On the Trail

:The Scribe had received the answers he needed from Markus just previous to the kajirus's demise, made a final check on Slade's condition, then left the slave in charge of the latter. Out by nightfall, he had followed the trail out of the underground tunnels that ran beneath the city, through a garden belonging to one of the Ar's senior officials, and ended up at the man's offices near the Central Square.

Watching from cloistered shadows through the night, the man had finally emerged on the steps right before the break of morning. Losing track of time. It was what Scribes did. Whenever immersed in their craft, in whatever form it took, they were oblivious to its change. Aware only because he finally snapped to at the man's exit of the building, the Scribe noticed the slice of daylight awakening on the horizon, then followed the man back to his home. When he needed to, he could be silent. It was trying, and his muscles tended to protest, but it could be achieved.

Just before the man reached his home gate, the hand went around his mouth, cloth soaked in the capture scent a slaver would use to bring down his prey. Dragged some hundred yards or so, the Scribe pushed him down into the cavernous area beneath, then checked to make sure none were aware of his activities by giving a searching look around him. Dropping then down into the hole, the hatch sealed from inside so there was no way to access it from the outside world, the limp figure continued to be dredged along the cobblestone flooring of the subterranean world.

One of those door like hatches opened next, in Tunnel 646, and the body left strapped in a chair that was bolted to the floor. Small slices had been made in the man's flesh, and the scalpel then tossed down a drain into the abyss lower down. The Scribe made his way out, locking this chamber as well behind him. Climbing up one level, he entered a secondary chamber, and turned the aged crank there to allow a measure of water to enter the room where the unconscious man had been left.

Allowed to spill in long enough to reach the man's waist, the flow was then stopped, and a chute opened by the drawing of a lever. Bints, the carnivorous marsh eels he had come to know in Port Kar, flowed too down into the chamber. From there, the Scribe just watched. The man awakened, and the eels began their feast. Now, he tracked the time, waiting...: