A Hero With/Out Time

Chapter 25: Our Master of Wizards. (Part 2)

"This is...," my mouth hung open as we stepped off the dock.

"Worse than you expected?" Taylor finished for me. "It looks about how I remember it." She sighed and pulled her hair back. "Home sweet home."

After several days we had reached the slums of the Empire and our ship dropped us off. We still had Pina and the carriage but as we looked into the mess of boarded up buildings and barely tacked on roofs I was beginning to feel we should have left them behind. I still had memories of the slums from my time as Caius but seeing it again was different. Back then I had been desperate to survive, now from the outside, it was truly a broken place.

The sun had set casting an even more ominous atmosphere. We huddled close together guiding Pina and the carriage through the mess of the one road still large enough for us to pass through. Hundreds of alleyways broke away from us into a maze that was practically impossible to understand. Every day the paths changed as homes fell apart and new ones were built. Even Taylor would have trouble to find what she needed. Men and women dressed in ragged clothing skirted nearby, many with hungry desperate eyes only moments away from jumping our carriage. The only thing stopping them were Earnest and Caius' hard glares. Worse still were the elderly and children who mobbed together, their body's skin and bone. The thing was, this wasn't even the worst of it. This was still a main road and the further from sight you travelled the darker dealings that went on.

An old man stumbled forward bleeding from his head. One look at us and he quickly shuffled to the side of the road.

Marley went to his side, "Are you alright?" No matter her infatuation for the injured she was still a priest of the Goddess.

"No!" the man shouted. "Leave me, I have no more."

"I'm just trying to help," she touched his head and a healing glow left her finger tips. "There is that better?"

"Th-thank you, young lady-," the elderly man smiled.

Caius grabbed the hand hidden behind him, a knife had been poised, "Leave old man." He squealed and ran into the alleys as Caius let go. It looked like neither Taylor nor I would have to intervene.

"Ah...," Marley faced Caius surprised.

"The people here are desperate and tricky. You would be best to not show so much kindness."

"Right...," she bowed her head with a stiff expression.

Taylor placed her hand on Marley's back, "It's a weird place, don't worry about it."

We crept forward with Taylor leading the way. The twisting road led us deeper to the heart of the slums. Slowly the paths widened and so did the liveliness. What started as a pit of desperation became what happened after, men and women struggling to survive and doing whatever they wanted or needed to succeed. Businesses and stores with stable walls, guards in thick black armour with crude weapons, scantily clad women winking towards us, and slaves being pulled by the collar. Seeing a thief run by was an all too usual sight here, and it was probably where Taylor first started to learn. This was the reason why the slums still existed, or at least the centre portion. It was a place to get things done, a place to find things you normally couldn't and a place to hide. It was a city in itself.

"This way," Taylor pointed us towards a narrow path. The carriage grated against the walls and Pina squawked in displeasure. Taylor calmed her down, "We're almost there."

A few minutes later we arrived at an open compound. Children ran around freely but at the sight of us they quickly hid with fearful eyes. Taylor continued forward ignoring them and knocked on the door of the two story building nearby.