Empire of Shadows Ch VII: A Deal Forged in Chains
The Tigrun had always had something of a passion for exploration since he was a child. It was with more than a little interest in retracing the route he had taken to and from the great catacombs beneath the Circus Orissius that he set out three nights after his return. Humiliated and wracked with pain from the beating that Nifalgin had doled out to him; he was to need that time to recover even as he grieved the death of Osurio.
Certainly the other child had abandoned him, leaving him to perish at the hands of the Gladiators, but that did not mean that he had any desire to see him die. Grief-stricken he withdrew into himself, hardly able to believe that Osurio could be dead. The boy had merited a good solid thrashing in his view, but not death.
“How could Nifalgin kill him?” Felix wondered to the other children, on the cusp of tears throughout the whole of those days.
It was with more than a little pity that a number of the children gathered about him over the following days in the hope that they might comfort him. No less stricken with sorrow, as all of the children were in spite of not being kindred or even of the same tribes, were in effect family to one another. They were all the family that they had, and dearer to one another than some siblings or cousins’ were to one another.
Osurio had come into the care of Nifalgin long before the vast majority of them, and had been there for so long that they could not remember a time without him. Included among them was Felix who could still recall how he had first met the older child, at the age of four. Osurio was among those who had been there since the very beginning. Osurio had after all been among the first children taken in by Nifalgin at the age of three, and was among the eldest with only two other children being of a similar age as him amongst those currently living in the Goblin’s care. Those two others were Delia who was thirteen years of age also, and Varius who was one of the least social of the children and spent as much time by himself as he did with them. He had a tendency to disappear in the dead of night since some six months before, quite where he went was a mystery just as it was a mystery whither Felix had gone as Osurio had not been given the chance to explain himself upon his return.
It was with more than a little trepidation that Felix began to look past his grief to his situation. He did not know why it was that Nifalgin had murdered his friend, he knew only that if the old Nifalgin could do that to one such as Osurio who had never really questioned him or gone against his will, none of them were safe.
The only question remained then, he mused to himself; what was there to be done? The old Goblin was sly and dangerous. Never one to let a single opportunity slip him by, and it was not as though Felix could escape on his own and do as he pleased. He could not very well abandon the other children after all, they were as near to being his family as his own parents had been.
Father would not have abandoned them, Felix told himself, always needing to remind himself of this fact as his father had tended to tell him, ‘once brothers in arms always brothers in arms.’ So that he began to ponder about how he might convince them to escape or to otherwise find some refuge away from Nifalgin. But where?
His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden return shortly after Nifalgin had left to visit with Aadan as he was still apprehensive about being caught as one of the conspirators in the incident involving the princess. It happened that shortly after the door had slammed shut, one of the other children threw himself towards Felix in the hopes to cheer him up.
Maedan was a fellow Tigrun, one who was a recent addition to the ‘family’ as his parents had perished in the great fire that had engulfed most of the Pauper’s Quarter of the city. It happened that he was almost half the size of Felix himself, had brown fur where Felix had orange fur like that of a tabby cat. His fur had the same white strip along the throat and lower jaw of that of the infant with much of the white strip going down to his chest, though it was covered by his tunic, breeches and boots.
The boots were two sizes too large so that Maedan was prone to tripping over them, and falling face first into the dirt. This was exactly what he did then, crying out with a loud yelp as he did so, with his friend glancing about all around them, fearful that they should be seen or heard by others who lived nearby.
The area was a habited one, a ghetto full of a great variety of men and beast-folk, few of whom were of a reasonable nature as they were all either beggars or merchants in dire straits. It happened though that since it was nigh on the middle of the night, and most were either already abed or out visiting the gambling-dens a few streets away or the local brothels.
Felix came very near to jumping out of his fur and clothes as a voice echoed behind him, one that was higher and louder than any sound he had expected to find out there in the cool night air.
“Wait! Maedan that is not true! By Roma, you have all the wits of the good goddess and the lord of wisdom Tenjin himself!” Felix shouted full of excitement as an idea struck him with all the swiftness of lighting.
“Or so I have been told, but what do you mean?” the younger Tigrun wondered frowning at him in confusion.
“I mean that there is a place where I might go, where neither Aadan nor Nifalgin might follow me!” Felix cried out with more than a little joy, so that he leaping up and down made for the door, with his friend to follow after him.
“Felix! Felix! Whither do you plan to go to?” Maedan asked confused by his sudden excitement and leaping about. “Wait!”