The Era of the Ram

Chapter 1 - The Crypthall

At the cards table three men and a woman sat hunched as their game absorbed them, and the trailing tobacco smoke shrouded their heads.

"That's another flush," one man boasted. As Mark spoke he grabbed hold of the woman beside him. His head was bald except for the his braided goatee, adorned with copper rings that held the knots, all in the style of the upper class in Bassus. The dark green coat he wore was unbuttoned to battle the room's heat.

"Fair play honey," Fey complimented even as she squirmed beneath his touch. Mark's hand squeezed harder over her waist -- which had been dressed with neat crimson fabrics -- making her yelp.

The second man sighed as he pushed his coins to Mark. "Your luck should run out soon. Or else, I might think you've been cheating," Jay warned. A cigarette hung from his mouth, wagging along his lips while he spoke. He wore the verdant wool coat of a Bassus merchant too, except he left it buttoned properly. As punishment his clean-shaven face gleamed with sweat beneath the dim lights of the brothel lamps.

Mark looked up from his hand of cards, his eyes cutting like a spinning, serrated blade. "Maybe I cheat. What the fuck are you gonna do about it." It was more of an challenge than a question.

Jay was a foot shorter than Mark -- even when sitting -- yet it looked like his posture straightened. He said nothing at first, simply locking gazes with the man across from him.

"You're insecure, Mark," he finally said.

Mark shifted in his seat, then stood, sending Fey scurrying from him.

At that moment the third man laughed. Both of the merchants looked to see Rhoan had set down his own hand of cards to watch them. He was dressed in a stormy blue scouting coat, and the beige slacks of a field worker. Most notably, his left eye was gone, leaving a gaping hole.

"You shouldn't be laughing, stranger" Jay remarked, "You haven't won a single hand."

Mark's eyes dashed from Jay to Rhoan, back and forth.

"Touche," Rhoan replied, making eye contact with the short merchant. "I don't think poker is my forte."

Mark took a shallow breath. "I'm done," he huffed. He took up his winnings in one of his calloused hands and left, Fey now trailing close behind. They disappeared up the stairs of the inn.

In the void of his absence, Rhoan spoke as Jay began shuffling his cards. "How do you know Mark?"

Jay hesitated. "Why do you want to know?" He kept his body facing the table as a sign of distrust. The smoke made the room hazy, yet Rhoan could see that Jay's brows were furrowed. He was thinking.

"It's just small talk. I noticed you both dress like vendors. Do you work together?"

"Pah! Together," he scoffed, turning more towards Rhoan. "We both sell," he emphasized. "I sell fish, he sells game. But he's dirty, plus I can't stand the man, from the way he treats his customers, or the women that he buys. Don't mistake the colors we share. We both work the same profession, but I do not like him."

Rhoan nodded with understanding. "And he cheats at poker."

Jay slipped the deck into a wooden box, which then fit snug into his coat pocket. "You couldn't find a fouler man if you tried. Once I saw him stealing cats and dogs when his stall was running under. Cheap meat, he insisted. There was puppy blood on his butcher's knife that week. Only me and a few others know about his foulness. We turn our cheeks to avoid a bad reputation, to make sure the public doesn't think we want trouble." He sighed with resignation, then rose up out of his chair.

Jay seemed to look over Rhoan for the first time, with genuine curiosity. "I suppose it was nice meeting you."

Rhoan stuck out his hand to shake Jay's. Then, the merchant went silently out the creaky doors, into the foggy moonlight.

The inn was called the Crypthall, at the eastern edge of the port city of Bassus. The Crypthall was huddled up against a canyon wall like a lost wanderer against wild winds. It was open all hours, yet in the wane of night, there were only a few up at all, besides the profoundly drunk or troubled minds.

Rhoan sat alone at his cards table, neck-deep in thought. A cup of cold, black coffee sat in front of him, untouched. His hands idly tugged at a seam on his scouting coat.

A few others huddled other tables in hushed conversations, stealing glances at the foreigner, but they otherwise kept to themselves. Rhoan preferred it that way.

Then, with the slow steadiness of a weary man, he rose to cross the room. Behind the bar of polished wood, a woman was restocking the bottles of spirit that were still partly full.

"How much?" Rhoan asked her.

The woman whirled on him, still holding the neck of a vintage whiskey. Her cherry-red hair became a mark of ferocity as she grimaced. "I'm the bartender, idiot."

Rhoan stared at her incredulously. Of course you are, he thought. What? Then it hit him. "No," he said in his most earnest voice, "How much for a room is what I meant -- by myself. I need a room to sleep in."

Her face softened. "Two steel," she answered.

He paid her the two coins, then with the key in hand, he began up the stairs.

"Your room is five," the bartender called up after him.

Upstairs, Rhoan turned a corner, lit by an even dimmer light encased in green glass, before he stopped outside of a brown door.

Down in his hand he checked the number written. 12. This had to be the right one. The key came out of his pocket, clutched between steady fingers, and he turned it in the door's lock until it clicked.

With a sudden vigor, Rhoan flung the door open.

There were two bodies illuminated by the hallway's ghoulish light. One was standing erect with a head bowed, chest puffed as if gloating, while the other was limp across the bed.

"Hey, Mark," Rhoan called, shutting door behind him.

The merchant turned in panic, but not before Rhoan had crossed the distance between them. He snatched the dagger from the sheath on his belt, and in one fluid motion, it was buried into the neck of the bare-skinned man. Mark staggered away from Rhoan as he clutched at the wound despite the hopelessness, before he tripped, collapsing against the stone walls of the room. Violent croaks emerged from his throat as if he were a frog caught in a trap. His voice was strained in vain against the iron dagger. Steady, pulsating streams of crimson ichor painted his skin in conjunction with the decrescendo of his croaks.

Rhoan watched with cold indifference. "It's just business," he said to no one in particular. Long after he was sure of Mark's departure to the Land of Reeds, he took back his dagger, wiping it clean over the stark white bed linen.

A delicate noise took his attention by force. It was Fey, her body sprawled unconscious, just as bare as Mark was, with a yellowing bruise pressed to her cheekbone.

Rhoan snatched a decorative quilt that hung on the wall beside the bed to cover her. As he laid it up over her shoulders, he noticed that she still had one ornament, tied around her neck. It was a wooden amulet threaded by durable twine -- not unlike jewelry that he had seen before.

Curiosity made him come closer, yet as he looked, Rhoan's blood ran ice cold.