The Venomancer

I.4 - The Painted Poacher

The sound of shattering glass and a demonic roar rang out somewhere behind him, and the market held its breath. Tan did not turn towards the noise, though others' heads snapped around as if possessed. No other noise above the ambience followed it, and the people soon relaxed and resumed their browsing, muttering to one another behind their hands.

Tan concealed himself in the vibrant throng; a ghost child in a forest of slender, dark trees. Just act like nothing's happened, Tan Dei Ná, and you'll be fine. He headed away from the square's exit should Monas or his partner search for him, since they'd do what any human would do and cut to the most logical route. He kept his pace brisk enough to outrun whispers in the crowd, since High Farbans were the kind of population in which word spread like lice. He didn't have the Grand Market mapped out in his head well enough to escape its confines in a hurry, and so the last thing he hoped to provoke was a foot-chase against the Painted Guard ... brutal bastards that they were. It didn't matter how slight and swift he was, those straight-laced warriors would pin him to the ground like a lion on a crane-fly. He'd had run-ins with them before, and a chunk of his thigh was missing because of it.

For every left avenue he took, he took a right, hoping to zig-zag through the centre of the market and pass the antlered monument of Rera Vingund. As he neared the statue and its rippling moat of water, a pair of black eyes locked onto him somewhere to the left, following him as he weaved through the mass. He stared back until they disappeared behind him. Ahead of him a pair of women cut off their conversation and studied him, mouths agape. To his right, another piercing gaze. And another. It was as though people had noticed him for the first time since he'd entered the market. But why now? Why here? He'd come this far without being shot more than a dirty look.

The crowd began to thin as he reached the edge of the water and he felt uncomfortably exposed. A man in emerald edged away from him as though avoiding a stray hound, with a look of abhorrence etched into every groove of his face. Tan wheeled around, alarmed somebody was stalking him, and soon realised that the crowd here had not dispersed at all; it had intentionally parted away from him. As he spun, all eyes were on him. Such fierce, dark orbs. He cowered under Rera Vingund's haunting, marble stare.

"Stop where you are!" a man bellowed.

Tan froze mid-step. Something cold slithered down his spine. He didn't know whether to make a blind dash for it, or if that would only make him look more suspect. Despite their apprehension, High Farbans flocked around him, looking on with guilty fascination. He usually relied on his wits to outsmart his marks in times like this, but he'd struggled to cheat even small clusters of people before, and so fooling a whole crowd seemed nigh impossible. It only took one person in a crowd of many to voice his disbelief before doubt germinated in others' minds too. But what else could he try? He tamed the jittering in his hands and turned on his heels towards the voice.

A man in azure came forward, slightly shorter than the rest, with lips tinted olive green and eyeshadow to match. An ordinary civilian - certainly no guard.

"What? Me?" Tan said airily, though his voice had risen an octave above normal.

"Yes, boy, you."

"For what reason?"

"Y-You wear no bell," the man stammered, jabbing a finger at him. "You can't be here. You should be locked in the infirmary."

"Oh, is that right?"

"It's High Farban law. Steer yourselves!" he called to the crowd. "This foreigner wears red, yet no bell!"

Foreigner? He brought his hand up to his face and his fingers brushed against his exposed, pale cheek. Red silk gathered around his neck where he'd torn it from his mouth to drink that awful remedy. This was the price he paid for his haste.

"Stay back!" the man cried, and the crowd retreated. "I'm warning you!"

"Should we summon the healers?" said somebody.

"Bring authority from the Order!"

"No!" another man declared. "The Painted Guard will rid us of him!"

They were about as confused and frightened as Tan himself. Perfect. He coughed loudly. "Summon all three if you wish, they may all remove me. Yet for what crime I'm unclear. I seem to be disorientated."

"You wear red, northernlander," said the man in azure, eyeing him from head to toe, "the omen of ill health. Of disease. Of death. It is the law to wear a cattle bell about your neck if you don the colours of rot and bane - "

"I assure you I've neither of those."

" - or you'll be abandoned where the ghûls shall find you before your illness can consume you."

Tan coughed violently again into his hand. "I surrender," he groaned, pawing his fringe madly from his eyes. "Go. Go and find me help."

The man, panicky, turned to two others. "Summon a kuzorocari of the Order," he said to one, "and bring a healer," he spat at the other. "I'll alert the Painted Guard we've a blue-eyed apprentice distributing whatever disgusting foreign diseases he's riddled with. Lock him in the Hold."