Chapter 5 Familiar Face

Four Days Later

A flurry of activity dominated Erin's Square, just outside of Cobbledown. The ordinarily lethargic atmosphere surrounding the fringes of the West Slums had been obliterated as people bustled everywhere.

Everyone was talking about it. A commission had been issued by the Lord Farkis for a total overhaul of the once opulent Erin's Square. He expected an immediate repair of the weed-choked flagstones and the broken fountain. During an earthquake years ago, it had sunken deep into a fissure. Now it stuck lopsidedly out of the ground, its chipped old head pointed threateningly at the nearby flimsy houses like the barrel of a rifle.

Vix had been one of the lucky ones chosen as laborers for the project. She tried to remind herself of that now, as sweat ran down her face and into her eyes, blinding her. She hacked again with the head of her shovel at a particularly stubborn rock that refused to budge.

Her overseer stalked toward her. Built like a barrel, his shovel-spade beard bristled as he stuck his chin out at Vix. "You shirking, girl?" he spat. "I don't pay you to stand about! I expect..."

With a terrific heave, Vix sent the small boulder tumbling out of her way. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and stared up at the overseer levelly. "Sorry, sir? I'm afraid I didn't hear you."

The overseer's ruddy face grew even redder. "Just don't let me catch you slacking!" Then he stalked away.

Covertly, Vix stretched her back, trying to remove the persistent kink there. That man had been trying to find a reason to give her the sack ever since she had started work in Erin's Square three days ago. But Vix refused to give him the satisfaction. She had been working like a woman possessed.

The work could not have come at a better time. She had been reduced to scrounging through the trash heaps for scraps four nights ago, and woke up so weak she could hardly stand. The work was grueling in Erin's Square, but it paid. Not a lot, but it was enough to keep her decently fed.

And it kept her distracted, as well. Vix cursed herself for even letting her mind wander to what had happened four days earlier.

'I should have at least buried him,' she thought to herself for the hundredth time. 'Not just left him in that alley. It was a terrible, rotten thing to do.'

She knew that she would have had to carry Caine's body well out of the city to find a place to bury him. Worse, if any of the guards had seen her hauling his corpse, they would have arrested her right away. They did not need much of an excuse to chuck slum urchins like her in the city jail, anyway.

Still, that knowledge did not make her feel less awful about leaving him. She wondered whether there was anyone waiting for him. A beautiful, highborn woman perhaps, leaning on a parapet and wondering when he would come home to her.

They would be waiting for him forever, now, whoever they were. Vix could not imagine anything more heart wrenching.

'And it will happen to me too, someday.'

Vix shook herself. That was enough of that. She turned her attention back to her work, hacking the old stone apart with a chisel. If only she could demolish her own somber thoughts so effectively.

Hours passed, blessed timeless hours. Vix was too exhausted to focus on anything more than a few feet in front of her. Break the stone, crush it to pieces, cart it away. There was not room to think about Caine, or death, or her own uncertain future.

At last, a great halloo went up from the assorted stoneworkers, the sign that work was done for the day. Vix stretched her aching back and shielded her eyes against the bloody glare of the sun knifing over the low rooftops. Erin's Square was turned to bronze by the dim light, its cracked and weary stones looking oddly ancient and majestic, like remnants of some forgotten civilization.

'Plenty of work still to be done,' Vix thought, as she looked about at the upturned dirt piles and rubble lying everywhere. That was a relief. She could be assured of at least one more day's wages, so long as that pigheaded overseer did not invent an excuse to be rid of her.

Vix reported to said pighead and accepted her handful of coppers, along with a single silver piece. Then, trying to ignore his baleful eye on her, she headed toward Greenway. It was the closest and cheapest tavern in Cobbledown.

Vix could hardly wait. Delectable visions danced through her head. Hot loaves of brown bread, dripping in butter. Meat skewers steeped in sage and onion. Apple fritters, piping hot, golden-brown treasures that crumbled to delicious pieces in her mouth.

Vix wiped a bit of salivation from the corner of her mouth. Her soul was purring at the thought of the feast that awaited her.

'For one more night, at least,' her stubbornly pessimistic mind put in. But for once, Vix was able to ignore her gloomy thoughts.

She walked briskly across the square and hung a right to make toward Greenway. But someone came around the corner just as she did. Vix had to hop to the side to keep from crashing into them.

"Watch it!" she cried.

The newcomer was hooded and cloaked, and had been in an even greater hurry than she was. The hood lifted as her voice caught the person's attention. The dying light of the sun fell perfectly on the face behind it.

Familiar green eyes met hers. Vix felt her jaw drop. It was Caine.

Immediately, his eyes widened as he recognized her as well. With a deep cough, he turned his face away, pulled his hood closer about his cheeks, and walked away. He was nearly running, now.

Vix stood like a statue. A dull roar was sounding in her head, drowning out her thoughts. It was impossible. She had seen him die. She knew that she had.

Yet somehow, here he was.

Vix staggered, nearly colliding with the corner of a nearby home. Her rational mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Even if Caine had survived his wound, he ought to be on death's door. Yet he walked evenly, with no hint of the pain that should certainly be bothering him.

Vix did not consider herself to be overly superstitious. She dealt with the real terrors of living every day. There was no time to turn her mind to goblins, or night elves, or witches, or ogres, or anything that stalked unseen through the invisible hours of the night.

But all of these things were on her mind now as she stared after Caine.

And there was another problem – something even more troubling. Once again, stumbling forward as though in a dream, she was following after him.