"…the difference between seeing and not seeing can be the difference between living and dying."
Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three
Zel awoke a day later, a stolen loaf of bread richer, with another sky full of small sheepy clouds over his head. The sun-warmed slate of the roof he had slept on supported him, and life seemed devilishly simple and impossibly enjoyable. As the city of Gerrin stirred to life around him, he yawned, covered himself more comfortably with his cloak, and feel asleep once more.
"Ameria, dear?" King Phil poked his head around the door cautiously. "Are you all right, my dear? You haven't been acting quite like yourself lately." He did not venture farther into the room.
"Oh, no, father. I'm quite all right. I simply picked up a bit of food poisoning at the last ball."
Ameria jumped to her feet, smiling brightly. "Once more, the powers of truth, love, and justice prevail over the common germ!" She flashed a victory sign.
"That's my girl." Phil smiled and made his exit.
Zel regained consciousness with another yawn that practically unhinged his jaw. A muttered mantra about how lovely coffee would be at this hour kept up a nice background noise as he staggered to his feet, tied his cloak around his shoulders, and proceeded to walk straight off the edge of the roof in a drowse.
As soon as his brain registered that he had taken a three-story fall, he began to twitch in pain. Several townspeople gathered around the poor man who was currently a large beige lump. The crowd proceeded to become quite large, the decidedly normal people of Gerrin loving a spectacle as much as normal people do. Several, mistaking Zel for some sort of abstract artist trying to make a statement, threw coins. Finally, everyone straggled off, the townspeople not enjoying a spectacle that just lay there and twitched as much as they enjoyed their own silly little lives.
Zel stood up, quite unhurt. Gathering the coins from the ground as if he did this every day of his life, he traipsed off toward the nearest café.
Jarek Trall Delmar-Damagan, Jay to his nonexistent friends, Jay-Jay to his late mother, Master Jarek to his best servants, Master to the not-so-best servants, Boss to his henchmen, and That Rich Guy to the rest of Gerrin, decided to do something unnecessarily mean and rotten.
He just couldn't decide what.
"Simms!" Simms did not come. Jarek had fired Simms that morning.
"Venio!" Venio came. Venio was his cat.
"Hello there, Venio." Jarek patted the bored-looking white cat. "Would you be a good boy and go find my highest paid butler?" The cat looked more bored than usual in his general direction. "Thank you ever so much."
The cat loped off in a bored sort of way.
While he waited, Jarek admired himself in the mirror, practicing his evil grin. He was very good at it.
In fact, Jarek had every making of an extremely vile, despicable egomaniac. His hair was the black-green of a beetle's carapace, tied back in a ponytail with a simple leather thong. An arrogant look was continually plastered across his face, which consisted of amber-brown eyes aquiline features and that were just a little too sharp. He would have been verging on the edge of pretty without the evil look, but, with it, he managed to pass as rather handsome in a twisted sort of way. Jarek did not get out of the house much, making him fashionably pale and thin, and fairly tall as well.
It was been said that he had been a very cute child, but no one really believed it.
His hobbies were collecting antique weapons, using the antique weapons on his enemies, refusing to donate to charities, and tennis.
His gleeful spending of the fortune his late parents had left him did not fluctuate overly much, as he was always firing his highest-paid servants and neglecting to re-hire them. His henchmen had day jobs as bandits, so he didn't have to pay them terribly much. Most of his budgets were devoted to 'Business Expenses': overpriced liquor, imported food, tailored clothing, and demanding prostitutes.
The prostitutes were not actually prostitutes; all or most of them were just exotic dancers that were too refined to work in squalid conditions and were looking to make some cash working for the rich old duffers. Jarek was not a rich old duffer, but he paid better than one. Therefore, Jarek got business. Lots of it.
Venio returned with a middle-aged, postured man that Jarek recognized to be named Higley. "Higley, where is my list of things I resent and have vowed to do something about?"
Higley prided himself on being much more intelligent than Simms. He fetched the list from the dressing table right in front of Jarek and therefore guaranteed himself an exorbitant salary for another day.
"Thank you, Higley. That will be all." Higley bowed himself out, smiling slightly.
Jarek consulted his list. It consisted of eighteen items, neatly written, explained, and cross-indexed. Several were crossed out, completed, so only thirteen really remained. He read through each, trying to find one that was really annoying and yet easy to take care of.
He found one.
6. Aisling Vanselse
-Her existence
-Her refusal to accept any bribe for, admit the existence of, or stay on the subject of her father's enchanted sword.
-That sickening naïveté act she puts on
-The constant devotion to her deceased parents
Not listed or consciously recognized was his dislike of her for the simple reason that she was, indeed, a very different sort of person from him, or that she would not, under any conditions, ever sleep with him. Those were much too embarrassing to be written down.
Zel's wandering through the streets led him to a small but thriving little restaurant called The Multiplicative Inverse. It offered promise of intelligent people drinking coffee and leaving well enough alone.
Zel stepped in with a casual attitude he liked to think of as wandering with a purpose. A pretty waitress with straight, long, dark purply-blue hair and slim figure accosted him at the door. "Excuse me, sir. We don't allow capes in the restaurant. You'll have to check yours at the counter."
Zel attempted to wander past her with a purpose, liking his cape where it was.
The waitress grabbed his collar and slammed him against the door, his head making a dull crack against the wood. "I said no capes allowed, punk. You can stay inside, capeless, or I can throw you back out the door." Her tone suggested that she wasn't going to open the door first.
"Ok, ok, I'm sorry!" Zel whimpered. He quickly untied his cape and handed it to her. He mourned the loss of his mask, which was attached to the cape. She busied herself with hanging it up, and he proceeded to a comfy seat near the window.
"May I help you?" The cloakroom girl was back, a professional smile on her face. Her nametag declared that her name was Luna.
"So, you're the waitress as well as the bouncer? Impressive." Zel did not smile.
"The head chef and the owner, too. So whaddaya want?"
"Just coffee. Black." Zel sighed, and paid her.
He looked around as he waited for his morning caffeine. Signs declared that anyone using magic would be dealt with most harshly, and that the management would not hesitate to Fireball stubborn customers. A painting of his jack-of-all-trades waitress hung on one wall, a small placard underneath it.
Luna brought his coffee. "Here you go, beige guy. Enjoy." She reclaimed her spot behind the cloak check.
Zel was quite indignant for a moment, mentally defending his right to wear a lot of beige. Then he tasted the coffee. "Holy Cepheid, that's bad…" He swallowed with much effort.
"What…did…you…say?!" Luna was back. "No one insults my coffee!" she roared. "Flare…ARROW!"
Zel ducked the bolt of flame that incinerated a chair behind him. "I just…can I get this to go?"
"Oh. Ok."
He quickly made his exit, glancing at the placard beneath the painting.
Our Founder:
Luna Inverse-
The Greatest Sorceress in All the Land
Yes, just as he suspected.
He began to wander without a purpose, alternately sipping carefully at his coffee, which failed to taste better as it cooled, and making interesting faces as he swallowed.
Zel decided that he needed a purpose. He could not sleep on rooftops forever, as fun as it was, and he didn't exactly feel like leaving the city.
Perhaps he could become a wandering bard. All he would need would be a good guitar. He checked his money pouch. The results were not cheerful.
Zel trudged unhappily past the section of the city which dealt in music and song, checking the gutters for stray coins and making plans to fall of a roof again. Near the area where music and song petered out into drug dealers and thugs, a grubby sign announced:
Ray's Music and Stuff-
Cheap.
Zel perked up and darted down the dingy alley.
A fat man sat behind the cluttered counter, dozing off. Zel poked him. "Are you Ray?"
"Yeah…watchawant, anyway…" The man began to doze off again.
"I need a guitar." Zel poked Ray again.
"Okay, just a sec…" He walked off into the dark shop and came back with a rather nice acoustic, a bit scuffed around the edges, but otherwise okay. "Thirty silver pieces." He plopped it on the counter.
"Eh…" Zel poked around in his pouch. "Uh, why don't you just take all of this. It's about the same." He tossed the bag across the counter, grabbed the guitar, and bolted.
Ray went back to sleep.
Zel inspected his purchase with more suspicion than a man who has probably just cheated a merchant out of quite a lot of money has a right to do.
There was a small label pasted on the back:
Edern Vanselse
Number Six, Delsir Row
Gerrin
Delsir Row, Zel discovered, was part of a long series of two-story residences in an upper-middle-class residential area gone slightly to seed. The open-air market was separated from the buildings by a row of shops, creating an enclosed alleyway to access the houses, which were rather like adobe boxes stood on end with a window or two inserted. Number Six was located at the dead-end of the alley.
Rather than interfere with fate unduly, Zel climbed up on the roof of the shop across from the residence and decided to let nature do its thing. So, he watched the roof directly parallel to him and the alley below, waiting for whatever was destined to happen.
Destiny likes to take its time.
Zel sat down and thought of a rather happy song to play. The guitar felt very comfortable in his hands, almost as if it had been made for him instead of Eldern Vanselse.
"Kako tsukete…itsumo…iki gatte ta…saki o isogu…faitaa" He chuckled. Fate is in a hurry?
"Doko…ma demo doko…ma demo tsuzuku jinsei o…" Where, oh where, but life continues…
Aisling stood in the living room, listening to the music outside. It sounds like Da…
Quietly, she swung the heavy black cloak about her shoulders and pulled the hood over her face. She pushed away the feeling of shame that came with having to hide every time she left the house.
And what did you do today, little one?
Nothing much, Da, just snuck out for some groceries.
She snorted in disgust and left, still hearing the man's voice and the sound of the guitar follow her down the alley and into the market.
Zel, caught up in remembering the lyrics, missed her.
He also missed several people that came down the alley fifteen minutes later and hid in the shadows.