Weekly Drabble #26: Newcomers (Patreon)

This week's selectees were stratomunchkin with "last glimmer" and m4gicfour with "new blood", though I wasn't able to work in quite as much of either as I'd intended. This is a sequel of sorts to How It Looks, continuing the post-apocalyptic adventures of Lauren, former betrothed to a warlord and Dietrich, her sunlight-averse associate.

The original draft of this was going to take place at sundown, with a last glimmer of light and 'new blood' be a bit more literal, but as I got writing, the story changed significantly, so instead of Lauren offering Dietrich some blood as the sun sets, we get her out on a daylight shopping trip! Wait, where are you going? Anyways, this us a bit more of a look at these particular world.

Enjoy!

~

Newcomers:

Like most days now, the sun beat down relentlessly from a nearly-cloudless sky, baking the parched, sour dirt of a country whose name was scarcely relevant and nearly forgotten. Despite the heat, Merchant Home was as bustling and busy as ever and Lauren navigated her way through the bazaars and shops, doing her best to avoid the most offensive of odours. She had nothing in particular to do, but she was happy to be outside. The large hat Dietrich had got her kept the sun out of her face and she wore a blueish sundress, with a pair of long white gloves that had already picked up a thin layer of dust.

Dietrich was back in The Red Room with Anichka, going over the reports and catching up on old times. Lauren had gotten bored senseless, so she’d asked/demanded to go out and explore the town. One are you sure that’s a good idea and a refused offer of an escort later, she was out and wandering around in the biggest town she’d ever seen. It might even qualify as a city. It was more than a little exciting for her. If she were honest, it was a little frightening, too. Not that she’d ever admit that, though. 

This was the first time Lauren had ever really been on her own. Back in the Cloister, everything had been safe. She and the other brides and grooms in training had been guarded carefully whenever they left the harem grounds, with the average citizens knowing not to disturb or harass them. After her abduction/rescue, she’d almost always been with Dietrich and the few times she hadn’t, hadn’t really turned out that well. 

She was determined not to let those bad experiences keep her inside, so she’d wheedled and insisted and now here she was. She even had some spending money, which was also a first. At the Cloister, everything she’d wanted or needed had been provided to her and her fellow brides and grooms to be. The soft pillows, well-polished jewels and fine clothes that she often lamented losing had been hers at any time. She’d never really understood what it was like to go without all that. She didn’t much care for it, though it had given her a different perspective. Today though, she’d been determined to start building up a hoard of nice things, a hoard that belonged to her and wasn’t just what someone else let her use, as she’d come to realize all of her ‘nice things’ had actually been.

On the run with Dietrich, the few small settlements and villages she’d visited had only traded in goods and services, but Merchant Home was big enough and starting to expand its influence far enough that it could issue scrip to its citizens and visitors, a mixture of metal coins for small denominations and ingots for larger. Lauren had been told that haggling was customary, even in the shops that didn’t take trades. She’d felt she was prepared for that; nobody could argue like she could.

After the first three shops and her pile of cash dwindled rather faster than she’d expected it to, Lauren was starting to realize that arguing and haggling were two different things and the proprietors of Merchant Home were better at the latter. She was just glad Dietrich wasn’t here to see her get plucked like a pigeon. 

After that epiphany, Lauren spent the next hour or two browsing wares and listening carefully as other, more experienced shoppers bartered and finagled with merchants and shopkeepers, getting a feel for how it went. As Dietrich pointed out, she might be sheltered and spoiled, but she wasn’t stupid. On her next purchase, a halfway decent layered lariat necklace, Lauren was confident she’d made out much better on the deal. Her cash reserves were depleted now, so the young woman spent the remainder of the morning browsing, listening and taking in the sights (and, sadly, the smells) of the markets and stores as she cast a discerning eye over the products and services on display. She received a few curious and appraising glances from shopowners and customers, but everyone was too busy with affairs of their own to pay much attention to her.

Lauren was glad to be out of The Red Room. It was a nice enough place, better than virtually any she’d stayed at before, but she missed the sun, even as baking and hot as it was. The Red Room extended several levels underground and the top floor had no windows. The building was equal parts lounge, burlesque house and gentle’s club with a smattering of small apartments and offices for its staff and visitors. She and Dietrich were currently quartered in some of those accommodations. Their hostess Anichka had given them the virtual run of the place, though it was an unspoken understanding that that applied more to Dietrich than to Lauren.

Dietrich had vouched for her, but she was still… not like him, Anichka or the other staff of The Red Room. They were polite, nodding to her when she passed them in the halls, making small talk here and there, asking her about the Cloister and the Wastelands, but there was always something there, something that put Lauren on edge, more than she ever had been with Dietrich. She often joked about the effect she had on him, but spending time in The Red Room seemed too much like being a canary in a room full of cats. Well-trained, obedient cats but cats nonetheless.

The heads of Merchant Home knew there was something a little off about the owner and staff of The Red Room, but they maintained the polite fiction that the lounge had passed from mother to daughter, even though no father or child had ever been seen. They scheduled appointments with Anichka in rooms with the windows covered and told curious onlookers that the full-body coverings and masks she and her associates wore whenever they came out during the day were simply a unique cultural tradition, just like the long sleeves, chokers and high collars that some of their associates wore. If occasionally a drifter or citizen was found disoriented and anemic with cuts on their wrists or neck, the injury was labelled the result a suicide attempt or an accident caused during a drunken stupor and the victim was placed on a brief suicide watch until they recovered… and if a rather troublesome individual happened to simply disappear, even if they were last scene in the company of one of the staff of the gentle’s club, well they had probably left town and good riddance.

It wasn’t without benefit of course. Anichka had a sizable network of contacts and informants that brought business, useful knowledge and goods into the town, helping to keep Merchant Home flourishing and growing. Her influence extended across the wastes and a careful word from her or one of her colleagues could facilitate deals even in the most isolated or recalcitrant regions. For her silent assistance, the woman was given a great deal of latitude in her affairs and overly inquisitive individuals were… dissuaded from bothering such an esteemed (and very private) citizen.

There were a lot of benefits to having a coven of vampires in your town, Lauren thought and she wondered if the Cloister had ever come across any. She’d heard stories, but everyone had. Mutants in the wastelands, strange beasts in the sewers, skinwalkers next to you. The usual tales that were more than ninety-nine percent exaggeration and usually started with the teller being heavily inebriated. She remembered swapping ghost stories with some of the other members of the Cloister’s harems, the girls scaring themselves so much on one occasion that they’d ended up all hiding under one of the king-sized beds, half a dozen preteen girls shaking like leaves as heavy footfalls wandered through the room, only to turn out to belong to Mr. Cutler, who’d come to investigate the strangely-quiet rooms. When he’d peered under the bed, Rachel had hit him with a flashlight. They’d all received a talking-to for letting their imaginations run away with them and since that incident, Mr. Cutler had made sure that someone else was on duty whenever another sleepover was planned.

Thinking of her home, Lauren felt a slight pang. She missed the Cloister. She didn’t ever want to go back, but she still missed it. It had been her home for almost as long as she could remember and the only time she’d left it was the night months ago when a barbarian Wasteland raider with a German accent had kidnapped her.

The Cloister was a settlement unto itself. It sat upon a massive cistern with water reclamation, hydroponic facilities and aquaculture, so its citizens never wanted necessities and a strong security force kept it safe from raiders, a network of alliances and pacts with its neighbours reinforcing this protection. It also boasted top-notch medical facilities and many people travelled hundreds of miles in the hopes of receiving treatment there, but that was not what made the Cloister as powerful as it was. It offered much more than the food and medicine it exported. It had agents and scouts – and raiding parties, Lauren had been forced to realize – constantly scouring the Wastelands, searching for very special, very specific things. The cleverest children, the most beautiful youths. They offered fine prices for these boys and girls, promising health, good treatment and education. It was all true. The Cloister protected and nurtured them like a gardener with prize flowers. But if their offer was refused, then the Cloister’s ‘scouts’ might decide to acquire these children another way.

Every day, men and women came to the stony citadel with their children in tow. Some because they truly believed that this would be a better life for them. Some because they could not afford to care for them. Some because, for one reason or another, they wanted to be rid of them. The Cloister accepted many. Those that were of little use were made into helots, taught and trained to serve, to keep the many technologies and services of the Cloister working and be happy with their lot. Others were educated in a different way and when they came of age, they were sent to the Cloister’s pleasure houses and brothels to tend to the needs of visitors. Still others, like Lauren herself, were taken for the most auspicious of destinies.

The Fall had scarred the Earth deeply, turning arable land into scorched, sour wastes. Lakes and seas, once blue and teeming with life, were now sickly green and choked with algae, or had become something even worse: the crystal clarity of barren, lifeless waters. It hadn’t been just the planet itself that was changed. Humanity itself was wounded. Genetic disease was increasingly common and to find anyone without the markers of an early death for them or their offspring was a prize beyond all measure. These were the children the Cloister scoured the land to find, paying a king’s ransom to poor men and women who didn’t know what they had happened to conceive or slaughtering mothers and fathers – entire families in some cases – for their children. That was the promise that the Cloister offered its clients – the potential for a legacy, pure and untouched by the Fall. That was what brought merchant kings and queens, warlords and general, presidents and leaders and more besides to the Cloister, each of them willing to pay any price that was demanded of them.

She didn’t remember her parents, not really. She’d been told that they’d given her up to the Cloister like so many others. All she remembered of them was from that day. Her father’s strong arms had shaken and he’d gently pried her small fingers off his hand. Of her mother, Lauren only remembered her voice, telling her to be brave.

“Yes, please. And another like that.”

Lauren froze at those words. It wasn’t what they had said, but how they had said it. The accent was soft, educated, with precise consonants and not the mishmash of various Wasteland patois she’d come to recognize it. It was the same accent she spoke with. A Cloister accent. There, at a stall up ahead was a party of Cloister officials. Not scouts or agents, but administrators.

Two women and a man, all of them wearing loose-fitting long robes. The man had a cowl and face shield, the women wore wide-brimmed hats with with veils that gathered at the collar. Off-white clothes that, just like Lauren’s gloves, had a layer of dust on them.  There were a pair of servants there to carry their purchases, remaining mute at the others’ side as they bartered. Behind the servants, surveying the crowds were a pair of the Cloister’s Janissaries. Some of the children the Cloister collected or accepted were trained as wardens and soldiers, with a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness. The Janissaries were the elite of those. They only guarded the harem levels and the highest-ranking members of the Cloister.

For a half second, Lauren was struck by the insane impression that her thoughts had conjured them up out of the ether, but that was impossible. Her heart started to pound and she ducked back into the shadow of a nearby stall shop. Not too long ago, she would have run towards them. Now, the thought was terrifying. For all she teased and needled Dietrich about her kidnapping and the luxuries she’d used to have in her former life, she couldn’t – wouldn’t – ever go back. The scales had fallen from her eyes.

The young woman reached down, subconsciously brushing her hand over her right thigh. There was a tattoo there. It was a triangle with the Latin symbol for woman inside it, and within its circle was a double helix. Beneath it, there was a brief alphanumeric sequence, a verification code as to the mark’s authenticity.

There were three tiers of purity among the aspiring brides and grooms of the Cloister, each represented by one of the symbols she’d been marked with.

The triangle was physical purity. It indicated that the person with it was free from deformity, disease, disfigurement or severe injury. The double helix promised genetic purity. The brides and grooms marked with it were free from any major genetic diseases or defects. The third was sexual purity. Among the grooms-to-be of the Cloister, the symbol was instead the Latin for male, but regardless of the gender of the person, it was not, as many believed, an indicator of virginity. Rather, it stated that the individual’s entire sexual history was known to the Cloister and could be produced on demand. Sometimes a wife or husband wanted their spouse to be a virgin. Other times, they wanted a more experienced partner, but one that had not born or sired children with anyone else. The Cloister catered to every need of its clients.

Individuals who matched all three purities were rare and Lauren had been proud that she was among them. She remembered one time she’d hiked up her skirt to defiantly show Dietrich the tattoo on her thigh, self-righteously and proudly showing how much esteem they’d held her in.

His response had been muffled through the mask he wore, but it had sounded almost sad. “They branded you. Like property.” That had cut more deeply than any scorn or sarcasm and though she’d fumed for days afterwards, she’d eventually realized he’d been right.

Lauren forced her breathing to even out and she peeked around the corner again. The officials were still haggling with a wine merchant, arguing over vintages and prices as the Janissaries scanned the throng of shoppers and barkers for any threat to their masters. Visitors were not allowed weapons in Merchant Home’s markets, but the pair of Janissaries still each carried a rifle slung across their chests, with a pistol and a kukri blade on their waistbands, their polarized visors and painted faceshields showing nothing of their features. What were they doing here? Merchant Home was far from the Cloister and wealthy enough that it didn’t have to bow to them like the smaller villages and settlements scattered through the region.

The veils and masks kept Lauren from making out the officials’ faces, but she had to know them. She knew all the Cloister’s rulers. It was rare for the higher ups to go into the field. It had to be some kind of diplomatic mission. Was this an olive branch? The Cloister trying to firm up its relations with the trading city? Or… or were they here about her? Lauren’s heart skipped a beat at that thought and her knuckles whitened as she clutched her bag of purchases tightly. 

She watched as one of the servants took a bag of wine from the merchant, another paying him in a handful of ingots. It looked like far too much. As another servant appeared out of the crowd, whispered something to the male official and then pointed further up the street to a different shop, Lauren realized that the money wasn’t just for the wine, but for information, too.

She should go. She should go back to The Red Room and tell Dietrich and Anichka about this…

…but they were right here. They were up to something and she needed to find out what. As the group moved on from the wine seller, Lauren took a breath to steady herself and slipped back out into the sunlight to follow them.