rix_scaedu

I wrote this to ellenmillion's first prompt.

Iphana waited until her ride was two hours late before she made the call on the radio.  The hawler had a long way to come and a myriad of things might have delayed it.  This much of a delay meant that they were going to run into trouble beating the winter storm front into the settlement and no-one wanted to be out in that with only a hawler for shelter.

Sawyl was surprised when he heard her voice on the radio in his office.  The way station mechanic should have been halfway back to the settlement by now.  If there was a problem with the hawler he would have expected the driver to be making the call.  He was still annoyed that all the drivers who’d come in from the mines yesterday had avowed that they couldn’t pick her up on their way.  This trip to collect her was a special one and too close to the seasonal storm movement to make him happy.  His reaction to her news was, “What do you mean the hawler hasn’t arrived?”

“It’s neither here nor in sight.”  The girl had been swapped in for a popular local boy at the beginning of the spring and her welcome had been less warm than Sawyl had expected.

It was with a sense of dread he headed to the hawler hanger.

All the hawlers were in their bays, stripped for the winter lay off.  Lanzo, who he’d picked to go collect the mechanic because he’d thought the two of them might hit it off if they actually talked, was with a group of the other drivers by the coffee point.

“Lanzo, why aren’t you on the road?”  Calm, he had to stay calm.

“Co-ordinator Sawyl,” great, he was back to being an outsider after twenty years, “I came in and my hawler was stripped.  I thought the plans had changed.”

“And you didn’t check with me?”  Lanzo was reliable, hell he’d been trying to match-make for him.  “Pig’s arse!  Anyone would think you wanted to strand her out there!”  He looked at their faces, “And you did.  What did she ever do to you that you want to commit murder?”

“It’s not murder,” Kenned, another of the drivers, refuted.  “A winter in a way station won’t kill her but it might make her leave.”

“A winter in a fully supplied way station won’t kill her,” retorted Sawyl, “but her supply deliveries have been short all season from pilferage – she’s got enough food for a month, six weeks if she hard rations herself.  If you can all sleep well tonight, gentlemen, then you’re lesser men than I think you are.”

“What?”  That had gotten their attention and jerked them erect out of their comfortable slouches.

“If everyone from the warehouse storemen who make up the load to the driver who delivers it takes a box of whatever they fancy for themselves or friends, what does that leave the person the load is for, eh?  Not enough is the answer.”  He glared at them.

“She could have given up and let Terrack have his job back.”  The mutterer was Jarmann, one of Terrack’s brothers.

“That’s what this is about?”  Sawyl rounded on the big driver.  “All these months?  Has the entire settlement been trying to drive her away?”

The men all shifted uncomfortably and Jarmann muttered, “Mam said-.”

“Did your Mam tell you that Iphana’s brother married the mechanic from the next settlement and that neither place is big enough for two mechanics?  Did she tell you that Central put Terrack in the sister-in-law’s spot and then sent Iphana here?”  Sawyl poked Jarmann in centre of his chest with one finger, “Terrack took her job, not the other way around.”

“Perhaps the cargo haulers can still get a drop to her before the weather closes in,” offered Lanzo offered quietly, “If you check the weather window while we rouse the pilots and get the loads put together…”

“An excellent suggestion,” the new voice was completely unknown to all of them and they turned to see a tall, thin man with a severe expression who was resting his hands on the head of a walking stick in front of him.  He was flanked by two security drones, the first any of them had seen other than on a broadcast screen.  “I’m Auditor Carvell, from Central.  We held a desktop audit of this settlement’s transactions and now I’m here to look at the paperwork.  I’m interested in pilferage, mail non-delivery and possible dereliction of duty.”  He let his words sink in.

“We’ll be stormed in for winter by midnight,” pointed out Sawyl.  “You hardly have time to look at anything before you need to leave to avoid being trapped here.”

“Oh, I intend this to be my winter project, Co-ordinator,” Auditor Carvell smiled.  “I’ve  brought along extra supplies.  Come spring, everything here should be all sorted out.  By the way, gentlemen,” he turned his attention to the drivers, “while you’re getting those cargo drops loaded, you might like to include fresh lemons.  I know that they’re a luxury but they grow in her home settlement so they’ll be a taste of home comfort.  You are trying to apologise for almost abandoning her to starve, aren’t you?”

I have written this to aldersprig's first prompt.

They were an unnatural presence in this place.

Twenty slender, untopped, amber-clouded marble pillars arranged in an exact circle.  The rest of the cavern was damp and water hewn, geologically too new to be more than palin and unadorned – there were leaky concrete car parks with more stalagmites and stalactites.  The pillars didn’t rest on the cavern floor either but extended into it, sitting flush in neatly drilled holes.

“You were right,” sighed Dr Harness.  “This is interesting enough to be worth the trek.  Is there a level below this?”

“Sometimes and partly,” replied his guide who was also one of his graduate students.  “That’s the level where the river’s active now.”

“Can we look?”  The academic investigator of oddities was becoming enthusiastic.

“If the water level is low enough,” the student agreed.  “There are some chambers we won’t be able to get to without scuba gear and not all the above water sections have been mapped yet, so we’ll have to be careful.”

“Very well, Clark, lead on.”  The academic pulled out his notebook and compass.  “Let’s see if I can work out whether any part of the level below that we can get to is directly under this.”

It was hours later when Dr Harness finally pronounced himself satisfied that the parts of the river level they could get to were not directly under the pillar cavern.  They still had time to get back above ground before sundown and Clark was beginning to fantasise about a hot shower, clean clothes, a good meal and indoor plumbing.

They’d turned back and were walking beside a section of the underground river when Dr Harness turned his torch light idly downwards into the water.  “Clark, can you see that?”  The confined space made his voice even louder than usual.  “It’s the pillar stone, and that looks like a door made out of the stuff.”

Clark shone his own flash light on it and knelt down to get that little bit closer.  “Doctor, I don’t think that’s a door, I think it’s a hatch.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” mused the doctor.

I wrote this to ysabetwordsmith's first prompt.

Being newly dead was…odd.  Helgenes had been alive one moment and then he wasn’t.  He wasn’t even sure how he’d died, there’d been a brief glimpse of his body on the ground then he’d been in the afterworld.  He supposed it was the afterworld but it and the transition had been very different to the promises that had been made in the scripture classes he’d attended as a child.  As a Benarian and thus favoured by the gods, there should have been an angelic escort to protect his soul from the vard on its journey to Judgement.  The Hall of Judgement should have been marble, ivory and gold but even dead Helgenes could recognise white stucco over brick.  The priests had said that in death Benarians would be spared the limbo of waiting in the Hall and would be passed straight to the Judge for assignment to their places in the afterworld.

That was a load of crock.  He was in with everyone else and he could tell that some of them had been waiting a long time, like the Zuccetan soldier in armour two centuries old standing at parade rest with the butt of his spear firmly planted on the ground between his feet.  On his left there was a Lipotene sailor, dripping water, who kept trying to make conversation.  He was not only in with everyone else, he was in with a low denominator of everyone else.  The crowd slowly moved forward.

It took him a while to realise that the Zuccetan hadn’t moved, in fact he had to look back over his shoulder to see him.  “That’s strange,” commented Helgenes aloud.

“What is?”  The Lipotene was still trying to strike up a conversation.

“That soldier back there,” Helgenes pointed over his shoulder, “he hasn’t moved.”

“Maybe he’s not ready to face his Judgement?”  The sailor shrugged.  “Seems a long time to collect yourself to me, but what do I know?  I’m no theologian.”

“I was promised an escort of angels,” Helgenes told him, “But it seems that the theologians were wrong about that.”

“Well, there are angels here,” pointed out the sailor, “but they’re not an escort.”  Helgenes followed the sailor’s gaze and noticed the angels around the Hall for the first time.

“I wonder what they’re doing?”

“Lookouts is what they look like to me,” answered the sailor.

“For what?”  Helgenes asked.  “There’s no danger in the Hall of Judgement, or so we’re taught.”  He paused.  “Maybe the theologians don’t know as much as they think they do?”

“Why are we sneaking away to the station like this?”  It was so early it was still dark.  The sky above was clear with a few late stars and the eastern sky was beginning to colour.  Mist sat in the dips in the fields.  Both of them were dressed for the early morning chill.  He wore a light coat with a scarf wrapped around his neck below the red hair.  She wore a shawl flicked around her shoulders and unsecured by anything but it’s own weight.

“I don’t want anyone to see us and stop us,” he answered as he set a brisk pace.  “In all the time you were being told you were Karen, you never went further from here than Hainbury or Market Tonbury.  I’m wondering if that was deliberate.”

“Deliberate?”  She had shorter legs than he did so she was having to work harder to keep up.

“Yes,” he looked down at the dark head hurrying along beside him, “I’m wondering if someone doesn’t want you going too far away in case you’re recognised as being not Karen.”

“A deliberate campaign of keeping me misidentified?”  She considered that then said, “So in my real identity I’m a threat to someone?”

“Someone linked to that taint we’ve both noticed,” he agreed, “someone who doesn’t want to be interfered with.  Which is why,” they’d reached the station now and he led the way onto the platform, “We’re buying our tickets from the ticket machine and not the station master.”  He suited his actions to his words and got them both tickets to the city.  “It’s also why we’re going to wait for the train where we can’t be locked in or seen from the road.”

“You think they’d stop us getting on the train or even get us off?”

“Possibly not by force,” he agreed as he led her down the platform away from buildings and the entrance to the platform.  “It could be done by distraction or some other non-violent method, but force is an option.  Here comes the train.”  She followed his gaze up the line to see headlights shining on the rails from beyond the curve.  As the yellow nosed front of the train came into the platform he swore softly.  “George Greenup’s just come onto the other platform – he’s seen us and he’s waving.  If you haven’t seen him, don’t look and just get on the train.  Looks like we might have trouble at the next station.”

“What are we going to do?”  She looked up at him, head cocked to one side.  “Unless there’s someone actually at the next station I doubt anyone could get there in time to board the train, assuming George does call someone about us.  There would be time to intercept us at the next three stations though, and if Hainbury and Market Tonbury mark the limits of the taint’s influence, that’s how far we have to worry about.”

“I have an idea.  We need to move back to the carriage behind us though.”  He took her by the hand and led her through the door into the seating area.  Early morning travellers dozed or read, some even dozed while trying to read, but none of them paid any particular attention to the red haired man and the dark haired woman moving down the aisle.

Neither of them spoke until they reached the vestibule at the far end of the carriage.  “What’s the plan?”  To her eye there was nothing in the vestibule to hide behind or in.  She’d seen bigger built in wardrobes.

“We’re going to hide in plain sight and I’ll need you to stay close to me, close enough you hardly have to straighten your arm to touch me.”  He held her hand tightly.  “For this first part we just need to be in contact to be a unit.”  He began to mutter something in a language she didn’t recognise.

When he finished he whispered, “Quietly now,” and led her through the connecting section and into the next carriage.

No-one seated in their new carriage looked up when they came through the connecting door and no-one looked up when the two of them stepped into one of the two toilet cubicles together.  When she reached for the door to lock it he stopped her.  “We don’t want to give them any reason to think there’s anyone in here.  Leaved the door unlocked.”

“I thought we were supposed to be hiding.”  She was confused.

“We are.  We’ve already started.”  He looked about them.  “These toilets are smaller than I remember them.”  He looked back at her.  “I’m not a mage but like a lot of people I’m capable of learning and doing two or three simple spells.  While I was overseas, while I-.  Well, I learnt how to do a bit of invisibility.  I’ve already put an ignorance and avoidance on us.  Now I’m going to bend the light around us.  We have to be close because I can only cover a small space but we can move as long as we move together.  Okay?”

“How close?”  She looked up at him for an answer, noting that there wasn’t much space between the basin and the bowl.

“Put your arms around me.” He caught her look.  “This is necessary.  Just do it, please.”  When she’d complied he put his arms around her in turn, making sure his hands didn’t land anywhere that might be considered as taking advantage of the situation.  At least if they were knocked from side to side in this space it would be his elbows that took the damage and not hers.

The train came to a stop and the carriage doors opened.  More than one person got on because they could hear a voice saying, “This is ridiculous.  The up-train will drop the papers off and we won’t be there to get them so all the deliveries will be late.  And if those Racklin kids get to them before we get back, there’ll be newsprint from one end of the village to the other.”

Another voice murmured something then the first voice answered, “Yes, I know.  Orders are orders.  I know I don’t need to understand everything, but sometimes I wished I did.”  Then they heard the door into the seating section of the carriage open while footsteps came towards them.

The toilet door was pushed partly and the red haired man inside would have made eye contact with the middle aged man who opened it but for the spell that hid him.  He felt the girl in his arms hold her breath but the searcher held the door open for less than a three count before letting the door close and checking the toilet cubicle on the other side of the aisle.  The girl didn’t exhale again until they heard the connecting door to the next carriage close and then she did so quietly into his coat.

They travelled like that through six more stations, two beyond Hainbury just to be on the safe side.  The door was opened three more times in what seemed to be a systematic search of the train by teams but it appeared that they were not seen.  When they did emerge, they timed it so they blended with the people getting on the train at Runner’s Green.  No-one in the seating section looked askance at them and they were able to get seats together.  It was a much more comfortable ride than in the toilet cubicle.

It was half past seven when they arrived at the train terminus in the middle of the city.  He led her unerringly through the station to the Underground platforms, consulted the destination boards and took her to the deepest of the three sets of platforms.  They got on a train leaving the city, went one stop and got off.  He led her up the steps out of the station, looked around to get his bearings and then strode confidently along the street.  They crossed a main road and headed into a tangle of backstreets and after three turns and two more street crossings he stopped them outside a white two storied building, starkly recent in between two sets of terraces.

“This is a prayer hall,” she ventured quietly.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed.  “If I’m going to go to the Church Knights muttering about taint and conspiracies to keep you from knowing who you really are, I think I want a letter of introduction from someone respectable, don’t you?”

“I suppose so,” she agreed uncertainly.

“Well, the someone respectable works here.  Come on.”  He stepped up to the door and knocked briskly.

A man with a neat beard and moustache opened the door and looked the red haired man up and down.  “How may I help you?”  He seemed dubious that he could.

“Peace be unto you.”  The red haired man paused as if expecting a response but went on when he didn’t receive one.  “I am here to see Hajji Razzaq ibn Abdullah.  Please tell him that Asim al-Ahmar is here.  The young lady is travelling under my protection because she was tricked into believing she’s my sister.”

“Please wait here.” The man closed the door.

Nearly five minutes later the door was thrown open and a short, round-faced man wearing glasses threw open the door.  “Asim!”  He threw his arms around the red haired man.  “It is so good to see you again!  Come in.  Come in.”  He looked at the dark haired young woman beside him, “And this young lady must be your sister of whom you spoke so often.”

“Actually, she’s not.”  The red haired man almost sighed.  “That’s partly why we’re here.  I need your help.”

“Then you must most certainly come in and tell me all about it.”   With that the small man ushered them inside, past the man who’d first opened the door, and into a small office.  After he’d served them coffee and biscuits he sat down at the desk and said, “Good.  Now we can talk.”

“When I got home, after I was allowed to go home given all the issues with the Kara Amida affair,” the red haired man told his friend, “I was told that my sister, Karen, had been savagely attacked and as a result had needed some facial reconstruction surgery and had amnesia.  I was then introduced to this young lady.”  He indicated the girl sitting beside him.  “Everyone assured me she was Karen but that never quite gelled.  Then two days ago we found Karen’s body – she’d been at the bottom of a well for four years.”

“I am so sorry my friend,” the Hajji was sympathetic.  “So now you are here because you want to find your sister’s killer and to know who this young lady is?”

“Yes.”  The red haired man agreed.  “The police in charge of the investigation hadn’t manage to correctly identify her in four years.  I have no great confidence in their ability or willingness to do so now.”

“We’ve both noticed an occasional trace of taint,” added the dark haired girl, “and this morning there was an attempt to find us on the train.”

“Oh, ho!”  Their host chortled.  “I’ll warrant I know why they couldn’t find you.  Asim here can hide a patrol from a pack of ghilan if he has the time and the warning.”  He sobered up.  “So, you want an introduction to the Church Knights?”

“Yes please.”  The red haired man raised an eyebrow, “You came to that rather quickly.”

“My position was envisaged by His Holiness the current Caliph’s grandfather, blessed be his memory, as a person for Muslims in a strange land to gain help from when they ran into matters of taint and black sorcery far from home.  We’ve always had quite good relations with the Church Knights on that point.  The problem we face now though is that when this post was first established there were ten or twelve reports a year of which maybe one in twenty turned out to have anything to it.”  The small man took a deep breath and went on, “Now we receive eighteen or twenty reports a month and one in six has substance to it.  It is true that there are more Muslims in this country these days, but it worries me that the proportion of matters of true concern is rising.  As well, secularisation of the Christian population in this country means that I am receiving reports now from non-Muslim youths of both sexes brought to me by their Muslim friends because they don’t know who else to turn to.”  He shook his head.  “Something is going on, my friends, and neither I nor the Church Knights care for it at all.”

“I didn’t come home expecting to land in another ghul-hunt,” said the red haired man.

“Not a ghul-hunt, Asim.  I fear this will be much worse.”

“Excuse me,” interrupted the dark haired girl, “but why Asim?  Isn’t your,” she turned to the Hajji, “his name, excuse me, Rhys?”

“Oh yes,” explained the little man with a chuckle, “but despite what happened to the rest of his squad, he was never officially seconded to or embedded in the Army of the Caliphate so he needed a nom d’guerre.  Asim is a good name and al-Ahmar simply means ‘the red’.  Please, finish your coffee while I write your letter.”

As their host wrote away in a flowing elegant script, the girl turned to her companion and remarked, “That sounds rather different to the official story of what happened to you.”

“The official story is inaccurate for a number of reasons,” Rhys smiled back at her.  “All of them good ones from someone’s point of view.”

The letter didn’t take long to write but the fountain pen ink had to dry while the Hajji wrote out the covering envelope.  They finished their coffee, like civilised people, then the Hajji folded the letter, put it in the envelope and sealed it in.  As he handed the envelope to his friend he made a short remark in his own language.  Both of his guests blushed.

Rhys was the one who realised what that meant.  “You understand Persian?”  He spoke in that language with an accent that was understandable but meandered around the Caliphate and outside it.

“I speak Persian.”  She smiled.  “I speak Persian!  That’s something else we know about me!”  She turned to the Hajji and asked in her educated Baghdadi accent, “Did you truly mean it when you said that he should he should marry me?”

“Oh yes,” the little man smiled.  “He’s at an age and time of his life that he should marry and you have been living under his protection, albeit as his sister.  You seem well matched and it would tidy things up appropriately.”

“With your position here, you’d be a licensed celebrant wouldn’t you?”  Rhys had switched back to English.

“Of course.  Who else would conduct weddings for our congregation?”  The Hajji was still smiling.

“Well, if we go through with it, then I expect friends’ rates on your fee.”  Rhys spoke like a man driving a bargain.

“Naturally!”  The two men shook hands and then the Hajji added, “And if things are arranged in a hurry, I know a butcher who can get you a whole lamb or a calf for spit roasting at short notice.”

The two men continued to banter with each other all the way back to the front door.  When they were outside again the dark haired girl asked Rhys, “Did you two just arrange our wedding?”

“Possibly.”  Rhys looked down at her.  “We didn’t discuss what you’d wear though.  Perhaps his wife could help you if you’ve no-one else?”  She punched him in the arm.

After a few minutes of walking she asked, “Are we going back to the station?”

“No,” he looked both ways before stepping out to cross the road, “we’re going to catch a bus.”

A short time later the bus dropped them on the Embankment and they started walking downstream.  They passed a bridge over the river and then the historic buildings came into view.  She stopped and asked, “We’re going to the Episcopal Palace?”

“To part of the episcopal complex, not the Palace itself,” Rhys clarified.  “I believe their office is in the old parish church.”

“Whose office?”

“The Church Knights’.”

“Of course, the letter of introduction.”  She smiled at him.  “Why didn’t I realise they must have an office here?”

He shrugged.  “It would make just as much sense for their office to be at the Abbey or one of the Cathedrals.”

She grew more and more apprehensive the closer they got to the Episcopal Palace.  Finally, less than a block away, she stopped and grabbed his arm.  “Rhys, do we really need to have a Church Knight come with us? Can’t we just go to the missing person people on our own?”

He put his hand over hers before he answered.  “If we go to the police and talk about taint they’re just going to send us back here.  And frankly, if I’m going to bring up the lack of proper investigation into your identity by the local police I want to have someone impressive backing me up.”  He leaned forward and looked at her more closely.  “You’re making me think that there’s more to your memory not coming back than simply amnesia.  All right, I’m going to take you to get another cup of coffee, but first I’m going to blindfold you and spin you around, okay?”

“What?”  She was flabbergasted.

“It’ll be fine, trust me.”  He smiled at her.

“Okay.”  She smiled back but she didn’t sound at all sure.

This story continues here.  It got too big for one LJ post.