Shel did not answer, but Neal’s question prompted him to make a decision. He had not yet discussed the disciplines with Neal, but it seemed silly to hide what he had been learning from his mother from his only friend in town. He felt that he needed a friend to confide in, someone to tell about his disciplines of words and body, and how they fit in with Shel’s aspiration to escape Varis and explore the Empress’s nations.

“There’s something wrong with that woman,” Neal said as they walked out of earshot of Puela. He craned his neck around to look at the old lady, who sat rocking quickly in her chair and scribbling notes. Her eyes never left the page. “I think she’s giving those writings of hers to someone.”

“What are you talking about?” Shel asked. “She’s a harmless old lady. The only thing that worries me is what she’s going to tell Audrel about our heading toward the Central District to see the Empress’s soldier.”

“Be that true, I think there’s something beyond that. And you know what is telling me that we need to keep a closer eye on her. She’s dangerous.” Neal tapped his long nose with his forefinger and looked Shel in the eyes, trying to convey to him the seriousness of this matter.

They continued toward the Central Square, staying close to the side of the road to allow escape to the alleys if the wrong children turned the corner. As they got closer to the Central Square, the roads became broader and more crowded. On the sides of the road, small shops had been set up to catch the late-arriving tradesmen who did not want to fight their way into the Central Square, or spend the money unloading their wagon to delivery men who would move the goods for trading to the Central District. At what seemed like every corner, large wagons offloaded their goods to waiting bands of men pulling wheelbarrows and large canvas bags toward the Central District. In the crowded bustle, it became increasingly difficult for Shel to see much but wagons and deliverymen. He made an effort to look for small legs and the telltale signs of other children.

When Puela’s house was out of view, they felt a sense of relief. The boundary between the Builders Quarter and the Central District was only a block away. Small bands of guards moved through these streets, watching the unloading and loading, and ensuring that the trades were honest. Pickpockets did not find much business in these parts, as while the crowds might give the illusion of safety, any tradesmen worth his bounty would grab a thief to hold for a guardsmen to find.

A movement in the crowd caused Shel to stop and grab Neal’s cloak, pulling him to his side. “There’s a small kid up there.”

Neal stood on his tiptoes in his wooden clogs to get a better look. As he leaned forward, his left foot slipped off the clog and he fell toward the mud, pulling Shel down with him. Shel tried to keep his balance, but even though Neal was a skinny kid, his weight pulled Shel down with him. They both fell in a small puddle, covering their skin and clothes with globs of mud.

The people around them gave a wider berth, not wanting to get splashed on as Shel and Neal tried to get up and wipe themselves dry. The commotion caught the attention of some of the tradesmen who pointed and laughed in their direction. After helping Neal up, Shel cleaned himself off the best he could by wiping his arms and legs with his hands.

A group of children approached from the other side of the road, pulled over by the ruckus and laughs from the passer bys. Neal moaned as he saw who was leading them.

“So there you. I’ve been looking for the two of you. Have you been avoiding me?” Tommy asked. Tommy was a tall girl with round, freckled face. She was the most dangerous bully in the Builders District, always trailed by an army of littlelings who did her bidding. While any one of the littlelings by themselves would have been no match for Shel or even Neal, Tommy had trained them to act as a group, continuously throwing their small bodies on their intended victims until they beat them down and could swarm over them. Tommy dressed and cared for the littlelings, outfitting them in her homemade canvas tunics and pants. She cared and fed for them, and shared her tents with them. Today, she had ten littlelings following her, they swarmed around Shel and Neal, surrounding them and cutting off any possible escape.

“Tommy, we haven’t been avoiding you,” Neal began blathering. “We fell in the mud on our way to the central district to see the Empress’s soldier, and that was after we ran into old Puela, who was writing something awful about us, but it wasn’t about us going to the Empress’s soldier, since I covered that up since our parents, I mean, since, you know, the Empress’s soldier might not even want to see us.”

The littlelings began to titter as Neal spoke. Neal’s eyes were moving rapidly in counterclockwise circles in their sockets. A few of the littlelings began to run up and touch Neal, as if silently dared by the other littlelings.

“Enough!” Tommy said. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, when you talk to me or the littlelings don’t look at us. You’re a freakshow, Neal, and your eyes should be poked out for all the evil they possess. And it wasn’t you I was referring to, anyway. It was Shel.” Tommy reached over and grabbed the front of Shel’s shirt. He tried to back away from Tommy, but the littlelings pushed him from behind and he barely managed to hold his footing.

Tommy was an orphan of the Empress’s war. As far as Neal had been able to learn, her father had gone off to the war front when the Empress first invaded, and her mother had abandoned Tommy at the orphanage when it became apparent that her father was never going to return. The orphanage in the Builders District was understaffed, under funded, and overwhelmed by the babies of the war. Many of the babies and children simply died from neglect or malnutrition, but those who managed to survive the first few years formed a tight band. The orphanage children stuck together and were tough. Tommy was the toughest of the lot, and she held a great sway in this district.

Shel tried to shake himself loose of Tommy’s grip, but it was strong, like her. Having grown up fighting for food and clothing, it was easy to imagine where she found her strength. The littlelings pushed Shel closer to Tommy and she pulled up her fist until Shel stood on his tiptoes in the mud. “What did I do?”

“Oh, you need to ask?” Tommy said, with a smarmy smile and a look at the littlelings who laughed with her. It was difficult to tell the littlelings apart. They wore the same clothing and had the same haircut, a bowl-shaped affair, the hair color difficult to see through the caked dirt that covered them since the last rain shower. Even telling the boys from the girls was difficult, as they moved rapidly around as they swarmed around Shel and Neal.

Shel thought back at what he might have done to upset Tommy. He hadn’t run into her or any of the orphans for the last week. He hadn’t spoken to anyone except Neal in the same timeframe. The unfairness of it all hit him hard. Why could she not let them leave the district in peace? Why was she always hounding him, watching where he goes and trying to catch him. It was almost as if she had been spying on him. “No, Tommy. I don’t know what you saw or what I said or what happened, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me, and I’m equally sure that it won’t be near interesting.”

Tommy opened her mouth and showed off her surprisingly straight and white teeth. Her lips, a bit orange from the mud, curled up in a semblance of a smile. “You didn’t pay the weekly parent’s fine,” Tommy said. This was the first Shel had heard of this fine. He was not surprised by the advent of yet another tax. To support the ever growing number of littlelings, Tommy had implemented a number of schemes to collect money from the better-to-do children that lived in the Builders District. None of the children, with the exception of Neal, who had a parent had much in the way of money. Because Neal’s grandmother was overly generous with scraps from the Pretty Beak’s kitchens, Neal, while still terribly afraid of Tommy and the littlelings, was never asked to pay for the privilege of walking the streets. This seemed wrong to Neal, who would hide with Shel, and silently demand equal treatment during these shakedowns. Even now, with the littlelings swarming around Shel and Neal, Neal was mostly ignored, and could easily have pushed a couple of littlelings out of his way to escape. He stayed with Shel, however, wanting to share in whatever fate his friend met.

“And what is that fine?” Shel asked, exasperated by yet another excuse to extort money from him. “You seem to think that I have extra money because I have a mother.”

Shel realized his mistake as the word left his mouth. He should not have mentioned his mother. At the word, the littlelings swarmed and Tommy pushed Shel to the ground. The littlelings had small fists, but they swung them widely, and even after covering up his face with his elbows, Shel felt the fists getting through his defenses and landing on his cheeks and nose.

Through the rain of fists, Shel saw a squad of guardsmen approaching. He managed to roll onto his side and his arm found Neal, who was trying to make his way through the littlelings to get to Shel. He pulled Neal toward him, displacing a pair of littlelings who had attached themselves to his arm, and fought to stand up. He refused to yell out to the guardsmen, but was gratified to see them approach.

Tommy saw them as well, and turned and ran away from Shel and Neal, calling out a shrill whistle on her fingers, and yelling “Protect the littlelings,” as she ran. As the littlelings scattered, Shel took the opportunity to pull Neal away from the guardsmen and to the direction of the Central District.

When they finally got clear of the street and the guards, Shel ran into an alleyway. “That wasn’t the smartest thing you’ve ever said,” Neal said, his eyes still running around his sockets. “I can’t believe you used the m-word in front of that many littlelings, and not to mention Tommy.”

“I’m just so sick of running away from them,” Shel said. “We’re better than them. We shouldn’t have to walk the streets of our district in fear.” Shel began wiping the mud off his pants, gingerly touching the various bruises that he felt forming around his body. He noticed that where Tommy had pulled on his tunic, his tunic had ripped, and he knew his mother was not going to be happy about that.

“Let’s get going,” Neal said. “We don’t know how long the Empress’s man is going to stay around.”

Shel nodded and silently followed Neal down the side of the road. Upon crossing into the Central District, they left the muddy roads behind and walked over smooth stones, which had been transported years before from the Hermanie River. People crowded the market stalls, which were lined up in rows for as far as Shel could see. They maneuvered through the stalls quicker than the roads of the Builders District, and made their way toward the Central Square, where they were sure to find the Empress’s man.

Word count: 2,023

Words remaining: 43,762

Caffeination: Coffee of some type.

Feeling: Terribly depressed and disappointed. I have to keep telling myself that it’s okay if the writing sucks. It’s the story that’s important, and this is only a first draft. There will be plenty of opportunities to go back and replace the bad writing with good; in fact, that’s what the rewriting process if for. It’s just difficult to accept this as I have these events I want to happen, and then when I type the events to make them happen, I get the above drivel. It hurts. I’m so fucked.