Desperate measures

A ray of sunshine tickled his nose, making him open his eyes. The light blinded him, somewhere on the border of a bright pool of light he spotted an outline of a window with a table underneath it. He turned his head to see a chest standing by the bed, one of only few pieces of furniture in the room, and notice his trousers and long brown tunic, so carelessly discarded an evening before.

It was well in the afternoon, judging by the length of a shadow cast on the floor. But after yesterday’s night his rest was well deserved and he shouldn’t be sorely missed that afternoon.

He took a breath, feeling a weight on his chest and a strand of intense red hair tickled his cheek. He slowly turned his head to catch a glimpse of a woman’s face. She was sleeping, or at least her eyes were closed, although her chest wasn’t rising and falling in a regular rhythm of breathing - it wasn’t moving at all.

Gingerly, as not to wake her, he pushed a single strand of hair out of her forehead. By Elements! How beautiful she seemed to him. Especially now, when her forehead, so often frowned finally smoothed, the wrinkles only a distant memory now. If he hadn’t know how old she was, he would say she was twenty five, maybe twenty eight, the beauty in full bloom, before it fades, touched by passing time. The perfect moment lasting for decades.

He liked telling her how beautiful she was, as if fate had ruthlessly mocked her, predestining her to life in the inner sanctum: the perfect line of her lips, which very rarely formed a smile; superbly symmetrical curves of the eyebrows, right one split by a hardly discernible scar; beautiful wavy hair, which seemed to emanate with light; fantastic eyes, which-- He smiled noticing, that the woman was following his gaze.

"We made quite a mess yesterday," he finally spoke.

"One more incident like that and they’ll get rid of us." She rolled over and stretched her back. The blanket covering her body slipped a few inches down, steadying itself just above the roundness of her breast. "Even Morgan won’t back us up."

"Old fart," the man snorted, but without much conviction, concentrated on the hem of a blanket and a bulge underneath, which he could picture in his mind with the smallest detail. "I bet my monthly wages he doesn’t remember how it was when he was still active."

"Rakel?" she raised her brow, surprised, as if such possibility never crossed her mind. "Quite possible. It must’ve been ages since his last mission."

"But you’ll warn me when they decide to get rid of us?" he smiled again, rising up on an elbow and resting his head on his hand. "So I can make arrangements?"

The look on woman’s face didn’t change, but the shift in the air was perfectly discernible. Without a word the woman sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her long hair fell down on her naked back in a soft wave. Man’s smile was wiped out of his face in an instant and he closed his eyes in desperation. Damn! How could he forget?

"Ryen, I’m sorry," he also sat and gently touched her arm. "I didn’t mean to--"

"It’s not amusing," she said quietly after a while. From outside the man could hear the city rumble, voices of most persistent sellers, who still tried to sell their merchandise that late in the day, bleating of sheep herded from pastures outside the city, sounds of a nearby forge. Ordinary life. Why couldn’t they lead one of those?

He brushed her hair from the nape of her neck and tenderly kissed. She didn’t move away what was a sign that not all was lost. And then he made a mistake.

"You shouldn’t take it that seriously."

The woman abruptly turned to face him, a dangerous light lit in her eyes.

"Do you really think it’s fun to foresee something that will happen somewhere, someday and knowing you can do nothing to stop that from happening?" She hissed spitefully. The man instinctively drew back, surprised by the sudden outburst. He’d never met with such a ferocious reaction from her. "Do you think it’s a gift?"

"But you can--"

"I can’t do squat," she snorted, turning away from him. Her anger seemed to evaporate now and her voice sounded flat, as if she was reciting an old line, learned by heart ages ago. "I can bend the path, but it always leads to the same end."

"Ironic," the woman spoke after a moment of silence, her lips twisted with a wry smile. She didn’t look at him, fixing her gaze somewhere in front of her. "I really thought that all those rituals, auguries, soothsaying are parts of an old tradition and not even the elders know what it meant any more. A way to govern our little flock. I thought, that when I’m done with sanctuary, vapours and all that shit, all would pass. But--" her voice trailed off. The man didn’t know, was it out of emotion, or because she thought no explanation was necessary.

"But you really are an oracle," he ventured.

"And what good is that?" she burst into anger. "For two hundred years I’ve been trying to change fate! Have my visions helped me with anything? Changed something?" she broke off to finish more calmly. "It always ends as in visions."

That would explain frustration and anger. Fear even. As far as he knew visions happened quite randomly, they hardly ever told about the nearest future and usually the meaning became clear only at the last moment.

He never asked her, but did she also knew her own destiny? And desperately tried to change it?

"So that’s why you joined the guild? To show whoever is in charge that you won’t do his bidding?"

She didn’t answer, with her gaze fixed upon a distant wall. The light from a nearby window shone on her naked back, picking up the intricate pattern of her tattoo on her spine, just below the neck. A sudden thought hit him: maybe it was a revenge? Revenge for pain and mutilation? He gingerly ran his finger along the line of the tattoo. The woman shivered.

"Is this the reason?"

She shook his hand off and got up.

"This has nothing to do with it," she replied coolly and bent to pick up a silver tunic from the floor. A moment later he heard a tap of her bare feet and a squeak of hinges, when she reached the bathroom.

Well, the attempt to make things better wasn’t very successful. He got up too, angry with himself, absentmindedly starting a round across the room.

So many years had passed, so many premonitions along the way, but she still couldn’t deal with it. As if she didn’t understand, that the weight of the world wasn’t resting on her shoulders. Still it was better not to mention the sensitive topic of her precognition. But it wasn’t easy to avoid it altogether, because precognition was present in her daily life and presented itself in the least expected moments: an innocent mention could bring images of future disasters; a contact with an ordinary item resulted in horrifying visions of random accidents; and if anyone happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, chances were he found out about many unpleasant things that sooner or later were supposed to happen to him. And whether the man liked it or not, Ryen entangled him in those situations.

Only now the man noticed, that in his aimless wandering around the room, he found himself standing by the desk. Most of it was covered with letters, mostly unopened. He sighed. The life they led didn't leave much time for private matters. The sight of letters reminded him of a case he was working on and gave an idea for a change of subject.

"Do you remember this information leak?" He raised his voice, so the woman could hear him behind closed door. "The guild has intercepted letters from this guy." Absentmindedly he ruffled the papers on the desk in search of something, that would catch his attention. "We still don’t know who he is, but at least we know how he signs his letters."

A small cylinder seal came quietly rattling from between the papers. It would fall to the ground, had it not been for the quick reaction of the man.

Something in its appearance caught his eye. Not quite knowing what it was, he raised it to look closer. And it struck him dumb. Because the image of a woman holding a flower of very distinctive shape, which was carved on the seal, was exactly the same as imprinted in the letter shown to him by one of the agents charged with this case.

For her sigil she picked a flower, whose magical qualities could kill her. So typical for her. He shook his head, surprised that he didn’t figured it out earlier.

He didn’t hear her footsteps, only caught her silhouette with a corner of his eye when he raised his head. The woman was standing few steps away, naked, bathed in a soft afternoon light. Her fiercely red hair framed the face, where he couldn’t find any trace of surprise, scare or anger. She knew. She knew what would happen or even incited it all. For a short moment he thought he saw a shadow of sorrow crossing her face, when she mouthed something and he heard a whisper.

"Forgive me."

And then he started choking.

The price

A body is bent double, with arms tied behind back and twisted upwards, barely able to see anything more than the floor directly in front. Gaze focuses on uneven stone slabs, some of them polished with age, in few places covered with brownish stains. Cold water trickles down the cheeks, wet strands of hair cling to the forehead and temples. The body shivers, not only from piercing cold. Tiptoes don't always reach the floor, causing the body to rock sideways, severely stretching shoulder joints. Rusted chains are clanging with every movement, iron bands are painfully pressing against the wrists, skin grazed by them is itching irritably.

The air stinks of urine, sweat and blood with a faint whiff of tar from a burning torch and the usual damp-rotted odour of a dungeon. The burning torch sizzles, making the only sound in the room. But when the hearing adjusts to silence, a regular drip on the stone slabs in the adjacent cell can be heard.

Suddenly, somewhere from above, drifts a jingle of keys, fumble of a key in a lock and squeak of rusted metal hinges. They're coming. In a desperate fit the captive tries to break free, almost pulling her arms from their sockets in the process, when suddenly she looses her balance and fails to touch the floor. But shackles hold strong, the only result of the struggle being blood trickling from skin, scraped by iron. She fails to notice that, because she hears that the door to the cell finally opens and the only thing she sees is a pair of boots of person approaching. The steps reverberate loudly, deafening everything else. A hand reaches for chin and lifts her head, letting her see something more than floor: a worn face of a man in red uniform, the sole sight of which gives her a shudder.

'Hast thou made up thine mind?'