The realm of Weldox was a very wet place. People navigated canals and rivers and lakes rather than streets and roadways and sidewalks. The buildings in this realm were all a rich, earthy brown in hue and the people were not often subjected to gaiety. Rather, on Weldox, people were worried mostly about money and how to promote their social stati. Sandrylene was nothing like that.
Sandry (as Sandrylene preferred to be called) was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Her family was loving and caring as all on Weldox were, but Sandry knew something important was missing from her life. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it was not with her.
Sandry's father allowed her to accompany him on business ventures as she was the eldest of three daughters. Usually businesses on Weldox were passed to sons, but without a male heir, the establishments were passed to the eldest female offspring. Thus, Sandry was a rarity and she was often vied after by the young men in her realm.
Sandry hated business, though. She hated deceiving people even if it was good for getting money. Her father often told her that without money, their family would be begging in the streets. Often Sandry wondered if she would rather be a beggar than a merchant. It was usually a hard choice and she rarely made up her mind one way or the other.
Sandry's father had a stand at the docks. He traded with sailors from other realms such as those of Carlion and Indrica. Rarely did the sailors seem happy when they arrived in Weldox. They often needed supplies, though, and the merchants were the ones who supplied them with supplies. Occasionally, Sandry's father allowed her to accompany him there. However, he usually denied her request to tag along, saying that the docks were no place for womenfolk.
On such an occasion, our story officially opens...
"Father! Let me come along!" Sandrylene demands.
"No daughter of mine, heir or otherwise, will go there to converse with that scum of the world!" her father roars back.
"If I were a boy, things would be different."
"That is not a concern of yours, Sandrylene!"
"Father this isn't fair!"
"Nothing in my business is fair!"
"But some day it will be my business, too. What shall I do then if I know naught of these who are our primary means of livelihood. I can not help to marry my sisters off if they do not have a considerable dowry."
"You can come along tomorrow when the docks are not so crowded."
"And how am I to attain good supplies to trade in the city without knowing how to talk to sailors and the like?"
"You will know when you come of age."
"Stop telling me that! As far as you should be concerned I'm a boy! I am your heir and there is naught that you can do about it, not since Mother died."
"That has nothing to do with anything."
"Take me along, Father. Please?"
Sandry's father regards his daughter for a moment before nodding. "If it will stop your infernal whining, I shall."
"I do not whine," Sandry replies while embracing her father. "Thank you, though." She grins and runs off to get changed into her mercantile clothes.
Sandrylene reemerges minutes later with her short black hair wild with curls and wetness. Her top is a green blouse, buttoned nicely below the elbows. Her blue skirt barely reaches her ankles. Her feet are clad in long leather boots that stop slightly below her knees.
"Dry your hair and we shall be off," Sandry's father tells her.
"My hair is dry," she replies.
"Do it for me, Sandrylene?"
Sandry rolls her eyes and makes a face, retreating for a few moments before re-emerging, toweling her hair dry. She combs it through and tosses the towel in a basket. She glances at her father, telling him that she is ready.
"Let's be off," he replies to her glance. "Grab those crates, won't you, Dear?" He motions to a pile of wooden crates as he picks up his ledger and quill.
"Yes, Father," Sandry replies as she heaves one crate and starts walking to the dockside part of the house. She manages to make three trips, setting down six crates of merchandise before she hears a voice.
"Hail! Sandrylene!" it calls. The voice is masculine and rather excited. Sandry knows its owner without looking up.
"What do you want, Clar?" she asks bitterly before returning to the house to pick up more crates.
When she returns, Clar answers. "I'm heading out to the docks to help my da bring in the ships. Care to come along?"
"I'm working, Clar."
"Well, then you won't mind if I watch."
Sandry looks up. She glares at the boy who is in the canal, leaning his chin on his arms and his elbows on his knees. He has dark hair and green eyes, though he isn't as attractive as Sandry. He is sitting in a plain wooden rowboat, anchoring his it in the shallow canal with his oars.
"Yes. I will." Sandry then retreats inside her home and returns a few moments later with more boxes.
"Why? It shouldn't matter if I idly watch you."
"No. But it unnerves me." She then returns to her house for a final time.
Clar glances down the side of the house. He notes Sandry as she suddenly appears poling a small gondola towards the dock. She hums as she does so, trying to ignore Clar.
When Sandry finally reaches the dock, she ties the gondola to a pole with a nautical knot. She then swings the boat around so she can easily load the boxes onto it.
"Sandrylene! I'm going on ahead! Don't take too long!" is a shout from inside the house.
"Alright, Father!" she calls back. "I'll be on my way as soon as I'm finished loading these crates onto the gondola!" With a heave, she loads the final three crates into the boat and deftly unties the boat from the dock.
"I'll come with you!" Clar says excitedly.
Sandrylene considers this for a moment before saying a quite stern "No." She takes up the pole and begins to navigate the canal to the harbor.
Clar sits and watches silently, feeling exceptionally put off. "Man," he says to himself, "rich girls have a huge complex." With that, he takes a different canal to the harbor so he can meet up with his father.
"Ho! Carter!" calls Sandrylene's father as he steps out of a gondola and onto the canal-dock at the harbor. The harbor is full of huge sailing vessels today and the din of the sailors' conversations is nigh-deafening.
A stout man with dark hair and blue-green eyes looks up. He grins before saying, "Hail! Dendrik!" He rises from the small wooden stool he has set up behind several crates of nonperishables. He shakes the hand of Sandrylene's father before sitting down again. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" he queries.
Dendrik averted his eyes. "My daughter."
"Sandrylene? What of her?"
"She insisted upon coming along today."
"But today is the-"
"Dark Festival. I know."
"Does she know?"
"If she does, she hasn't let anything show."
"That's a relief. Why didn't you say her nay?"
"Her eyes can rip out a man's soul."
Carter nods in agreement. "What do you plan to do?"
"I can only hope to try to slip away. If she follows, she'll be in the same rut as the rest of us."
Carter nods. "For posterity's sake, we need to distract her somehow."
"But how?"
Carter points to a boat behind them. "The sailors tend to be quite distracting. Do something boring long enough and she's bound to amuse herself."
"Just so long as she doesn't dance again. It's such a deplorable hobby of hers."
Carter nods in sympathy. "But if she does, she'll be distracted far long enough."
"I see your logic."
"Hail! Father!" Sandrylene calls as she navigates the gondola up to where her father is setting up their stand.
"Sandrylene!" is the shout in reply. Dendrik chuckles as he lifts his daughter out of the boat. "So good to see you."
Sandry smiles before shaking her black hair out of her face. "Father, you saw me not even an hour ago. Is somewhat troubling you?"
Dendrik hesitates. "What? No! Nothing troubling me at all. Let me help you with those crates. We need to hurry to set up."
"Aye, Father," Sandry replies and begins to unload the gondola.
Dendrik assists his daughter silently for a few moments, his mind lilting on the Dark Festival and the initiation ceremony occurring that evening. He would have to get Sandrylene away from the docks by then, or she would be forced into the merchant's craft for life. Somehow, he doesn't think she would be happy as such. He thinks her made for something else, though he is unsure of that purpose.
Moments pass in silence aside from the background noise of the harbor and the grunts of the pair's efforts.
"Sandrylene..." Dendrik finally manages.
"Aye, Father?" is her reply, her voice like the music to which she so loves to dance.
"Sandrylene, I think you should let me do business today. You, as you stated earlier, need to learn to mingle with those of the harbor. You need to know how sailors think. Why don't you spend today just learning by observation? You can roam wherever you want on the Southern docks. Is this agreeable?"
"Don't be ludicrous, Father," Sandrylene replies, chuckling. "The whole reason I tagged along today was to be certain that I knew the merchant's craft. I want to learn from you."
"Then learn to take an order from your master, Apprentice." His voice is cold. He hopes he can scare his daughter off, for her own well being.
Sandrylene pauses and stares at her father for a few moments before lifting another crate from the gondola and stacking it on the dock behind her. "At least let me aid my master in unloading the gondola. Then I shall do as he requests." She smiles brightly and lifts two more crates, her arms strong from many such sessions of labor.
"I find that vaguely agreeable. All right. We shall do things your way."
"Thank you, Father. As soon as this is unloaded, I shall be off. Can you manage it to the stand?"
"Quite. Carter said that he would assist me readily."
Sandry makes a face. "Oh. Carter." Her disdain for the mentioned man is evident.
"Worry not. Things will be fine." Dendrik is oblivious to his daughter's dislike of the man in question.
The hours passed uneventfully for Sandrylene. She had managed to draw a few coins from her father before she set out to the Southern part of the harbor. Her father's stand was somewhere near a crossroads between the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western parts of the harbor. He had let her near the other parts of the harbor only occasionally and never alone. The Southern he evidently deemed safe enough for her to walk alone. The thought of venturing alone to the other parts of the harbor never crossed her mind as the atmosphere there was always dull and dreadfully boring.
Thus, Sandry has no regrets as she wanders along the three-mile-long Southern stretch of the harbor. This is the part of the harbor where music is always playing, where people are laughing somewhere, and where the merchants are the friendliest. Indeed, as she walks, Sandrylene's mind is taken away by a jaunty song played on a strange flute.
She wanders closer to the sound of the flute. It isn't any flute like those of Weldox, but it is beautiful nonetheless and its sound is unlike any other's. She presses through the crowds around the player until she can get a clear look at the musician.
The musician is of blonde hair and gray eye. He has vague scales littering his skin and slight slits like gills on his neck. Sandry can't help but think that he is obviously a halfling, one of human and Marian decent. Neither of his immediate parents was Marian, though. If they had been, his skin would have been a strange purple. Indeed, only when the light hit it a certain way was it hued as such.
Finally, the music ends. The musician bows and collects a few of the many coins being thrown at him and departs to a different part of the pier. Suddenly, from the crowd, appears a man of graying hair and brown eyes. He clears his throat.
"Gentlemen," he states before seeing Sandry about the crowd. "And lady," he corrects himself. "Our young Tren, who has just preformed for you, is one of the five musicians accompanying a competition that we are holding at sunset. This competition is for those willing and ready to dance for glory. There are seven prizes. First place is the ownership of young Tren. Second place is a fabulous egg of an unknown variety, though rumored to be that of a Bishel Dragon. Third place is a wonderful necklace of black pearls. Fourth and fifth are both magnificent Tartrans from the realm of Ynga. Sixth place is a deed to the ship 'Majestic' and seventh place is a map to a great treasure of the Qinvel people!"
His speech receives "oohs" and "aahs" from various men of the crowd, but Sandrylene is only disgusted. first prize is the ownership of Tren?! Weldoxians don't keep slaves... besides... he's so young... she was thinking as she vaguely hears the number of the ship holding the competition to be eighty-three. She sighs and wanders down the pier again, wondering to herself about the cost to sign up for the competition and how horrid it must be to be a slave.
As she wanders, she loses track of time and location, though she is certain that she is heading in a more southerly direction. She keeps wandering, her head seemingly stuck in the clouds, until she is jarred back to reality by the feeling of bumping into something. She glances around quickly before noting that she is running into the boy that the contest announcer had called Tren.
Sandrylene lets out a bit of a yelp of surprise as she half jumps. "My grandest apologies," she states quietly, averting her eyes. She had never seen a slave before, and she has no clue how to act around one.
Tren gives a lavish bow. "It was my fault, lady," he replies, watching her as if he expected her to strike him for his clumsiness.
"Not at all. I wasn't looking where I was going."
"But it is my duty to take the blame for one." Tren sounds confused. He has never before met a person who treated him as a being worth more than dirt. He has no idea how to react.
Sandry cocks her head to the side. "Well then," she states, trying to think of what would be considered proper. "You may take the blame if you so desire, but would you also be so kind as to tell me why you tolerate your servitude?"
"It's not as bad as it might seem to you," Tren replies after a moment. "At least I'm not a 'remer. They work in teams to row the triremes. Their lives are made hell. Luckily, having a mix of backgrounds, I wound up with a strange ability to be quite deft at the musical aspect of the world. Unfortunately, music is unnecessary on a ship."
"And that would be why they are ridding themselves of you?"
"Indeed."
"It could be worse. They could have thrown you down with the... what did you call them? 'Remers?"
Tren nods. "Good point," he replies and sighs. "I find it a pity, though, that my life is to be determined by a frivolous twit who wins me because he can dance. I can't complain because of my status, but-"
"It isn't right," Sandry cut in.
Tren nods again. "Thank you. I wouldn't have been able to say that myself." He pulls out his flute and begins to play a few chords on it. He lowers his eyelids, keeping them open just wide enough to see where he is headed and walks through the crowding dock.
Sandrylene follows in silence. She still is uncertain as to the preferred manner of action against a slave. She lets out a sigh as she begins to mentally plot a dance in tune to Tren's flute. She could see it all in her mind's eye. It would be beautiful.
And then she ran into a post.
Sandry crumples to the ground, clutching her forehead. Tren stops playing abruptly and turns to see her. He rushes to her side.
"Are you injured?" he asks, trying to pry her hand from her forehead.
"Nah, nah, nah," Sandry replies through gritted teeth. "I'm fine." She pulls her hand away from her forehead and notes blood.
"It's only a scratch," Tren adds, gratitude to some higher powers showing in his voice. "I can heal that easily. Marians have unlimited healing powers, but being only a third of such descent, I can only heal minor wounds." He glances about quickly before sighing and touching his shortest finger to the blood on Sandry's forehead.
A soft, yellow glow surrounds her vision and the pain vanishes instantly. Her vision returns and she blinks two tears from her eyes. "Thank you," she manages.
"Please, tell no one of that. If they were to know, I know not what would become of me," Tren requests.
Sandry nods and rises to her feet. "I'll find a way to help you, Tren," she responds. "I can dance. I might just win that contest," she adds.
"There is an entry fee to make up for the loss of capital. It is nigh well the price for the sixth place prize."
"How much is it?" Sandry begins to count the coins she had brought along with her.
"Somewhere near six hundred Dush."
"That is only eighty Arlens. I have just two more than that here."
Tren nods. "You Weldoxians have the strongest economy in many places. However, it is still a gamble."
"I have faith in myself." Sandry tosses her short black hair indignantly before sighing. "Let's go," she finally decides. "I want to warm up first, get a feel for your music. Not to mention check everything out." She grins.
"As you wish."
Sandrylene registered and was placed third on the list to compete. There were fourteen other entrants. She sighed nervously as the first competitor bowed to the gathering crowd and began to take up his dance in time to the music.
He dances lavishly, much like an Arliktan folk dancer, but without much meaning behind his movements. He has no real feeling behind his actions, even though his motions and leaps are flawless.
The second dancer is female, and she dances more like a Marian than anything. Her movements are short and abrupt, stopping and starting in time to the lowest-tuned instrument. However, she too dances beautifully.
The third dancer is Sandrylene. She had only danced publicly once before, and she was shamed then. She takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the sound of the whispering crowd saying "That girl's a Weldoxian... They don't dance... It's against the social code!" and similar things. She forces her heart to still a little as the sound of Tren's flute comes to her ears.
For a moment, her heart stops. She feels the heat of the eyes of others upon her. In that moment, she freezes up. She can't move. No matter how much she wants them to do so, her legs will not pound away a single step.
Suddenly, Tren's flute lets out a low, mournful note. Sandry knows that she has to dance. She has to do this, if only for him. Summoning all the courage she has, she closes her eyes and sways in tune to his music. Soon, her arms follow, then her hips, then her legs. Finally, she is dancing. She opens her eyes, and the music soon floods into her mind, swirling around her lithe body. Within moments, or so it seems to her, the song is over. She will have to wait to see how the other twelve dancers do before she knows her status.
It is a difficult wait. None seem even remotely worse than the others. All are splendidly fantastic. She knows she has no chance of winning. Even after the other twelve are finished, a brief intermission must take place. She will have to wait until second-moon to hear the results of the competition.
Sandrylene is pacing by the time the brown-haired man addresses the crowd. She glares at him, wanting to know her place. Of course, wishing to build suspense, the foolish man starts at the seventh place prize.
Get on with it! Sandry hisses mentally. She stops, however, from becoming more enraged when sixth place is awarded to a fellow Weldoxian. She hadn't caught the boy's name, but when he muttered "Thank you," there was no doubt about it; it was Clar.
"He never told me he danced," she breathed and didn't take her eyes from the boy as the announcer called others to the center of the crowd.
Finally, the man gets to second place. The 'rare dragon egg' turns out to be little bigger than that of a Til's egg. That, in fact, is very tiny. Judging by the histories Sandry has read, a Bishel Dragon egg should be roughly ten times as large as that. She rolls her eyes. It is awarded to the first dancer.
Sandrylene's heart stops as the announcer reaches the first prize. Her breath grows shallow as the man announces a tie. She blinks as her name is called. Along with her, the fifth dancer (a heavy-set Yngran female) is called to the center of the crowd. The announcer pulls out a coin and shows that it is double-sided. He allows the Yngran to be the side of the fish and Sandrylene to be the side depicting a crane. He flips the coin into the air and allows it to land on the planks of the dock.
It lands fish-side up.
The announcer pats Sandry on the shoulder and tells her that it only means that she is stuck with Tren. The Yngran gets her master's choice of the other musicians. Sandry beams. Though the man makes it sound like a curse, to her it is the most wonderful thing in the world. She thanks the man, grabs Tren's hand, and weaves through the crowd to find Clar again.
"Clar!" she calls quietly. She sees an adolescent turn and face her, grinning. "Clar!" She motions him over to her side.
"Ho, Sandrylene?" he asks in response. He makes his way over to her.
"You never told me you danced."
"I needed to. You father has instructed that I depart from Weldox with you in my care. Tonight is the Dark Festival. We can not be around much longer. Have you any idea what happens during this time?"
Sandry cocks her head to the side. "Not a clue."
"The Dark Festival is the most terrible event in Weldox. During this time, the men of the merchant's trade and the dockman's trade gather all virgins on the docks and throw them out to sea or convert them into Dark Docks, others who will drive the tradition onward. We must depart."
"Can we not go home?"
"The gates are the first thing they block. Also, you know the law. Any who leave the port may never return as full citizens. It's best to run and find somewhere else to live."
Sandry nods. "I understand. Come with us, Tren," she instructs. "Once you do, you are free." She smiles at him and Clar and nods again.
"This way."
Clar leads the way down the plank. In the distance, torches are gathering. Men's voices can be heard shouting. In the midst of that crowd somewhere is Dendrik. He prays that his daughter is safe.
"Quickly now!" Clar calls as they reach the mooring site of the Majestic. He nods to the others and cuts the ropes to the ship. They scramble aboard, hoist the anchor, and pick up a lucky breeze out to sea. A few minutes later, once they are relatively far out to sea and the wind growing, the men reach their mooring site.
"Not quite 'just in time,' but close enough for comfort," Tren breaths, tying a rope down confidently. He was, after all, borne of sea-going slaves.
"True, quite," Sandry replies. "I wonder what land we shall land upon..."
Background by Ender Design.