Groaning in response to the creaking of his bed, Rashad stretched the covers off of his body and got ready for another day of working at the construction yard. The sun’s rays shone on the edges of the windowsill to his room at the Stonesthrow Inn as he threw on his clothes and headed down stairs to get some breakfast. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard a faint crying. He looked about the inn lobby and saw that it came from the shadowed tables on the opposite end. Rashad looked around to see if anyone else heard it. Most of the other people in the inn were wrapped up in breaking their fast, so he went over to the tables.
Rashad found a familiar figure sitting with her back to him. It’s Inia, Rashad thought with a smile. He heard the crying coming from her and asked, “Hey, miss. What’s wrong?”
Inia turned around and Rashad almost jumped back at what he saw. Inia was a deathly pallor, the tan skin replaced by a pale olive shade. Her body looked as though she suffered from some sickness, because her body looked askew beneath her clothes. Even her eyes, a bright and fierce gray-green, were reduced to an icy green and underlined by rings of fatigue. “Hey, Rashad,” the young woman’s voice rasped in greeting.
Rashad looked at her a bit longer and said, “Inia? Is that you?” As he reached out, he said, “What happened?”
She suddenly recoiled from his hand, as if it were a snake. “P-please, don’t touch me…”
Surprised by the request, Rashad acceded and sat down near her. “Alright, I won’t. What happened, though?”
“Last night…” Inia began, “Auntie got mad at me. She hit me because I liked you, Rashad. I don’t know why she did, but she was real mad. Kept callin’ you a male and all that. Then Auntie said that she’d never let me see you or any other man ever again.” Tears rolled down the young woman’s face as she continued, “I’ve seen Auntie mad before, but not this mad…”
Rashad hated to see a girl cry, so he hopped up and said, “Hold on; I’ll go get my handkerchief…”
Inia waved him away, saying, “It’s alright. I just wish she would stop being so close-minded about you and all the men in town…”
“Forget her.” Rashad had a defiant look on his face when he said,” She’s just a shriveled old maid who spent so much time in her books, she forgot how to live. I hope she doesn’t expect you to live your life the way she does.”
Inia shushed him as fast as she could and said through clenched teeth, “They’re listening.”
“Who?”
“Them. The black-hoods. They’re everywhere and know everything.”
Rashad shrugged and said, “What’s your point?”
The young woman leaned closer and said, “Auntie owns them. She owns this whole town.”
“One more reason to not pay them any mind. They’re shady cops who work for the interests of one person.” Crossing his arms, Rashad said, “Trust me, I know authority figures. Best thing to do is cheer yourself up and go out with me on a date to watch the stars after work.”
She offered a small smile and said, “Nice try, but I don’t want to—“
“You gonna let your auntie do your thinking forever, Inia?”
She stared at him with a strange look of shock. This guy just made fun of her AND he had the audacity to ask her out in the same sitting. Inia thought about it a moment more and realized Rashad has gone a lot farther then any other guy has. So she gave him the benefit of the doubt and said, “Fine.”
Praying to Toren for things really does work, Rashad thought. “Great! I’ll pick you up from Egress Bar tonight—“
“I don’t work there anymore.” Inia cut in. “Given her state, she’d kill me for real if she found out where I really worked, so I don’t want to give her any other reasons to do so.”
“Fine,” Rashad sighed. “I’ll meet you at the construction site tonight.”
A smile spread over Inia’s face as she said, “Alright.” Then, “Wait: the construction site? Why?”
“Just be there, miss,” he said as he walked out the door.
The smile on Inia’s face brought a flush to her cheeks and a curious hope: what could Rashad be all about?
.....................................................................
“Date?” Wyle said through bandanna-turned-mask.
“Yeah,” Rashad shot back through his own scarf. The workers had covered their mouths to make sure they didn’t breathe in harmful dust from the heavy-duty work being performed at the Karmor’s Bend Town Hall building. The shipment of slate had just come across the Dumas River from the northern Svetarra Mountains in the east. The slate was cut to order by miners at the quarry site, transported by wagon to Karmor’s Bend and further manipulated to suit the needs of the construction crew. This particular shipment of slate was cut into thick ring shapes and standard bricks.
Many of the workers, like Rashad, Wyle and Cyan, unloaded the bricks and set them aside for the future walls of the town hall. The stone rings, cut especially for the creation of columns, were too heavy to be handled by any normal humanoid. So Jollum called in the only abnormal person on his crew he could find.
“AWRIGHT” came the cry across the work site. Barcrab was digging holes for the wall supports when the wagons rolled up, and he dropped the earth where he was standing. Rushing over to the wagon, he reached over and grabbed a stone ring, carrying it as if it were no heavier than a laundry basket. He grabbed another in his claws, proceeded to the back of the lot and placed them with the other pieces of slate.
“Yo, who’s the girl?” Wyle asked over the commotion.
“Like you’ve gotta ask. It’s Inia, man.”
Wyle’s eyes widened over his bandanna as he said, “What in Hells? Are you crazy?”
“Do I look like someone’s who’s crazy?” Rashad asked.
“No,” Wyle said, “but you look like someone who doesn’t want to keep their job! If the Benefactor finds out that you’re messin’ with her niece, you’ll be out of a job!”
Rashad hefted a slate brick and said, “Like I care what that woman thinks. Plus, she probably already thinks that I am messin’ with Inia.”
Wyle’s eyes got as big as saucers as he stared at Rashad walk to the back and put his block down. The new guy doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into, the carpenter thought. Rashad came back and continued, “Man I was over at Blackheart Estates walkin’ Inia home last night and she wants me to meet the damned Benefactor. I go in, we’re relaxing and her aunt—the Benefactor—shows up like some kind of lurking shadow.
“She’s in my face about who I am and what I used to do—I used to be an adventurer,” Rashad slides in as Wyle grabbed another slate brick and walked to the slate deposit. Wyle comes back and Rashad continues, “So I used to be an adventurer and she tells me I’m not. Old bag’s yellin’ at me about ‘I need to show her proof’, so I show her this and she shuts up quicker than a shame plant. I wasn’t gonna put up with that another minute. Inia was home, so I left."
“Wow, new guy,” Wyle said. “So, you beat the Benefactor in an argument without getting fired on the spot AND you’re dating her niece. Sounds like you’re a liar on top of being insane to me.”
Rashad pulled another brick from the wagon and said, “I’m not lying! I went to Blackheart Estates and had an argument with the Benefactor. On top of that, she—
“The Hells is going on over there guys? Rashad? Wyle?” Jollum stood outside his foreman tent and shouted ”If you’re going to talk, talk AND work or talk on your break! How hard is that?”
“Yeah, twerp,” Cyan punctuated by a slap in the back of Rashad’s head, “get to work already.”
“I’m really beginning to hate that guy,” Rashad said. “What’s his deal anyway?”
“He’s just riding you, remember?” Wyle said. “Anyway, we’ve got to unload this cart before the day is out.”
“Right,” Rashad said and grabbed a brick. He headed to the slate deposit and placed his brick down. He looked about and marveled at the amount of stone, thinking how much work must’ve gone into cutting and mining from the rock quarry. He was lost in thought when a thunderous crash shook him from his musings. He looked over and saw that he was near a support post for the town hall, on which Barcrab was putting the stone rings.
Thirty feet in the air on strong scaffolding, the Enigman Barcrab took the other stone ring and placed it over the support post. With gravity taking over, the huge piece of slate dropped down and crashed against the proceeding ring. Barcrab looked down to see Rashad and waved a big red claw in greeting. The Enigman yelled down to him, “ARE THEY STRAIGHT?”
Quickly glancing at the short stack, Rashad shouted, “Yes they are straight!”
“GOOD. I’M COMING TO GET MORE,” the Enigman bellowed. Rashad watched as the Enigman tromped down the service ramps from the aspiring roof to the ground floor. The Enigman strode over, red carapace gleaming in the sun and his eyestalks waving ever so slightly in pleasure. He picked up two more slate rings and said, “THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART OF THE WORK I DO; HEAVY-DUTY WORK. WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THIS JOB, RASHAD?”
“Oh, uh…” Rashad was very busy thinking of how he could make the date work tonight and was seriously considering the roof as the place when he said, “…the fringe benefits.”
“Can I open my eyes now?” Inia asked. She kept her eyes pinched shut as Rashad led her by the hand from the Stonesthrow Inn towards the town hall construction site. She had returned to her normal color, as Rashad had noticed when he saw her in the lobby tonight. They moved as fast as they could to the site and moved up the ramps set up against the building’s frame.
When the two young people reached the third landing, Rashad said, “You can open your eyes now, Inia.”
She did and was amazed at the sight before her: the whole of Karmor’s Bend was laid out to her as she stood with Rashad at the top of the northwestern pillar. The wind whipped past them at that height and Inia’s cloak danced with the hem of her long work dress. Her hair had been in a bun all day and she let it go, showing her curly locks and letting them flow with the breeze. Rashad looked down at her and said, “So, do you approve?”
“I most certainly do,” Inia said. She then pointed and said, “Hey, I can see my backyard from here.”
Rashad looked to where she pointed and saw the backyard of Blackheart Estates. The backyard looked as if it were littered with tombstones, each monolith flashing back in the moonlight. The vegetation that grew tall on the estate boundary obscured his vision. There was a window on the second floor that was still lit even at this late hour. “Looks like Auntie’s waiting up for me,” Inia said.
Turning away from the manor house, she asked with earnest eyes, “So, what do you want to do now?”
“Well, we could do a bunch of things,” Rashad said. “Chief among them is talk.”
They both sat on the edge of the pillar. Rashad started the query: “So, why don’t you tell me about yourself.”
“No,” Inia said, “you have to tell me about you. I already told you about me.”
“All you did was kvetch about your aunt. I want to know about you, not her.” Rashad leaned closer and said, “I’ve had about enough of her than I can stand.”
“Fine. I was born in a town called Sumptor not too far from here. Auntie’s the only person I’ve ever known that took care of me. I never knew my mother or my father; they died soon after I was born. Auntie tells me stories about how she and my mom were friends in the Academy. They were such good friends that she was at my mother’s side when she died, and my mother told her to take care of me. She’s done so for twenty years so far.
“I don’t ask about my dad because Auntie says that ‘I don’t want to know what happened to him.’” Inia sighed and continued, “So I ask about my mother. Auntie says she was very beautiful, smart and understanding. Just like me.”
Rashad looked at her and said, “That’s really great, but I asked about you, not what your aunt tells you. So…now tell me about YOU.”
Inia regarded him with a look of challenge and said, “Well, I like to read.”
“Good.” Rashad said with an encouraging smile. “Go on.”
“I like sunny days, mushrooms…and I especially like dancing.”
“Yeah, I remember…”
“Oh,” Inia piped up, “so you like my dancing. That’s good. You know, I feel the best when I’m dancing. I tried dancing for Auntie and she never paid any attention. She doesn’t understand that it’s the dancing that sets us all free.
"I want to share my dancing with as many people as I can. Now that I know people will watch me dance, I feel like I want to do it everyday. Not only does it please the people, but it sends me to another place, you know?” Rashad shook his head and she explained, “it’s like when I dance, I go to this place where everything is just so perfect, so right that I just don’t want to leave.
“Since you’re the only one who I’ve come to like and who likes me back, it lets me know I should keep dancing.” Inia reached out and touched his hand. “Thank you.”
Rashad said, “That’s very interesting. It sounds like you have a lot of dreams to live out from what you’re told me—“
“And now you have to tell me about yourself. I remember what happened last time you tried to talk about it, but I’d really like to hear about you, Rashad. So tell me.”
Rashad looked at her for a moment and began to tell her everything. He told her about the Draconians, his relationship with the king of the Keepers, the cruelty of the machines, the peoples of Jankenpon Island and the proper way to ride a dragon-god. When he finished, Inia had a look of utter disbelief to match her posture of crossed arms. “Auntie was right,” she said. “You are a liar. A good liar, but a liar all the same.”
“That’s the second time someone called me a liar today,” Rashad said. “First I’m lying about us being an item, and now my own history is suspect!”
“Wait, wait—we’re an item?”
“Yeah. I was talking to Wyle and he didn’t believe me when I said I was at Black—“
The rest of his sentence was lost in Inia’s full lips as she kissed him. Surprised yet glad, he returned the warm kiss. She pulled away with a distant look in her eyes and said, “I might have been a bit hasty about the liar remark.” With an apology of “sorry…” she dove back into the kiss and ran her hand through his hair. He touched her bare arm and her skin was smooth, softened by just a touch of nostalgia for Sa-ren.
Inia pulled away again, this time with urgency: “By the moons, I forgot! I gotta get home! I’m usually home from Egress at this time.” Both she and Rashad got off the column and made their way down the ramps, with Inia saying, “Oh Auntie’s gonna have my hide!” The two of them made it to the bottom, ignorant of the hooded shadow standing near the stacks of slate.
They made it out of the lot and Rashad said, “You need me to walk you home?”
“No,” Inia rasped as she headed south, “that’ll make it look suspicious! Just go home!”
“Oh.” Rashad’s face fell as he said, “Alright.” When he turned to go to the Stonesthrow Inn, Inia whirled him around and kissed him. Then she said something he hadn’t heard in a long time:
“Thank you.” With that, she ran off into the southern gloom, cloak whipping in the wind as she went.
CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 7
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