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Follow the dark rabbit
She has cookies
01
Sight of someone running through the streets of the Capital is pretty common one. Sometimes people need to be somewhere in time but are running late, so must get to literally running to arrive at the desired destination in an appropriate moment – if other modes of transportation, be it mechanical or of more animal nature, are too costly or otherwise inaccessible. Other people might be forced to move their legs at a heightened speed not to get somewhere faster, but to get out of somewhere as quickly as humanly possible. Those words immediately conjure up image of a thief running away with what they stole or other, more serious felons escaping the scene of the crime… While that is also a possibility sometimes it’s not the perpetrator is trying to flee from being caught red-handed, it’s the potential victim of a crime is doing their best to get away from fulfilling their potential by becoming the actual victim.
Another kind of people who’ve been seen running on the city streets on a somewhat regular basis were the policemen, or ‘charlies’ as they were known among the populous. No coincidence that this case of runners is tied to the latter two described in the previous paragraph. Usual reasons of policemen moving along the streets at a brisk pace included either chasing criminals who’ve been trying to run away from a crime scene, or getting to a scene of a crime before criminal starts running – thusly, sparing everyone the needless exertion of a chase.
So it is completely understandable, why the sight of people running, speeding or chasing someone on the streets of Capital isn’t anything remarkable and is worth that precise amount of attention necessary to make a timely jump out of the way of the runners.
Just like the Royal sorceress Tora Halfcour just did.
Well, actually, she was just trying to cross the street when some man appeared from behind the corner of the street, running as fast as humanly possible, – no, really, it was like he was a fastest man in the world. He then almost ran into the sorceress who barely managed to slide back, – yes, really, not “jump” but “slide”, her feet barely moved at all, – and out of his way
“Allan o'r ffordd!” the man shouted at her.
He was clearly a northman, judging by his heavy accent and, – even more so, – by his clothes. Even after he came to the Capital, true northman wouldn’t be easily swayed by the temptation of those fancy trousers people here wore.
“Well, it remains to be seen how true of a northman this one is,” said Tora, following the man with her eyes. “And who’s he running from?”
Answer to that question appeared immediately and took a form of a tall burly man with a balding head, running through the street with a determination of a rock rolling down the mountainside. He then was followed by an assorted group of policemen in varying stages of fatigue.
This whole shebang ran past the sorceress and continued down the street, pushing people aside and throwing around grunts, groans and expletives.
02
“What is a correct noun of assembly for policemen, I wonder?” thought Tora as she followed them, slowly gaining the speed.
“Excuse me, good sir, whom are we chasing today?” asked she the first policeman she caught up with. Then she tried to curtsy but on the full speed it was a rather impossible task.
Policeman, short man with a small eyes and a pointy nose above some long whiskers on his upper lip, – his facial hair was so sparse, nobody would consider calling it “a moustache,” – noticed her attempt and squeaked. That probably was intended to be a laugh, but the run left him with enough air to let out just one high pitched squeak.
“Ah, I see! Thank you, good sir!” nodded the sorceress, already gaining on the next policeman, who was not much taller than the last and had nose of similarly unusual shape – but long and curved instead of long and pointy.
“So, why the chase?” asked Tora.
“Why the chase?” asked policeman back at her.
“Yes, whom we are chasing?”
“Whom we are chasing?”
“What?”
“What?”
“...”
“...?”
“Oh, I see. Bye!” Tora ran forward, accompanied by the man’s fading “bye?”
Next policeman the sorceress caught on with was tall and had a small head on a long thin neck – it was bobbing as he ran. And to make matters worse, he seemed to have a problem keeping balance, so was spreading his elbows to the sides to steady himself.
He quacked something unintelligibly at Tora when the sorceress greeted him – and she decided to just pass right onto the next one: a man with a halo of greyish hair around his head.
“What do you want?” he answered to the greeting angrily, looking at the sorceress with the eyes that had a decidedly cruel, predatory look to them.
“Who are we chasing?”
“We are chasing! Not you! Do not interfere!”
“Pffft!” pfffted Tora Halfcour and ran further forward, to that tall bald burly man who was apparently leading the policemen cavalcade.
03
“Do...don’t you have anything more important to do than chasing smugglers...?” asked a man the moment Tora opened her mouth to greet him. And then added, as if apologizing: “...Lady Royal sorceress.”
“Oh, so people are recognizing me now? Nice! And we’re just the three stories in!”
“Of course I did!” burly man said, completely ignoring every part of Tora’s sentence that were nonsense to him. “Name’s Emest, I’m an apprentice smith at the Academy.”
“I’ve thought I know you from somewhere! You’re from the North too, right?”
“Almost. Moved there from the Mainlanf. Lived up there a bit. Moved to the Capital.”
“That’s great! Do you like it here?”
“Too much running for my tastes...”
“Mine too...” Tora paused because they had to zigzag around newsletter stands dropped down by man they were chasing after.
“Say, Emest,” said she when they left all the papers in the street’s mud behind them. “Why do you bother chasing after the man? Charlies would manage just fine on their own.”
“Did you see them, lady? They wouldn’t catch own feet even if they tried.”
“True...”
“And I really want to ask that man something personal.
“Huh...”
Their quarry took a sharp turn to the right into a gap between the buildings, sleathered through narrow pass leading Tora and Emest into the part of the Capital they weren’t too keen to be in.
It was run-down and crowded. Dirty and colourful. Infamous and popular. Narrow streets were curving like snakes amidst ramshackle buildings, housing way too many people they were buit to contain. This place was known for an abundance of cheap labour, cheap thrills, cheap entertainment and illneses of questionable origin – absolutely for free.
On one hand, the place was a labirynth, a maze of streets and alleys and passages, seemingly so easy to get lost in or to lose the pursuers in. Yet on the other, place and its roads were in such disrepaired state that moving there with any speed was a sure way to acquire bruises, injures and curses from the people one would inevitably bump into.
Moving along the roads that is.
Above the narrow slums’ streets a miriad of ropes, cords and lines were stretching from house to house or dangling down to allow one to raise to the roofs. Some of those threads were used by the local inhabitants for the obvious purposes like drying the laundry, but some were left hanging intentionaly, with a sole purpose of enabling the people of more criminal inclinations to move around the place.
Just like the man Tora and others were chasing.
He grabbed the rope, jumped up and climbed up to the roof in one move giving himself an advantage against the pursuers.
But not as big of an advantage as he might’ve thought.
Emest, without any hesitation, copied man’s maneur with a speed and agility rather unexpected for his size and overal bulkiness.
Sorceress didn’t bother with climbing the rope: she grabbed it, jumped, swinged onto the wooden beam connecting two houses (it was the only thing preventing those buidings from falling on one another) and from that beam jumped onto the roof – and helped Emest up. All that was done with a celerity and elegance of a cat.
“A cat is fine,” said the sorceress to nobody in particular. “Just don’t make me suddenly disappear into thin air.”
“Thank you, lady sorceress,” Emest rumbled. “I guess, I should’ve expected you being so fast – magic and all.”
“You’re no slouch yourself,” Tora looked down at the street, where policemen were arguing who’s going to climb first and if they even are supposed to climb up. “Can’t say the same of those guys, unfortunately.”
“Don’t bother!” she shouted down. “I’m the Royal Sorceress! I’ll take it from here!”
Policemen nodded back with great relief.
“Well... I’m... used to ropes,” said Emest.
“Hm? I’m getting more and more curious... No, I’m not saying it the way you would expect by now. Anyway, Emest. Ropes. Sea or sky?”
“Sky. Over the Cantons, mostly.”
“O-oh...” Tora looked at him with some genuine amazement. “Do I see in front of me a true airship pirate?”
“Former. Now I am just a good law-abiding citizen of the Kingdom.”
“Well, that we will see,” the sorceress looked around. “Where did that speedy northman went?”
04
It was a thrilling race seen mostly by cats who occupied the city’s roofs as their sworn domain and didn’t take lightly the sudden invasion of bipedal primates – lots of angry meows were heard, countless scratches attempted and even some tails stepped on.
But it wasn’t the furry roof-dwellers resistance that made the chase particularly memorable – it’s the surroundings in which the race was taking place. Uneven angled roofs with a tiles that threatened to fall off and take the foot that dared to step unto them down; ropes, worn-out by the elements, holding on the very last thread before falling apart; occasional pigeons, flying up and right into your face from between the buidings...
“What in the world is that fool’s doing?!” cried Emest and, seeing Tora’s questioning look, added. “He’s falling. No, he’s going to fall. Not now, but soon, just look how reckless he is, I swear, he will!”
“Are you so afraid you won’t be able to question him?”
“A bit like that,” Emest stopped on the edge of the roof. “Do you have a rope?”
“I don’t, but there’s plenty around...” sorceress looked around for a long enough line that haven’t got clothes tied to it.
“Here!” she reached for the one: rope untied itself and rolled into nice little coil in the sorceress’ hand which she held forth to Emest.
“Tie it to something on the roof right before I catch that fool!” said he taking the rope and jumping across the street to the next building. Tora followed – now when they were connected by the rope it was even more important to keep up, even if said rope was long enough to allow for some freedom.
As they weren’t talking to each other anymore, – a couple of Emest’s grunts not counting, – they started steady gaining on their quarry. The northman, they were pursuing, of course noticed it as well and started to act even more foolhardy – taking risky jumps and recklessly running across the ropes.
Still, he was no match for the pair of a Royal Sorceress and an old sky pirate.
“Tora, now!” yelled Emest landing on the roof few steps behind northman. Man looked back, sprinted across the roof and onto the line, connecting it to the next house. Line was wobbling dangerously, but the man was too scared of those chasing him to pay attention to such details.
Emest let out couple of disappointed grunts, – translated to human speech they meant something like “what an idiot!” – and ran after the man, coiling the rope around his right leg and holding its end in the left hand.
Line under the northman’s feet wobbled. He tried to steady himself with motion of his arms but it looked more like bad attempts at flying away and had exactly the same result.
Emest got to the edge of the roof.
Northman tiled his whole body to the side, keeping only one leg on the rope – and then the earth pulled him off the line and in the direction of the street pavement. That is, he fell down.
Emest followed him with a jump, stretching his free right arm in an attempt to catch the already falling northman.
There was a scream of pain when Emest caught him by the arm and the shoulder joint where said arm connected to the rest of the body got dislocated, followed by a “thump!” sound when both men hit the wall of the house. Soon after that someone began to pull them up by the rope.
05
As Emest was dragged up feet-first, he didn’t saw who was pulling the rope.
The moment he was able to, he kneeled on the edge of the roof, let go of the rope in his left hand and pulled up the northman, who after that first loud scream resorted to angry pained grunts and teeth grinding.
“Good thing you’ve gotten someone to help…” said Emest looking back at Tora who was playfully swinging the end of the rope. “No way…! I’ve told… Pardon me, lady… I’ve asked you to tie it around something. Why you…?”
“Oh, there was nothing in the vicinity,” the sorceress smiled. “And all happened so fast, I hadn’t have time to search around.”
“So you just pulled us up? How is that even possible?”
“Thank you!”
“...” northman, being held by Emest, grunted somewhat more loudly.
“Oh, poor boy,” said Tora, stepping closer to him. “Hold him firmly, Emest, could you?”
After that she took the northman by the elbow and twisted the dislocated arm very purposefully – so the bone slid into its natural place.
“Argh!”
“See? Now’s better,” the sorceress shifted her hand up the arm from the elbow to the shoulder and made a move, as if tearing something apart from it. “And there goes the pain.”
Still doing motions like a pantomime, she tossed something invisible back behind her shoulder. Emest could’ve swear he heard a very quiet scraping sound, like a tiny bony legs moving against the roof tiles – a tiny bony legs running away.
“Of course it ran away – why would it want to stay with me?” Tora shrugged. “But now this boy here can stop grunting and I never did like anyone living in this house anyway…”
“You wanted to ask him some question, Emest? Go on, ask away,” Tora nodded at the northman.
“Ugh… It’s just something that I was wondering about,” Emest grumbled. “Why does he wear a skirt?”
“It’s not a skirt you dumb mainlander! It’s a cilt!”
“Looks like skirt to me…”
“Say it again I’ll send you flying down to the street!”
“Oh, will you? I said it looks like…”
“Stop it you two!” Tora interjected. “Haven’t you had enough flying for today, both of you?”
“...”
“But the real question is…” the sorceress smiled. “How true of a northman you really are, lad?”
“You should ask those ladies down below who’ve seen us dangling on the rope before…” said northman with a dash of a boast in his tone. “From their looks they thought they’ve seen alot but now they know they’ve seen nothing!”
“Boy’s got guts, that much I gave him,” Emest chuckled.
“Sadly, that’s all he has…” Tora put one foot forward and leaned on it, bringing her closer to the northman, sitting on the roof. “Look, lad, your feet are fast but your tongue runs even faster. Why in the world did you need to talk about those weapons Mad King is about to acquire? And to make it all that much worse – you’ve told it to the one person who would definitely bring it to the charlies? You ever thought you might need to have that tongue of yours removed?”
“What? Who? How!?” northman turned his eyes from Tora to Emest and then back to Tora again. “How did you know?”
Emest was looking somewhat surprised but stayed silent, looking at the sorceress with inspecting gaze.
“Oh, like you don’t know who I am!” Tora slapped northman on the forehead. “I’m Tora Halfcour, Royal Sorceress, and I know it all! I know you, Henbeddestr ap Kynthelig and I know everything you’ve ever did since you were born… no need to be embarrassed – that kind of thing happens…”
“...” northman grunted something unintelligible.
“Don’t worry, I’m not in the mood of spilling it all to anyone… yet. As long as you get up, get down on the street and get out of the Capital and all the way back to the Mad King’s castle.”
“Wha…?” those clearly wasn’t the words Henbeddestr was expecting to hear.
Emest kept silent.
“Wasn’t expecting? Hah!” Tora laughed. “Let’s see if you expect this: as a punishment for making me run through the city you must not forget to tell the Mad King that the Royal Sorceress Tora Halfcour thinks that you are an idiot and should be treated as such. Repeat!”
“I won’t forget to tell the Mad King that the Royal Sorceress Tora Halfcour thinks that I am an idiot and should be treated as such.”
“Good. Run away now, Henbeddestr ap Kynthelig, run away as fast as your name implies.”
06
Tora looked up at the skies.
“Strange… It doesn’t feel like we were running around for that long, and still, the sun is setting down already.”
“What a waste of time and words, what a pointless race,” she added, then tilted her head to the side to look at Emest. “Or maybe not as pointless as it seems? Maybe it’s the exact opposite – maybe it could benefit us both? What you say, old pirate? Want to get back into the skies?”
“I say I’d like to know exactly what’s just happened before I’d even ask what you might want of me, lady sorceress.”
“It actually all tied together. Tangled, even. Yes, that’s the right word. Or, maybe, intertwined? All things finally fit in.”
Setting sun was directly behind Tora’s head, lighting up her hair, creating a thin bright halo around the sorceress, making her stand out from a background of pink-red sunset skies. She was almost painful to look at.
“Oh well,” Emest lowered his head. “As you’ve said yourself, you know all – so you have to know my answer already.”
“I wish I knew it all the time… So go on, say it out loud.”
“I’m used to taking orders, lady sorceress. You are someone who’s giving them. So if your order would be to forget everything that happened today – I’ll do my best. If you command me to serve at an airship again – I’ll do my best. As long as I feel you’re being honest with me – I’ll do my best.”
“Well, that’s in the name, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you won’t even question why the Royal sorceress let the man smuggling weapons from the Federation to the North go free?”
“What I would like to know – why go with the chase? You could’ve just ordered the police to stand down...”
“And risk anyone getting notice of the Royal sorceress colluding with the northmen?”
“I see, I see...”
“Well then, mister… or should I say, captain Emest, get ready to get to work soon. And possibly to meet the Queen. But she will need to prepare to that meeting first. In the meantime…”
Sun, almost hidden below the horizon, was painting the skies above the Capital in all the shades of red – from whiteish pinks to dark brown-reds. City below those skies was eerily peaceful.
The sorceress smiled hungrily.
