Tales of Erogenia: Book 1 - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Lost

They encountered no more denizens of the underground and Tren led her at a steady pace through the sewers, until finally he led her up a flight of stairs. How Tren found his way in the stygian darkness she had no idea. "Must be part rat," she murmured. Then a glimmer of light appeared in front of them. It manifested itself as another grill, this one directly over their head. The stairs finished about six feet below it, but Tren had a simple solution to that problem. "Get on your hands and knees, princess, I need to reach the lock."

Zenaria hesitated only briefly; after all, she couldn't remove the lock and so letting Tren use her as a stepping stool was the only logical choice. She was heartily sick of the stench of the sewers and desperate to get back into someplace where she could see the sun. It took Tren only a few seconds to once again remove the padlock and a little longer than that to push the heavy grate aside. Nimbly he bounced off Zenaria's back and through the opening then lying on his back extended his hand to her. A few seconds later she was standing beside him while he replaced the grate.

She looked round her. On two sides of her were high mud brick walls. Directly in front of her was a wall of shrubbery. "Where is this?"

"The garden of a wealthy merchant's villa. The sewers and drains go almost everywhere in the city. If you know how to use them you can go almost anywhere."

"How is it that you know of them?"

"Criminals make good use of them as hiding places and ways of getting about unseen. I persuaded one of them to show me around."

Zenaria could well imagine the methods of persuasion Tren had used, but she didn't ask for details. "Where do we go from here?"

"We still need food. And it might be useful to get something else to carry whatever we take with us. A trip to the market is still required, however, I think we will avoid the main market and use one in the local neighbourhood."

"We have lost our camel," Zenaria pointed out.

"Better off without it," Tren said. "We can always buy another one when we need it. For now we can just carry what we need back to the grotto."

As Tren had been speaking he had been pushing his way through the shrubbery. As they got to the edge of the foliage he held up his hand signalling a halt and put his finger to his lips for silence.

Peering from behind him, Zenaria saw that they were in a large enclosed space. About fifty feet away across a large ornamental pond and several beds of exotic flowers was an area with a fountain and several stone benches. It was occupied by a number of young women in various stages of undress. Standing behind them were a couple of very muscular guards.

"The merchant's wives," Tren whispered. "He must be doing well to afford eight of them."

"I thought Sandak women were not allowed to show their bodies," Zenaria replied, keeping her voice low. "And how is it that he has eight wives? Is the merchant lovebonded with all of those women? Some look young enough to be his children."

"Ah yes, lovebonding. The Sandakar do not practice lovebonding. A man is allowed to take as many wives as he can afford. As for their state of dress, it is allowed provided only their master looks upon them"

"Let me guess," Zenaria opined, "Sandak women are not allowed the same privilege."

"That would be against Aroo's will," Tren replied as he moved back into thicker foliage and began to circle the pond in an effort to circle around the merchant's harem.

"But does that not leave many men without a woman? Surely if some take so many there must be many who have no mate."

"That is so," Tren said, "but Aroo dictates all things."

"Hmm," Zenaria thought. "And I am the one who is supposed to be a barbarian."

"What of the guards?" she said aloud. "I thought no man was permitted to look upon the wife of another."

Tren stopped and looked at her as if exasperated by her constant questioning, but he finally answered. "Those are not men exactly. At least not the way you and I think of men. Now could you try to keep silent? We will have to pass close to the guards to gain access to the outer wall."

Zenaria followed in silence, emulating Tren's every move. He was amazingly adept at moving silently through the shrubs and trees of the garden, however, Zenaria was no less skilled. As she crept quietly along she contemplated the values of a society that deprived some men of female companionship while removing the balls of others. Tren's comment had shocked her. To deprive someone of his manhood seemed the height of barbarism.

They gained the outer wall without incident. Once there Tren unwound a length of cord from around his waist. Concealed by his robe, Zenaria had not even realized it was there. Tren attached a small hook to it and with a quick flick of his wrists tossed it to the top of the wall. He gave it a tug to make sure that it was secure and then bracing his feet against the wall and pulling with his arms, climbed to the top of the wall. Once there he lay flat and signalled for Zenaria to follow.

A few seconds later Zenaria joined him. They were overlooking still more garden, this one even larger. There were, however, no semi-nude young women in this garden although there were even more eunuch guards. "How big is this place?" she wondered. "Surely it cannot all belong to just one man. It's larger than my village."

Tren did not move, instead he watched the movement of the eunuch guards below. The top of the wall was about a foot wide, so it was not particularly comfortable, but it was large enough that she and Tren could lie quietly until there was an opportune moment. Zenaria watched too, trying to pick up a pattern to the movement of the guards. There were four guards in sight and they walked from one end of the garden to the other, two of them watching in opposite directions each time. Each time the pairs passed one another they stopped and chatted for a few seconds. It was this brief interval that Tren exploited.

Dropping lightly from the wall he landed behind a screen of shrubbery, Zenaria following. They waited until once again the guards had passed and crossed to the other side of the garden. Here there was a small door, almost hidden in the wall and shielded by a flowering shrub. Tren moved through the door, a fairly easy matter since it was locked by a bolt on their side.

Zenaria found that the door exited into what appeared to be a servants' area. The smell of cooking food wafted to Zenaria's nostrils and she guessed that they were probably in the part of the merchant's house where the food was prepared and the servants lived. Cautiously they moved forward, pausing each time they heard voices, until they finally reached one more door which led to a narrow alley.

Zenaria wondered at Tren's knowledge. He seemed to know every hiding place in the city. "From here," he said, "we can walk back to the market. I suspect the Thuski's guards will have stopped looking for us by now. We can purchase some food and make our way back to our refuge."

Zenaria nodded. In truth, in spite of her impulsive and adventurous nature she would welcome the cool quiet of the cave. She was completely put of her element in Uhra Don, with its neat whitewashed houses, strange religion, crowds of people, and bizarre places like the sewers. She longed for the cool northern forest and the familiar dangers of cave bears and giant hairy rhinoceri. However, she had decided that Tren was somehow linked to her vision quest and she would see it through.

The way back to the market was uneventful and as Tren had foretold, there did not appear to be anyone looking for them. How anyone would have picked them out she did not know, as everyone except the foreign merchants wore the uniform black covering.

They came into the market at a different point, not surprising in that the market encompassed an area large enough to hold hundreds of merchants and their wares. This time Zenaria found herself passing by booths of spices. Their odour filled the air and she couldn't help staring in amazement at the enormous variety. In her homeland the only imported spice had been pepper but there were so many she lost track counting them after she reached thirty. It was not hard to understand why the Sandakar spiced their food so heavily when they had so much of it. So intent was she on looking at everything around her, that she did not notice the return stares of a number of merchants and shoppers as she strolled through the market. But Tren did.

"I think you may have been noticed," he whispered. "Remember what I told you about those fluid hips?"

Zenaria did remember, but in her wonder at the marketplace, she had completely forgotten to practice at walking like a man. She slowly reached for her sword, but Tren placed his hand on her arm. "Just relax and keep walking."

Tren might have been right, but at that moment Zenaria caught her hood on one of the supports holding up an awning over one of the stalls, flipping it back and exposing her decidedly un-Sandak features. "A woman!" someone shouted. "A foreigner!" cried another.

The shouting attracted more attention that either she or Tren expected. Suddenly the market in front and behind them began to fill with armed men who resembled very much the Servants of Aroo. "Come on," Tren shouted. Drawing his swords he darted between two booths, spilling a number of reddish bean-like pods into the street. As the spice merchant cursed Zenaria followed, her own sword in her hand.

She could see Tren just a few paces ahead of her, dashing between merchants, but moving slowly enough she did not lose him. Behind her she could hear the sounds of running feet and the occasional crash as one of the pursuers knocked over some hapless merchant's goods.

Tren suddenly darted to the left, cutting between two stalls loaded with cabbages. Zenaria followed, and then suddenly she was flying through the air. She landed on her backside, and slid right under one of the cabbage stalls, scattering cabbages everywhere. She realized as she scrambled to her feet, that she had probably stepped on a couple of rotting cabbage leaves and lost her footing. Scrambling wildly, she staggered to her feet and took off through the market, running with renewed energy due to the knowledge that her pursuers had probably gained on her.

A loud crash and lots of cursing and shouting just a few feet behind her told her that she had been right. Confronted by a stall full of ripe red fruit she ran right at it, getting her foot on the edge of the stall and jumping on top of it. Her weight tipped the stall into the street sending hundreds of the fruits into the path of her pursuers. The fruit turned out to be particularly soft and squishy as she found out on coming down. She landed right on several of them, lost her footing again and landed flat on her back. She rolled to her feet, her robe splattered with red juice and pulp and kept on running, dashing down one row of stalls and ducking under others, until breathless, she found herself hiding behind a stall loaded with large round brown fruits that reminded her of hairy rocks more than anything else.

As luck would have it, she seemed to have lost her pursuers, although she could still hear them crashing around in the market a hundred or so feet away. She was also lucky in that no one had seen her duck behind the stall and among its wares. Trying to control her rapid breathing she crouched where she was and waited for the hubbub to die down. It was only when she had regained her breath that she realized she had no idea where Tren was.

She fought back a moment of panic. All she had to do was wait until dark and then retrace her steps. Surely Tren would be looking out for her. She settled back and made herself as comfortable as she could. Night wasn't that far off. It was only a matter of waiting.

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She awoke to darkness punctuated by flickering torchlight. "By the Moon," she muttered. "How could I have been so stupid?" There could hardly be a greater sin than falling asleep in the camp of the enemy. She sat up and peered out of her hiding place. Her stomach growled, remind her that she had not had anything to eat since the orange Tren had given her. She was also very thirsty.

She fingered one of the hard hairy fruits around her. She had no idea what it was, but it certainly seemed inedible. She could feel three small indentations in the hard surface of the fruit, but her fingers could make no impression in its surface. As she held it up she heard a distinct sloshing noise from inside it as if the fruit might be filled with fluid. Then it came to her that the fruit might be more like a nut, in spite of its huge size. That made sense, a nut that large would almost certainly have a very thick skin.

Taking out her dagger, she pushed it into one of the three small indentations. With a little bit of grunting she was able to force the blade into the nut, splitting it open. She managed to prevent most of the milky fluid from escaping. Tentatively she raised it to her lips and tasted the fluid. It was cool and sweet, and she quickly gulped it down. And then using her knife she pried away the thick white meat inside the husk. "Mmm," she murmured. "Not bad." She broke open another and consumed that one as well. By the time she had eaten a third she was full enough to think about moving on. She had to find Tren and she suspected that he was out there somewhere looking for her.

The problem was where to start. She got to her feet and looked around her. Here and there torches flickered in the market. Surprisingly, at least to her, the market was still very busy in spite of the fact that very few customers were around. The weekly market in her tribal compound always shut down after it was finished. The idea that the various merchants might have to work during the night to restock their stalls had never occurred to her. But then, she had never seen a market that operated every day.

Practicing her masculine walk, and crouching slightly to hide her height, she moved between the stalls, trying to remember what direction she had come. She could remember dashing through stalls laden with spices, and crashing into others loaded with fruits and vegetables. She soon realized that in her headlong flight she had completely lost all sense of the direction in which she had fled. She also realized that she had no idea how to find her way back to the place where she had last seen Tren, which was unfortunately the logical place to begin looking for him.

"By the tiger's teats" she muttered, giving in to one of the few moderately vulgar expressions warriors of the Snow Leopard used. Warriors of her tribe rarely swore when angry, they preferred to cut off people's heads instead. She was truly frustrated and completely out of her element. Had she been in Erogenia she could have backtracked to find out where she had been, but any tracks she might have left on the packed ground of the market had long been eradicated by countless feet.

This was not good. She couldn't simply wander around Uhra Don searching stupidly for some sign of Tren. She had to have some sort of plan or she was simply going to attract attention to herself. Then she remembered the place where she and Tren had entered the city. They had come through the back of a stable near the area where livestock was bought and sold. Surely if she searched long enough she should be able to find that section of the market.

It was a good plan, but one she did not get to put into motion. She suddenly realized that she was being watched. She tried not to look at them, ducking behind a stall selling bolts of brightly coloured cloth. She used the opportunity to take a quick peek at the men watching her. They were all armed, and although their costume was different from the Servants of Aroo, they were clearly not merchants, their clothing trimmed with red and with conical metal helmets under their hoods. Zenaria recognized warriors when she saw them and guessed that they were probably part of the city guard or something similar.

In spite of her discovery, however, she did not panic. Instead she moved at a sedate but steady pace away from them, hoping to once again lose herself in the maze of stalls. This time, however, she was out of luck. Directly in front of her was another group of guards, their eyes fixed on her as she strolled toward them. She realized that the time for pretending was over. She took a quick assessment of her situation. There were about ten men behind her and a similar number in front. Perhaps not too many to fight, depending on their fighting skills, but the commotion of a battle would surely attract more. The best plan was to run.

Quickly she seized a torch that was attached to a nearby booth, and running at right angles between a row of booths selling textiles, she touched the torch to their canvas roofs. The dry canvas immediately caught fire. She delayed her flight a few seconds more as she trotted down the row, setting fire to awning after awning, and then dropping the torch she made a run for it. Behind her rose cries of alarm and shrieks of outrage, along with orders shouted by the pursuing guards.

As before, she tried to use the dozens of booths to her advantage, zigzagging among them to throw off the pursuit. But this time her pursuers were not so easy to eliminate. She had hoped that the confusion created by setting fire to the market would help, but instead it simply seemed to have attracted more soldiers. Not only were they hard on her heels behind her, but a number were running parallel, preventing her from breaking to either side.

Desperately, Zenaria began to look for someplace - anyplace that she could use for a hiding place, but none presented itself. She was like a hunted animal, with the hunters all around her, and their dogs nipping at her heels. With an oath she stopped, hard up against a booth stacked with large earthenware jars. There was nowhere else to go. She undid the ties of her robe and stood revealed in all of her barbarian glory. Sword in hand she waited. "Come on you Sandak bastards," she muttered. "Let's see how well you fight."

Continued in Chapter 11

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