Sil and Hirn arrived at the Order House Portal at the same time. Wenda was to join them later with Mat when they
had had chance to find adequate sleeping quarters. Sil had only ever needed to spend a few hours at a time at
Scrapyard before, and so preparing to find billets was a new experience.
Sil already knew where she wanted to set up camp.
She had been planning for a few weeks. She didn‘t share the information with Hirn.
They wandered a street in the City looking for a comfortable place set up a temporary base. Sil chose what had
probably been once an old Inn. There were still metal chairs and tables and bottles above a counter.
Both were wearing glamour spellings, and Sil noticed that Hirn had disguised not only his Elite membership, but also his illness.
“This will do” she announced. “Can you find your way back to the Portal to fetch Mat and Wenda?” she asked.
“Yes” Hirn answered confident that he could. He had been here quite a few times without Sil, and had a fairly good
knowledge of the area where they were. He waited for a moment, hoping for something more from her, but she was
busy arranging a workspace and obviously considered him already gone. So he went.
The problem that Danid had set her interested Sil. It would be a very useful piece of equipment to have, though she
had no intention of ever giving it to the Elite in a working condition. She had chosen this Inn as a workplace
because she already knew that on the first floor was a working portal. Hirn didn’t know that.
Soon she would never need to see him again.
She laid out the portable beds from the pack, and then set to work at a table, dismantling one of the items that they
had taken from a building a few hundred yards away. Someone watching her, she could feel it.
“Come out and say hello” she said, her eyes not leaving the table. She sensed no threat from whoever it was.
A lad of about twelve revealed himself from behind a large machine and sauntered over to look at what she was doing.
“Cool.” he nodded approvingly at her equipment.
His eyes were a sort of green and his hair short and red and sticking up at all angles.
He wore a pair of faded blue trousers and a cotton tabard with the word “Metal” written across it in red letters that looked
to be dripping blood.
Sil looked at him, and smiling beckoned for him to sit down.
The boy sat down at the table with her and said confidently, “I’m Jan, I live here, who are you?”
“I’m Sil, I’m working here for a few weeks with some people. Is that OK?”
“Yeah” agreed Jan after thinking it over for a while.
“How did you get here?” asked Sil after a few minutes. Jan lost all of the teenage reticence and related his life
story to her.
It seemed that Jan always been alone. He had lived with other children once on one of the Worlds, he didn’t know
the name of it. He had never known his parents. One day about two years ago he and some friends had come here
through a portal for a dare. Sil had resisted tutting.
The children could have ended up anywhere, Rintar, or worse.
His friends had found the Scrapyard boring and had gone back never to return, but Jan had liked it and stayed.
He had a skill with the technology, and had made a few things work. He showed her a tube that when a button was
pressed exuded light. ”Cool!” Sil had exclaimed, surprised. She realised that she had involuntarily stolen Jan’s word.
“Yeah” he said excitedly, he opened it up and showed her a secret compartment “that’s the power source, it won’t
work without it. There’s a place down the street with lots of these. I got a box that makes noise and plays music,
and a box with stories in pictures.” He said, obviously delighted to have someone to tell who might be interested.
Sil realised that the effervescent, intelligent and innocent Jan was in serious danger if ever the Order of the
Elite found him. She had to try and protect him somehow.
“Jan”, she said conspiratorially, “what you’ve told me, about the things and what you can do with them?
I think we should keep that between ourselves for now. My colleagues will return soon, and one of them is a very bad man.
Don’t let him know what you can do.”
Jan nodded, in his short life he had met some “very bad men”, and was wise to things that children from more stable
and comfortable backgrounds were not aware of.
“Got it” he said with a wisdom much older than he was.
“I know who you mean. I’ve seen him before. Sometimes he looks weird, all red and blotchy.
He’s been here a few times, sits on that bench in the street and cries. He’s really weird.”
Sil tried to ignore what Jan had said, this was not the time for her to start pitying Hirn.
Never was going to be the time to start pitying Hirn. Still…what Jan had said had shaken her a little.
“What are you making?” asked Jan, interested in her work. Sil saw no reason to lie.
”I’m trying to make a device to act like a portal. I want to be able to press a button and for it to transport me
to the nearest one. It needs to be pretty small though”
“Phew!” he exclaimed, “tricky that is Sil. I know where you can get better tools than those.
You’ll need much smaller ones. I’ll show you if you want!”
“Thanks, yes. I have to wait for Hirn to come back, he’s bringing my son and his nurse.
Then we’ll go and look. Remember, not a word to him.”
“Got it” asserted Jan.
Hirn returned about half an hour later with Wenda carrying Mat.
“Mage mistress Sil” Wenda addressed Sil in her “no nonsense” voice. “here it comes” thought Sil sighing silently.
“Yes Wenda, what is it?” as if Sil didn’t know,
“Mistress I am not happy for young Mat to be in this dusty ruin of a place.” Wenda looked around and saw Jan,
“Gods! Are you starting a children’s home here? Another young lad breathing in dust and with no school to go to?
Eating rations for a week? What are you thinking!”
Sil introduced Jan to them. “He lives here and may have a little information that could help our work.” Jan nodded
to Wenda and Hirn and pulled a face at Mat, Mat giggled.
Hirn put an arm around Wenda
“Now Wenda, we are only here for a week or so. Sil didn’t want to be away from Mat for that long.
I’m sure you can make sure that he’s well looked after here.”
He turned his attention curiously to Jan,
“Hello, I’m called Hirn” Jan shook his offered hand. “Thank you for helping us. What exactly can you help us with?”
“For a start”, Jan said brightly “I can make that lady very happy.” he pointed at Wenda,
“I know where there’s some real food, and its good stuff too!”
He added, “I know where stuff is and I‘ll show you if you want.”
Hirn’s face was a picture of delighted surprise. Sil realised that Jan had already said too much.
Hirn was eying him up with possessive intent. It couldn’t be helped. She would offer Jan a home with them in the Keep,
Wenda too when the time was right. She wanted Hirn to be taken unawares when they left.
Try as she might, she couldn’t recapture the hatred that had once burned so deeply in her.
She didn’t want to hurt him unless there was no other option.
Hirn had taken Mat from Wenda and they were getting to know each other again.
Her heart, hardened and cold from years of working for the Elite was making signs of defrosting again as she
watched him with his son. She had to act soon, or she would perhaps lose her will to go.
There was no point in denying it, she still had feelings for Hirn, after everything that he had done,
and knowing all of his manipulations and cruelties, she still cared about him.
Still loved him.
Still remembered a red rose and a white lily, and the passion they had once shared.
With Wenda placated, Sil and Jan set off to tour the streets. Hirn chose to stay with Mat.
Sil was relieved. It meant that he wouldn’t find out where they got the tools from.
She decided to tell Jan what she was planning. She told him that she was a prisoner of a group of bandits, that
Hirn was one of them and that she intended escaping back to her home. She invited him to come too.
“Yeah, OK” had been his response.
The place that Jan took her to was a treasure house of tools and wires. Sil gasped in amazement. Jan beamed.
“Its great isn’t it?” he said, pleased to have someone who could appreciate what was here.
“There’s a lot of books too, with diagrams and instructions for all sorts of stuff. I could stay here forever and
not be bored, my friends were though.” Jan said sadly.
“My brother would love this place too” said Sil. “We’ll be able to visit here, but we’ll just have to be really
careful when we do that they don’t catch us. Is there a portal nearer here?”
“Yeah” Jan said, pointing across the street to a large building. I found one over there that looks like it works.
“Better and better” Sil muttered.
They took what looked most useful from the rows of shelving and returned to the others.
“We’ll go tomorrow” she told Jan.
It had been easy to escape from the Scrapyard.
Putting a large dose of a sleeping potion into the food that Wenda prepared had been easy too.
She knew that Hirn would not resist the mushrooms.
She made sure that Jan knew not to eat them. She knew that Wenda had no fondness for them and would ignore them.
A few minutes after eating saw Hirn yawning and making an excuse to lie down for a while.
Good.
Jan was playing with Mat. She signalled to him and he took Mat’s hand and led him upstairs to the Portal there.
She had given him the co-ordinates to the Keep.
He was capable, and she had to trust someone. She followed them to the stairs.
” Jan, my brother’s name is Avin, tell him I am following and what has happened, and that this is his nephew.”
She bent down and kissed Mat, then hugged Jan.
“Thank You for what you’re doing.” she said from her heart.
“Its OK” said Jan, “I want to see where you live. I’ve never been in a Keep. It’ll be cool.”
Wenda was tidying up the remains of the meal. Sil joined her.
This had to be fast, there was no time to prepare the woman.
“Wenda, Mat and I are going home. Now. You can come with us if you want to. I would like you to.
It has to be your choice.”
Wenda looked at her for a while, “You don’t mean home to Artez do you?”
“No Wenda, I don’t”
“You’ll be lost without me, so I’ve no option I suppose” she said smiling.
“What about him?” Wenda pointed to Hirn.
“He’s already so lost that I doubt even you could help him .”
Sil took one last long look at the unconscious Hirn and tore her eyes away before she could change her mind.
“I love you” she whispered to him softly. “Fool for it for sure, but I do.”
Then she and Wenda went upstairs, and home to the Keep at last.