Interludes III
The empire was much cooler than the Deadlands, but Kala was far from being comfortable. She thought they had succeeded in fleeing from her father, but now he was dead, while they were in the clutches of the very people who killed him.
It was the slavers their father was planning to sell Runi to, or already had. With their swagger, the group of men and women were sauntering through the city; she couldn’t think it was otherwise.
Kala might still have hope if they were law-abiding folk. Enslavement was one of the most heinous acts, but legally, there were ways to buy back your freedom. Unfortunately, the group they had encountered in the Deadlands were the most nefarious kind.
Kala could feel it in her essence, a mark etched onto the very foundation of her power. Now she had no experience with slave marks, but the agonising torment she bore through whenever she tried to do anything to it confirmed it to be one of the worst kinds of enslavement brands. There were still no instances of Compulsion yet, but the owner of the brand could easily rip apart her essence threads and gorge open her essence seed from the abdomen without even lifting a finger.
And it wasn’t just her. They had marked Runi as well.
Even without it, killing the two of them would be as trivial as swatting flies to him. He was a shaper and might even be of the Fabled class. His underlings called him Master, though Kala was unsure if they were all slaves.
The master always wore a jovial expression and carried himself like a refined man, but whenever he even peered at her, Kala’s skin crawled, as if hundreds of bugs were creeping under her skin. Compared to his underlings, even the burly, bald brute who had beaten her senseless when she tried to flee at night, he was far more terrifying.
How could they flee from someone like that?
Kala had attempted it a few times already, but every time they’d find her before she could even cross a town or two. It seemed the mark somehow could help them track their location. With how loosely they left her, it was like they were playing around with her, as if they wanted her to see how futile her efforts were.
“Ah, it's the time for the yearly contest again,” said the master, as the group of dozen people loitered near the gate of the inner city.
The path was crowded with people, with various stalls, vendors, and food stands lining both sides. A canopy of colourful decorations and lighting stretched wherever they went.
The master turned towards the siblings. “Need I remind you what may befall if you try to be too smart?”
Kala shook her head as her brother hid behind her. She had tried to involve other people and even lawmen a couple of times when she tried to escape. Some of them tried to help. Unfortunately, none had taken the threat seriously, and it had cost them their lives. If that wasn’t dreadful enough, whenever the master was present, he somehow always managed to persuade others that Kala and Runi were but his mischievous niece and nephew.
He might have a way around words, but his abilities were far more insidious than that. It was as if he could manipulate the very thoughts of people, bend what they see or hear. As for why he hadn’t used that on them, only the man himself and Oracle knew why.
Kala had already seen over a dozen uniformed lawmen along the road, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak to them. Some of them were even weaker than her. She might be able to create chaos, stirring the crowd, and flee in the confusion. But unless she removed the marks from her essence seed, there was likely no place on earth they could escape from him.
Still, it seemed better than remaining with them. She could turn herself in at an enforcer station. The empire might not condone the enslavement, but the number of people the man’s underlings had killed in order to capture her...
“Looks like you don’t understand,” the Master said, reading through her thoughts, “perhaps I have gone easier on you.”
His index finger twitched slightly, and at once, a twisting agony tore through her abdomen. Her essence surged in reverse, contorting violently within her; even the air caught in her chest, her sight darkening. Her younger brother had already lain down on the ground amidst the crowd, suffering the same torment.
Yet, astonishingly, no one around them seemed to notice. The crowd carried on, immersed in their own merry way.
“Talon,” the master called his most entrusted underling. “They will be under your care from here. Take them through the old path, while I take care of something. And make no mistake, I want no eyes on your group.”
The pain eventually subsided. Kala watched as the man handed a small metal tablet to the bald underling.
“You can use this to keep them under control.”
“You can rest assured, Master. I may have to break a few of their limbs, but I will bring them to the halls in one piece.”
As the master departed, the bald man and the other underlings forced the siblings forward. Yet no more than a minute passed when a ruckus broke out.
“Gah! Watch where you are going?”
A shout rang out. Kala turned to find a youth with yellowish hair sprawled on the ground, whereas the underling he collided into, rubbed his chest.
“It's you who don’t have eyes, boy,” the slaver barked.
The youth stood to his feet with a lunge and glared at the man. “Did you think you own the whole road or something? Swaggering with the whole flock of yours like it's your backwards.”
Without the master’s trickery, the group easily caught more eyes.
“Priam, don’t make a scene,” muttered a blonde girl as she ran to join him, trailed by a red-haired boy and a dark-skinned youth.
Kala could tell that they were all awakened, though she couldn’t understand where they got the gall to talk back to a whole group of people who were clearly stronger than them. Perhaps it was because of the empire. Even the youths here were more unrestrained.
“It's not my fault,” the boy said, turning towards his friends. “You two have seen it, didn't you?”
“I did warn you about overusing your gift on a crowded road,” the red-haired boy said, shaking his head.
“Pardon us, Sirs,” the dark-skinned youth said. “My friend was in a bad mood after he got eliminated from the tournament.”
“Hey, why are you apologising? It isn't my fault that they blocked the whole road with their gang.”
The apologising youth covered his mouth with his palm.
“Be careful with this friend of yours,” the bald enslaver said with a grin. For someone sharing her ethnicity, he spoke the empire’s tongue quite well, despite his thick accent. “Someday he might pull you into trouble you find no way out of.”
The red-haired youth nodded, his eyes observing them silently as if examining whether this group was the said trouble.
The gang of enslavers moved on, pushing the siblings along. Without the Master, making themselves scarce was the one way they could stay out of prying gazes.
Kala felt like she needed to do something now, but she held herself back. Their master hadn’t even gone for two minutes. It would be prudent to wait for a little longer.
“Wait,” the red-haired youth piped up.
The burly man who was in charge now exchanged glances with a few of his companions, communicating to them to keep their civility.
“Priam might be at some fault here, but you all still shouldn’t move around like you own the path. And your aura is unsettling, restrain it, look at how disturbed the bystanders are.”
There were dozens of bystanders nearby, lingering, though none seemed to be as courageous as this group of four to confront the crooks.
The bald man eyed them, before his eyes returned to the boy with a strange intensity. “Noted,” he said finally. “We’ll see to that.”
With that, they carried on. Kala couldn’t help but crane her neck to peek at the youths. How different would her life be if she were born in the empire?