Unforseen Problems

 

It was two days before we heard from either or the Houses. The women started getting anxious, and though Noah kept a calm face, it was clear that she was slowly growing uncomfortable, as well.

Finally, a servant woke Noah in the third evening with messages from the Houses, affirming that they twenty women in each House had joined our fight. The next day, Sitka presented us with a message from Alec, claiming they had found Maram and they’d gathered seven men to help us. It wasn’t a lot, but it pleased Noah immensely.

Everything was going according to plan. At least, until we reached the first of our problems.

In the Houses, the servants were typically left alone. They served food and drinks and cleaned up any messes, and were otherwise ignored. They were children, after all, no older than fifteen, and what kind of man would want someone so young when girls who were of age were available?

The night we received Alec’s note, a group of men visited the Black House, and weren’t shy about drinking the wine they were served. The five of them talked loudly, telling crude jokes and rough housing together.

“Looks like we might have trouble tonight,” I said, watching the men warily. “Do you think you can handle a drunk guy, Noah?”

“Eh?” She looked at the men with disinterest and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, Jai. They’re more violent, but also more prone to making mistakes. It’ll be fine.”

I nodded slowly. “If you say so…”

A sudden crash startled me, and I looked back to the men to see that one of them had dropped a pitcher of wine. It had shattered against the floor, sending shards of glass and wine across the wood.
“Idiots,” a woman beside me named Sharte spat under her breath. “They should leave if all they’re going to do is make a mess.”

Two servants scurried over to pick up the glass and mop up the wine with a rag. They didn’t look at each other or at the men, working quickly and quietly.

“Careful, little girl,” one of the men leered, eyeing the girls. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Oh no,” Talia said, watching the scene with mounting distress.

“What?” I asked, looking at her. “What’s wrong?”

“These men come in once or twice a month and harass the servants,” Talia said uncomfortably. “They never have money to buy one of us, so they go for the girls, instead.”

My skin crawled. “But she’s like, eleven! Why would they want a kid?” I asked, horrified.

Talia stared at me, then turned to Noah, silently asking if I was serious.
Noah shrugged. “She doesn’t get out much,” she muttered, watching the men with narrowed eyes.

The men taunted the terrified girl with lewd comments that even made some of the other customers squirm. The House owner, I could see, was watching with some annoyance, but did nothing to stop it.

“Is anyone going to do something?” Noah asked, her tone oddly calm.

“Why would they?” Sharte asked, disgusted. “The owner will lose business if he interferes, and if another customer steps in he risks being banned from the Houses. Who would give that up for a girl?”

The servant gave a helpless cry as her wrist was grabbed, forcing her to drop the few pieces of glass she’d managed to gather. She squirmed and fought, but couldn’t escape the larger mans’ grip. She looked around Lily’s age, and the sight made me sick.

“Let her go!” Sayr shouted suddenly, her fingers white around the wooden bars of the cage. Her jaw was clenched, eyes wide and more furious than I’d ever seen; she looked almost insane with rage. “Leave her alone, you sick b*****d!”

There was a quick movement at the corner of my eye, followed by a pained yell from one of the men as a knife sank into his arm. He was forced to release the girl, who took her chance and fled.

A stunned silence fell, aside from the injured mans’ cursing. All eyes turned to Noah, who was still glaring, hands fisted at her sides.

‘What ever happened to “think before you act”?’ I wondered with a groan.

“You b******s like playing with little girls?” the warrior asked, her tone dangerously low. “Come play with me, I’ll give you a good time for free. Well. I’ll probably be the only one having a good time…”

“What do you think you’re doing you little wretch?” the House owner roared as he and three of his men approached the cage. Two others went to tend to the injured man. “Where did you get that knife?”

“I stole it from one of your incompetent pigs,” Noah snapped, shooting him a glare that nearly stopped him in his tracks. “I will stay in this godforsaken cage and entertain your idiotic customers, but I will not stand to watch men assaulting a little girl.”

“You don’t make the rules here!” the owner growled as he opened the cage door. “Take the both of them out back for punishment.”

His men entered the cage, and Noah didn’t resist as two of them took hold of her. I thought the third was going to take me, but he went for Sayr, instead, and she didn’t fight as they were led outside.

“Noah-” I started, but she shot me a look that told me to keep my mouth shut. I obeyed, chewing my lower lip.

The drunken men were taken out of the House, and the rest of the customers were calmed down. In the confusion, the women turned to me with questions about what we would do next, now that Noah was gone.

“She’s not gone.” I did my best to assure them, but I knew I didn’t display anything near the confidence that seemed to follow Noah around. “It’s not like they’re going to kill her.”

No one said anything, and by the looks on their faces I could tell they weren’t so sure. Sayr was returned after an hour, but as the night wore on, there was no sign of Noah. Slowly, whatever shred of confidence I had began to fade.

 

Tyler was tired of being at the inn. He’d been doing little more than sitting around for a week; Alec and Mi’ta never let him go far, apparently worried that something would happen to him. As far as he knew, he wasn’t even allowed to take part in what Alec had taken to calling ‘The Feminine Revolution’.

“I’m sick of this room,” he announced the sixth morning, sprawled across the floor in a childish pout. “I want to go help Jai.”

“Jai doesn’t need help right now,” Mi’ta said absently, sitting a few feet away. He’d somehow obtained a map of the city and had it spread out before him, studying it thoughtfully.

“So what am I supposed to do, just sit around here until the rebellion is over?” Tyler asked, propping himself up on his arms with a frown.

“Not necessarily,” Alec said. He was seated cross-legged on one of the beds, polishing his gun. “We might need to use you as a sniper.”

“Really?” Tyler asked, surprised. He hadn’t thought he’d made that much improvement. Alec had gotten him a gun (from where, Tyler wasn’t sure) and had been teaching him marksmanship, though progress had been slow due to the fact that they could only practice at night when they weren’t planning and they required silencers so no one would hear the shots.

Alec glanced to him and smiled faintly. “You’re not a bad shot,” he said with a shrug. “Do you think you have the guts to shoot someone?”

“If I have to, to protect Jai,” Tyler said without hesitation.

The Hunter studied him, then smiled. “Good,” he said, and turned back to cleaning his weapon.

Tyler laid back on the floor again, staring at the ceiling. After a silent moment he rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going for a walk,” he declared, heading for the door.

“Don’t go far,” Mi’ta said, glancing at him. “And be back before nightfall.”

Tyler snorted quietly. “Yes, dad,” he said, and left the room, sliding the door shut behind him.

There were few men in the tavern so early in the morning. A servant girl was cleaning up a mess left from the night before, pausing once to yawn and rub the sleep from her eyes.

Tyler had to pass the men on his way out of the tavern, and caught part of their conversation. He couldn’t stop, not wanting his eavesdropping to be too obvious, but he managed to hear something about an incident at the Black House the night before.

Tempted to stop, he resisted the urge and kept going on his way outside. He didn’t like this town very much, didn’t like the cold lack of women, but it was better than sitting in that room again all day. The sun felt good against his skin, and he rolled up the sleeves of his tunic as he walked. Much to his displeasure, he had to wear the traditional clothes of this world, though he was pleased whenever he felt his gun in its holster, hidden under his shirt.

As he wandered through the dirt streets, he had half a mind to see if he could find the Black House and simply break Jai and Noah out now. It had been incredibly frustrating to hear that Noah had insisted on staying to try and ‘fix’ Oyin.

‘Crazy blue-haired ninja-’

That thought was interrupted as something launched itself at Tyler’s chest. He yelped and tried to grab the thing, but it bolted before he could get his hands around it. Looking around, he was glad to find the street was empty of people as he took a look at his assailant.

He’d expected a cat or a dog, but instead was faced with a creature he’d never seen before. It was small, crouching on the ground and staring up at him with large, ink-black eyes. It had the body of a small cat and the long arms and legs of a monkey. There were oddly large cat-like ears on its head and a long, thin tail coiled around its body. It was covered in dark brown fur, with white on its underbelly and the tips of its ears and tail. The creature was strangely cute, giving Tyler an innocent look, tiny pink nose twitching.

And it had his gun.

“H-Hey, little guy…” Tyler said carefully, unsure as to what the creature was. Did it eat people? It didn’t look big enough, but he was on a foreign world, and anything was possible. Was it poisonous? Maybe. “Can I have that back?” He approached carefully, hands up to show that he meant no harm.

The creatures nose twitched. “No,” it said, and gave an alien giggle before taking off.

Well. Apparently it knew how to speak.

“Hey!” Tyler shook off his surprise and ran after the thing. This street had been blissfully empty, but unfortunately the creature chose to turn down a particularly busy road next, darting under carts and between mens’ feet, forcing Tyler to fight his way through the crowd as he continued his pursuit.

‘Stupid monkey thing! It’ll probably end up shooting someone and Alec won’t let me use the gun anymore.’

Turning down an alley, he stopped when he saw the animal a few yards away. It was watching him, hugging the gun to its tiny chest.

Tyler licked his lips and carefully advanced. “Hey,” he said slowly. “That thing’s very dangerous. Give it back, please, before you hurt someone.”

The creature blinked at him and didn’t move.

Encouraged, Tyler took another few steps. He just needed to get a little closer and he could reach the gun-

A second before he got his hands around the little body, the creature jumped into the air. With one hand it grabbed onto the roof of a building and gracefully swung itself up. Snickering a little it scampered away across the wood.

“Damn it!” Tyler managed to reach the roof and spent several moments struggling to pull himself up. Perched carefully on the edge of the roof, he looked around and found the animal at the opposite end of the building. He slowly straightened and crossed the roof, his eyes trained on the odd creature.

Large black eyes watched him. When he was near, the beast turned, and for a moment Tyler was afraid it was going to jump onto the two-story building beside them. Instead, he threw the gun behind the buildings, and after a few seconds the weapon landed with a splash, followed by two startled yelps.

Tyler swore and dropped from the edge of the building, clumsily hitting his knees before quickly pushing himself back up and running toward the sounds. He found himself beside what looked like an enormous shed, near a spring of steaming water. A startled girl was on her knees beside the spring, looking down at the water.

Grimacing, Tyler started to speak, before a second woman suddenly emerged from the water, holding the gun in her hands. At the sight of her blue hair, Tyler immediately felt relief, though he paused when she turned to talk to the other girl. At the sight of her back, Tyler’s stomach turned; long, red welts covered her skin, mingling with half-healed scars.

“Noah!” he called as he approached the spring, averting his eyes when he realized she was naked.

She looked at him and blinked, then frowned. “What are you doing, throwing guns around?” she snapped. “Are you trying to kill someone?”

“I didn’t throw it,” he protested, firmly keeping his gaze away. “Some weird monkey-thing stole it and threw it over here.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I see.”

“This is one of your friends?” the girl asked suddenly, watching the exchange curiously. Tyler glanced at her and could see by the leather collar at her neck that she was a servant.

“You could say that,” Noah said slowly. “This is Tyler. He’s Jai’s brother. Tyler, this is Sitka.”

Tyler nodded slowly, turning back to Noah when she lowered herself enough to hide her naked form. “Where is Jai?”

“Hopefully sleeping,” Noah said, gesturing to the shed.

“Oh. And what are you two doing out here?”

“A man was attacking one of the servants, and I protested,” Noah said with a shrug. “Another one of the women and I were punished, though I got it a little more thoroughly.”

“Well, you did more,” Sitka put in, eyes shining with admiration for the warrior. “She stole a knife from one of the House workers and threw it at the man. I’ve never seen anything so amazing.”

“So that was the incident I heard about,” Tyler said slowly, grimacing at the thought of the punishment.

“Anyway, I was put in here afterward,” Noah said, splashing lightly to indicate the spring. “It’s healing water, apparently, to get rid of my wounds, so I can be bought tonight.”

“Oh.”

“You should get out of here, though,” she continued, tossing the gun to him. “The rebellion’s starting tonight, and I want you off the streets when it happens.”

“Alec said he might need me as a sniper,” Tyler said as he dried the weapon off on his sleeve and tucked it back under his shirt.

“Good, that’ll be useful,” Noah said, nodding. “We’ll see you tonight.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Sitka added, smiling almost shyly.

Tyler nodded and made his way back to the road; he kept an eye out for the little monkey-creature, but he didn’t see it. Vaguely he wondered about the convenience of that thing leading him directly to Noah. He considered the possibility of the creature bringing him there intentionally, to help him.

But how would it have known that he knew Noah?

He was a little uneasy, but he didn’t want to go back to the inn yet, knowing he’d be stuck there for the rest of the day. So instead of returning, he continued wandering the streets, eventually finding himself in the market.

It was almost empty, other than a few men displaying their wares from carts and stands. A group of boys were playing with a ball in the street, and they stopped to stare at Tyler as he passed. He met their stares with a frown and kept walking.

It wasn’t long before he realized that he was being followed. He’d felt eyes on him for a while, but whenever he glanced behind him, he never saw anyone.

Alec had said that there was something in Oyin that didn’t belong. Tyler tensed when he realized that it might have been a demon, and it might have been following him.

He crossed his arms over his chest, gripping his gun through his shirt. He continued through the streets, heading to an empty area of the town.

‘Damaen,’ he thought loudly, certain that a wish-granting demon should be able to read minds, as well. ‘If that’s you, I’m going to blow your damn brains out.’Reaching an empty street, Tyler stopped walking. He drew his gun and turned, expecting to find a demon.

 

Instead, he found the monkey-cat-thing sitting behind him, head cocked to one side, tail slowly wagging back and forth across the dirt.

Tyler blinked, then groaned. “You again?” He shoved the gun away, scowling at the creature. “What do you want?”

The thing merely stared at him, a strange sort of smile on its face.

“Don’t act all cute,” he said, arms crossed. “I know you can understand me. Why are you following me? You’re not going to get my gun again.”

The thing giggled and crawled to him on all fours. Once it was close, it stood on its hind legs and reached up, like a child asking to be held.

“What?” Tyler asked uncomfortably. “What do you want?”

Instead of answering, the creature caught onto his shirt and climbed up him, disregarding his protests. It perched on his shoulder, tail coiled loosely around his neck.

“What, do you like me or something?” he asked warily. “What are you, anyway?”

“Fiotresheklardei,” the creature answered, and Tyler wasn’t sure if he’d gotten the things name, race, or pure gibberish.

“Whatever,” he said with a sigh. “You can’t come with me, so get off.”

The creature pouted, large ears drooping. Tyler merely stared at it until it climbed from his shoulder and sulked on the ground.

“Now stop following me.” Tyler walked away, deciding to return to the inn after all. The walk was short, and as he entered he found Mi’ta reading a heavy, dull-looking book while Alec toyed with his gun, aiming thoughtfully at a stain on the floor. They both looked up when the door opened, surprised.

“You’re back,” Mi’ta observed, lowering his book.

“I see you’ve brought a friend,” Alec added, sliding his gun away.

“Huh?” Tyler looked down and started in surprise when he found the monkey-cat thing again. “What the hell?”

The creature chirped at him before entering the room. It pranced to Mi’ta and sniffed curiously at the book.

“Where did you find him?” Mi’ta asked, reaching out to pet the creature gently. It gave a purr and rubbed its head against his fingers.

“It was following me around all morning,” Tyler muttered, shutting the door behind him. “What is it?”

“He is a Yzar from the world of Seakna,” the magician said. “Why would he be on Oyin, though?”

“He probably found a portal on accident or something,” Alec said with a shrug.

Tyler frowned. “So there are random portals between worlds?” he asked, surprised.

“Sometimes,” Alec said. “A demon or a Hunter goes between worlds and the doorways to the Traviere remains open. A lot of things end up on the wrong worlds because of it.”

“Oh.” Tyler looked back to the creature, who had wormed his way into Mi’ta’s lap. “So what do we do with… him?”

“That’s a good question,” Mi’ta mused. “There are no humans on Seakna, so the fact that he trusted you so easily is odd. The Yzar are fairly intelligent, though.”

“He could speak,” Tyler said warily. “And he led me directly to Noah.”

Alec and Mi’ta exchanged a glance before looking to the creature. “Hm,” Mi’ta hummed slowly. “Maybe we should keep him around. He seems to like Tyler, and he could be useful.”

Alec nodded slowly. “What should we call him, than?” he asked, observing the animal.

The Yzar seemed to smile, tail swaying. “Fiotresheklardei,” he said.

Alec, Mi’ta and Tyler looked at each other warily.

“Fio it is,” Tyler said, and Fio chirped with delight.

 

Noah was returned only a few minutes before we were to be taken to the cage. I was pleased and more than a little relieved to see her alive.

“What happened to you?” I asked once she entered the sleeping quarters, followed by Sitka, who went to tend to Sayr.

“Not as much as I expected,” Noah admitted with a shrug. “Got beat for a while, but I’ve dealt with worse for less back home. But that’s not important.” She turned to the women, who watched her eagerly. “Tonight is the night of our rebellion, and I have a few requests. Please try not to kill anyone, as strong as the urge may be. We’re trying to send the message that we’re equals, not bloodthirsty maniacs.”

Corrine snorted, but otherwise remained silent.

“My second request,” Noah continued, ignoring her. “No pillaging or destruction or anything like that. We will not become animals. Any questions?”

“We are getting weapons, right?” one of the girls asked, almost nervously.

“Yes. You will be supplied with weapons as soon as the rebellion begins,” Noah assured. She glanced toward the door when the Black House music began to play.

The servants entered a moment later, looking weary. They were silent as they brought us to the House, and we obediently entered the cage. The House owner watched Noah carefully, and she ignored him.

The women were anxious to act, but we had to wait for Mi’ta’s signal. He would cause an explosion to create a distraction as we made our way to the mayor’s house. According to the plan, he wasn’t supposed to set off the explosion until midnight. We had to wait and work as though this were an ordinary night.

It was late into the night, almost time for the plan to start, when one of the House workers opened the cage door. “Come on, girl,” he said to me. “You’ve got a buyer.”

I blinked as a chill came over me. The buyer was unlikely to be Mi’ta in disguise again, and this time I didn’t have Noah’s knife to defend myself. I glanced to Noah, who was frowning as she watched me. She gave me a grim smile, and as hopeful as I was, I knew there was nothing she could do.

I left the cage, and the man led me along the familiar path, up the stairs and along the hall to one of the doors. He paused then, however, and pulled a length of rope from his belt. He swiftly and wordlessly tied my hands behind my back, ignoring my alarmed questions, and slid the door open before pushing me to the floor and closing the door behind me.

“Ow.” Apparently they didn’t trust me. I managed to get to my knees and twisted my wrists in the tight rope, wincing.

“My, how efficient,” a voice said, making me jump and reminding me that I wasn’t alone. “I mention bondage once and look at what they present me with. I’ll have to visit this place again.”

I looked up, and my eyes widened when I saw my buyers’ red hair. He was seated on the edge of the bed, his chin rested in a hand that had no fingernails. A too-wide smile was spread across his pale face, red eyes narrowed as he observed me.

“Hello, Jai,” Damaen greeted, and my blood ran cold.

He cursed and tried to run faster, determined to catch the little beast before someone got hurt.