Chapter 2: Rumors

When Cane woke up, he was lying on a couch in a white brick room with only a small table, another couch, and a mirror hanging on one of the walls. There was a chilly draft in the room that made him shiver due to lack of shirt. He placed a hand on his bandaged chest, wincing as a small amount of pain shot through him. Getting up was even harder, though once he started walking around, the pain was easier to deal with. The mirror was parallel to the couch he was lying on and cane couldn’t resist the temptation to get at least a glance. He frowned when he saw his appearance. His face and arms had small black cuts on them from the explosion, and his back and legs were scratched even worse from falling and being shoved so much. 

The door suddenly swung open causing Cane to jump and pain to shot through his body. Cairo walked into the room with an ice pack in one hand, setting it on the table next to the couch Cane was resting on without a word. He made his way to the other couch and flopped down on it, throwing his hands behind this head and closing this eyes. A woman in an apron walked into the room next as Cane had just turned back to the mirror to examine himself again. She smiled as he slightly blushed when he realized she was watching him. 

“Glad to see you’re up already,” she said, extending out one of her hands that Cane shook. “I about had a heart attack when the boy over there brought you here"you were both so hurt! I just can’t believe you three made it out alive of the Crimson City calamity. A lot of people died in it. I had family back there, haven’t heard a word from them.” 

“I’m sorry...” Cane’s eyebrows furrowed together as he tried to keep up with the fast paced woman who was already pressing the cold pack Cairo brought against his forehead. “Can I ask: where am I?” 

She blinked twice before her mouth opened in an o-shape. Readjusting the ice pack on his forehead, she gestured for him to take it before taking a couple steps back. “That outta help with the headache. I’ve passed out a couple of times myself and got teeerrible headaches. Anyway! That boy over there brought you here, passed out cold and all. You were both bleeding and when I heard you just got back from Crimson City, I thought one of you were definitely going to die!” She pressed her fingers against her lips as she looked to the door, her voice hushed, speaking to no one in particular. “That girl didn’t look the least bit phased and wasn’t even hurt.” 

“She’s a Kleptos,” Cairo mumbled, his body wiggling until he found a comfortable spot, his eyes not making any move to open. “Something like that wouldn’t hurt her.”

“A Kleptos?” the woman asked. 

Cairo nodded his head, a deep yawn escaping his mouth. “A Kleptos is a card spirit, or rather, a spirit trapped in a card. They have domains of what kind of power they control"some control whole elements, some parts of elements; some control knowledge of a certain subject, some parts of that knowledge. There was a legend that passed down to Kleptos users, Pyrrohs, about a time when Kleptos ruled the lands. They fought so much for power that the gods grew angry and trapped them into cards, entwining their souls to the cards themselves, to be used as tools for the rest of their lives. It’s part of the Old Myths, but no one knows if it’s true or not. We only know that there’s such a thing as Kleptos who are in fact trapped inside a card.” 

“That sounds sketchy.” 

“So does this place, but you don’t see me complaining.” 

“We usually don’t let anyone from the Government come in this place,” she snapped. “You’re lucky, boy, don’t go pressing your luck! The only reason you’re here is because you both were badly hurt and I thought one of you might die, but if you’re fine, you can get out of my clinic, you Government dog.”

Getting a scowl from the woman Cairo didn’t see because his eyes were still closed, she turned around and walked out of the room. A few moments later, Aerie walked into the room with a banana, closing the door softly behind her. She stretched the banana out to Cane who shook his head.

“Don’t you need it?”

“Kleptos don’t need to eat,” she said quietly, moving the banana again for Cane to take.

“Oh… I forgot. Sorry,” he said, staring at the banana in his hand. Cane took a deep breath pushing the ice pack harder against his head. “Actually, I think I’m going to take a walk. And! I don’t need you to follow me, Aerie. Cairo’s probably still hurt, so you can watch him. I’ll leave the banana and ice pack for him, though.”

She nodded her head as Cane closed the door behind him. The hallway walls were made out of white brick and the floor was hard cement. Only a few lights hung in the hallway. They were so dim that either way, with no windows, it felt more like a prison than a clinic. It could could have been easy to feel claustrophobic"close walls, no light, and tight spaces could easily make the mind see the walls closing in on its victim. This was better than the slums they were in at Crimson City, but this was only on the outskirts of the slums, and was still considered part of the slums by most people. The people that lived here had a better living, though it was by a slim line.

Cane pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind as an elderly man with a white coat walked out of a room a door down. He looked at Cane with a fierce defense before his eyes softened on recognition, a smile dancing on his lips. “Oh, you’re one of the boys that came here from Crimson City. I’m surprised you can walk already. You’ve got a pretty bad bruise by your ribs. They were almost broke. Make sure not to apply more pressure on them or they will break.” 

“It still really hurts,” Cane said, taking a glance at his ribs before sucking in a breath as a shot of pain coursed through him. He fought with another urge to wrap his arms tightly around himself.

“I’d be surprised if it didn't’!” He threw his head back as he laughed, though his face was serious again when he stopped laughing to look at Cane. “It’s supposed to hurt, boy. What did you expect after you almost broke your ribs? This isn’t something a bowl of ice cream and a hot bath can fix. You have some serious injuries and I don’t recommend walking through the clinic. I already yelled at your other friend about this, so both of you be good kids and rest up some more.”

“Where are we?” Cane asked. “The last thing I remember was blacking out in Crimson City. I don’t know what happened, where I am, or most of what you’re talking about.”

“Mmm. That’s understandable.” He nodded his head, running a hand over his white moustache.  “My clinic is just between Crimson City and Edna. When you came here, I thought you’d died. You inhaled enough smoke to kill a grown man, but somehow miraculously you survived, though your airways did shut down for a short time almost immediately after you got here. The fainting was also due to your lack of oxygen and dysfunctional airways. That headache you have is from the carbon monoxide you inhaled"it’ll probably be followed by nausea, vomiting, and more confusion.”

“So, are you going to give me more tests?” 

“I don’t need to give you more tests if you’re wandering around my clinic!” he yelled. “Get back in your damn room and sleep.” 

“Yessir,” Cane said as fast as he could, a brisk bob to the head. “Right away, sir.”

Another series of knife stabs coursed through Cane’s body as he turned on his heel and ran for the safety of the room he came from. It was hard to ignore it when everything on his body felt like it was about to fall off or was being crushed by something at least one-hundred times his weight. He took a long breath as he pushed himself against the door of the room he woke up in. Cairo opened one of his eyes, a slight smirk parading on his lips. 

“Got yelled at too, did you?” Cairo asked, adding a laugh at the end that sounded more like a snort. He took Cane’s silence as a yes and continued on. “So did I. He called me a runt, and when he heard I worked for the Government, threw a chair at me. I fell flat on my butt and couldn’t move for a good five minutes. He’s crazy. The sooner we get out of here the better.” 

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Cane asked, his eyes boring holes into Cairo’s head.

“Doesn’t what bother me?” 

“Whenever people here you work for the Government, they always freak out. We got thrown out of that restaurant that one time because the owner hated how the Government taxes businesses. You get judged just because you work for them and people just assume you’re their rendition of what someone who works in the Government should be.”

“You’re one to talk: you lectured me for three hours when we first met.” 

“I didn’t know you were cool back then.” 

“Oh? I’m cool?” 

“That’s"” Cane exhaled through his nose, his eyebrows scrunching together as he glared at Cairo. “You know what I mean.” 

“Do I? The word ‘cool’ has 4 different definitions: To be at a fairly low temperature, to be attractive or impressive, a calm composure, to become or to cause to be less hot. I am actually really impressive.”

Cane bit his lips to stop the urge to yell at his friend who looked in worse shape than he was. Cairo’s face was pale with beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his face. Aerie stood by him, dabbing the sweat with a towel every couple of seconds without a word. A bandage was wrapped tightly around his head, chest and legs. There were bruises all along his arm and his chest showed a bit of purple under the bandages. Cane could just barely see the strain in Cairo’s jaw, but he thought that Cairo was putting on a show when he realized he was clenching his jaw. 

“I don’t have the luxury to speculate,” Cairo said after moments of silence. “It’s something a lot of people take for granted, but when you’re a Fire Mage like me, everyone’s out to stab you in your back. Speculation turns into one of your greatest enemies.” 

“You’re a Fire Mage?!” Cane yelled, his head snapping up to get a hard look at Cairo. 

He nodded his head. “Yep. I’m one of the big five in the Government. Wanna guess my rank?” 

“I thought you said you were just an average employee?” Every vain in Cane’s body felt like it was on fire; his blood was boiling! “You didn’t say you were a Fire Mage!” 

“Keep your voice down. If someone hears, they’ll kick me out.” 

“I’d kick you out! You lied to me.” 

Cairo let his eyes open slowly then travel to look at Cane, staring him down like a death match. “I didn’t lie to you. I don’t lie. I am an employee of the Government. Even if I’m a Fire Mage, I’m still just another employee.” 

“You’re one of the five most powerful people in this country,” Cane whispered. “I don’t believe it.” 

“What do you know about Kleptos?” Cairo asked, swinging a hand over his chest. He didn’t show any emotion in his eyes, but Cane caught the quick tenseness of his jaw for a split second. 

“I don’t really know that much,” Cane said. “I’ve never had a Kleptos and my family never condoned the act of having one. When my friends started to get some, I stayed away because I’d get in trouble if I was around them. I know they’re card spirits who can have extremely destructive power if they’re strong enough. They also don’t have emotions nor preferences, so a lot of people think they’re just puppets masquerading as living things. I know they have a free will of their own, but all actions they do are neutral. Aerie told me a bit about it yesterday.” He looked over to Aerie who was still focused on wiping the sweat off Cairo’s forehead. “I said a bit too much yesterday.” 

“There’s some Kleptos that have… something similar to emotion, but I’ve never met any, and for all I know, they could just be myths. There’s a part of me that wishes it was true, but a part of me that’s terrified to find out the truth. Kleptos are mysterious things and even after hundreds of years of having them by our sides, we’ve still barely scratched the surface of their mystery.” 

“Then why are you so caught up with them?”

“Aerie has a bad habit of getting me into troubling situations.” 

“You get into them yourself,” Aerie said. “It has nothing to do with me.”

She stood up and walked to the table where she threw the ice pack at Cairo. It went straight for his face, but even in his crippling state, he was able to catch it with ease, throwing it up in the air a couple times. Cane shook his head as he watched Aerie walk out of the room without a word. He never understood Aerie. Even from the moment he met her, something about her deep eyes sent shivers down his spine. She didn’t joke, she didn’t laugh, she didn’t get angry, she didn’t get sad. It was a bit suffocating for Cane to be the only one with raw emotion in the group. Cairo had some, but he hid it behind some kind of wall. 

“You said that Kleptos were spirits trapped inside of cards, right?” Cane asked suddenly. The question must have taken Cairo by surprise because he snapped his head straight up, his brows and lips creasing slightly.

“Yes, I did.” 

“Then why isn’t Aerie in her card? Besides that, her name is a wind elemental name, but she’s the Kleptos of Fire. Something doesn’t make sense.”

“Good observations,” Cairo said, his eyes trailing the patterns in the bricks. “Too bad you won’t get answers for them. What’s between me and Aerie is between me and Aerie. I promised I’d let you travel with us and I’m letting you travel with us to see the world. You could say similarly I have a deal made with Aerie, but you’d never know, would you?” 

“You boys!” The nurse woman who had walked in earlier poked her head in the door. She smiled brightly at both boys, her smile faltering for just a second as her eyes landed on Cairo. “We just finished examining some people who say they knew people who were from Crimson City. They were talking about some kind of Government conspiracy: some kind of illegal something was almost found and to hide the evidence, they set the whole town on fire. Is that true?” 

Cairo shrugged his shoulders when she looked at him again. “I don’t know why you’re asking me. I’m one of the victims, if you forgot. Saying I did know about it, why would I go there and risk my companion or me dying for a publicity stunt?” 

“True enough.” She nodded her head. Just as she was about to turn around, Cairo stopped her. 

“You wouldn't happen to know of any other rumors would you? I find that my job gets easier if I follow rumors.”

She pursed her lips, her eyes darting to the ceiling for a couple seconds before turning back to Cairo. “As for a rumor, I don’t know, but I heard about this adventure group that formed a couple of months ago. Something about going in search of ‘legendary monsters’ or some crazy made up stuff like that. I guess one of the places they visited were the Basian Runes. It’s a pretty famous place, a lot of stuff happened there, but I guess it was the first time they couldn’t complete their mission. The whole place was locked up, they said, or rather, it was sealed tight with some strange inscription. It left a small dent on both the ruins’ and adventurer’s reputation, though there’s been a bit more tourist activity than normal. I’m pretty sure it’s died down by now and the ruins are back to being deserted.”

“That’s pretty interesting,” Cairo said, leaning back against the couch. “A real mystery anyone would like to solve. Figure out what the inscription is and how to break it, and your name could go down in history, or at the very least people would know the name of a nobody for awhile. Alright! I think that wraps up everything we need here, if you could show us to our things, we’ll be out of your hair.”

Her eyes went wide as she watched Cairo jump to his feet. “Now wait!” she screamed, throwing her hands up. “You can’t just leave like that. You’re a patent"a hurt patient. There’s no way you can make the five day trip to Basia in your condition. That’s absurd.” 

“Absurd is a good way to describe my life.” 

“We’re going to Basia?” Cane asked. “I can barely walk.” 

“Then you can stay while I go to Basia.”

“I can’t just let you discharge yourself,” the nurse said. 

“I don’t really think you have a choice,” Cairo said, holding up his fingers as he listed the choices. “It’s either freely let me go to Basia or I blow a giant hole through your wall and go to Basia.”

Bringing her hands down, she let her eyes stay focused on the floor. “Your things are in my office, if you’d just follow me, I’ll take you there and get you some medicine to help with the pain.” 

The smile on Cairo’s lips felt genuine, but Cane wondered if it really was. He noticed how it seemed like it didn’t reach his eyes, how his face seemed a bit more rigid and on edge than normal, but when Cairo sighed when the woman walked out of the room, he knew he was right. Watching Cairo rub his jaw, Cane couldn’t help letting out a muffled laugh. Cairo caught it and glared in his direction. 

“You never did tell me what’s up with Aerie,” Cane said as they walked through the hallway together.

Cairo twisted on the door knob, but just before opening the door, he turned his head and said, “She’s special.”