306 - Stop in the Name of the Law!

How in Hayel has the office of the Serenity afforded skates?  I’d risked enough by having something so expensive on my feet… being mugged for my skates – if any smash and grab thief could catch me… The drum bounced on my back as I tore down Race, the wailing whistles behind me.  Children on the sides of the street squealed and waved at me while their parents hustled them back out of my path.

The whistles…  in front of me.  If I were fleeing off to the fessas quarter they were perfectly placed to cut me off. It wasn’t being a Dyer or carrying a drum they could arrest me for, but for speaking subversion.

I crossed my feet over, wheeled sideways into an unnamed alleyway off Race that looped back up into the Aitzas quarter where I had spent most of my skating time.  Of course things had changed, with the conquest and sack and rebuilding but it was still more familiar than almost any other part of the city.

I heard a startled shout from behind and one of the Sereniteers, not as good on his skates, lost it and careened into a merchant’s store-front stand of fine cloths and hand-died hanks of thread.  I grinned, they’d be a while untangling him because the owner wouldn’t abide cutting something worth the man’s weight in silver chains.

The alley opened onto Triumphant and I tucked low over Rill Bridge, moving fast enough that my feet left the ground, even though it was only a little bridge.  Market crowds weren’t as thick here, mostly servants and carry chairs and… a Sereniteer scrambled off Egg and Bacon Street right on my heels, wheels squealing – you need to get those fixed, Ser… An express chair screamed by and I dodged into the chair lane going the wrong way, forcing the Sereniteer to wait for its passing.  I caught an approaching whistle and was close enough to see the widening eyes of the lead bearer as he threw on the chair brakes, raising sparks from the stone as they jerked to a wild halt. 

"If you Sereniteers did your JOBS we wouldn't have near-collisions with such miscreants!" The old man… the old Aitzas in the chair was bellowing at the Sereniteer with the bad skates.  None of them had as good skates as mine.

"If you'd let us DO our fikken job maybe we'd catch the fikker!"  I had to grin again as the argument faded behind me.  I was smaller than all the skate Sereniteers--were they called Skateers?—It meant I could turn faster.  A good thing I hadn’t filled out yet and was slight and slender.  The Sereniteers were, to a man, built heavy.

I hopped out and ducked under a shoulder litter and they stopped in confusion, one corner tipping down and the two women inside shrilling as they started to slide.  “He’s there!  There!  You there!”

Right outside the Royal Ancients Theatre a foot patrolman flung his stick in front of me to try and trip me up.  I jumped that one, swerved around his partner’s black and white thrust out, waist high.  A group of young people… other Dyers, milled to one side. “Skate, brother, skate!” One of them yelled after me and someone pulled out a drum.  I could hear it fading behind.  I risked a quick glance and saw them, in the guise of helping, getting in the Sereniteers’ way. I had to grin… they were being so helpful!

There were too many Sereniteers in this quarter, even if I knew it.  A horse kicked at me as I flew by, rider almost unseated, it reared as he used too much bit, the noise fading as I dodged past Our Tiny Enlightened Temple, with its white oval shrine and either a badly painted Goddess or an angel in it, arms open, heart bleeding all over its robe.  “You there!”

It’s like skating with my companions, or with my Mahid, all through here.  I didn’t have to pull any of the really wild stuff that Ailadas did to force me to chase him through the Marble Palace to get my lesson.  I thought my grin would split my face.

“Hey, kid! Want a real job? Skate courier?  You’re good enough.”  That was a fellow waving from the Half-Down bridge where he must have had a good view.  People were leaning from higher windows now, some shouting direction or misdirection from their higher vantage point.  I was surprised how many were cheering me on.

Three skate Sereniteers burst out of Temple Lane almost on me, I shied sideways, was forced to jump the wash curb and go tearing down the dry water channel along Ripple Street.  One of the Sereniteers tried following me straight and managed to swoop into the channel with me.  He came sweeping down the other side and tried to check me as if this was a faib game.

His stick came up as he prepared to either catch me with it or shove me off balance, eyes focused on me when I braked completely and he went howling past, his skates catching in a trickle of water from the street above and he went careening into the raised wall of the channel. I should start keeping count! I was laughing now, as much as I had air to laugh with.

Giggling breathless, I whirled in place and tore off, back the way I’d come, across the dry centre up the wall on the other side, slap my hand onto the edge of the wash-curb and yanked my skates down onto Golden Alley.  His two partners who’d been keeping pace on the street shouted behind me.  One stayed to check the downed Sereniteer, the other whirled as I did and struggled to catch up, but he was on the other side of the channel now, still on Ripple.  My lungs are starting to burn.

Gold Alley was all the shops of the goldsmiths.  Though they might live in the fessas part of town they had their shops here if they were good enough to attract the eyes of Aitzas.  Not so many crowds.  The wail of the Sereniteers whistles just refused to fade behind me.  Now they were ahead of me again. Skate, boy, skate faster.

Even in good training I was getting tired.  I almost stumbled the turn onto Chain Row.  A solas bodyguard, probably at his employer’s urging, flung a café-table and a chair, bouncing into the street in front of me and I jumped, fumbled the landing as a spinning chairleg clipped one foot, but kept my feet.  My back was going to be black and blue from the stinkin’ drum’s bounce.  I needed to lose them but I couldn’t pull off the skates so easily.  They took time to unlace.

Chain ended at the Boardwalk and suddenly I was rapping out a beat with my wheels.  Another moment and those whistles will be on top of me again.  Oh… is it big enough?  I’m bigger than I used to be…

I could only try.  My breath was coming hard and my mouth was dry, the drum had to come to one side so it didn’t stop me…

Rapapapraprarparaprarparaprarapa my wheels are like a herd of stampeding horses.  The Griffon statue was just ahead.  I’d have to hit it exactly right.

“Stop in the name of the law!”  Someone bellowed from Chain… another moment and they’d turn onto the walk, see and I’d be arrested… dead dead dead.

I vaguely noticed there weren’t many people about.  Instead of walking their dogs and cats on leashes they’d faded away from the approaching noise of my chase… my wheels and the whistles…

My right skate hit the slanted claw of the Griffon and I pushed off hard, up and tucked, I was a little low and my shoulder hit just the top of the rising wing and tumbled me in a rough roll onto my back into the hollow between the wings, the drum hitting me in the head before settling… I pulled my feet in close, tucked, put my arms around my knees.  Just as I heard the Skateers hit the boards of the walk.  RAPPARAPPARAPPARAPPA, the sharp, high sound of the wheels dropping to a rumble as they slowed.

From both directions.  I lay still, panting, listening.  I could only see the branches of the tree above me.

“Did you get him?” “Waddaya mean, did we get him? Does it look like we got him?” “He was between us… I swear.” “You let him slip past you!” “No, you let him slip past you! We never saw him!” “We would have heard him roll by on the boards!”

The breeze off the lake was Selestialis.  I just lay and panted quietly, my mouth hanging open so I did not gasp and listened to them argue.  The niche in the statue was a tighter fit than when I’d hidden here to wait for Chevenga, but was still barely big enough.  It had been built for a heroic rendition of an Imperator or a guard so let me tuck in all my bits behind half-raised wings.  The statue was cool from being under the shade of the tree.

“Sera?”  One of the Sereniteers was speaking to someone.  OH SHEN. SOMEONE SAW ME. I clenched my eyes and mouth shut and waited for it all to be over.

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Just a note in thanks to Karen for humorous bystander's commentary in this scene, particularly the elderly Aitzas chair rider and the Sereniteer he's arguing with, and the job-offer guy!  Thanks, Karen!

And another reminder that I will be vacationing this week before the Muskoka Novel Marathon, where Karen and I will be doing our best to write 'Fool on the Mountain' between Friday and Monday.  It will be a livewriting event so sign up for charity.

All proceeds to go to Muskoka Literacy!  Ten dollars gets you in for the weekend and you receive a copy of the completed work... even if we don't finish it all in four days!

I will return to my regular posting schedule on Tuesday, July 20th.  See you then!