Fenrose stood before the biggest man he had seen in his life.
The bald hulking man made a crunching noise as he crushed a hard-shelled cockatrice egg in his hand. He licked the content of the egg on his hand, before grunting. His dark-skinned body was an assortment of scars and sinews, all bridging that board neck of his and his powerful-looking hand.
That made Fenrose shiver.
"You must be tired, Gorlan," Fenrose said while putting a pouch of gems on the table. "Zerome asked me to give this to you. This, and the promise that you will work as the guard of the king. Let your enemy think he has the upper hand against you. And crush him in the final moments. Remember, the audiences love unexpected turnaround and bloody spectacles. Make him bleed."
Fenrose went back to the gallery of men, where muscular men were exhibited to the passersby for them to buy as slaves or as pit fighters. After all, this is the Dune Pit, where pois determine the value of men.
"Look at this strong man from the Island of Hesverda! For fifty pois, his service is at your hand. Buy him now before his price escalates!" said a slaver amidst the hustle-bustle, trying to sell one of his men.
"He's old!" shouted another. "You'll be lucky if his price doesn't plummet in a day or two! I bet his cock won't even satisfy a blushing maid!" It was continued by another barrage of arguments, which Fenrose didn't bother to listen to.
Fenrose arrived at a greyish building decorated with the merrankh symbol of the Dune Pit just above the door. He opened it, setting him up with a meeting with his boss, a man with grey beard and even greyer left eye.
Working as an assistant to a slaver was the last thing Fenrose expected after being expelled by the Hesperian Priory. But he has always been picking the worst possible decisions. Or the most dangerous one.
Horrible decisions are the common theme of Fenrsoe's life, after all. It slowly became a habit for Fenrose, and that led him to exactly this moment. He wondered when his constantly-changing mind will take him next.
Zerome looked at Fenrose. "Ahhh, the ever-resourceful Fenrose. Tell me, have you done what I asked?
"Every single one, and more," answered Fenrose. "I also told the brute to satisfy the lust of the audiences. They are going to need it after all that happened in the last few days."
The old slavemaster took a moment to watch Fenrose before opening up a smile. "Honestly, I didn't know how I found you in the first place. At this rate, I'm afraid you'd replace me and do a better job than I ever could."
Zerome stood from his seat and looked at the open window behind him, where hundreds of people were shouting at each other, encircling an enclosed space where two men were fighting each other.
The Dune Pit Ring. Where slaves are pitted next to each other or against a monster with the hope to release themselves from slavery. Some of these ex-slaves kept their slave mark in exchange for the chance to ascend to be warrior or the guard of the king. Not many managed to rise to those lofty positions, though.
Fenrose smiled, taking a roll of tobacco in front of him and lit it with fire from the brazier. "That fear is unfounded. If you truly know me, then you'd have nothing to fear from me."
"Life of a vagabond, eh? Moving from one place to another, no rule to define how you live your life." Zerome's gaze was fully placed on the ring, where the crowds were shouting rapturously as one gladiator's shield broke to splinters.
The battleground inside the Pit was a mess. Teeth and blood were sprayed all around the ground. The combatants were panting, their skin purple from bruises. Blood was pouring from the gashes in their skin. It had been an even ground between the combatants.
"Who do you think will win this battle?" Zerome asked as he sipped the ale from his tankard. His eyes were leering at the one covered in green cloth stained with red. From whose blood, nobody could truly determine.
Fenrose looked at the combatant again with scrutiny. He took a long, sharp inhalation of the tobacco and exhaled. His eyes longed toward the ground. He wondered if he might end up as one of the combatants, flailing to his death in a meaningless fight.
He hadn't decided his stance on slavery. He knew that the church denounced anyone connected to slavery, and how they were taught that slavery is ethically unjustifiable by any means. But deep down, he believed that humanity is enslaved by something less
"It's hard to determine. They both look equally capable of beheading each other. I won't just put my money quickly on either of them."
"Which one do you feel would win, then?"
"If I have to make a guess, then the one in the blue cloth. There is some grit and stamina left in him," Fenrose answered.
With a quick swipe of his shortsword, blue cloth's foe was decapitated. One side of the crowd jumped in triumph. Zerome laughed inexorably, his eyes gleaming from the prospect of winning a bet.
"You might be clever, but you are shit at making predictions," said Zerome, smirking.
Then the combatant on the blue cloth fell, his hand trying to pull his bowels back into his body. He quickly fell to the ground, indicating no winner of the battle. A surgeon tried his best to help him, but none survive a wound like that.
"Disembowelment. He will live for a while in suffering. May someone show mercy and end his suffering now," said Zerome, his mouth uttering the binding utterance of Theravane. "For once you show good judgment on this. Which is an embarrassment for me, because I have been watching this game long before you were a mewling behind your mother's skirt."
Fenrose only nodded and showed a sly smile. His mother was dead as soon as he was born, and his father blamed him for his mother's death. There was not a day when he didn't hide from his father's emotional abuse due to the unfair blame. What is in the world of slavery and bloodfest fair, anyway?
"You might think of moving on to another city, Fenrose," said Zerome, his eyes wandering to the papers on his table. "But I think it would be nice for you to finally settle in one place. You know what my master-sage said.
"The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room," Fenrose said, reciting what his master always said.
"Exactly. Your biggest problem is those itchy feet of yours. Once you can remain idly in one room, imagine what kind of greatness you can achieve, Fenrose."
Greatness. Fenrose never wanted that in his life. Every man's quest for greatness has always inevitably led to bloodshed and waste. The very idea of becoming a man admired and worshipped by others repulsed Fenrose to no end. No man should be dominant over the others.
As for his willingness to work for a slaver, that's down to his need to survive.
"Are you trying to seduce me again with the promise of greatness?" Fenrose answered with a rhetorical question.
Before Zerome managed to answer, the crowds started to yell again as another combatant entered the pit. The big man called Gorlen made a lavish entrance, a chant following every step he make into the pit.
There was a sudden noise from the door as someone was rapping on it. Fenrose groaned, annoyed that someone stole his attention from the battle in the pit. He went to the door and as he touched the knob of the door, it exploded inwards, along with the latches.
The sudden black threw Fenrose to the ground, followed by a shocked reaction from Zerome. Two people in green robes strode into the room. One of them brought with him a big greatsword on his back. Fenrose grunted as the large man stepped on his rib.
Then the room was aflame. From his hand, Zerome threw a ball of fire that engulfed the man in front. But the huge ball of flame was doused quickly by the man in green, slowly dematerializing into nothingness.
Then the big man behind the smaller man made a pouncing move forward with that big fist of his. Zerome caught the fist with his hand despite his apparent smaller size. But he couldn't hold another that flew to his face. He was thrown to the table, splitting the wooden object into two.
The big man took Zerome by the scruff, starting to c, but then Fenrose felt something stirring in his heart. Then a powerful headache entered his mind. It was apparent that the two intruders were affected by the mind attack.
Zerome is a neuromancer as well.
That fact startled Fenrose for a while, before the bigger green-cloaked man fell, almost right to where Fenrose lay. He rolled away to the left and rose. He found that Zerome was already stabbing the green-cloaked men in the throat with a dagger that he always put on his scabbard.
"Sorry for hitting you with my neuromancy," said the master-slaver after moping the blood from his dagger with the green cloaks of the dead men. "Hesperian Inquisitors. Do you know why they are here?"
"Causing troubles, most likely," answered Fenrose. "From what I've heard during my time at the Priory, they have been spreading hatred toward your religion and culture. I won't be surprised if this invasion is the culmination of those hate speeches."
"You are a Hesperian. Why don't you join their cause?"
"Don't you know? I studied at the Priory just to learn deep enough to expose their fraud. Subversion runs deep in my blood," said Fenrose, smirking.
"We will talk again about everything if we survive the day," said Zerome, throwing a short sword at Fenrose, which he caught mid-air.
Zerome looked outside the window and found that the pit was already invaded by the Inquisitors of Hesperia. Gorlan was evidently trying to stave off attackers from the Inquisition, making the Pit an entirely different spectacles where the slave fought fighters in uniform.
Zerome ran outside the room. Finding that all the way out was littered with determined-looking Inquisitors, he made quick jumps between the walls to climb the ledge above the door. He was athletic for a man his age. Fenrose followed him with his youthful athleticism, but was barely quick enough to follow Zerome who was already jumping to the next ledge.
A couple of Inquisitors climbed the ledge, trying to follow him. But it was cut short by his neuromantic attack, which left the Inquisitors off-balance, and they plummeted to the chaotic crowds below. Zerome shouted for Fenrose to be quicker in following him.
As Fenrose managed to run side-by-side to Zerome, the older man complained.
"Your mind might be quick, but it won't save you if your legs are as nimble as tortoises."
"That came from remaining idly in your room?" Fenrose answered playfully. "
A volley of arrows flew at them from the left, but they burned mid-air before they could puncture Fenrose's eyes. How powerful was Zerome do be able to do neuromancy and pyromancy at such efficiency? Most magicians are specialized on only one single thaumry.
Zerome hopped to another ledge, but something crashed into him in a flash of quick movement. Then Fenrose realized what it was. A grim-vulture. As big as a human child, the desert predator snapped one of Zerome's fingers with its beak. Failing to attack with his pyromancy, Zerome made a gesture of neuromantic attack.
Nothing happened. The grim-vulture was still trying to disembowel Zerome with its talons. But it gave Fenrose enough time to decapitate the desert predator with his sword. Zerome was awash with blood, pain evident on his face.
"How could a grim-vulture make a coordinated attack and resist my neuromancy?" He complained, saliva and blood dribbling out of his mouth.
Then Fenrose realized what's different about the grim-vulture. "Vahlbinding," he muttered under his breath.
"Vahl what?" Zerome asked.
"The reason why the Hesperian church deserved to be expunged to the ground," Fenrose answered. "Let's move!"
One Inquisitor was already upon them, but a group of slaves was already attacking him, pinning him to the ground and brutally beating him on the ground.
"We are trying to liber…bluugh."
Liberate you. That's what the Hesperians always say. With order as their core philosophy, the Hesperians believed that men should be freed from worldly shackles like slavery and lust before finally being able to build order in the world so that finally their goddess Eristides would once again step her feet on the world again.
But Fenrose understood much more than that. Everything was just a fabrication intended to dupe those people into giving dedication and devotion. Freeing slaves only to make them slaves in another form.
He continued to run alongside Zerome.
Until they found themselves surrounded by Inquisitors. Then a sword pierced Zerome's heart from behind, leaving Fenrose bewildered next to him. Fenrose saw his mentor and friend lying in the pool of blood, his eyes lifeless.
When will people close to me stop dying?
One of the Inquisitors, who clearly didn't know who Fenrose was, came close to Fenrose. "Are you a slaver, too?"
Fenrose's mind quickly made a decision to ensure his survival. Faced with a dearth situation without any means of fighting back, he had to use the weapon he was good at. Lies. Lying always came easy to him. Since childhood, Fenrose had been using his quick mind to make lies.
But this time, his mind was too muddled to make a clever deception. Especially with his friend lying there in a pool of blood.
Fenrose gritted his teeth, then showed his neck to one of the Inquisitors. A sign of Vahl on the back of his neck.
"I am a spy sent by Father Zevran to learn about the slavers here."
The Inquisitor looked at Fenrose, his eyes doubting. Fenrose was playing a dangerous game here. "If it's true that you are one of Zevran's men, then you can come back with us. We will usher you back to him safely."
"I still have something important to do here. I need to sift through his documents to find the hiding spots of other slavers," Fenrose answered.
The Inquisitor's suspicion grew. "We can do that for you."
"The mission I'm undertaking from Zevran is an important one. You don't want to have it compromised. Trust me, you never want to see Zevran's wrath," Fenrose lied.
The last statement softened the Inquisitor's disposition. Everyone in the Priory fears Zevran's wrath, and the story of his dreadful anger has reached the ears of the Inquisitor, apparently.
Fenrose looked at his dead friend again as the Inquisitors dispersed.
And people close to me will always be dying. Perhaps I'm cursed.
He looked at the zenith above, not knowing where to go from this point.