Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (45 page)

At the end of the
hall,
Rachael led him through a door and into her tiny
room. Immediately across from the door at eye
level,
he noticed a fine etching of a woman and
a man’s face and both were smiling benevolently. Then his eyes
found a small chest against the right wall and a line strung across
the corner to the left of the door. A second dress lay draped over
the line. Taking up over half the available space was a well-worn
straw stuffed mattress on a simple metal bed frame; a rough blanket
stretched over the top. A candle stood in a saucer on a small box
she used for a nightstand. Wax stains in the saucer attested to the
constant use of candles. A simple pottery vase next to the candle
held two blue desert
wildflowers
.

Compared to what G’Taklar was used to this
was poverty beyond his imagination, but the room was clean and
tidy. He got the feeling she cleaned it faithfully.

G’Taklar stood in the room and turned around
slowly as he took in the simple details.

Rachael pushed him toward the bed and said,
“Sit down, so I can clean up your face!”

When the back of his legs reached the edge
of the bed G'Taklar stopped, but Rachael walked right up to his
chest. With both of them standing the top of her head only reached
his shoulder height. She looked up at him with her small upturned
nose and placed her hands on his chest and pushed, which made him
sit abruptly onto the bed.

She then went to the chest and removed a
cloth and a pitcher of water. After wetting the cloth she stood in
front of the seated G’Taklar and cleaned his face. This left his
eyes at an embarrassing height when compared to her, particularly
when she leaned forward to wash the back of his neck. He got a
quick refresher on what his nose had explored earlier.

“Hold still!” she exclaimed when he started
to lean back away from her bodice. “How am I supposed to reach back
here if you keep squirming?”

So he stopped and Rachael leaned straight
over his head to get a better look at the dirt on his neck. His
nose was once again planted between the two main attractions in her
bodice.

When finished she stepped back and uncoupled
the embarrassed boy’s nose. “Oh, I may have scrubbed too hard, your
face is all red now.”

G’Taklar responded to that by turning an
even brighter shade of red.

“
Ask her where we are,”
Jatar
suggested to the flustered fifteen-year-old.

“Where are we?” G’Taklar asked dreamily.

“We’re in my room in the Butchered Lamb. Did
they
addle
your wits with a blow
to the head?” Rachael asked combing through his hair with her
fingers in search of a lump.

“
Ask her the name of the town,
numskull,”
Jatar prompted.

“What’s the name of this town?
Nnn
…” G’Taklar asked, parroting his cousin’s
internal voice, but managed to cut off the end before he added
‘numskull’.

“Headwater, silly, don’t you even remember
what town you’re in? I can’t find your wound, but I’m sure they
must have struck you on your head somewhere!” she exclaimed in
humor.

“
Headwater!”
Jatar exclaimed,
“Of
course, I should have guessed by the river. This is a Tchulian
military training base, about a hundred leagues from where you say
you were attacked. It’s the closest Tchulian command post to that
trail. They must have received orders to apprehend you and obtain
the signet ring, though it wouldn’t be worth the risk of attacking
a Lindankar embassy, unless... ”

“
Unless?”
G’Taklar repeated; though
his mind was far from political plots, so he wasn’t really
listening.

“
Unless they knew it was cathexis! That
must be it, somehow our family secret was discovered by
someone,”
Jatar guessed, essentially talking to himself.

“Here, let me help you get those dirty
clothes off, we need to clean you up!” Rachael was saying to
G’Taklar as she pulled the thin silk jacket off his shoulders, he
wore nothing underneath.

“Wait!” G’Taklar cried out to Rachael who
paused in her tugging for a moment.

“What’s the matter, we’re all alone up
here.”

“Yes, well sort of, but... ” he trailed off
looking for the right words.

“But what, don’t you find me attractive?
You’re not really one of those boy lovers from down south, are
you?” the young girl asked while her head tilted down and her eyes
opened slightly as if daring him to tell her the truth.

“Yes, I think you’re pretty, and no I’m not
one of those... ” G’Taklar began.

“Good!” she exclaimed, cutting him off as
she resumed tugging on his jacket.

As it came off and his upper body was bared,
G’Taklar finally realized this girl meant to strip him completely
naked. She reached for his pants, but his hands got there first to
hold them up at the waist.

She mistook his gesture and said, “Fine, you
can take them off! I need to clean my dress after that fall in the
street, so I’ll just take that off as well,” and with those words
Rachael started undoing the buttons down the back of her dress with
both hands, therefore thrusting her bosom forward toward
G’Taklar.

G’Taklar sent a thought to his listening
cousin.
“Jatar, I’m going to... ”

“
If you’re about to shut me out remember
this,”
Jatar said, interrupting.
“A common tavern girl who
offers what she is obviously offering, without asking for
round
, often has a
large bruiser posing as her father or brother waiting to pop in at
the correct moment to scare away the man she’s with, who then flees
without their pants or coin purse. Think about it, would a good
looking girl just grab a strange boy off the street and take him to
her room?”

“
She might,”
G’Taklar tried.

“
Come on, have I steered you wrong
yet?”

G’Taklar thought about it for a moment and
then answered,
“You’re right, and I wasn’t going to shut you
out, I just don’t know what to do,”
he thought back, stretching
the truth.

Rachael’s dress dropped to the floor leaving
her in a cream colored and patched slip. She began working on her
drawstrings
in front.

G’Taklar suddenly got nervous looking at the
disrobing girl and thought to his cousin,
“Jatar, you better
take over, I don’t know how to get out of this!”
he thought
apprehensively.

“
Wait, wait, wait, who was the person who
didn’t want to give up their body? Remember, Jatar, the
wervorgangling
monster ready to take your body over? No, I think you’re on your
own cousin, besides, I’m married,”
Jatar said, amused at the
boy’s predicament.

“Guitar, why aren’t you taking off the rest
of your clothes? You don’t find me desirable, do you?” she asked,
and her head dropped down to her chest, below which her slip was
parted and hanging slightly apart showing the sides of her rounded
and ample breasts.

“
Jatar, help me please!”
G’Taklar
called in total desperation.

His older cousin took pity and said,
“All
right, cousin, I’ll take over, but you owe me.”

“
Thanks,”
he thought to Jatar with
relief,
“I won’t forget it!”

Jatar’s consciousness flowed into control.
He stood and turned his back on Rachael, and then said, “Please
Miss, put on your clothes. I cannot comply with your wishes at this
time, I am not free to indulge myself in any liaisons... it’s a
matter of honor which I cannot break.”

Rachael immediately noticed something
different about the young man she had hoped to spend her first time
with, he was... commanding. She suddenly felt embarrassed and out
of control for the first time with Guitar. She quickly turned her
back and cinched the top drawstrings of her slip, before donning
her dress. Somewhere during the
process,
she began to cry.

“
Why is she crying?”
G’Taklar asked
Jatar.

“
This girl is either a great actress, and
is pulling out all the stops to try and yank your strings, or I may
have misjudged her somewhat; I’m not sure.”

“
I think the tears are for real,”
G’Taklar put in for what it was worth.

Rachael suddenly switched to a different
emotion, anger. “Get out, lover of boys! Out, out of my room, I
never want to see you again, get out!” She ranted and stepped over
to beat on his chest with her tiny fists until Jatar backed out of
the room. She threw his jacket out on the floor and slammed the
door in his face.

From the
hallway,
they could hear her crying
against
the other side of the door.
“There is
something odd about this, ‘Tak, she’s not reacting like a typical
tavern girl should,”
Jatar thought and then spoke aloud, “Miss,
I’m sorry I offended you, would you tell me what is the matter? I’d
like to help.”

Behind the
door,
the crying stopped for a moment and her muffled
voice said, “Go away,” and then she yelled in a shrill voice, “I
never want to see you again!” The emotionally crushed Rachael was
at her wits end. She had been putting up a brave front for the boy
she had brought in from the street, but now she had nothing left.
She decided that death in the desert was better than the sergeant,
his corporals, Fats and the constant men ahead in this bleak
existence.

Shaking G’Taklar’s head, Jatar turned and
went down the hall toward the stairway to the common room. The
smells of smoke beset G’Taklar’s nose before they reached the
bottom of the stairs. Jatar paused on the stairs to allow G’Taklar
to resume control of his body before entering the loud common room
ahead.

Rounding the corner G’Taklar found his
senses assaulted by an abrupt increase in the level of sound and
smell. Around twenty men and women were sitting at booths and
tables under the low whitewashed ceiling having lunch. Their
conversations in the small space were creating the level of noise.
A translucent gray layer of smoke drifted along the ceiling from
the many forms of tobacco being smoked. Some patrons near G’Taklar
stopped speaking when they glanced over and spotted him in his
bright clothing, but after a few smirks, most of the people went
back to their conversations.

G’Taklar sat at an empty table and one of
the waitresses came over to take his drink order. With a slight
sneer,
she said, “What’s it going
to be,
kier
or do you have the
round metal for a little romp?”

“Do you know Rachael?” he asked in
response.

The
barmaid
was older than G’Taklar by quite a few years, somewhere in her
mid-twenties,
he guessed. She
sized him up quickly and then said, “Rachael? Forget that little
minx, I’m what you’re looking for and I’m available in a
half-
bell
if you have the round.”
As she spoke she picked up his hand and ran it up the back of her
leg, behind her skirt.

G’Taklar snatched his hand away when it got
into dangerous territory.

“I’m sorry Miss, that’s not what I meant.
We’ll maybe it is, but, uh, I don’t want you, I mean if I were
interested in that I might want you, but I’m not, so I don’t, I
mean I don’t want anyone, but I was interested in Rachael, but not
to pay her, just see if she got paid. Do you understand?” he asked,
and even he was confused.

“No, and I don’t want you to explain it.
Just tell me if you want me or not, I’m three shine a bell, two for
a half. Well?” she demanded, left hand on hip and slouched in a
bored attitude.

“No, I’m sorry,” G’Taklar responded, not
meeting her eyes.

“Fine!” she exclaimed and whirled around to
depart, piqued at the indignity of being spurned by the oddly
dressed boy.

“
Don’t you think it would be wiser to ask
about a job before you antagonize all the help around here?”
Jatar asked as G’Taklar watched the woman depart.

Before he could answer G’Taklar heard a high
pitched scream from up the nearby stairs, followed by the bellow of
a ranting male voice. He sprang to his feet, though the rest of the
tavern was ignoring the whole thing.

G’Taklar raced back up the stairs and around
the hall corner.

The first thing he saw was a large
pot-bellied
man wearing a leather
apron. He was holding onto Rachael’s thin arm and thrashing her
with a stick across her back and she was screaming while
desperately attempting to wiggle free from her captor to escape the
pain.

The Innkeeper bellowed at her, “What’s this
about not seeing the sergeant, and where is the round you just took
in?” As he spoke he kept hold of the girl and kept beating her with
his stick. “I know you’re keeping it hidden, tell me where it is! I
saw you sneak that boy up here, don’t deny it!”

“I didn’t do anything, please let me go! I
don’t have any round,” the girl sobbed out to her assailant.

“Again you claim this, well it’s time to
call your bluff,” and his fat hand grabbed the top of her gown and
with a convulsive
yank,
he ripped
her dress open down the front.

“G’lan, NO, please no,” Rachael pleaded.

“
Well, what are you waiting for?”
Jatar admonished,
“If you’re going to make a fool out of
yourself don’t waste time as well.”

G’Taklar shook himself out of his stunned
pause and rushed down the hall with heroic rescue on his young
mind. When he reached the scene of the struggle he was behind the
portly man, so G'Taklar wrapped his hands up under the
Innkeeper’s
arms and brought his hands back
around to lock together against the man’s
bull-like
neck
.