Owned part 2

5

Fair vs. Just



I watched as he tried to get hold of himself, this obviously amused him to no end. Why? I could hardly guess at this point. I was still trying to deal with two disturbing facts, on what was a very disturbing day. Three if you counted the fact that I was leaning on a large bolder, on a manufactured plateau, on the out skirts of a heavily armed town of the people who destroyed the greatest empire mankind has ever seen.

Fact one; to break the law meant you die. Given how I had seen justice carried out my whole life it felt kind of like it was only a matter of time. I would never make the seven year mark. And now, if I understood him correctly they only had five laws. The concept was disturbing. Even at basics, you need more than that. Laws against murder?  Ok so I could see that one not being too big around here. Yea, I could see murder not being a big deal. Laws against theft? Those were always my very best friends when it came to law, I mean, we meat up so often. I had also never heard of a barbaric society that put up with it. The more that I thought of it however, most laws were a variation on those.

Then of course there was things like obey the kings and lords, yea definitely death sentence category, even for back home. I had had enough of this. My life was in the hands of a man laughing far too hard at his own joke. “Are you done?”

“A moment, moment more pleasing.” He straightened took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes we’re are only having” He stopped and started again “Yes we only have Five laws. And yes you will be expect to learn them and obey them, not only for our protection but yours as well”

Yes, I thought to myself, so my head doesn’t wind up on a block. “Alright, you said that part earlier was part of Law three. So what is law three?”

“Law three is the law on slavery. We recognize there will always be a need for slaves, but we also recognize that slaves do not have good lives when they are forgotten. However rather that stop calling it slavery and simply paying people less than it takes for someone to feed and clothe themselves we chose a different path. That is our Empress decided to change the way slaves were treated.  Law three is broken down into what an owner is to do, as well as what the slave is to do.”

“Let me guess, whatever the master tells the slave to do.” The sarcasm was thick in my voice. He got it.

“No, no guessing, you do not need to. All Leather Wings are taught the five laws first, and we all memorize them and live by them. As you are mine, it is my responsibility to teach you. It is not your life that is threatened, but mine.”

Was he serious? Would he die if I broke a law? It had possibilities. I forced that thought out of my head. If he dies I would wind up on someone’s to do list. Besides he was dumb but dumb didn’t deserve to die. I may not like the situation, but I didn’t want the poor guy dead. Out here, on more even footing I looked him over.

He looked almost my age, maybe younger. So basically still a kid. He was small and slight of frame for the most part, and he definitely had hips like a girl, even if it was a young girl. His skin and lips were, well pretty. So was his hair, it was as white as the rest of him and hung between his shoulders. His wings were like hands with four very long finger bones with skin between them, and a small thumb that didn’t. His chest was deep, but it would have to be to get him off the ground. His torso was wrapped. It hit me; it was wrapped like he was hiding small… wow he really was built like a girl. The kid was built like a twig otherwise, like one of those young scribes. If I was healthy, I could break the boy like so much kindling.

The tips of his fingers and toes however had very long very shape looking nails, more claw like than finger or toe nails. The hell this poor boy must have put up with for looking this much like a girl, I actually felt sorry for him. “Alright, tell me, I will do my best to memorize them.”

“Law three: The Law of Slavery. To masters; it is a privilege to own a slave, and they are your most prized possession. Feed them before you eat. Cloth them before you cloth yourself, See to your needs after you see to theirs, Teach them your way and learn from theirs, mistreat them at your peril.” He let that sink in for a moment then continued. “For Slaves; Serve your masters in all things and trust they will care for you. Learn from your master. Teach your master. Ease the life of your master.” I could tell he was not finished, but I also desperately wanted to ask for clarification on some of that last bit. “Together; No slave shale be a slave for more than seven years. Slaves are to be paid and may buy their freedom early. A slave shall have a signal that temporally suspends slave hood so the two can be equals and converse as needed. Masters may discharge slaves at any time, for any reason but may not take new slaves until one year has passed. Slaves wishing to serve more than seven years may do so, but they shall be offered their freedom again in seven years. Do Not Neglect your family for your slaves.”

It sounded better than what I had offered to him as an alternative. Hells it was what I had said to him before but with more freedom than I had originally tried to bargain for. If I was in a trap, this one at least had well marked exist and a comfy bed, so long as I didn’t get used to it that is. And by his law she could refuse an order she didn’t like. “Let me get this straight, you will feed me, clothe me, and pay me, and I can buy my freedom?” 

“Yes” was his only response.

6

Feeding the Orphans

“That is,” I thought for a moment. It sounded wonderful, well as wonderful as things could sound in the circumstances. “It sounds, frankly it sounds too good to be true, and like horse crap.” I finally got it. It may be the law, but if he decided that a loaf of bread was sufficient, and as long as I ate that first, he could dine on succulent meats, and sugar breads. “Don’t get me wrong it, like every other justification I have heard people use, it sounds great.  But I have seen orphans striped of what little they have with honey words, and those same children thank them for it.”

The White cocked his head to the side slightly, tilting his chin more toward me and my words. His upper eyelids came down to cover half of the black slits that were his pupils and stopped but the skin above continued to move down making it bunch and crinkle. His lower eye lids pulled from the noes and out getting tight. It was an oddly animal look of confusion, but still very understandable, if you watched his eyes.

The rest of his face was completely placid. It was as if this emotions had none of the normal facial clues I had seen out of all the other people I had ever meet, even Orcs held their mouths open in a dumb founded way. It was the first utterly alien expression he had had so far, everything else showed on his face as if advertised. Sadness, joy, amusement, but confusion only showed in the tilt of his head and eyes.

“How? Who? Who would do something like that?” His voices slowly field with quite horror it was as if he could not conceive of such cruelty in the world. This man, who was trying to talk me into being a slave for seven years of my life, was appalled that something bad had happened to motherless children. This guy was making it hard to hate him.

It caught me off guard. “Um, when I was a kid my mom died, I was given to the church. They sent me to their orphanage about a mile outside of the city.” I stopped for a moment and swallowed down a pain. That happened a long time ago, and for all intents and purposes to another girl. “I was there for a year or two when we got a new head priest. He spent a few months getting to know us, and being our friend. The in a sermon one morning he talked to us and told us that we were going to be donating all of our toys that had been given to us, all the clothing that had been donated by the nobles and such to the needy. That the Gods had saw fit to take from us what was given, our parents, and that it meant that we were strong and need to carve our own way in the world. That we would be given tools and supplies to make our own toys and clothes. That we would no longer be used by the rich to ease their troubled minds. That all we were to them was another thing to use, something so that they could point to and brag about how good they were as people. He was going to take that lie away from them and show them real charity, the charity of such hurt, lost and lonely children as they made their own toys, their own clothing, and toys and clothing for others.” I stopped it was the catch, the sob that had stopped me. I keep working hard to make that story not about me. I after all had gotten away. “We cheered.” I felt something wet on me and looked up. The sky was clear, and yet I had just felt water drop on my neck.

I reached up and wiped my face, covering and hiding my shame and embarrassment for having cried about something that happened so long ago. I continued. “See, the stuff they had been giving us was all old rags and broken toys, most of it we had to fix anyway. It was always a joke to us kids that we were wearing the rags that the lords had used to wipe away their sins. It was a black humor kind of thing.” I joked I even laughed at it. A wry chuckle to wash away the pain. Divert attention. If he sees me crying he will use it against me. Besides I am not some weak willed simpleton. “So when this priest said we were going to be sticking it to them, we knew, Just Knew that we were going to be showing them!” I smiled and straighten up. See I can do this I am tough. I can play the tears off with no problems. “Of course we all went to work and did just that. I did it for over a year. Then one day while in the Fathers office and I heard him talking to a man I had not seen before. It seems that the Good Priest was selling what we were making at a profit; call our stuff ‘angle made.’ Those same lords were wearing our meticulously crafted clothing bought at an outrageous price but feeling good about it because they were helping out the local orphanage.  It seems that the little fingers of children made for smaller stiches.” The smile on my face was crafted to show I knew better than that now, that I was someone that had learned the lesson early on, that anyone could be used.

I came back from there and looked at the man; I needed to read his face in that moment. Shock meant he was naive. Pity, I could use that. Perhaps a knowing look, if he was a little bit wiser to the world than I thought.

         His features were twisted into a cold and murderous rage. Lips pulled back from bared teeth, his tongue testing the gaps in his smile, beating against the ivory bars of their cage ramming into them again and again with a mind of its own. His nose crinkled his face set into a snarl, and his eyes; his once warm and expressive eyes were now cold and bestial.  The change was so complete I knew I was dead. I felt my heart freeze in my chest. If you have never been that scared let me tell you it hurts. My entire body went cold, but I could no longer feel the fire’s warmth or the night’s cold. I have worked hard all my life, ever since I hit the streets to avoid danger, to move when it happened. To fight when I could, run when I couldn’t. And I froze. I was sick, had no strength, but still I could have done something, should have. But I didn’t, I couldn’t even really think looking at that. Death had come for me, and I was just another mark to be had.

Calm words left his mouth, so quiet and so smooth I missed them entirely. Fear of this man, this beast had consumed my previous courage and bravado. I could break him like a stick? No this animal would simply eat me while I still lived, if I was lucky. However it spoke. Answer it quickly, and correctly, and it might let me live. However I had played this game at the orphanage too, find out what was said first. “What?” I ask carefully, just as carefully as if he had been holding a knife to my throat.

“I said, what became of this?” Again the words were quiet and calm and very out of synch with his barley held back rage.

I finished it as simply as I could. I had no idea what the right answer was, so I went with the truth. With as steady a voice as I could muster, I told him. “He... I. I called him on it. I was mad. I asked him why? He said that we had eaten better than we ever had, that we had more than we ever had. Why should a child care if they saw a tenth of it or any of it. He pointed out we were happy. But all I could think of at that point was that we were lied to. So that night I ran away and never looked back.” See I could still talk calmly, without my words shaking too much.

He quickly turned from me, his shoulders seem to sag. “Then it is this man’s fault you nearly starved to death in a back ally.”

Ok mad man no longer looking at me nor was he so close. “Well no, it is mine, well for the most part. I take responsibility for me. I made the decisions that got me there.”

He turned his head and looked back at me then. His face and expressions back to being open and not freighting. “You, and your brothers and sister were his charges, he lied to you, used you, all the choices you have made since are based on these lies. You may have guessed part of the truth, but you still thought of the lords and entitle brats did you not?”

“Well yes, they are. They don’t know what hard ship is.” He was calm again, keep him that way.

“He used a system set up to make you hate them, an ‘us versus them’ way of looking at the word. Did you ever think of them as being part of your own?”

“Own what?”

“People”

Relax, if he still thinks you’re keyed up it might set him off again. “No, not really. Most of them would not know and honest living if it bit them. Most of them just sit around and congratulate themselves on how good they have it. Besides they think they’re better than the rest of us.” Nice safe ground here. He obviously didn’t have much.

“So, not human.” His words were soft again, but not with anger. It was like he was leading a man delirious from lack of water to a cool spring. Go carful, or it might attack you. He was treating me as if I was dangerous in a way. The man just proved to be a literal beast, and he was talking to me like I was the crazy one.

“Well I didn’t say that.” But I had. And as I thought about it, in a way it was kind of right. Think about it, they didn’t have any right to tell me how to do things. People were literally starving on the streets outside of their opulent homes. What did they care? Didn’t that make them somehow less than human, less than people?

As if he had fallowed my thought inside my own head. “No, they are people just as you are. Your world has taught you to be enemies. They were taught that you were where you were because you would not go and get a real job. That people like you would rather steel from those that had anything, take what they wanted and giving nothing back to the world. They were taught to hate you, just as you were taught to hate them. To each other you became less than people.”

His words were so close to what had run through my mind, I had to ask. “Did you just hear what I thought?” I had heard of such things being done, mind to mind speak, but didn’t know the Leather Wings could do it. It would explain so much about how they quickly killed the Empire of Unstoma.

“No, I have just heard that same argument before, and many like them. I was trained a priest of my faith. One of the things we are taught is what the ‘sickness’ teaches. You just said in your mind and in your heart is an evil that you had been taught. One you were taught as a small child.” He took a deep breath “That evil is why we killed Unstoma.”

All of this and now he answers the question? “What some devil had taken it over?” Ok, baiting the mad man, not smart.

“Perhaps, but much more likely it is like with anything else the sickness touches. The sickness is a universal truth. No that is not right, not truth, it is the universal Lie. Possibly the first lie ever told.”

Interesting, I had heard a great many stories on just that growing up. The first lie, the first sin. I had also heard others views on them. As far as I was conserved it said a lot about a person, what they thought and believed that lie, or sin was. I had stopped believing long ago, so it was more of a curiosity for me. “What is that?”

“I am better than you”.

7

The Lie

“But lots of people are better than lots of other people at plenty of things.” I stood before him, the man that styled himself my master. Moments before I had seen him show such savagery, but I was beginning to understand that wasn’t aimed at me personally. He seemed sane and rationale again. And yet he had just said something odd. I knew that when it came down to it that no one was better than me. Nor did I consider myself better than anyone else, not really. But he came from a slave culture, how could he sit their ant tell me ‘I’m better than you’ was a lie. He would have to think himself my better in order to own me, wouldn’t he? In a way he had proven he was better than me, at least for now.

“You misunderstand. The lie, the great lie is so wrapped up in what the world says, what it thinks, how it acts, that it cannot simply be stated. I was illustrating it.”

“Oh?” I leaned against the bolder at my back, wrapped tightly in the furs and let the fire behind us warm me. This should be interesting.

“I” he gestured at himself with one finger, “own you” he reversed the gesture but didn’t point; instead he held his palm up and angled towards me. He also bowed slightly at the waist and brought his wing around with the arm but held as if a cup to encompass me. It was a warm jester, downright friendly but it left no doubt in my mind that I was a possessive yet protective gesture. “As such, the common mode of thought and belief is I must be better than you. That is a lie.” He striated back up.

“Once a culture figures that out, they tell a different lie, all men are equal.” He had just said the basic motto of the Unstoma, a motto they had stolen from ancient days, from the glory age from the time of the Elven Empire, before the birth of Elei goddess of destruction. 

“But men are not created equal, some are smarter, some stronger, some faster, some have all of these and more while others have less. And yet, I myself have seen such gifted souls do nothing with their gifts, while those with less did the impossible time and time again. The idea behind all men are equal is fair, but it is not just. Blood determines your natural ability, and even the strongest blood lines do not produce fruit worth it. Yet the weakest blood produces spectacular examples of humanity. Blood doesn’t make you better, what you do, does. Being a slave doesn’t make me better than you, or you better than me, what we do as ourselves will decide who and what we are.”

I thought about it. I tried to get my thoughts around what he said. It made a kind of sense in a way, but also seemed somehow wrong. Yes it should be nice to be judge based on what someone actually did instead of by birth, but he and his people were divided by the color of their skin, it even influenced what they would do in their life. It didn’t seem that much different than what I grew up with, the lords and ladies at court, and those people were forever thinking they were better than anyone else. “You are White, you are a priest, yes?”

He smiled, “Yes actually.”

“That was decided for you based on your color and your birth. How can you say how we are born doesn’t matter?”

“Because if I had wanted to I could have been a war leader, an elder, a mistrial, and no one, not my kin, not my people, no one in the empire would have said I was wrong for doing so.” He said this with pride. Early he had said his aunt was a red that could not hunt as well or even good. “Unless I truly did not have the ability to do so; such as if I could not hear the differences in the tones of music. As long as I could do it, even if I wasn’t the best, and I liked what I did, my coloration wouldn’t matter.”

“Yet you’re a priest.” I pointed out, illustrating the predestination of it.

“Yes, and a lot of whites are, most however are not. Leather Wing skin color is like your eye or hair color, two reds get together and have a white child. A red and a green mate and have a black. As such, could you imagine if every white were a priest, or every green a troubadour. Reds and Oranges are the most numerous of our kind, all of them only wanting blood and glory? A nightmare this would be.” He sighs. “The Law of Self forbids what you fear.”

“The Law of Self that is the first Law?” Back to these laws then. There were five, and now I figured as good a time as any. Perhaps I could understand this insanity then. “Tell me about it.”

“The Fourth law actually.”

“So tell me the first and we can get to the fourth.”

“Let’s go inside and get you some more food; you will freeze out here if we stay much longer.” And with that he scoped me up and took me back into his, our home. I didn’t flinch. All that rage moments before and I didn’t flinch. Was that a good sign or a bad one?

8

Justice

Settled down back in amongst the fur, with a warm stew expertly made with a brown gray, potatoes, carrots and a deep browned beef, I was ready for what I was sure was going to be a tedious lesion in the laws of a barbarian culture.

“The First Law, The Law of the Stone; There is a circle of five stones, within this circle is a sixth stone at its center. At any time, anyone that has any grievance; they may place their hand on the sixth stone and call for a hearing. The highest representative from each race within range of The Call will hear it and must come to hear that grievance and will listen and judge fairly. They will treat the individual as an equal to them in rank no matter the rank of the petitioner. No harm is ever to come to the petitioner who has laid hand on the sixth stone. No social rank nor class or age is to ever be denied.” He finished and waited.

“So as a slave, I could do this, and my judges would have to see and treat me as an equal no matter what?”

“Exactly right.”

“So a little kid could do this and tell the judges all about how her brother stole her dolly?”

“Of course.”

“What a waste of their time!” This was insanity, not tedium. The imbecilic ramblings belief of naïveté not reason. “It calls the most important people from all the races around just to have them hear about a child’s lost doll? First off there would be like twenty people there if it was all the different races, some of them evil! And they all have more important things to do then hear some brat complain about her lost dolly!” How a system like this could have survived was beyond me. No wonder they were still barbarian living in huts made out of hide.

He stuck the knife in my heart and twisted. “I bet you wish someone had taken the time out of their busy day to listen to your tale of the orphanage when you were small, a tale of your lost dolly. And there would only be five people there.”

That stopped me cold. What if there had been someone there to hear me and had to listen? Would it have changed anything? Then it hit me. “What do you mean only five?”

“There are only five races. Leather Wing, Sky Lord, Grass Lord, Heard and Man.” He said this with the conviction of someone saying the sky was blue, and trying to explain it to the blind.

“Ok you are a Leather Wing, obviously. I have seen the Sky folk; they are the strange raptor people, birds of prey with arms tucked under their wings.” He nodded. “Grass Lords are the Cat nomads out beyond the Smoking Mountains.” This one she wasn’t so sure of. “I don’t know what a heard is, but you have forgotten the Dwarves, Elves, Liberi, and a host of other races there now.”

“Elves, Dwarves, Liberi, Orc both True Orc and their kin, Gnomes, Goblyns, all of them are part of the race of man. In the case of the Goblyns they are part of your race twisted by demons and devils into what you know today, but yes, they are part of you.

I couldn’t help it, I broke out laughing hysterically. This was too much. First off, Elves were immortal if stories could be believed, living for centuries. A Liberi only grew to be the size of a toddler. Dwarves and Gnomes clamed a strained kinship despite being very different in looks, that much was true. Orcs however, True Orcs were little better than locust, eating and destroying all in their path.

As for the dark races, yes they story was that they were all of the peoples mentioned before, but had been twisted by the dark pacts they had made with devils. “So if I do this a goblyn could come to my trial?”

“No, they severed their contention with that ancient magic when they made their deal with Lunavner for their ‘freedom’.”

The name stopped me cold. I had grown up being told to say her name like that would bring her attention. Lunavner was the undisputed ruler of the Hells. The daughter of the All Father that had decided mankind was a waste of her father’s time so set out to corrupt and destroy them. The only dark god that did not answer to her was Elei and Elei was too insane to listen to anyone.  Too many years of sitting in a pew and having the stories drilled into me showed through at that moment. I knew better. The gods, the devils, they didn’t really care about someone like me. I shuddered anyway. All the reason in the world, all the knowing that mankind was its own devil, that it didn’t need any help from the outside meant nothing in that moment. Not after what I had been through this day. “You say that like you believe she exists, who are you a priest of?”

He smiled sweetly at me and relaxed. He seemed to open again as if this was more familiar, more welcomed ground. He simply stated.  “The Empress.”

Great I thought. A God King like they use to have. And I was with one of its flunkies.

9

Problems

“So you worship a god king like the old human empire had?” I braced myself, I knew how he and his people thought of Unstoma, but I was deliberately testing to see if that madness would come back. The white smiled. “No, and in a way I guess yes.” He took a deep breath; I think he was gathering his thought. He didn’t flip out again so that was a plus. “The Empress was a woman, the first Leather Wing, and the founder of our way of life. She believed in a few simple philosophies that were out of touch with the world she grew up in.” He settled down on the hammock. “She was a villain, a dyed in the wool murder. And she deemed herself worth of ruling the entire world.”

I was shocked. Here was confirmation of what I had been told all my life. They, the Leather Wings, really were devils. But I had to know. “And you worship her?” It seemed at odds with what I had seen of this strange man. How could someone so kind worship a monster?

“She was human back then. The story goes like this. To a good man and a wicked woman, a daughter was born. The father was very happy and loved the little girl unconditionally. But he saw within her darkness. She was cruel and heartless in all things but she had a love for her father. The father tried to curb her darkness and show her the light. But the mother wanted more than what the father was giving her. So she had him killed, and married a more powerful man. It broke the little girl’s heart and eradicated what small light she had.” He stopped and smiled at me. A fatherless child, I wonder if he knew. In a way he did, after all I told him I was an orphan. “She decided to embrace the darkness, but she hated her mother. She controlled and manipulated everyone she came into contact with. Then she started torturing and killing, not for gain, but because it was fun, and they were less than her.”

Again he stopped, this time however he looked at me. “She was not a nice person.”

“No she sounds like a brat.”

“Oh she was. Then one day a man came and ruined all her plans. She had already decided how to take over the world. She would make people love her. She had started working on that and was one of the most popular people in her kingdom. But the man came, told her he needed her help, and as part of her plan was to convince the world she was a hero she went with him.”

He reached over and pulled a skin to drink and clear his throat. “But he took her to a hell, a nightmare world where he was from. It gave her more power than she had, but it was far removed from her plan.” He smiled at me and winked. “She adapted. She found a mage and together they did as the man asked and save a portion of his world. It gave her money and power. She and the mage went out on their own, and they found a place the man did not care about. He may have been a hero but he was also selfish. If it was not part of his world he did not care what happened.  Together they conquered and ruled. No one could oppose her for the gods had given her the ability to heal any wound, and to inflict them by making lighting come forth from her. No vice was withheld from her, no one turned her down, and after a while she betrayed the mage and killed him. With his last act he cures her.”

Somewhat excited by this I chimed in. Stories such as these often serve as morality tales in any religion. “And that changed her and made her realize what she was doing was wrong.” It wasn’t a question; it is how all of the stories go.

“No. She continued to rule with an iron fist. It seemed the curse didn’t work.” He said this in a hushed tone.

“That’s a bit of a letdown.”

“She did so for over two years and wielded absolute authority over these powerless people. Nothing could stop her, and they tried. One day she realized it had been months since anyone had opposed her, since any one had tried to kill her. She had won.” He said it with finality.

“That is the birth of your empire?” If it was she hoped after the woman’s death they had gotten better. If not she was in real trouble.

“No, that is the end of the beginning. See she discover she was bored. And she realized that nothing she could do would ever stop that boredom, so she took off her belt that let her heal forever, and went and picked a fight she could not win. She decided to kill herself the only way she could.” He settled back down and waited.

I nodded, I think I understood. This was a self-made woman who although evil couldn’t just cut her wrist, and as such went to pick a fight she knew she couldn’t win. It was the same reason she was bored, no challenge. His god was a conqueror. She had also heard stories of these people, and that made since for a barbarian culture like his. Good and evil weren’t the point. Not the best place to find yourself in but it fit. “So what happened?”

“She realized her life was important. Problem was that knowledge came too late. The monster had her dead to rights and was about to kill her.”

Ok he was definitely getting to his favorite part of the story. He was smiling much too broadly. Might as well be nice to the guy. “Go on”

He grinned wider. “A man, all in black, black armor, black horse, black hair, stepped in and saved her. Not only that he took her out of the hell world and home to her world. He was a guard for the greatest city man had ever built. He was “of the guard”, a paladin of good and justice. This was a man who knew bad laws but knew how to make them work, a man not from the city, but from the people that that the city dwellers had conquered long ago. We call him the dark one. And he was the first hero of the Age of Entitlement.”

That was a lead in if I ever heard one, this guy missed his calling as a bard or mistrial. I shook my head. “Ok what is the age of entitlement, I never heard of it.”

“It is the age where everyone had plenty of food and yet people starved, where everyone could have had gold or silver to afford anything, and yet people some people had no houses. It was the age where freedom gave way to good ideas and people taking more than they needed.” Wow, ok that sounded a lot like where I grew up.

“People with more coin and more money than others sat outside and protested that the lords were rich and that those lords were selfish because there were poor people, all while having enough money to feed another person to help those poor people. It was a world where the lie had people believing they were owed everything from housing to food to a job. These weren’t bad people; the lie had reached a critical point. And as such people saw it, but like in most things they could not see it in themselves.”

Ok we were interring into sermon territory here, time to deflect. “And he was a guard in this ‘greatest of cities’?”

He smiled sheepishly, he got the point. “Yes. And in this city, in the whole kingdom, you were not allowed to live alone, were still a child even until your second decade.”

That stopped me. It seemed odd, I knew of no one still a child by their second decade. Maybe elves, but. Then it hit me, if this was actually based on old legends this would have to be before Elei’s birth, in the time of elves. I nodded. These were old stories, and so full of contradiction no one really believed them anymore.

“As such she found herself living with the guard and his family. All of the Guards children were urchins no one else wanted. For the first time since her father’s murder the little girl found herself in a home. A home where she fell in love with the father as a wife does. But unlike before she denied herself. Soon she started seeing her sisters as real people, as she did the guard. Her pain grew, to many people too close, people she cared for and the guard doing his job in a world that did not care. So she vowed to care, to show him she was worthy. She became the hero she had planned, but not for conquest, but for love, twisted though it may have been. The she performed her fist act of self-sacrifice. The Guard’s wife, her new mother was a barbarian, and she had had a sword wound through her stomach. As such she could not be a mother, and that was very important to her people.” He was up and pacing now, his energy going and flowing. Like a good story teller he was throwing up his hands and turning to face me. I was really starting to get into this. This was obviously a very important cultural story to him.

“She made a deal with a dragon to give them children. The Mother’s egg and the guard’s seed meet in her womb. And the little girl’s God saw fit to bless her sacrifice with twins. But as a hero she had made the men with real power in the kingdom mad. After she gave the children to the new parents, she was killed. Assassins had found her, and they were quicker than she was. She tried to turn to lighting and leave, but they struck before her body could change. Her mind however escaped into the air. She ran to her most faithful servant, who stole her body from the wicked guards who had taken it to their masters to prove her death. He took and placed her magic belt around her, but he had little hope. They had used fire to try and destroy her body before he got to her. The servant prayed to the god that the little girl had turned her back on as a child. Slowly the belt healed her body, and the little girl’s soul slipped back in to it.”

“When she opened her eyes however she was not in her body any longer. The mage who cured her as she killed him simply said, ‘let your outside match your inside, vile demon.’ And now before her was the body of a demon. She had claws, fangs, wings of the great bats, horns on her head, and a tail. And she wept.”

“She had gotten what she deserved finally.” I said quietly. At this point in the story I was almost hopping for a happy ending. Some of the parts of his tale were almost a blasphemies rendition of stories from the faith I had given up. “So what happened to her?”

“As she cried she realized something wasn’t right. Yes she was marked as a demon, but she didn’t smell of brimstone. She smelled of lavender. Her claws were wicked and cruel to look at, but she could hold anything in her hands and not leave a mark upon them. Her form was like that of demons, but it wasn’t a demons. She prayed to the god of her child hood. And quietly she had a one side conversion with something she could not hear, but found herself responding to anyway. She had turned her life around, and as such was no longer evil, but she was still cruel, still a child of darkness. As she had chosen to enjoy the light she was not turned into a demon, but as she was dark everyone would see her and know it. She asked what she was supposed to do, and was told to teach others what evil really was, so that it may hide no more among the people.”

“So you really do come from evil?”

“Oh yes, but The Empress spent the rest of her days understanding what and why she did what she did, and teaching others how to spot evil in the most innocent of acts. As she got better at this she found others that wish to help, and made them like her. Soon there were hundreds like her, Her Leather Wings. She learned how she had become twisted, and untwisted herself and others. Based on this she made our laws, our way of life.”

“So you worship her for it?” it sounded like a great story, but this woman sounded more like some twisted saint than a god.

“Each of us pick a god to follow, they are all part of the heroes of old. They are more than heroes, but less than the Empress’s GOD. We fallow the philosophes of those heroes and in such serve that GOD. The Empress is flawed, she is still one of us, but she is wise, and her ways are worth fallowing. At least I think so. My Sister follows the Dark One.”

If he saw this empress as a flawed being then no she wasn’t like the god kings of Unstoma. “The Dark One, is that some sort of Devil?”

“No, that is simply the name for the Guard from the story; he dressed all in black with a black horse and so forth. He also brooded a lot and wasn’t a very happy person, hence the Dark One.”

“Now before you get side tracked again, what are the other laws?” This place and he were fascinating. But he was one of those if I didn’t make him tell me now; we would see dawn and not get to what had started the conversion.

10

Back to the point

The young man smiled at me. “Yes you are quite correct. If this keeps up, tomorrow will find itself, before you find sleep. However one thing I am thinking we have not done that is beyond needed. I am Alabaster. Your name you said was Chloe. Is there a last name? I know this is the custom of your people.”

Alabaster, he was named after tomb stone. It fit, his skin was that white, and he may yet be the death of me.

“No, no last name. I had one once. When my father ran off the local Justiciar striped my mother of our last name. Said my father had abandoned us and as such he counted it as a divorce. My mother lived out her days thinking my father would return. At the orphanage all last names are Founders, or Grace, depending on if you were a foundling, or if your parents had died. So until I left it was Chloe Grace. But I left that name when I ran away.”

He nodded. “Well then Chloe, we have done the First Law, as well as the Third. The Second law is The Law of the Hunt.”

I choked. How unbelievably priceless, and it was right up there with these people. “A law for hunting? In the break these and we kill you laws?” The absurdity of it was too much, I laughed.

“Something like that yes.” He voice betrayed his offence.

I quieted down, odd though it may be, not knowing this was deadly. Maybe not to me, not yet anyway, but for him it certainly was.

He continued his voice gruffer than before. “The Law of the Hunt; The Hunting of thinking beings for the betterment of them and you is a sacred task and shale not be made cheap. The Prey shall be taken alive, you can’t learn from the dead. The Prey should be treated with respect, for one day you may be hunted. The Prey may be hunting you, for you are no better than they. And they may wish to learn from you.”

There it was. The reason I was here, now. He had hunted me, found me cold, alone, and dying. This second Law of theirs. But it also stated something else. I had to know, so I asked. “Does this mean that if I feel you are not respecting me I can invoke the law of the stone?”

“Yes it does.” His words were soft and warm again. “To continue?” It was a question, he was seeing if I wanted to discuss it.

“No” I shook my head “Let’s continue.”

“The third law is the law of slaver, that one we have done. The Fourth law is the Law of self.” He took a deep breath and in his teachers voice he continued.

“The Law of Self; No one is inferior to any other being by birth. Rank is an example of training and opportunity. Each person has their own strengths and weaknesses. All are not created equal. Each has their own value and worth. However a person’s life and death decide that, not their birth. Never interfere with a beings right to choose or to say no. Only protect yourself from having it done to you.”

I had thought as I hear it, gearing up for questions and rebuttals as he spoke, that this law contradicted the law of slaver. But for them Slavery wasn’t about forcing your will upon another, at least no more than any boss would. No this was about their view point. And their view point is, it wasn’t right to force someone to your point of view. It also had something to say about both rape and murder. I could easily see where either crime violated this law, and was therefore a death sentence. “That is four, go on.” I wanted to see, to understand.

“The last law is a reminder, it cannot be enforced, nor can it be broken. It is the true way of the world. It is how the world has gotten to this point and how the world will move to something even better. It is the Cycle of Barbarism, and how we of the Empire of the Five Races should interact with it, use it and learn from it.”

“The Cycle of Barbarism; People, become tribes. Tribes become villages. Villages become towns. Towns become cities. Cities become kingdoms. Kingdoms become complacent. They fall and scatter. Those people become tribes. Be good to the Barbarian at your door, you were them once, and will be them again.”

And there it was five laws. It was the total of their justice system in basic. The Law of Self covered everything she feared might happen to her. I had to know however. “Stealing? That isn’t covered under your laws. At least not that I saw.”

“Theft is only a problem when people do not have enough, or when people take more than their share. The first is handled well by the fact that if nothing else you can always become a slave and be fairly treated. And the second by the fact it does interfere with the law of self. Greed is thinking you are better than someone, that you deserve more because you are better.”

“You do not have rich people here?” That didn’t seem right to her. Why do something if you couldn’t be paid for it.

“Oh we have rich people, just not rich people living off of poor people.” He was quite proud of that fact. And if it was true, I could not blame him.

11

The Trap

So here I was, in the hands of a man who had nursed me back to health, just to be told I was his for almost half as long as I had been alive. If things had gone differently, if I had had a normal life like my mother, I would already be married, probably pregnant. All of that had been taken from me. And now so was my freedom. I didn’t really have a choice. I didn’t have a choice… the law of self said I had to have a choice. It also said I was to be respected.

“So if I have a choice, and I am to be respected, what is to stop me from walking out side and simply leaving?”

He nodded. Turned his back on me and walked over to some furs in the corner. Bent down and picked something up. I couldn’t see what. He turned walked back over to me and took my hand. In it he placed a dagger. “Nothing. If you wish to leave, once you are well, then do so. I will not hold your life ransom. No coin could ever pay it at any rate.” He smiled at me then. “I will even take you back to your home city. It isn’t far.”

Home, he was offering to take me home, set me free before he had even started. But what did I have to go home to? I pushed the dagger back into his hands. “I would like to stay, see this place, and to learn about your people, at least for a while.”

“You misunderstand, the knife, it is yours whether you stay or not. I bought it for you while you were sleeping earlier.” He handed it back to me, turned and went back to his hammock. I understood now what the V patterns were in it, they were for his wings. I examined the thing. I half expected it to be a simple dagger. It cleared its sheath with a slight ring. The blade was a dappled mettle of more than one color. I had never seen anything like it. Its edge was slightly wavy, a kriss blade. I looked extremely sharp and was well balanced for holding or throwing. This blade, it was mine now. I could have literally waited till he went to sleep, solve all of my problems with a little bit of bloodshed. I might even make it out of town before it was noticed. I looked up at him. “I could kill you in your sleep, walk out of here and never look back. Why?” I gestured feebly to the weapon laid bare in my lap. I hadn’t realized I had set it down.

“Because, it is a poor owner that fears for their life because a slave is armed, and a foolish one that arms a slave abused. To my people we believe that an armed person always has at least the option of protecting themselves. We arm all of our slaves, with the finest weapons we can afford. If the slave does not want this, that is their business. If I did not arm you it meant I did not trust you. As of yet you haven’t given me a reason to distrust you, and I have not treated you badly to deserve your wrath.”

“You just met me. I could be anyone; I might not need a reason to kill you.”

“If that were so, you would not warn me. If you are so insane that you would, then I have misjudged you. You have asked questions, paid attention to my answers and to me at least proven you are an honorable person.” With that he turned the flame out on the lamp. I watched his shadow get into the hammock and he left me there with the power to end him sitting and waiting on my decision. I have frozen do to fear. I have had anger make me hesitate. Joy once robed me of speech. But never before had I been rendered paralyzed by trust.