Chapter 3 - Part I

With haste, slippers scuffled against stone and exotic silken pajamas, imported through the Independent Duchy of Vem, swayed down dank stairs more accustomed to tougher soles. Each descending stair brought a deeper understanding of the tolerance levels of the nose, but the young noblewoman was not a stranger to the stench of blood and decay. For although today she wore the soft garments of wealth and privilege, there was a time when she was fortunate to be wearing anything at all, especially in bed.

The carefully crafted hornet tattoo gracing her exposed ear identified her as a right ear noble - one who married into the house and remains its vassal, not its master. Like the name she had been forced to take upon her betrothal, Lady Genevieve Archne, life as a right ear was false. It was a mask, donned only to get through the ballroom doors and enter the dance.

Her ear had been an obstacle to her ambitions for awhile now, but there was a time when she could imagine no other flight of fantasy to be so impossible than to have that imprinted tattoo upon her person. Ruby, as she was known before her ascension into the ranks of the nobility, spent her youth among countless names, in places where the moon was queen. Death was never far from her doorstep; a doorstep that changed whenever her mother was able to secure a new patron. And when no patron could be found, Ruby's doorstep was the stone cobble of the streets.

Prior to Ruby's birth, her mother had much less difficulty in finding patrons, or at least could earn enough from clientele interested in only a night of pleasure. When Ruby came into her life, the game had changed. Her body was worn and the needs of her child cost her more freedom than coin. Her mother had never forgiven her for that.

Nonetheless, she had kept the two of them safe for sometime, landing a contract with one of the strongmen of the streets, almost feeling like a dutiful wife with child. To the men she serviced, however, Ruby's mother was ultimately only a possession - a toy to be used or discarded at whim.

Or abused.

The beatings were minor at first, but over time the young Ruby learned first hand that men could be a great many things, but most importantly, they could be a source of both pain and pleasure. Man as an object is a double edged sword that must be wielded carefully. The men of her mother's life were poisonous, offering far more risk than reward. The girl promised herself at an age earlier than she needed to be to truly understand the undertakings of her mother, that she would not make the same mistakes as her mother. She would pick out her conquests strategically.

Her mother had become a fool. She used the wrong men, sought frivolous things from them, and bowed to their will out of fear. Ruby, turned Genevieve when she earned that hornet tattoo, passed her fingers over her ear thoughtfully. The skills she employed to this day were those of her mother's and thousands of prostitutes before her since the Sundering. Charm, allure and a touch of deceit was all that was needed to survive in this world. To thrive required skill and strategy.

Chapter 2 - Part X

Onion could feel the flames licking her fingers and the blood ooze from wounds caused by the glass shards still buried in her palms. Yet still her blood burned her insides and before Onion could instinctively retract her hands from the fire, her sense of self returned.

Halfway to the floor, Gregor was behind her now, holding her limp body up solely by the strength of his arms, now wrapped around her torso. The burning sensation coursing through her body had traveled further up her spine and exploded in fireworks of molten agony and pain trickled down her arms, radiating from her fingertips.

The searing heat engulfed her heart and she lost sense of herself a second time. Gregor had to adjust himself as Onion flopped like a rag doll and he again had to support the full weight of the small, but substantial Nü. Cradling the girl close to the ground, he was close enough to notice that the mahogany skinned mercenary had stopped breathing.

Once again Onion found sentience in a consciousness of another - if the congealing fog within her head could be considered consciousness. However, it was not Anita from whom she saw herself now. Blackness had enveloped her in a suffocating blanket and the stale stench of old blood and death accomplished hours ago permeated the nostrils. She was back in the dungeon.

The stone floor was cold and slick. Onion could feel the blood draining from the body, emptying every organ and flowing like a spring creek from the neck. The limp tongue had dropped into the coalescing pool of red and Onion could feel the life force essence coast the lips as it faded.

As Gregor began to set the motionless Onion on the floor, she gasped and returned to herself. She had just enough time to feel her boiling blood pump suffering up her neck and soon her face too was on fire.

Onion's body, blanched with white hot heat, was at a breaking point. For the last time, she left her body to its misery.

Her body was truly lost to her now, but the spirit roams on. Again, Onion became aware of her immobile existence in the decaying carcass, but the pain was muted in this incarnation. The body had ceased hemorrhaging blood, though it remained lifeless.

Constriction, not of the soul, but of the body, collapsed on Onion's existence like an olive press. She felt the corpse fold in on her, though never to the point of crushing. Cheek still flat against the unforgiving stone, she felt an unnatural sense of self when the pressure had ceased. If she could move she might even run her fingers through her hair one last time before...

Come Back! a voice called out to her, weak at first. Come back or you will perish! It pulled at her soul and tore Onion away from the rotting flesh and into oblivion.

Chapter 2 - Part IX

With that, Anita withdrew a short, plain, yet ceremonial looking dagger from a sheath nestled in one of the many tight folds of her sleeves. Before Onion could take record of what was transpiring in front of her, the silent woman snatched Onion's wrist and with a quick flick of the Nü's arm, forced her palm open.

In empathy, Gregor reached out to the surprised woman, almost as if to touch and comfort Onion, though his hand never made it to its destination. "Relax," he uttered trying to put her at ease, "it will hurt a little. " Gregor's voice faded away into mere background noise in the whirl of violence Anita wrought on Onion. With a swift slice, the raven haired, blindfolded woman lacerated Onion's palm with the dagger before collecting the quickly pooling blood sprouting from the cut. For her efforts, the silent woman won a small vial, beaming with a ruby red sheen.

Finished, Anita turned to Cedric and produced another vial, drawn from the pale man. Belatedly, Cedric yelped in surprise, but the deed had already been done by the time he truly felt the sting.

From his cloth utility belt, Davin revealed two more vials, already swirling with a dark red life force. He tossed one of them to his partner and she exchanged one of her vials with the blindfolded man. Each took into their left hand a vial of blood from Cedric or Onion, and into their right hand they collected a vial from the unknown source. Tightly holding each vial in each hand, the two approached the hearth and held their hands close to the flame.

Each began to utter a string of fluid words that sounded nothing like Eirdren, and twice as foreign.

Suddenly, the two plunged their hands into the heart of the flames and with only the sheer strength of their palms, crushed the vials. The shards of glass tore open their bare skin and blood seeped through their fingers and sizzled as it fell upon the glowing coals; a mixing of three bloods, forever erased by the searing heat.

The mingled blood boiled before it ever hit the flame, and Onion became increasingly aware of her own blood, pumping life through her being, as it too began to boil under her skin in her toes. A few feet away, Cedric panicked and his hands pawed at his body. Soon, he was grabbing at his face, frantically trying to feel the bubbles surface on his skin. Mercifully, he quickly collapsed, but Gregor, who had strategically placed himself between Onion and the Archne chef, rushed to support his companion and gently bring him to the floor.

Simultaneously, Davin too lost consciousness and collapsed into the arms of Vaughn, who had been waiting behind the blindfolded pair. He dragged the raven haired man away from the fire and set him on the ground as well.

As her boiling blood steamed from her toes, shooting up to her stomach through the veins in her legs, Onion could feel her consciousness fading in and out. For an instant, she lost sense of herself. Instead of the rag clad Nü standing by what remained of the tunnel, she was suddenly by the fire, blindfolded but not blind. Her eyes, dried out and cracked, scars long since healed but not lost around her cheekbone bore a silent tribute to the sacrifice that made her who she was today. The lifetime of suffering compressed into a half dozen years made as much an impact on the body as it must have the soul.

Chapter 2 - Part VIII

Particularly strange were the blue-tinted black blindfolds each wore, extending from the tips of their noses and covering the tops of their skulls. The simple yet finely woven cloth was tied at the back of each of their heads where Anita let her hair hang loosely down her back, and Davin bound his in a simple ponytail.

The two stood sharply erect, wearing the same blue-black hue of the blindfolds in garments that covered their forms from neck to toe. The high necked, form fitting uniform offered a great deal of flexibility, Onion noted, and with no precarious belt ends or ties, they could avoid the chance of of a snag or the noise of a clink. At their waists hung a cloth utility belt that could easily be mistaken for a short skirt. These people were invisible. She wondered how they managed to keep the clothing on.

Turning back to the blonde, no longer ridiculous looking, fair man she observed matter-of-factly, "You are not a priest then?" With a slight mental slap of her own wrist she scolded herself openly, "I was fooled."

"I wasn't exactly lying. Keeper Rel, I am not looking to incur the wrath of his demons in this lifetime.", he defended his sacrilege with unease. Offering his left hand for Onion to view, he pulled the hand guard back, revealing the part of the tattoo that encircled his wrist, still as blue and vibrant as ever. "I was once a disciple of Rel; a missionary to the Northern Federation of Outer Crestan Tribes. I grew up in Lithen, but my education was here in Eirdred. I could not help but be drawn to serve Rel by teaching of him in your lands. That is how I acquired your marvelous language!"

Onion made a face at the thought of the Northern Outer Crest as her homeland. She was of the Southern Confederacy and to her the Nü in the north there might as well have been from Eirdred themselves, or maybe even Benge. She was soon interrupted from her queer confusion.

"Gregor," came a stern voice cloaked in the tongues of the continent. Nonetheless, Onion could surmise the words of the man who sat across the room, on the other side of the roaring fireplace. Dancing flames gleamed off of his breast plate as he pointed a disgruntled finger to the man Gregor. "Enough gossip for now. The mission is not yet complete." he stressed in a low grumble. The stout, imposing man stood from the wooden chair he had been sitting on, tucked in the corner of the room. Similar to Gregor, he bore the appearance of a soldier with a single solid breast plate and leather jerkins.

"Anita, Davin, please proceed as instructed." he ordered.

"Beithal Vaughn, my Keeper of the Compromised, I will remind you that this operation cost us the better half of a year in efforts by us in securing this location and of the Gegleth for the tunnel. It is my sincere desire that this is worth our efforts.", the woman breathed her words in the silken voice of a consort.

"He is. Do it now.", the forceful man Vaughn aimed the order to the two blindfolded spies with taciturn precision.

Chapter 2 - Part VII

After what had seemed an eternity, the party came to the end of their journey at a wooden facade. The more slender set of arms of the two midnight assailants raised her hand to deliver a knock. Three times she repeated herself and with each knock, Onion felt her ears straining more than with the previous as a muted echo reverberated through the tunnel.

In response, Onion could distinguish four return knocks which also diminished with each manifestation. Understanding for the first time that the two assailants were not simply dumb, Onion noted the silky female voice responded, "Seven times."

This was apparently the correct answer, as the wooden boards were slid aside with great effort. Both Onion and Cedric were forced to turn their gaze away as blinding light flooded the tunnel, but the owners of the feminine voice and the muscular hands remained unfazed. The two had been wearing blindfolds and it was unclear if they even had use of their eyes. Unsympathetic to the raw burn of their eyes, the two silent kidnappers herded the dazed former prisoners through the hole in the wall and into a small inn room.

"Cedric!", exclaimed the man who had helped move aside the wooden facade. He grinned from ear to ear, beaming with excitement. "You made it! I told you that you would do just fine." the man bantered in the Eirdren tongue while smothering the diminutive Archne chef in a warm embrace. Cedric, for his part, wore a look of surprise on his face, but in the glow of the nearby fire, looked significantly less pale than he had been recently.

"And you, my dear" the shaggy blond warrior switched into the Nürish, "I'm glad to see Anita and Davin did not have to bring you back unconscious. I suspect they would have had a difficult time taking you out anyway."

Onion stared before recognizing the man for who he was. The Rel priest was dressed a little less ridiculously now than during his dungeon incarnations but the trimmed beard sideburns that extended to his jawline, his large strong hands and mop of golden hair were unmistakable. Now, he wore a leather jerkin and a solid brestplate fastened on with leather straps. At his waist he maintained an impressive longsword with intricate but unfamiliar designs printed on the hilt. His left forearm was a hardened leather brace with a metal plate fastened to the outer half around his arm. A hard leather guard rested on the topside of his hand and at his feet were standard issue leather boots.

Onion noticed that his fingers bore the highly faded blue tattoo of Rel. In a few days, the ink would be gone in its entirety.

She also beheld her captors in their entirety for the first time. Anita and Davin were creatures unlike any she had ever seen. They appeared to be kin, both with long, straight hair, darker and blacker than that of any Nü Onion had ever met. In contrast to their raven hair, their taut, sinewy skin that stretched over lean, muscular frames, was as pale as Cedrics. Their uniforms, however, revealed very little of the skin.

Chapter 2 - Part VI

Her bare feet tiptoed rapidly across the hard floor as she was moved along the hall, towards the lone exit. They had traveled through the maze of cells long enough, but never once did a ray of light grace her pupils. As the four crossed the threshold of the cell block, however, Onion's other senses were given a veritable feast. Sounds from above the dungeon touched her inner ears. The air lost its stale flavor and the odor of decay was replaced with the stink of sweat and blood. As she was pushed further along, her toes squished through a sticky, congealed substance; blood.

The way out was a winding set of stairs past the guard station and bunks. Up the stairs, where throngs of nobles would soon await their sacrifice, lie the courtyard and gallows entertainment center; the same one Onion and Cedric were herded through upon arrival to this hated place, the Archne Estate. Onion knew these locations would be heavily guarded. She wondered if their kidnappers were simply a couple of fools sending them all to a speedy death. After all, no amount of stealth and trickery could blot out the moon and all of his stars.

The rough arm commanding Onion's movement relaxed and let go half a second before the much slighter hand of his partner clasped her wrist. Within moments Onion heard a small click and both she and Cedric found themselves pulled to the floor, under a bunk. Through a trap door, Onion finally found herself on her hands and knees, released from the restraint of her captors.

She took a moment to revel at the moist smell of the dirt; its flavor of life in the organic debris and hints of earthy metals. The soil now stuck to her feet, caking the layer of blood she had acquired while walking from the dungeon. Her fingers, however, marveled, pawing at the fine grains. With soil, there is freedom and life. The tiny seed of hope had cracked open, as if to sprout.

The Nü's celebration was cut short as the larger hand behind her shoved her bottom, indicating his desire that she move forward.

Frisky is it?

Onward, on hands and knees, the four of them traveled through the tunnel. The slender set of hands led the group, and Cedric kept pace in front of Onion. To the captives, it seemed they had travelled through the tunnel for days, although an hour was probably closer to the mark. It was just long enough that Onion began to experience claustrophobia setting in and taste the acrid flavor of metallic fear in her mouth. Her joy in the sensations of the soil was rapidly squelched as pebbles and roots dug into her palms and bare knees. For Cedric and herself, the burlap sack turned prison attire did nothing to ease their journey.

Their progress was further delayed as every hundred feet or so the man behind Onion would remove support beams and set a small, muted, explosive, causing that recently vacated portion of the tunnel to collapse. Onion could feel the fear radiating from Cedric, but their kidnappers shepherded the two of them along without mercy.

Chapter 2 - Part V

The two sat on the stone ground and talked into the night - not that the ambiance of the cell was affected by the movement of the sun. The questions the man lobbed at Onion were strange, beyond the realm of curiosity. He asked about the details of their final mission, how they came to learn of it, and where their prior mercenary work had been. He grilled her about why they had come to Eirdred after years in the south, fighting for coin on all sides of the Three Pronged War between Sandor, the Independent Duchy of Vem and the Federation of of Tribes of the Northern Outer Crest.

For reasons unknown to Onion, as the man reached deeper into his inquiry, his demeanor lost its aura of friendliness and his tone took on a sense of urgency. She didn't have most of the answers he was searching for - she was a minion in the Clan of the Fir, a follower to her commanding brother. This was something she readily acknowledged without shame to nosy man. When he finally left, she was glad to see him go. His final announcement, made just as he left the cell, that the execution was to take place later in the week, elicited no response from the emotionally numb Nü. Nor did the words "Rel protect you, for I cannot." whispered softly under the breath of the well-built priest ever reach her ears. Onion was exhausted and easily passed out within seconds of his departure

------

True silence is a disturbing thing. Too easily one forgets that they hear the ever present breath of a stranger, or the crackle of a torch. But the heart does not forget. It beats to the rhythm of energy and life as the mind ignores this harmony. And in the absence of the harmony of life, the heart is tossed into the Void.

To Onion, the wave of silence hit like a slap to her soul. Instantly, she sat up, awake in her windowless cell, but there was nothing but blackness. She could not even tell if her eyes were truly open or if it was just a trick of the senses.

Movement.

In an instant, Onion's cell door silently flung open, a fact known to her only by the gust of air fanning from the exit. Not even a creak was made by the solid oak board and the hallway remained as black as ever.

She felt two strong hands lay on her arm and Onion nearly groaned in pain as the hand clamped down on a bruise not yet healed from the skirmish with Lord Archne. Her gut told her that it would be wise to remain silent, so she permitted herself only a grimace in her agony.

While not readily apparent, Onion understood that it was not just her own person that was being manhandled. Sure enough, as she was shoved into the dungeon hall, she felt the soft, smooth skin of what had to be Cedric's hand. To her amazement and grudging respect for the twitchy man, he also compelled his tongue to remain silent.