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Chapter 4

Ra'kesh stiffened at Ra'Virr's mention of the sugar. He fought to remain impassive, but his claws dug deep into the knapsack in his hands.

_That fetcher! That bastard! Selling Ra'kesh down the river! Race traitor!_He bit his tongue hard to keep from screaming. He must salvage, quickly! Ra'kesh pulled the bag away from Kala, replacing the cover on the opening.

"Must not destroy, moon sugar is far too valuable. If Mistress sold the sugar, think of how much gold she could have for expedition," he purred with what he hoped was a charismatic smile, holding the bag to his chest.

Kala stared at him with startled repugnance. Ra'Virr looked more pitying, squinting his green eyes as he laid one ear back.

"You knew that was in there. You didn't tell me so you could keep it! I can't believe you, Ra'kesh. And here I thought you were chipper because - I don't know why. Forget it. Put that knapsack down right now."

Pure rage flashed across his face. His eyes flicked to the crossbow he'd left on the other end of the room and back to Kala. Nothing could be done now.

"FINE!" he snarled, chucking the bag hard at Kala. He spat at Ra'Virr, "Be proud of yourself, loud mouthed renrij." He stalked out of the shop and slammed the door behind him hard enough to rattle the plates on the shelves.

Kala caught the bag with an_oof,_darker green mounting into her face. Her head felt as though it might explode. For a moment she literally saw red, color falling across her vision. Then she heard Ra'Virr saying,

"Sera? Kala, orclet?"

She shook her head to clear it, and was able to see again, the mist dissipating to show Ra'Virr's concerned face, one ear up and one down. "I apologize for my slave," she said through gritted teeth. Then she looked down and saw that the bag was torn in half, contents fallen around her feet. She had neither heard nor felt it.

"Oh, damnation." Kala knelt hurriedly to start collecting up the smaller bags. "I'm sorry, Ra'Virr. Can you sell me another bag?"

"Yes, of course," he said, crouching on his big paw-pads to help her. "Is Khajiit escaping?"

"He can't get far. The bracers will stop him at fifty yards. Which of these is the sugar, and how do I get rid of it?"

"The white packet, there." He indicated it with a claw, but did not touch it. "Ra'Virr gives you a little bottle of sujamma, no charge. You dissolve that in and add a pinch of shalk resin, turn it into harmless Make-Me-Faster potion. No fuzzy head-feelings, no addiction for anybody, no smell to make a man mad."

"Thank you so much," she said, rubbing between her eyes again. "I apologize again."

"Ah, do not, everyone has bad day sometime." He gracefully hooked a small bottle from a shelf with one hand, popping the cork to release the potent scent of the local liquor. Kala carefully unfolded the paper packet and tipped the powder into it, then rolled up the paper and stuck it in as well as Ra'Virr nodded. Then he pulled a paper from another shelf and tipped a wad of shalk resin into it as well, shaking it vigorously with his thumb over the opening. Kala watched as she straightened up, arms full of little bags and objects.

"There. One Make-Me-Faster with tiny bit of paper no one will notice, no charge, no more moon sugar. Ra'Virr gets knapsack for things and shirt, forty gold. And most of that is for alchemy lesson Ra'Virr does not share with just anybody." He winked at her. She smiled weakly.

"I greatly appreciate it." She watched him go and get a sturdy canvas knapsack, then helped him load everything into it, including the new Make-Me-Faster.

Several passersby on the busy street looked over with concern after hearing the loud bang. Ra'kesh paid them no mind, but his furious scowl was disconcerting to some. They hurried away from the seething Khajiit whose fists clenched spasmodically at his side. Sickness spread from the pit of his stomach until his entire body was consumed with it. He moved away from the door and leaned against the wall before he could get too dizzy.

Ra'kesh slid down the wall to rest on his haunches and dropped his head into his trembling hands. He closed his eyes against the familiar stinging sensation. If he could just clench his lids tight enough, it would go away.

The fresh air should have cleared his mind, the warm sunlight should have calmed his nerves. But it was all nothing to him. The world was ugly and gray. He ached with every fiber of his being for something beautiful. The hunger clawed at him from the inside. Not in his belly, but in his brain. It had been in his hands.

An eternity passed and nothing happened. Kala didn't come to hunt him down. He was a scrib on a leash, she had no reason to worry. He breathed deeply to calm himself and stood. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the few clouds roll lazily across the sky and tried to look as nonchalant as possible.

Kala emerged from the shop with herbal satchels, shirt, bottle and coin all packed into the knapsack, ten gold poorer out of her new bundle of wealth. She looked around. Ra'kesh had shown himself to be clever, when he wasn't on the subject on which he was least sane. It did not strike her as at all likely that he had been so angry he had run the length of his tether and fallen flat. And indeed, there he was, leaning on the wall and looking as if nothing had happened.

"Come on," she said wearily, walking past him with the knapsack on her shoulder. "We'll get lunch. The Lockup does a decent roast scrib this time of day." Her stomach roiled, hungry but still faintly nauseous, and scrib could be depended on to stay down in the worst of circumstances.

Ra'kesh stared coldly at Kala's back as she walked away. After several yards he finally pushed away from the wall and slunk after her, but keeping his distance. A few times he opened his mouth but quickly closed it again after realizing he had nothing to say.

The thought of entering a busy eatery as a slave was unthinkable. First she stole the moon sugar that was rightfully his, and now she paraded him around town for those smug Dunmer bastards to see his shame..

_Orc has gold now, leave Khajiit to die in the gutter and go buy a new slave,_he thought bitterly.

After a few steps she realized she couldn't hear him. Kala glanced over her shoulder. He was walking well behind her, ears flat.

Probably a good thing I traded the crossbow to Ra'Virr. _She turned and kept going. _But probably also a good idea to have them wrap up lunch and take it home. I'm tired, and everyone who sees him will think I'm some sort of monster who beats him or something. I want to go to bed. I don't care what time it is.

And probably also a good idea to lock the bedroom door. Ugh.

"I'll get them to send it home with us," she said to the air in general as she stopped outside the door to the Lockup. "You can wait out here, if you like." Then she pushed her way determinedly inside.

Ra'kesh did wait, shoving his hands into his pockets and loitering many steps away from the door. He kept his head down to avoid eye contact with anyone who happened to look his way. His fingers met the stolen jewelry which sparked a sudden surge of self-hatred. He almost threw them onto the street, but that would have been stupid.

The trust he had worked so hard to gain was absolutely shattered now. There was no way he was ever getting into town unsupervised to sell the rings. Ra'kesh sighed.

She was back out in five minutes, paper-wrapped bundle under one arm and the top of the bottle of flin protruding from the knapsack. Kala had bought food or drink from the Lockup before. No one paid her any sort of notice, which was exactly what she wanted on a day like today. As she passed him she just said,

"Home," and started back down the hill toward Labor Town.

The alluring scent of roast scrib in Kala's hands got Ra'kesh's mouth watering. It was a bit surprising to have such a normal bodily reaction to hunger. Even so, he didn't really feel like eating.

Kala felt increasingly exhausted and disheartened. _If I'm this tired from surviving one attack and one argument, how will I ever make it to Drakan-Ka and back?_She had imagined it as a lot of walking and some digging, but adding Ra'kesh into the equation seemed to add more weight than it removed. _Maybe I just need another few restoratives to take with us. Keep this at bay. _She limited her use of them in day-to-day life. They were not addictive in the same way that skooma was, generally not pleasurable other than the pleasure of not feeling so tired, but one could become dependent. She had heard of alchemists who flat could not survive without 200 gold's worth of potions every morning.

One or two apparently unemployed young men, one Dunmer, one Bosmer, eyed her as she passed. She had forgotten the expensive bottle was still visible, gleaming with the distinctive blue stripes of real flin. Then they eyed the surly scar-nosed Khajiit who was already following her, and let her be.

The Khajiit trudged along behind his Orc master. He kept his eyes on the ground and paid no attention to the city around him. When Kala stopped in front of her door, he nearly bumped nose-first into her back.

Kala stiffened at the feeling of heat on her shoulders, edging over into the doorpost as she glanced back. One hand made a pass over the handle, causing the lock to click open. She hurried inside to plunk down the knapsack and pour a couple of jots of flin. She set one over on the cutting table and took the other to the alchemy bench with her portion of scrib and the bag. She did not look at Ra'kesh or speak to him other than to keep an eye on his relative position.

He noticed that Kala had poured two glasses. Flin was one thing he was definitely interested in, but the very fact she had poured it even after the day's events was too much for him. There were too many emotions for him to process and he was tired, both mentally and physically.

"Ra'kesh will go to bed," he said simply, heading for the stairs without stopping.

"Good idea," Kala said numbly. She ate less than she planned, and packed the rest back into the paper. She drank all of her flin. The bit she had poured out for Ra'kesh she tipped carefully back into the bottle, then put the bottle away.

She locked the front door with a spell again, put the glasses into the bucket, and eventually followed the Khajiit upstairs, hoping he would already be in his room and she wouldn't have to see him. She could feel sweat drying on her skin, and could not imagine sleeping without a bath first.

Lucky Khajiit. Creatures with fur do not sweat.

Ra'kesh doubted very much that he would be able to sleep. Exhausted as he was, it was only after noon and he'd just slept three days straight. He closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed for a while, not knowing what else to do. He wasn't used to the absolute boredom that came with a sober life - what in oblivion did people do all day?

He could hear Kala moving about. He relaxed when it became evident she was not going to come to his door. Ra'kesh fished the trinkets out of his pocket and rolled them around in his hands for a while. Real hunger was gnawing at him now but he couldn't bring himself to accept Kala's food.

Why?

He'd robbed completely innocent strangers he had no quarrel with so why couldn't he accept a simple meal bought with gold that was partially his?

He pocketed the stolen goods once again and promised he would resolve these questions of morality some other day when his head wasn't pounding. That's always how it was with Ra'kesh- Someday he'd work out a way to convince himself that everything he did was justified and his victims deserved what was coming to them. Meanwhile his conscience looked the other way.

Ra'kesh removed his shirt and examined the bloodstained hole. He couldn't care less but it clearly bothered Kala. He searched the dresser drawers, thinking that perhaps sewing supplies might be stored, but came up with nothing. He flopped the shirt on the nightstand and climbed into bed. The mattress embraced his tired body with an otherworldly softness that made him sigh in deep satisfaction.

He was out like a snuffed candle within five minutes.

Kala took a clean robe and underthings from the closet and dresser and took them to the bathroom to hang on the back of the door. She stuffed the dirty clothes into the wicker basket with the square lid that served her for a hamper. She did not start up the boiler before she began pumping water. It was already hot outside, she felt sticky, and lukewarm water was perfectly fine.

Even so, she nearly fell asleep soaking in the water when she had finished washing, sitting with her head against one end of the tub. She woke up just as her head slipped below the surface. Kala sat up, spluttering. Drowning while naked is not how I want to leave this world. Bed!

She dried and dressed herself, combed out her hair a bit less carefully than usual, and wove it into a loose braid. Then she staggered into the bedroom, shut the door, and leaned on it for a second. There was no sound from next door. Perhaps he had gone to sleep himself. Perhaps he was over there plotting to murder her for taking away his moon sugar. She waved her hand above the door and listened to the lock click before she went to lie down on top of the coverlet. Heat wavered outside the green glass window, over the stairs to the roof. She watched the shifting pattern for a little while.

I did not fix that shirt. I'll have to dig out the mending kit tomorrow. Or tonight. Probably tomorrow. I left the new one in the bag. _The bag now sat against the wall by the bedroom door. She hadn't counted the money, either. _Later. If I try it now I'll do it wrong.

_What happened to me, anyway?_She had never had something like that happen, completely lost seconds of her life and found something destroyed afterward -

Kala sat bolt upright.

No. That does_NOT_happen to me! It doesn't happen to every orc!

It does happen to every orc. _She lay back down on her side, sighing. _Malacath's broken teeth.

She slept long, and dreamed of blood.

Ra'kesh awoke with a headache and a growling stomach. Judging by the muted light outside that barely made it through the thick glass, it was halfway through sunset. He listened quietly for a moment but it seemed as if Kala were in bed as well. He lay staring at the ceiling for several long minutes wondering what to do with himself before finally forcing himself to get up. Ra'kesh then retrieved the tinder box he'd seen earlier in one of the drawers and lit a candle to take downstairs, along with his shirt. He opened his door slowly and peeked out to make sure Kala was not around. Sure enough, her door was shut and probably locked. He crept downstairs as noiselessly as old Rajhin himself.

He found the leftover scrib in one of the same cupboards Ra'kesh had seen opened earlier when Kala made his first meal. He scarfed it with his bare hands and no plate since no one was around to care about his table manners. He instantly felt better with food in his stomach and started searching the remaining cupboards for the flin. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was intruding on Kala's privacy by rummaging through her things, but... he did live here now. Most domestic slaves would know their way around their owner's kitchens.

Ra'kesh's eyes lit up when he spotted the flin. He uncorked the bottle and waved it under his nose as if testing a luxury perfume, closing his eyes to revel in the scent of it. He purred while pouring himself a tall glass and replaced the bottle where he found it.

By now the sun had set and it was dark even for a Khajiit. He lit a few lanterns in the lab and set to looking for a sewing kit, flin in hand. The room was jam-packed with things Ra'kesh would call clutter, but must have had some importance to an alchemist. He took a moment to enjoy his flin and examine the many complicated diagrams on the wall. Ra'kesh was illiterate to begin with, but the drawings made no sense to him either. A familiar warmth spread through his body as he drained the glass.

A couple weeks clean and already a lightweight. He grinned and got back to work with a spring in his step.

The sewing supplies had finally turned up in a bottom drawer. Ra'kesh selected an old but fairly clean scrap of cloth from one of the work tables to cover the blood stain. He assumed it wouldn't be missed.

His hands trembled when trying to do fine work like threading a needle. It might have just been the flin. For the most part, Ra'kesh had to admit that he was over the effects of withdrawal. He was still thin and weak from months of malnourishment, and he still felt that thirst... But maybe his physical addiction was ending.

Ra'kesh had mixed feelings about this.

The patch job was sloppy but adequate. He spent the rest of the evening washing the dishes and straightening things that possibly did not need to be straightened. But he was bored and slightly drunk. After a few hours he blew out the lanterns and returned to his room, not trying so hard to be quiet this time, intending to go back to bed. The flin in his system would make it easy to sleep.

Kala awoke in the early morning, gasping. She had been standing in a river of blood across from Ra'kesh, the Khajiit saying reassuringly, "First time not easy." She shuddered as she sat up, looking around at the safe and ordinary room.

Yesterday was a bad day. Today will be better. Let us hold onto that thought.

She got up and put on a more suitable day robe, a plain gray over a dark green, then slipped on her soft shoes and went to get the knapsack and go quietly downstairs. Ra'kesh's door was closed. Perhaps he was still sleeping.

To her surprise, the main room was neater than she had left it. The dishes were done, her books were straightened up where they had fallen over, and the chairs were pushed in. One of her cleaning patches was gone, but whatever he wanted with that, he was welcome to it.

Some of the scrib was gone as well. He must have risen during the night and been hungry. Struck by a sudden thought, she checked the flin. He had had some of that, too. It will probably do him more good than harm, and at least he's eating.

She served herself some cold scrib and a piece of dry bread from the cupboard with a glass of water, then took the knapsack over to the alchemy table to re-inventory its contents. The new shirt came out first. She hung it on the back of the chair over by the kitchen area. Next came the two bags of slightly crushed alchemy ingredients, and she spent a few moments sorting them out into their proper jars to dry. The Make-Me-Faster she set on the shelf with her other potions. It no longer even smelled of sujamma, now.

Then she set to counting the money, laying out the coins in little stacks of ten.

"Twenty... Thirty... Forty..."

Ra'kesh slept fitfully, waking several times in the night and only going back to sleep because there was nothing else to do. Several times he considered going downstairs and finishing off the flin, but that probably wouldn't make him popular with Kala. When morning finally came he had already given up on sleeping. He didn't want to go downstairs and face Kala or this new life he'd been forced into, but the sheer boredom was driving him mad. He put on his patched shirt and went down to meet the inevitable.

Kala was counting the bandit's gold when Ra'kesh entered. Rather than interrupt her with a greeting, he pulled out the dining chair and sat down to watch.

The orc glanced up as Ra'kesh came in, noting the patch on his shirt. _Ah, so he found the mending kit. _That was unusually helpful of him, but then, so was doing the dishes.

"Two hundred fifty, two hundred sixty..." She ended up at three hundred and twenty. She nudged the gold into two piles and turned to face Ra'kesh.

"Good morning. A hundred and sixty of this is yours, fairly. I'm going to put it into this bag." She bundled it into one of the bags as she spoke. "I'm not going to give it to you to carry, because I can't trust you yet, but you have my word that I will not spend it, and if you see something that you want to buy, I will not question your desire to do so." She took one of her jars down, dipped her finger in the jar of armor blacking that had been at the bottom of the sack, and wrote a rough R on it with her finger. She wiped her hand on a cloth not dissimilar to the one now forming a patch on Ra'kesh's shirt.

"You can have the water skin as well. It won't hurt to have an extra once we're out in Dagon Fel. Do you want the dagger?" She had heard that some Khajiit used only their claws for weapons, but she was unlikely to forget the sight of him stabbing the bandit in the throat with his own crossbow bolt.

Ra'kesh kept his face impassive but watched the gold being put away with deep longing and regret. The items he had robbed were still in his pockets, and here she was just giving away gold that he had no legal rights to. But ironically, the only things he wanted to buy were things she would not allow.

"Yes, Ra'kesh can use dagger.. But is this all Mistress has? Seems there should be more preparation with weapons and armor on dangerous trip. Bandits use ruins as hide outs, Mistress surely knows." He spoke evenly, relieved that the troubles of yesterday seemed to be forgotten.

"You can use your share on some armor and a better weapon, if you think it will help," she said, carrying the bag with the letter on it over to put into one of the big travel knapsacks against the wall. She attached the other money bag to her belt. "I don't have the skill to wear it, so for me there is no point. I'm better off shielding myself with magic and not being weighed down. I have my staff for a weapon, if magic fails me. It's all I really know how to use."

She offered him the dagger hilt-first.

He flicked an ear back, awkwardly remembering how he would have shot her yesterday if the crossbow had been in his hands at the time. He gingerly accepted the dagger, tucking it into his belt.

"Ra'kesh has never worn armor either," he admitted. "Khajiit is better served by speed and free range of movement. It is just that... Bandit situation was handled poorly. Mistress need magic to kill quickly. If there had been more men, Khajiit and Orc both would be dead now."

"I see." She nodded seriously. It was a good thing, Kala thought wryly, that she was not as proud as Ra'kesh, or she would have thrown a tantrum at the suggestion that she was anything less than a mighty warrior.

"Well, I can spend my share on a new spell. There's one I've been meaning to get Estirdalan to teach me, but I ran out of money. She's the Balmora Guild's expert on the school of Destruction," she explained. "How do you feel about climbing the hill again today?"

"That is fine with Ra'kesh," He answered eagerly. "More collecting?"

She eyed him warily. "I suppose we might as well. If we're going to the Guild anyway, we'll be close to the gate. Then I can practice my new spell outside of town, where it won't be dangerous to other people. Eat food first, though. It'll be a long walk."

"Of course. Has Mistress eaten yet?"

"Oh yes, I'm fine, thanks," she said, peering at a jar.

Ra'kesh scurried over to the kitchen and clanged around searching for the pan and kwama eggs. He usually ate things cold or raw, being a transient with no kitchen of his own up till now. But he'd watched Kala do it yesterday, how hard could it be? He smacked an egg against the pan, splattering half of it over the side on the counter. His ears flattened. Did Kala see that? He scooped the goopy yolk into the pan with his hand, along with some fragments of shell. Good enough.

"Does mistress have anything to light oven when pyromaniac powers are exhausted?"

Kala was digging out the alchemy sacks again, pretending ardently not to have seen anything. She stood up straight and looked at him, dumbfounded, as she registered the second thing he had said.

"When would they ever - ? Well, I suppose that's not impossible. I do have a tinder box here somewhere. It might be in the drawer next to the stove - oh, wait. That was a joke." She shook her head.

"Many thanks." It was just where she said it would be. He lit the stove and set to frying his eggs. He hadn't used any oil and a faint burning stench filled the air after a few minutes. He pushed the egg around with an earthenware spoon, trying to figure out why it stuck to the pan so easily. After a while he deemed it was good enough, and scraped his somewhat mushy, half-burned eggs onto a plate. He wolfed it down standing in the kitchen and only had to pick eggshells out of his mouth a couple times. He left the plate and pan in the sink to be washed later.

Ra'kesh decided the spare water skin would be a good thing to take along today. He rinsed that out several times before filling it and tying it to his belt by the cord. No telling what diseases a dirty human might have.

Kala coughed as she watched him tie on the waterskin. "I should've told you, there's some shalk oil in the cupboard for the pan. My fault, really." She fanned the front door a couple of times on their way out, then locked it as they had done before.

It was earlier in the morning than their previous outing, the sun hardly over the horizon. Fishermen were busy at the river, and the bakeries were already hard at work, but the laundries and other businesses were still warming up, steam drifting under their closed doors. She turned earlier this time, heading up a narrower, steeper alley that would take them more directly to the Guild.

Ra'kesh enjoyed the lack of crowded streets. It was much easier walking in public without a bunch of gawkers inspecting him like a new amulet. (Even though people had paid him little attention, in Ra'kesh's imagination he was forever being judged and scrutinized by Dunmer.) He walked side by side with Kala rather than behind her.

Kala glanced up at him once, but did not comment. Her posture was more relaxed as they moved up the hill. She had not been sure if he would continue to to trail resentfully behind or not, even after he had seemed so cheerful this morning.

It was too early for most of the unemployed loiterers, though a tall Nord with an amazing array of tattoos, including a bear's paw in blue across his face, grinned at them from an alley-mouth as they passed. He was leaning against a wall in the sun, beefy arms folded on his chest. He wore a buttoned pale linen tunic over a dark green undershirt and common hide trousers, heavy boots travel-stained. Kala nodded at him absently as she went on, trying to recall if she'd seen him before.