Manu the Scrivener tended to his art’s supplies.  He mixed the inks and paints, clipped a couple of aging brushes, and rewrapped some metal nibs onto new feathers. Then, when he was sure he would not have visitors, he pulled the stack of vellum from the drawer underneath the rock pile and reread what he wrote there.

“It was Molin planning the ( Read more... )

Without warning, Saqalain’s wife came into the room and handed him the key to his shackle. “Go out the front gate,” she said briskly. “If they ask you, tell them you’re a metalsmith.”
“Not a coinmaker?”
“No, listen.  A metalsmith.”
He wanted to ask her more but she was already gone.  Kadakithis put the key into the lock and ran out of the room but ( Read more... )

Without ceremony he was given a bath and a tunic to wear and led to the front area of the compound. He was glad to be spared the indignity of a city auction; he’d be gawked at only by potential buyers and their staff. He stood in line with the other slaves and sized up his potential futures.

One man he hated immediately, so when he came to inspect ( Read more... )

Kadakithis heard the bell over the door ring, and woke from where he’d dozed off. A hooded young man was well inside his little shop, eyeing him curiously. The man was lean with a hardened expression, but that described most of the people in Sanctuary these days and nearly all of its youth. “Can I help you?” he asked, but the man said nothing, just ( Read more... )

He waited weeks for the right opportunity. The weather changed and the free men of the settlement went out hunting more often. He watched. The slaves who manned the gates took their sweet time opening and closing them, sometimes leaving the gate to swing freely for a few seconds before responding to the orders to close it. The gate itself was high ( Read more... )

It seemed an eternity before the ship returned. I look like a girl from Promise of Heaven, Kadakithis thought ruefully. Skinny, dirty, hipless, and lips stung in a poor imitation of seduction. Water had run out of the stone bowls entirely, and he had taken to drinking dew off of leaves. Some of the leaves had fuzz that stung and irritated, and he ( Read more... )

They sailed on. Had hiding been a mistake? He couldn’t make out any markings on the ship but that didn’t mean much in these waters. He walked back into the interior of the islet, tending the cistern, binding the leaves so they would channel as much of the cloud’s moisture as possible into the stone bowl. He went back, or tried to go back to, life ( Read more... )

The ship had been rammed, and they were being boarded. He heard the sounds of war above him and started up the stairs to join the fight, but a glance from his cousin told him to stay below. He listened helplessly as the battle raged and the ship listed, busying himself by preparing a go bag. Writing tools, a royal crest carefully concealed in an ( Read more... )

(a fanfic)

I’m in over my head, he thought, but aren’t we all?  Kadakithis stood at the rail of the ship, wondering about the future, sure, but mostly thinking about the past. They were intertwined, after all. The world took sudden twists and turns but mostly it moved slowly. Like a horse whose feet were caked in mud, the past clung to you and ( Read more... )