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As Mi pushed her way into the front cart through the cloth barrier, she felt a strange chill wash over her. For a moment, she felt her movement being resisted by the air, as if underwater. She could have sworn she smelled the ocean air, and could feel ghostly tides pulling at her clothes. She shouldn’t have drank that flask.
When she shook her head and looked around, the front cart was rather normal, and smelled like sunburnt leather and horses- as well as the ever-pervasive stench of old alcohol. “Homesick much, Spider?” Mi grumbled to herself as she shook her head free of the last clinging threads of phantom ocean. “You’re not on Terre anymore. There’s no water here.”
The floor was scraped and well trodden, and reinforced with strips of light grey stone. At the far end of the wagon, a torch worked its weak flame in an iron cage, held on a haphazard stand. It wobbled next to the entrance to the wagon, which was a dozen heavy strips of leather dangling in front of an opening, with small, bronze bells and painted, ceramic beads hanging off of them. Mi looked around, but the wagon was bare except for the dozen crates stacked into the corners of the room, three chairs set in a circular fashion in the center, and the flattened hide of a snow bear, whose empty eyes and snarling jaws faced towards the entrance. The bear’s pelt ran down the entire length of the cart, nearly four to five yards long. Mi shuddered to think of how large the beast would have been in life, and of what crimes this bastard must have done to buy such a thing. Real crimes, too. Not just stealing, but pillaging. Mi wasn’t sure of the difference, but she knew there definitely was one, and she was the better person for only ever stealing.
As she looked around the room’s walls, her eyes passed small baubles and dozens upon dozens of tapestries that leaned in towards her. The paintings were inscribed with grey or black ink, depicting scenes of horses riding across the oceans or what appeared to be a crude portrait of the Coralla man who commissioned them, all with black eyes on harsh, white leather canvas.
Mi’s jaw tightened, and she felt a strange anxiety entering the cart. Maybe she’d feel better taking one of the paintings? No, Mi, no! Don’t get distracted. The young bandit chided herself as she crept forward, using languid, cautious slides of her padded sandals. When they caught on a tile, and the thief stumbled with a shaking, and foreboding jingle. She realized that the cart inclined downwards towards the entrance, and she stepped hard on a stone tile to prevent falling. Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt the tapestries of Yvrik glowering down at her accusingly. She had blown it, he would come crashing in any moment, with his monster in tow!
Her heart beat against her chest for a few deep moments, but nothing happened. Damn Coralla. She swore to herself quietly as she made her way back down the slanted wagon. Why can’t you just live in a damn house, instead of these glorified wheelbarrows.
As Mi approached the chairs, she veered towards the black one with red beads studding its sides and back. It had a high back and large claws adorning the hand rests- which she realized must have come from the bear she was treading on- and seemed to loom slightly taller than the other two, brown leather chairs. Mi nearly stepped up to it before looking down and shuffling back slightly. A steady sheet of yellow sand had accumulated on the back of the bear rug, seeping in from the front of the door, and the thief had almost imprinted her sandal onto it. Mi softly stepped around it in a wide circle, to the back of the chair, but frowned as she looked at it. On the sand, which must shift often enough to only record recent passings, she saw only the wide boot prints of a single man exiting the wagon. But there were no more tracks, such as the silent creature she had seen before. Had he been talking to a spirit? The idea crawled down Mi’s spine, even as she inspected the chair.
Easily enough, beneath the black leather, Mi felt half a dozen small boxes piled together. She also felt the hilt of a dagger tied on the chair’s underside. Pulling each of the boxes out, Mi was consecutively surprised by their increasing opulence. Several of the smaller, fist-sized boxes were emblazoned with semi-precious jewels that glimmered in the inconsistent torchlight, while some were larger, wooden crates that held heavy blocks of material. They were all locked with iron, intricate tumbler locks. Finally, Mi pulled out a long, thin wooden box that was intricately decorated with long, spiraling calligraphy that- while entirely foreign to the Zanrush and Dunespeech that Mi could read- had a strangely oily reflection off of its grey ink. Cristagin. Mi’s mouth gaped beneath her mask. She had only seen a box this heavily warded once before, and that was when she was stealing an incredibly valuable item. This had to be it.
Mi tugged to open the box, but felt the expected resistance of a lock. After a few moments, her probing fingers found the brass mechanism and, in a swift, practiced motion, she played with its intricate tumblers using a few hidden tools. She closed her eyes, listening for the tumblers inside, and her hands worked almost without her own command, four small, intricate steel picks flashing by the lock as she prodded and tested the lock. The rhythmic tics of the tumbler’s pins underpinned the chaos of the sandstorm, until Mi suddenly jammed a worn, iron wedge into the lock and twisted, her eyes darting open. The box was open.
The black shroud of Mi’s face hovered over it. She pulled out a corked vial of grey cristagin, three golden coins, and the logbook. It was as she had been told- an unassuming, red book, bound in yellow wire and sealed with the Justic crest of crossed daggers. Mi smiled as she pocketed the gold and took the heavy book, wrapped it beneath her cloak, and began to shuffle everything back to where it had been. Now to just make our escape. She thought as she slid the last box in place.
As Mi shuffled back towards the purple curtain that divided the linked wagons, a buffet of sea air slammed her in the side of the head, and her breath faltered. Her feet fell over themselves, and she felt herself stumble slightly. Her jaw clenched as she tasted brine, and then blood. She was drowning and gasping air and drowning again, deep beneath the ocean, lost, cold, crushed.
Then, she took her next step, and the flood of emotions tore away like spiderwebs. What the everloving fuck was that? Mi could still smell the sea as she shook her head. Her hand drifted to her blade’s hilt, but even as she thought the words the drowning sense dissipated.
Run now, little spider. It has caught your scent.
Mi’s blood ran cold. She hadn’t thought that phrase, but it reverberated around her mind like a gong. Who are you? Mi thought, sliding forwards as she did so.
Run now. It repeated, in clear response.
Mi shivered as she heard the voice again. It was a child’s voice, but it rasped through a murky cloud of sickness. It had a strange accent that drew out the centers of his words, and it seemed to be fading away. Why should I trust you? Mi responded suspiciously.
Friend of Adventurer Maishan. Please, The grating voice was fading into a whimper, until the last word was little more than a ghostly whisper lost to the ringing of silence. Run...
Maishan? Do you mean Sel? Mi’s thoughts were reeling, but she noticed that her panic did not seem to bleed into her mental voice. How do you know that name? Who are you? What am I running from?
The voice, whoever it was, gave no response, and Mi felt its presence slip away as the sea water was replaced by the usual scents of the wagon. Breathless and terrified, Mi swiftly stepped into the back room, and felt that the voice was right.
Mi drifted into the back wagon to find that Ren had positioned herself on her knees about a yard away from the bed, her veil intently staring towards the wall. The slave woman had donned Ren’s black cloak and a nearly translucent, grey shroud around her head, and had been fastening a pair of delicate, hide sandals when Mi stepped back through. Both women looked up after a delayed moment, jumping at Mi’s sudden presence.
Ren perked up, then spoke instinctively in quick Zanrush. “Do you have it?”
Mi brought two fingers to the air beside her head, a Zandai sign of confirmation. The younger thief shuffled over quickly, next to the slave woman, who began to hastily tie the long threads of her sandals around her heel, instead of lacing them up her legs as they were intended. She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows as she looked Mi up and down. “You are scared.” She whispered, almost to herself. “Not safe?”
“What? No, no, of course it’s safe.”
“Liar.” The woman punched the word softly into the air as she moved to the small cot beside the bed. She fished around for a while, and eventually pulled out a sash of silken cloth with a small pouch affixed to it. “We go?” She asked excitedly as she threw the sash over her shoulder.
“Yes, soon.” Ren replied, beckoning her sister over. When they had huddled together, Ren sighed, then spoke in soft Zanrush again. “What are we going to do with her?”
Mi blinked. “We’ll figure something out.” She replied, surprised. She fidgeted with the bandolier straps at her chest. “Ren, I think we need to go. Now.”
Ren cocked her head a bit. “Go? She’s barely ready, and we don’t know where to take her.”
Mi shook her head. “We can talk about this later, I feel-” Ren put her hand up, interrupting her sister.
“Don’t talk so loud.” She said, but her words drifted off as she realized that she sounded much louder too. “What is this?”
“Storm.” Both looked over to the woman, whose horrified eyes were glistening with tears. “Storm has gone.”
The two thieves looked around, and realized that the perpetual din of the sandstorm had halted. Only a faint echo of the wind-tossed noise piercing the sudden bubble of silence, as if it were leagues away. Then, the leather door jingled ominously, and the torch died in the other room. They were bathed in sudden darkness.
The stifling scent of rotting kelp and beached fish assaulted the three stunned outlaws. A croaking voice pulsed through the wagon. “Sneaking… little… rats. Stealing… mine.”
The final word drew out an electric shock of fear in the thieves, and Ren felt herself black out for a moment, the evil word pinching her mind like a vice. She turned to Mi and the ex-slave, who both held their heads in shock. “Get to the horses.” Ren jabbed her finger to the half-open dust door that they entered through, drawing her longsword. “I’ll catch up. Go!” Ren cried as she burst through the purple curtains, raising her blade high and slashing blindly into the darkness. The muffled shearing of her steel on cloth confirmed the presence of some creature beyond, and the gurgle of pain that followed was bone-chillingly unnatural.
Mi started, and grabbed the wrist of the petrified woman beside her, dragging her towards the trap door. The woman nodded panickedly as Mi ushered her down through it, then checked to see Ren’s darkened silhouette slashing against several black tendrils that struck at her like whips from the other, shadowed room. Ren hacked at them, then leapt back. The bed creaked beneath her sword-dancing, but she held her ground. At least for now.
Mi held her breath as she saw Ren fight the alien thing. Shi shishaba, sister. She prayed briefly, then dove out the trapdoor.
Wriggling through the dust and dirt, with their escapee already pulling herself to her feet a short distance away, and Mi felt the pounding of feet on the leather floor above her. Something shattered loudly as the young thief pulled herself out, and Mi winced at the sound of a cracking beam to the hooded wagon. There goes our stealth. She thought as she shook her head to clear away the dust, then realized none came off. What? Her question trailed off as she saw a curved wall of sand moving upwards to make an encapsulating dome around the linked wagon. The sand barrier twisted like a kaleidoscope, and it was so heavily pressed against some invisible wall that it was completely opaque to the barrier of the outside world. Mi’s breath puffed out in cold clouds. So cold? In low summer. The thief’s thoughts were racing, and the shaking wagon behind her punching notes of worry into her. She moved forwards, and pressed her hand against the wall of sand, feeling a liquid, freezing resistance. When she pulled her hand away, it was lightly covered in flaking ice. Magic. It was all she could think. If only she had Sel with her, then she might know how it worked.
“Eve-anre.” Mi turned to see the older woman leaning down to the barrier, pushing the freed masses of wild hair from her face. She still spoke in a quiet whisper. “‘Cold-singer’, in Dunespeech.” She explained. She placed a thin finger into the sand wall, and yelped as she pulled it away again, cradling it to her chest. “It sings cold. Sand dances. Jus yaria.” A steel mask formed over her face. “Formless whore. Trapped me again.”
“Cold-singer?” The young bandit furrowed her brows, untying the blue string which wrapped around her hair braid behind her veil. It seemed to shimmer with a dull glow in the low moonlight that filtered through the inconsistent sand-wall. The cart rocked and a heavy object slammed to the ground inside. Canvas tore loudly. Unsteady flickers of light floated from the top of the sandy dome they were trapped in, and the wall of sand seemed to move back and forth in a jagged movement. Every time it moved, it did so with a ghostly gust of wind around it that dulled all noise coming into it- and, Mi now hoped, going out.
Feeling the cold tinge of air, realization slammed into her. “A sand-shifter!” The words escaped her louder than she had anticipated, and she sheepishly covered her own mouth with a cold hand.
The older woman’s gaze held no recognition. “Yes?” Her agreement stilted into a question.
“A mercenary order of grey warlocks, who train in pairs. They murder each other when they start becoming Nightmares…” Mi recounted Sel’s explanation aloud, not for the woman’s benefit, who she knew would lose the meaning of most of the foreign words, but to try and refresh herself on all she knew. “They manipulate wind and throw up sand, knock their targets off-balance, cover their voices or throw words. Their magic is based on grey frost, and they can fight longer than most mages. If one escaped the order before they began to transform-” Mi caught her breath when she heard the woman gasp sharply beside her.
When the young bandit turned her head, she saw a leather section of the wagon’s hood bulge outwards, the iron hooks that held it to the bottom of the cart snapping. She saw the outline of Ren’s legs hit the ground beside the cart with a solid thud. Mi stepped in front of the ex-slave, up to the side of the wagon, wrapping the shimmering blue thread around her right fist. Gusts of wind caused the untethered flap to fly horizontally, leaving a dark view into the inside of the wagon, and the formless being that stood within it.
Light flickered from the misty stars and moons above, each illuminating the thing that was once a warlock. She was wreathed in dark green desert wrappings studded with organic, orange bulbs that seemed woven into its cloth straps. She drifted silently to the edge of the cart. The skin on her face was deathly white, like paper, the mark of a grey warlock, and her black hair shot wildly from her scalp. Mi’s breath quickened as her gaze caught the brown eyes of the Nightmare the sand shifter had become.
A line of yellow teeth sheared the monster’s face in a confident grin. “Little… rats.” She breathed out raspily, as if winded from the effort of each syllable. “Stay… a while.”
Suddenly, she exhaled a great breath, weaving it into a wavering, inhuman screech that pitched wildly. As she sang the strange notes, two strands of dark green cloth seemed to animate and shoot out from her back, arcing towards the shocked Mi. The bandit leapt back and twisted her body away, a whir of air signaling her evasion of the first thread. But as she landed on her feet, a vice snapped onto her neck. The air caught in her throat, held by a cold numbness. Mi felt her feet float off the ground as the strand of freezing cloth wriggled and pulled her up by her neck towards the mercenary mage. Mi squirmed and kicked. The freezing wind scraped across her ears. She placed a warding hand between her neck and the cloth, and although her knuckles ground into the side of her neck, she managed to suck in a sandy breath.
Mi arched a glance down, past the choking tendril. The once-warlock held one gloved hand up towards Mi, twisting her fingers and snaking her arm back and forth as she maintained the binding wind. The other hand worked in tandem with her jerkily dancing legs, cutting wide, esoteric gestures towards where Ren stood. Two similarly green tendrils harried her with alien jabs- grasping, boneless, and lethal. The older bandit sidestepped a lasso, then ducked below the crack of a whip. She fell into a forward roll as a green snare circled her legs, tightening around nothing. Suddenly, her steel blade arced skywards. The wind-borne snakes shot away like ribbons, the sand strider exhaling deeply as she commanded her weapons back to her. Even so, one cut cleanly in half, and the wind that once animated it sent it whizzing through the air without its tether. Slamming against the wall of freezing sand, the arcane cloth tore to pieces.
“Islander… bitch.” The Nightmare’s breath now came in ragged heaves as she stepped back into the shadows of the wagon and disappeared. “Come… and fight.”
Mi rolled backwards in a practiced tumble as she hit the ground, the green tendril which held her snaking its way back into the hooded wagon. She rubbed her bruised neck, noticing the sand wall around them faltering and letting in spurts of yellow-white dust. Though grey warlocks can sustain their magic for a long while, Mi recalled, accepting the escapee’s arm as she stood unsteadily, she has been casting multiple wind techniques for almost a minute now. Even as a Nightmare, she must be nearing her limit on shi leva. She cannot win this fight like this…
Ren began to step forwards, a calm fury fueling her steps. She cut the air with a simple flick of her wrist, causing dust and sand to fling off of her longsword in a practiced movement. “This is a trap.” She said in Zanrush to Mi, even as the words were forming in Mi’s mouth. “But I’m going to spring it. When I make an opening, you two run through the barrier.”
Both Mi and the escaped woman looked in astonishment. “That’s idiotic!” Mi sputtered. “You can’t kill a Nightmare! You know what will happen!”
Ren brought her blade up to silence her sister. “I’ll be alright, Mi.” As Ren spoke, she brought her other hand to her face, and began to rip off the black shroud around her. Beneath, the Zandai woman wore a hard expression and a blue bruise on her cheek. She handed the shroud to her sister, who held it in numb shock.
Ren was already stepping forwards when Mi softly called out. “Are you sure about this, Viper?”
The older bandit didn’t stop walking, but there seemed to be the slightest bit of hesitation as she found herself on the steps of the wagon. Mi saw her short brown hair shake with her head, and she leapt into the wagon. Ren was enveloped by darkness, and all Mi could do was wait helplessly.