Catt and the Executioner were walking through the streets of Marketday and the Poor Quarter, and chatting as if they were old friends. Catt had the feeling that her mark really wanted to talk.
As they got deeper into the Poor Quarter, the executioner stopped and said, "I guess my shift is over, and I shouldn't really go in like this," she looked around as if checking to see if anyone other than Catt was watching. Then she reached up and removed her mask.
Catt felt her estimate was confirmed. This Executioner was just barely an adult!
"I'm Junior Executioner Fullbrite, by the way." She offered her hand.
Catt shook it.
"It's nice to make a new friend, Fullbrite," Catt said. "My name is Nora."
"Nora," Executioner Fullbrite repeated. "We're not really supposed to let people know who we are, but you seem cool," she smiled brightly.
"Should I take this off?" Catt said, of the red mask she was still wearing.
Fullbrite shrugged. "Whatever, it's up to you."
"Because I need it to hide my terrible disfiguring scar!" Catt said it as if it was a joke.
Fullbrite laughed, but when Catt remained awkwardly silent, Fullbrite said, "Wait… really?"
Now it was Catt's turn to laugh, "No, I'm kidding. I just like it."
"Well it looks good on you," said Fullbrite. "Very fashionable."
And so Catt's face remained hidden.
They continued walking through the Poor Quarter. Catt guessed that they were close to the Caravan Depot, right on the edge of the city. The streets had a lot of blown sand on them, and many of the buildings seemed more dilapidated and less inhabited than most of the rest of the Poor Quarter.
"We're almost there," said Fullbrite, "I want to stash these somewhere. I don't want anyone to know I'm an Axe." She was carrying her mask wrapped up inside her cloak.
Fullbrite slowed and began looking around the darkened street.
"How about there?" Catt suggested, pointing at a half collapsed stairwell in an alleyway.
"Yeah, that'll work, I guess," said Fullbrite, examining the wrecked steps. "I wish I had thought to ditch this stuff at home before we walked all this way."
She peered under the lowest step, and then removing her axe from her belt, she slid it underneath. Then she pushed the wadded cloak and mask after it.
Catt could not believe her good luck. Seeing the opportunity, she said, "I think I'll leave some of my stuff there too." She took out her coin purse from her pocket. "Better not to risk pickpockets," Catt said. She made a show of removing a few Thorbs and dropping them back into her pocket, "For drinks," she explained. The coin purse went under the broken steps as well.
"Good thinking," said Fullbrite, and then looking down at herself, "oh, yeah. This too."
She removed her black shirt with the blue axe over crown emblem, stripping down to just a black singlet and her black trousers. The shirt went under the steps. "This will be better for dancing," she said. "Did I mention there was dancing? There is dancing! It's great!"
Catt surveyed the hiding place. "I can't see anything. Nobody will find that stuff."
They proceeded down the empty sand-blown street. Catt could hear distant music.
"That's it up there," said Fullbrite, pointing down the street. She looked like she was just some youngster on her way to a party. Everything that had made her an executioner had vanished.
Catt saw a row of large tenement buildings, four stories tall each, except for one, which was conspicuously missing, a single story of rubble and blackened brick walls. It was a negative space that drew the eye, like a missing tooth right in the middle of a grin.
"Shortbig House 3 burned down like twenty years ago," said Fullbrite, "we are way outside the Unburning here, so that kind of stuff happens sometimes in this part of the City."
Catt nodded. Most of the windows in the nearby buildings were completely dark, making them seem abandoned, but she could see a flickering red light that looked like torchlight coming from the ruined building.
"Some old bard started coming here and holding a vigil for the people who died, and other people came to listen, and it just kind of became a thing,"
"It's a vigil?" Catt asked, surprised. She had been expecting a sketchy bar.
"Sort of, it used to be," said Fullbrite, "now people just come every night and drink and dance and there is always lots of music."
They approached a gap that had been cleared in the rubble, and Catt could see inside Shortbig House 3. The interior was surprisingly clear, as if someone had long ago hauled away all the collapsed remains of the rest of the building. The centerpiece of the space was a big bonfire in the middle. Seeing it felt surreal. Catt had grown so used to the cool steadiness of the magical lanterns in the palace and had become accustomed to doing things by the silvery light of the moon when she was out and about at night, that this big bold bonfire was jarring. It immediately reminded her of the Golem Jangley in the Smokefields, and her promise to write a prayer for them.
All around the bonfire was a loose ring of benches fashioned out of charred beams and stacks of loose bricks. People were sitting, standing, and dancing in the firelight. A pair of musicians were playing, one with a fiddle, and the other with a big plucked string instrument that Catt didn't have a name for.
Up above all this, the firelight and the shadows of the dancers played on the walls of the nearest buildings, presumably Shortbig houses 2 and 4, which had survived that tragic fire that felled their sibling. The whole atmosphere was joyful and welcoming, but also solemn at the same time.
"See?" said Fullbrite, nudging Catt. "I told you it was good!"
"I really like this!" Catt said sincerely, "It's so alive!"
Catt wondered if Lemmy knew about this place, and what he would think about it. She imagined the souls of whoever had died here being comforted by the lasting company of this festive vigil. She knew she was projecting her own feelings, and couldn't guess what the dead really felt, but she also knew it was okay to wish it. This was a different sort of a prayer, that didn't need a specific deity.