From alt.pub.dragons-inn Mon Nov 22 14:54:35 1993 Path: netcom.com!csus.edu!csulb.edu!library.ucla.edu!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!vtserf.cc.vt.edu!solaris.cc.vt.edu!server.cs.vt.edu!reaux From: reaux@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Ray A Reaux) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [FACELESS MAN] Giggling Medusa 3 Date: 19 Nov 1993 05:59:53 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 Lines: 216 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2chncp$c62@server.cs.vt.edu> Reply-To: reaux@cs.vt.edu (Ray A Reaux) NNTP-Posting-Host: csgrad.cs.vt.edu X-Newsreader: dxrn 6.18-6 [This is the last section to Chapter 2 of the Faceless Man. ] [Comments, criticisms, participants welcome. ] [ ] [Copywrited by me, Ray A.Reaux, just in case. ] Silently, I got to my feet and moved away from my sleeping spot on the floor. Although the room had a clean bed, I had chosen the familiar hardness of the floor. I did not know what had woken me, but I sensed danger. With my back against the wall, I scanned the room. Other than the unused bed and the small table, the room was empty. The shutters on the one small window were as I had left them, partially opened. Everything was as it should have been, but something had woken me. Outside my door a floor board creaked, and the door slowly opened. The smell of smoke drifted, in and a dark form crept in and crawled its way across the room to the bed. I waited to make sure he was alone, but no one else followed him into the room. When it got to the bed, the shadow flashed up an arm and drove a knife into the bed. I kicked the man into the wall. A board splintered under his impact, and the man collapsed and did not get up. Then I heard the scream. I bolted outside into the hall and down the smoke-choked stairs. As I ran, I banged on the doors I passed to waken the other guests. I knew Brac and at least one other person were sleeping here. Smoke-filled the common room, and fire raged in the kitchen. The scream had come from the small suite of three rooms that were the owners' private quarters, and to get there, I had to go through the burning kitchen. I cursed because I had not had the foresight to bring a blanket with me so that I could have some measure of protection from the flames,, but near the bottom of the stairs, I saw a bucket of dirty water that Karrel had used to mop the floor and forgotten. Grabbing it, I doused myself with its content and plunged into the flames. Coughing, I struggled through the fire and dove through the open doorway into the short hallway that led to the three rooms. A sword flashed over my head. Fore-warned by the glint of fire off the blade, I rolled to avoid the assassin's downward cleave and bumped into a body lying in the hallway. I winced as my outstretched hand banged against a stool. As the swordsman recovered from his missed blow to come at me again, I grabbed the stool and threw it at his head. While he ducked, I flipped to my feet and kicked him back into the flames that licked at the doorway. As he was propelled backwards, his desperate hands grasped the doorway, stopping his fall. I kicked him again, this time sending him crashing through the doorway onto a burning table. Screaming, he scrambled, from the flames, his dark clothes flaring with hungry fire, and I kicked him again, this time breaking his neck. I picked up Alwen, whom I had rolled into, and moved her further away from the burning kitchen. I found Karrel still in his bed, dead from a knife thrust into his heart. I was thankful that he had died a quick death. From the look on his face, he hadn't even woken up to die. I had not liked Karrel, but he was Hearn's son. The hallway was starting to catch fire, and breathing was difficult. Alwen was coming around when someone else jumped out of the flames into the room. A blanket covered his face and arms, and he was clutching his sword. "We got to get out of here," Brac shouted over the roar of the flames. He threw aside the smoldering blanket and grabbing one of Alwen's arm, helped me get her to her feet and into her room. I opened her windows, and suppressing my wracking cough, gulped down a lung full of cool air. As Brac practically threw Alwen out the window and scrambled after her, I went back for Karrel's body, but the bed was flush against the wall next to the kitchen, and fire was already licking its way through the wall, engulfing the bed in flames. The heat was unbearable and hot embers were burning holes through my clothes into my skin. I could not get to Karrel's body, and thick acrid smoke clawed at my throat, forcing coughs that wracked my body. Although I could not get to his body, there was something else I could get. I slammed my fist into the wall next to the window, and the half inch wood splintered under the impact, revealing Hearn's safe place. Inside, I found the bundle that I had given him 25 years ago. I gave the wall several more swift blows to completely expose the long bundle. Grabbing it, I hastily opened the shutters and climbed out the window. Outside, in the safety of an alley, I found Brac holding a sobbing Alwen. "Come on, we've got to move." I said as I led them down the alley. "We've got to get out of sight. Alwen, do you know any place where we can hide for now" "Hide, hide from whom?" asked Alwen. She had yet to ad- just to her tragedy. "We've got to report this to the guards. Karrel's been murdered." She was approaching hysteria. "Think, Alwen," Brac shook her gently. "We can't go to the guards. This was Spider's handiwork. If by some miracle he hasn't bought the City Walkers, then he sure as hell will buy the magistrates. Modrake's right, we've got to find a place to hide until we know what's going on. Now, do you know where we can hide for a few days?" "We can stay at Widow Josen's place. She'll take us in." "Good girl. Now you're thinking." Brac reassured the girl. "How do we get there? It better not be too far because some of us are not really dressed to lantern it down the middle of town." For the first time, Alwen realized that she was dressed in her cotton night shift. The wind channeled through the alley plastered the shift on her, concealing very little of her figure. She shivered from the cold and from fear. "It's not far from here. Only three blocks down on River Street." Streets normally empty at this late night were rapidly filling with men and women who were too alarmed to notice Alwen's night robe, and we walked unnoticed past people running towards the fire. In a city, fire was the great enemy, because the dry, half-rotted wood that made up most buildings burned as easily as kindling, and once a fire raged out of control, the entire city was in peril. Several of the streets of the city had originated as fire breaks from previous infernos. On one occasion, an unpopular governor had ordered the burning of a small section of the city near the edge of the Knifer's District so that he could replace the crumbling collection of old buildings with a bath house and a sports amphitheater. Rumors that the fire, which not only burned down the intended area, but two other blocks as well, had escaped, and the enraged people had rioted. They had stormed the governor's mansion, dragged the governor into the same ash he had ordered created, and burned him at the stake. Coincidentally, the Border Legion, with whom the governor was none too popular, had left for unscheduled training maneuvers the day after the firing of the town. The bath house and sports amphitheater were never built, and the area, rebuilt with shanty houses and crude buildings, was swallowed by the Knifer's District. Widow Josen's home and shop was one of several in a decayed, half tumbled row house that bordered the Knifer's District. Once the building had been within the boundaries of the Sandler's Way, but the neighborhood had succumbed to the creeping growth that was the slums of the Knifer's District. It was in the half-zone where much of the poor, but not yet destitute lived, wealthy enough to have rooms, and perhaps small shops, but too poor to escape the troubles of the violence infested slums. The widow made a meager living selling candles, but her location was such that few from the other districts would care to venture this close to the thieves quarters, and if they did, they rarely bought candles. The thieves and beggars of the Knifer's District were too poor to buy tallow, and what they they could not buy, they often stoled. Only after Alwen's repeated knocking and shouted whis- pers did the widow open the peep hole to peer out at us. Even then, her near-sighted vision could barely recognize Alwen in the dim light from her fish oil lamp that escaped through the hole. "Alwen, for heavens sake girl, what are you doing out at this time of night? You know it isn't safe." "Goodwoman Josen, something terrible has happened, and I didn't know who else to turn to. Can you let us in for the night?" "Of course, my dear. But who are the two men behind you girl? It's a hard lot you have taken up with. I know. My husband was one such man," she said as she opened the door to let us into her shop. She clutched a lamp in one hand, and in the other, a well- honed dagger that seemed out of place in her age-spotted hands. She put the lamp down, but kept the dagger. She walked over to the small hearth, but before she could stoke a fire with the coals from the ember pot, I stopped her. "There is no need, " I said. "A blanket will suffice to keep out the night's chill, and we have already fed the fire god one too many times this night." "You don't wish to attract attention," the widow guessed shrewdly. "A new fire at this time of night would attract any who sought you." I smiled at her cleverness, but she was right. Some- one else other than the two assassins I had encountered had set the blaze. If so, I did not want anyone who might have followed us from the tavern knowing exactly which rowhouse, or which shop we had come to. As she fetched a blanket for Alwen, I checked her home., because long ago I had learned the value of knowing always what exits there were from a warren. The widow's home was modest, consisting of a small shop in the front and a single room in the back. The back room had a door and a shuttered window that opened into an alley. The window, like most ground floor windows in the city, was too small for any but a small child to climb through. I unbolted the door and peered outside into the alley. The burning Giggling Me- dusa Inn splattered lurid red paint against the wall. From its light, I saw a harmless beggar, besot with drink, sleeping in the alley. Widow Josen's home reflected her personality. The water basin was cracked and the single throw rug was threadbare, but the place was clean, functional, with hints of cheerful humor disguised under a thin veneer of austerity. "My aren't we a nervous one. What do you think I have hidden here, the Duke's army?" I smiled at the widow's sarcasm. "Peace, mother," I said as I sat down at her table. "To begin a journey, a traveler must first know where the door is." "Alwen, what trouble have you gotten into? Although I'm not surprised, mind you. Your father was a wild one, like my man, and trouble is in the blood." While Alwen explained to the widow, I opened the cloth-wrapped bundle I had removed from Hearn's safe place. I grasped the familiar cold pommel and partially drew Ice from its scabbard. The sword gleamed bone-white in the dim lamp light. "Where did you get the sword," Brac asked. He pulled out a boot knife and sliced a hunk of cheese from a wedge that was on the table. I could hear wariness creep into his voice, and I could not blame him. I told him the truth, or half-truth. "I got it from the Inn. Alwen's father is an old friend of my family and he was keeping it for us. He hid it in a safe place, and I retrieved it before I got out of the fire." He still had more questions, but I snapped the sword back into its hilt. "We'll talk about it later. Right now I'm tired." Brac was going to ask me another question but thought better of it. The widow had already put Alwen to bed in her room. and was standing in the doorway with two quilt blankets. I took the blanket the widow offered me, wrapped it around myself, and stretched out near the still warm hearth. As I fell asleep, I heard the laughter of the Faceless Man. Chapter Three: Raven' Loft