Red Leaves and the Living Token

chapter FOUR





Valance hurried down the stone steps that lead to the tunnels under his property. He used them to go from building to building without having to worry about people knowing which building he was in. It was also a convenient place to store things of a more sensitive nature. He wouldn’t want his house keeper, for instance, cleaning the room he was about to enter.

He unlocked the thick door and pulled it open. A quick round with his lamp to light the gas lights brought the room to full brightness. The green walls were lined with an assortment of old and rusted weapons; spear tips with broken shafts, axes with partially intact blades, armor with plates so corroded that holes had formed in the metal.

It depressed him every time he came here. These were once the most carefully crafted weapons he’d ever had the privilege of using. The speed of their decay was remarkable and disturbing at the same time. He wasn’t sure what it would mean for him but guessed it wasn’t good.

Fortunately, his own life had not been unnaturally shortened. Quite the opposite. Yet every time he looked at them in their state of decay it made him feel… Old. He moved to the back of the room and opened a black wooden case. Inside was lined with a red velvet. Sitting in the velvet was a sword in the same state of decay as the rest of the weapons.

This was his favorite. It was the one he actually cared about losing, really. Of course he had done everything he could think of to prevent or even delay its decay, but nothing seemed to help preserve it. Oil rubs, cleansing solutions, polishes of every kind, dry storage, wet storage, cool, heat, all did nothing.

He took the sheath and tied it around his waist and slid the blade in. The mark on the palm of his hand glowed faintly as he released the handled. The mark on his hand had faded along with the weapons. Now it was hardly there at all.



-



The House Lord Valance stood in the center of a vast chamber that housed the dozen rows of senators, each row rising up above the previous. Opposite the rows, in single elevated bench with a gavel in his hand sat a single senator.

Valance dreaded the sight of him. Speaker Fiffe. It seemed he tried to make any and every issue discussed in the senate into something many times more than it was, as though his relevance as speaker depended on how well he could use any particular issue to wage a popularity war with the clans that opposed him. If he wasn’t constantly winning that battle, well, then what was the point of him being speaker?

Speaker Fiffe addressed Valance. “Am I correct in my understanding, House Lord Valance, that you authorized the wide spread deception of the people regarding the dilution of the people's Manea supply on two separate occasions. And if so by what authority did you take this action.”

Valance answered, “Mr. Speaker, I'm sure you've studied the situation, so I'm sure you're aware of the implications...”

One of the senators on the first row interrupted, “Its rather convenient that this is coming to light at the same time that we’re to vote whether or not to extend the Manea industry’s rather generous contribution package.”

Valance turned to see who’d interrupted. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate, I am not here to discuss financial assistance to my industry. I am here to inform you of a crisis that is currently developing across the world and in our own nation. We are dealing with unprecedented events that have caused and will continue to cause greater and greater disruptions in world wide Manea production. These events are unlike anything we've encountered before. Now our great Nation has grown and expanded faster than any of us could’ve imagined. The vastness of our numbers are simply astonishing. We as a great and numerous people cannot survive without a plentiful and inexpensive supply of Manea. Plentiful and inexpensive is what has allowed us to become what we are today.”

He studied their faces to measure their reaction, then continued, “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate, we no longer have that plentiful supply. Every man, woman, and child must eat. Every animal of every clan must eat! Not only are we facing a severe reduction in supply, we face demand that is not only greater than ever but endlessly growing. I am not here to cause unnecessary alarm or panic. This was kept private for that very reason, until we had done everything in our power to address the problem, to understand fully what we were up against.”

Speaker Fife interrupted, “With what right have you withheld this information from us?”

Valance turned back to the speaker. “This is a world wide phenomena and not at all limited to my company. You’re own internal agencies have said nothing? I am certain many of you in this room have known of this for a long while. My purpose today is to bring this issue out of the dark. It must be dealt with, and we must have the participation of all - including the public!”

The crowd of senators stirred. A subtle roar of discontent filled the room.

Valance rose his voice to speak over them. “We have done everything possible to stop the shrinking production. This is our business. So rest assured that we’ve done everything possible to keep our production from dropping off. We're losing money, and we haven’t been able to do anything about it. We are developing alternative solutions, of course, as I’m sure every other large scale Manae producer is. But they will take time to implement. Ten, possibly twenty years. In the meantime, we must turn to the one thing that we can control. Our consumption. Senators, we must cut back. We must ask the public to make sacrifices.”

“Sacrifices?” The Lord Speaker interjected. “And who will determine these sacrifices?”

A Senator on the second row stood up. “Who'll ensure that this sacrifices will be evenly distributed amongst the houses and clans?” He called out.

Valance answered, “It won't be evenly distributed. It can’t, we…

The room erupted into a cacophony of angry voices.

Valance tried to continue, yelling over them. “Please! Please!”

The senators continued, with hundreds of voices shouting over the top of each other. Valance reached up to the Lord Speaker’s bench grabbed a gavel and banged it repeatedly. The unorthodox behavior worked. The room quieted.

Valance regaining their attention, continued, “This is the way it must be done!”

The Lord Speaker interrupted, “It is not the House Lord Valance privilege to dictate what this Senate will or will not do!”

The room broke out in angered shouts.

Valance rushed up to the half wall separating him from the first row of senators, jumped over the wall and climbed up onto the closest desk. With his hands raised, he yelled as loud as he could, “Quiet! Please!”

The room again subdued into a gentle roar.

Valance continued. “We have two options. We can allow market forces to dictate who can who cannot buy Manea. As you know, with anything in limited supply the only ones who will have access to it are those with sufficient means. If only those with sufficient means have it and all others are left on their own, who will tend the animals? Who run the street cars? Who will keep food coming into the city and water flowing out of our pipes? Without Manea, the entire working class will be lost. Now you tell me, is that a working strategy? Should we allow those with money to hoard and waste while the rest of the population descends into madness? Those with money would not survive such a scenario any more than the rest of us.

“The second option is to appoint a committee to manage the distribution of Manae, thus allowing us to maintain operation of vital services. Not all houses and clan carry the same weight in terms of our survival. Some hold strategic positions which can't be compromised. Others must step back to let the others survive. However unpleasant or unpopular, the facts cannot be changed. We must set our emotions aside and let our reason dictate. It'll be horribly unfair. It'll be the most awful thing we've ever had to do. But in the end we will pass through this, and we will survive.

“Or, if we do nothing we will all die.”

The room dropped into silence. “We simply no longer have enough for everyone.” Valance said quietly.

He scanned their faces for their reaction. One outburst triggered an explosion of yelling and screaming.

“This is your solution?” Someone shouted from the first row.

“Kill half the population to save the other half?” Another yelled nearby.

“…Unacceptable! You're insane! Dangerous!” Came shouts from the back.

The Lord Speaker stood and pounded his gavel. After a moment, the roar calmed enough for him to speak.

“And who, Lord Valance, would you propose head this committee? You? Is that what this about?” The Lord Speaker asked.

Valance turned and answered, “I offer my experience with the production and distribution of Manae as well as with managing consumption rates. I have a plan where in I can reduce the overall national consumption to fit within the limits of supply until we’re able to provide an alternative. If that is of use to the Senate, I will serve.”

Again, the room erupted in an explosion of shouts from the body of senators. The Lord Speaker stood up and pounded his gavel. This time to no effect. The senators refused to quiet themselves.

Lord Valance turned back to the general assembly, surveying the angry mob shouting at him from behind their desks. Each trying to be heard over the angry cries of the others. He shook his head in frustration. He was afraid the time had come. He knew what he had to do, yet, his hand stayed motionless at his side. Something deep still nagged at him not to do this. But what other choice did he have? They wouldn’t listen to logical argument. And even then, he could see they agreed to the need for action and the problem with inaction. Yet they mocked and scorned his solution. Simply because they disliked the one presenting it? He simply couldn’t allow this.

He moved his hand to the hilt of his sword. With the touch of his open palm on the engraved metal, a cool mist shot out from him, hitting the ground then swelling up and out over the crowd. As the mist expanded, he could feel the minds of the senators. He could feel their intense anger, their bitterness, their fear. He could see their distrust of him.

He focused on that fear and pushed. If he could suppress it long enough for a vote. Perhaps they could move forward. He pushed harder, with the absolute concentration that his years of experience with these tools had given him.

But their minds did not react. The mist that he had pushed out over them started to lose cohesion. And then it was gone.

His mind snapped back to the confines of his own thoughts, his own body. His hand was still on the hilt of his sword. How was this possible? He hadn’t broken connection with the sword. Yet… He lifted his palm. The insignia, etched into the skin of his palm that had once glowed brightly any time he’d used the weapon, was now dark.

His tool of last resort had failed.

He dropped down off the of the desk, turned his back to the senators and walked towards the exit door of the chamber.

“Where are you going?” The Lord Speaker demanded. “The general body has not excused you? Do you hear me?”



-



Valance’s mind reeled in confusion as he tried to process what had just happened. He tried to assess where he stood and what his next action should be. But nothing seemed to be clear. His worst fear had just been realized. The weapons were now completely useless. Of course, he’d been aware of the decline in their effectiveness over the years. He started phasing out their use years ago for that reason, hoping to save them for when they were absolutely necessary. It’d been over a decade now since he’d last had to use them. And so he imagined it’d be years to come before their potency was entirely lost. And by that time, he imagined they’d have found the Token. Today, they should have been effective.

Could they really have diminished sitting in his dark storage as much as they might have strapped to his waist? It seemed impossible. Yet what other explanation was there? The power was gone. He and his companions were now left naked, without advantage whatsoever.

The Token must be found. Immediately. He thought.

Barnus and Whiting were waiting in the thick crowd that clogged the hallway outside the Senate chamber. Valance grabbed and pulled them down an empty branching hallway.

“What have you found on the Token?”

Barnus, caught off guard by the sudden intensity, stammered out an answer, “Nothing yet.”

“What do you mean nothing?” Valance looked dangerous.

Whiting jumped in. “We haven’t been able to confirm the sighting. We have two targets identified and confirmed. Whom we’ve been watching for several days. Neither has exhibited any unusual activity yet.”

“We can’t watch and wait this time. Take me to the first target.” Valance demanded.

“Of course,” answered Whiting.

Barnus put a hand on Whitings shoulder to stop him, “If we spook them and they do have it, they’ll just bury it somewhere.”

“You don’t think I’ve thought about that…” Valance snapped.

“House Lord Valence, If I might have a word.” A large Zo stepped up behind them, wearing the impressive decor of a high ranking military officer.

Valance turned and stared at the man without reply. He recognized the face immediately. It was, Manthis, one of the prominent active Generals. After what had happened in the Senate, he had a decent idea what this man wanted. Most likely a personal threat of some sort at the request of one of the senators. Now that he lost favor with the majority he and his view of things were a liability. They should’ve left the building and had their conversation about the token elsewhere.

“What can I do for you General Manthis?”

“There was one thing that was not addressed in the chamber, which I was hoping I might now ask you. Have you thought about the foreign policy implications of this supply crunch?”

“Of course. We’ve taken foreign pressure into account in our usage reduction calculations. We’ve made estimates on what supplies might look like in the next ten to fifteen years based on what we think the other nations will be using.”

“And how have you come to your conclusions on what share of the total Maneae the other nations will be using?”

“We assumed they would be taking their own reduction measures.”

“And what if they don’t?”

“Well, we’d have some foreign policy problems.”

“Let me ask you this Lord Valance, what would happen to this supply/demand issue if we stopped exporting Maneae.”

“We don’t really export anything. Most of the orchards we operate are already across the boarders. If we stopped selling Manea from those orchards to the Bota, they’d just nationalize them.”

“Now hypothetically, what if they weren’t able to nationalize them. What if we were able to hold on to all your current orchards and use the production entirely for our own people. How would that change the picture, domestically?”

“That’s a big if. Our orchards are spread out all over Botan territory, and a few are across the Petra border. We’d be talking about all out war.”

“The question is hypothetical of course.” Added the General.

“We run two thirds of the world’s orchards. If we maintained all of that production for our own use, there’d be no domestic supply problem. Not for the next twenty years at least.”

“Thank you for your time. Would you be willing talk this over in greater detail with some of my colleagues?

“Of course”

He had no intention of doing so. This man was clearly delusional, and any further talks with him would be looked on with great disfavor by his foreign friends. Foreign friends who currently granted him the right to grow his product on their land. How could he know more about foreign military strength than a Zo general?

One thing was certain, in any war scenario, he’d be the first to lose. He and his orchards would quickly become the target of all three nations. Probably, the least desirable position of any man to be in.

If he could’ve talked the Senate into a plan of demand reduction he stood a reasonable chance of getting the Botann and Petra to follow suit. No war, and his orchards would’ve stayed under his control. He could have potentially controlled the Maneae consumption in all three nations. With that he’d have power over infrastructure and all vital systems of all three. He could’ve found ways to integrate them and reduce a great deal of redundancy and waste. A coordinated and collaborative effort ultimately resulting in a united three. The advantages of such a union were staggering. The resources of Petra made freely available to the innovations of the Zo all fueled by the extraordinary land cultivation of the Botann. All the current walls of progress would effectively be torn down.

None of that seemed likely to happen now.

At least, not without help.



-



Valance’s black carriage arrived outside an old stone Botann Church. The home of his old friend Bedic. He knew the search for the Token would come back to him eventually. He was actually a bit surprised that Bedic ended up being the first target. They’d been watching him for almost his entire life. And yet, after all this time, he’d never led them anywhere useful. He’d almost given up, figuring, if Bedic was going to find something he would have found it by now.

That brought him back to the second target. It must have something to do with this Raj Handers gentleman. What he needed to find out was what Handers and Bedic had to do with one another. Why did they meet recently, and what was the nature of the visit? His guess was that Handers found something and brought it back to Bedic for some sort of consultation. But how he’d know to bring it to Bedic was a mystery.



-



Bedic sat at his desk, his mind deep inside the pages of a large book opened in front of him. Sinesh, sitting on her knees, shifted a puzzle piece back and forth trying to fit it into a half assembled puzzle spread out across the stone floor.

An unexpected knock on the door snapped Bedic’s attention away from the book. He and Sinesh both looked over at the door.

A young Cleric poked his head in, “Master cleric, you have some visitors. They're rather...” He looked over at Bedic's granddaughter with raised brow. “Insistent.”

Bedic closed his book. “Hun, I think its time for Bed.” He waved the young Cleric into the room. “Would you take her back to my quarters?”

“I'm not done, Grandpa.” Sinesh protested.

The young Cleric knelt down by the girl. “Come on sweetie.” He gestured towards the door as he tried ushering her out of the room.

“I’m not done, its gonna get all messed up!” She repeated her protest.

“I’ll make sure no one touches it. Good night dear.” Bedic said with a smile.

She made a frustrated grunt then followed the young cleric out of the room. He waited for her then closed the door behind them. A moment later the door opened again. Three large, well dressed, Zoen men entered. They looked like the type that came to discuss potential investments to add to the churches portfolio. Only, Bedic knew that wasn’t why they’d come.

The man in the middle stepped forward.“Good Evening Master Cleric Bedic. I hope we aren’t catching you at an inconvenient moment. We were looking for someone and hoped you might be of assistance.”

Bedic didn’t get up to greet them.

“I am the House Lord Valance and these are my associates Lord Barnus and Lord Whiting. I won’t…”

“I know who you are.” Bedic interrupted.

Bedic’s mind flooded with memories. Flashes of a struggle. Book shelves knocked to the ground. Swords drawn. Blood. His father! A dark pressure swelled inside him. It felt as though his skin was stretching, boiling from the inside. His brow began to bead with drops of sweat. The old man’s body twitched uncontrollably as tried to regain control. In that moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to see the three men in front of him die.

“It would appear that you do.” answered Valance.

Bedic’s frail body began to tremble more violently. He tried to control his thoughts, thoughts where his hands wrapped around Valance’s thick neck, or where he took the dagger from the top drawer in his desk and ran it through Valance’s heart. The images came, and he could do nothing to stop them.

Valance stepped further into the room. “Might I offer that we did not kill your father? He threw himself off a cliff in order to prevent us from retrieving what he had stolen from us. We had no intention of depriving him of his life. Killing would not have served our purpose.”

Bedic spoke, slowly, trying to steady the tremble in his voice. “And my grandfather? Did he throw himself off a cliff as well?” More memories of that day flooded his mind. He was just a child, but he could still remember the day his father was killed, the day his grandfather was killed, the day his mother took them away from their home, the day Lord Valance visited their school. His mother refused to tell him about it until he was much older, thinking that he’d been too young. He wasn’t. He remembered everything.

Valance cut a disapproving glance over at Barnus. “I’m truly sorry for your loss Master Cleric. It was an awful outcome of a most unfortunate day. I didn’t kill the School Master. I promise you. In fact, I had come to seek his council. Unfortunately, there were other parties involved which lead to some complications. It was not my intention to cause harm to anyone.

“You are right to your anger. My interest in them, however inadvertent, did lead to the death of both men. But that is not why we’re here today. You can trust that I would not have come, given our history, if it were at all avoidable, but it is not, unfortunately.”

Bedic listened to him speak and watched him take another step towards his desk. He tried to calm his mind, to give the impression that Valance’s attempt at an apology was working. Meanwhile, he slipped his right hand into his top drawer and felt his way through the clutter until his finger tips felt the cold metal of his dagger.

Valance continued, “Our country finds itself in a bit of a predicament. There’s something that we’re looking for that we believe would prevent things from escalating. If we’re not able to find it.” Valance took another step forward. “It would mean war.”

Bedic watched Valance’s feet as he took three casual steps closer, bringing him a foot beyond the other side of Bedic’s desk, just within striking distance. He brought the knife as close as he could to the front of the drawer without it being seen. His heart pounded furiously as he deliberated.

“Will you help us?” Valance asked.

Bedic snapped. Before he knew what he was doing, he had yanked the knife out of the drawer and lunged at Valance’s heart. The adrenalin made him feel like a projectile shooting through the air at its target. He watched in slow motion as the tip of his blade approached the soft fabric of Valance’s suit.

Then Pain. He wasn’t supposed to feel pain. He looked down and, to his horror, saw that his arm, twisted unnaturally, probably broken, was pinned to the table by a large hand. He collapsed downward onto the desk as the shock overtook him. How could he have been so stupid? One of the other two must have seen him take out the knife.

Valance’s face soured. “Thank you Barnus.” He took the knife out of Bedic’s arthritic old hand.

Whiting came around and pinned down Bedic’s other arm.

“Aaargh,” Bedic whimpered.

Valance poked the tip of Bedic’s knife down on Bedic’s nose, just hard enough not to break the skin. “Most unfortunate.”

Bedic strained against the two holding him down. His head and chest held down over his desk clutter was causing pain on top of his injured arm. They were holding him down hard enough that he was pretty sure something underneath was cutting into him. “Please!” He begged.

Valance twisted the tip of the knife playfully. “I had hoped we’d be able to find a mutually beneficial outcome to our reunion after all these years. We help you, you help us. But now I see that was a bit unrealistic of me to expect. The most we could hope for now is to avoid a repeat of the same dreadful tragedy suffered by you and your family the first time we met. You have a daughter now, do you not?”

“Please,” Bedic begged. “What do you want?”

“The man who visited you a day ago. Mr. Raj Handers, What do you know of him? Tell us everything.” Valance said.

Bedic’s voice wavered, it was raspy, starting to go. He could smell the intense salty odor of his own blood. He could feel it dripping down his chest under his tunic. “He came here looking for his missing son. He thought he might have been with my daughter. She works in the hospital. She was the boy’s nurse. He thought she might have taken him.

“Taken him? Now why would he think that?” Valance asked.

“My daughter and the man’s son both disappeared at the same time. Right after a fight. The man and my daughter disagreed on some terms of care for the boy.”

“Did she take him?” Valanced asked.

“I don’t know. It’s possible.” Bedic wheezed. Lord Whiting let him up slightly.

“Where would they have gone?” Valanced asked.

Bedic took a deep breath. He didn’t want to answer that. He tried to think of some possible answers that wouldn’t give her away. “Argh…”

Lord Barnus pushed his injured arm further in an unnatural direction. The pain cascaded down his spine.

“She would’ve taken him to Shishkameen,” He cried!

“Why?” Valance asked.

“She thinks she’ll find something there that’ll heal the boy.”

“And what would that be?”

“Red Leaves.” Bedic whispered.

Valance laughed. “She thinks Red Leaves is still there? Why would she think that?”

“Because I taught her through her childhood that it was still there, Bedic admitted.

“Why?” Valance asked.

“I wanted her to have something concrete to believe in. Something tangible. And…” He paused to think of how to phrase his response. “I wanted her to be proud of who she was and where she came from. It's not easy growing up different from everyone around you. A Botann in a Zoen country doesn’t make for an easy childhood.”

“Interesting,” Valance added. “Well perhaps, we should go find her.”

That was what Bedic was afraid of. “She doesn’t know anything. She’s acting on a stupid lie that I told her as a child and never corrected as an adult.”

“And what of this Handers fellow? Did he believe your daughter? Was he interested in finding Red Leaves?”

Bedic thought carefully about how to answer. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt. “He forbid my daughter from reading stories from the Old Books to his son. I don’t think they shared the same beliefs.” He struggled. If he said nothing more, this Lord Valance and his mercenaries would probably go after his daughter instead of Raj. And what would they do to her once they found her? The thought filled his heart with dread. But if he said more, they might choose to go after Mr Handers. This was unfair.

“Yet…” He had to protect his daughter. That was his first and highest obligation, wasn’t it? He thought. “He was particularly interested in a certain book while he was here.”

“Which book?” Valance asked.

Whiting let the old man sit up enough to point out. Valance followed Bedic’s trembling outstretched hand to a large book sitting on a pedestal. He closed it to see the cover. It was a green leather with an image of the Token engraved in the center.

Valance spun back to Whiting and motioned for them to go. “Tie him up!” He looked at Bedic before heading out the door. “Lets go find them shall we!”



-



Sinesh stuck her head out past a heavy wooden door that she had cracked open and scanned the hallway for adults. Nothing in either direction. She had heard some yelling and load banging and wanted to see what was going on. She’d never seen a Cleric yell before and thought that might be kind of fun to see.

She tip toed into the hallway towards the noises. A muffled voice echoed off the stone walls from around a corner. "Stay away from her! She doesn't know anything about this!” That was her Grandpa. She’d never heard him raise his voice like that. Her tip toeing turned into a quiet run.

She heard another voice from the same place, much younger. “Well, It wouldn't hurt to ask, would it?” It didn’t sound like any of the Clerics she knew.

She made it to the corner of the hallway and stopped. The loud footsteps of boots bounced off the walls. It sounded like there was a bunch of people. And they were leaving.

She peaked around the corner. “Gah!” She covered her mouth to stop herself from making too much noise and whipped her head back around to safety. Her Grandfather was all tied up, and they were dragging him down the hallway. Why would they do that? She wondered. She could hear his muffled screams.

She could feel her heart racing inside her chest. It was telling her what to do. Grandpa needed her. And she had to help. She waited until she could barely hear their footsteps then turned and followed them down the hallway.



-



Emret watched the massive columns of the Botann Clan’s Palace as they grew from small sticks in the distance to great towers above them. Moslin was pushing his wheel chair at a quick pace. He didn’t think she like the idea of being out with him at night.

Moslin slowed as they passed under the towering entry way ceiling held up by the giant columns. It was certainly an intimidating way to enter a building. Not the friendly welcome he’d hoped for.

Before they reached the massive wooden doorway, it creaked open, flooding the entryway with a warm light. A small Botann man hoped around the door, holding it open for them.

“Clan Lord Benthem is expecting you. Please follow me.” He smiled and gave them a polite bow as he motioned them inside.

She pushed Emret’s chair inside, a bit hesitantly. The foyer was like nothing Emret had ever seen. There were plants everywhere; in pots, climbing up the walls, in what looked like cut outs in the floor filled with soil. Where the walls weren’t covered with actual plants they had painted them to look as though they were covered. It gave the overall impression of standing in a forest.

The doorman led them down a long hallway, stopping at a large set of lightly stained wooden doors. He opened it and gestured for them to enter. “Please have a seat, the Clan Lord will be with you shortly.”

They entered the large room encircled with fancy chairs of the same nearly white wood and stopped close to the exit. Moslin turned Emret to face her and took a seat. In the middle of the room sat a large table of a strange almost perfectly white wood. They could fit a lot of people in this room, and around that table, he thought.

Almost as soon as they had sat down, a much larger Botann man came through a door on the other side of the room. He motioned for them to follow him as he crossed the room.

“Please come with me.” He smiled and bowed politely.

Down another brightly light and colorfully decorated hallway, they found themselves in front of another set of doors. These were larger than the first and almost as large as the entry doors. Their new escort opened them and signaled for them to enter.

“The Clan Lord will see you now.”

Beyond the door was a long hall. Several rows of seats lined the walls on both sides leading to an elevated bench at along the far wall. In the center of the far wall, a single Botann man spread his large body out across an oversized throne like chair. He motioned for them to approach him.

“Please, please, come.” Clan Lord Bentham said.

Moslin hurried to cross the room, acting as though she were afraid to keep the man waiting. Emret chuckled. This was more excitement than he’d had in a long time.

“What?” She asked in response to his laugh.

He smiled back at her. “Nothing.”

Bentham leaned forward in his massive chair sending his multiple layers of flowing robes drooping down over the bench. “Moslin! Good to see you. How's your father?”

“Grumpy and stubborn. So I guess that means he's healthy as ever.” She replied.

The Clan Lord laughed.

“Thank you for seeing us.” She said.

“Of course! What can I do for you.”

“Well...” She looked down at Emret. “We need to secure passage to Shishkameen.”

“You and the boy?” Bentham asked.

“Yes.”

“I don't supposed you have any travel papers for the boy?” He asked.

Moslin bent over to whisper in Emret’s ear. “I told you this wasn't going to be easy.”

“I'll be honest with you, Moslin. Even with papers, a Botann woman traveling with a Zo boy is going to attract attention.” He put down the pencil he’d been fiddling with. “I assume that's why you're here.”

Moslin nodded.

Bentham shifted in his seat. “Why are you taking this boy back to the old city?”

“The boy is very sick. He needs a treatment that the doctors here won't do here. A Botann treatment.”

“And his parents?”

She looked at Emret. He twisted to look back at her, a look of pleading on his face. “Please,” he mouthed.

“He has no one who will help him.” She answered.

He tilted his head, his eyes narrowed to slits. “What does that mean, exactly?”

She didn’t answer.

“Moslin, forgive me, but I'm a little concerned that this might have more to do with your daughter than with this little boy.”

“Sir, Lord,” Emret interrupted, not exactly sure how to address the Clan Lord. “Please! I asked Moslin to do this. I…” he stammered. “I... If I stay in my hospital bed and do nothing… I’ll just get worse. This is my chance… to do something other than wait.”

The Clan Lord stared at Emret, twisting a translucent green hair tendril in his fingers, pensively. He glanced over to Moslin.

“And without this Botann treatment?”

Moslin looked down at Emret, her mouth open to speak but silent.

“I know what's going to happen.” Emret said, looking back at her. “My binding is failing. When that happens, I'll die.”

The Clan Lord sat back heavily. “Yes, rather unpleasant. I'll make the arrangements. You'll travel as part of the next procession going into the old city.” He rubbed his forehead pensively.

“Emret, you are an impressive young man. I wish you the greatest success on your venture. If there’s anything else I can do for you, please ask.”

“Thank you.” He nodded.



-



The next morning Moslin and Emret hurried to the river dock early wanting to avoid as much attention as possible. They found the designated meeting place on the pier next to a large river ship without too much trouble. They found a quiet corner then waited. People rushed up and down the loading ramps carrying barrels, crates and luggage.

A crowd of Botann Clansmen wearing a reddish brown robes pushed their way through the other travelers and appeared to be headed towards them. A moment later they were fully engulfed in a crowd of reddish brown. One of the Clansmen stopped in front of them.

“Moslin?” He asked.

“Yes.” She nodded.

He had several extra of the same reddish brown robes draped over his arm. He handed one to her and one to Emret.

“Last chance. You sure you want to do this?” Moslin asked.

Emret beamed, a smile spread from ear to ear.

“I'll take that as a yes.” She smiled back.

“Put these on before we board.” The Clansmen said quietly. “Once we're on the ship you'll need to stay below deck, unfortunately.”

“What do we do if the ship is boarded?” She asked.

“Processional ships don't get boarded. Just stay below deck and you'll be fine.” He answered.