Out in the street, he soon realizes just how tender his feet are. Walking barefoot as the other slaves are, he tries to ignore the rocks and other hard items that seem to find their way under his feet with every step.
“How far is this place we’re going to?” he asks.
“Not very far,” he replies. “Just down a couple more streets.”
As he continues to follow the young man, he glances to the people on the street. Almost unbelievably, not one of them is even giving him a second look. He could be a bug crawling on the ground for all they care. Growing in confidence that he’s not going to be found out, he begins to relax. He even grows accustomed, to a point, in wearing nothing but a loincloth.
If this had been the middle part of the day, the sun would have burnt him to a crisp. But seeing as how dusk isn’t very far away, it kind of feels good to have this much skin exposed.
After the slave leads him down one of the side streets, he begins to notice that they are moving into the poorer section of town. The streets are not nearly as kept up as they had been where they came from. Also, the people on the street begin to get a more bedraggled appearance.
Up ahead and to their right lies a narrow alley. Barely wide enough for two men to walk side by side, it’s wedged in between what looks to be a tannery and a rendering shop where they separate fat from animal remains. The smell coming from both places is appalling. To his disgust, the slave turns and leads him to that narrow alley. Having no choice, he follows.
“Stay close,” the young man says as he enters the alley.
Holding his breath against the stench of the two businesses he’s passing between, James steps into the opening. Several times during the course of moving deeper into the alley, his bare feet squish into something soft and feeling very nasty. In the faint light which illuminates the alley, he’s not sure if it’s human excrement he’s stepping in or something else equally offensive. He tries to control his rising gorge as he hurries to catch up with the young man.
The alley grows lighter as they approach the other end. James actually tries to hurry the young man along a bit in order to get out into what he hopes is fresher air. As they reach the end and step from the alley, he takes a deep breath of air that is only slightly better than what he had to endure in the narrow passage. He glances down at his feet but he’s unable to determine what exactly he stepped in.
They’ve come out into an area completely blocked in by the backs of buildings which are only one or two stories tall. Maybe forty feet by thirty, it looks like what may have been a plaza at one time before some of the abutting buildings were built over it. Oddly enough, no windows are present in any of the buildings encompassing this area. Only the alley from which they passed through and a single door in one of the walls are the only apparent ways out of here. It’s to the door that the young man is leading him. Other than themselves, this place is deserted.
“This way,” the slave says to him.
Stepping in behind, James crosses the vacant area. The slave pauses at the door until James catches up with him then says, “On the other side of this door, say nothing. Even should someone come to you and begin talking, say nothing. Understand?”
“Why?” James asks.
“Just do it,” he replies. When he gets a nod from James, he opens the door.
James follows him through and is surprised to find a tall stack of broken pieces of crates, boxes and old furniture no more than two feet before the door. In fact, the stack is higher and wider than the doorway. They are forced to practically squeeze out from the doorway due to the lack of room between the door and the stack. Then the young man closes the door and James is again surprised to discover that the door melds into the wall perfectly, concealing the fact that the door is even there. Whatever this place is, this entrance probably isn’t known by too many people.
Without a word, the slave moves to step out from behind the stack and enters a courtyard bustling with activity. Slaves under the watchful eye of men are hauling crates and other items from a warehouse and stacking them on four wagons. The young man moves over to where two small boxes are stacked not too far from where they entered from. He picks one up and motions for James to do the same. Then he makes a circuitous route around the courtyard and finally brings James to the wagons being loaded.
Placing his box within one of the wagons, he nods for James to do the same. Then they turn about and enter the warehouse out of which the rest of the slaves are hauling boxes. Once inside the warehouse, they encounter a man who is directing the slaves in picking up boxes and crates to be placed on the wagons.
No sooner do they enter the warehouse than the man in charge directs them to pick up a rather large one that takes two. Not hesitating, the young man does as directed and James joins him in lifting the crate. He glances questioningly to the young man and only receives a shake of his head in response.
Crash!
One of the slaves further back in the warehouse has dropped his box and is now lying on the ground holding his leg. The way he’s holding his leg and crying out, James thinks that it may be broken.
Then from out of nowhere two slaves come and immediately take the crate from them and continue hauling it out to the waiting wagons. Startled by their sudden appearance, James doesn’t immediately realize the young man has turned and is walking quickly toward a stack of boxes sitting at the rear of the warehouse. Seeing him moving away from him, James quickly moves to follow. He casts a quick glance to the man in charge of the slaves and sees how his attention is now fully on the slave lying with the broken leg. From the set of the man’s face, he feels sorry for the fate of the slave.
Half a minute later, they squeeze through a gap between the stacks of boxes. Sidestepping, James passes through and comes to a small cleared space between the stacks of boxes and the rear wall of the warehouse.
Moving to a set of three boxes, two set side by side and the third on top of the other two, the young man says, “Give me a hand.”
James comes forward and the young man has him grip the stack of three boxes in two specific spots. Then together, they lift the edge of the boxes up. The edge comes up to reveal that the three boxes are secured to the top of a trapdoor. Once the trapdoor is raised sufficiently, the young man has James pass through first. There’s a drop of three feet and then a series of steps leading down into darkness.
James hops down onto the steps and holds the trapdoor open while the young man hops down beside him. Together they lower the trapdoor and are plunged into darkness. James has an urge to create an orb, but resists it. The last thing he wants to do is to let whoever is down here know what he’s capable of. Keeping that information secret has proved beneficial on several different occasions.
Once the sound of the young man moving down the steps comes to him, he slowly follows. Step by step, he descends ten steps before coming to a narrow passage. Keeping a hand on one wall as a guide, he walks forward, all the while allowing the sound of the young man’s footsteps to lead him.
“Where…?” he begins when the young man’s voice says cuts him off with “Keep quiet!” So keeping quiet, he continues to follow him. At one point, the passage they are in makes a sharp turn to the right. James didn’t realize it quickly enough and wound up stubbing his toe on the wall in front of him.
“Shhh!” the young man whispers when James began cursing his throbbing toe.
After that, he kept one hand out in front of him as well as the one to the side. A good thing he did for it saved his toes another stubbing when the passage abruptly curved back to the left. A faint light can now be seen coming from further down this new passage. It steadily grows brighter as they move toward it until James recognizes that the light is making its way through the cracks around a door.
He quickens his pace when he sees the young man is already at the doorway. Light floods the passage as the door is opened and he has to squint for a few seconds until his eyes get readjusted to the light. Moving out of the passage, James enters what appears to be an ordinary cellar beneath some building.
Two other men are in the room, both dressed as slaves. One of them is the same slave as Scar and Potbelly had nabbed keeping an eye on them in the hallway outside their room.
“Go on in,” the slave says to the young man.
Without a word, the young man steps toward the opening on the far side of the cellar. An archway separates the room they are in with the one lying on the far side. Many candles are lit within the next room and as James passes through the archway, he sees a middle aged man lying on a series of cushions upon a rug on the floor.
“I brought him,” the young man says to the other.
“Leave us,” the man on the cushions says.
