('N BLUE)
SID
He wiped the sweat and dust from his face as he once again picked himself up off the deserted, hard-packed, training ground. The other fighters had left an hour ago when the light started to go bad. For once, the Sid's usually lithe grace wore thin. He rose to the greeting sneer of his opponent, a swarthy, compact man in his late 20's. The two had been working together for several days now. Who he was mattered not at all to Sid, what mattered was his quite evident skill with a knife.
Not that the Sid wasn't a mean sticker himself and meant to get better. What most people didn't understand when they saw the occasional demonstration at fairs and such was that the TRUE professional knife fighter (and that included the accomplished thug, bravo, assassin, as well as the professional soldier) was a fairly rare beastie. Aside from the rudiments learned by boys in the alley or by acolytes in the martial temples, to acquire truly exceptional proficiency required constant practice and instruction from one more better than one's self. Given the weapon, an accomplished bladesman either plunked down heavy gold to learn from a knifemaster, or one met one's better in the dark, usually to one's regret.
Furthermore, NO truly expert weaponaire of ANY flavor showed All of his moves, tricks and stunts to ANYone, regardless of the price. For one could never be sure when THAT would come back to haunt. Therefore, the more proficient one became at a martial style, the harder it was to find an instructor with which to advance one's skills. Particularly when that martial skill was the knife. It had a bad reputation: only low-life sorts and nasty assorted scum used knives, generally surreptitiously. This was, in fact, generally true. So, when short of coin, one resorted to sparring and exchanging tricks with an opponent one didn't know (usually of about the same skill level) in hopes of acquiring a trick or two one hadn't seen before (without giving away too many of one's own).
It was for this reason that Sid was spitting grit out of a dry mouth. He'd just had to launch himself back- and groundwards to avoid a mock-fatal thrust of his opponents wooden practice blade. Again. This was the second time in two days that the man had used a particularly subtle trick on him. In a fashion the normally sharp-eyed Sid hadn't followed, his opponent had jabbed him in the back of his knife hand. This tactic, known to the swordsman as well, was called "pinking". The idea was to score a small wound, akin to a paper cut (hence 'pinking'), that, while not major in and of it's self, was painful and annoying. Enough of these delivered in rapid succession would invariably slow down even a seasoned fighter, as one's body does not willingly perform a maneuver that pains it. And, in a REAL fight, a split second's hesitation could mean the ultimate defeat.
Now, Sid knew his share of these tricks, too. But as he contemplated the rising welt on the back on his hand, he determined to add THIS one to his repertoire. SO... The Saltan regarded his opposite number, who grinned and beckoned. The Sid reached into himself and, in an instant, cued a preprogrammed, trance-state that briefly heightened his kinesthetic sense. This gave him an advantage in striking his opponent and increasing the damage he caused. Then he began the most remarkable maneuver his opponent had ever seen (or not seen, as the case may be.) The Sid feinted to his opponent's face to catch his attention, then flashed right.
At this point, what transpired was either a matter of theology or physiology, depending on one's point of view. Some of his former masters on the island had said that the performer of the maneuver transiently entered into a closely opposed, but separate, plane of existence, and "hid" from one's opponent in that fashion ("in the Shadows" they would say). Others insisted that this was nonsense. Sid, pragmatic, cared not a fig if the maneuver was a matter for priests or for physicians. What his opponent saw, and this was what mattered, was the Sid make an obvious feint to his face, flash right and then - vanish!
What really happened was that the Sid started a full body lunge to his opponent's right, his torso fully presented. His opponents eyes began to saccade with the movement, clued by the changing signal in their right visual field, and the ocular columns in his brain's visual cortex began to process the signals into a pattern (of movement to the right). Instincts caused the man to respond instantly. But Sid had actually terminated his movement just as he had launched it. And twisted his body so as to minimize its angular aperture. His opponents visual centers, processing the signals delivered by the minute, choppy and finite motions that are the saccade of the eyes, for a slight second, continued to fill in the pattern of motion to the right, even as his eyes tried to arrest their motion and reverse their saccade. In effect, for a split second, the man saw, in his mind's eye, a *virtual* Sid moving to his right and put his body in motion to respond to that threat. The Sid had, of course, reversed his course and had slid *left* and *behind* his turning opponent. The net result was that the man *saw* the Sid lunge right and- vanish! Just as a muscular forearm snaked around his neck from behind and a knife type pricked his kidney! A lethal prick that signified, for a knife thrust home in the kidney caused a literally paralyzing pain in the recipient. A pain so intense that the scream has actually an indrawing of breath, and even that sound would have been stillborn by the throat-crushing pressure of the forearm on larynx. The agony usually knocked the victim unconscious. If unfortunate enough to be so stoutly constituted as to remain conscious, the recipient still remained pinned immobile by the pain in the tortured kidney and the arm around the throat. He, then, quickly passed out in shock from loss of the blood that gushed forth from that vital vascular structure.
The Sid broke his hold on his opponent. The man turned to the Sid, his face impassive. But Sid saw his shock and utter horror of what Sid had just done to him in the dilation of his pupils! What had happened the man didn't know. But he did know what the end result of that maneuver performed in earnest would have been. His death. And he would have been powerless to prevent it!
Sid snickered mentally in triumph. He, himself, was still only slightly better than 50/50 in performing that maneuver successfully, but he knew he would still be able to deceive his opponent with it again and again, just as he had been deceived in his own training again and again. Deceived until one learned not to fully trust one's own eyes, but to also to rely on one's other senses to confirm the impression that the eyes were giving of the world around you. Such as the merest telltale crunching sound of Sid's left heel in the sand as it necessarily ground into the dirt to stop his body's momentum and begin it's reversal. Or of the slight occlusion of distant sounds coming to the left side of the victim's body, at odds with a body that was supposed to be moving to the right. Or a dissonant creak of the perpetrator's leather belt. Or the slight swirl of the air, or of the offweighting of Sid's right foot in one's peripheral vision. All telltale clues that something was amiss and what was really taking place was not what you thought you were seeing.
And Sid hadn't given away the total trick either. He could also perform the maneuver when in a slight trance that allowed him to control his body movements with such precision that he was virtually silent. And he could couple it with a trick wherein he used his mental energies to bend the light that reflected off his body through a closely opposed parallel dimension for the most infinitesimally brief of periods of time. But such was the speed with which light traveled that even this almost nothing of a detour distorted it's vector enough to blur his image in the eyes of others. When the maneuver was performed together with the silence trance, the kinesthetic trance and the blurring, the Sid's chance of success was excellent.
But the Sid had given the man knowledge that was precious. For while he still didn't know HOW the Sid had done it, and he couldn't do it himself, he at least now knew that it COULD be done, that such a maneuver was possible. One can't defend against that which is not conceived of. From this day on, he would know the possibility. And that, conceivably, might one day save his life.
The Sid gave the man a moment more to digest what had just happened. Perhaps next week he would approach the Sid. Offer gold, service, information in exchange for another demonstration. Perhaps. But for today, when Sid made a looping gesture in imitation of the pinking trick that he had used against the Kethemer, he willingly complied and slowly demonstrated the trick, which used the HILT of the knife, and revealed the subtle drop of the wrist which had previously concealed it from Sid's discernment.
That evening both men left the arena content. One reveling in a certain knowledge, one in a possibility. And both left more skilled with their chosen craft tool then they had come that day.
When El Sid returned to the inn, he was thinking with some anticipation to visiting Veressa and having her massage muscles sore from his practice session. Then again, there was Gwendolyn, a lay member of a local Chi Zhar temple, who had an interesting illusion spell where she... inside, his rather pleasant train of thought was broken when Brodic, the Innkeepers son, noticed him and waved at him. The Sid groaned mentally. Business, damn it. He was just getting settled in, having stayed longer at Cherifyr than any place they had visited since leaving Salta, and was enjoying the fruits of their holdover. He sighed and walked over. "Yes, Brodic?"
"The short one, my Lord, he urgently requests you join him in the common room. He has a guest."
El Sid frowned. "A guest? One of the others that left a few weeks ago?"
"No, my Lord, it is a woman I have not seen before. A Lady, my Lord."
Curious. They were trying to keep a low profile, El Sid’s dalliance aside, and Glorm had never seemed interested in "naked faced human females." He moved into the common room and spotted Glorm sitting with a taller, regal woman, finely dressed, that he did not recognize. He moved over as Glorm spotted him and waved. The woman watched as he approached with a small, sad smile. "Hello El Sid. How’s Johnny Rotten?"
He was confused, but sat impassively to give himself a moment. The voice was vaguely familiar, and she knew him and his horse.... "Hello, Krinn" he answered, irritated with himself for a moment. It had taken long enough to figure it out that the pause looked unnatural. The irritation disappeared as his train of thought suddenly derailed, and it was hard to keep his face impassive and body relaxed. Krinn, with a high level illusion spell that the elves must have given her meant a Krinn on the run, and no Dom meant... "Dom is dead, I assume?"
Krinn smiled as he spoke her name, amused with his cleverness, then shook her head sadly when he asked about the Don. "I think so. Some people tried to kill me. Pran got wind of it, somehow, and... dealt with them. I asked about the Don, but Pran told me that he had found out too late to help him, that he had disappeared."
"Dealt with them? Tell me about the people that attacked you."
Krinn frowned in thought. "It was rather sudden. I got in the habit of taking a afternoon stroll to take a break from lessons. I was moving past a harper’s stall near the Embassy when I was grabbed around the throat and someone grabbed my weapon hand. I felt a jab from a dagger, and immediately felt dizzy. There was some kind of drug on it, I guess. There was a noise, the hands let go, and I spun around, more because I was having trouble keeping my footing than to see anything. I saw a man with a Trellensei shaft in him..."
"Trellensei?" broke in El Sid.
"Elvish weapon... an electrically charged arrow, discharges on hit. A pretty nasty weapon, actually." Krinn grimaced as she recalled the little lightning bolts running around inside the man’s open mouth as he charred from the inside out, eyeballs exploding in their sockets while the back arched until she heard vertebrae popping. "Anyway, he was dead, and there were a couple of Elvish guardsmen who grabbed me and half dragged me back to the Embassy. Pran laid it out for me, gave me the illusion spell and some gold, and told me to clear Hediro quickly."
El Sid thought it through. "The conference room" he said, rising at the same time. Glorm nodded agreement, pausing only long enough to snag a pitcher of beer, and the three of them left a few silver pieces on the bar and headed up the stairs to the sitting room in the center of their sleeping quarters. Inside, El Sid closed his eyes and remembered Krinn as she looked then, opened them and observed her as she looked now. Same size and build, unlike Gwendolyn’s spell... never mind that now, he told himself. "Turn around." Krinn looked doubtful, but did.
El Sid moved behind her and gently reached around her neck and grabbed her over the mouth. She jumped, not having heard him move and not expecting it. "Did the man grab you like this?" he asked.
Krinn frowned in thought. "No. He had one arm underneath mine, and his other hand was on the back of my head, pushing it down."
"The drug. How long were you dizzy? Where there any other symptoms?"
"About an hour. I was extremely dehydrated, and there was a funny numbness around the wound."
"You said someone grabbed your weapon hand." Krinn nodded, and the Sid frowned. "Assassins. The drug was Hydris, or a Hyrdris derivative. Standard maneuver for a pickup. It sounds like the Elves missed the bag man, just nailed the assaulter. How did Prenanala know?" He thought for a few moments, then asked "How long does the illusion spell last?"
"About a week, I think. It should be gone in a couple of days."
"To bad. It suits, and might help. So the Don was MIA. The insects? The Urakai sword and daggers?"
"Gone, I’m afraid. It seemed like a good idea to avoid the Don’s room under the circumstances."
El Sid frowned and nodded. "You said Prenanala gave you gold?"
Krinn nodded. "5 Crowns." [Ed. Note: 50 gold]
Glorm pondered the new evidence for a moment, sipping slowly on his pint of ale. He finished what was left and turned to El Sid. "I'm afraid the next move is up to you Sid. If think you the assassins are just concerned about your whereabouts, then Don, or one of them be showing up in a few days to talk things over. On other hand, if the assassins want you, or if Bradford has gotten to the assassins, then we be better long gone from here in a few days. I know Don was expert in torture, but he can only hold out on whereabouts for so long with professionals working him over. We can always leave encrypted message for Don..."
While Sid pondered the facts, Glorm turned towards the transformed Krinn. "Did Prenanala ever get a chance to look that Urakai scroll over for you? We can probably use any ace in the whole we have."
She nodded. "Yes, I have it with me. It was a bogus spell, kind of like the ones they use on magic bags to screen out higher level magic. It actually doesn’t do anything at all... a decoy, I’m afraid."
Sid paced the room, thinking. If the Guild was specifically looking for Dom, they may have just contacted him. He may have been detained or rerouted on orders from higher authority, although to override a ring-holder on Hold business was distinctly unusual. But then having ring-holders in the Guild was not exactly commonplace he reflected, fingering his own gold band. Krinn would just have been a collateral target in that case.
On the other hand, if the Guild had reason to turn on one of it's own for whatever reason (bad for morale, but not that uncommon given the lay of the Guild), then Dom was dead and their presence here was compromised. This would mean a visit from the Guild was imminent and their conspicuous absence had much to recommend it.
If this business was UNtargeted, however, the business was even MORE curious. What would have been the precipitating factor? Krinn and what she was doing? Maybe if she had a scam going on the side (and being an Elf made that highly probable. Time to "squeeze" her? This was Dom's life, or his vengeance, after all.)
Krinn poured some wine and mixed in a quantity of water. It had been a hasty trip back. She raised the goblet to her lips. And was startled to find the Sid regarding her distantly, yet intently. Almost clinically. The kind of look that she saw on Dom occasionally. Despite herself, her free hand crept surreptitiously towards her dagger...
The Saltan broke his gaze and continued his pacing, seemingly unaware she had even noticed. Like she was some kind of bug. Damn the man! she thought, her anger rising.
On the other hand (the third?), continued Sid, Dom had been charged with selling the crystal forest relics, the Urakai armor and researching the Blackhearts. The crystal forest items were trivial and he dismissed them out of hand. The Urakai weapons and armor, though... seems they had been getting odd feedback on those since they started peddling them. He thought back to the tail that had dogged Glorm and frowned. Maybe Glorm had been *meant* to see that trailer. So as to miss the real tail. That armor was antique, after all. He remembered reading that in Kanday, certain lords of yore had been so notorious that their armor and weapons were known on sight. Could that be the case here? In which case how come there were so many people so keenly sensitized to Urakai history these days? Didn't make a lot of sense. Sid figured he would have picked up something on the street if there was that big an organization operating underground. There were always rumors that got started when the heavy hitters were sniffing around. Sometimes they even intentionally started fads that ran their course over a number of weeks. (Fads were good technique: they churned the waters while simultaneously hiding your own tracks.)
He shook his head and paced. No, they didn't have enough pieces of the puzzle to make that case yet. Too squirrelly. That left the Blackhearts, he concluded with a sinking heart. *They* potentially were big enough to sink *multiple* ships. He hadn't heard any scut on them through the grapevine. He questioned the coincidental timing. But they seemed to have the most obvious potential to cause trouble. If the Guild were involved in them... then they would be dazed, amazed and even fascinated by what they could persuade the Don to tell them. And interested, no doubt, to hear what *he* had to say on the matter as well. Damn, Guild. Always anally thorough.
That only left Factor X. Like the Guild bedding down with the Bradfords. In which case Dom *was* dead and he could be shortly as well. Or there was some unknown here that they'd probably never be able to figure out. At least from here. At least not until Sid returned to set matters straight. How did one avenge that most gifted torturer of his generation? Sid wasn't sure, but he knew he would spend much time and effort figuring that out.
He reached a decision. Turning, "We're out of here. Now. If this is innocent, Dom will come looking for us. If he was detained, he'll know we won't stay here. If this is as bad as it looks, we'll be having visitors here shortly if not sooner." As he spoke, he gathered the few of his belongings that he could carry inconspicuously. "I'll look like I'm taking Johnny for a ride. If we are already made, I may be able to draw fire, making it easier for the rest of you to slip away. Glorm, see what you can load without being conspicuous. We haven't bought pack animals yet. Steal them if you have to. Krinn, with your glamour you should have less of a problem, but that kid downstairs has probably told the tale of your visit to anyone who inquired. Go out the back while I'm drawing eyes out the front. Fuji, Delrin, leave anything you can't carry hidden. Leave the inn by the front entrance about four minutes after I've ridden out, then double back to the West gate. Watch your backtrail. We rendezvous four miles north of town at dusk. You won't see me. I'll be there. We head for Cidan - perhaps to Nequyet from there, then double back to Heraloon. If we can find a small boat up the coast, we'll take it, else we travel overland. We can't risk the docks here. They are watched. Dom knows we had no firm plans so he'll look for us one stop back. He and I have done this before. If we will be entertaining other company, it will take them longer to trace us there. And we'll be laying a little welcome for them. Let's move people. And be careful out there."
The door closed on the Sid's departing back.
The others looked at each other slightly stunned. "Doesn't waste much time does he?" ventured Delrin.
"Arrogant bastard" mumbled Krinn.
Fuji just grinned and started to riff his pack. In his opinion, ANY action was better then this stinking (literally) town life.
Glorm stroked his beard and eyed his remaining brandy and tabac kegs. Now how in the name of Sabrina's left tit was he going to sneak *those* out?? He slowly walked passed the side window and casually estimated the distance to the ground...