Chapter 4 – Back In Chains

	I never travelled much when I was young.  Literally the farthest I had ever gone from home was a few miles away to transport some bricks for the kiln field we worked for.  For the first time in my life I got to see what they could build.  A Clan Estate, a massive house like the one on the Sura Plantation.  Except this one had been a country retreat, not a place of business.  And it hadn’t been fully built yet, so I only got a small taste of how the rich lived.
	It was enough to show me how little I really understood about the world.  For the poor, the world is often a very small place.  You’re born in a small community, you grow up in it and learn the trade of your parents, and you seldom leave.  If you do, it’s only to marry someone who lives near enough that your parents met. 
	Travel is expensive and dangerous.  And the kind of learning that can teach you about the world without having to travel is even more expensive and out of reach for someone like me.  
I know there’s a lot more out there than I can imagine.  I know there are peoples like the Dog Lords, who have things like guns and other devices that give them powers we would have once reserved for Gods.  I know there are places where the woes of the desert are unheard of.  Places where it’s always cold, or where it rains so much you can grow food year-round.  I’ve even heard tales lately of a new land only just discovered by mariners and traders, full of monsters and cannibals who have the heads of snakes.  I’m inclined to believe almost anything I’ve heard about the world beyond Mataa, because our nation alone is so enormous and diverse in and of itself, it seems likely that just about anything could exist in the whole of the world beyond.
For the first time in my life, I’m seeing more of my own land, and possibly soon, beyond its borders.  The idea of expanding my horizons is both intimidating and grand.
When I was young, all I thought I wanted was my familiar home, in my familiar neighborhood, with a simple but happy family, working hard and never wondering what I was missing.  But as I aged, I realized that nothing was simple.  What had seemed an ideal humble life was fraught with domestic troubles and the bone-crushing reality of what labor did to your body over time.  
My wife had been right about many things.  There was more to the world than the living I’d been born into.  There was more to be seen and known and had, and she hadn’t been greedy or demanding to want to give that bigger world to our son.  She’d just been smarter than me.
Now all I can hope is that she’s seen a better world beyond our home than I have.  

	The travel across the western trade roads is a blur, punctuated by bouts of fear and paranoia.  As it turns out, when you’ve got a caravan’s worth of spices, coffee and coin, enough traveling cloaks to cover your collars, and cut a path through smaller outposts to avoid towns, keeping downwind of Clan hunters is actually quite possible.  Albeit with a few close calls along the way.
	There was one group of black-backed jackals we had to pay off.  It was a little humiliating to be nearly caught by a group of my own kind, or close to it.  But jackals usually have to scrounge a living beneath the heels of the more well-respected peoples in any way they can, and apparently that extends to bounty-hunting.  One of them noticed me at one of the watering holes we visited, and as it turns out, he and his kin had caught wind of a golden jackal high up on the Sura Clan’s bounty list.  
	It was becoming clear to me that I was probably the group’s biggest liability, next to Raja.  The two of us stood out no matter where we went, being golden furred and in his case, unique.  We’d forced him to start wearing a shirt and cloak, a demand he’d strenuously objected to until the third time we’d caught suspicious glances and pointed fingers.
	Having Anala with us had been, I had to admit, our saving grace.  The woman knew how to carry herself with the bearing of a powerful, regal lady.  No one doubted she was a Clan woman, or merchant, or anything she claimed to be, really.  No one would dare.  And specific knowledge about her order was rare.  I actually wasn’t sure if a Priestess of Anala was even permitted to hold station in a Clan, other than as a guard, but no one seemed to question it.
	Indentured guards were legal, so as long as no one knew who we were specifically, the bluff was holding even on the occasions that people noticed our collars.  Until the jackals.  We’d had to pay them a hefty sum to have them look the other way, and Raja hadn’t shut up since then about how it’d been a mistake.  There’d been eight of them.  More than our group, and on the whole better armed and armored, (they were hunters, after all).  But Raja, ever certain of his superiority, seemed to think we could have taken them.
	Lavanya preferred to avoid unnecessary combat, being as she was a more practical woman, and Anala hadn’t considered them worthy opponents.  I was just glad we’d had the coin to avoid the fight.  I’d tried to make the point to Raja that leaving a trail of bodies in our wake could lead other hunters directly to us, but he was stubborn as ever.  I don’t think he even really cared about the coin.  It was just the idea of giving in that galled him.
	“He is a child,” Lavanya tells me as we walk.  “He may wear the skin of an adult, but his mind stopped aging when he became indentured.  No child can grow up properly kept oppressed and enslaved.  That is why his moods shift so quickly, why he bullies and berates and can’t be still.  Just like a cub.”
“You have a lot more patience for it than I do,” I mutter.
She only shrugs at that.  We’re walking side by side through another abandoned Divine field.  So much of these lands were cultivated for the flowers, only to be abandoned when the soil stopped yielding.  The further west we go, the closer we’re heading towards monsoon lands, so more grows here.  But the Clans use the earth to death until it’s scrubland once more, depleted and unable to sustain any crops, including those that would be more useful to the people here.  What it leaves behind is what we’re crossing now- empty expanses of spotted brush and dry grass, the occasional Divine flower surviving off pockets of good soil and dotting the landscape with splashes of red.  There’s so much land like this out here, we’ve seen more of it than not.  It’s testament to the greed of the Clans, and the overwhelming need for this drug.  The Divine is like an infection that feeds off desperation and hooks itself in the most vulnerable.  It’s as much a means to control the poor as indentured servitude is, which is why the two so often go hand-in-hand.
	Thankfully, I’ve never taken to the stuff, even after being force-fed it.  I can’t imagine how much worse my situation would be if I had.
	“He could at least throw his tantrums silently,” I continue, trying not to show my irritation.  “Enough already.  The coin wasn’t even ours.  And I’m still injured.  His life isn’t the only one at risk if we pick every fight we can on our way.  Imagine what would happen if we ran afoul of a group like the one that came for us at the oasis out here on our own.”
	“Unlikely,” she says, “now that we’re moving.  They may catch wind of us from previous communities we passed through, but so long as we keep traveling, we should be able to stay ahead of them.  And they won’t expect us to be headed directly for one of their strongholds.”
	“Yes, well,” I roll my eyes, “that’s because it’s insane.”
	“We must keep moving,” she reiterates.  “Only when we rest will we be found.  The oasis was proof of that.”
	I glance sidelong at the lioness as we move.  She’s chosen once again to wear nothing over her chest save her cloak.  In the heat, I can’t blame her, but it’s yet another piece of her puzzle that I can’t fit into place.  Lavanya seems at once fiercely defiant of her perceived place as a sexual object- which is both what she was sold into servitude to be, and a lioness’s primary purpose within a Pride, but yet completely unashamed of showing her body.  It’s not that it’s altogether unheard of for females to go topless in Mataa, especially the poor or those who work in the heat, but lionesses almost always cover up.  Then again, every lioness I’ve met up until I met her and the women at the oasis was part of a harem, or a Pride.  The lions are the antithesis of the Clan Hyenas, they are male dominated in the extreme.  Many harems are kept entirely isolated from the rest of society in Pride towns, never seen outside their own families.  And those that come into cities are either forced to or choose to cover themselves, I’m not sure.  
	I’m even less sure how a lioness became indentured to begin with.
	I don’t speak with Lavanya often, and I feel like I should.  She isn’t bloodthirsty or bullying like Anala and Raja, she’s just practical in the extreme.  She’s clearly a hard woman who’s lead an equally hard life, and I can’t fault her for wanting to survive.  Considering how long we’ve been traveling together now, and what we’ve been through, I feel like I don’t know her at all.
	“So,” I try to sound casual, but I’m bad at that, “how’d you end up contracted, if you don’t mind my asking?”
	Her honey gold eyes are on me just like that, and her gaze is so intense, I’m briefly taken aback.  
	“You don’t need to answer,” I say quickly, clearing my throat.  “If it’s personal, I understand.”
	She gives an odd smile at that.  “My enslavement is personal to me, yes.  Is it not to you?”
	“Yes, of course,” I mutter.  “I’m sorry I asked.”
	“It’s fine,” she says in an easy tone, her eyes moving back to the horizon.  “I don’t mind telling you.  It may make you uncomfortable, though.”
	“Uncomfortable?”  I repeat, curiously.
	“That is why I don’t usually choose to share it,” she explains.  “Though it seems ridiculous to me, given it happened to me and not the others I’ve shared it with, it seems to upset those I’ve told.  So I’ve learned to keep it to myself.”
	I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I’m silent for long enough that it begins to feel awkward.  But as usual, Lavanya seems cool-headed and unconcerned.  So eventually, I shrug and try to sound easygoing.  “You only need share what you wish to,” I say.  “My own entry into this life was. . . difficult.  I’ve found talking about it with Ahsan has helped some.”
	“Mmmm,” she hums quietly.  “Perhaps you’re right.  Well, I can’t say I share what you share with the hyena,” she looks up to me, “but I gather you wish to know me better, and that in and of itself is more than anyone else has tried.”
	I’d thought perhaps that she and Anala may have bonded over the last few weeks, but looking back, I’m not sure why I assumed that.  Likely because they were both women, and that was simple-minded of me.
	“I was born into a harem,” she explains as we walk.  “My father had a brother he allowed to live in the same village with him, and he had a smaller harem.  One of his sons. . . my cousin. . . who was over ten years my senior, inherited his father’s harem when his bad heart took him.  I was eight years old when my father decreed I would be given to him.”
	“Wait,” I pause, trying to keep up, “your father had a brother. . . and he had a son-“
	“My cousin,” she reiterates.
	“Right,” I say, “and your father’s brother died, and left his son his. . . wives?”
	She shrugs.  “That’s how it’s done.  All livestock, houses, weapons and wives pass to the son.”
	“One of them must have been his mother, though,” I insist.
	“She died in childbirth years before.”
	“Oh,” I say.  “But. . . so. . . your father gave you to your cousin?  As a wife?”
	“He planned to,” she corrects.
	“But you wouldn’t allow it,” I guess.
	“I was eight years old, Kadar,” she looks up at me like I’ve said something absurdly stupid.  “I wasn’t about to stand up to my father and the whole Pride.  My mother was happy for the union, everyone was.  I was made to feel happy about it.  I didn’t understand what it meant, all I knew was that I’d be changing houses and that we’d have a big party to celebrate it.”
	“So. . . what happened?”  I ask, more than a little worried over how much worse this could get.
	“A month before I was to be wed, they took me into a hut to perform an important marriage rite,” she says, her tone remaining calm, but with an odd waver to it, like her voice briefly weakened for some reason.  “Or at least, that’s what I was told.”  She blinks slowly, her long lashes obscuring much of her eyes.  “I was held down by two of the women from my father’s harem, while a third used a sharp piece of metal on me that we normally used for cutting fruit.  They tried to remove a part of me. . . a place on a woman’s body that they told me makes married women forget their loyalty.  It went badly.  Blissfully, I remember little of the night after the cutting began.”
	Horror isn’t a strong enough word.  I try so hard not to show her how revolted I am, because I know it’s exactly what she expected and she’ll think I’m disgusted by her.  But Gods.
	“They say I struggled,” she says, “and that’s why it went wrong.  I don’t know.  Like I said, I can’t remember most of the night, save the pain.  And even that was nothing compared to the weeks I spent after that, suffering fevers and infections.  In the end, I lived. . . but I could no longer be married.  The infections saw to that.  I’m barren, and ‘unsightly’.  Too much was lost.  Much more than just the part that they wanted to remove.”
	“But,” I can hardly find the words, “you were-“
	“A prostitute.  I know,” her voice has next to no affect now.  “I’m capable of accepting a man into my body, Kadar.  Just not much more than that.  And many clients don’t take the time to look.  But I had to work for next to nothing, compared to the other girls.  And some men wouldn’t touch me no matter how much the house lowered the price.”  She gives a wry smile.  “It amused me every time I was rejected.  Being mutilated is why I was sold off to pay a family debt. . . and it’s also why I couldn’t ever possibly cover the contract.  My father really got one over on the hyenas.  They should inspect their commodities more carefully before they buy.”
	“Lavanya. . . .”  
	I wish I knew what to say to the woman.  When Ahsan had told me of how he’d suffered, I’d been full of righteous indignation, I’d told him to respect himself and to reclaim his dignity.  But what had been taken away from the lioness could never be returned.  It wasn’t just the physical violation, it was everything she might have had.  
	I’d taken my own normalcy for granted, I realized.  My own forced marriage had done harm to me in other ways, but if I could overcome my fears, or find love in new ways, I was still intact to make that journey.  
	I couldn’t know what she wanted.  Perhaps, considering her escape from what would have doubtless been an unhealthy marriage, she had no desire to seek anything of that like in the future.  Perhaps she’d made peace with it because it had been taken away from her at such a young age.  Perhaps I was wrong, and her physical damage would be no barrier to her finding love of a different kind.  Perhaps she didn’t know, and never would.
	Looking down at her, even as she was silent in the wake of her story, I was certain of at least one thing.  What I’d so often seen as calmness, could just as easily be sadness.  Perhaps resignation, but she wasn’t nearly as unaffected as she pretended to be.  I didn’t have Ahsan’s empathy, but I could tell that much.  Regardless, whatever she felt, she’d had a long time to come to terms with it.  And nothing I could say or do would change her situation or improve it.
	Sometimes you stare down into a hole so black, there really is no other choice but to believe there is evil in the world.  Not just people making mistakes, or unfortunate circumstances, but real, true evil.  
	“I need you to understand that not all lions are like my Pride,” she says, looking up at me.  “There are many like Dela and the women of the oasis, there are many men who don’t believe in keeping harems, and have abandoned the old ways.”
	“I-I know,” I say hesitantly, “but the Prides. . . this. . . ‘rite’-“
	“Is practiced by more than just lions,” she assures me quietly.  “I’m not even certain where it came from.  And I won’t deny, it’s unfortunately very common amongst the Prides, but Kadar. . .” she sighs, and for once seems uncertain exactly what to say.  She takes but a few moments to compose herself, then continues.
	“When I found Dela and her people the first time, I’d run away from my Pride upon learning I’d be sold.  And I didn’t want to trust my own kind.  Any of my own kind.  It was the women of my Pride who carried out the rite, after all.”  She fixes that intense gaze on me again.  “When I told you this story made people uncomfortable, this is what I meant.  I don’t care what anyone thinks of my body.  It’s mine, and I am proud of what I’ve made of it.  I could have died long ago from that infection, and I didn’t.  I know I’m strong.  I need no one else’s approval.
“But I don’t want you to hate my people because of what they did to me.  I did, for a time. . . but Dela showed me how good a Pride could be if they shed some of the unnecessary customs of the past.  A lot of it is our culture, and that’s important. . . there are just some practices that don’t need to be a part of that culture.  Cruelty finds its place in every group of people,” at that she looks ahead of us, to Ahsan and farther off, Anala.  
I know how right she is, on more levels than she’ll ever know.  Even in my own family, there’d been no escape from cruelty.  And there were only three of us.
“I won’t. . . judge your people as a whole by what they did to you,” I sigh softly.  “But-“
“Not my people,” she interrupts.  “Not all lions.  Just a few.  A few who clung to old traditions.”
“I understand,” I say.  “But it was still wrong.”
“Of course it was,” she agrees.
“So. . . then why did you go back?”  I ask, unable to figure an answer for that.  “You said you ran away to Dela’s oasis before you were sold.”
“I did.”
“Then you must have gone back, if they eventually got hold of you again to sell you.  Dela would never have let them take you.”
“I had a sister,” she says.
And she says no more than that.  We walk in silence for a long time afterwards, and from the new knowledge of her horrendous mutilation to the past tense way she referred to her sibling, I feel I know more about the lioness than I’d ever counted on.  And perhaps more than I wanted.
We are a damaged group of people, as I’d told myself days ago.  It seems the more I dig, the more I learn how true that is.  I’m sure whatever circumstances drove Anala to join an order of military warrior priestesses were grim or compulsory. . . it seems unlikely that any happy, contented person would devote themselves to such a life of violence.
I can’t for the life of me decide if the lives we’ve all lead justify our crimes or what we’ve become.  I know there’s a good deal of mistakes I’ve made that I deeply regret, and no matter how much of my character I can attribute to the abusive family that raised me, the blame will never undo the damage I’ve caused.  
The cycle has to stop somewhere.  I think the fact that I still agonize over what I’ve done is the best thing I can do given my circumstances.  Many of the people I’m traveling with now have clearly given up on having a conscience in an unconscionable world.  And given what’s happened to them, it’s hard to blame them.  But I’m not willing to give up.
My guilt over what I did to my wife is what kept me from making the same mistakes with Ahsan.  And what we have is infinitely better, healthier, and safe.  That’s proof that it’s worth it to cling to my morals, even if no one else will.
But sometimes. . . it’s hard to be anything but angry.  

	After nearly two weeks of travel, we reach the trade post and small city of Dharnesh.  There will be no avoiding the hyenas and crowds here, and Anala is sure to warn us of that in advance.  Dharnesh is a major trade stop along the Western Road, not just for the Sura Clan but for many others heading towards the ocean.  But for that very reason, it’s also where the Sura Compound is.
	The outskirts alone are full of camel caravans and processions of people on foot carrying their wares or belongings in baskets or carts.  The air is thick with the scents of so many different peoples, I can hardly pick them apart, as well as the distant smell of the city, beasts of burden and cooking food.  Everything washes over me with a wave of nostalgia that brings me home to the Hyronses, and I can’t say if it’s welcome or not.  With it comes a lot of memories, but also a building swell of purpose and drive.  This isn’t the city I grew up in, but it’s literally been years since I’ve been free to walk city streets and experience this again, and now that I am, all I can think of is my son and my task.  The certainty that this is where I’m meant to be settles on me more and more, the deeper we head into the crowded bazaar.
	We’re all staying mute, every one of us on edge, eyes ahead, ears alert and noses to the wind.  It’s not that we’re looking to avoid any one group of people in particular, there are hyenas everywhere here and a lot of them probably work for the Sura.  I’ve begun to see their moon-shaped talismans over doorways and hung from banners across shops, even carved into the stonework of many places.  We are deep in enemy territory.
	The thing is, and Anala’s tried to assure us of this, almost none of these people will know us personally, let alone what we look like.  The word is out on us, but even if we’re the Sura’s top escaped servants to reclaim, that still puts us on a very long list.  
	We aren’t even bothering to hide our collars here.  If anything, they make us blend in more.  Anala looks every part the Sura Guard she was until recently, and we are four Sura servants amongst a sea of others.  We’re just here escorting a caravan.  Indentured guards are relatively unusual, (most owners don’t prefer to arm their indentured) but not unheard of.  
	Lavanya and Ahsan have chosen to stay unarmed and stripped down, to better fit what would be expected of a female servant and someone of Ahsan’s build.  We’d even found some jewelry amongst the Dholes’ possessions, likely meant for a female family member, and we’ve dressed the two of them in it.  I was a bit afraid that decorating himself again might bring back bad memories for Ahsan, but he actually seemed to delight in it.  Apparently being dressed up and bejeweled wasn’t something he ever minded.
	It is, however, proving very distracting for me.
	He shoots me a look over his shoulder as we nervously crawl at a snail’s pace through the increasingly clogged city streets.  I’m sure he’s honed that look over the years, and it shows.  It’s subtle, effortless allure, somehow condensed into a second-long glance.  It’s what he was raised for, I have to keep reminding myself.  I shouldn’t enjoy it.  It’s the product of years of brainwashing and careful tutelage.
	The thing is, he seems to be enjoying doing it to me.
	I underwent something of a transformation before we came here, as well.  Covering Raja’s uniqueness was as simple as forcing him to wear clothing over his unusual spot patterns, but my fur color was a problem.  It’s not that golden jackals are incredibly rare, but we certainly aren’t the norm, especially in this region.  We burnt some hard, dry wood to charcoal, let it cool, and spent a few hours rubbing it into my fur.  The hyenas do something similar sometimes for their festivals, darkening their fur along their brows or manes.  In my case, it darkened and muddied my fur color overall, and made me appear closer to resembling a black-backed jackal, or a cross.  It obviously wouldn’t last long or stand up to getting wet, but it’s not exactly about to rain any time soon, and it should hopefully last long enough for us to do what we have to here.
	So far, our makeshift disguises are working.  Honestly, the fact that the city is crowded has proven a boon to blending in.  In a smaller community we may have stood out more, but amongst the commotion and the constant influx of new people to this city, we’re just a few new arrivals.
	The one big concern would be if we ran into anyone from the Sura Clan who knew Anala, or Ahsan.  Anala is well known enough amongst her former employers that it’s highly possible we run afoul of someone who knows her personally, and moreover, knows that she’s betrayed the Clan.  And Ahsan was an entertainer for the Clan long enough that he was certain at least a few of the Sura, or their allied trade partners, who lived in this city will know him by sight.  On that score, we can really only hope for good luck.
	We’d all agreed on a rendezvous point if the worst happened, and that was all we could do.  We had the element of surprise going for us, at least.  If I was Lord Sachsen, this is literally the last place I’d expect we’d come.
	Somehow, that thought wasn’t comforting.
	Still, an hour and several hurried trade negotiations later, we haven’t run into any trouble.  Anala managed to barter off some of our goods to local food and provisions vendors (we were trading in small quantities so that we could avoid standing out), and we’d managed to find a boarding house with stables where we could put up our camels, and pay for a private room.  
	Now, by ‘private room’ I mean a bare, unfurnished portion of an old trade depot building, with no roof to speak of and a hole that leads to the underground aqueduct, which in this city seemed to have become more of a sewer.  So suffice to say, the smell leaves something to be desired.
	It’s better accommodations than we’ve had in weeks though, so we settle in and are glad for it.  There’s even a rock-ringed fire pit in the middle of the ‘room’ that works as a campfire or ‘hearth’, if you want to be generous, and we make sure to get a good fire going before darkness falls and the cold sets in.  
	All of our minds are on one thing first- food.  For the first time in weeks we have freshly-slaughtered meat and steamed rice, and even some curry paste.  For once, even Ahsan has seconds.  We tuck in and make the most of our temporary good fortune, and ill-gotten or not, I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to have a full stomach again.
	Afterwards we all take some time to simply rest around the fire, and enjoy the silence.  Well, as silent as this city gets.  We can still hear people outside, the daytime trade crowd now shifting into one less focused on work, and more on entertainment and forgetting themselves.  The occasional loud group of men out for a night of drinking, a prostitute plying her trade in an alleyway nearby, someone further down the street in an outdoor bar playing a sitar. . . .
	Every city seems the same.  This is a purely Hyena-run city, the banners I’ve seen everywhere and the overwhelming amount of hyena guards make that clear, but it still reminds me of home.  Hyronses City is an uneasily shared territory, split down the middle along the river by the lions and hyenas.  Most of us that aren’t fortunate enough to be born into the two most powerful groups of creatures in Mataa live beneath and around them, picking up the scraps.  But I suppose, considering all I’ve learned about what Clan life can be for someone as unfortunate as Ahsan, or Pride life for someone like Lavanya, it’s not so bad to be beneath notice.  There’s a very large rat population in this city, and they have a completely different culture and manage to do just fine for themselves, despite always seeming to be part of the lower castes.
	One of the benefits of not being a part of a group of people who are considered powerful and important is that you aren’t really drawn into their conflicts, most of the time.  The hyenas and lions have been warring for centuries, but my family’s never had to worry about their machinations or skirmishes.  In fact until I managed to get myself indentured, we’d had little to nothing to do with any hyenas, despite living in a city ruled by them.
	I guess you could argue a lot of the problems I’ve faced in my life are ultimately due to the people in power, and the way they run our country.  But to someone like me, that all seems so inescapable and out of reach.  What kind of change could I possibly make?  
	Anala thinks more of what we’ve been doing than I do, which is ironic given that she arguably has the least at stake in all of this.  My thoughts drift back to what she said.  A war.  She thinks. . . she earnestly believes. . . that we’ve started a war.  It certainly doesn’t seem that way.  The biggest troubles in our life right now are that we might be found by small bands of hunters, or run out of food and water on the road.  I’d be happy enough not to worry about either of those, let alone a war.
	But. . . and maybe it’s just that I’m finally full and hazy-headed from the tumult of memories and the bad grain alcohol we’re drinking. . . there’s definitely something alluring about the thought of changing the world.  My mother told me many tales growing up of ancient heroes who fought monsters, wars, and made deals with the Gods to learn how to survive in this land.   
	The thing is, an overwhelming amount of them died before, or while completing their task.  And those are still the good stories.
	For every man who’s tried to do something good with his life and rise above his caste to be more, there’s another ten like me, who prove how foolish an idea it is.  Wanting to be more than you were born to be, or told to be, is not what our country was founded on.  Mataa is a caste society.  And the only direction you go is down.
	I pluck at my collar, running a claw beneath the rim.  Down.  Labor caste to indentured servant.  Indentured servant to criminal.  The only rung lower than where I’m at now is the gallows.
	“The Sura Compound is in the middle of the city,” Anala speaks up, breaking the silence.  She throws the bone she was cleaning her teeth with into the fire, and looks around the campfire at us each.  “Finding the Liberator aside, we need to figure out how to get in, first off.  Ideas?”
	There isn’t an overwhelming response to that.  It looks like Raja is thinking about it hard, I can tell by the way he scrunches up his muzzle and narrows his eyes.  It’s the same look he gets when you’ve said something to him he didn’t understand, and is trying to decide whether or not to punch you for it.
	Thankfully, I think we’re past that part of our relationship.  I almost miss it.
	I never would have put money on Ahsan being the one to speak next, but he keeps surprising me.
	“I. . . I know how we can get in,” he says in a hesitant tone, almost like he’s afraid to admit it.
	All heads turn in his direction.
	“None of you are going to like it,” he mutters.

	He’s right.  The next day we’re spending most of our remaining money on a few pairs of shackles and the services of a back alley scribe, and none of us are particularly happy about that, especially given how much time it takes and how little money we have left.  It had taken us less than an hour to find a blacksmith who made shackles, but nearly the whole day to find the scribe.  It’s hard to find people who can read and write in Mataa.  Even harder to find those who can do so professionally.  Add ‘illegal’ onto that list and you lose most of your remaining options.
We’d eventually talked and bribed our way through enough vendors and craftsmen to find ourselves in this dingy alley, squeezed between a butcher and a junk peddler.  The stink of decaying organ meats and runoff from the butcher was overwhelming, and I was beginning to think we’d been led astray again (it wouldn’t have been the first time today) when I noticed the small, chipped red door at the back of the butcher’s building.  The man we’d talked to had said to look for a red door with peeling paint.  That had to be it.
“Got to be the place,” Raja mutters from beside me.  I nod, appraising the door carefully.  It’s made from old salvaged wood and there are enough holes in it that I’m certain no one’s hiding behind it to ambush us.  Also, I’d be able to smell them.  All I can smell back here is the distinctive tang of a rodent, no hyenas.  Other than Ahsan.
Raja, Ahsan and I had decided to find the scribe while Anala purchased the necessary. . . equipment.  Lavanya played the part of a docile, unthreatening servant better than Raja or I, and we needed Ahsan with us for what we’d come here to do.  He had to confirm we weren’t getting ripped off.
I hesitantly approach, then knock on the door.  I’m answered almost immediately by an aged voice, and definitely rodent by the sound of it.  They speak distinctly because of their teeth.
“It isn’t locked,” he says, sounding distracted.  
I look once more to my companions, then push in gingerly and duck to step inside.  The room beyond the door is musty and dry, enough to make my nose tingle and sting.  It looks to have been a storage room at some point, judging by the hooks and old shelves on the walls.  Its current occupant has made good use of all of them, and has converted it into something of a residence.  
A residence piled high with scrolls and actual books, or a few things that look to be in the process of becoming them.  I’ve seen a few books throughout my life, but never so many in one place. 
There are several tables, most of which look to have been doors themselves at some point, held up on both sides by barrels or crates.  The floor is littered with feathers- old quills, I realize, and the scent of ink is the only thing stronger than the scent of rodent, and dust.
The old creature stooped over one of his tables is a palm squirrel, I think.  He’s got the three distinctive stripes visible, and I don’t know squirrels all that well, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he is.  He’s using some kind of glass focusing lens and staring down at a rolled-out scroll, while he holds another blank one at the ready nearby.  His eyes keep flicking between the two, and it seems like he’s copying something.
I can’t read, but I still can’t help but stare in curiosity.  To my confusion, it seems like all he’s doing is repeating the same shapes line after line.
“He’s practicing a signature,” Ahsan informs me quietly, perhaps sensing my curiosity.
I can think of a good dozen reasons the man would be learning to copy a signature flawlessly, none of which really concern me, but they do confirm that he’s got the skill we came for.
“How can I help you?”  He asks, not congenially exactly, but not in a negative or irritable tone.  He just sounds distracted.
“We need contracts,” I say, pulling something from where I’ve tucked it underneath my armor, and putting it down gently on the desk.
“Contracts. . . for servitude?”  He guesses without looking up.  “Oh, that’s a tall order, boys.  Dangerous to cheat the clans.  Dangerous and time-consuming, they have a lot of safeguards in place to catch forgeries.”
“We’ve got one of them covered,” I tell him, tapping the desk.
He finally looks up at that, and pushes his glass lens on a small wooden arm aside, so he can look up at me unobstructed.  He seems about to say something, when he notices what I’d put down on the desk, and snaps it up, looking at it incredulously.
“Is that a Sura signet ring?”  he asks looking from it to us, then back down again.  I don’t bother answering.  He knows exactly what he’s looking at.  
He pulls down his magnifying glass again to look at it closely, taking quite some time in scrutinizing it before he seems satisfied.  And a bit awed.  Of course I’d known for certain that it was real.  It belonged to Anala, a gift she’d apparently earned for serving the Sura Clan as long as she had.  Being a signet ring, it wasn’t just worth its value in gold.  The stamp on the front could be used to officiate Sura documents.  Like a contract for indentured servitude.
“I won’t ask where you got it,” he says, placing it down carefully on the desk, then knitting his fingers together and looking up at us.  “So.  What is it you’re looking to get, exactly?  Falsified contracts aren’t something I’m usually comfortable with, being as it’s more than just someone’s wealth on the line.”
“The contracts are for us,” I say, looking to Ahsan.  “And they don’t need to hold up for long.  Just enough to get us processed through the Sura Compound.”
The squirrel gives a rasping laugh at that.  “Well, as much as I hesitate to say this, you don’t need my help for that.   Go sell yourselves to one of their flesh peddlers in the red lantern district.  Isn’t hard to get contracted in this city.  The real rub is getting out.”
We’re all covering our collars beneath cloaks, so I don’t bother telling him how right he is.  This man doesn’t need to know the exact details of our plan or who we are. . . he didn’t say outright that he was unwilling to falsify a contract, just that he was hesitant.  Which tells me that for the right amount of money, he’d sell someone into slavery against their will, or without their knowledge.  Illegally.
Not that any of it should be legal to begin with.
But the point is, if he knows too much, he might come to believe it’s more worth it to sell us out than help us and maintain his reputation.  So for now, all he needs to know are the basics.
“We need contracts saying we’re being transferred from a private Sura residence belonging to . . . .” I glance at Ahsan.
“Matron Laitka,” he supplies.
“Matron Laitka,” I confirm.  “Being sent as ‘entertainment’ for a caravan heading west.”
The squirrel wets his quill and pulls out a clean sheet of rolled parchment.  “And what caravan shall I say you’re being ‘transferred’ to?”  He asks, his affect shifting to businesslike again, no more concern evident in his tone.  Or it was never really there to begin with.
“It doesn’t matter,” I respond.
He looks up at me at that, arching an eyebrow.  “I. . .” he pauses, “. . . I don’t need to know your purposes, sir.  But I would assume your intention is to make your way into one of the caravans heading somewhere you wish to go.  If you don’t know the name of the Sura Lord heading that caravan. . . .”
“Our purpose is to get into the compound,” I say flatly, making it clear by my tone that I don’t want to answer any more questions.  “It would actually work in our favor if there’s some confusion over which caravan we’re meant to be transferred to.”
He gives us a long, silent look at that.  I can tell the wheels in his head are turning and he’s trying to work out just what it is we’re planning to do, and how dangerous it could be to him to be involved.
“And this ring,” he glances at it, “in addition to being useful for sealing the contracts. . . I take it this is your payment?”
“Yes,” I nod.  “After this, we’ll have no use for it.”
The squirrel gives a toothy grin.  “Well I most certainly will.  You’ve got a deal.”

	An hour after that, I’m back in chains.  And Anala’s looking us over, making sure we’ve gotten the details right.  Raja and I are wearing bulkier traveling clothing, ostensibly because we’re large enough to double as labor servants and carry our small caravan’s belongings, but the decision was more about hiding weapons.  My scimitar and his shotel are hidden between our shoulderblades, slung over our backs beneath our cloaks.  The packs we’re carrying additionally hide them, but if anyone decides to search us, we’re in trouble.  Still, we all agreed it was worth the risk, since the alternative was going in unarmed.
	Anala is able to go inside armed and armored, but she’ll be separated from us once we’re processed.  The plan is to meet her in the camel stables after shaking our keepers, and I’ll be honest, we have no plan for that other than ‘figure it out as we go’.  But it’s still better than breaking our way in.  At least we’ll get through the bulk of the guards without a fight.
	That is, provided no one here recognizes Anala.  Or Ahsan.  Or even Raja or I.  He’s covering his distinctive markings and my fur is darkened, but if we run into Sachsen himself, that probably won’t matter. 
	There aren’t many people here who might be able to raise the alarm on us.  But a lot of things could go wrong.  Our forged contracts might not pass, (although Ahsan gave them a long look and assured us they were well made and looked legitimate).  We might get locked somewhere we can’t escape from, and from there it would all come down to Anala, and whether or not she’s able to or cares to free us.  We might not be able to find the Liberator, or their contract room.  Anala says she knows this place somewhat well, but she could die before we get to her, or we could get lost.  
	All in all, this whole thing seems like there’s more that could go wrong than right.  But everyone, even Ahsan, seems committed at this point.
	The sun is finally giving us all a reprieve, creeping lower in the sky.  Night will fall in a few hours, and with it will come darkness, tired eyes, and most importantly, a change in the guard rotation.  So it’s now or never.
	Bound at the wrists with chains between us, as many servants are while they’re being moved, we begin to make our way towards the compound.  My chest is tight, my throat dry, my heart pounding.  But it’s not entirely out of fear.
	I want to believe this will work.  I don’t just want to. . . I have to.  Because this really is the last chance I’ll ever have to find out what happened to Amon, and where in the world he’s been taken.