No One's Chosen (40 page)

"There is much I can imagine that I could not
yesterday."

Rianaire frowned. "You have the right of it, love.
But the man is practical to a fault. He would have some measure he
has assured himself was half as costly and twice as effective."

Síocháin shrugged and went back to her clothes when
she could not offer a reasonable argument. In the space of another
few minutes, she was dressed and made for the door. Rianaire
stopped her before she left. She kissed her friend softly on the
mouth and thanked her before she went. Síocháin said nothing and
left to see to their business.

Rianaire made her way back to the bed and found it
just as comfortable as it had been the first time she laid down in
it. The day was warm enough to border on uncomfortable and the sun
would be up for many hours yet. The sounds from outside soothed
her. Birds and dogs and people, all going about their business. The
past days had felt so empty, even before the attack. It comforted
her that there was life here. She was smitten to be unimportant for
even a few hours. Síocháin would return before long and they would
have a good rest.

She awoke some time later to Síocháin opening the
door. It had likely been a few hours, she judged, from the shadows
on the floor. Síocháin began undressing immediately as the door
closed. Rianaire sat up in the bed groggily.

"Did you…" she had trouble finding the words in her
haze. "The letter."

"Yes. And a meat pie that was more delicious than it
had any right to be."

Rianaire smiled at that and blinked her eyes lazily.
Síocháin was so beautiful, she thought. Perhaps they would just
live out their lives in this inn. It would be much better, surely.
A simple life of soft enough beds and delicious enough meals.

Síocháin came over and joined her in the bed. "It
will be a few hours, at least, before we hear anything. And I
intend to sleep."

The hours slipped away to sleep and the sun was down
when there finally came a knock at the door. Síocháin was out of
the bed to answer it immediately, almost instinctively. Rianaire
covered herself but there was no need in the end as the inn's meal
had been left at the door along with a letter.

"You had them leave the meal?"

"I did." Síocháin's reply was uncharacteristically
tired.

Rianaire swung at Síocháin lazily with a pillow,
letting it flop onto her own still covered legs. "You should have
told me. I thought I'd piss myself from surprise when you pulled
the door open."

"Devilishly regal, I dare say." Síocháin placed the
tray on the writing desk and yawned wide. She picked up the letter
and handed it to Rianaire.

The parchment was of a fine quality and sealed in red
wax swirled with silver. The seal was a limp cock. Rianaire had to
laugh at the stamp in the wax. To think the Treorai would receive
such a letter. It really was worth laughing over. She broke the
seal and unrolled the paper.

"To my friend,

"I am sorry to hear you have had trouble gaining
entry to our fine city. Certainly, as you have suggested, when
comfort cannot be found within our walls we must seek it without.
To that end, I have arranged for a measure of companionship to be
delivered to you. Should you require a more personal sort of
attention then I will be sure to turn midnight to an hour of dreams
come true.

"Kind Regards,

"The Finest Whoremonger in Spéirbaile"

Síocháin sat at the writing desk eating sloppily. The
dinner was a simple stew and soda bread, but it smelled terribly
enticing. Rianaire reached out for her bowl and Síocháin passed it
along.

"What of the letter?" Síocháin asked as the bowl
changed hands.

Rianaire put the letter aside. "It does precious
little to disguise his intentions but I can at least be sure that
it hasn't been tampered with." She broke off a piece of the bread
and soaked it in the stew. "Though if Spárálaí does indeed have in
his possession a seal in the shape of flaccid manhood, I reckon my
life is well worth the knowledge alone." She bit into the bread and
let go a sigh of utter pleasure. She had been so long without
proper food that her body had given up on reminding her of the
need.

Síocháin chuckled at the sound. "That good?"

"No. It's utterly plain and uninteresting and if it
were my last meal I would die happy." Rianaire sopped the bread
again and took another bite.

The both of them had been so hungry after that they
forgot to speak further and soon enough the meal was done. Rianaire
put the bowl on the floor and fell back onto the bed.

"We should sleep more," she said.

Síocháin took up her bowl and put it on the platter.
"Is there time?"

"No," Rianaire said with a pout. "Not enough. And no
one to wake us."

The hours passed with conversation about what they
would do when they found their way to Mion's Outer Crescent
brothel. He owned several and Rianaire was quite fond of his main
operation in the Inner Crescent. She hoped the location would not
diminish the accommodations overmuch. But then, she remembered, she
had been entirely enraptured by the humble bed beneath her.

When the hours had passed, the pair dressed in the
fresh clothes Síocháin had acquired and donned their cloaks. The
room's candles were snuffed and they opened the door to leave. The
lobby of the inn served as something of an alehouse, if a small
one, and was still vibrant with conversation as the hour approached
midnight. The noblewomen made it through without drawing any
attention that they noticed and stole out into the dark of the main
road.

The walk to the wall was silent, both Rianaire and
Síocháin keeping close watch on the sides of the street and even on
the wall ahead, not sure who to wait for, or what. When they were a
stones throw from the wall, Rianaire stopped, uncomfortable with
walking any closer. She looked overhead at the Eyes lurking just
past the zenith. This time of year, that signaled midnight.

She opened her mouth to ask Síocháin what they might
do when a soft voice came from behind her.

"Treorai."

She spun to see a small girl with deep red hair and
shockingly light green eyes. The hair's hue could barely be seen in
the dark of the night, but her eyes seemed to steal the light of
the moons and reflect it back. Rianaire found herself transfixed by
the beautiful young thing. She gave a slight bow and smiled
slyly.

"Welcome home."

Her ears came back to her first. Before she could see
or even feel much, she heard the sounds of birds singing. They were
incessant and shrill and made her angry. She did not know how long
it took of hearing the birds before she realized she was not dead.
It was the first proper thought she remembered, before that there
were only birds.

With her wits returning, she began to take stock of
what her body was capable of. If her parts could move, there was no
sensation to tell her as such. She commanded her brain to swing her
arm wildly but she neither heard nor felt anything. It was
difficult to keep track of time in her state. She drifted in and
out of consciousness. Or she imagined she did. One moment there
were birds and the sound of a muffled voice— a man, she thought—
and the next, there was the silence of a night with a few odd bug
chirping away.

She counted away the hours and the days as best she
could. When the fullness of a week had passed, she felt for the
first time. It was an alarming feeling, numb and imprecise. There
was the vague sensation of movement and she felt a passing warmth
at the back of her neck, like someone had lifted her with a hand
under a blanket. The feeling spread out down her back and up to the
top of her head. She was being moved somehow. She could not be sure
how, exactly. What did they mean to do with her? Aile screamed for
her brain to grab at something and swing blindly but there was no
response. Something cool passed her lips. She could almost taste
it. Fresh water? She was being nursed, she thought, and sleep
overtook her again.

The night came. Aile returned from the fog of her
healing to find her eyes had returned and her ability to smell as
well. It was an hour before the blur began to recede and the
details of the room came into focus. She was under a window in a
wooden room. She could see the head of the bed she laid on was
finely built and with her feeling returned she knew it was soft
enough as beds went. It was hard to be discerning, given the
situation. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a pair of
dressers and a tall cabinet. The room was otherwise bare, it
seemed. She was covered as well and assumed she had been disrobed,
though the feel of the blanket was misty at best. A desire to look
around the room proper consumed her.

Aile began willing her neck to move, even the
slightest bit. She sent the command over and over to no avail.
"Damnable body," she thought. She would not be bested by her own
vessel. Over and over and over she insisted that her neck move and
it resisted. She had lost all sense of time and concern for her
whereabouts. She would move, damn it. She would force her body to
comply.

Finally a muscle in her neck gave a twitch. She had
almost enough time to feel a spike of excitement when the muscle
contorted wildly and cramped hard. The pain was excruciating,
blazing down her neck and shoulders. It spread like a wildfire
across the top of her body, sending every fiber of muscle in her
shoulders twitching and spasming. With each minor movement a spike
of pain stabbed a different area as the muscles wrenched themselves
into balls over and over. Aile let go a groan she hadn't known she
was capable of. She would have to resist the urge to scream out
lest she wake her… captor? Rescuer? She did not know, but she
needed time to see to her body.

She was exhausted thoroughly when finally her body
stopped its fit but she found that she could now move her neck,
though the pain was still intense. Muscles that went without use
tended to wither and she had been utterly still for a considerable
span. Her body healing had no doubt sped the process a bit. Her
shoulder slowly came into use. Aile rolled her neck around and
considered the room. It had been as boring as the corners of her
eyes had told her. This was no inn. Neither was it a healer's
clinic or she would have been ambulatory much more quickly. There
were also no strange smells, she noted. Could she truly still be at
the house of the woodcutter? Had the elf girl survived then, as
well? Why would the woodcutter have helped her?

The muscles down the length of her body took it in
turns to twitch and cramp fitfully until it had reached the bottom
of her toes. Aile did as best she could to angle herself to bear
with the cramping as it ran over her body. By the time the last
twitches had gone from her toes, she was sweaty and panting like a
dog. Her mind offered a suggestion of sleep but she pushed it away.
Now wasn't the time. She needed to leave with all haste.

Aile pushed herself up in the bed, the muscles in her
arms screaming and threatening to seize with every inch she gained.
She swung her legs out over the floor and let them fall. She could
feel how weak she was now. Her stomach was empty and ached for
food, her legs were loose and only half responded to her
thoughts.

The Drow put her feet flat and stood. The pain
through her calf was unbearable and brought her back onto the bed
hard. Even the protests of her muscles had been something of a fog
but they became sharper and more pointed with every passing moment.
She was regaining her senses and they all seemed to want to kill
her. Understandable, she thought. She had not been so close to
death in a long, long time. A finger across her calf triggered a
burst of stabbing pain. The hole that the archer had put in her leg
had not healed fully, and would not for some days yet, she
reckoned. But the wound was closed well enough, she could tell from
the wet circle. She looked down at her stomach, pulling her breast
aside. The wound there had fared better though it hurt well enough
that she wouldn't have known without looking.

Aile forced herself up onto two shaky legs. The pain
returned but she forced herself not to fall back to the bed. She
would move forward, she must. Her head rushed as she put a foot
forward. The world became a spinning blur and her foot came down
shallow and sideways. The grey skinned woman fell to the floor with
a resounding thud, her naked body sprawling awkwardly across the
smooth wood. She could feel the hole in her side stretch and
threaten to tear. She stifled a groan when she heard footsteps
coming toward the door to the room. Goddess be damned.

The voice was muffled but deep. She could not make
the words clear. Even her fall had sounded queer in her ears.
Large, warm hands laid themselves upon her and she retreated into
unconsciousness again.

The sun was bright when she opened her eyes again but
her body felt better. Or, rather, it felt worse but in a way she
recognized. The chirping of the birds was clearer and her eyes no
longer struggled to focus. There was pain enough in her legs, but
it felt as pain should. The night before, though she realized it
only in retrospect, her pain had come as odd waves swinging from
dull to sharp and back again. The spots she could feel had jumped
around. Now, it was all where it ought to be. A dull ache that ran
the whole of her body with bright flashes around her more serious
wounds. It was an improvement. "I will live," she thought over and
over as if trying to convince herself. It was true enough, though.
The wounds would heal. Her keeper was an unknown. He had kept her
alive to now, but for what reason? It was rare an elf took the side
of a Drow. Especially one lying half dead beside the corpse of an
elf girl.