ARI

Ari could not break her gaze from the sky. The sky meant a new day, far away from the miasma of pig shit. The sky meant hope. Today the sky was gray. Gray, blue, it meant--

"Did you hoe yet, Shitbag?!" Raster yelled from his shack. Hana stumbled out of the shack, in tears, and Ari did not have to wonder why.

Ari yelled back to Raster, "Yes, Master!" and the slave girl grabbed the hoe for the first time that day before Raster decided to whip her for a reason. He whipped her enough without reason. She was frantically working when Hana approached her.

"Ari," she gasped, still shaken up from her time with Raster, the horrors of which Ari had not yet become familiar. Hana spoke in the tongue of the Islers, pleading, "Ari please help. Save me. Kill me. It would be a mercy."

She grabbed Ari's arms and Ari nearly dropped her chore to embrace Hana. She spoke quickly and softly in the Old Tongue, "Hold your head up. There is always the sky. Do not cry. He hates crying. And he hates the Old Tongue. Speak the Masters' Tongue or he will tie you to a large pole and whip you."

"Ari, I cannot..." Hana begged. "I cannot..."

"You must or you will die," Ari insisted, speaking in the Masters' Tongue now. Ari had been getting better at speaking their language the more time she spent in the center of Cambria. Where she had come from, the First Hell, she could barely remember. She remembered a smell, what she had come to know was sea salt. She lived by the water. She knew not much else of her life before chains.

Raster emerged from his shack, pulling up his trousers, buckling his belt. He gave the eye of disdain for his slaves when he saw them talking. "You wouldn't lie to me, Shitbag?" he growled at Ari.

Ari was afraid he would unbuckle his belt again and lash her across the cheek. He did approach her, his musk right up close. She could smell the Hell's Wine ripe in his breath. Ari, intimidated, answered, "I got carried away. I was distracted. I will finish. I'm sorry."

Raster smiled with his remaining, yellow teeth. "I like you, girl," he told her. That word, "girl," made Ari shiver. She would have preferred "Shitbag." Whenever he used the word, "girl," it meant there was potential for time in the shack alone with Raster, and Ari had avoided this for a long time. She did not want it to start here.

Raster ran a finger through her frizzy hair, twisting a little. "Finish up and we'll be headed to the marketplace."

Raster let her go and walked off into the woods to check on some of the other workers. Ari breathed a sigh of relief. Hana took one last, long, worried look at her and she too went to find a chore to occupy herself with.

Ari combed her hoe through the dirt again. She briefly looked up to the sky to see if it had changed. There was a peek of sunlight jutting out from behind the silver overcast. Ari looked down again.

SIR OLIVER

The markets of Goro were always pretty on the outside, but Sir Oliver, the Conqueror of Hells, knew that deep down there was a seedy intent to rob its patrons blind. The saddle-sore knight tried to calculate how much coin had been squandered pointlessly in the purchasing of "rare dwarfen runes" or "the last scrolls penned by the Sand Elves." It was all a ruse to attract foolish men wondering what life was like out in the Hells, at the edges of the world. Goro housed the ideal bazaar for such a niche market, since it was so very near the Old Road. Travelers from all over Cambria stopped for rest and to replenish, and loved souvenirs from the outer edges of the world that they would never dare trek to.

Sir Oliver Boumgarden had seen it all though. He had walked through all seven Hells. There was no surprising him anymore. He had seen mountains that spoke, blue-skinned people that ate their deceased brethren, creatures born of snow that could tear a man's limbs off like Sir Oliver might to a twig. It had all fulfilled him in his pilgrimage, but it left the aging knight, admittedly, a little bored.

As Sir Oliver perused an old woman's Joviagen jewelry, he felt a soft pat on his shoulder.

He turned to see the white-whiskered Tobias Snow give him a gentle smile. Oliver rolled his eyes at the sight of him, saying, "Tobias Snow. Why? Why are you here? Be it only to annoy me?"

Tobias did not seem insulted by this. He smiled on. "Not merely to annoy you, though that part is always so satisfying. You have been away from the Table for quite some time, Sir Oliver."

"It has not yet felt long enough," Oliver admitted, giving a half-shilling to the woman selling jewelry in exchange for one of her bracelets. Oliver was not happy to see Snow and he made no effort to appear otherwise.

"Why have you chosen to fulfill your pilgrimage in the slums of Goro?" Snow inquired. There was always a condescending tone with his banter, a factor that had exponentially caused Oliver to resent his fellow knight.

"These 'slums,'" Oliver answered, "were once home to many a great people. Their architecture is what holds this bazaar up. It was overcrowded with pigs when they found how lucrative a venue it would be for a marketplace. You should know by now that when I say I need time away from the Table, I don't like to be bothered by it."

"The Table wants you back home, in Grottenborough," Snow informed him as they waded through the bustle of merchants yelling and negotiating in languages that even Sir Oliver had never heard before.

That's not my home, Oliver thought to himself.

Oliver knew that Snow would not leave until he felt he had completed his mission, so Oliver did his best to indulge him. "I'm looking for a new slave," he blurted. "Once I have found one, I shall return to Grottenborough."

"What for?" Snow wondered.

"To assist in camping, hunting, conversations, perhaps. It does get lonely on these adventures talking to just Xena."

Xena was Sir Oliver's horse, one he had rescued from slaughter when it was just a foal. Xena had broken her leg, and the farmer that owned her saw no use in her. Oliver took her, fed her, and through one of his apothecaries, procured a potion to mend the bones in Xena's leg. The horse grew to be the mighty steed that carried him through his most perilous journeys. It was becoming more and more aware to Oliver as the years went on that he had a penchant for sympathizing with broken things in need.

He figured Snow saw it too, and could feel a lecture rising. Tobias told him, "You love those slaves, don't you? The Table has whispered about your affinity for those creatures. They find it disconcerting."

Sir Oliver could not help but laugh sarcastically. "Of course, but the Table says nothing about how disconcerting our reliance on high magic has become."

Tobias stopped in his tracks and Sir Oliver followed his lead. Tobias stoically warned him, "You must be careful, my friend. You are one foot away from your exultation."

Sir Oliver did not reply. Part of him wondered if he really cared. He had become comfortably numb of his status on the Table.

Tobias leaned in closer, softer this time. "There is a commission for you in Nightingshire, a dragon. The Table wants you to venture there immediately. That is your calling."

Sir Oliver stared at the mud.

"Need I inform them of your secession from the Order?" Tobias asked.

Oliver shook his head. "I will venture to Nightingshire once I have my slave. I will find it within the next day or so. Then, I promise, Tobias, I will make my venture North to Nightingshire."

Tobias nodded, but Oliver got the feeling he did not exactly approve of his response. Tobias said, "As you were, Sir Oliver, the Hellseasoned."

And with that, Tobias Snow put the hood up on his cloak and departed, leaving Oliver with a decision to make and not much time to make it. Oliver could no longer bide his time before returning to work.

He, too, put his hood up and began his search of the marketplace for his new man-servant.