Chapter 9

"I don't like this place", grumbled Ashyra, one of the star dancers at The Phantasia, the most famous club in Freeport. The beautiful red-brown-haired Shaelin girl was plainly agitated, pulling up her thigh-length synthetic leather boots, one white, the other black, crossing her legs for a moment, then uncrossing them again and repeating the whole process.

"I don't understand what's the problem", said her tall, night-black-haired friend and fellow dancer Raven, her voice always strangely hollow and vaguely eerie-sounding. "The Thorny Rose is just another club, like The Phantasia. Are we at war with them, or something?"

"Or something", muttered the elfin girl, glancing ever so briefly at the door of the club at the north end of the Market Walk, identified only by the metal-framed wooden sign, on which was painted a violet-petalled rose.

Recently returned from an engagement as dancers for travelling royalty, Ashyra and Raven had been busy turning their lives upside down, moving out of Ashyra's rented apartment and into a home of their very own, paid for by the near-fortune of a fee they had received. The move completed, the girls had taken what was left of the fee and went shopping, the excursion giving Raven the ideal opportunity to find the sign from her dream.

The girls were now seated outside a little restaurant facing The Thorny Rose, but Ashyra's mood did a fine job of spoiling the bright and cheery atmosphere. "The Thorny Rose tried to poach me a while back, before you arrived", the elfin dancer explained. "They offered me more money, and I would have taken it - but there was just no way I was going to let them put me in a little cage hanging from the ceiling for their customers to...pet."

Raven was an empath - a psychic able to read the emotions of others - but she did not need her powers to see how uncomfortable and unhappy her friend was. No dream is worth making her suffer, she decided. "All right - we'll go" she said, putting a hand, enclosed in a long white satin glove, on Ashyra's black-booted knee. "But only if you tell me one thing..."

"What's that?", asked Ashyra. She seemed ready to reveal her deepest secrets, if it would get her away from The Thorny Rose.

"Well, you remember two nights ago, when that woman tried to grab me - the one you kicked in the face?"

"Uh huh..."

"When they dragged her away, she shouted something at you. What did she mean when she called you a 'Harligan witch'...?"

Ashyra shuddered. A Shaelin woman, seated just behind her, threw four pieces of Trading Silver down on the table, and briskly walked away.

"Why don't you just shout out that I've got the fire-plague while you're at it?", hissed the Shaelin dancer, glancing this way and that to see if anyone else had heard.

Satisfied that there would be no-one within ear-shot to take offence, Ashyra explained, in a hushed voice. "My people are one of three races with common ancestors. There's the Shaelin, the Ershalin - and the Harligan. Now, my people are inherently psychic - all three races are - but we often develop magical powers too, whilst the Ershalin devote themselves solely to the mental arts. The Harligan chose to focus on the realm of magic..."

Ashyra shivered, and took a deep breath before continuing. "The Harligan went to live on a planet of their own, but a few hundred years ago, all contact with them was lost. We sent a ship to investigate, and out of a crew of more than sixty, only three came back. They never fully explained what they found there, for they all died in their sleep within a day of coming home. No-one could explain it, but some say their dreams scared them to death..."

Raven could almost taste the fear dripping off Ashyra, and she was glad for the distraction when someone came out of The Thorny Rose. "Look", she said to the elfin girl, gently nudging her leg. "They must have had visitors before we got here."

Both girls watched as a slender, pale-haired woman exited from The Thorny Rose in some haste, a pale, thin man in patchwork leather, his head shaved bald then allowed to regain a few days' growth, close behind her. He appeared to be pleading with her, but she was having none of it, shaking her head vigorously and sending her long straight hair swirling out around her.

"Someone else doesn't want to work for them either, by the look of things", remarked Raven.

"Good for her", snorted Ashyra. "I can handle a little spanking, maybe even a bit of soft bondage from time to time, but The Thorny Rose goes too far for me. She looks like a newcomer, too - I doubt she knows how lucky she is to get out of there."

"A newcomer? In what sense?", asked Raven. "And how do you know...?"

"I'd say she's probably a Foundling, like you...", began the elfin girl.

"I don't think there's ever been a Foundling like me, or ever will be again", interrupted the black-haired dancer.

"Point taken", continued Ashyra, nodding. "Take a look at her, though. She looks Shaelin, but she isn't - I can tell, even from here - and that outfit is a real mix-and-match affair. Or, in her case, a mix-and-mismatch affair.

"The shirt is the only thing Shaelin about her - it's mist-silk, and that's not cheap. She doesn't look like she has all that much money, especially if she's looking for work at The Thorny Rose. That leather harness looks like...yeah, it is. That's the kind of thing Itarru warrior-maidens wear, and they don't make those for sale to the public..."

Ashyra let a whistle escape under her breath. "Hey, those boots are Q'Lshei leather! Now this girl definitely can't afford those. Skylla has only one pair herself, and the Q'Lshei don't make them for just anybody. I'd bet the house on her having just stumbled upon those things, and she just threw together what she liked."

"Don't be so quick to use the house to cover any wagers", warned Raven. "Half of that is mine."

"I know - I know", said Ashyra quickly. "Look, I think we should intervene here, and save the poor girl. The Phantasia can find a place for another dancer, especially if we recommend her. We did earn the club a seal of royal patronage, after all..."

Strides-Tall had started to regret visiting The Thorny Rose the moment she stepped through the door. The chains that hung everywhere reminded her too much of her degrading treatment at the hands of the Dyal Mashilahantradar, and the moment she saw Bar'Kessyn, the club's skinny, cropped-haired proprietor, a grim skeleton of a man in tattered leather, she decided she would offer her services as a dancer elsewhere.

"Please, don't be so quick to judge!", he begged her, in smooth educated tones, but the moment she saw his tongue, a hole punched through it and reinforced with a silver eyelet, she spun round and headed for the door.

Bar'Kessyn, a creature of the night, flinched as he bounded out into broad daylight in pursuit of the girl, the perfect addition to his performing troupe. She was just what he needed - a radiant, innocent sun-child, the quintessential victim...the ideal plaything for his dominatrixes and their cowering flesh-toys.

"You will be paid better than most dancers in town", he assured the elf-girl.

"I doubt I'll be doing much dancing, if what I saw was anything to go by", she replied, resolute in her decision not to be swayed by anything he said. "Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm pretty open-minded, but I have my limits!"

"Then allow me to...know you...", purred the ghoulish man, smiling wickedly.

Strides-Tall considered kicking him where she knew it would hurt, but refrained. It'd probably be as good as a kiss for him, she thought.

Instead, she backed away - and found herself no longer alone. Two women, beautiful and rather athletic, had silently moved up to stand to either side of her.

"Ashyra!", exclaimed the leather-bound skeleton-man. "How delightful to see you! Have you perhaps reconsidered...?"

"I'd rather smear myself in spice-sauce and run naked through a Shr'Ganti picnic", the elfin girl replied, in a rather disgusted fashion.

"Oh, we smear girls in all sorts of things at The Thorny Rose", said Bar'Kessyn with another unsettling grin. He then turned his attention to the other woman, whom Strides-Tall estimated was around six feet tall, if measured without the slender high heels of her long white boots. "And this must be the legendary Raven! Mmmm - I've wanted to...meet you for so long..."

Strides-Tall felt the faintest hint of psychic "magic" in the air between the two women, and the woman called Raven smiled. "This is all you'll get, so enjoy it", she replied, and Strides-Tall could not suppress a shiver as she hear the woman's strange, hollow voice.

The elf was suddenly no longer alone inside her own head. ***New in town?***, asked a clear psychic voice. It was the elf-girl, Ashyra.

It was something Strides-Tall had not experienced for many, many years - not since the last time she met one of her own people, and they communicated in the fashion preferred by her race. ***Y...yes***, she replied, cautiously.

The adventuress felt the girl's mind recoil. ***Wow! You're really good at this, aren't you?***, she said, surprised.

***Actually, I'm a bit out of practice***, Strides-Tall replied, and Ashyra laughed. It was such a pure, and sincere expression of emotion, freely given, that the adventuress instantly took a liking to the girl.

***Come with us***, pleaded Ashyra. ***We'll help you out. I have some experience in helping newcomers to The Realm.***

***It's that obvious, is it?***

The three women left together, hurrying away and leaving an outraged Bar'Kessyn in their wake. "What's this?", he hollered. "Are you stealing this girl from me? If she even sets foot in The Phantasia, I'll go straight to the Merchants' Guild about it! You can't just snatch a potential employee out from under my nose...!"

***Ignore him***, recommended Ashyra, grinning gleefully as she took both Strides-Tall and Raven by the arm. ***Everyone does. So will The Guild...***

Ashyra laughed again, out loud this time, and Strides-Tall could not stop herself from laughing as well.

 

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