Chapter 2

Then, five minutes later, I was left with a single spiked wheel in my pouch, and a small, angrily-looking woman beside me.

"Sure you don't want a leash for her?" The official looked at me with something approaching sympathy in his eyes, now that he had his money. "My friend, for this one I would strongly recommend it..."

I shook my head and awkwardly walked back into the vast maze that is Braghia with the woman beside me. She was indeed very short, and her bald head bobbed so low that it would have fitted perfectly under my chin if she had wanted to stay close to me. She did not want this, however. She was slender, almost famished-looking, but her body still managed to retain a somewhat feminine aspect to it, with nice, rounded hips and noticeable breasts.

The strange thing about her was her baldness. It did not look at if her hair had been shaved off, neither that she had some sort of disease that had made her lose it. It was just a headless head. I had heard stories of sorceresses whose powers was tied to their hair, that the longer their hair the more powerful they were, and that the way to defeat them was to cut it off. But then I had heard many stories.

"So," she said casually as we wandered aimlessly, as I unfortunately had no idea where my hostel was in this maze, up a relatively wide, busy street with where there was a market, and where offers to buy fruits and fish and vegetables and even meat were announced in almost surreal quietness. "So, you usually buy damaged slaves?"

"No, of course not," I replied hastily. "What's your name. Mine is-"

"First time, then. I should be proud, I guess. Honored, even."

"Look, I did not mea-"

"I am your slave now, then?" She tugged at her leather collar and look up at me with narrow eyes. We stopped walking. People around us were shying away from her white slave robes, or maybe it was the thieves' cross that did it.

"Yes, but wait until we get back to, eh, the Gutted Cod, on Shade Wharf, that's the hostel where-"

"I must obey you, then, and be under your control? I have no privacy, no freedom? That's what 'slave' means, isn't it?" Her hands moved to her hips, which I was sure had to be a danger sign.

"Well, yes, but-"

"What luck I have to have been bought by you!" Even I could tell she did not mean that. "But, you have to be careful."

"Why... ?"

"People rich enough to buy slaves are considered plum targets in this city."

"But you were cheap," I protested in my stupidity.

"By the blasted desert, yes I was, wasn't I?" Now she looked interested over my shoulder. "But still old Chark the marrowpricker would like to put his dagger into your back, I see."

"Who?" I spun around and looked wildly about me. The people closest to us looked exasperated at me, but that was it.

"See that man in the dark green tunic over there?" the slave's hand pointed to a short, wicked-looking man buying one of those small, fried and intensely spicy fish-on-a-stick that they sell in Braghia, the food being one of the few redeeming qualities of the place.