Sundries
the resistance will surely find me soon
Mithrigil Galtirglin
I.
Two material possessions remained with him from before his incarceration, and neither of them was his. The second—a necklace—had been slung around his neck by a taunting guard. The turnkey in question had intended it as a token of his thanks, "for butchering that pathetic desert king", and slid it over Basch's head with a simpering sneer, deliberately catching the thin silver chain on the prisoner's fragmented beard. Only in the Barheim Passage, making his escape close on to two years later, did Basch learn that the crest was of a bird in supplication, frail wings clamoring over its head as if to plead.
Basch had forgotten he was wearing it at all until he stripped out of his rank and fecal rags and put on the armor of a fallen Archadian, which was equally rank but afforded him a good deal more protection. As he was tying his hair off his face (with a strip of the man's stockings, no less) the chain caught, and the pendant nearly choked him. He only kept it for its potential monetary value; once their flight was ascertained, he would have need of gil.
--
II.
Culla's was closed, and had been for over a year. Basch stood confusedly before where the stand had been; the simple absence somehow a reproach.
Jostling himself, he asked a passing Hume, "Pardon," and was startled by his own hoarse urgency.
The man—the first free Dalmascan to whom Basch had spoken in two years, and it struck him—was a staunch, blond fellow, with thick laborer's arms, and had a passing familiarity about him that was not entirely congenial. But he did slow, albeit with a raised brow, an abject recognition of what country's armor Basch here wore, and prompted him.
"A stand for traveler's sundries," Basch clarified, turning his eyes from the axe on the man's hip. "I doubt I can afford the West End."
"Try Taarven's," the man offered, and shrugged vaguely north. And even after Basch thanked him, the suspicious knot of the man's thick brow did not subside.
Upon finding the stand, the trade was quickly worked; scraps of iron and spare wind stones afforded him a sturdy traveler's pack, soap and cloth and a waterskin. The addition of a few bone fragments obtained him a razor as well, but no leather to whet it.
--
III.
A Seeq in the palisade of Lowtown took the dead Archadian's codpiece and compensated Basch with plate-front shorts and a tasseled shirt. Not for the first time, Basch envied the Seeq their frugality.
--
IV.
Armor for armor and greaves for greaves seemed a fair enough concession. However, the armor that Basch had appropriated in the Barheim Passage was neither of appropriate size nor well-kept, and the North Sprawl Bangaa was a shrewd haggler. In the end, Basch simply did not have the energy, nor the clear conscience, and bartered away four Antidotes and a pair of Steeling fangs to seal the deal.
Accepting the open-front jerkin, gloves, shoulder-brace, and footgear in a muslin-wrapped parcel, Basch thanked the Bangaa cordially; yet still the merchant stood, arms crossed, tapping her long-toed foot on the fusty tile.
"Well?"
Basch started, and realized that he was still wearing the dead man's shoes.
--
V.
They awaited him on the waterline. Basch recognized the surly man from the bazaar, and privately acknowledged his luck. The man was flanked by four others, all Hume, smaller and darker than he, and one of them still wore the leathers of an Ensign over his tattered shirt.
They did not approach Basch; now without armor and as old as he looked, they could not do what Basch had no doubt they intended without causing a scene. So they stood off to the side while Basch queued with the destitute of Lowtown, unclasping his just-purchased waterskin and filling it when his turn came. Apparently at some point in the last two years, it had actually become a hazard to drink from the city fountains.
A faint cast of shock seeped down the blond man's face as Basch came straight to him and his.
"Take me to him," Basch said simply.
To a man, the five glowered at him.
Swallowing what would have been a sigh, Basch made plain, "It is what he ordered of you."
--
VI.
Full minutes of thick, charged obmutescence met him in the Resistance's hovel. It seemed almost to Basch that Archadia had taken Vossler's tongue. Even the man's breathing was calculated and stifled, discernable only by the faint creaking of his mail and the shadows under his collarbones, thinning just slightly in time with the sound. He stood so even after the door was closed behind Basch and the men awaited pointedly his judgment. Vossler's eyes, as ever, picked up the slack of his voice's skein.
In those soundless minutes, Basch learned that his was not the only futility.
"Go in the back and clean yourself up," Vossler finally said, turning his eyes away in what had to be disgust. "It shames us both else."