2 Childhood & Charity I

It was a warm summer night, just after sundown, when Garrett first met Nannade for the first time. Back then, he didn't know her name, not her real one at least, nor whether she was a girl or a boy. But he was sure that she was a crolachan. Many ship captains had assured him that the very few that were left made excellent sailors. They climbed faster than most would walk, they were small and agile and they could take quite a few hits before staying down. He was sitting in an inn, chocked with smoky warmth. Garrett sat in one corner of the room. He didn't have his eyes on the maidens, the booze, or any companions as the rest of the tavern's patrons did. He had his eyes fixed on the stairs leading up from the basement. A few moments ago, a man came from there, checked his belt buckle, and strolled over to his companions' table with a big smirk on his face. Down there had to be where the child and its mother were.

He had prepared for this night for a long time. He knew all the possible escape routes, he knew where he had a chance of getting out unseen and even if he was caught, he had a plan for that too. The planning had cost him very much. He wasn't getting paid for this, so he had to hoard a substantial amount of gold to live off from, for the past months and many yet to come. Even his usually well kempt beard had gone raggle-taggle from neglect.

Garrett decided to go through his plan once more. He flipped open a small square notebook with a front and back made of leather and held together by a ring through a hole in one corner. The palm-sized pages were filled with all sorts of diagrams, formulas and geometries written in blueish dark ink. He tore one out and put it face down on the table. The inn was tight, he might have to fight in the narrow hallways. One Fog Cloak. He said in his head. He tore off more papers in the same manner. He knew he'd need some time alone and undisturbed to get through with his plan. One Door Seal, one more for safety. He knew the basement had one window with iron bars to the street. If he could take one bar out and remove one stone, he could climb out onto the street. One Stone Grind. He might also encounter unwelcome people and needed to incapacitate them, just for a while. Two Constrictors. If he ended up being followed by the guards outside, he needed some distraction to get them off his trail. One Needless Call. Three Fuses. And finally, he did what he always did, at least one for unexpected situations. One Invisible Fist.

He looked at the range of papers now laying on the table in front of him. Then he put them under his waistband in the same sequence, saying their names again in his head each time, he bound the leather envelope of the notebook closed. He was ready to make his move. He collected his thoughts and headed over to the stairs. Down in the narrow hallway he could see three doors and a guard waiting there. Although "guard" was a generous term. More like a fat guy with a whacking stick. Garrett gave the guard a golden coin and he opened the door to the right and let Garrett in.

Inside Garrett saw what he had expected: three boxes like in a stable. The first stood open, inside a crolachan woman in a ragged dress on a pile of straw, chained to a wall. In the third, a small crolachan child, blindfolded and cloths over its ears, wearing a ragged tunica. The second box was empty. The woman looked like an average crolachan, although even the far-travelled Garrett had rarely seen them. She was a bit smaller than usual women and covered in a very short but dense fur. Her eyes were golden, her ears long and mobile, between her legs a short, thin tail peeked forth. Probably an exotic beauty once, but now mostly worn down and covered in swellings and scabs, that much Garrett could tell even by the weak light of the candles on the wall. Around her neck she bore a collar of marks on her skin, glowing a faint blue. Her eyes were half filled with fear and half devoid of any emotion. She looked away and slowly opened her legs. The stench of her previous patron filled the air. He couldn't help but feel that someone else was in the room with him. He brushed it off as his usually vigilant mind.

Garrett paid her little heed and instead looked at the child in the other corner. It breathed slowly, knees drawn all the way close to its face. Its coat had no sheen or lustre to it, but no visible scabs or wounds.

He made his way over to the woman, knelt between her legs and grabbed her by the clothes, then pushed her back into the straw. Then he brought his mouth next to her ear and spoke softly. "I am here to make a trade with you."

With a cautious voice she answered: "What do I have that I could trade?"

"that child in the corners is yours, yes?"

She nodded.

"and it too has the collar of slavery on its neck, yes?"

Again, she nodded.

"Then I will offer you to remove that collar."

The woman took a deep breath. "That would kill her, idiot."

Garrett smiled knowingly. "What if I told you that I have found a way to transfer the killing function of her collar to another slave collar of the same kind."

The woman swallowed, then took another deep breath. "That would be mine, wouldn't it?"

"Yes. I will trade the freedom of your child for your life."

Another short pause.

"Why?"

"Because it is valuable, but I'll never give any money to the slavers for their trade."

The woman turned her head to Garrett. Their eyes were few inches apart.

"I'll train her. I will not use her as some sacrifice or put her to work in a brothel, that much I can promise."

A pause. "Can I talk to her a last time?"

Garrett let go of her, stood up and began pulling several objects from his pockets. A leather sheath with various small tools, a crystal glass vial as big as a thumb, an empty crystal glass inkwell, a metal quill on an ivory shaft, and a paper scroll. He took small lock picks from the sheath and walked over to the child. First, he caressed it softly to sooth it, then picked the big padlock holding all the chains together. He took off the blindfolds. The child looked at Garrett with perplexity. The mother spoke as loudly as she dared to. "It's alright sweetie. This man will take you away from here. He'll set you free."

The child, with disbelief in its eyes, crawled over to the mother. She cradled the child and whispered things in its ears, rocking back and forth.

It was taking quite some time and Garrett looked to the door. He took one paper from his waistband, put it over the gap between door and stone wall, imagined thumb and middle finger of a hand pressing against each other in his head and released them into a mental SNAP of the fingers. The paper started to burn along the ink lines and quickly went up in a puffing flame. Where the paper had been, the formula on the paper had turned from ink into an apparition of glowing threads on the surface of the door and wall.

He turned around. Mother and child were still embracing each other. One of them did not seem to entirely grasp the gravity of this moment. When the mother saw Garrett standing next to her, his keen eyes piercing her teary eyes, she gave the child a last kiss and put the blindfold back on.

Garrett knelt down, unrolled the paper scroll and weighed the edges down with rocks. It had quite some diagrams and glyphs sketched on it with coal. He took the woman's hand and pricked her finger with a short obsidian shard. He guided her hand to put her finger into the inkwell and let the blood flow out. Then he dipped his quill into the blood and started tracing the coal lines.

It took a while and he had to open the woman's wound wider more than once. She did not let any sign of pain pass her lips for the entire ordeal. After all the lines were drawn with blood, he opened her wound up a last time, all the way down to the palm, held it above the vial and squeezed until it had filled completely, then he put the plug in and put it down in the middle of the paper. Blood flowed from her lower lip where she had been biting on it the entire time.

He reached for the child's head and pushed it on the paper and did the same with the woman's on the opposing side of the paper. She whispered a "thank you." Then he started an incantation.

The marks on both necks began to glow brighter. The woman started to breathe heavily. Her hands shot to her neck, trying to free herself from its choking grasp. Garrett had to apply more and more force down on her head to keep her from struggling off the paper. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets, her mouth gaping wide. The claws on her fingers began to scratch deep into her skin. Garrett tried to ignore these distractions and concentrate on his incantations.

The marks started to burn brighter and brighter and then, suddenly their colour shifted. The child's marks were starting to turn a flaming orange, the woman's marks in a bright purple.

A bang on the door. "EY, any longer and you'll have to pay again, you hear me?" The guard sounded annoyed already. Garrett had no time to answer. He continued with his whispered incantations.

The guard tried to open the door, but the seal held, flaring up in blazing lines with each push.

"EY, OPEN UP!" Again and again, the guard threw himself against the door, the seal strained and sparks flew, the banging stopped. Footsteps were heard going up the stairs, then shortly after, several footsteps down the stairs.

Garrett heard another voice "What did he lock it with? There's nothing in there!"

"Maybe he used a spell?" the fat guard said.

"Bloody arses mages!"

The banging resumed, more violently than before, the seal leaking more and more sparks, but the marks on the necks of mother and child were not done resisting.

With a crack like splintering glass and tearing metal, the seal broke and the door flew open, the marks had reached their breaking point. The child's marks burned out with an audible fizzle, the two guards stormed towards Garrett, the struggling of the child and mother stopped, the first guard yelled "EY, HANDS OFF THE LITTLE GIRL!"

Garrett turned around just in time to roll to the side and evade the guard's downward club bash. The second guard tried to land a kick, but Garrett had already blocked it with his forearm. He reached for one of the papers, held it between in front of his eyes at arm's length, imagined the tensed fingers in his head, Constrictor, and let it SNAP. The guard fell to the floor, wrapped in invisible ropes. The first guard had recovered and swung again, Garrett rolled back, drew another paper, tensed up and cast the second Constrictor. He too fell to the floor, unable to do anything but struggle against his invisible bindings. Garrett stood up, exhaled to relaxation and looked around the room.

The door stood open, the stench of burnt hair and skin had been added to the room, the child was huddled in the corner, rocking back and forth, the mother's lifeless body lay on the floor. The room was silent safe for the struggling of the two guards against their invisible bonds.

Garrett knew the Constrictors wouldn't last long and moved on in his plan. He walked to the child and whispered in its ear "We'll be leaving now. Just follow my lead." Garrett got quickly to packing all his things back where they belonged, burned the large paper scroll in the candle on the wall, and took the still blindfolded child by the hand.

He left the guards and the corpse in the room and closed the door behind him; he didn't want her to see this scene. He turned to his right. The tavern had a low window from the basement to the street somewhere, barred with iron, but it had to be in one of the other rooms. He checked in the first and found no source of light. He checked in the second and saw the faint light from the street lamps shine in. He closed the door behind him and applied the second door seal. Then he took the blindfolds off the child. They were soaked in tears and snot. It looked at him with big wet eyes.

"Just trust me and be quiet, do you understand?"

The child nodded.

The room they were in was obviously a storage room; many crates and bags were blocking his path. He moved a few crates to get to the window, pulled out the Stone Grind and applied it to the wall above the iron bars. The stone crumbled to sand and dust. He pulled out two of the iron bars. It made the resulting hole just big enough, hopefully.

Sudden bangs, rattling and curses on the door hurried him along, the child winced at the sudden disturbance. The seal would hold long enough for him to continue as planned. Quickly Garrett lifted the child outside, then he exhaled to make himself as thin as possible and forced himself through as well. With a lot of squeezing he managed to get out.

It was already dark outside. The tavern was not far from the city walls, but he could not get out through the gates at night. He knew of a simple way to get up via a broken stairway, but the child moved clumsily, wobbling on its feet. He went around the corner of the tavern, pulled out the needless call and one fuse, pressed them one above the other onto the tavern's wall, tensed his thoughts and whispered to the paper "Here, I found him here!" then he let his mind SNAP again and went back around the way he came. He knelt down in front of the child and beckoned it to climb on his back. With the child piggyback, he ran down the streets. His memory led him through a narrow passage away from any patrolling guards or curious people who might find a man carrying a small child on his back in the dark of the night interesting enough to investigate.

Shortly after he had arrived at the broken stairway, he heard his own voice yelling from the distance "Here, I found him here!" He had to find a thin thread he had tied to a rope up on the broken stairs earlier in preparation. His fingers quickly moved through the air close to the broken wall and eventually got hold of the thin thread in the darkness. He pulled on it and the rope uncoiled from above. He climbed up himself and then told the child to hold on tightly to the rope, then pulled the child up. He had also stashed the rest of his pack here, under a piece of rubble.

Up on the wall, he looked left and right. He could tell by the torches, that the next guard patrols were far away and slow. He told the child again to hold on to the rope and lowered it down the outside of the wall, then he followed.

Another tug on the thread and the knot that fastened the rope to the top of the wall came undone. He tied the rope around the child's waist and together they headed along the hedges and fields towards the forest in the distance.