Second Contact (Okal Rel Saga #1)

Chapter 3.4 - A Soul Fallen So Far

It was the middle of the artificial day on Gelion, and business was slow in the Bear Pit. Only half a dozen patrons occupied the dimly lit room, most of them looking hung over from the previous evening's excesses.

Jarl was the only taker at the rail around a stage penning a small boy, and had just paid an attendant for a bucket of pebbles. As H'Reth watched, Jarl chucked the first stone at the lively boy who dodged. Jarl was aiming for the child's head.

H'Reth jerked his captain of errantry's elbow, spoiling his next throw. "Stop it!" H'Reth ordered.

Jarl turned lazily, a smile sliding over a jagged tooth below a nose that had frequently been broken. Then he went back to rock throwing. His next throw clipped the boy on the ear.

"I never liked your brutal games," H'Reth said in a sulky tone. "I never liked killing them."

"He'll live," Jarl said, unconcerned. He flicked his wrist, striking the boy in the ribs. The child yelped. "Sit down and have a drink," Jarl told H'Reth. "I'll be with you shortly."

H'Reth bridled at Jarl's presumptions, including his use of grammatical peerage when he, H'Reth, was two birth ranks and one challenge class Jarl's superior, but he decided to let the insult go. Proper grammar, after all, might draw attention. He doubted many other patrons in the Bear Pit were SeniorLord nobleborns like H'Reth was.

Turning back to find a table, H'Reth bumped into an old woman who seemed to be nearly blind.

"Pardon, My Lord!" she said, her groping hands connecting with the sword beneath his cloak. "Ohhh," she added as if deeply impressed.

H'Reth was afraid she had recognized him. "What is it?" he asked, with alarm.

She stared at him with filmed eyes, apparently overwhelmed, "Oh, to find such a soul fallen so far."

"What are you prattling about?" H'Reth made to thrust her away from him but something in her tone promised things he was hungry to know more about.

"You will do me no harm, I know," she said, speaking up to him as if he was a Royalblood. "I'll go, if you wish, of course. But you must believe my admiration is in earnest, Your Highness."

H'Reth stopped her leaving now. "You had better explain yourself. Do you know me?"

"In this life? No. But I have known you in a clear dream."

H'Reth's thick lips pouted out. He had been deceived more than once by liars who claimed to be able to recall experiences from past incarnations, or at least that was Anatolia's opinion of the expenditures. He preferred to believe he attracted genuine clear dreamers. And why not? His mother had always told him they came from the best Blue Demish stock.

"Sit down," he said graciously, so as not to eliminate in her mind the possibility he was a great prince, unjustly imprisoned in his current incarnation for lack of better bodies being available.

"You have lost status through rebirth," she said gravely, still standing.

H'Reth fished out an honor chip. "Tell me more."

"Ah," she said, dropping into the seat to look at the bluish plastic triangle with its invisible single cell of authenticating blood.

"You say you are a clear dreamer," H'Reth reminded her. "One who remembers past lives. Have you seen me in one?"

"Oh yes," she said.

Jarl snatched up the honor chip, startling the old woman out of her seat, which he promptly filled himself.

"I can spare you the rest of it," he told H'Reth. "You will turn out to be the mistreated heir of the last Blue Demish Pureblood, or something of that ilk."