'll be next if we don't get some proper food into us.'

'Boon?'

The dog looked terribly thin in the bright daylight. Ribs protruded along his side; his spine was a sharp ridgeline of bone. Nico expected an ear to twitch, or maybe a sudden sigh inspired from some animal dream. There was nothing.

He lay back on the grass, pulled the blanket over his head. Then he rested an arm across his old friend.

*

The summer drought had hardened the ground, so Nico used his knife to loosen it before digging the grave with his bare hands. He had chosen a spot beneath an old jupe tree on a hill just to the south of the park, not far from where they had been sleeping. Gaunt faces watched him as he worked. More than once during months past, he had fought away people trying to kill his dog, people desperate enough to crave the animal's flesh. Nico had shouted at them and thrown sticks, while Boon stood snarling at his side. Now he glared at them defiantly, the mud on his face streaked with tears. I'll kill anyone who touches him, he swore to himself miserably.

Boon weighed no more than a sack of sticks as Nico lifted him and laid him out in the shallow grave. For a while he knelt over him, stroking his golden fur. The flies were gathering again.

Boon had been just a pup when Nico's father had first brought him back to the homestead, Nico himself only a few months old. 'A companion to look after you,' his father had explained when Nico was years older. Boon by then had grown into an oversized hound, and the two of them were now inseparable. His kind had been bred for baiting deer and bear; for coursing upon open plains and forested slopes. This last year, living rough in the streets of the city, with so little food, had not been kind to him.

It was hard, pushing the dirt back into the hole, and then covering him with it.

'Goodbye, Boon,' he said at last, patting the earth flat, and his young voice emerged as a dry whisper, lonely as the sky.

He stood up, placing his straw hat on his head, wishing he had more to say. Words normally came easily to his lips.

His shadow lay across the grave: a solid form, its legs parted, hands clenched like balls, its head made bulbous by the hat. Its presence turned the dry, upturned earth black.

'I'm sorry I let you come to the city with me,' he said. 'But I'm glad you were here, Boon. I never would have survived this long otherwise. You were a good friend.'

Nico felt subdued as he shambled, with his pack, down to the great pond. He found himself a space amongst the other park-dwellers crowding the water's edge. There he washed his hands to clean the dirt from them, though his fingernails remained embedded with earth. He had torn the skin around them with his digging, and for some time he watched his blood seep in small clouds into the murk of the pond.

Nico swept the water clear of surface scum, took his covestick from his pack, and scrubbed his teeth. He was aware of the rank taste of the water on his lips, like silage he always thought, and was careful not to swallow any. Sunlight blinded him. Way out in the middle of the pond, the sun glowered in a fiery reflection. For a while he stared at that too, long enough for his eyes to hurt.

Lost, aimless, his thoughts returned to him slowly, settling down with care. Just walk, they said to him. Get on your feet and walk.

Nico stood and hitched his pack, all that he owned, on to his back. The blood rushed from his head and he swayed for a moment, feeling nauseous and weak. Around him the park was choked with refugees, its lawns of yellowgrass long since trampled to bare earth, its trees cut to stumps that poked in sorry isolation from the ground. He placed a foot forwards, allowed himself to fall into the rhythm of a forward stride. It was without haste or even purpose that he picked his way between wooden lean-tos and patched tents stitched out of old clothing. He passed groups of dirty children, as thin as sticks, and men and women with blunted looks in their eyes, struggling to bear up to more than just the present. Some were Khosian by appearance, but many more were refugees from the southern continent, Pathians and Nathalese; or more recent arrivals from the north, from the island of Lagos or from the Green Isles. They were strangely quiet, for so many people. Dogs barked, of course. Babes howled for mothers' milk. But, overall, they saved their energies for things more important than talk.

Nico's stomach growled at the scents of their cooking. For two weeks now he'd eaten nothing but beggar's broth – hot chee with hunks of keesh bobbing in it. No one could hope to live for long on a diet like that, and already his breeches hung slack from the belt he had re-notched tighter just a few days ago. As he moved, he could feel his protruding bones rub against the coarseness of his filthy clothes. The girl Lena was right: if he did not eat properly soon, he would lie down and die, just like Boon.

Just walk, soothed his mind.

Nico pressed through the main gates of Sunswallow park into the district beyond. There, in the streets, people walked without hurry, chatting or lost in their private thoughts. Man-drawn rickshaws rattled noisily over the cobbles, bearing single passengers of every kind. From the south, Nico could hear the grumble of guns, just over a laq away.

He took off towards the heart of the city, in the direction of those guns, his loose soles slap-slapping against the cobbles, his head thrust forward. A few blocks later he rounded a corner and emerged into the Avenue of Lies. The noise was overwhelming, like stepping out of a deep cave into a roaring torrent. Shouting was more common than ordinary talk. Hordes of street performers rang bells or played flutes for small change; wind chimes strung across the streets clattered in the breeze. It was as though the populace of Bar-Khos wished to make as much clamour as possible, so as to drown out any reminders of the ongoing siege from their daily lives.

Trees lined much of the avenue. In one of them, on a bare branch that twisted and drooped its way towards the street, a black and white pica sat watching the traffic below. From habit, Nico found himself tipping his head to the bird.

The mere act reminded him of a different morning. Of the day he had left home for good.

He had seen a pica then, too. It had laughed down at him from the roof of the cottage as he took off into the early glow of dawn, his pack on his back and his head filled with naivety. He had disliked that particular bird about as much as he disliked senseless superstitions, yet he had nodded to it anyway, as his mother always did, and set his feet to the path that would lead him down to the coast road and, from there, a four-hour march to the city. He had not wished to tempt fate on that of all days.

That same morning he'd found that leaving home was hardly the joyous occasion he had dreamed about. With each step, his sense of guilt had grown ever sharper in his chest. He knew his mother would be distraught at finding him gone in this way. And Boon… Boon would pine in his own canine way.

He had gently stroked the dog as he slept on regardless on the old rag blanket beneath Nico's own bed, the hound being too old, by then, for early rises. Boon had whimpered in his sleep, like a young pup, and quietly farted.

'I can't take you with me,' Nico had whispered. 'You wouldn't like it in the city.'

He had then departed quickly, before he could change his mind.

Guilt had not stopped him from walking away, though, as he carried onwards down the path, it had struck him, with unexpected force, how he was facing more than just the groves of cane trees and swaying redgrass and the gently winding track immediately ahead. In front of him now stretched a great expanse of the unknown, a future that was daunting and without bounds. The thought might have been enough to turn him back there and then, if he'd had any suitable alternative – but he did not. Better to run away than remain in the oppressive atmosphere of the cottage with Los, his mother's latest lover. A scoundrel, Nico considered. A man he despised.

Nico had been sixteen years of age that morning. Turning the corner, losing sight of the cottage and his childhood home, he had never felt such trepidation and loneliness before then, such a bleak isolation of his spirit.

When he heard the padded footfalls of Boon approaching behind him, he had smiled within, despite himself.

Boon had appeared at his side, tail thrashing in excitement.

'Go home!' Nico had hissed without much sincerity.

Boon panted without concern. He had no intention of going anywhere that Nico was not.

Again, he had tried to shoo the dog away. His heart was hardly in it though. He ruffled the fur of Boon's neck. 'Come, then,' he had told him.

Together, with the day brightening, they had continued on their long trudge towards the city.

Nico now smiled at the memory. It did not seem a mere year ago. Rather, it seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. Change was the true measure of time, he had come to realize. Change and loss.

He was currently heading south, following the general direction of traffic moving towards the bazaar or the harbour. He did not yet know which destination he would choose; for he did not yet have one in mind. On either side of him, buildings rose three or four storeys high, drawing Nico's gaze upwards to rooftops overgrown with greenery. High above their chimneys, merchant balloons hung in the air, tethered by lines of rope. Wicker baskets dangled underneath them, and in one he spied the tiny face of a young boy. The lad was shielding his eyes as he gazed out towards the coast, watching the distant signal platforms for signs of approaching merchanters. Beyond him, the blue wash of sky thinned to white under the sun's blinding glare. Gulls wheeled up there, mere specks.

Nico instinctively turned left, into Gato's Way. The bazaar then. He wondered at himself and the unconscious choice in that. The bazaar held few attractions for someone starving and without means. Yet it was also where he and his mother used to come to sell their home-brewed potcheen once a month, travelling to the city in their rickety cart to earn what little money they could. Those trips had been the high point of his month, when he was younger; exciting yet still safe in his mother's presence.

A man pulling an empty rickshaw veered past him as Nico stepped into a riot of noise. The bazaar was a rolling mishmash of a place. Its great square, so vast that its furthest edges were obscured by smoke and haze, was open on one side to the sea front and the grey stone arms of the harbour, where masts swayed as thickly as trees in a forest. On the other three sides the space was enclosed by the shady porticos of chee houses, inns, and temples dedicated to the Great Fool. A maze of stalls stretched between them; people in their thousands jostled or bartered or perused the goods for sale. Nico, suddenly eager to lose himself amongst the press, allowed himself to be swept into it all.

Everywhere, colours shone sun-soaked in the heaving spaces. Nico swiped flies from his face, inhaled the damp reek of sweat, pungent spices, animal dung, perfumes, fruits. His stomach was on fire now. It was eating itself, and the rest of his emaciated body, with every step that he took. He felt dizzy, unreal. His eyes were interested only in the foodstuffs all around him, on the stalls already half empty of goods. Thoughts of snatching an apple, a stick of smoked crab, filled his mind. He fought against such thoughts, since he knew he did not have the strength to run if it came to a chase.

For a time, simply to distract himself from these rising temptations, he stopped in the lee of one stall to listen to some street traders singing out with gusto over the heads of the passers-by. Their melodies were pleasing to hear, even though they sang of nothing more profound than goods on offer and prices for the day. On a whim, Nico asked several of them for food in return for work. They shook their heads: no time for him. They were barely surviving themselves, their expressions said. One old woman, on a stall selling sheets of gala lace next to baskets of half-rotten potatoes, chuckled as though he had made some kind of joke… though she checked herself when she noticed his brittle gaze, his gaunt appearance.

'Come back in a few days,' she told him. 'I'm not promising you anything, mind, but I might have some things needing done. Come and see me then, yes?'

He thanked her, though this was of little help to him. In a few days he might be too far gone.

Maybe, Nico reflected moodily, it was time to go home. What was left for him in the city now? The Red Guard wouldn't have him; he'd tried more times than he could remember to enlist like his father before him, but he looked his youthful age and could not pass for being any older. And there was little casual work here in Bar-Khos. Over the past year he had been lucky if he had gained a few days' labour here and there, mostly on the docks sweating under heavy loads for a pittance. In between, nothing but daily desperation. There were simply too many people available for too few jobs. Along with the worsening food crisis due to the siege, it was becoming ever more difficult to survive here.

The loose confederacy of islands known as Mercia was still free, certainly, but it was effectively besieged by Mannian sea blockades, in the same way that Bar-Khos was besieged by the Imperial Fourth Army. No safe passage existed anywhere in or out of the isles themselves. Since every nation of the Miders had fallen save for the desert Caliphate in the east, all foreign waters were patrolled by imperial fleets. Only a single foreign trade route remained open to Mercia, and that was the Zanzahar run, as perilous a route for convoys as could be, hard fought over every day and with their shipping harried constantly by the enemy.

The blockades were slowly choking the life from the Free Ports and, as a consequence, many survived now on nothing more than the free keesh handed out by the city council, or what they grew on their rooftops or in small vegetable plots, or by resorting to crime and prostitution, or by masquerading as monks of the Dao, the only ones still legally allowed to beg in the streets. Or else they starved, like Nico.

At least back home he would have some food in his belly, a roof over his head. Besides, knowing his mother, by now she had likely thrown Los out of the cottage after finally opening her eyes to him; or, if not, then Los would have run out on her, no doubt taking everything valuable she owned, and either way some new man would now be occupying the place of his absent father.

Still, he loathed the thought of returning to his mother as a failure, having to admit he was unable to stand on his own two feet.

But you are a failure. You couldn't even take care of Boon. You just let him die.

He wasn't ready for that thought. He swallowed it down, blinking hard.

It was now almost noon, and the asago had begun to lift the canopies with its hot breath. It came always at that time of year, and especially at that hour. Soon enough the rising heat was driving many people into the cooler environment of the surrounding chee houses, where they might sit out the siesta in moderate peace and comfort, and compare business or play games of ylang while they sipped from tiny cups of thick chee. Nico barely noticed the heat, as he made the most of the dwindling crowds and struck out unimpeded for the south-west corner of the vast square where, like a great exhalation of relief, it opened out on to the wide expanse of the harbour.

It was there that Nico found the street performers set up for the day. They stood or sat in whatever spaces they had found between the steady flow of longshoremen that passed from harbour to bazaar. Many were packing up for the siesta, though the hardier – perhaps the more needy – were opting to stay on in spite of the heat. Nico scanned the jugglers and the tongue readers, and the begging monks seated before their bowls – fake monks, his mother had always claimed – until at last he came to a group of per formers barely visible for the surrounding crowd. He pushed closer for a better view of them.

They were a troupe of actors, two men and a woman he had never seen before. Without further thought, he squeezed through the crowd until he stood at the fore.

The play was a simple affair, the story of a poor seaweed farmer and his love for a beautiful witch of the sea. It was The Tales of the Fish, and narrated by the younger of the two men, himself no older than Nico, in that simple style of prose that was increasing in popularity these days over the long-winded sagas of old.

In a shaky, high-pitched voice the young man was recounting the story, while the woman and the older man played their parts in mime. It was obvious why they had attracted such a large audience. The woman, tall and lithe and wonderfully bronzed, played the sea-witch in appropriate costume, which meant she was naked, save for her straight golden hair and the strips of seaweed wrapped around a few select parts of her body. They were distracting, those delicate flashes of thigh and nipple, and kept snagging Nico's eyes as he tried to focus on the performance itself.

Nico liked to watch performers wherever he could find them, and he judged this woman a fine actress, whose subtle skills contrasted noticeably with her partner's lesser talents, which seemed few. The man was too pronounced and swaggering in his role, and few of the audience seemed to be paying him much heed. They were all ogling her flesh, like he was.

Nico was still gazing enraptured when a round of applause heralded the tragic end to the story – the seaweed farmer having swum to his death while pursuing his beloved out to sea. As the young narrator moved round the crowd with an empty hat, in search of donations, Nico found that his mouth was hanging open, and closed it with a snap. The actress meanwhile slipped a thin robe over her shoulders, and shucked the seaweed off from underneath it into a wooden pail. As she swept her hair back, she glanced around the crowd and caught his eye. Her gaze lingered.

A year ago Nico would have lowered his gaze straight to his feet in embarrassment. This past year, though, living in the city, he had gained more practice in meeting such glances, for he had received his fair share of them. He did not know why. Nico did not consider himself particularly handsome; even properly fed he had always been thin. And his face, whenever he had studied it in his mother's tarnished vanity mirror, had always looked strange to him: his nose turned up slightly at the end, he had lips too wide and full, his skin was freckled like a girl's, and, if he looked closely enough between his eyebrows, where once he had scratched at the childpox, he would see not one circular scar, but two.

In truth he did not understand why the actress's long-lashed eyes stayed fixed on his for so long. At least he was able to meet her calm appraisal for a while, sufficient time at least to be counted in seconds, before her confident gaze wore down his own and, his courage breaking, he looked away.

'You're blushing,' came a voice nearby.

It was Lena, standing right behind him in the crowd, her eyes narrowed against the sunlight. She looked pretty like that, without the usual frown cooling her Pathian features.

'It's hot,' he told her, and Lena's thin lips curled at the corners. With a tone of suspicion in his voice, he continued: 'I didn't notice you standing there.'

'I was following you,' she admitted, matter-of-factly. 'To make sure… you know… that you were all right.'

He did not believe that. So far, Lena had not shown herself overly concerned with the welfare of others. He wondered what she was after.

'Listen,' she continued, 'I'm sorry about your dog. Really. But we need to do something, Nico. We need to eat soon.'

He shrugged. 'They won't be handing out any more keesh until tomorrow. Anyway, I'm thinking it might be time for me to go home.'

'You don't really want to do that, do you?'

'Hardly.'

'Good, because I have a much better idea, if you're interested. A way for us to make some money.'

Ah, he thought. Here it comes.

She was standing close enough for one breast to brush across his front. That shocked him, physically, even more so because he suspected it was no accident. Nico studied her from beneath the brim of his hat, wondering, not for the first time, what it might be like to kiss her.

'Why do I have a feeling I won't like this?' he asked, his voice sounding coarse.

Lena swiped a lock of dark hair aside from her face, and spoke softly, intimately. 'Because you won't. But we don't have many choices left to us, do we?'

*

The asago rasped across the rooftops of Bar-Khos, bearing with it the fine grains of the Alhazii desert six hundred laqs to the east. The dust stung Nico's eyes and he squinted, grimacing, wanting to be down from here. He was not comfortable with heights.

Nico could clearly see the Shield from his rooftop vantage, and the Mount of Truth topped with its scalp of parkland, amid which rose the tall, many-windowed bulk of the Ministry of War. For a few welcome moments the breeze dropped, giving the sensation of an oven door closing. From the distance, he heard the regular percussion of cannon fire, followed by a scream, barely audible.

'This is crazy. What if we get caught?'

'Look,' she snapped from behind him, 'it's either this or I go down to the docks and lift my skirt for whoever will pay me. You'd rather I did that instead?'

'You don't even own a skirt.'

'Maybe after a few hand shanks I'd be able to afford one. You could become my pimp then. I'm starting to think you'd even like that – standing back, doing nothing.'

He sighed, and kept moving.

Nico had taken his shoes off, to carry in his hands, as suggested by Lena for better footing on the roof tiles. It worked, for sure, but the tiles were blisteringly hot against the bare soles of his feet. He was almost dancing across them. 'My feet,' he complained, 'they're burning.'

'You want to fall and crack your skull?'

'I want to get off this roof, Lena. That's what I want.'

She didn't respond.

They were working their way across the sloping roof of a taverna, three storeys above the streets of the city. The taverna encompassed two buildings, one taller than the other, and the remaining two storeys of the second rose up ahead, a wall of crumbling whitewash punctuated occasionally by narrow windows. Some of those were shuttered tight; others were open, flowing with curtains of fine gala lace.

Around Nico's feet, lizards sprawled across the hot tiles, casting ancient, baleful stares as Lena took the lead, her own eyes quick and nervous. She peered through one of the open windows, ducked away at the sound of voices inside. Crouching, she padded up to another, checked inside and rejected it, padded on to yet another.

Nico hopped from one foot to the other, the pain too much to bear. He slipped his shoes back on, wondering what in Ers he was doing here with this girl, wondering too if she had done this somewhere before. They were risking a public flogging if they were caught.

'This one,' she whispered, as Nico approached the window she had finally selected. 'Inside with you, and search the bag for a purse.'

Me? mouthed Nico.

'Yes, you. You haven't done anything yet but complain.'

'Lena, I mean it, let's go before it's too late.'

The scowl on her face tightened. 'You want to eat today or not?' she demanded.

'Not if it means going through with this business. Do as you wish. I'm leaving.'

She caught him in her grip as he turned to go.

'I mean it,' she hissed. 'If we don't do this, then I'm heading for the docks. Whatever it takes, I don't care. I won't starve to death like your dog did.'

Her words and grip seemed to hold him in a sudden spell. His stomach rattled, urging him on. He nodded dumbly.

She released him, offered him a foot-lift. He barely knew what he was doing as he gritted his teeth and scrambled upwards.

Awkwardly, he passed through the swaying lace curtains, trying to keep as silent as he could. His body trembled, and the whitewashed sill was warm against his palms. Inside, he lowered his feet towards the stone floor. His soles settled quietly, he straightened – then froze.

On the bed lay a figure clad in a dark robe.

Nico's throat made a good attempt at choking itself. His heart seemed to be causing such a racket, he was sure it could be heard by anyone within earshot. The figure was asleep, though, his chest rising and falling in a regular, shallow rhythm.

The man's skin was pure black. A farlander, decided Nico – an old farlander with a bald head and a tough, lean face etched with lines. And something else there, on the cheeks, glistening bright in a ray of sunlight that slanted through the swaying lace.

He's crying in his sleep, realized Nico.

Lena glared at him from the window. There was no way of getting past that face. Nico swallowed his fears and a sudden rising sense of guilt. He squeezed his sweating fists and stole across the room to where a chair sat. Carved from twisted driftwood, it was laden with a leather backpack. He reached it without causing noise. From the window Lena bared her teeth, her hand flapping in a signal to hurry.

It was a fumbling, sweaty business searching through the leather pack, and Nico's hands moved clumsily as the sweat stung his eyes. For a moment he heard voices outside the room, and floorboards creaking as someone walked past outside the door. That only made him work faster, till at last he found a purse, fat and heavy with coinage.

Lena flapped her hands again. The old man slept on.

Nico was just about to leave, when he noticed something hanging from the same chair. It was a necklace of some kind, though not a pretty thing fashioned with jewels or silver. This was distinctly ugly, with the appearance of a large leathery nut, and it was coated in something that looked like dried blood.

A seal, realized Nico. That old man wears a seal.

Almost of its own accord, his hand reached towards the pendant. Behind him, the old man groaned suddenly in the bed. Nico stopped himself in time, pulled his hand away. What was he thinking of?

He turned to go, and almost dropped the purse in alarm. The old farlander was sitting upright, blinking at him with strange folded eyes.

Nico felt his bowels loosen. He could not move. He looked to the door, to the window, and licked his dry lips.

The old man turned his head, looking from one side of the room to the other. It was as though he could barely see.

'Who's there?' he croaked.

Nico was past containing himself any longer. With six quick strides he was across the room, and clambering out through the window.

'He's awake!' he hissed as they scuttled back across the sloping rooftop, the lizards regarding them as they hurried from the scene.

'And half-blind by the sound of it,' Lena replied, moving onwards. 'Hurry up!'

Nico followed more slowly, focused on negotiating the tiles without slipping.

They reached the end of the rooftop, where it dropped a few feet on to that of another building.

'Here,' said Lena, turning back to him. 'Give it here,' she demanded, eying the purse in Nico's hand. He pulled up short, the purse clutched to his chest.

Nico did not want this money. Somehow, though, he did not want Lena to have it either.

She made a snatch for the purse, but Nico jerked backwards.

It was then that his left foot slipped out from under him.

He fell sideways, catching a glimpse of Lena's hands grabbing desperately towards him – for the purse, no doubt – before he slammed against the tiles in a scattering of lizards and expelled breath, and that was that – he was rolling and clattering down the side of the roof, all the way to its edge, where his legs swung out high over the cobbled street, a gasp in his throat and his fingers scrabbling for a hold that never came.

He fell off.

Nico screamed with all the remaining force of his lungs. His shoulder glanced the sign of the taverna, and his entire flopping body spun once before he continued plummeting face-down towards a canvas awning, hollering as he crashed through it, still screaming as the hard cobbled street lurched upwards, his arms throwing themselves over his face for protection as he smashed through one of the tables positioned outside the taverna.

Winded, Nico lay amidst the debris of awning and table, as chip-pings of wood and paint and fabric fell like snow all around him. After a pause, a fat old lady moved forwards to help him; other folk sat in shock with cups of chee still half-raised to their lips. Nico was stunned, unable to draw a breath. He could see his straw hat resting in front of him. He could barely believe he was still alive.

Of all the luck, though: the purse full of money must have fallen from his grasp as he slid down the rooftop, and it must have since been making its own slower, more complicated, though just as inevitable progress off the edge. As the old women bent to give aid the purse exploded on the cobbles right in front of Nico's face, its silver and gold coins scattering across the street in a horrifying riot of noise and sunlit reflections. The old woman clamped a hand to her mouth. Passers-by turned to stare at the scene. Eyes took in this boy, this fortune in money, this fall from the roof of a taverna, and within moments the cry was raised.

'Thief!' they shouted, with Nico still too winded to even move. 'Thief!' they shouted in chorus, as he flopped on to his back and stared up at the roof he had just pitched from, to see that Lena was gone, and only the sun remained to glare down at his ill fate.

In his daze, Nico was hoping that this was all a dream, a nightmare dream that he would soon awaken from. But a pair of rough hands were soon shaking that fantasy out of him. And, as he was dragged to his feet, reality impacted with a greater force than even the ground itself. Oh sweet Ers… his mind yelled at him… this is real… this is actually happening!

And then he passed out.