One sat on her litter as her servants walked through the wide, central street of Keillana. She would have preferred a full palanquin, but Taigh had been unable to rent one for her, and she had no interest in buying one for the short time she had planned to be in the city before she took the planned barge upriver to the cities that sat outside of Salmet, into the Eastern Confederation that lay lazily along the foothills of the Kreyn Mountain Range. Most of her money, the money she had left the Hamurian Army with, was now gone. Stolen from her, spent or lost, and now what little money she had, a pittance compared to the mad wealth she had left camp with, was merely what money the slavers who had betrayed her had possessed when she had broken free of their…

  The streets were so colorful here, much more so than the traders’ district had been in Aurel. The street vendors’ stalls all had richly colored awnings, and the dags at the edges of each awning fluttered playfully in the intermittent breezes that tickled her nose beneath her veil. One was looking forward to chartering a river barge with what she assumed would be the majority of her remaining funds.

  It had been a rough journey. And now she had finally made it to western Salmet.

  The western side of those mountains had three small kingdoms, two of which were both almost entirely populated by the Jheddo. A petite people who tended to golden skin tones, dark haired, and ornately bearded. They were known broadly as vicious traders, and were notoriously insular. One had seen very few of them in the streets of Aurel, Hamuria’s capital city. Clannish and unwelcoming of strangers.

  While One was not notoriously tall for an Ocre woman, she would have stood out in any Jheddo city for her height. She also would be remarkable for her dark brown skin. She may as well plan to go to Velspe, or any of the other eastern city states, populated as they were by the Piincar peoples.

  The swaying of her litter was almost enough to lull her into a doze in this late afternoon heat. Another two hundred paces or so would see her party to the docks. From there she would, with luck, find a river boat or sizeable barge headed north so she could settle in one of the Eastern Confederation cities, where enough trading was done across the mountains, up and down the major rivers, and across the Great Glass Desert, called the Hrishak, so that she could easily blend in, without risking being made a slave here in Salmet.

  Salmet had a long tradition of finding Talents, and enslaving them. Turning any Talent they found within their borders into physically enhanced but otherwise mindless slaves called Horva, and then selling the mindless, neutered Talents as servants, chattel, and fodder to the highest bidders. The Emperor of Hamuria bought hundreds to serve in his war with Velspe.

  One had seen thousands of the mindless things sent before the army in the several years she and her Pride of Apprentices had spent in the various camps they had been stationed in during their time with the Army. They had, mostly, died by the hands of Velspean mages, or by their soldiers’ swords. The campaign had felt endless. And with her mastery of the more subtle skills, One had never spent too much time on the front lines. Her Talent was better suited to illusion and seduction, nothing as crass as Six’s brutish abilities.

  …Six would never have been taken prisoner… her traitorous mind offered up.

  …Even Five, Four, and Three would have been able to defend themselves… The voice in her mind was as sweet as her speaking voice once had been and would never be again, and hissed at her as it coiled and slid through her thoughts issuing little barbs that bled too much, with harsh judgement for her obvious and childish follies. The stub of her truncated tongue shuddered and cringed behind her teeth, its lumpen, useless body’s movement in her mouth bringing a wave of revulsion and nausea.

  A deep breath, and the breeze played across her shoulders, bringing a momentary pleasure. …Two could alter his form, maybe he could teach you how such a Talent may be used to heal such a crippling wound… One’s eyes widened as she considered the very idea of consulting with such a useless and degenerate apprentice as Two. Even thinking of the freak as a Talent felt wrong. He had been so vile, his very presence made her skin crawl. She didn’t know how her other siblings even tolerated his presence.

  But she and her rebellious “siblings” had fled last year… a year? Only one? It was hard for One to remember her time in the desert. It sometimes was replayed in horrid detail in her screaming dreams in the middle of the fear-sweat soaked night. During daylight hours, One mostly had flashes of harsh moments that illuminated nothing, but made her cringe, and cry all the same. After she had been betrayed by the men she had hired to bring her across the burning expanse of the Hrishak.

  But she had made it here, finally. And now she could make her way out of Salmet, to find a place of splendor and opulent repose. A place where she intended to live out her life in the luxury she knew she deserved.

  The muscle at the top of her cheek, below the newly acquired and healed scar, twitched in the midday sun. It did that now. She had not been able to get it under control. The physical tic wasn’t constant, but it was noticeable. Especially to HER.

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  She wore a concealing veil of yellow, diaphanous fabric to hide most of her face from the locals. She had no interest in having the peasants gawk at her as she was carried through the streets. If only Taigh could have gotten her a fucking palanquin.

  Voices nearby were suddenly raised in anger and alarm. The crowds up ahead were agitated. One reached out with her improvised quirt. Anuish cringed as he turned to her from where he had been walking ahead and to the right of her litter. The once powerfully built man was now corpse thin, and cast his hollow, black rimmed, dust-reddened eyes to the ground rather than look directly at his Mistress.

  She gestured with the slender, leather wrapped willow wand. He matched his pace to those of the litter bearers, and leaned toward One, saying simply, “Mistress.” in a quiet voice.

  With her free hand One reached out to the thin shoulder of Anuish, and pushed her Will through her Talent as she formed the correct spells and enchantments in her mind before releasing them directly into the wicker basket of a servant who shook slightly as he leaned toward One where she sat.

  The glamour she had cast hammered into the man harder than any spell she could ever remember casting while at the Golden Tower. And Anuish almost stumbled to a stop as it took hold.

  In HIS mind, One knew that, per her spell, his Mistress had just given him a command to see what the disturbance up ahead was and to return directly to report. One had no idea how he saw her commands, just that the glamour she had cast made these demands of him, and he rushed to fulfill his duty to his Mistress. As methods of casting charms and glamorous went it was incredibly awkward, and took so much concentration.

  It had taken a long time in the desert to completely work out how to make her intentions carry through the charms she cast without the luxury of the spoken word. Learning to push her intent along the traceries of her Will when she engaged her Talent to influence her servants. She had also learned in those scattered and chaotic months that the written word worked with her new methodology, though it was the Glamour equivalent of being hit with a maul.

  Her Talent had grown in some strange way during her struggles in the Hrishak. She had never been able to cast as powerfully as she did now. And One had never had access to all of the Schools of magic in the ways in which she had now. She was still not an equal to that freakish powerhouse, Six, but she could now use forces that had been forever denied to her.

  She had started a fire for their camp one night in exasperation when the men had failed to do so. It was in a state of exasperation, but she had experimented with the skill in the following days quite successfully. One had no idea why.

  It was something she dearly wished she could talk to one of the Maestra or Masters about, but there was absolutely no going back at this point to consult with them. She did miss Maestra Hadissa, though. From One’s perspective, that particular woman knew how to wield power in ways she had always envied. Not at all like Maestra Hradda, who was soft despite her greater abilities with the Talent all of the other Mistresses and Maestras. Hradda only exercised her greater power and rank over Master Vrialle, for whatever reason. To every other person in the Golden Towers, she may as well have been a member of the cleaning staff for all she ever exerted her Will and Privilege.

  …and she will always be thought of with more kindness and interest than will you… her mind supplied, causing a quick wince.

  A word or two written in the sand, or on a rock, and then pointed to as her spell took hold would make the recipient overwhelmingly obedient… if they could read. One of the herding nomads her party had picked up as it traveled had been killed by such a spell. He was trying for all of his worth, whatever that may have been, to complete a task he could not comprehend. The remaining herders and their several camels and their large flock of goats had made the rest of their journey much easier than it would have otherwise have been.

  …the food had certainly improved… though your sense of taste is still certainly… truncated… her mind whipped her moment of happiness back into the shadows from which it had timidly crawled.

  He had died screaming, covered in his own blood as his need to comply fought his own incomprehension of the written word.

  One had laughed at his antics at the time. Later that night, once One had been certain that she was alone, she shivered and cried to herself in the privacy of her little tent. Ultimately a very effective moment for her efforts. One had learned something about compulsions spells she had never even guessed at, and watching it happen had cemented the obedience of her other, thankfully literate, servants.

  Anuish was suddenly at her side again, and bowing deeply. She gestured with her quirt, granting the tall slender man permission to speak.

  “Mistress,” his voice was hesitant. “The city guards are engaged in what the street people are calling policing the docks. They say there is a river boat captain who is engaged in some kind of theft. It is probably some kind of tax evasion, Mistress. Not paying the city’s tariffs on the cloth and grain he is trying to unload on the docks for his buyers.” Another deep bow. “A few are saying that he had either stolen items, or some …other… contraband aboard his vessel.”

  The way the man looked at One as he said “...other…” distressed him greatly. One thought there may be something useful here. Looking at the man, she waited until he finally dragged his own eyes up to meet her own, and released her Will into him. It was probable that the captain was smuggling people with Talent from Salmet. Probably doing so for a grand amount of money. Money, Talents, and a crewed boat that wanted to leave Salmet.

  What more could the Mistress ask the Gods to produce to soothe her needs?

  Turning to the men who carried her litter, his usually timid and trembling voice cracked like a whip. “COME! Our Mistress needs to be at the docks! Now! Step well, and step quickly! GO! GO! GO! We serve or we are nothing! GO!”

  The tall man waved to the men who trailed behind carrying the rest of her baggage, and the two remaining herdsmen who drove her herd of goats. She could now hear Taigh’s voice join with Anuish’s to chivvy along their party.

  Behind her veil, the Mistress smiled to herself as her train of carriers made their way quickly to the docks.