Chapter 5
It took a couple hours, cliffs that hid my destination looming in the distance mocking me, taunting me. I could have joined Murtok to see the city, but I wanted to see it with my own two eyes, so I ran those couple of miles to reach the hills, and when I crested the hill, the sight assaulted my eyes. I had thought I would see something beautiful, something out of this world, I was both right and wrong. Murtok wanted to join, we were getting good at it, but it still took a toll, and moreover I wanted to see the city from my own eyes, I though, it is a human creation, so I must witness it through the eyes of a human. It is ironic how wrong I was. Now back to my first citing of the city, my eyes were immediately drawn to the royal castle, imbedded in the biggest of the mountains, only the front of it is shown the rest hidden inside the mountains, but what is shown tells a story, a story of wealth, almost all of the building that is shown is made of gold and marble. Next, I can see the other smaller mansion of the most influential nobles, each in a different mountain. Then as my eyes moved downwards I saw that half the city is clean and immaculate, where the minor nobles and the richest merchantmen lived. Then as my eyes continued to go down to the gate, I saw a place where the houses are more tightly packed, where the streets are full of people heading to and from their work, this place housed the rest of the well of and those that have jobs. And that is when the magnificence ends, near the wall, basically built with the wall as a support, the houses are built wherever there is place to put a house, the people that lived there have hand me down clothes, full of dirt and patches. Outside of the wall… it is something different, due to the population exceeding the city, the poorest were kicked out, and so they lived outside of the wall, in tents, not even proper houses, the people wore rags, and because no one that lived out here could afford proper food, almost everyone was malnourished, and crime was more common than blades of grass.
I headed down into the city, and I went through the outer city with no problem, and as I headed into the city proper, the guards at the gates gave me a suspicious look but nothing more. I was enamored by the city that I hadn't noticed that I made my way to the better neighborhoods, but Murtok calling me anchored me back, and he urged me to join. And when I joined, I saw what had caused his hackles to rise, a guard had seen a person that doesn't belong, a person dressed like me, and for no reason I could see, he started hitting him, and when he fell down to the ground he continued hitting him, until he was near death that I could feel it up in the sky. I also saw another guard around the corner from the flesh that is Kathinox, an so we started to run, and give directions from the sky. When another guard was coming from the other side trapping us in, Kathinox went inside of a shop and Murtok dove in behind him. Once we were inside we split again, the more we spent joined the worse the consequence, and inside the shop that contained everything from food to clothes to weapons, we found an 28 year old man. He looked shocked to see us, more specifically seeing Murtok, and he spoke, "I remember you, raven, and you kid must be David, I am Darius." I racked my brain to remember him, to remember this man that not only knew me but knew Murtok, and finally when I remembered I blurted, "mask man". He smiled at that remark and answered, "yes I am the mask man, but what are you doing here, and all alone."
"I just arrived, and I was exploring the city before I saw a guard beating someone that looked like me, and I was backed into a corner so I came in… sorry about that."
"Nonsense, I always will always welcome this raven into my shop, what is its name by the way…"
"HIS name is Murtok"
"…nice to meet you Murtok, as I was saying you are always welcome here, if you can make it inside the city, you can sleep or have a hot meal here."
"Thank you for the offer, and I will keep it in mind if I am ever in need, but I want to do this on my own, I do not want handouts."
"Its not charity, you will have to work for whatever you want, but I respect your choice, and expect to see the both of you from time to time."
When he finished talking I asked Murtok to check if the way is clear, and when Murtok said that it was, I extended my hand and shook his in farewell, "may the Father be with you," and he answered, "may the Father be with the both of you," and I was opening the door, he continued hurriedly, "I forgot to mention, never be caught inside the city at night with no place to stay, or a beating is the best thing that could happen." I nodded to him in thanks and made my way out.
We made our way backwards, because now it was apparent to me now that our kind, the poor, are not allowed in the city, no matter what laws said we are thieves, pickpockets, murders in the eyes of those that see us walking among the better places, at most I felt it was safe to stay near the wall, but to stay safe I headed back outside.
The coming months are some of the hardest I have ever experienced. I had no place to stay, so I slept on the muddy street, my food soon ran out and I had to resort to stealing whatever I can, the cold and hunger seeped into my bones, to a degree that I thought that I would never be warm again, if I was lucky I would be able to clean myself once a week, and more none of the gangs of orphans would take me in, so I was all alone on the street, but not friendless, and had to fend for myself, sometimes they would see a weak child all alone and they would start to pick on me, try to take whatever I had, but a small showcase of my still erratic powers would send them away, as well as grow my legend. But worse that all of that, the amount of death I had to deal with. Everyday, a whole bunch of people would die, and I would always know before they did, and I had no way of changing the outcome, most times its someone dying from hunger or cold, sometimes it is someone being murdered, but who would listen to a child, so they would ignore me and die. That is some of the trials I faced, they forced me to learn things I didn't think I was capable of doing.
If you are anything like me you would be wondering, why tents? If it is a permanent addition to the city, why not build proper houses? Let me tell you. It was a couple weeks before the Day of Creation, the first that would pass since I struck out on my own. I woke up like any other day, tired and hungry, but unlike other days, everyone was picking up their tents and moving away. It was as if everyone was possessed, even pickpocketing and grudges were pushed to the side. By the time I came around more than half of the outer city was gone, where I couldn't tell you. By that point I was panicking, and all I though was what am I missing? Determined to learn what was happening all around me, I started asking questions, and when the person answering these questions became agitated I moved on to the next person. What I learned was horrifying, to present the city as a perfect place for the masses that come at the day of creation, guards are sent out to the outer city with torches, and ordered to burn everything and everyone left in eyesight of the city walls, the people called it the BURNING. Most people adapted, but there is always someone left behind that gets torched, and sometimes the king for some reason sends the guards earlier than expected and that causes a lot of people and tents to be caught in the fire, the only thing is spared is the docks, for the only reason that it brings money into the city, that what makes it a more violent place that all the outer city combined, and that is why I avoided it no matter the cost. To keep up appearances, anyone that comes back looking shabby, until the Day of Creation passes, is dealt with.
While everyone was headed away from the city, I headed towards the back of it, towards the mountains, since I guessed that all the good spots to stay and wait until the Burning is done would be taken by more experienced people than me. I headed to the farthest mountain, a mountain that doesn't house a noble, and there Murtok spotted a cave halfway up that couldn't be spotted from the ground. He went in and explored it, and found that it was ideal for us to stay in, luckily it wasn't the tallest mountain, unluckily it was halfway up a mountain.
When I reached it I found that it was perfect, a little cold but perfect, it was completely abandoned by animals and people alike. It reached a little ways into the mountain, and split into different 2 main directions. I explored the right side first and found that at the end there is a stream of water, cold but clean water. I was joyous at this discovery, I had something to clean myself with, so that is what I did, drank, cleaned myself, and cleaned every piece of clothing I had in the portals. After all that was done, I went and explored the left branch of my cave, there I found 3 different "rooms" that all ended, and did not continue any further. The entire cave I explored was too deep into the mountain for light to reach, so instead it is lit up by glowing mushrooms and moss giving green, blue, white and yellow light. I made this cave my home, even outside of the Burning, having a place to return to seemed ideal so I chose this cave. To keep myself occupied, I cleaned the rooms, and kept only one kind of mushrooms in each room, the river room was blue, and the room I stayed in was yellow, the other rooms were white and green, and I kept the hallways colorful. Whenever I could I would expand my portals as much as I could to hide some furniture, or anything useful that I could find, and I would transport it to my new home whenever I came back.
The next couple of weeks before the day of creation I explored the mountain I was staying in, and on the days when people started to gather, I headed down. The massive crowd of people that had gathered, allowed someone like me to go unnoticed, I managed to visit Darius, and I was able to steal more food that I had gathered before I ran away, and pickpocketing was easy with richer targets. There is an art and dance to pickpocketing, you have to learn to notice the small things, how rich people trying to hide will change their clothes but never their shoes, and are too well groomed, those are the most optimal targets. Then there are those that appear rich but are in truth poor, these you can spot by the way the hold themselves, it is as if they are shouting look at me I am rich. And then there are the rich, these people are rich and do not care to hide it, if you manage to pickpocket one of them you will have scored a jackpot, but even if you catch them unaware, their bodyguards will take care of any stary hands and they will do it roughly. However, when the High Speaker, it was now the person that marked me Lux, came to give his speech the crowd was too wild, all pushing to the front to get as good a view as they could of the High Speaker, but the front rows belonged to the rich and their guards, so I pretended to be pushed and fell next to one of these rich people, with a little help from the darkness that seems to like me so much I was able to steal a full purse containing some gold coins, and even one that contained a sapphire coin. All in all the Day of Creation was defiantly my new favorite day, even Murtok enjoyed it, with all the different types of food he could swoop down and take.
Alas it could not last forever, and I was forced to go back to living on the streets, and everything I knew about their locations changed. Apparently the most courageous, come back as early as possible and risk the ire of the guards in order to have the best spots to set up their tents, but some places like bars and some shops do not change place, and those are the constants that are used to navigate the ever changing streets. This time around I had a place I could go back to, a home of a kind that is all mine and no one knew about.
It was another six months when the weather had turned cold, when this next
encounter happened. Now that winter was upon us, people were more miserable and desperate than before, and so the attacks on someone all alone looked more and more lucrative, and so I was forced to defend myself more and more. In no time at all rumors about me and what I could do spread throughout the outer city, although I tried to use my powers only when I had to, the story grew with every retelling, some said that I was a wizened old man on my last breath, some said I was a middle aged man, and some even said I was a child suckling at my mother's teat. But all agreed I was spawn of the Banished and that with me flew a bird, each person said a different kind, but all agreed that he was darker than darkness, that I was the child of death his champion in the realm of the living, and that I had the power to kill with the a mere look, and some claimed that I had killed cities in the past, the irony of this never escapes me, especially since at that time I had not killed anyone, and my power was still in its infancy. These stories, the stories of someone the people started to call The Dark Champion and his Raven eventually led him to me. Best not to get ahead of myself, let me tell you the how meeting him went, and who he is.
It was a normal day, winter had come back, and I had almost survived my first year on the streets. I haunted my usual haunts, stole what I could, and heard the stories of myself and Murtok, he always enjoyed hearing people talk about him, but listening to the stories I learned something new, that he was searching for me, and was offering a prize to anyone that could help him locate me. It was getting dark, so I headed back to one of the spots that I stayed at when I was in the city, and I was feeling better about the whole ordeal since no one had tried to confront me today. As I was settling down for the night, I heard someone walk near me, it was unusual since most nights I stayed here and people stopped coming after I learned how to put a small dome of protection around me that stops the twisted from reaching me but keeps them around to scare everyone else. I listened for footsteps, and suddenly I saw someone before me, he was looking straight at me, and was about to talk when I saw the shadow on him, it was still flickering so I had time, so in the few moments before it solidified, I learned that it was a stab wound to the back and through the stomach that would take days of agony to kill him, and that I and Murtok were the only thing causing it to flicker. So, I shouted at the stranger, "BEHIND YOU", at the same time I asked Murtok much faster, since thoughts are way faster than words, "Behind him, peck their eye." So as the stranger turned around to look at why I had shouted he saw, a woman holding a sword ready to charge him, and a spot of darker darkness dive down to peck her eye, which gave him just enough time to recover and defend himself, from her after Murtok flew away. It took him mere moments, he reached to his belt grabbed his sword, blocked her attack, countered, she clumsily blocked and countered, he parried and thrust straight into her chest, this told me that he knew what he was doing that this stranger in front of me was no stranger to blades and killing. Once he was finished, he cleaned his blade while looking at her, and I could only assume that he was memorizing her face by the time he spent looking at her, that is when I noticed it, the absence of fear, because he was smelling of certainty, a smell that resembled oak, and she didn't have a smell because it all happened before she could realise what was happening. Then he turned around, and he saw an eleven year old boy, with skin as pale as a corpse and hair darker than darkness, with a raven at his shoulder the same shade of darkness as the boy's hair, and he saw not one strand of fear on either of them.
"Thank you for the warning, is there anything I can do to repay you friend," he said.
Still impressed by the display of his skills, I replied, "teach me how to fight."
He looked amused, but serious, and I could tell that he was considering my offer, "all right, I will teach you, tomorrow morning just after the sun rises head to any of the entrances to the tunnels and tell them, that you have a meeting with Fox, I will spread the word that," here he chuckled on I have no doubt because of my bewildered expression and at what he was saying next, "that the Champion and his Raven are to be escorted to me."
With that he turned around and started walking, leaving me bewildered and in need of a new place to stay for the night.
I do not think many or any of you dear reader understand the gravity and importance of the man I just told you about. In the outer city due to its lawless nature crime flourishes, and there are two main gangs, the sharks that control the docks, called The Sharks for obvious reasons, and then there are The Foxes, and they control the tunnels, called foxes because of the tunnels. These tunnels are important because they reach the inside city proper, and so allows whoever controls them to move goods in and out of the city, without the documentation and the taxes need to pass goods through the gates. And the man I just met the man I was referring to as "he and him", is the Fox, the head of The Foxes, the most cunning person the world has ever seen, veteran of many wars, and I had just become his student.