"By the Shadow take it, these are wares of the highest make, chosen with care and coin. In the Nightingale Pavilion they would fetch no less than this, and more besides!"
"Hm. The price is just."
…It was to such harsh voices that Lynn was drawn back from darkness.
With a head that throbbed as though cleft by iron, he stirred and opened his eyes. Cold bit into his sight,cold iron, set in bars, and beyond them crouched several figures clad in rags, thin as famine's ghosts.
"I… Was I not just in a hospital ward?" he murmured. "What place is this?"
His gaze wandered, slow and unsteady, seeking sense where none would readily come.
The bars before him were no railing nor window-grate, but a full cage of iron, wrought about him on every side, grim and unyielding. Within it huddled boys and girls alike, all skin and bone, wrapped in tatters scarcely fit to be called garments, no different from beggars cast out from a city gate.
Beyond the cage, the world was loud alive.
A yard rang with coarse laughter. Great men of thick limb and bare chest drank deep and boasted louder still, their words fouled by drink and habit. Upon their naked torsos were inked the mark of a bloody ghost-hand.
And more troubling still, their tongue was strange, yet Lynn understood it as one understands pain or hunger, instinctively, without learning.
How could this be? He had never crossed the seas, never left his homeland. By what ill fortune had he fallen into the hands of foreign slavers?
As the fog lifted from his mind, another strangeness dawned upon him.
His body… felt lived.
For seven or eight long years he had lain bound to a sickbed, flesh wasted by a mortal ailment, strength long since stolen from him. Yet now, though weak, each limb answered his will. Breath filled his chest freely. It was as though shackles unseen had fallen away.
He lifted his hands.
They were thin, yes, but not the hands of a dying man.
And yet..
They were not his.
Those hands had been with him for more than twenty years, companions through lonely nights and bitter days. Even when they had failed him, they had never been so small, so slender, and felt so foreign.
Had his soul crossed into another vessel? Had he taken possession of a stranger's flesh?
With no answers to be found, Lynn pressed the questions aside. Survival came first.
why, in all the cruel stars, had he been cast into this pit?
"Oi, the brat's awake at last. Softest cut of this lot."
A man with yellowed teeth pointed toward Lynn, grinning as he spoke to his fellows.
"Look at that skin. Clean him up and he'll sell dear. The Mammy of the Nightingale Pavilion favors this sort."
"Shame the boss keeps us leashed," another said with a leer. "Else we'd have sport tonight."
Yellow Teeth sighed, grasped himself crudely, then tore into a roasted rabbit from the table. The meat bore a faint wild tang, rich and greasy.
Lynn met the man's gaze and felt his stomach turn.
Better death than to fall into those hands.
He was chattel now, merchandise, stripped of will and worth. If he did nothing, his path ended at the so-called Nightingale Pavilion, whatever horrors waited there.
Sliding closer to the others, he whispered low:
"Where are we? Why have we been taken?"
The children trembled, eyes averted. In such a place, words were a luxury none wished to spend.
Only one girl, perhaps fourteen years old, stirred at the sight of Lynn's pale and delicate face. Pity softened her fear.
Such a face would suffer greatly in the Nightingale Pavilion…
"This is the stronghold of the Blood Hand Gang," she said softly. "They seize lone women and children. We were caught. They mean to sell us."
As she spoke, her face drained of color. She bowed her head, tears falling silently.
Lynn offered no comfort. He lowered his head as well, feigning indifference, while his thoughts raced like hunted beasts.
Slavers.
Begging would avail nothing; mercy did not fund such men.
To fight was folly, this frail body could scarcely shake the bars.
Ransom? He owned not even a copper, nor knew a single soul in this land.
Then… submission?
Would they even want him, thin as he was?
His brow furrowed. If strength failed him, then worth must be proven another way.
His gaze swept the yard and came to rest upon a lone figure in the corner, a gaunt man hunched over a crude abacus of iron and bone, clicking beads with weary resentment.
The drunken boasting around him shattered his concentration, and bitterness lined his face.
Plainly, no scholar dwelt among these brigands. This man alone bore the burden of numbers, and it crushed him.
Here lay a path.
Drawing breath, Lynn crawled to the edge of the cage, seized the freezing bars, and cried aloud:
"I would speak with your chief! I can earn him tenfold what my sale would bring!"
His voice, raw with thirst, rang out sharp and desperate.
The other captives shrank away, pressing into the far corner, eager not to share his fate.
The yard fell silent.
Every outlaw turned to stare, as one might stare at a fool touched by madness.
Yellow Teeth blinked, then laughed harshly. "What's this? Fear's cracked your skull, boy? You claim to make coin?"
"I am no madman," Lynn said, meeting his gaze without flinching.
"I can balance ledgers, untangle accounts, and turn loss into gain. I can teach you how silver begets silver."
"Begets silver?" Yellow Teeth scoffed. "What are you, some hidden lord of sorcery?"
Laughter roared across the yard. Even the weary bookkeeper smiled at the jest.
Yet Lynn caught the word.
Sorcery.
Did this world really have wizards?