Page 68 of Joy Guardian
“I’m good. Thank you for your offer,” I declined politely.
Malis glared at me suspiciously.
“Bullshit!” she bristled. “We found you with your mouth stuffed with sand. You must be dying from thirst. Is our water not good for you or what?”
“No. I’m just, um…” Once again she left me speechless.
“What? Too proud to take from us? Hey, Raimus, What do you have for food tonight?” She yelled at the man who’d just climbed out from under a worn leather screen stretched over a wooden frame.
Naked, save for a tattered blanket thrown over his shoulders, the man shook some sand out of his tangled long braid.
“Snake,” he said, dragging out a round tray covered with a metal lid. “Roasted it yesterday, but it’s still good. Not sure if it’ll last until midnight, though. May as well eat it now.”
He opened the lid, revealing several long, charred pieces.
“Thanks.” Malis grabbed three of them, tossing one to me. “Eat, Joy Guardian. Trust me, you need it. You look like you’re in shitty shape.”
Raimus, the man with the tray, gave me a once-over.
“You really are, my boy. What the fuck happened to you here?” He pointed with a piece of roasted snake at the wounds on my arms.
The stubs of my tendrils had long dissolved into shadows and soot, leaving gaping holes smeared with black.
“Nothing.” I bit into the charred meat.
The snake was tough and tasted bitter, but I hadn’t eaten for so long, I could stomach anything now.
Gefred shoved a metal bowl of water in my chest.
“He got beaten up pretty bad during the storm,” he explained to Raimus.
“By the pleasure traders?” Raimus asked, scratching his chest under the blanket he was wearing.
“How do you know?” I nearly choked on the water, drinking it too fast and emptying the bowl all at once.
“They passed just outside here the other night.” Raimus grabbed the last piece of the snake, then put the tray away. “They said their Joy Vessels are now for everyone to use. I guess one no longer has to live in a palace to get some of that sweet pleasure. As long as you have enough gold to pay.” He sank his sharp canines into the meat. “I told them they aren’t going to sell it to anyone around here,” he chuckled between bites of his breakfast. “Not for what they’re asking for it. I’ve never even seen a gold coin in my life. And if I ever do, I’m sure not going to travel all the way to the lawless City of Ashgate to spend it.”
“Is that where they took the Joy Vessels they stole? To Ashgate” I asked.
Raimus shrugged. “It’s not like they told me where they were taking them. But where else can they go? In any other city, the guards would execute them all, then take the Joy Vessels right back to the queen.”
My heart sank in despair. No one knew the exact location of Ashgate City. Some said it lay far on the outskirts of the kingdom, where the desert merged with the sky. Others claimed it lay so deep underground, it bordered the afterlife realm.
One thing was certain, Ashgate was a perfect place to take whatever one had stolen because the queen’s laws never reached it. Filled with outlaws, beggars, and disgraced mages, the City of Ashgate had no ruler and followed no rules.
“Hey, you don’t have to pay for joy, Raimus,” Malis announced. “Help this man get his woman back, and he’ll let you into the Temple of the First Priestess for free. You’ll get to taste the Joy all you want. Bring your brother too.”
Raimus spun to me. “Are you really a Joy Guardian? Can you let us into the temple?”
“Of course he is. See?” Malis poked with her finger at my collar.
Raimus gawked at it in awe. “Well…I bet the camel I don’t have, I never thought I’d speak to one of you during this lifetime. Joy Guardians don’t want us anywhere near their precious temple. No way you’ll let us in.”
Gefred had eaten all the meat from his piece of the snake and now was sucking on every bone of the spine. “He said he’d give us a promise.”
“You will?” Raimus asked me.
I nodded. “In exchange for your promise to help me get the woman I love from the people you call pleasure traders.”
