PREMIUM | SHORT STORIES
Acolyte Of Shadzog (a gorrkarraus short story)
Author: Bryan Henery
One by one, Gorrkarraus stared into the eyes of his brothers. He saw exhaustion, despair, and the most unforgivable of all, fear.
Fools! Weak, pathetic fools!
He squeezed his eyes shut. When Shadzog spoke, it felt like a spike in the base of his skull. Being chosen had its price.
“Go, then.” He growled, rubbing his temples. “Go crawl to your fate.”
Shadow Riders, hard men all, battle worn and scarred from countless battles, but now they shuffled about like nervous children. Each face pleaded with Gorrkarraus, begging forgiveness. Their shame made him sick. He would not make this easy. He would not justify their fear. One by one, they scurried off to break camp. Gorrkarraus spit into the fire and watched it sizzle.
Weak!
They would crawl to the Black Hoods, prostrate themselves before the beady eyed priests with their books and their talk and their chants. Gorrkarraus would have none of it. He took a long swig of his pigskin bladder and spit again, the caustic liquid flaring in the fire, lighting up the face of his one remaining brother. Tokorazi squatted opposite Gorrkarraus, the reflection of the flames dancing in his nearly black eyes.
“You will not come with us.” Tokorazi knew better than to frame it as a question. He knew Gorrkarraus had made up his mind and would not be swayed.
Soft.
Gorrkarraus clenched his teeth. Tokorazi had commanded the Shadow Riders with honor, and they had shared the blood cup of their enemies many times. He could not see his oldest friend as soft, but Shadzog’s judgement could not be denied.
“Go. I will not follow your coward’s path.”
Tokorazi’s face twisted into a snarl and Gorrkarraus recognized his old friend, the one who laughed as they trudged through the gore, axe felling an enemy with each step. But the look faded, the rage drained from Tokorazi’s eyes and only the worm remained. He rose and left without a word. Gorrkarraus sat alone, staring at the fire as his brothers rode off to greet their fate.
----------
Morning, a dull gray thing, crept through the Darken Wood. Gorrkarraus lay on a ridge of moss slicked rock, staring down at the Black Hoods’ camp, barely visible through the chill mist. The templars crawled like insects with a hive mind, setting up the makeshift structures, the skeleton of a new settlement, another bastion of weaklings twisting the holy truth of Shadzog’s return.
I do not need their praise.
Shadzog needed nothing. Shadzog gives the strength to cut down a foe, the stomach to drink of his blood and devour his soul. Shadzog has no use for priests - only warriors.
Then he saw them, the Shadow Riders chained neck to neck, prodded forward by squat Edwed minors with long spears. Fools. Did they believe they would be given mercy? The Black Hoods were a degenerate lot, but this was Djair. Even among these weaklings, mercy was not tolerated.
Gorrkarraus spied Tokorazi, chained at the end of the line. Of course, he would have to watch the others die before it was his turn. Two minors in steel executioner masks forced the first of the Shadow Riders onto the headsman’s block.
They will die as they lived. On their knees.
Gorrkarraus nodded, but the words gave him pause. So many campaigns, so many battles, each of these Edwed had saved his life several times. The headsman’s axe fell with a sickening thunk, the head rolled into a basket, and the body was kicked aside. They ushered the next victim to the block. The voice in Gorrkarraus’s head went soft, a whisper.
It does not matter how you live. It only matters how you die.
A robed figure came into view, short and built like a barrel. He would have come up to Gorrkarraus’s chest, and even from this distance, the jewels woven into the priest’s beard sparkled. The black moon pendant of Shadzog hung from the dog’s neck, an honor that should never be given, only earned.
A growl, a low guttural sound rose in Gorrkarraus’s gut at the sight of Sectorum Devokalli, the commander of the Disciples of Shadzog in this region. The axe fell again, and the fat priest raised his hands in the air, giving thanks. Shadzog does not dwell above - he is of the earth.
Gorrkarraus’ hand tingled. He closed it into a fist and dark mist slithered out from between his fingers. “This is new,” he thought. Like writhing, intertwining tentacles, the darkness flowed in both directions, rippling and convulsing until it solidified into a long, curved bow that seemed cut from shadow.
Thunk!
Another Shadow Rider’s headless body rolled into the growing pile. Only Tokorazi remained. Gorrkarraus drew a long arrow with a barbed tip and fit it to the ice-cold string of his bow. He drew and took a bead on Devokalli, aiming for the pile of blubber that passed for the priest’s face.
He waited...
They forced Tokorazi onto the blood slicked block. He struggled, but the executioners held him in place.
Still Gorrkarraus waited.
The axe rose, and Gorrkarraus could have fired, could have created confusion and given his friend a fighting chance to escape. He could have saved his friend, but he waited. The axe fell.
He chose his death.
Tokorazi’s head rolled and Devokalli’s jowls stretched into a wide grin. A second later, Gorrkarraus’s arrow sank into the middle of his face.
Shouts of alarm rose through the camp, but Gorrkarraus was already moving. His horse stood obediently a score of paces down the hill and the templars, with their clumsy riding boars, would never catch him. He opened his hand and the bow dissolved into wisps of black mist, but instinctually he knew he could bring it back when needed. Memories of his friend, of the Shadow Riders lingered in his head, but he felt no guilt. They were already fading into his past.
Sheep-sheep-sheep. Prey. You will devour them all.
Gorrkarraus smiled grimly and pulled himself into the saddle. Shadzog pulsed through his heart. His blood pounded with the fury of it.
Like his home, his family, his life up until this moment, and now the Shadow Riders, all gone. Only the future remained.
Fools! Weak, pathetic fools!
He squeezed his eyes shut. When Shadzog spoke, it felt like a spike in the base of his skull. Being chosen had its price.
“Go, then.” He growled, rubbing his temples. “Go crawl to your fate.”
Shadow Riders, hard men all, battle worn and scarred from countless battles, but now they shuffled about like nervous children. Each face pleaded with Gorrkarraus, begging forgiveness. Their shame made him sick. He would not make this easy. He would not justify their fear. One by one, they scurried off to break camp. Gorrkarraus spit into the fire and watched it sizzle.
Weak!
They would crawl to the Black Hoods, prostrate themselves before the beady eyed priests with their books and their talk and their chants. Gorrkarraus would have none of it. He took a long swig of his pigskin bladder and spit again, the caustic liquid flaring in the fire, lighting up the face of his one remaining brother. Tokorazi squatted opposite Gorrkarraus, the reflection of the flames dancing in his nearly black eyes.
“You will not come with us.” Tokorazi knew better than to frame it as a question. He knew Gorrkarraus had made up his mind and would not be swayed.
Soft.
Gorrkarraus clenched his teeth. Tokorazi had commanded the Shadow Riders with honor, and they had shared the blood cup of their enemies many times. He could not see his oldest friend as soft, but Shadzog’s judgement could not be denied.
“Go. I will not follow your coward’s path.”
Tokorazi’s face twisted into a snarl and Gorrkarraus recognized his old friend, the one who laughed as they trudged through the gore, axe felling an enemy with each step. But the look faded, the rage drained from Tokorazi’s eyes and only the worm remained. He rose and left without a word. Gorrkarraus sat alone, staring at the fire as his brothers rode off to greet their fate.
----------
Morning, a dull gray thing, crept through the Darken Wood. Gorrkarraus lay on a ridge of moss slicked rock, staring down at the Black Hoods’ camp, barely visible through the chill mist. The templars crawled like insects with a hive mind, setting up the makeshift structures, the skeleton of a new settlement, another bastion of weaklings twisting the holy truth of Shadzog’s return.
I do not need their praise.
Shadzog needed nothing. Shadzog gives the strength to cut down a foe, the stomach to drink of his blood and devour his soul. Shadzog has no use for priests - only warriors.
Then he saw them, the Shadow Riders chained neck to neck, prodded forward by squat Edwed minors with long spears. Fools. Did they believe they would be given mercy? The Black Hoods were a degenerate lot, but this was Djair. Even among these weaklings, mercy was not tolerated.
Gorrkarraus spied Tokorazi, chained at the end of the line. Of course, he would have to watch the others die before it was his turn. Two minors in steel executioner masks forced the first of the Shadow Riders onto the headsman’s block.
They will die as they lived. On their knees.
Gorrkarraus nodded, but the words gave him pause. So many campaigns, so many battles, each of these Edwed had saved his life several times. The headsman’s axe fell with a sickening thunk, the head rolled into a basket, and the body was kicked aside. They ushered the next victim to the block. The voice in Gorrkarraus’s head went soft, a whisper.
It does not matter how you live. It only matters how you die.
A robed figure came into view, short and built like a barrel. He would have come up to Gorrkarraus’s chest, and even from this distance, the jewels woven into the priest’s beard sparkled. The black moon pendant of Shadzog hung from the dog’s neck, an honor that should never be given, only earned.
A growl, a low guttural sound rose in Gorrkarraus’s gut at the sight of Sectorum Devokalli, the commander of the Disciples of Shadzog in this region. The axe fell again, and the fat priest raised his hands in the air, giving thanks. Shadzog does not dwell above - he is of the earth.
Gorrkarraus’ hand tingled. He closed it into a fist and dark mist slithered out from between his fingers. “This is new,” he thought. Like writhing, intertwining tentacles, the darkness flowed in both directions, rippling and convulsing until it solidified into a long, curved bow that seemed cut from shadow.
Thunk!
Another Shadow Rider’s headless body rolled into the growing pile. Only Tokorazi remained. Gorrkarraus drew a long arrow with a barbed tip and fit it to the ice-cold string of his bow. He drew and took a bead on Devokalli, aiming for the pile of blubber that passed for the priest’s face.
He waited...
They forced Tokorazi onto the blood slicked block. He struggled, but the executioners held him in place.
Still Gorrkarraus waited.
The axe rose, and Gorrkarraus could have fired, could have created confusion and given his friend a fighting chance to escape. He could have saved his friend, but he waited. The axe fell.
He chose his death.
Tokorazi’s head rolled and Devokalli’s jowls stretched into a wide grin. A second later, Gorrkarraus’s arrow sank into the middle of his face.
Shouts of alarm rose through the camp, but Gorrkarraus was already moving. His horse stood obediently a score of paces down the hill and the templars, with their clumsy riding boars, would never catch him. He opened his hand and the bow dissolved into wisps of black mist, but instinctually he knew he could bring it back when needed. Memories of his friend, of the Shadow Riders lingered in his head, but he felt no guilt. They were already fading into his past.
Sheep-sheep-sheep. Prey. You will devour them all.
Gorrkarraus smiled grimly and pulled himself into the saddle. Shadzog pulsed through his heart. His blood pounded with the fury of it.
Like his home, his family, his life up until this moment, and now the Shadow Riders, all gone. Only the future remained.
ONE FINAL MOURNING (AN Obi SHORT STORY)
Written by: Brad Marsh
Edited by: Bryan Henery
CHAPTER ONE
“There, just one more rivet, let's just check the balance… yes! That should do it!”
A glimmer of sunlight breached the cracks in the worn, wooden shutters that barely clung to the window frame. Obi, a small, black-haired, blue-faced Edwed Minor placed an odd looking crossbow on the table. The weapon had been heavily refurbished, and the assortment of tools strewn about the table suggested the work might not be done.
The light of the new day hit Obi’s face, highlighting the dark circles that spoke of another sleepless night, but he just couldn’t stop, not until it was perfect.
“Now,” he muttered to himself, “guess I should test it.”
He snatched up a piece of half eaten in-land fruit and placed it atop a candle stick at the far end of his little work space. Sitting back in his chair, he took careful aim through the new ring-sight he’d installed. He had narrowed the channel to focus the trajectory of the bolt and increased the tension accordingly. If everything worked correctly, the weapon would be just as accurate but twice as powerful.
Taking a breath, he softly pulled the trigger.
Click. Nothing.
“Shit!”
He was afraid the new mechanism would force the triple bowstrings to catch. With a sigh, he tossed the crossbow on the desk.
Thunk!
The echo rang through the room. The bolt hit a metal pipe and amazingly, it stuck, the steel point sinking a full inch into the hard iron. Obi stared at the bolt, still vibrating from the impact, and a broad smile spread across his face. The trigger needed work, but the power was there.
“Eh hem… Master Obi, if you knew what is good for you, you’d take that god forsaken death trap outside. Then again, far be it from me to stop you from taking your own eye out.”
Obi rolled his eyes. He opened the door without getting up as it was within reach in the cramped workspace that also served as his bedroom. Tarvish, another Edwed minor, slightly taller than Obi and considerably older, poked his head in and shot Obi a disapproving look. His charcoal green skin and silver hair complimented his tailored waistcoat and matching pinstripe trousers. Even though he organized accounts for the Pettet Star, Tarvish liked to look the part of a legitimate, Kal Barr Banker. Kind of ironic considering no one in the know would call any of those parasites legitimate. Thieves, pimps, and smugglers, just like the Pettet Star, but at least the Star didn’t pretend to be otherwise.
Tarvish had been in the inner circle for as long as Obi could remember. He divvied coin, settled disputes, and spoke with the authority of the Captain...in most matters.
“Look here my boy,” Tarvish scolded, “the morning soup’s getting cold. I scooped you up a ration and you are lucky I did. You know how those early runners are.”
Tarvish held two bowls of browny-gold soup. It smelt earthy, like someone had taken fresh weeds and added them to an otherwise normal vegetable soup. Not uncommon for this slop first thing in the morning. Cheap to make, could be made in bulk, and it could keep for a good long time.
But something didn’t add up. The sun had just popped up. Too early for breakfast, even for the morning runners picking up their bags of treats. And Tarvish had never brought him a share before.
Oh well.
“Cheers Tarvish, and erm,” Obi looked at the crossbow and then the bolt stuck in the pipe and shrugged. “Don’t worry, it ain’t loaded--not anymore.”
He reached for one of the bowls, but Tarvish pulled it away and proffered the other. “Not that one lad. It has those spices you hate. You know how much I like a bit of root-fire. Gives it the kick we old timers need to start the day, aye?”
“No worries Tarvish.” Obi took the other bowl and slipped past Tarvish into the common area. “Enjoy it.”
Obi’s room was one of dozens lining the hallway, all pretty much identical except for the one at the far end of the corridor. The large, ornate door led to the Captain’s private quarters. Obi remembered the first time he snuck into the Captain’s chambers when he was a child. He used an old plant pot as a stepping stool. Dragged it almost fifty feet down the corridor so he could reach the lock. The scratch marks still chiseled their way through the floorboards, and Obi smiled at this little calling card. He was a sneaky little shit.
He heard voices from the reception area beyond the end of the hallway. He could see their shadows, a group of Edwed conversing just outside the archway. There were a lot of them.
Then the chatter went silent and an imposing figure stepped through the crowd and into view. The Edwed Major’s bald head, deep brown skin and unique silver marbling marked him.
Lazarus.
The Pettet Star’s head of security wore his thick multi-layered leather armor and a barbed-whip knotted to his belt, both symbols of his station. As lead enforcer for the Pettet Star, Lazarus had a reputation as one of the most ruthless Edwed in all of Cor’Vitarr. But why was he dressed for business here in the house?
Tarvish interrupted his thoughts. “Master Obi, let’s get a move on shall we? You have errands to run and I have coin to count, so bottoms up, eh?”
Tarvish gently nudged the forgotten bowl of soup toward Obi’s lips.
“Alright, alright, calm down, Mom,” Obi mocked. “I’ll eat yer damned soup and grab my things.”
He went to sip from the bowl but paused. He smelled something. At first, he thought Tarvish had given him the wrong bowl and he was smelling the pungent root-fire, but no. He knew this smell. Hours in the lab had given him a nose for bases, extracts, solvents and… He looked up at Tarvish’s benevolent grin and he saw it...the hint of a smirk.
Acid.
Obi upended the bowl, spraying the soup in Tarvish’s face. The old Edwed’s grin melted into an expression of pure panic.
Desperately wiping at his face, Tarvish shrieked, “Lazarus, he’s onto…”
Obi’s small blade pierced Tarvish beneath the chin, driving through the nasal cavity and slamming his jaw shut. He covered the old Edwed’s mouth to muffle his shout, and dragged him back into his bed chamber using his foot to slam the door behind him. He flung Tarvish to the floor and locked the bolt in place even as he heard footsteps pounding down the corridor outside
Strike first, strike fast, no mercy.
The Pettet Star and the streets of Cor’Vitarr had taught him well. Obi loaded his crossbow hoping the misfire was a minor glitch and looked down at Tarvish who struggled to wrench the blade from his jaw.
“You fucking amatuer!” Obi hissed. “You think I wouldn’t see you coming!”
Tarvish gasped through the blood filling his throat and mouth. “Y, you’re not so special, you always were that fool’s f… favorite... if it’s not me… they’ll get to you… then they… then they…. w… will...f...fuck the… Pettet s...s...Star.”
He collapsed and Obi watched, with morbid fascination, as the acid in the soup dissolved the skin from his face. Would have done a hell of a number on my insides. The pounding on the door broke him from his trance and he remembered his situation. He quickly rifled through the old Edwed’s clothes, careful not to touch any of the soup. He found a small money pouch. He held it up, feeling its weight. About 30 gold and a few silver, nice. He’d always been good with measurements, especially when it came to money.
He grabbed a cloak, a roll of sour bread and a satchel hanging from the wall filled with his essentials. Various tools and implements of a number of trades clanked about as he swung it onto his shoulder. He heard a crack from the door followed by more pounding and a muted curse. Time’s up.
CHAPTER TWO
Obi hung precariously out the window, struggling to find purchase on the slippery windowsill outside the chateau. Below, the streets of Cor’Vitarr were alive with movement, but no one paid attention to his drama. Edwed in Tekinesh knew how to mind their own business.
He heard the door of his room break open and a stampede of footsteps as the boys of the Pettet Star stormed in.
“Ahhhh Fuck! The little shit knows. Somebody deal with the body. He can’t have gotten far. Search the building and send the runners out to look for him...”
A deeper, booming voice comes through the rabble.
“We need to deal with him now!” Lazarus bellowed. “We’re not the only one’s looking for him. He’s valuable, but not to me. I want him dead. He knows too much and the rats are already swarming for the scraps. I’ll be damned if I don’t get mine. I’ve been waiting too long.”
Obi had heard enough. He shuffled down the roofline until he got to the far end of the building. It wasn't the first time he’s been up here. He used to come out and watch the sunlight hit the shoreline. At night, at just the right moment, the ocean turned a vibrant orange and the stars above inverted themselves to create beautiful dark spots against the waves.
He shook his head violently to snap out of the nostalgia. Now is not the time.
Eventually he crawled his way to a position above two ornate windows, painted in the same style as the entrance to the Captain’s study. He tried to make sense of it all. Why did Tarvish try to kill him? What did Lazarus mean by, “The rats are swarming”?
They’re probably going for the captain next, unless they already…”
Obi pushed the thought out of his head as he made a dangerous leap from the roof lining to a windowsill ten feet away on the other side of an alley. He made a second leap back toward the chateau, landing on a balcony wrapped around the study window. He made sure to keep his eyes locked on the window so as not to fixate on the long drop and the hard concrete below.
Obi peered in the window, but as he expected, the black curtains were drawn, so he tested the latch. Locked. No problem. He’d picked far more complex locks than this. Tekineshi architecture was uniform and cheap, and these iron fastenings were all the same. Sometimes there were a few small differences in the tumbler weights, but Obi has no issues silently bypassing this one.
He climbed into the study and was met by a mess. Papers were strewn across the floor, a wine decanter had been overturned and left an angry red stained on the expensive carpet. Books lay scattered around the study, journals with pages torn out of them, sometimes a few, sometimes whole sections ripped from the spine. Someone had been looking for something and they weren’t being discreet about it. Of the Captain, no sign.
Obi heard muffled footsteps coming from further inside the chateau. Obi wondered if it was a good idea coming back into the house. He should have just left. Like any good thief, he had a hidden stash, enough money to get his ass far away if necessary, but he needed to know what all this was about. He needed to know...Is the Captain OK?
Just when he contemplated leaving, he spied a half burned slip of paper poking out from under a cushion on a modest couch. He pulled it out and inspected it closely. A letter, or the remains of one. The burn marks made most of it illegible, but a symbol at the corner remained untouched.
An open eye.
Obi stared at the symbol long and hard, but eventually approaching footsteps in the hall made him exit the chateau a second time. He shimmied down the side of the building before landing on the cold, damp street below. He took off down an adjoining alleyway and disappeared into the maze-like streets of Cor’Vitarr.
Over the next hour, he glanced over his shoulder obsessively watching for followers. He’d seen the symbol on the paper before, but only on a few, rare occasions and always on wax-sealed envelopes hand delivered to the Captain by Lazarus and Lazarus only.
Obi stopped near the docks, scanning his surroundings before darting between crates, lines of tackle, and pallets waiting to be loaded onto ships. He could hear the seaward birds squawking over the fresh fish spilling from large nets fishermen dragged ashore. Obi called the birds ‘the Assassin’s friend’ as their squawks could mask the sounds of the dying. Across all of Tekinesh the hours just before and after dawn were known as ‘slashers sunrise.’ The fish were gutted in preparation for the morning markets, but also, drunkards from the night before could be found deposited on the street with their throats cut. Moving from shadow to shadow, Obi reached his destination, the one place he knew he could find respite, a place where even the upper ranks of the Pettet Star wouldn’t dare show their faces.
The Wilted Rose, a dive bar and comfort house, paid tribute to the Wharf Runners and to say the Wharf Runners and the Pettet Star did not get along would be a massive understatement. Rumour had it there was a jar of fingers on the bar and if you brought one with a Pettet Star signet ring, drinks were on the house. Obi pocketed his own ring, took a breath, and slipped inside.
CHAPTER THREE
The Wilted Rose had two entrances, a saloon-style set of swinging double doors with the roof clearance to accommodate your average Edwed Major and a smaller, catflap’ style door that opened to a service chute to the basement. Above the door, a sloppily scrawled sign read, “Deliveries/Minors” with the word ‘Minors’ highlighted in cheap paint.
Obi bristled, but he knew the rules. Minors were a commodity, bought, sold, and used for the dirtiest of jobs. The Captain never treated Obi like property, but made sure Obi knew the rest of Tekinesh would. He gritted his teeth, drew his hood up, and used the larger door.
The walls of The Wilted Rose were hung with red bordered tapestries displaying sea battles, monstrous serpents, and great winged ‘moth-like’ beasts rising from the ocean to terrorize hapless ships. Every image told a story out of legend.
The smell of freshly cured meats, spilled ales and mold washed over him and three Edwin played upbeat music on a variety of stringed instruments and knee high drums. Obi couldn’t tell if they were any good as they were drowned out by the clanking of tankards, laughter, and the raucous shouts around an impromptu dice game. Early morning and the place hummed at full tilt.
“Ey errr, little one, check in your sharps with the house before you go in.”
The low gravelly voice came from a plump Edwin Minor leaning on a half broken bar stool in a small annex next to the entryway. Obi ignored him.
“Ey errr, excuse me, you can’t just...”
Obi picked up pace, bounding across the tavern’s uneven wooden floor. He heard a loud thump behind him as the minor at the door half fell off his stool, scrambling to give chase. Obi could hear his wheezing after a few steps.
He dodged left and right, weaving his way through the crowd of patrons, making his way to the bar where he jumped up on a free stool. Two majors glanced down at him. One grinned indulgently like one would to a child while the other just shrugged before they both went back to their drinks. A moment later a pudgy hand grabbed Obi’s shoulder and spun him around.
“Whad’ya think yer doing boy? Check in your sharps with the ‘ouse racker, you can’t come in ‘ere with a piece like that!” The doorman motioned to the crossbow hanging from Obi’s shoulder.
Before he could answer, a softer hand touched Obi’s other shoulder.
“Trouble navigating, young sir?”
A thin Edwone Major behind the bar regarded him coolly. She wore a long velvet evening gown that accentuated her subtle curves. The intricate lace on the front gave the illusion of serpents slithering between her breasts. The dark purple of her skin popped in contrast to the silver of the gown and her long black hair hung to her waist. A dozen pieces of high priced jewelery pierced her eyelids, ears, nose and lips. Obi, who couldn’t help quantifying such things, estimated she had about a hundred gold worth of trinkets there. But the jewelery was not her most striking feature. It was her almost milk-white eyes.
“Rules are rules, Obi. Now be a good lad.”
“I prefer my gear behind the bar,” Obi said, “where I can still see it. Sareena, I see you’ve been importing again? Another Faltus merchant have the pleasure of meeting your crew?”
“If you’re referring to the dress,” she replied, “what can I say? I have exquisite taste. Getting garments like this this far South is rare. You know how it goes, supply and demand. Don’t tell me you of all people are going to lecture me on the reallocation of exuberant goods?”
Obi chuckled and lay his crossbow on the counter for Sareena. She took it and nodded to the doorman who faded into the crowd.
“What are you having,” she asked.
“Just the usual.”
“You haven’t settled your last tab,” she said, but still moved to fill a mug with a thick, dark ale from one of the kegs lined up behind her. “Or are you going to have to work it off like last time?” She set the mug in front of him and then paused, looking thoughtful. “I have a friend of mine who could use your keen eye on a compound she’s trying to replicate.”
Obi reached into Tarvish’s coin pouch and fished out five silver pieces. As they clattered on the counter, the two majors glanced his way, their eyes narrowing. A warning look from Sareena turned them back to their drinks.
She slid her palm over the silver pieces and without touching them, they disappeared from the counter. As Obi raised his mug, Sareena broke eye contact, intent on something over his shoulder, toward the entrance. Her expression darkened and Obi turned to spy three figures. He couldn’t make them out at first as the invasion of sunlight in the shadowed tavern blinded him. His eyes adjusted as the three majors strolled to a table and sat down. A young barmaid, an Edwone minor, greeted them, scribbled their order, then quickly made her way behind the bar and started pouring.
“Keep your head down,” Sareena hissed, moving herself between Obi and the new arrivals. “What the fuck are Skulbrukt’s people doing here?”
Obi looked down at his mug, but couldn’t help hazarding another glance out of the corner of his eye. Three well armed Majors, one Edwone and two Edwin talking and pointing at a large piece of parchment now stretched across the table, a dagger sticking into one corner to pin it in place. Apparently the doorman had no interest in disarming this lot. They looked hardened, experienced and carried well crafted cutlasses. The Edwone had a pistol at her side, a rarity in Cor’Vitarr.
As the barmaid walked past Obi carrying a tray of drinks, he reached out and grasped at her wrist. Looking up, exposing half of his blue skin, midnight purple streaks and pupil-less eyes glistening from the candlelight of the room, he placed a single gold piece on the tray and muttered.
“One now, one after. Keep your ears about you when you deliver those drinks, and be quick about it.”
For the first time since she’d been on duty, she looked up from the floor, eyes meeting Obi’s. She shrugged, broke away from Obi’s grasp without answering. She walked towards the table, tucking the gold piece in her blouse..
“I’ll take that as a yes then,” Obi said.
Sareena motioned toward the service chute across the room, the one retrofitted as the Minors’ doorway. Obi hopped slowly off the stool, taking a quick sip from the ale and then, with his back to the masses, stealthily slipped across the room, entered the chute and slid into the dark basement of The Wilted Rose.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ale kegs, empty and full, lined the walls. Bottles of hard liquor and wines as well, the good stuff on shelves, the swill littering the floor. As his vision adjusted, Obi saw four reinforced crates in a corner, symbology of a serpent burned into each as a brand. He climbed up to the top one of them and used his shortsword as a makeshift crowbar to pry open the lid.
It was filled with neatly folded, fine garments of all colors and sizes. Special orders made in Faltus, all similar to Sareena’s gown. Obi placed the lid back on the crate with a loud bang. Too loud and the sudden noise caused Obi to lose his footing and tumble into a pile of grain sacks off to the side, covering him in dust, dirt and grime.
“W..w, wha… what the hell are you doing?.”
The faint, timid voice came from across a small figure illuminated by the light coming from the stairwell. Obi dusted himself off and stood, hand on the hilt of his shortsword. The young barmaid glared at him.
“I, I, I’ll tell mistress you’ve been a snoopin’ I, I will….”
Obi rubbed his head, his scruffy hair now draped un-stylistically back across his forehead. He looked rough.
“Hehe, wouldn’t catch me dead in those curtains,” Obi joked. “Not my style.”
“I, I, I kept an ear, just like ya asked.” She brushed her hair aside revealing pale, almost light grey skin with a patch of dark blue across her cheek that formed an oval shape. It covered half of her lower lip. Her eyes were pupil-less olive green. Pretty, even if she did carry the tell-tell signs of a thirteen hour work day.
Obi kicked a smaller crate across the room in her direction and sat down. He reached into the coin purse and pulled out another gold piece, holding it up so it glinted in the dim light.
“Well? I’m all ears.”
“Th...Th… They got some sort of a, erm, a map on the table. Streets, buildings and one of the larger houses were circled. They--”
Obi cut her off. “What did the large building look like? Did you see any street names? Landmarks? oceanside or more in-land?”
“I, I… It was er, a large building by the docks,” his insistence made her nervous and her stutter got worse. “B...B...Big L shape I think… Th...They were talking about the owner being gone. I...It’s unprotected, s...something about needing to get there before midnight because of…”
Obi cuts her off again, throwing the gold piece to the floor and hopping to his feet. He brushed past her, looking up towards a small window opening to the adjoining street at ground level.
He knew the building. He’d spent long hours in the Pettet Star’s brewing lab mixing Streak. The warehouse fronted as a fuel depot for steam-powered ships. No one thought twice about the increased security when combustibles were stored. No common thief would go near the place. But these Skulbrukt thugs were no joke.
The pieces were starting to come together. The Captain’s disappearance, the attempt on Obi’s life, “the rats are swarming” and the warehouse would be next.
Power shifts this big didn’t happen often and only when the head of a big crew died or got usurped. It always ends with a reshuffling and reshufflings were always bloody.
Obi paused before climbing out of the basement. The young barmaid looked up at him as she stowed the second gold piece.
“Tell Sareena, thank you... thank you for being there, all these years.” He looked down, thinking. “And tell her... I’m not sorry for what I’m about to do.”
Obi crawled through the small window and disappeared. Leaving a confused barmaid wondering what he meant.
CHAPTER FIVE
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the last shimmer of sunlight danced on the calm surface of the sea. Obi, cloak drawn over his head, perched on a tall wall alongside an L shaped warehouse. His feet hung over the edge and he kicked the wall with his heels playfully as he waited for full dark. The streets are quiet, as quiet as Cor’Vitarr ever got. The last few Edwed were leaving their shops, locking the heavy iron gates, and checking them twice. The docks were no place to be at night. Obi watched the cycle, thinking how it repeated itself day after day.
Is this all there is? Survive, and try to make a few coins? There has to be more.
Within minutes, darkness blanketed the docks.
Obi’s senses perk up. A low wind blew his cloak across his face as he silently leapt from the wall to the roof of the warehouse. He made his way to an open skylight and onto a top floor walkway overlooking hundreds of barrels of black powder evenly spaced in the centre of a large otherwise empty warehouse. Strong steel beams supporting a heavily reinforced building made from ten inch thick stone walls on all sides.
Crouching down behind a low railing, he peered over the edge and spied four figures emerging from a sliding floor panel that hid a staircase leading underneath the warehouse. A dim green hue filled the stairwell. The brewing lab. Obi knew it all too well. He’d worked there, on and off, for most of his life. The acrid, chemical smell wafted up to him, and Obi couldn’t help thinking of the tingling sensation when he upended a vial of Streak and it first touched his tongue. He tried to shake the thought out of his head, but it lingered.
He remembered a day, no more than three years ago, when the Captain stood over his shoulder, the boiling beakers, steam rising out through a ventilation shaft, and chemical smell, this same smell, but fresh and burning.
“Don’t know what ya done there lad,” the Captain said, “but this batch has a purity I’ve never seen ‘ere before. Did ye follow the instructions, exactly?”
Obi moved around the table and turned the heat down on a nearby vial. He took out a small pot of crystalline substance, measured an exact amount and with a steady hand, poured it into a large vat at the end of the table.
“Nah,” Obi replied, “the compounds were coming out all wrong, you’re using twice the amount of Mourning’s Kiss you need and it’s making the temperature spike too soon. Half the resin burns off and you lose the potency.”
“I, ehhh, yeah, I, errr right lad, smart boy. You can run the first batch tomorrow mornin’ aye?”
He gave Obi a heavy handed pat on the back causing him to bump into the table shaking the vials of his alchemy set.
“Look, errr, Obi my boy,” he leaned in, lowering his voice even though they were the only two in the lab. “With the increased margin from this batch, I think I may be able to fund a little venture soon. You keep this up and I’ll think about maybe bringin’ ye with me, aye?”
Obi, still holding the beakers steady, gave the Captain a slight nod, struggling to hide his excitement, thinking about being out on the open sea again. He enjoyed the quiet solitude of the lab, but nothing compared to seeing the stars out at sea, drinking and telling stories with the crew. The captain turned and made his way up the stairs leaving Obi behind, surrounded by vials of fluorescent green Streak.
The figures came out of the stairwell and congregated in the centre of the warehouse. Obi recognized one of them.”
Lazarus, you fucking snake.
The tall silver skinned Edwed towered over the others. They broke off in all directions leaving him alone. Obi raised his crossbow and took aim. Before firing, he heard the sound of a struggle, making him pause. It came from an adjacent room where one of the group had splintered off to. It grew louder and then glass shattered as a body was thrown through a window at the far end of the warehouse.
The three Skulbrukts burst out into the main room. The Edwone with the pistol placed her foot on the back of the now prone individual lying on the floor. Her rapier flashed and she drove it through the back of her victim’s neck, passing through flesh and embedding its point in the floor. Obi saw the body twitch and heard a gurgling sound before it went still, black blood pooling around it.
“Now, now, let’s be civil about this Silver Vein,” she said, freeing her blade with a wet sound. “Wouldn’t want this fine steel making its way through your throat now would we? After all, if you want this transaction to go smoothly and to walk away with your little title, you’ll ensure we get what we want.”
She walked over to the floor panel and tapped it with her rapier.
“Knock knock?”
Lazarus, with one hand over his whip, turned to face the Edwone. He kicked the sliding door open revealing the green hue from beneath and waved the Skulbrukts in.
“You know he’s still out there, don’t you? Little shit caught on to us this mornin’. Probably halfway up into the mountains by now. You think you can replicate it without his help? Drugs aren’t exactly your area of expertise are they, Pasha?” He smiled a crooked, derisive smile. “That’s more your mistress's domain.”
Pasha didn’t take the bait. “Oh I know all about the Knee High’s exploits. Since you and your boys were too incompetent to handle a child, I had to take things into my own hands.”
She pulled out a dark, black stained woven bag, untied a small string at the end and dumped a severed head on the floor. Light-pale skin with a blue ink blot in the shape of an oval across the lower lip, pigtails still attached to the scalp.
“Had to peel her skin chunk by chunk to get here to talk. The Knee High is still in the city, in fact...”
She paused, glaring around the room. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the shadowy recesses of the building.
“Come out, Obi,” she called in a sing-song voice. “I know you’re watching. Be a good boy and spare us having to drag you out kicking and screaming. I promise you’ll have a place with us. All you have to do is play along, mix us up some of your special Green. You’re meant for bigger things than your captain had in mind.”
“That fool,” Lazarus spat, more to himself. “Spending our fortunes on fantasies and pointless ventures. We could have been building an empire, but no. Underpaid and overworked and stuck with the scraps from his table!”
Pasha looked at him with disgust. She plans on killing you, Obi thought. But I’m going to beat her to it.
He took aim, focusing on the spot between Lazarus' eyes. He remembered the pipe in his room. The bolt should go clean through the bastard’s skull.
Click. Nothing.
Damn!
“Up there, in the rafters!” Lazarus bellowed.
Both Pasha and Lazarus darted in separate directions. Obi’s heart raced as he tried to keep track of them. Pasha disappeared behind a steel pillar. Obi looked up to the open skylight. If he could only reach it in time. He climbed.
He shimmied up the trusses, grabbing at whatever handholds he could find. He heard a buzz of movement below, but couldn’t think about that. One final reach and...
Shhhhhhphwip!
Lazarus’ whip cracked and lashed around Obi’s throat. He gasped for air and grabbed at the barbed cord now cutting into his throat. He felt the yank and then he was floating--no floor, no ceiling, no whip, just peacefully floating in the air.
Thump!
The air blasted from his lungs as he hit the ground and his vision exploded in a flash of white light. When it cleared, pain erupted up his right leg and he looked down to see his knee bent at an impossible angle.
Lazarus' leering face filled his field of vision. “Can’t run now lad.”
Lazarus gestured toward Obi’s severely dislocated leg. Obi could barely think through the pain and feared he’d lose consciousness. Lazarus rested his large boot on the dislocated portion of the knee almost gently, but then pressed.
Obi howled, “Urrrrggggaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”
“I don’t know what that old man saw in you,” Lazarus taunted.
Lazarus pressed again, harder until a loud snap sounded over Obi’s screams. The knee had popped back into place, but the pain flared even worse. Then, just as quickly, it started to dissipate. Obi looked down and breathed a sigh of relief seeing his leg back in its proper alignment.
Lazarus scowled, realizing his torture had actually helped and was about to correct his mistake when Pasha emerged from the shadows, smiling down at her prize.
CHAPTER SIX
Lazarus and Pasha bound Obi’s hands and dragged him down into the subterranean lab. His leg still throbbed but he was able to limp across the room and collapse into a chair at his workstation. Before he could recover his wits, Lazarus slammed his head into the table with a loud thud. A second later, a large leather bound journal slammed down next to him, missing his face by millimeters.
“This is all we could find in his study.” Pasha said, “but it’s in his cant. Maybe the boy can read it?”
“Well, Obi? Best not keep her waiting. What do you say?”
Before he could answer, Lazarus’s meaty hand grabbed the back of Obi’s skull, lifted him as Pasha opened the book and then slammed him back down on the open page. When Lazarus pulled him back up, there was blood splattered on the Captain's neat, careful script.
With no small effort, Obi twisted in Lazarus’ grip and looked at Pasha. “Well, if you er… flick to the back page, on the binding, look closely… there’s a hidden message… it should answer your questions.”
Pasha followed Obi’s instructions and turned to the back page. There was a small inscription on the reverse of the book in an almost illegible, childlike script. It read: *Obi woz ‘ere, age 13*
Pasha turned a cold eye. “You think this is a fucking joke, boy!!”
Before he could react, she slammed his face into the desk for a second time. He felt warm blood pour from his nose.
“You... are... going to tell me how to increase production and potency of Streak. One way or another.” She thought for a second, then seemed to come to a decision. “Fuck it. We’ve got all night. You can show me!”
She drew her rapier and untied Obi’s wrists. She pointed it at the alchemist’s kit.
“Do what she says, boy.” Lazarus growled. “No games. Then...I promise...it’ll be quick.”
Over the next hour, Obi got to work on the first stages of Streak production, mixing the correct substances. Pasha furiously made notes in a small notepad paying particular attention to quantity and length of processes. At various points, Obi made use of some obscure looking, oddly shaped glass beakers with multiple enlarged chambers that seemed to have been blown and crafted specifically for this method. Pasha noted the equipment and watched Obi intently.
Little by little, a faint green hue started to emanate from the vials at the far end of the production line. “This is the important bit,” Obi said. “Make sure you note this down. Pass me that er, that er, thin looking red vial at the end there.”
Obi waved his hand to a shelf nearby with a series of different colored beakers, pouches of herbs, salts and chemicals.
“This one?” Lazarus said.
“No, no, no! Do you want to kill us all you moron? The thin one!”
Lazarus passed the vial to Obi who uncorked it and held it next to the neon green drug that had taken the better part of the night to create.
“This here, is Ocean’s Blood,” Obi said, “A rare distilled mineral found in a specific coral that only forms in one region off the coast of Tekinesh. It’s deep red color comes from its iron content. It’s the catalyst for the whole procedure.”
As Obi added a drop of it to the glowing green vial of Streak, it turned dark black and a slight foam formed as the mixture began to hiss.
“And hey… if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.”
Obi smashed the vial onto the desk and covered his mouth with his cloak. He rolled to the side as a thick cloud of black mist erupted, enveloping the room. Pasha turned to Lazarus, ready to shout and order, but heaved and coughed violently instead. The veins in her face thickened and turned black. Her eyes went red with broken blood vessels and her confident scowl turned into a look of blind panic.
Seeing Pasha collapse, her veins bursting from beneath her skin and decaying in front of his eyes, Lazarus turned away from the cloud, scrambling like a madman to get some distance. Obi was nowhere to be seen. He unfurled his whip and bellowed the minor’s name. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blue face, a cheeky salute, and then Obi was running up the stairs out of the brewing lab.
Obi breached the surface, a small hint of daylight creeping from the cracks of the skylights above. He heard an agonized scream from below as he rigged a small fuse into one of the large barrels of black powder.
They use this stuff for steam engines, but it could make a great weapon when exposed to an open flame. He lit the fuse and scrambled up the rafters, making for the rooftop.
His leg throbbing and barely supported him, but he struggled through. He clambered through the skylight, and marvelled for a second at the vast golden-orange reflection of the rising sun on the waves. Morning bells chimed through Cor’Vitarr signally a new day.
Silence... and then...
Boom!
Boom!
BOOM!!!!
The explosions ripped through the building, splitting the rooftop into three pieces. Steel shrieked as it was ripped apart and Obi was thrown fifteen feet, sliding to a stop inches away from a forty foot drop to the harbor below. Fire enveloped the building, licking at his hair and starting to peel the skin on his forehead.
Obi used all of the fight left in him to crawl to the water facing side of the roof. Just before he could leap in, a familiar lashing sliced into his ankle as Lazarus’s whip wrapped around his leg.
“Obi!” he shrieked in rage.
Obi rolled onto his back, ankle bleeding from deep lacerations. He looked at the mortally wounded Lazarus, blackened horrifically on one side of his body. His clothes were torn and fused with his melted skin. He leapt on top of Obi and began choking him with all the strength he had left. His one working eye glared with murderous rage as Obi’s vision began to darken and fade.
Obi succumbed to the inevitable, gasping as the last of his breath failed. Seconds before the darkness claimed him, he saw a winged, almost serpentine creature drift across the dawn sky and become one with a constellation. It flickered briefly and then was gone.
“Kreesh ta, sayeer, uuhm kah pree ya shileth!”
Obi found a foothold on a nearby piece of rubble and kicked off with everything he had left. He and Lazarus plummeted into the ocean from the rooftop. When the shock of the cold water hit them, Lazarus’ grip released and he disappeared into the murky depths.
EPILOGUE
Obi floated for a time. An hour, maybe two? Who knows.
A seaward bird landed on his chest, pushing him underwater for a moment, causing him to cough up the salty brine and regain full consciousness.
With a half doggy-paddle, half side-stroke he managed to find his way to a nearby ship. He gripped a rope line that had been recently untied and left to dangle over the deck. He heard the faint sounds of shouting as Edwed tried to put out the fire of a warehouse down shore. With the majority of the crew distracted by the commotion, Obi climbed into a lower anchor port and collapsed into a pile of netting as far below deck as he could find.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Obi heard the murmurs and whispers of those above. They unfurled the sails, reeled in the anchor and after a brief moment he felt the ship lurch as it left the dock.
“Make haste, make haste. Look alive like your lover’s waiting for ya and let’s make good time you dogs. Costien awaits.”
END
“There, just one more rivet, let's just check the balance… yes! That should do it!”
A glimmer of sunlight breached the cracks in the worn, wooden shutters that barely clung to the window frame. Obi, a small, black-haired, blue-faced Edwed Minor placed an odd looking crossbow on the table. The weapon had been heavily refurbished, and the assortment of tools strewn about the table suggested the work might not be done.
The light of the new day hit Obi’s face, highlighting the dark circles that spoke of another sleepless night, but he just couldn’t stop, not until it was perfect.
“Now,” he muttered to himself, “guess I should test it.”
He snatched up a piece of half eaten in-land fruit and placed it atop a candle stick at the far end of his little work space. Sitting back in his chair, he took careful aim through the new ring-sight he’d installed. He had narrowed the channel to focus the trajectory of the bolt and increased the tension accordingly. If everything worked correctly, the weapon would be just as accurate but twice as powerful.
Taking a breath, he softly pulled the trigger.
Click. Nothing.
“Shit!”
He was afraid the new mechanism would force the triple bowstrings to catch. With a sigh, he tossed the crossbow on the desk.
Thunk!
The echo rang through the room. The bolt hit a metal pipe and amazingly, it stuck, the steel point sinking a full inch into the hard iron. Obi stared at the bolt, still vibrating from the impact, and a broad smile spread across his face. The trigger needed work, but the power was there.
“Eh hem… Master Obi, if you knew what is good for you, you’d take that god forsaken death trap outside. Then again, far be it from me to stop you from taking your own eye out.”
Obi rolled his eyes. He opened the door without getting up as it was within reach in the cramped workspace that also served as his bedroom. Tarvish, another Edwed minor, slightly taller than Obi and considerably older, poked his head in and shot Obi a disapproving look. His charcoal green skin and silver hair complimented his tailored waistcoat and matching pinstripe trousers. Even though he organized accounts for the Pettet Star, Tarvish liked to look the part of a legitimate, Kal Barr Banker. Kind of ironic considering no one in the know would call any of those parasites legitimate. Thieves, pimps, and smugglers, just like the Pettet Star, but at least the Star didn’t pretend to be otherwise.
Tarvish had been in the inner circle for as long as Obi could remember. He divvied coin, settled disputes, and spoke with the authority of the Captain...in most matters.
“Look here my boy,” Tarvish scolded, “the morning soup’s getting cold. I scooped you up a ration and you are lucky I did. You know how those early runners are.”
Tarvish held two bowls of browny-gold soup. It smelt earthy, like someone had taken fresh weeds and added them to an otherwise normal vegetable soup. Not uncommon for this slop first thing in the morning. Cheap to make, could be made in bulk, and it could keep for a good long time.
But something didn’t add up. The sun had just popped up. Too early for breakfast, even for the morning runners picking up their bags of treats. And Tarvish had never brought him a share before.
Oh well.
“Cheers Tarvish, and erm,” Obi looked at the crossbow and then the bolt stuck in the pipe and shrugged. “Don’t worry, it ain’t loaded--not anymore.”
He reached for one of the bowls, but Tarvish pulled it away and proffered the other. “Not that one lad. It has those spices you hate. You know how much I like a bit of root-fire. Gives it the kick we old timers need to start the day, aye?”
“No worries Tarvish.” Obi took the other bowl and slipped past Tarvish into the common area. “Enjoy it.”
Obi’s room was one of dozens lining the hallway, all pretty much identical except for the one at the far end of the corridor. The large, ornate door led to the Captain’s private quarters. Obi remembered the first time he snuck into the Captain’s chambers when he was a child. He used an old plant pot as a stepping stool. Dragged it almost fifty feet down the corridor so he could reach the lock. The scratch marks still chiseled their way through the floorboards, and Obi smiled at this little calling card. He was a sneaky little shit.
He heard voices from the reception area beyond the end of the hallway. He could see their shadows, a group of Edwed conversing just outside the archway. There were a lot of them.
Then the chatter went silent and an imposing figure stepped through the crowd and into view. The Edwed Major’s bald head, deep brown skin and unique silver marbling marked him.
Lazarus.
The Pettet Star’s head of security wore his thick multi-layered leather armor and a barbed-whip knotted to his belt, both symbols of his station. As lead enforcer for the Pettet Star, Lazarus had a reputation as one of the most ruthless Edwed in all of Cor’Vitarr. But why was he dressed for business here in the house?
Tarvish interrupted his thoughts. “Master Obi, let’s get a move on shall we? You have errands to run and I have coin to count, so bottoms up, eh?”
Tarvish gently nudged the forgotten bowl of soup toward Obi’s lips.
“Alright, alright, calm down, Mom,” Obi mocked. “I’ll eat yer damned soup and grab my things.”
He went to sip from the bowl but paused. He smelled something. At first, he thought Tarvish had given him the wrong bowl and he was smelling the pungent root-fire, but no. He knew this smell. Hours in the lab had given him a nose for bases, extracts, solvents and… He looked up at Tarvish’s benevolent grin and he saw it...the hint of a smirk.
Acid.
Obi upended the bowl, spraying the soup in Tarvish’s face. The old Edwed’s grin melted into an expression of pure panic.
Desperately wiping at his face, Tarvish shrieked, “Lazarus, he’s onto…”
Obi’s small blade pierced Tarvish beneath the chin, driving through the nasal cavity and slamming his jaw shut. He covered the old Edwed’s mouth to muffle his shout, and dragged him back into his bed chamber using his foot to slam the door behind him. He flung Tarvish to the floor and locked the bolt in place even as he heard footsteps pounding down the corridor outside
Strike first, strike fast, no mercy.
The Pettet Star and the streets of Cor’Vitarr had taught him well. Obi loaded his crossbow hoping the misfire was a minor glitch and looked down at Tarvish who struggled to wrench the blade from his jaw.
“You fucking amatuer!” Obi hissed. “You think I wouldn’t see you coming!”
Tarvish gasped through the blood filling his throat and mouth. “Y, you’re not so special, you always were that fool’s f… favorite... if it’s not me… they’ll get to you… then they… then they…. w… will...f...fuck the… Pettet s...s...Star.”
He collapsed and Obi watched, with morbid fascination, as the acid in the soup dissolved the skin from his face. Would have done a hell of a number on my insides. The pounding on the door broke him from his trance and he remembered his situation. He quickly rifled through the old Edwed’s clothes, careful not to touch any of the soup. He found a small money pouch. He held it up, feeling its weight. About 30 gold and a few silver, nice. He’d always been good with measurements, especially when it came to money.
He grabbed a cloak, a roll of sour bread and a satchel hanging from the wall filled with his essentials. Various tools and implements of a number of trades clanked about as he swung it onto his shoulder. He heard a crack from the door followed by more pounding and a muted curse. Time’s up.
CHAPTER TWO
Obi hung precariously out the window, struggling to find purchase on the slippery windowsill outside the chateau. Below, the streets of Cor’Vitarr were alive with movement, but no one paid attention to his drama. Edwed in Tekinesh knew how to mind their own business.
He heard the door of his room break open and a stampede of footsteps as the boys of the Pettet Star stormed in.
“Ahhhh Fuck! The little shit knows. Somebody deal with the body. He can’t have gotten far. Search the building and send the runners out to look for him...”
A deeper, booming voice comes through the rabble.
“We need to deal with him now!” Lazarus bellowed. “We’re not the only one’s looking for him. He’s valuable, but not to me. I want him dead. He knows too much and the rats are already swarming for the scraps. I’ll be damned if I don’t get mine. I’ve been waiting too long.”
Obi had heard enough. He shuffled down the roofline until he got to the far end of the building. It wasn't the first time he’s been up here. He used to come out and watch the sunlight hit the shoreline. At night, at just the right moment, the ocean turned a vibrant orange and the stars above inverted themselves to create beautiful dark spots against the waves.
He shook his head violently to snap out of the nostalgia. Now is not the time.
Eventually he crawled his way to a position above two ornate windows, painted in the same style as the entrance to the Captain’s study. He tried to make sense of it all. Why did Tarvish try to kill him? What did Lazarus mean by, “The rats are swarming”?
They’re probably going for the captain next, unless they already…”
Obi pushed the thought out of his head as he made a dangerous leap from the roof lining to a windowsill ten feet away on the other side of an alley. He made a second leap back toward the chateau, landing on a balcony wrapped around the study window. He made sure to keep his eyes locked on the window so as not to fixate on the long drop and the hard concrete below.
Obi peered in the window, but as he expected, the black curtains were drawn, so he tested the latch. Locked. No problem. He’d picked far more complex locks than this. Tekineshi architecture was uniform and cheap, and these iron fastenings were all the same. Sometimes there were a few small differences in the tumbler weights, but Obi has no issues silently bypassing this one.
He climbed into the study and was met by a mess. Papers were strewn across the floor, a wine decanter had been overturned and left an angry red stained on the expensive carpet. Books lay scattered around the study, journals with pages torn out of them, sometimes a few, sometimes whole sections ripped from the spine. Someone had been looking for something and they weren’t being discreet about it. Of the Captain, no sign.
Obi heard muffled footsteps coming from further inside the chateau. Obi wondered if it was a good idea coming back into the house. He should have just left. Like any good thief, he had a hidden stash, enough money to get his ass far away if necessary, but he needed to know what all this was about. He needed to know...Is the Captain OK?
Just when he contemplated leaving, he spied a half burned slip of paper poking out from under a cushion on a modest couch. He pulled it out and inspected it closely. A letter, or the remains of one. The burn marks made most of it illegible, but a symbol at the corner remained untouched.
An open eye.
Obi stared at the symbol long and hard, but eventually approaching footsteps in the hall made him exit the chateau a second time. He shimmied down the side of the building before landing on the cold, damp street below. He took off down an adjoining alleyway and disappeared into the maze-like streets of Cor’Vitarr.
Over the next hour, he glanced over his shoulder obsessively watching for followers. He’d seen the symbol on the paper before, but only on a few, rare occasions and always on wax-sealed envelopes hand delivered to the Captain by Lazarus and Lazarus only.
Obi stopped near the docks, scanning his surroundings before darting between crates, lines of tackle, and pallets waiting to be loaded onto ships. He could hear the seaward birds squawking over the fresh fish spilling from large nets fishermen dragged ashore. Obi called the birds ‘the Assassin’s friend’ as their squawks could mask the sounds of the dying. Across all of Tekinesh the hours just before and after dawn were known as ‘slashers sunrise.’ The fish were gutted in preparation for the morning markets, but also, drunkards from the night before could be found deposited on the street with their throats cut. Moving from shadow to shadow, Obi reached his destination, the one place he knew he could find respite, a place where even the upper ranks of the Pettet Star wouldn’t dare show their faces.
The Wilted Rose, a dive bar and comfort house, paid tribute to the Wharf Runners and to say the Wharf Runners and the Pettet Star did not get along would be a massive understatement. Rumour had it there was a jar of fingers on the bar and if you brought one with a Pettet Star signet ring, drinks were on the house. Obi pocketed his own ring, took a breath, and slipped inside.
CHAPTER THREE
The Wilted Rose had two entrances, a saloon-style set of swinging double doors with the roof clearance to accommodate your average Edwed Major and a smaller, catflap’ style door that opened to a service chute to the basement. Above the door, a sloppily scrawled sign read, “Deliveries/Minors” with the word ‘Minors’ highlighted in cheap paint.
Obi bristled, but he knew the rules. Minors were a commodity, bought, sold, and used for the dirtiest of jobs. The Captain never treated Obi like property, but made sure Obi knew the rest of Tekinesh would. He gritted his teeth, drew his hood up, and used the larger door.
The walls of The Wilted Rose were hung with red bordered tapestries displaying sea battles, monstrous serpents, and great winged ‘moth-like’ beasts rising from the ocean to terrorize hapless ships. Every image told a story out of legend.
The smell of freshly cured meats, spilled ales and mold washed over him and three Edwin played upbeat music on a variety of stringed instruments and knee high drums. Obi couldn’t tell if they were any good as they were drowned out by the clanking of tankards, laughter, and the raucous shouts around an impromptu dice game. Early morning and the place hummed at full tilt.
“Ey errr, little one, check in your sharps with the house before you go in.”
The low gravelly voice came from a plump Edwin Minor leaning on a half broken bar stool in a small annex next to the entryway. Obi ignored him.
“Ey errr, excuse me, you can’t just...”
Obi picked up pace, bounding across the tavern’s uneven wooden floor. He heard a loud thump behind him as the minor at the door half fell off his stool, scrambling to give chase. Obi could hear his wheezing after a few steps.
He dodged left and right, weaving his way through the crowd of patrons, making his way to the bar where he jumped up on a free stool. Two majors glanced down at him. One grinned indulgently like one would to a child while the other just shrugged before they both went back to their drinks. A moment later a pudgy hand grabbed Obi’s shoulder and spun him around.
“Whad’ya think yer doing boy? Check in your sharps with the ‘ouse racker, you can’t come in ‘ere with a piece like that!” The doorman motioned to the crossbow hanging from Obi’s shoulder.
Before he could answer, a softer hand touched Obi’s other shoulder.
“Trouble navigating, young sir?”
A thin Edwone Major behind the bar regarded him coolly. She wore a long velvet evening gown that accentuated her subtle curves. The intricate lace on the front gave the illusion of serpents slithering between her breasts. The dark purple of her skin popped in contrast to the silver of the gown and her long black hair hung to her waist. A dozen pieces of high priced jewelery pierced her eyelids, ears, nose and lips. Obi, who couldn’t help quantifying such things, estimated she had about a hundred gold worth of trinkets there. But the jewelery was not her most striking feature. It was her almost milk-white eyes.
“Rules are rules, Obi. Now be a good lad.”
“I prefer my gear behind the bar,” Obi said, “where I can still see it. Sareena, I see you’ve been importing again? Another Faltus merchant have the pleasure of meeting your crew?”
“If you’re referring to the dress,” she replied, “what can I say? I have exquisite taste. Getting garments like this this far South is rare. You know how it goes, supply and demand. Don’t tell me you of all people are going to lecture me on the reallocation of exuberant goods?”
Obi chuckled and lay his crossbow on the counter for Sareena. She took it and nodded to the doorman who faded into the crowd.
“What are you having,” she asked.
“Just the usual.”
“You haven’t settled your last tab,” she said, but still moved to fill a mug with a thick, dark ale from one of the kegs lined up behind her. “Or are you going to have to work it off like last time?” She set the mug in front of him and then paused, looking thoughtful. “I have a friend of mine who could use your keen eye on a compound she’s trying to replicate.”
Obi reached into Tarvish’s coin pouch and fished out five silver pieces. As they clattered on the counter, the two majors glanced his way, their eyes narrowing. A warning look from Sareena turned them back to their drinks.
She slid her palm over the silver pieces and without touching them, they disappeared from the counter. As Obi raised his mug, Sareena broke eye contact, intent on something over his shoulder, toward the entrance. Her expression darkened and Obi turned to spy three figures. He couldn’t make them out at first as the invasion of sunlight in the shadowed tavern blinded him. His eyes adjusted as the three majors strolled to a table and sat down. A young barmaid, an Edwone minor, greeted them, scribbled their order, then quickly made her way behind the bar and started pouring.
“Keep your head down,” Sareena hissed, moving herself between Obi and the new arrivals. “What the fuck are Skulbrukt’s people doing here?”
Obi looked down at his mug, but couldn’t help hazarding another glance out of the corner of his eye. Three well armed Majors, one Edwone and two Edwin talking and pointing at a large piece of parchment now stretched across the table, a dagger sticking into one corner to pin it in place. Apparently the doorman had no interest in disarming this lot. They looked hardened, experienced and carried well crafted cutlasses. The Edwone had a pistol at her side, a rarity in Cor’Vitarr.
As the barmaid walked past Obi carrying a tray of drinks, he reached out and grasped at her wrist. Looking up, exposing half of his blue skin, midnight purple streaks and pupil-less eyes glistening from the candlelight of the room, he placed a single gold piece on the tray and muttered.
“One now, one after. Keep your ears about you when you deliver those drinks, and be quick about it.”
For the first time since she’d been on duty, she looked up from the floor, eyes meeting Obi’s. She shrugged, broke away from Obi’s grasp without answering. She walked towards the table, tucking the gold piece in her blouse..
“I’ll take that as a yes then,” Obi said.
Sareena motioned toward the service chute across the room, the one retrofitted as the Minors’ doorway. Obi hopped slowly off the stool, taking a quick sip from the ale and then, with his back to the masses, stealthily slipped across the room, entered the chute and slid into the dark basement of The Wilted Rose.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ale kegs, empty and full, lined the walls. Bottles of hard liquor and wines as well, the good stuff on shelves, the swill littering the floor. As his vision adjusted, Obi saw four reinforced crates in a corner, symbology of a serpent burned into each as a brand. He climbed up to the top one of them and used his shortsword as a makeshift crowbar to pry open the lid.
It was filled with neatly folded, fine garments of all colors and sizes. Special orders made in Faltus, all similar to Sareena’s gown. Obi placed the lid back on the crate with a loud bang. Too loud and the sudden noise caused Obi to lose his footing and tumble into a pile of grain sacks off to the side, covering him in dust, dirt and grime.
“W..w, wha… what the hell are you doing?.”
The faint, timid voice came from across a small figure illuminated by the light coming from the stairwell. Obi dusted himself off and stood, hand on the hilt of his shortsword. The young barmaid glared at him.
“I, I, I’ll tell mistress you’ve been a snoopin’ I, I will….”
Obi rubbed his head, his scruffy hair now draped un-stylistically back across his forehead. He looked rough.
“Hehe, wouldn’t catch me dead in those curtains,” Obi joked. “Not my style.”
“I, I, I kept an ear, just like ya asked.” She brushed her hair aside revealing pale, almost light grey skin with a patch of dark blue across her cheek that formed an oval shape. It covered half of her lower lip. Her eyes were pupil-less olive green. Pretty, even if she did carry the tell-tell signs of a thirteen hour work day.
Obi kicked a smaller crate across the room in her direction and sat down. He reached into the coin purse and pulled out another gold piece, holding it up so it glinted in the dim light.
“Well? I’m all ears.”
“Th...Th… They got some sort of a, erm, a map on the table. Streets, buildings and one of the larger houses were circled. They--”
Obi cut her off. “What did the large building look like? Did you see any street names? Landmarks? oceanside or more in-land?”
“I, I… It was er, a large building by the docks,” his insistence made her nervous and her stutter got worse. “B...B...Big L shape I think… Th...They were talking about the owner being gone. I...It’s unprotected, s...something about needing to get there before midnight because of…”
Obi cuts her off again, throwing the gold piece to the floor and hopping to his feet. He brushed past her, looking up towards a small window opening to the adjoining street at ground level.
He knew the building. He’d spent long hours in the Pettet Star’s brewing lab mixing Streak. The warehouse fronted as a fuel depot for steam-powered ships. No one thought twice about the increased security when combustibles were stored. No common thief would go near the place. But these Skulbrukt thugs were no joke.
The pieces were starting to come together. The Captain’s disappearance, the attempt on Obi’s life, “the rats are swarming” and the warehouse would be next.
Power shifts this big didn’t happen often and only when the head of a big crew died or got usurped. It always ends with a reshuffling and reshufflings were always bloody.
Obi paused before climbing out of the basement. The young barmaid looked up at him as she stowed the second gold piece.
“Tell Sareena, thank you... thank you for being there, all these years.” He looked down, thinking. “And tell her... I’m not sorry for what I’m about to do.”
Obi crawled through the small window and disappeared. Leaving a confused barmaid wondering what he meant.
CHAPTER FIVE
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the last shimmer of sunlight danced on the calm surface of the sea. Obi, cloak drawn over his head, perched on a tall wall alongside an L shaped warehouse. His feet hung over the edge and he kicked the wall with his heels playfully as he waited for full dark. The streets are quiet, as quiet as Cor’Vitarr ever got. The last few Edwed were leaving their shops, locking the heavy iron gates, and checking them twice. The docks were no place to be at night. Obi watched the cycle, thinking how it repeated itself day after day.
Is this all there is? Survive, and try to make a few coins? There has to be more.
Within minutes, darkness blanketed the docks.
Obi’s senses perk up. A low wind blew his cloak across his face as he silently leapt from the wall to the roof of the warehouse. He made his way to an open skylight and onto a top floor walkway overlooking hundreds of barrels of black powder evenly spaced in the centre of a large otherwise empty warehouse. Strong steel beams supporting a heavily reinforced building made from ten inch thick stone walls on all sides.
Crouching down behind a low railing, he peered over the edge and spied four figures emerging from a sliding floor panel that hid a staircase leading underneath the warehouse. A dim green hue filled the stairwell. The brewing lab. Obi knew it all too well. He’d worked there, on and off, for most of his life. The acrid, chemical smell wafted up to him, and Obi couldn’t help thinking of the tingling sensation when he upended a vial of Streak and it first touched his tongue. He tried to shake the thought out of his head, but it lingered.
He remembered a day, no more than three years ago, when the Captain stood over his shoulder, the boiling beakers, steam rising out through a ventilation shaft, and chemical smell, this same smell, but fresh and burning.
“Don’t know what ya done there lad,” the Captain said, “but this batch has a purity I’ve never seen ‘ere before. Did ye follow the instructions, exactly?”
Obi moved around the table and turned the heat down on a nearby vial. He took out a small pot of crystalline substance, measured an exact amount and with a steady hand, poured it into a large vat at the end of the table.
“Nah,” Obi replied, “the compounds were coming out all wrong, you’re using twice the amount of Mourning’s Kiss you need and it’s making the temperature spike too soon. Half the resin burns off and you lose the potency.”
“I, ehhh, yeah, I, errr right lad, smart boy. You can run the first batch tomorrow mornin’ aye?”
He gave Obi a heavy handed pat on the back causing him to bump into the table shaking the vials of his alchemy set.
“Look, errr, Obi my boy,” he leaned in, lowering his voice even though they were the only two in the lab. “With the increased margin from this batch, I think I may be able to fund a little venture soon. You keep this up and I’ll think about maybe bringin’ ye with me, aye?”
Obi, still holding the beakers steady, gave the Captain a slight nod, struggling to hide his excitement, thinking about being out on the open sea again. He enjoyed the quiet solitude of the lab, but nothing compared to seeing the stars out at sea, drinking and telling stories with the crew. The captain turned and made his way up the stairs leaving Obi behind, surrounded by vials of fluorescent green Streak.
The figures came out of the stairwell and congregated in the centre of the warehouse. Obi recognized one of them.”
Lazarus, you fucking snake.
The tall silver skinned Edwed towered over the others. They broke off in all directions leaving him alone. Obi raised his crossbow and took aim. Before firing, he heard the sound of a struggle, making him pause. It came from an adjacent room where one of the group had splintered off to. It grew louder and then glass shattered as a body was thrown through a window at the far end of the warehouse.
The three Skulbrukts burst out into the main room. The Edwone with the pistol placed her foot on the back of the now prone individual lying on the floor. Her rapier flashed and she drove it through the back of her victim’s neck, passing through flesh and embedding its point in the floor. Obi saw the body twitch and heard a gurgling sound before it went still, black blood pooling around it.
“Now, now, let’s be civil about this Silver Vein,” she said, freeing her blade with a wet sound. “Wouldn’t want this fine steel making its way through your throat now would we? After all, if you want this transaction to go smoothly and to walk away with your little title, you’ll ensure we get what we want.”
She walked over to the floor panel and tapped it with her rapier.
“Knock knock?”
Lazarus, with one hand over his whip, turned to face the Edwone. He kicked the sliding door open revealing the green hue from beneath and waved the Skulbrukts in.
“You know he’s still out there, don’t you? Little shit caught on to us this mornin’. Probably halfway up into the mountains by now. You think you can replicate it without his help? Drugs aren’t exactly your area of expertise are they, Pasha?” He smiled a crooked, derisive smile. “That’s more your mistress's domain.”
Pasha didn’t take the bait. “Oh I know all about the Knee High’s exploits. Since you and your boys were too incompetent to handle a child, I had to take things into my own hands.”
She pulled out a dark, black stained woven bag, untied a small string at the end and dumped a severed head on the floor. Light-pale skin with a blue ink blot in the shape of an oval across the lower lip, pigtails still attached to the scalp.
“Had to peel her skin chunk by chunk to get here to talk. The Knee High is still in the city, in fact...”
She paused, glaring around the room. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the shadowy recesses of the building.
“Come out, Obi,” she called in a sing-song voice. “I know you’re watching. Be a good boy and spare us having to drag you out kicking and screaming. I promise you’ll have a place with us. All you have to do is play along, mix us up some of your special Green. You’re meant for bigger things than your captain had in mind.”
“That fool,” Lazarus spat, more to himself. “Spending our fortunes on fantasies and pointless ventures. We could have been building an empire, but no. Underpaid and overworked and stuck with the scraps from his table!”
Pasha looked at him with disgust. She plans on killing you, Obi thought. But I’m going to beat her to it.
He took aim, focusing on the spot between Lazarus' eyes. He remembered the pipe in his room. The bolt should go clean through the bastard’s skull.
Click. Nothing.
Damn!
“Up there, in the rafters!” Lazarus bellowed.
Both Pasha and Lazarus darted in separate directions. Obi’s heart raced as he tried to keep track of them. Pasha disappeared behind a steel pillar. Obi looked up to the open skylight. If he could only reach it in time. He climbed.
He shimmied up the trusses, grabbing at whatever handholds he could find. He heard a buzz of movement below, but couldn’t think about that. One final reach and...
Shhhhhhphwip!
Lazarus’ whip cracked and lashed around Obi’s throat. He gasped for air and grabbed at the barbed cord now cutting into his throat. He felt the yank and then he was floating--no floor, no ceiling, no whip, just peacefully floating in the air.
Thump!
The air blasted from his lungs as he hit the ground and his vision exploded in a flash of white light. When it cleared, pain erupted up his right leg and he looked down to see his knee bent at an impossible angle.
Lazarus' leering face filled his field of vision. “Can’t run now lad.”
Lazarus gestured toward Obi’s severely dislocated leg. Obi could barely think through the pain and feared he’d lose consciousness. Lazarus rested his large boot on the dislocated portion of the knee almost gently, but then pressed.
Obi howled, “Urrrrggggaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”
“I don’t know what that old man saw in you,” Lazarus taunted.
Lazarus pressed again, harder until a loud snap sounded over Obi’s screams. The knee had popped back into place, but the pain flared even worse. Then, just as quickly, it started to dissipate. Obi looked down and breathed a sigh of relief seeing his leg back in its proper alignment.
Lazarus scowled, realizing his torture had actually helped and was about to correct his mistake when Pasha emerged from the shadows, smiling down at her prize.
CHAPTER SIX
Lazarus and Pasha bound Obi’s hands and dragged him down into the subterranean lab. His leg still throbbed but he was able to limp across the room and collapse into a chair at his workstation. Before he could recover his wits, Lazarus slammed his head into the table with a loud thud. A second later, a large leather bound journal slammed down next to him, missing his face by millimeters.
“This is all we could find in his study.” Pasha said, “but it’s in his cant. Maybe the boy can read it?”
“Well, Obi? Best not keep her waiting. What do you say?”
Before he could answer, Lazarus’s meaty hand grabbed the back of Obi’s skull, lifted him as Pasha opened the book and then slammed him back down on the open page. When Lazarus pulled him back up, there was blood splattered on the Captain's neat, careful script.
With no small effort, Obi twisted in Lazarus’ grip and looked at Pasha. “Well, if you er… flick to the back page, on the binding, look closely… there’s a hidden message… it should answer your questions.”
Pasha followed Obi’s instructions and turned to the back page. There was a small inscription on the reverse of the book in an almost illegible, childlike script. It read: *Obi woz ‘ere, age 13*
Pasha turned a cold eye. “You think this is a fucking joke, boy!!”
Before he could react, she slammed his face into the desk for a second time. He felt warm blood pour from his nose.
“You... are... going to tell me how to increase production and potency of Streak. One way or another.” She thought for a second, then seemed to come to a decision. “Fuck it. We’ve got all night. You can show me!”
She drew her rapier and untied Obi’s wrists. She pointed it at the alchemist’s kit.
“Do what she says, boy.” Lazarus growled. “No games. Then...I promise...it’ll be quick.”
Over the next hour, Obi got to work on the first stages of Streak production, mixing the correct substances. Pasha furiously made notes in a small notepad paying particular attention to quantity and length of processes. At various points, Obi made use of some obscure looking, oddly shaped glass beakers with multiple enlarged chambers that seemed to have been blown and crafted specifically for this method. Pasha noted the equipment and watched Obi intently.
Little by little, a faint green hue started to emanate from the vials at the far end of the production line. “This is the important bit,” Obi said. “Make sure you note this down. Pass me that er, that er, thin looking red vial at the end there.”
Obi waved his hand to a shelf nearby with a series of different colored beakers, pouches of herbs, salts and chemicals.
“This one?” Lazarus said.
“No, no, no! Do you want to kill us all you moron? The thin one!”
Lazarus passed the vial to Obi who uncorked it and held it next to the neon green drug that had taken the better part of the night to create.
“This here, is Ocean’s Blood,” Obi said, “A rare distilled mineral found in a specific coral that only forms in one region off the coast of Tekinesh. It’s deep red color comes from its iron content. It’s the catalyst for the whole procedure.”
As Obi added a drop of it to the glowing green vial of Streak, it turned dark black and a slight foam formed as the mixture began to hiss.
“And hey… if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.”
Obi smashed the vial onto the desk and covered his mouth with his cloak. He rolled to the side as a thick cloud of black mist erupted, enveloping the room. Pasha turned to Lazarus, ready to shout and order, but heaved and coughed violently instead. The veins in her face thickened and turned black. Her eyes went red with broken blood vessels and her confident scowl turned into a look of blind panic.
Seeing Pasha collapse, her veins bursting from beneath her skin and decaying in front of his eyes, Lazarus turned away from the cloud, scrambling like a madman to get some distance. Obi was nowhere to be seen. He unfurled his whip and bellowed the minor’s name. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blue face, a cheeky salute, and then Obi was running up the stairs out of the brewing lab.
Obi breached the surface, a small hint of daylight creeping from the cracks of the skylights above. He heard an agonized scream from below as he rigged a small fuse into one of the large barrels of black powder.
They use this stuff for steam engines, but it could make a great weapon when exposed to an open flame. He lit the fuse and scrambled up the rafters, making for the rooftop.
His leg throbbing and barely supported him, but he struggled through. He clambered through the skylight, and marvelled for a second at the vast golden-orange reflection of the rising sun on the waves. Morning bells chimed through Cor’Vitarr signally a new day.
Silence... and then...
Boom!
Boom!
BOOM!!!!
The explosions ripped through the building, splitting the rooftop into three pieces. Steel shrieked as it was ripped apart and Obi was thrown fifteen feet, sliding to a stop inches away from a forty foot drop to the harbor below. Fire enveloped the building, licking at his hair and starting to peel the skin on his forehead.
Obi used all of the fight left in him to crawl to the water facing side of the roof. Just before he could leap in, a familiar lashing sliced into his ankle as Lazarus’s whip wrapped around his leg.
“Obi!” he shrieked in rage.
Obi rolled onto his back, ankle bleeding from deep lacerations. He looked at the mortally wounded Lazarus, blackened horrifically on one side of his body. His clothes were torn and fused with his melted skin. He leapt on top of Obi and began choking him with all the strength he had left. His one working eye glared with murderous rage as Obi’s vision began to darken and fade.
Obi succumbed to the inevitable, gasping as the last of his breath failed. Seconds before the darkness claimed him, he saw a winged, almost serpentine creature drift across the dawn sky and become one with a constellation. It flickered briefly and then was gone.
“Kreesh ta, sayeer, uuhm kah pree ya shileth!”
Obi found a foothold on a nearby piece of rubble and kicked off with everything he had left. He and Lazarus plummeted into the ocean from the rooftop. When the shock of the cold water hit them, Lazarus’ grip released and he disappeared into the murky depths.
EPILOGUE
Obi floated for a time. An hour, maybe two? Who knows.
A seaward bird landed on his chest, pushing him underwater for a moment, causing him to cough up the salty brine and regain full consciousness.
With a half doggy-paddle, half side-stroke he managed to find his way to a nearby ship. He gripped a rope line that had been recently untied and left to dangle over the deck. He heard the faint sounds of shouting as Edwed tried to put out the fire of a warehouse down shore. With the majority of the crew distracted by the commotion, Obi climbed into a lower anchor port and collapsed into a pile of netting as far below deck as he could find.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Obi heard the murmurs and whispers of those above. They unfurled the sails, reeled in the anchor and after a brief moment he felt the ship lurch as it left the dock.
“Make haste, make haste. Look alive like your lover’s waiting for ya and let’s make good time you dogs. Costien awaits.”
END
The Great Work (from the dark land of djair)
Author: Bryan Henery
Art by: Helge C. Balzerork
The fortress jutted from the cliff face, belching plumes of smoke, its towers mismatched as its construction had been ill planned, each section added over decades as necessity dictated. Other similar structures jutted from the mountain in random locations, all interconnected by a vast network of tunnels burrowed through the mountain’s core. They served as the fingers of Nar’Kal’Ren, The Fist of Shadzog. Though Zaruna served as the capital of the new Djairan empire, Nar’Kal’Ren was its true seat of power.
A lone figure stood on the battlement, pulling his midnight blue cloak tightly around his stocky frame. Bishop Farrgazza hated the cold and longed to be back on the flatlands harvesting souls for the glory of Shadzog, but his work here was too important to neglect.
A procession of Eyebiters made their way up the winding trail toward the fortress gates. Mostly Edwed minors, the Eyebiters were squat warriors with thick limbs and long, braided beards woven with fetishes and trophies of the hunt. They marched in clean lines, portraying a solemn discipline Farrgazza knew was orchestrated for his benefit. The savagery of the Eyebiters was legendary. They took ears, eyes, and more unsavory bits of flesh as trophies, and in battle some wore the scalped faces of enemies as masks . They believed these trophies held the spirits of the conquered, gifts for Shadzog upon his return. A vicious tribe. A zealous tribe. Dedicated servants of the true lord of Gregoor-Sheav.
Fools. But useful fools.
In between their columns, a ragged line of ashen skinned nomads stumbled along the trail, connected by shackles bent around necks and ankles. The restraints only allowed a few shambling half steps at a time. The prisoners struggled to keep up and those who faltered fell and were dragged. There were only a few dozen. Farrgazza imagined the majority had been dismembered on altars and dumped into cooking pots, but as long as the Eyebiters saved a few to feed to his great work, Farrgazza would allow them to live and continue to serve the Great Lord.
“Bishop.”
He did not turn immediately. His acolyte, Boorz, sounded excited but Farrgazza never allowed himself to be rushed by inferiors. Boorz knew his master’s mind and waited quietly, but Farrgazza could almost feel his underling’s tension.
“What is it, Boorz?”
“Bishop,” he said, “It is working.”
Farrgazza spun on his heels, all pretense of decorum fleeing as he fought to keep the excitement from his voice. “Show me!”
Boorz led him into the tower. The halls were lit by intermittent torches leaving long stretches cloaked in shadow. They passed several cells, each with an ornate prayer rug, a small altar, and a modest cot. Some smelled of blood, ashes, and faeces. Experiments were often messy.
He followed Boorz down a narrow spiral staircase two floors to the larders. The smell emanating from the cells nearly overwhelmed the senses, but Fargazza had grown accustomed to it. The whimpers and pathetic cries on the other hand grated on his nerves. This simpering group of Nov Romarans had been in the larders for a week, yet still they whined and begged. As much as he despised real Romarans, at least they died with dignity.
But today these lesser concerns were irrelevant. If Boorz spoke the truth, and he would scream under Farrgazza’s knife if he did not, the great work was about to bear fruit. They entered the laboratory where five other priests huddled about a table whispering excitedly. Boorz cleared his throat. They turned and when they saw Bishop Farrgazza, they all shrank into themselves, lowering their eyes in deference. Farrgazza waved a hand and they parted, letting him through to the table and the subject strapped on the bloodstained slab. He had once been heavily muscled, a warrior of the Coalition of Marquez foolish enough to scout across Djair’s border alone. Gaunt and emaciated, his once vibrant skin, marbled black and white, had gone grey. His eyes were closed.
“How long?” Farrgazza asked.
One of the priests looked about, as if hoping someone else would speak, but when the bishop’s gaze fixed on him, he stuttered, “We… we have been giving him three vials a day for a week, just like the others, but his heart took it. He has been euphoric, just as we hoped. The latest formula is a perfect replica of Lavender Bloom.” The priest’s confidence seemed to grow as he spoke. “This morning he changed.” He pointed to the man’s arms where primary veins stood out unnaturally, like thick worms crawling under his skin. The subject jerked suddenly, trying to rip free from his bonds. The priest jumped back, wide eyed, but Farrgazza did not flinch.
The subject’s eyes opened, no pupil or iris, just swirls of silver. His face contorted into a maniacal grin. He lurched again and a sickening crack reverberated through the chamber. Now Farrgazza did step back, but not out of fear. He wanted to see the whole picture.
The man’s head whipped back and forth, and his jaws gnashed frenetically. Flecks of blood sprayed from his mouth, speckling the slab and an odd keening erupted from his throat. One of the priests gasped and though Farrgazza did not acknowledge the reaction, he took a mental note to punish the acolyte for his squeamishness.
The man’s collar bone fractured, bursting through his skin. He opened his mouth, as if to scream, but instead, a swarm of writhing feelers erupted where his tongue should have been. Appendages and bone shards ripped through his flesh in the form of horns, hooks, talons. and teeth as the man’s body revolted against itself. One of the priests leaned too close, and a thin tentacle burst from the subject’s chest, wrapping around the poor fool’s neck. Sharp spines that slashed his throat and the tentacle continued to whip the limp body back and forth.
Farrgazza had seen enough. “Kill it.”
He turned, fighting the urge to grin in childlike glee. A breakthrough! More trials would be necessary of course, but the serum worked. He imagined one of those elicit Lav Lu dens were degenerates with no sense of the truth of Shadzog rolled about, indulging in their artificial pleasures. His serum would feed those pleasures. He could picture it. The first one would turn. Then another and another. They might realize what was happening when the screams echoed through their halls, but it would be too late. Chaos, oh glorious chaos would rule the day.
Back to the earth. Back to the roots of passion. These dreamers would awaken to the hard truth of Shadzog. Farrgazza whispered a small prayer.
“What was imprisoned shall rise and the blood of the Faithless shall fill his cup. Glory to Shadzog, the time is now.”
A lone figure stood on the battlement, pulling his midnight blue cloak tightly around his stocky frame. Bishop Farrgazza hated the cold and longed to be back on the flatlands harvesting souls for the glory of Shadzog, but his work here was too important to neglect.
A procession of Eyebiters made their way up the winding trail toward the fortress gates. Mostly Edwed minors, the Eyebiters were squat warriors with thick limbs and long, braided beards woven with fetishes and trophies of the hunt. They marched in clean lines, portraying a solemn discipline Farrgazza knew was orchestrated for his benefit. The savagery of the Eyebiters was legendary. They took ears, eyes, and more unsavory bits of flesh as trophies, and in battle some wore the scalped faces of enemies as masks . They believed these trophies held the spirits of the conquered, gifts for Shadzog upon his return. A vicious tribe. A zealous tribe. Dedicated servants of the true lord of Gregoor-Sheav.
Fools. But useful fools.
In between their columns, a ragged line of ashen skinned nomads stumbled along the trail, connected by shackles bent around necks and ankles. The restraints only allowed a few shambling half steps at a time. The prisoners struggled to keep up and those who faltered fell and were dragged. There were only a few dozen. Farrgazza imagined the majority had been dismembered on altars and dumped into cooking pots, but as long as the Eyebiters saved a few to feed to his great work, Farrgazza would allow them to live and continue to serve the Great Lord.
“Bishop.”
He did not turn immediately. His acolyte, Boorz, sounded excited but Farrgazza never allowed himself to be rushed by inferiors. Boorz knew his master’s mind and waited quietly, but Farrgazza could almost feel his underling’s tension.
“What is it, Boorz?”
“Bishop,” he said, “It is working.”
Farrgazza spun on his heels, all pretense of decorum fleeing as he fought to keep the excitement from his voice. “Show me!”
Boorz led him into the tower. The halls were lit by intermittent torches leaving long stretches cloaked in shadow. They passed several cells, each with an ornate prayer rug, a small altar, and a modest cot. Some smelled of blood, ashes, and faeces. Experiments were often messy.
He followed Boorz down a narrow spiral staircase two floors to the larders. The smell emanating from the cells nearly overwhelmed the senses, but Fargazza had grown accustomed to it. The whimpers and pathetic cries on the other hand grated on his nerves. This simpering group of Nov Romarans had been in the larders for a week, yet still they whined and begged. As much as he despised real Romarans, at least they died with dignity.
But today these lesser concerns were irrelevant. If Boorz spoke the truth, and he would scream under Farrgazza’s knife if he did not, the great work was about to bear fruit. They entered the laboratory where five other priests huddled about a table whispering excitedly. Boorz cleared his throat. They turned and when they saw Bishop Farrgazza, they all shrank into themselves, lowering their eyes in deference. Farrgazza waved a hand and they parted, letting him through to the table and the subject strapped on the bloodstained slab. He had once been heavily muscled, a warrior of the Coalition of Marquez foolish enough to scout across Djair’s border alone. Gaunt and emaciated, his once vibrant skin, marbled black and white, had gone grey. His eyes were closed.
“How long?” Farrgazza asked.
One of the priests looked about, as if hoping someone else would speak, but when the bishop’s gaze fixed on him, he stuttered, “We… we have been giving him three vials a day for a week, just like the others, but his heart took it. He has been euphoric, just as we hoped. The latest formula is a perfect replica of Lavender Bloom.” The priest’s confidence seemed to grow as he spoke. “This morning he changed.” He pointed to the man’s arms where primary veins stood out unnaturally, like thick worms crawling under his skin. The subject jerked suddenly, trying to rip free from his bonds. The priest jumped back, wide eyed, but Farrgazza did not flinch.
The subject’s eyes opened, no pupil or iris, just swirls of silver. His face contorted into a maniacal grin. He lurched again and a sickening crack reverberated through the chamber. Now Farrgazza did step back, but not out of fear. He wanted to see the whole picture.
The man’s head whipped back and forth, and his jaws gnashed frenetically. Flecks of blood sprayed from his mouth, speckling the slab and an odd keening erupted from his throat. One of the priests gasped and though Farrgazza did not acknowledge the reaction, he took a mental note to punish the acolyte for his squeamishness.
The man’s collar bone fractured, bursting through his skin. He opened his mouth, as if to scream, but instead, a swarm of writhing feelers erupted where his tongue should have been. Appendages and bone shards ripped through his flesh in the form of horns, hooks, talons. and teeth as the man’s body revolted against itself. One of the priests leaned too close, and a thin tentacle burst from the subject’s chest, wrapping around the poor fool’s neck. Sharp spines that slashed his throat and the tentacle continued to whip the limp body back and forth.
Farrgazza had seen enough. “Kill it.”
He turned, fighting the urge to grin in childlike glee. A breakthrough! More trials would be necessary of course, but the serum worked. He imagined one of those elicit Lav Lu dens were degenerates with no sense of the truth of Shadzog rolled about, indulging in their artificial pleasures. His serum would feed those pleasures. He could picture it. The first one would turn. Then another and another. They might realize what was happening when the screams echoed through their halls, but it would be too late. Chaos, oh glorious chaos would rule the day.
Back to the earth. Back to the roots of passion. These dreamers would awaken to the hard truth of Shadzog. Farrgazza whispered a small prayer.
“What was imprisoned shall rise and the blood of the Faithless shall fill his cup. Glory to Shadzog, the time is now.”
For All... Eternity (An elyiaes short story)
Author: Anoosh Fouladi
Edited by: Bryan Henery
On a special day amongst centuries, eons, and eternities passing by on a world far, far, away....
An assistant is someone capable you can trust to help you work on achieving your dreams.
A friend is someone you might expect would stand by your side in supporting your dreams.
But a PARENT is someone who commits everything they have to protect your dreams from dying…
...You were born!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
As long as I am living, I will assist you, support you, and protect you, Ilyfae. You are my dream.
I. Love. You. For. All. Eternity.
(signed) Papa
An assistant is someone capable you can trust to help you work on achieving your dreams.
A friend is someone you might expect would stand by your side in supporting your dreams.
But a PARENT is someone who commits everything they have to protect your dreams from dying…
...You were born!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
As long as I am living, I will assist you, support you, and protect you, Ilyfae. You are my dream.
I. Love. You. For. All. Eternity.
(signed) Papa
Ilyfae found the hidden note in her jacket pocket when she sat down to watch her girlfriend’s dance recital from the upper booth of the Crystal Theater. She smiled, feeling a little guilty. She knew she should apologize for the way she reacted when she and her father last spoke. It hurt not telling her father the full truth, but his soul was too pure and purity bred weakness. Wiping a small tear from her cheek, she looked across the theater at a balcony slightly higher than her own. She caught the glare of her rival, Lili’Yana, Matriarch of Textiles. Lili’Yana’s light green eyes measured Ilyfae for a moment before the prudish Matriarch nodded and smiled her artificial smile. Lili’Yana had been a particular nuisance of late and would have to be dealt with. Even young Matriarchs could fall suddenly ill with a little nudge.
“Will that be all, Matriarch?” The shrill voice interrupted her silent exchange. A young servant girl with a vapid grin cocked her head comically as she bowed low. The servant’s eyes lingered on the note still sitting in Ilyfae’s hand. Nosey bitch, Ilyfae thought and wondered, not for the first time, why the servants would not use her full title, Matriarch of Science. Playing with the words in her head, they seemed to carry more weight.
“No, please send my regards to Nahvad. I know I gave short notice of my attendance tonight, and I appreciate the trouble and effort she went through to get me a seat.” Nahvad, the Matriarch of Art, owned the Crystal Theater and this servant was her creature. Anything the servant saw, Nahvad would see. Ilyfae folded her hands over the letter from her father.
“It is no trouble at all, Matriarch. My mistress aims to please.” The young Edwon smiled as she spun out of her bow and moved to exit the balcony suite. Before leaving, she bent backwards, contorting like a Boran circus performer with her head hanging upside down, “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to summon me. My name is Reyna.”
Everything is a performance with these fools.
Ilyfae, now truly alone, looked down to the now balled up letter. Her father didn’t understand. If she were to become Mother Supreme, she would have to do what was necessary, no matter how unsavory. The ends often justify the means, and Ilyfae’s divine purpose to lead the family to greatness could not be curtailed. Unfolding the note, she smoothed it out and read the final words in her father’s uneven script.
For all Eternity.
She felt empty and cold. A brief and hollow sensation. Then a sting. She wanted to turn, but couldn’t. She tried, yet her neck clicked in rebellion. Her gentle melancholy was replaced with terror. A tingling sensation swept through her, like baby spiders crawling in her veins. Then, a sudden wave of euphoria, a warmth radiating and humming through her limbs. All thought and worry faded. A moment of bliss, despite her fear. A smile cracked through the numbness. An intoxicating pleasure... It burns…
Her father’s card crumpled in Ilyfae’s suddenly rigid grip. She tried to unclench her fist, but her hand did not respond. The internal gears of her body froze, spittle dripped from her mouth, and bile rose in her throat. She tried to scream, tried to fight as her body curled into a fetal position, but pain flashed through her spine and her muscles contorted violently. Her body did not belong to her anymore.
“Now, now…” a soft voice, a soothing voice, a voice she knew. It cut through the symphony on stage, cut through the roar of her pain, a whisper, yet it drowned out all other sound. “Don’t struggle, you will only suffer more. It works faster if you don’t resist.” A cloaked figure leaned over and placed a syringe and a vial half full vial of green liquid next to Ilyfae’s bag. She drew a similar vial, the one Ilyfae had been saving for an after show celebration, from the bag and pocketed it.
Ilyfae recognized that half-smile and the edges of a tattoo through the shadows of her visitor’s cloak. She struggled to form words through the blood filling her lungs but only managed one. “You…”
“This is not personal, my dear,” the figure continued, “Matter of fact, you should feel honored. Your work is astounding. Color me slightly jealous. But your project is too ground breaking to leave in your incompetent hands. Take some consolation in the fact that you’ve made a phenomenal discovery. It will advance my own work in leaps and bounds. You’ve given me the most precious of gifts--time.”
Too many thoughts flooded Ilyfae’s head. Her synapses were fried, everything in critical failure. If only she could relay her response through the blinking of her eyes. The anger, the turmoil, the feeling of defeat. She wished she had the chance to see her father one more time, to feel the embrace of his strong arms, to have him mumble, “All will be well.”
She tried to scream as the contents of her body poured from every orifice, congealing into pools of vile ichor on her seat and the floor of the balcony, but all she could produce were the bubbling sounds of her death.
Can I find you in my dreams, Papa?
The plea echoed in her skull as the bright lights of the theater faded.
“Pa…”
“…Pa?” The replica raised its head, blinking its metallic eyes, looking up at Elyiaes.
Could this be it? Will it finally work?
“Papa?”
Yes! Magnificent! I have done it. I knew I could! I…
“Pa…pa..Pa?”
No, she’s not supposed to twitch like that. Something’s wrong.
“PA PA PA PA!”
Oh no, oh no, oh no. There isn’t enough power! It isn’t sustainable. Not again! No, no! I was so close!
The construct, this replica of Elyiaes’ daughter, convulsed violently. Steam erupted from her neck and her internal gears screeched with the sound of grinding metal. Her head thrashed back and forth until it popped free and hung at an odd angle, only held in place by a metallic wire, her artificial spine.
Elyiaes turned away, remembering the body of his real daughter, limbs twisted, the smell, the horror in her eyes.
“PAPA PAPA PAPA…papa… pa…”
Another overheated doll. Damn!
A tiny mechanical bird, the gears in its wings clicking metallically, flew from its high perch to an alphabet board hung up on the wall. It pecked at letters, spelling out a question, “P-A-P-A-.-W-H-Y-?”
Elyiaes forced himself to look at his latest failure. “The gears got too hot and melted the tethers holding the skull. The whole mechanism faltered from there.” He pointed to the small wrench on the desk and the bird flew from its perch to retrieve it. “Thank you, Bubo.” The artificial Tufted Titmouse’s gears-for-eyes spun as it flew back to the alphabet board.
“W-H-Y-.-F-A-I-L-?” It pecked.
“Let’s see.” Elyiaes opened the replica’s chest plate. A plume of acrid smoke belched forth making him gag. When it cleared, he gazed down at the shards of the multicolored gemstone he had set in the carefully prepared cavity. He shook his head. “The Matriarch of Magic is going to kill me.” Even as he contemplated explaining the destruction of the borrowed gem, he considered new potential power cores. But, no. He had run out of options. The internal refraction jewel was his last, best chance.
Bubo’s head spun on its body, looking towards the stairs. It flapped its wings rapidly. “Yes, Bubo. I heard the alarm too. Let's welcome our visitor with the proper hospitality, as Mother taught us.” If it was the person he thought it would be, Elyiaes knew his guest would enter whether he invited him in or not.
“Put a leash on your guard dog, will ya’?” Rokaro shouted in a gruff voice.
The former legionnaire served as a captain in Faltus royal guard, overseeing security for the Matriarchs and other powerful dignitaries. A somewhat symbolic duty, but Rokaro still carried himself like a commander on the front lines of one of Nov Romara’s ‘Great Expansions’. His once jet black hair had faded, but his grip on the hilt of his sword never waivered. Rokaro and Elyiaes served together on the front lines against partisans of Jvar-VunGal. Their bond ran deep.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming,” Elyiaes said as he came down the stairs. He coughed and waved through the clouds of steam pouring from the massive metallic figure that had cornered Rokaro. “Settle down, Flitz.” Elyiaes commanded the golem. It slowly turned, gyros whirring. and stomped across the room, settling into a corner. The construct awkwardly shifted its head to face the two Edwed before dropping onto its metal arse, adding a new crack to floor tile with its weight.
“That’s new,” Rokaro said, trying to sound relaxed, but Elyiaes could read the tension in his friend’s body language. Rokaro stammered, unable to peel his gaze from the steel defender. “When did that happen?”
“I’ve made some breakthroughs.” Elyiaes opened the windows to let out some of the steam. “Tea?”
“Yes,” Rokaro said, sitting down in a chair that was as far away from the golem as possible. “I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled. Where do you get the inspiration to build such a thing?”
“Don’t worry, he won’t bite.” Elyiaes shouted from the kitchen as he sifted through a cabinet. Bubo glided over to Elyiaes’s shoulder and pointed its beak at the tea hiding behind a large bowl. “There it is. Thank you, Bubo.”
“It can bite?” Rokaro asked, genuinely concerned. He slid his chair a few inches farther away from Flitz.
“No,” Elyiaes yelled, “but it has a mean backhand. Where did I put those biscuits?”
“Just tea, thanks.” Rokaro said. He pulled out some cards and gestured for Elyiaes to take a seat. “I already ate.”
“Let me guess. Plain bread and jerky? Those days of fighting with nothing but simple rations to sustain us are over. Stop acting like such a grunt.”
Elyiaes brought the tea while Rokaro set up Coasten Flip’em, a game they had played since their war days.
“Retired grunt, thank you very much,” Rokaro said gruffly and pulled out a red-crested silver flask hidden in his vest. He poured dark amber liquid into his cup of tea. “Just a glorified guard now.”
Without another word, they began to play, slipping into an old, familiar rhythm. Elyiaes won the first hand easily. As he went to reshuffle, Rokaro leaned over to pour a shot from the flask in Elyiaes’ cup.
“No, thanks,” Elyiaes said, covering the top of his cup with his palm. “I don’t drink anymore.”
“Sorry.” Rokaro pocketed the flask. “Forgot you swore it off since…” Rokaro looked up at Elyiaes’ cold eyes. “Shit, I better stop talking.”
“It’s fine,” Elyiaes said as he tossed his cards face up, indicating a reshuffle.
Rokaro let out a curse under his breath. “Damn I had a good hand.”
“I don’t have the stomach for it anyway.” Elyiaes said quietly. He thought of his daughter and the night Rokaro took him to see her body.
An awkward silence passed between them. Rokaro grunted and shuffled the cards. They played on and Elyiaes folded every hand Rokaro dealt.
“C’mon man,” Rokaro said, “Play a hand. Even if it’s shite. This is no fun.”
“Just waiting for the right moment.” Elyiaes replied. “You’re bound to make a mistake sooner or later.”
“You sound like one of those weak-willed Watcher priests. You know the ones. They stood aside when we ransacked their towns. Bunch of spineless little sheep.”
“Show some humility.” Elyiaes said, controlling his tone. “Those were religious men, not fighters. They did what they had to do to protect what they had. We caught them by surprise. They were at a disadvantage. It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Humility is cowardice and has no place on the battlefield.” Rokaro grunted.
“You’re wrong.” Elyiaes said, his voice colder than he intended.
Rokaro's eyes narrowed, analyzing his friend.
Elyiaes slumped back into his chair, and continued. “What they ordered us to do was slaughter. There was no honor in it.”
Rokaro chuckled. “Still meek as the day you were assigned to my unit. When are you going to grow up and look at the world as it is?”
“Meek is not weak.”
“Oh yeah?” Rokaro replied. “Prove it then. Stop pussyfooting around and play a hand. You play this game as passively as a Borian peddler.”
“Maybe I need stakes. Do you want to make a real bet?” Elyiaes said.
“Oh?” Rokaro perked up. “What do you have in mind?”
“You have something for me, yes?” Elyiaes asked, trying to control his tone.
“Maybe…” Rokaro teased. “Maybe not.”
“Why else did you come here?” Elyiaes said, tired of the game. “Am I a joke to you? Some lonely old man you’ve come to mock?”
“Hey,” Rokaro said, “It’s not like that, Elyiaes. Don’t talk to me like I’m some dim-witted Djairian.” Secretly, Elyiaes cringed at the very Nov Romaran way his friend equated negative traits with particular nationalities. Rokaro flipped open his jacket revealing a stack of papers poking out of an inside pocket. “I got what you wanted, but it wasn’t easy. A lot of eyes and ears perked up when I asked for this report. I could get in a lot of trouble handing it over to you. Not everyday a Matriarch is murdered in a popular theater. Most want this incident buried.”
He’s getting drunk. Otherwise he would remember he’s talking about my daughter!
“You owe me, Rokaro,” Elyiaes said slowly. Bubo, Flitz, and Elyiaes all stared at Rokaro together, their gazes focused on his jacket pocket.
“Shut up, Elyiaes.” Rokaro said, edging away from the golem. “Just tell me what you want to bet.”
“Fine.” Elyiaes said.
I have him.
“If I win this next hand, you give me those papers and you tell the damned Matriarchs whatever you need to tell them.”
“No need to blaspheme,” Rokaro said with a big smile. “And if I win?”
“I’ll…” Elyiaes hesitated, not sure what he could offer. “I’ll buy you a bottle of that wine from Joun.”
“Oh ho!” Rokaro laughed. “Stuff is a lot pricier than this piss!” he said, gesturing to his cup. He downed it and spat in his hand, extending it to Elyiaes.
Elyiaes grimaced, but accepted the hand to seal the bet. Both players flipped their cards. Rokaro’s eyes dropped and he let out a sigh. “Damnit!”
“See,” Elyiaes chuckled, looking cheerful for the first time since Rokaro came into his house. “Blessed are those who wait their turn and strike accordingly.”
“I hate you, Elyiaes.” Rokaro said, but returned the smile. “I really was looking forward to drinking that wine.”
“I promise you, friend,” Elyiaes said, “I will get you that bottle if I find what I’m looking for.”
“You better.” Rokaro said before refilling his cup. He took a sip of tea and sneered. “Don’t see how you can drink this stuff without spiking it. Your tea tastes like ass.” He topped off the cup with his flask.
“Yeah, well down here in the slums we can’t really afford the good stuff. I am a lowly scientist after all. You can thank Nov Ro for this wonderful brew.”
“Oh how the mighty have fallen,” said Rokaro. “Gone are the days when Science was always at the top. Fine, you win this one.”
“Today’s miseries are born from former glories we never deserved.” Elyiaes said glumly, but then looked up with a sly smile. “So, my prize?” he said with a wink, looking directly at Rokaro’s jacket pocket.
“In due time,” Rokaro replied. “I want to win a few more hands before we get to business.” Rokaro looked amused at Elyiaes’ annoyance. He shuffled the deck. “You think after all the fighting we’ve done we’d at least be rewarded with a decent cup of tea. I mean, the technology alone your lot has provided should have gotten ye’ better slop than this.”
Rokaro rambled on as they played, taking sip after sip. Each drink followed a comment regarding Elyiaes’ state of livelihood. Jab after jab, Rokaro listed in detail how far Elyiaes has become destitute. Eventually he abandoned the teacup altogether and drank directly from his flask.
He may be drunk, but he’s toying with me. When is he going to give me those damned papers?
“Can I ask you a question?” Rokaro said.
“You already did.” Elyiaes said.
“Be serious for a moment.”
“Okay.”
“That time when we were ambushed near the borderlands of Oakinesh,” Rokaro said, slurring a bit. “Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember.”
“That night…” Rokaro paused, looking at the engraving of his flask on the table. He blinked several times as if he were trying to erase the memory.
“We lost a lot of good soldiers,” Elyiaes finished for him. “Barely older than children, most of them.”
“Aye,” Rokaro sighed. Flitz let out a gust of steam from where he sat in the corner. Rokaro looked away and rubbed his eyes.
His stupid pride. Hiding his emotions even when he finally wants to open up.
“What about it, my friend?” Elyiaes asked.
“Nothing,” Rokaro said, “Just wanted to see if you still think about it.”
“How could I ever forget?”
“I don’t know,” Rokaro scratched his head. “I’m just worried about where your focus is these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“It just seems like you’ve moved on,” Rokaro continued, “From all the things we went through.”
“How could you say such a thing?” Elyiaes asked, wrinkles forming over his brow.
“Then what is all this about?” Rokaro said, taking the papers from his jacket and waving them around. Sweat trickled down Elyiaes’ back. He shifted in his seat and reached for the documents, but Rokaro pulled them away.
“Are you going to give them to me or not?” Elyiaes growled.
“I will, but is this going to be the end of it?”
“Rokaro, if... ” Elyiaes strained to get the words out. “If you had a daughter...would you let it go?”
“Ilyfae was just as much of a daughter to me as you!” Rokaro slurred.
“Then how can you even ask?”
“This is not healthy! We lost half of our unit, and I bet you can’t even remember their names, but this...”
“Is different.” Elyiaes finished.
“I remember every single one of them.” Rokaro said, as if Elyiaes had not spoken. “Names of soldiers I’ll never get to visit and play my favorite game of cards with.”
“This was my daughter!” Elyiaes yelled, finally losing his patience. “My child! My blood! My…” Elyiaes faltered, tears streaming down his cheeks. “My…”
“Ilyfae was no longer yours to control and protect.” Rokaro said. “She wasn’t exactly a saint. You know the games the Matriarchs play. She was in the middle of all of it.”
“She is my daughter.”
They stared at each other for several moments. Bubo flew around the room, gears whirring loudly. Rokaro palmed the pommel of his sword as Flitz shifted on the floor. A few more seconds passed, then Elyiaes put his hand up in mock surrender. Rokaro loosened his grip and groaned as he twisted his head to crack his neck. The moment passed.
“I just want you to find closure.” Rokaro said.
“I need to know what happened to her. I have to know.”
“And what if Mother Supreme decides that you should stop? What then?” Rokaro asked.
“If that’s what Mother wants,” Elyiaes said, working hard to keep the mockery out of his voice, “that’s what Mother gets.”
Rokaro shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unsure what to say. Elyiaes reshuffled the cards, but his hands itched for the report that lay in front of him.
Patience.
The game continued. The sounds of the street life outside waned. The two played for another hour in silence as the city began to sleep.
“What?” Elyiaes broke the silence, after folding his cards. “Big hand?”
“Aye…” Rokaro said, his face looking sour. “You know, you play too defensive. At some point, you have to make a move.”
“I made moves,” Elyiaes retorted. “You’re just too easy to read.”
Rokaro gave him a flat look then pushed the folder towards Elyiaes.
“You think too much,” flipping his card, “when you should act.”
A bluff, he had nothing.
“You’re too up in your head, mate.” Rokaro continued. “It’s time you got out of it and made some real moves.”
“I understand.” Elyiaes said. “But then again, we’re just playing cards.”
“We were soldiers in arms together mate, you know what I mean.” Rokaro said, shuffling the deck one handed, showing surprising dexterity for a drunk.
“I was more of a support player,” Elyaies said. “I know where my place is on a battlefield. War is terrible.”
“Don’t hate me if you don’t find what you need.” Rokaro said, gesturing to the folder. He rose and upended his flask, savoring the last few drops.
There goes his whole paycheck.
Rokaro smiled and flipped cards jokingly at Elyiaes like they were throwing daggers. Elyiaes shook his head and smiled. He waited for Rokaro to leave, but the soldier just stood, swaying, waiting for Elyiaes to pick up the file. Finally he relented and delicately picked it up, scanning the report’s heading:
**********
[Fabbro’moro, Ilyfae]
Rokaro mumbled something about a hornet’s nest then meandered into the subject of the Borian desert, but Elyaies wasn’t listening, too engrossed in the report. He rifled through the first few documents: Witness testimonies, a full autopsy report on her death, and…
No comment.
Elyiaes shook his head in disbelief. He read the words over and over again. “No bloody comment!” he said, cutting Rokaro off midway through his drunken ramblings about the horrors of the desert.
“Sand sucks, it gets everywhere, it gets in your-- what’s that?” Rokaro asked.
“Mother left no comment when asked about Ilyfae’s death,” Elyiaes explained. “Even though she was in attendance at the event. She left no comment when one of her precious daughters was murdered right under her nose.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to show weakness?” Rokaro said, shrugging.
“That doesn’t sit well.” Elyiaes said. “There’s no comment from any of the other Matriarchs in attendance. Most of their responses are indifferent or attempts to make themselves look better. See, Lili’Yana said she sends her thoughts and prayers, but she never even spoke to me once. Besides, Ilyfae hated her and I’m sure the feeling was mutual.”
“That’s jus’ the game,” Rokaro slurred, closing his eyes as he leaned against the table. “I don’t even know wha’s goin’ on. Maybe they are jus’ tryin’ to sweep-it all under the rug.”
“No one takes responsibility.” Elyiaes murmured. “This damned country. All parties and debauchery. Why did I settle here? Why did I raise Ilyfae here?”
“She did pretty well, though, di’n’t she?” Rokaro said, rubbing his temples.
She did. She was better than all of these frauds.
Elyiaes went through the papers again and found one document he had skimmed too quickly. It was stuck to another page. He gently pulled the paper apart, and as he did, something fell into his lap. A tiny, crumpled note caked in dried blood. It was the birthday card he snuck into her jacket pocket so long ago. He forgot about it because of the fight they had right before she stormed off to the Crystal Theater.
What did we argue about?
He stared at the birthday card and the message he wrote for her. Feeling lightheaded, he pushed back his chair and rose. The rapid movement made him stumble. He held the note tightly to his chest and started shaking violently. It had been five years since he last cried, five years since Rokaro took him to see her corpse, five years since his world collapsed, but it felt like yesterday. His pulse pounded in his head and he couldn’t catch his breath. Five years, but he was right back in that moment.
Some stupid philosophic argument about good and evil. Some meaningless thought exercise. A judgemental moment I can never have back.
“That’s enough.” Rokaro said, placing a comforting arm on Elyiaes’ shoulder. He pulled Elyiaes into a stiff hug to stop him from seizing up. “Relax, mate.” He wasn’t good at comforting, but Elyiaes accepted the gesture all the same.
After a few minutes, Rokaro picked up the bloodied note from the floor. He pocketed the card as Elyiaes composed himself.
Rokaro flashed an old fashion Nov Romaran salute, a feeble attempt to dismiss the emotion. “You’ve passed through the hardest part. It’s time to move on.”
Elyiaes begrudgingly returned the salute.
Taking a deep breath, Elyaies returned to his seat and Rokaro sat too, but seemed more intent on staring at the golem than continuing the conversation. Elyaies went back to scanning the documents, flipping through the autopsy report. He paused at an observation.
Organs liquified?
They claimed she had taken an extract of Dragon’s Bane, a popular party drug. They said she may have overdosed, but Dragon’s Bane, from what Elyiaes understood, was far from lethal. Even if one overdosed, it should have slowed the heart to a stop. It did not cause organ damage, not on the scale of what happened to Ilyfae. There must be something missing, some redacted part of the report. It didn’t add up. No. He understood. An overdose would be uncomplicated. It happened all the time. This was Faltus, afterall. There wouldn’t be any real questions.
“Thank you Rokaro,” said Elyiaes. “For always coming to play cards with me.”
“Well, you suck at it.” Rokaro sniffed, not catching the finality hidden in Elyiaes’ tone. “I’m just helping you practice.”
Elyiaes grinned. “I’m better at chess.”
He returned to the documents. Names--lots of names. Pawns and knights--a grand game.
“Find what you need?” Rokaro asked.
“Sometimes, being on the defensive sets up a good counter,” Elyiaes said absently. “I might have to buy you that bottle of wine after all.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“You’ve helped me more than you know.”
Rokaro sobered up a little, and eyed his friend. “You’re not goin’ to do anything stupid, are you?”
“Of course not,” Elyiaes laughed. “I do need to see Casi’Ah about something, though.”
“The Matriarch of Magic? You two mingling like Lav Lu Lovebirds?” Rokaro jabbed.
“I fix things for her,” Elyiaes said. “She returns the favor.”
“Nothing repairs a rusty box like smashing it with a loose pipe, eh?” Rokaro joked.
“Anyway,” Elyiaes said, pointing to the toxicology report and trying not to blush, “what I really need to get my hands on is this ‘Unknown Substance’ they didn’t bother to analyze.”
“I gotta ‘nother surprise for’ ye,” Rokaro said through a burp. He rummaged through his coat.
How many pockets does he have?
“Where did I put it? Ah! ‘Here you go!” Rokaro exclaimed, producing a tiny golden parchment. “It’s an invitation.”
Elyiaes scanned the card.
Nahvad’s birthday concert at the Crystal Theater. The same theater where Ilyfae...
“Hey now, don’t do anything stupid,” Rokaro laughed, but Elyiaes sensed a warning in his voice.
Like kill Navhad? Not if I don’t have to.
“No.” Elyiaes chuckled. “I am no fool.”
“Still,” Rokaro said, shaking his head to clear it,“you might find some answers at the theater. Aim low. If you wanna know about drugs, Nahvad has a slew of degenerates working in that theater who might give you some answers. There’s a girl who works there, Reyna, I think. She’s practically Nahvad’s left hand, and she runs Dragon’s Bane to all of Nahvad’s special guests. She’s a fixture at these types of events.”
Elyiaes recognized the name. He rifled through the report and found it. Reyna was one of the last to see Ilyfae alive.
“Elyiaes, please.” Rokaro said, sounding almost sober. “I only ask you to make the right move. These people,” his gaze drifted to the window, as if half-expecting a spy, “they will kill you. You may be good at chess, but you’re acting like a pawn trying to single handedly win the game.”
“A pawn can do much, but only if it is in the right position.”
Rokaro gave him a sad look as Bubo flew from Elyiaes’ shoulder to perch on Flitz’s head. It lets out a spurt of steam fogging the windows. Tears of water streamed down the pane. With a weak smile, he stood and rested his hand on Elyiaes’ shoulder.
“From all the stuff I’ve seen you create with that beautiful mind of yours,” Rokaro said, glancing at Flitz and Bubo, “nothing seems impossible anymore.” Rokaro waited for a reply, but got none. After a minute of awkward silence, he straightened his coat and left, swaying just a bit as he opened the door.
After a moment of contemplation, Elyiaes directed Flitz to secure the perimeter. He needed to make sure his friend wasn’t followed. Elyiaes stared at the unfinished tea sitting on the table. Was it really that awful?
“I really don’t want to move.” Elyiaes muttered.
A familiar tapping drew his attention.
“W-O-R-K-?” Bubo pecked at the alternate alphabet board hanging over the fireplace.
“Yes, Bubo.”
No more defense.
“It’s time I put my heart into it.”
“W-E-!” Bubo pecked loudly. The homunculus’ head spun in circles displaying its indignation before flying to the upstairs workshop. The interaction was brief but felt real. Elyiaes stood motionless for a while, holding his tea.
It really does taste like shit.
He emptied the rest of the cup onto the floor and moved to his work desk. After Fidgeting with a locked drawer, he pulled out a long, tightly rolled scroll. He unrolled it on the desk, weighting the corners with stones, and scanned the spider web of names and notes. He began writing names in blank spaces. He circled some, drew lines connecting others, expanding the intricate pattern of words and symbols.
Very soon, Ilyfae. Very soon. I’m so close.
Even in Faltus where every structure doubled as a work of art, The Crystal Theater was an architectural wonder. An indoor and outdoor amphitheater, the ringside seats basqued in the soft light of twilight, yet the clear crystal roof that gave the theater its name could be rolled into place to protect against rain, or to refract moonlight in a beautiful kaleidoscope. Mirrors, strategically placed, could enhance the effect, creating an almost mystical environment to delight audiences of the varied performances that graced the theater. But tonight, no such tricks were necessary.
Only the most well connected Edwed were graced with tickets to what would be the most seminal event of the year. Several Matriarchs were in attendance, of course, along with their entourages of poets, assistants, lovers, and childhood running mates. Acrobatics in skin tight bodysuits of garish hues tumbled through the broad entrances, skillfully avoiding attendees as they flipped, contorted, and balanced on any object that could serve as a makeshift stage.
Edwed minors in grotesque costumes shambled, skipped, and danced through the aisles between seats playing harps and flutes, and always seeming to stay on beat with each other despite distance and the low roar of the crowd. Some dancers roamed through the audience, faces concealed in jeweled eye masks with single ivory horns affixed to them. They snuck up on the unaware, frightening them with their sudden appearance, evoking screams and laughter from the raucous crowd. Beneath the surface of it all, pills and tinctures and needles and pipes passed from hand to hand, a wave of artificial euphoria sweeping through the attendees. This would be a night to remember.
“Edwen, Edwon, non-binary, transitioning, everything out and in-between, citizens of Faltus, welcome!” A spotlight, generated from who knows where, haloed the speaker, a pale skinned Edwon in a billowing costume of a dozen colors, her face streaked with bright red and blue paint. She gestured to the upper balconies, her smile wide enough for all to see her jeweled teeth. “And a special welcome to our beloved Matriarchs and our illustrious Mother Supreme. Tonight, we celebrate one of the greatest artists in all of Faltus, nay, one of the greatest artists in the history of Gregorr-Sheav!”
She extended her hands in both directions, a universal signal for quiet. A hush settled over the amphitheater, as a lone figure approached the piano dominating center stage. Her long gown of gold and silver thread trailed behind her, and the creamy hue of her smooth skin, speckled with spots of soft pink, complimented the fabric perfectly. The quiet remained so absolute that thousands in the open air amphitheater could hear birds, the distant ocean, and the soft touch of the Edwon’s every step. It was only when the ring master gave a low bow and sang, “I present to you, your host, Matriarch of Art, Nahvad” that the crowd erupted in a roar of cheers and applause, shaking the amphitheater to its foundations.
“Thank you my dear, Reyna!” Nahvad said. She spoke softly, but something amplified her voice so all could hear. She ascended the steps to center stage and kissed Reyna’s cheek softly, lest she get any of the bright makeup on her lips. “As always you flatter me with your introduction.” She touched a ring on her finger, killing the amplification of her voice and whispered in Reyna’s ear, “Make sure that Mother is tended to and given all the hospitality I can offer. And don’t be stingy with the Dragon’s Bane. I want this party to be epic, do you understand?” Reyna gave a nod of acknowledgement followed by an elaborate bow for the crowd before exiting the stage.
Nahvad turned a wide, welcoming smile to the audience. “Tonight, I will perform all of my classical hits! And who knows?” she said, touching a single painted fingernail to her full lips. “Maybe I’ll unveil something new.”
The crowd roared with delight, but none as loud as Reyna herself. She skipped in delight backstage, revelling in the heat rolling through her body. Dragon’s Bane gave her the most wonderful high without the anxiety and the downs other, less refined substances often produced. As she heard the music begin to pour from the stage, all she wanted to do was dance, but even with her focus clouded, she remembered her mistress’s words.
“Come quick, come quick!” She called, and several Edwed Minors emerged from the shadowy recesses of the backstage. Most of her runners were Minors for many reasons. They could weave in and out of the crowds effectively and most were willing to work for small tinctures of Dragon’s Bane. Tonight, though, she could afford to be more generous. She opened a pot full of the thick green liquid. She opened a case filled with empty, stoppered vials, waiting to be filled. Nahvad had spared no expense.
“Only take a little!” Reyna said, spooning doses with a small metal ladle and dripping the viscid stuff into eager mouths. “We are here to distribute. We must leave some for crews of all the Matriarchs and all of Nahvad’s friends.
The stage crew lapped up their doses, and Reyna took another for herself, just to keep the wave flowing. She pulled out a tiny harmonica and blew a single note, a signal that froze the Minors in place like trained pigs. It was time to fill the vials for distribution and give each of them their assignments. She was about to begin when she noticed that one Edwed still shuffled about. He was taller than the others, tall even for an Edwed Major. He wore one of the jeweled, horned masks of a crowd lurker, the players meant to stir up crowd participation. Reyna blew her harmonica again, but he seemed to ignore her, instead looking about the rigging with quick, nervous glances.
“Um, hello?” Reyna asked, but the figure ignored her, instead moving up to the cauldron. He took a vial and filled it himself.
“Um, excuse me?” Reyna said, annoyed.
The Minors turned toward him, lips stained green, grumbling and cursing. They moved to surround the Edwed, blocking off any exit. Reyna went to blow another note from her harmonica, a signal to take the Edwen and hold him for the guards, but she found herself breathless and lightheaded. Trying to regain focus, her knees suddenly gave way and she fell. She wasn’t alone in this. One by one, her runners fell too. Only the lone Major remained standing. From the direction of the stage, she heard several pops, followed by shouts of panic. As Reyna’s consciousness waned, the cacophony grew louder, but her mind tumbled into a void and seconds later, she heard nothing.
**********
Nahvad’s finger danced on the piano keys making it sing as only she could. Everything she played evoked an avalanche of applause and she soaked it in, revelling in the attention. She lived for these moments.
Her voice poured from her in harmony with the keys and the crowd settled, mesmerized by the rhythm, the beauty, the enchantment of her song. She could feel them. She always could, and even as she crafted her music, she crafted their reactions, bringing them up and down with the tempo of her music. Her talent enslaved and delighted them, the paradox of performance, the power she held in her ability to produce perfect notes in perfect order. Her performances were far greater than any of the party favors circulating through the audience. She brought them into her mind, into her world, and gave them all a glimpse of her raw essence.
But for Nahvad herself, only the Mother Supreme mattered. Normally, she would be lost in her own rapture, one with the music, but every few minutes, she searched for that pristine painted face, that gentle nod of approval, before progressing to the next symphony, the next movement, the next act. Yes, it was Nahvad’s birthday but this performance was her gift to the Mother.
Mid crescendo, something diverted her attention and caused her to play a single discordant note. Fireworks lit up the sky, but the explosions were out of rhythm with the music. Nahvad carefully orchestrated such things, and this was not part of the show. They looked cheap, and unimpressive. Maybe some poor fan outside, someone who couldn’t afford a ticket had set them off. Normally, she would not care, but this was her birthday. The Mother Supreme and all the Matriarchs were here to enjoy her majestic performance. These ugly blasts were ruining everything. This would not do.
“Vulgar display.” Nahvad whispered as another series of explosions disrupted the flow of her music. She made a gesture with her hand towards the back of the stage. She was signalling for Reyna to help fix this mess, but her attention was taken elsewhere. She noticed a small bird circling overhead, seeming to dodge its way through the detonations. The beauty of its flight caught Nahvad off guard, long enough to not notice that there weren’t any runners in the theater coming to her aid.
It descended slowly, and Nahvad watched it like a hungry cat. It swooped into a dive and landed atop of the piano, but Nahvad did not stop playing. The bird hopped up and down and for a moment, Nahvad thought it cute until it jumped onto the keys abruptly ruining her song. She stopped playing and the crowd, swaying under her power, stopped too, looking around confused. First a barely perceptible hum vibed through the colorful collage of intoxicated Edwed, but that hum slowly grew into an irritated buzz of gossip as their stupor fell apart.
Something felt wrong. Nahvad took a closer look at the bird. Its feathers had a metallic sheen to them. Its head twisted, and where its eyes should have been, there were only spinning gears. This was no living animal.
“What are you?” Nahvad asked aloud. The bird’s beak opened revealing a tiny amount of honeycomb. Nahvad noticed a small bit of jade dust shifting inside its mouth, an active component to a trick she was familiar with. “So, you’ve ruined my performance. What message does your master have that couldn’t wait?”
The mechanisms inside the bird clicked and a loud recorded sentence emanated from the device:
“I have been patient long enough. The time for change comes. The measure of a soul is what one will do when gifted with the freedom of truth.” The message ended, and the bird’s head spun in a circle. When it clicked back into place, the message repeated. “I have been patient long enough. The time for change comes. The measure of a soul is what one will do with freedom of truth.” It spun again, and repeated again, over and over.
The confusion got the better of the audience and they grew restless, some getting up from their seats. Several more explosions, louder than the previous ones, shook the theater, and shouts rang out. Panic is contagious. Soon, all the Edwed in the audience were scrambling over each other to reach the exits.
Nahvad tried to see The Mother through the pandemonium, but the mechanical bird distracted her as it tried to peck at her face. She swatted at it, but only caught air. In frustration, she slammed the piano cover shut, trying to catch it, but it flitted off and took flight.
“Shoot that thing down. Now!” She screamed, waving her arms to guards nearby the stage. Her command fell on deaf ears though, as plumes of gas filled the amphitheater. Those caught directly, coughed violently. Nahvad strained to see through the residual mist when a blast of light cut through the chaos, shining down from above. A bright rocket with a long trail of smoke rose in the air and then exploded in a flash of sparks and color. It illuminated the mist which had formed words, skywriting hanging suspended above the amphitheater.
“THE WORLD WILL KNOW PEACE WHEN LOVE CONQUERS YOUR POWER!”
Memories of another attack in the Crystal Theater made Nahvad’s breath catch in her throat. “Protect the Mother!” she tried to shriek, but the gas made her gag. She activated her ring, yet even amplified, her voice was lost in the series of explosions that followed the first. Pyrotechnics flashed overhead and more smoke poured into the arena which had turned into a frenzy of movement. Chaos now firmly reigned in the Crystal Theater.
Guards rushed to protect their respective leaders as hordes of common folk on the lower levels poured through the exits. Edwed were trampled by other Edwed stampeding through the packed arena to get as far as they could from the stinging clouds of gas.
“Is Mother okay?!” Nahvad yelled as the guards hustled her away from the theater.
“She’s protected and safely evacuated from the area,” one of the guards said.
“Good!” The terrorist might have ruined the show, but at least those who needed to be safe were guarded well enough. Nahvad looked around for her assistant. “Reyna? Where are you? Captain, where is my Reyna!”
“I haven't seen her.” The voice belonged to Captain Rokaro, who had appeared through the smoke. “Your safety is our highest priority.” He directed some guards to escort Nahvad away.
“Captain Rokaro!” Another guard appeared and screamed over the din. “We’ve found overheated mechanical devices planted everywhere!”
“Any news of the culprit?” Rokaro asked.
“Not yet, sir. We’re still looking!” The guard reported.
“I want extra men on all the Matriarchs, and double for The Mother.” Rokaro shouted.
“What about the culprit?” Another guard asked.
“Set a perimeter south of the stadium. Whoever we’re looking for couldn’t have gotten that far,” Rokaro replied. “We’ll find him.”
Nahvad seemed satisfied that measures were taken to bring everything under control and allowed herself to be shuffled away. She did not see the worry in her captain’s eyes as he scanned the crowd. She didn’t hear the silent prayer he whispered for his friend.
“I’ll keep them here for a bit, Elyiaes. But that is all the time I can buy you.”
**********
“Flitz, take her to the bed. She’s starting to wake.”
They were in a rundown storage shed north of the Crystal Theater. The communal nature of Faltus made privacy difficult to come by, but Elyiaes had a few places.
In a dark alley next to the abandoned building, a jeweled mask and costume had been stuffed into a trash bin. Inside the small hovel, a young female Edwon Minor lay strapped to a bed. Elyiaes stared at her, sweat beading down his neck. He paced in tiny circles around the room.
“You can do this,” Elyiaes muttered. “You can do this.”
He grabbed a bag and searched through its contents, mumbling a script he’d prepared for this moment. Reyna groggily opened one eye. She blinked in and out of consciousness, weakly struggling against her bonds. Looking in a mirror, he tried to mentally prepare himself, but he felt distracted. Maybe it was the lack of light in the room, but his reflection looked dark. Shaking off the malaise, he pulled up a chair next to his captive and did his best to mask his nerves.
“Um, hello,” Elyiaes said. He had rehearsed the lines a thousand times, but found his mind blank.
Reyna, now fully awake, shook violently in the bed, wiggling her restrained body to no avail. She stopped moving and started to scream.
“Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am?”
Elyiaes looked at her and took a deep breath. “You are a tool.”
“A tool that will cut your disgusting throat!” Reyna growled, “Let me go or I’ll…” She gasped for air as Elyiaes injected a syringe into her arm. The amber-green liquid dispersed through her vein and she slumped in the bed. Her face split into a wide grin, cracking the thick layer of makeup caking her skin.
“Now, now.” Elyiaes says quietly, placing the now empty vial of dragon’s bane on a side table. “It would be better if you didn’t resist. Feeling relaxed now?”
“What… You…” She sighed and struggled to talk. Her words came out in broken phrases as she looked at Elyiaes through cloudy eyes.
“You didn’t let me finish. I wanted to say that I’m a tool too,” Elyiaes whispered, “but unlike you, a pin or a tack, I am a knife.”
“How dull, wait…wait,” Reyna said, her voice quivering. “I know you. You’re her Papa?”
Elyiaes stared at her for a long moment. He drew a light hammer from his bag, a tool he had infused and tinkered with. It had a gas compressor and had a driving piston attached to the end of its head.
“I will crush everything you and your master have built.”
“Pathetic!” Reyna slurred and laughed, mocking Elyiaes’ attempt at intimidation.
Enough with this jester.
Elyiaes drew another vial from his bag. His hands trembled as he held the liquid, afraid to drop it. This one contained a sapphire blue liquid. It took a moment for him to locate the proper vein in her neck, but he steadied himself and injected her with this new drug.
Casi’ah, this better work.
Reyna’s laughter continued for a while. Eventually though, she went quiet. Rather, she struggled to breathe, inhaling in short intervals. Her eyes turned glossy and white. She went stock-still and her motionless body drew some concern from Elyiaes. He looked at the potion he acquired from the Matriarch of Magic.
Did I give her too much?
“Are you still here?” He asked nervously, snapping his fingers. Reyna tilted her head upward and nodded.
Good, good. She’s still coherent it would seem.
“Let’s start with something simple,” Elyiaes said. “What is your name?”
“Reyna.”
“What is this drug called?” Elyiaes held the vial of thick green liquid from the cauldron in the Crystal Theater.
“Dragon’s Bane.”
“Ok now for something harder,” Elyiaes continued. “Did you kill my daughter, Ilyfae, the Matriarch of Science?”
“…No.”
“Who killed my daughter?” Elyiaes asked coldly.
Reyna struggled to speak, “I don’t know…she...”
“She? Was Nahvad involved in my daughter’s death?” Elyiaes said.
“I don’t know…”
“Did Nahvad provide Dragon’s Bane to my daughter?”
“Yes…”
“Who made this drug?” Elyiaes pressed on, the questions coming out rapidly. “Who supplies Nahvad with this drug? Where do you get this drug from?”
“Tekinesh…”
Finally, an actual clue that leads somewhere.
“Who in Tekinesh makes this drug?”
“Many…”
“Who from Tekinesh came to see Nahvad recently?” Ilyias growled, his patience running thin. Reyna began gurgling foam from her mouth. She struggled against the bonds holding her, the leather cutting into her skin.
She’s fighting the drug.
“Focus!” Elyiaes ordered, “Or I’ll inject you again! Tell me about your most recent contact from Tekinesh!”
“Agents… from… Skul’prata…” Blood trickled down Reyna’s mouth as she struggled to speak. Her teeth clenched, and her ghostly pale eyes were regaining their old color. The twisted visage of Reyna lying in the bed covered in blood caused Elyiaes to pause. Thoughts of Ilyfae’s dead body came to his mind. Feeling squeamish, Elyiaes shoved his seat aside and moved his face close, his ragged breathing synchronizing with hers.
“Give me a name!” Screamed Elyiaes, grabbing Reyna by both arms and shaking her. For a moment, it looked as if Reyna would reply, but instead her eyes blinked rapidly and a horrible, guttural cry erupted from her throat.
“…Fuck… You…” She said, and she chuckled, flashing a wicked grin, “Fuck You!”
She looked crazed. She gave Elyiaes a mad look, then sighed and bit into her tongue. Noticing this, Elyiaes grabbed her chin roughly. He pulled open her jaw and poured a liquid into her mouth, frantically splashing it over her teeth and gums. Reyna’s mouth went numb and she lost any remaining control over her body.
“Well,” Elyiaes breathed, “you called my bluff.”
Casi’ah, your truth serum works, but only lasts a minute.
“You... Stupid... Man!” Reyna babbled. Her words came out muffled as her jaw lost all feeling from the numbing agent. She blurted out globs of blood and spittle after each word. Her skin looked stretched and dry, as if her body was drained of its vital nutrients. She resembled a ghostly skeleton. A huge blotch of coagulated blood formed a nasty looking bruise around her neck. “Nahvad… Will… Kill… You!”
Casi’Ah, what did you give me? The drug has some nasty side effects.
Elyiaes stooped down and tried to clean Reyna up. He wiped the blood and spit from her jaw. “Don’t fret, I promise this will be over soon.”
Seeing the blood trickle down her jaw reminded Elyiaes of that night. The night Rokaro let him into the cleric’s monastery to see his daughter’s body on the cold slab. He shuddered and started to cry, his tears falling onto Reyna’s face. She hiccupped a glob of blood in the back of throat and spit a ball of black mucus into Elyiaes’ eyes. She bit at his fingers as his hand strayed a little too close. Elyiaes winced in pain and stared at Reyna, his eyes filled with bottled rage. She cackled and thick blue liquid trickled from her eyes, ears and nose. With her mouth numbed, she choked on her own fluids pooling in her throat. Her laughter came out awkwardly as it sounded different to Elyiaes’ ears.”
“Pa... Pa…Pa…Pa...”
Elyiaes’ tried to breathe, but his chest felt heavy and his pulse raced. Blinded with hatred, he couldn’t think. An endless void of sorrow broke Elyiaes down, melting his core. Images of the replica construct he worked on to recreate his daughter popped into his mind. Memories of Ilyfae’s head dangling at her side helplessly. Reyna’s laughter echoed in his head; his sanity falling apart. A singular thought came to him in this moment of doubt. This Edwed did not deserve to breathe either.
His hands clamped around Reyna’s throat, anything to stop her laughter. She did not struggle. She smiled.
I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!
The argument he had with Ilyfae the night of her death repeated in his mind. The night they fought when she shouted ‘I hate you’ as he tried to lecture her on morals and ethics. Why did he get so angry for things he thought were childish, or wrong? Stupid ideas he presented as truths, his ‘holier than thou’ sense of justice, a will to uphold duty and honor. The last words he remembered saying to his daughter the night she left him forever, “Do the right thing. Even if what you do is drastic. At the very least, try to be good.”
This last thought loosened his grip. He looked up, horrified. The young Edwon lay motionless, her smile locked into place.
What have I done?
Reyna’s head lolled to one side. Elyiaes untied her bonds and started chest compressions. Nothing. He pulled a homemade health potion, poured it into a syringe and injected it into her sternum. Nothing. Flitz, sitting quietly in the corner of the room, let out a gust of steam.
“I’m sorry,” Elyiaes whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Bubo came in through a high window, flying circles around Elyiaes. Its head still spun around and around. It landed on Elyiaes’ shoulder relaying its recorded message again and again.
“I have been patient long enough. The time for change comes. The measure of a soul is what one will do with the freedom of truth.”
I’m such a hypocrite.
Bubo’s recording continued for a bit longer before finally running out of tape. Elyiaes sat quietly, unable to break his gaze from the Edwed he murdered. He thought about the conversation he had with Rokaro. How he treated this whole affair like a game of chess. His naïve expectation that he could win without a cost.
Lives are not toy pieces in a game.
Distant shouts of guards outside brought him back to the moment. Slowly, he collected his things and turned to look at Reyna one more time. He rifled through his belongings and spotted the folder of notes he gathered, Ilyfae’s notes. He knew he needed to continue her work…
But at what cost?
He directed Flitz to head back to his workshop. He looked at Bubo on his shoulder and walked in a different direction, toward the harbor. Bubo pecked at him gently as if he were pecking at his alphabet board. Even without it, Elyiaes knew the pattern.
“Where?”
Elyiaes ignored the bird. He wasn’t sure of himself anymore. Reyna had not given him much, but there was one connection. In Ilyfae’s notes he had seen the name, Skul’Brukt and the reference to Skul’prata could not be coincidence. He tried to focus his thoughts on his daughter. Bubo pecked at him again, but Elyiaes had no energy to respond. If he was to bring her back, he would need to play differently. It’s the only way he could recall her, reforge her, revive her. Bubo pecked a third time. Elyiaes inhaled a deep breath of salty air as he approached the docks. He remembered the birthday card he wrote for her. He remembered the promise he made to her.
All will be well my Love... For all Eternity...
“Where?” Bubo pecked again.
“Tekinesh.”
“Will that be all, Matriarch?” The shrill voice interrupted her silent exchange. A young servant girl with a vapid grin cocked her head comically as she bowed low. The servant’s eyes lingered on the note still sitting in Ilyfae’s hand. Nosey bitch, Ilyfae thought and wondered, not for the first time, why the servants would not use her full title, Matriarch of Science. Playing with the words in her head, they seemed to carry more weight.
“No, please send my regards to Nahvad. I know I gave short notice of my attendance tonight, and I appreciate the trouble and effort she went through to get me a seat.” Nahvad, the Matriarch of Art, owned the Crystal Theater and this servant was her creature. Anything the servant saw, Nahvad would see. Ilyfae folded her hands over the letter from her father.
“It is no trouble at all, Matriarch. My mistress aims to please.” The young Edwon smiled as she spun out of her bow and moved to exit the balcony suite. Before leaving, she bent backwards, contorting like a Boran circus performer with her head hanging upside down, “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to summon me. My name is Reyna.”
Everything is a performance with these fools.
Ilyfae, now truly alone, looked down to the now balled up letter. Her father didn’t understand. If she were to become Mother Supreme, she would have to do what was necessary, no matter how unsavory. The ends often justify the means, and Ilyfae’s divine purpose to lead the family to greatness could not be curtailed. Unfolding the note, she smoothed it out and read the final words in her father’s uneven script.
For all Eternity.
She felt empty and cold. A brief and hollow sensation. Then a sting. She wanted to turn, but couldn’t. She tried, yet her neck clicked in rebellion. Her gentle melancholy was replaced with terror. A tingling sensation swept through her, like baby spiders crawling in her veins. Then, a sudden wave of euphoria, a warmth radiating and humming through her limbs. All thought and worry faded. A moment of bliss, despite her fear. A smile cracked through the numbness. An intoxicating pleasure... It burns…
Her father’s card crumpled in Ilyfae’s suddenly rigid grip. She tried to unclench her fist, but her hand did not respond. The internal gears of her body froze, spittle dripped from her mouth, and bile rose in her throat. She tried to scream, tried to fight as her body curled into a fetal position, but pain flashed through her spine and her muscles contorted violently. Her body did not belong to her anymore.
“Now, now…” a soft voice, a soothing voice, a voice she knew. It cut through the symphony on stage, cut through the roar of her pain, a whisper, yet it drowned out all other sound. “Don’t struggle, you will only suffer more. It works faster if you don’t resist.” A cloaked figure leaned over and placed a syringe and a vial half full vial of green liquid next to Ilyfae’s bag. She drew a similar vial, the one Ilyfae had been saving for an after show celebration, from the bag and pocketed it.
Ilyfae recognized that half-smile and the edges of a tattoo through the shadows of her visitor’s cloak. She struggled to form words through the blood filling her lungs but only managed one. “You…”
“This is not personal, my dear,” the figure continued, “Matter of fact, you should feel honored. Your work is astounding. Color me slightly jealous. But your project is too ground breaking to leave in your incompetent hands. Take some consolation in the fact that you’ve made a phenomenal discovery. It will advance my own work in leaps and bounds. You’ve given me the most precious of gifts--time.”
Too many thoughts flooded Ilyfae’s head. Her synapses were fried, everything in critical failure. If only she could relay her response through the blinking of her eyes. The anger, the turmoil, the feeling of defeat. She wished she had the chance to see her father one more time, to feel the embrace of his strong arms, to have him mumble, “All will be well.”
She tried to scream as the contents of her body poured from every orifice, congealing into pools of vile ichor on her seat and the floor of the balcony, but all she could produce were the bubbling sounds of her death.
Can I find you in my dreams, Papa?
The plea echoed in her skull as the bright lights of the theater faded.
“Pa…”
“…Pa?” The replica raised its head, blinking its metallic eyes, looking up at Elyiaes.
Could this be it? Will it finally work?
“Papa?”
Yes! Magnificent! I have done it. I knew I could! I…
“Pa…pa..Pa?”
No, she’s not supposed to twitch like that. Something’s wrong.
“PA PA PA PA!”
Oh no, oh no, oh no. There isn’t enough power! It isn’t sustainable. Not again! No, no! I was so close!
The construct, this replica of Elyiaes’ daughter, convulsed violently. Steam erupted from her neck and her internal gears screeched with the sound of grinding metal. Her head thrashed back and forth until it popped free and hung at an odd angle, only held in place by a metallic wire, her artificial spine.
Elyiaes turned away, remembering the body of his real daughter, limbs twisted, the smell, the horror in her eyes.
“PAPA PAPA PAPA…papa… pa…”
Another overheated doll. Damn!
A tiny mechanical bird, the gears in its wings clicking metallically, flew from its high perch to an alphabet board hung up on the wall. It pecked at letters, spelling out a question, “P-A-P-A-.-W-H-Y-?”
Elyiaes forced himself to look at his latest failure. “The gears got too hot and melted the tethers holding the skull. The whole mechanism faltered from there.” He pointed to the small wrench on the desk and the bird flew from its perch to retrieve it. “Thank you, Bubo.” The artificial Tufted Titmouse’s gears-for-eyes spun as it flew back to the alphabet board.
“W-H-Y-.-F-A-I-L-?” It pecked.
“Let’s see.” Elyiaes opened the replica’s chest plate. A plume of acrid smoke belched forth making him gag. When it cleared, he gazed down at the shards of the multicolored gemstone he had set in the carefully prepared cavity. He shook his head. “The Matriarch of Magic is going to kill me.” Even as he contemplated explaining the destruction of the borrowed gem, he considered new potential power cores. But, no. He had run out of options. The internal refraction jewel was his last, best chance.
Bubo’s head spun on its body, looking towards the stairs. It flapped its wings rapidly. “Yes, Bubo. I heard the alarm too. Let's welcome our visitor with the proper hospitality, as Mother taught us.” If it was the person he thought it would be, Elyiaes knew his guest would enter whether he invited him in or not.
“Put a leash on your guard dog, will ya’?” Rokaro shouted in a gruff voice.
The former legionnaire served as a captain in Faltus royal guard, overseeing security for the Matriarchs and other powerful dignitaries. A somewhat symbolic duty, but Rokaro still carried himself like a commander on the front lines of one of Nov Romara’s ‘Great Expansions’. His once jet black hair had faded, but his grip on the hilt of his sword never waivered. Rokaro and Elyiaes served together on the front lines against partisans of Jvar-VunGal. Their bond ran deep.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming,” Elyiaes said as he came down the stairs. He coughed and waved through the clouds of steam pouring from the massive metallic figure that had cornered Rokaro. “Settle down, Flitz.” Elyiaes commanded the golem. It slowly turned, gyros whirring. and stomped across the room, settling into a corner. The construct awkwardly shifted its head to face the two Edwed before dropping onto its metal arse, adding a new crack to floor tile with its weight.
“That’s new,” Rokaro said, trying to sound relaxed, but Elyiaes could read the tension in his friend’s body language. Rokaro stammered, unable to peel his gaze from the steel defender. “When did that happen?”
“I’ve made some breakthroughs.” Elyiaes opened the windows to let out some of the steam. “Tea?”
“Yes,” Rokaro said, sitting down in a chair that was as far away from the golem as possible. “I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled. Where do you get the inspiration to build such a thing?”
“Don’t worry, he won’t bite.” Elyiaes shouted from the kitchen as he sifted through a cabinet. Bubo glided over to Elyiaes’s shoulder and pointed its beak at the tea hiding behind a large bowl. “There it is. Thank you, Bubo.”
“It can bite?” Rokaro asked, genuinely concerned. He slid his chair a few inches farther away from Flitz.
“No,” Elyiaes yelled, “but it has a mean backhand. Where did I put those biscuits?”
“Just tea, thanks.” Rokaro said. He pulled out some cards and gestured for Elyiaes to take a seat. “I already ate.”
“Let me guess. Plain bread and jerky? Those days of fighting with nothing but simple rations to sustain us are over. Stop acting like such a grunt.”
Elyiaes brought the tea while Rokaro set up Coasten Flip’em, a game they had played since their war days.
“Retired grunt, thank you very much,” Rokaro said gruffly and pulled out a red-crested silver flask hidden in his vest. He poured dark amber liquid into his cup of tea. “Just a glorified guard now.”
Without another word, they began to play, slipping into an old, familiar rhythm. Elyiaes won the first hand easily. As he went to reshuffle, Rokaro leaned over to pour a shot from the flask in Elyiaes’ cup.
“No, thanks,” Elyiaes said, covering the top of his cup with his palm. “I don’t drink anymore.”
“Sorry.” Rokaro pocketed the flask. “Forgot you swore it off since…” Rokaro looked up at Elyiaes’ cold eyes. “Shit, I better stop talking.”
“It’s fine,” Elyiaes said as he tossed his cards face up, indicating a reshuffle.
Rokaro let out a curse under his breath. “Damn I had a good hand.”
“I don’t have the stomach for it anyway.” Elyiaes said quietly. He thought of his daughter and the night Rokaro took him to see her body.
An awkward silence passed between them. Rokaro grunted and shuffled the cards. They played on and Elyiaes folded every hand Rokaro dealt.
“C’mon man,” Rokaro said, “Play a hand. Even if it’s shite. This is no fun.”
“Just waiting for the right moment.” Elyiaes replied. “You’re bound to make a mistake sooner or later.”
“You sound like one of those weak-willed Watcher priests. You know the ones. They stood aside when we ransacked their towns. Bunch of spineless little sheep.”
“Show some humility.” Elyiaes said, controlling his tone. “Those were religious men, not fighters. They did what they had to do to protect what they had. We caught them by surprise. They were at a disadvantage. It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Humility is cowardice and has no place on the battlefield.” Rokaro grunted.
“You’re wrong.” Elyiaes said, his voice colder than he intended.
Rokaro's eyes narrowed, analyzing his friend.
Elyiaes slumped back into his chair, and continued. “What they ordered us to do was slaughter. There was no honor in it.”
Rokaro chuckled. “Still meek as the day you were assigned to my unit. When are you going to grow up and look at the world as it is?”
“Meek is not weak.”
“Oh yeah?” Rokaro replied. “Prove it then. Stop pussyfooting around and play a hand. You play this game as passively as a Borian peddler.”
“Maybe I need stakes. Do you want to make a real bet?” Elyiaes said.
“Oh?” Rokaro perked up. “What do you have in mind?”
“You have something for me, yes?” Elyiaes asked, trying to control his tone.
“Maybe…” Rokaro teased. “Maybe not.”
“Why else did you come here?” Elyiaes said, tired of the game. “Am I a joke to you? Some lonely old man you’ve come to mock?”
“Hey,” Rokaro said, “It’s not like that, Elyiaes. Don’t talk to me like I’m some dim-witted Djairian.” Secretly, Elyiaes cringed at the very Nov Romaran way his friend equated negative traits with particular nationalities. Rokaro flipped open his jacket revealing a stack of papers poking out of an inside pocket. “I got what you wanted, but it wasn’t easy. A lot of eyes and ears perked up when I asked for this report. I could get in a lot of trouble handing it over to you. Not everyday a Matriarch is murdered in a popular theater. Most want this incident buried.”
He’s getting drunk. Otherwise he would remember he’s talking about my daughter!
“You owe me, Rokaro,” Elyiaes said slowly. Bubo, Flitz, and Elyiaes all stared at Rokaro together, their gazes focused on his jacket pocket.
“Shut up, Elyiaes.” Rokaro said, edging away from the golem. “Just tell me what you want to bet.”
“Fine.” Elyiaes said.
I have him.
“If I win this next hand, you give me those papers and you tell the damned Matriarchs whatever you need to tell them.”
“No need to blaspheme,” Rokaro said with a big smile. “And if I win?”
“I’ll…” Elyiaes hesitated, not sure what he could offer. “I’ll buy you a bottle of that wine from Joun.”
“Oh ho!” Rokaro laughed. “Stuff is a lot pricier than this piss!” he said, gesturing to his cup. He downed it and spat in his hand, extending it to Elyiaes.
Elyiaes grimaced, but accepted the hand to seal the bet. Both players flipped their cards. Rokaro’s eyes dropped and he let out a sigh. “Damnit!”
“See,” Elyiaes chuckled, looking cheerful for the first time since Rokaro came into his house. “Blessed are those who wait their turn and strike accordingly.”
“I hate you, Elyiaes.” Rokaro said, but returned the smile. “I really was looking forward to drinking that wine.”
“I promise you, friend,” Elyiaes said, “I will get you that bottle if I find what I’m looking for.”
“You better.” Rokaro said before refilling his cup. He took a sip of tea and sneered. “Don’t see how you can drink this stuff without spiking it. Your tea tastes like ass.” He topped off the cup with his flask.
“Yeah, well down here in the slums we can’t really afford the good stuff. I am a lowly scientist after all. You can thank Nov Ro for this wonderful brew.”
“Oh how the mighty have fallen,” said Rokaro. “Gone are the days when Science was always at the top. Fine, you win this one.”
“Today’s miseries are born from former glories we never deserved.” Elyiaes said glumly, but then looked up with a sly smile. “So, my prize?” he said with a wink, looking directly at Rokaro’s jacket pocket.
“In due time,” Rokaro replied. “I want to win a few more hands before we get to business.” Rokaro looked amused at Elyiaes’ annoyance. He shuffled the deck. “You think after all the fighting we’ve done we’d at least be rewarded with a decent cup of tea. I mean, the technology alone your lot has provided should have gotten ye’ better slop than this.”
Rokaro rambled on as they played, taking sip after sip. Each drink followed a comment regarding Elyiaes’ state of livelihood. Jab after jab, Rokaro listed in detail how far Elyiaes has become destitute. Eventually he abandoned the teacup altogether and drank directly from his flask.
He may be drunk, but he’s toying with me. When is he going to give me those damned papers?
“Can I ask you a question?” Rokaro said.
“You already did.” Elyiaes said.
“Be serious for a moment.”
“Okay.”
“That time when we were ambushed near the borderlands of Oakinesh,” Rokaro said, slurring a bit. “Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember.”
“That night…” Rokaro paused, looking at the engraving of his flask on the table. He blinked several times as if he were trying to erase the memory.
“We lost a lot of good soldiers,” Elyiaes finished for him. “Barely older than children, most of them.”
“Aye,” Rokaro sighed. Flitz let out a gust of steam from where he sat in the corner. Rokaro looked away and rubbed his eyes.
His stupid pride. Hiding his emotions even when he finally wants to open up.
“What about it, my friend?” Elyiaes asked.
“Nothing,” Rokaro said, “Just wanted to see if you still think about it.”
“How could I ever forget?”
“I don’t know,” Rokaro scratched his head. “I’m just worried about where your focus is these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“It just seems like you’ve moved on,” Rokaro continued, “From all the things we went through.”
“How could you say such a thing?” Elyiaes asked, wrinkles forming over his brow.
“Then what is all this about?” Rokaro said, taking the papers from his jacket and waving them around. Sweat trickled down Elyiaes’ back. He shifted in his seat and reached for the documents, but Rokaro pulled them away.
“Are you going to give them to me or not?” Elyiaes growled.
“I will, but is this going to be the end of it?”
“Rokaro, if... ” Elyiaes strained to get the words out. “If you had a daughter...would you let it go?”
“Ilyfae was just as much of a daughter to me as you!” Rokaro slurred.
“Then how can you even ask?”
“This is not healthy! We lost half of our unit, and I bet you can’t even remember their names, but this...”
“Is different.” Elyiaes finished.
“I remember every single one of them.” Rokaro said, as if Elyiaes had not spoken. “Names of soldiers I’ll never get to visit and play my favorite game of cards with.”
“This was my daughter!” Elyiaes yelled, finally losing his patience. “My child! My blood! My…” Elyiaes faltered, tears streaming down his cheeks. “My…”
“Ilyfae was no longer yours to control and protect.” Rokaro said. “She wasn’t exactly a saint. You know the games the Matriarchs play. She was in the middle of all of it.”
“She is my daughter.”
They stared at each other for several moments. Bubo flew around the room, gears whirring loudly. Rokaro palmed the pommel of his sword as Flitz shifted on the floor. A few more seconds passed, then Elyiaes put his hand up in mock surrender. Rokaro loosened his grip and groaned as he twisted his head to crack his neck. The moment passed.
“I just want you to find closure.” Rokaro said.
“I need to know what happened to her. I have to know.”
“And what if Mother Supreme decides that you should stop? What then?” Rokaro asked.
“If that’s what Mother wants,” Elyiaes said, working hard to keep the mockery out of his voice, “that’s what Mother gets.”
Rokaro shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unsure what to say. Elyiaes reshuffled the cards, but his hands itched for the report that lay in front of him.
Patience.
The game continued. The sounds of the street life outside waned. The two played for another hour in silence as the city began to sleep.
“What?” Elyiaes broke the silence, after folding his cards. “Big hand?”
“Aye…” Rokaro said, his face looking sour. “You know, you play too defensive. At some point, you have to make a move.”
“I made moves,” Elyiaes retorted. “You’re just too easy to read.”
Rokaro gave him a flat look then pushed the folder towards Elyiaes.
“You think too much,” flipping his card, “when you should act.”
A bluff, he had nothing.
“You’re too up in your head, mate.” Rokaro continued. “It’s time you got out of it and made some real moves.”
“I understand.” Elyiaes said. “But then again, we’re just playing cards.”
“We were soldiers in arms together mate, you know what I mean.” Rokaro said, shuffling the deck one handed, showing surprising dexterity for a drunk.
“I was more of a support player,” Elyaies said. “I know where my place is on a battlefield. War is terrible.”
“Don’t hate me if you don’t find what you need.” Rokaro said, gesturing to the folder. He rose and upended his flask, savoring the last few drops.
There goes his whole paycheck.
Rokaro smiled and flipped cards jokingly at Elyiaes like they were throwing daggers. Elyiaes shook his head and smiled. He waited for Rokaro to leave, but the soldier just stood, swaying, waiting for Elyiaes to pick up the file. Finally he relented and delicately picked it up, scanning the report’s heading:
**********
[Fabbro’moro, Ilyfae]
Rokaro mumbled something about a hornet’s nest then meandered into the subject of the Borian desert, but Elyaies wasn’t listening, too engrossed in the report. He rifled through the first few documents: Witness testimonies, a full autopsy report on her death, and…
No comment.
Elyiaes shook his head in disbelief. He read the words over and over again. “No bloody comment!” he said, cutting Rokaro off midway through his drunken ramblings about the horrors of the desert.
“Sand sucks, it gets everywhere, it gets in your-- what’s that?” Rokaro asked.
“Mother left no comment when asked about Ilyfae’s death,” Elyiaes explained. “Even though she was in attendance at the event. She left no comment when one of her precious daughters was murdered right under her nose.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to show weakness?” Rokaro said, shrugging.
“That doesn’t sit well.” Elyiaes said. “There’s no comment from any of the other Matriarchs in attendance. Most of their responses are indifferent or attempts to make themselves look better. See, Lili’Yana said she sends her thoughts and prayers, but she never even spoke to me once. Besides, Ilyfae hated her and I’m sure the feeling was mutual.”
“That’s jus’ the game,” Rokaro slurred, closing his eyes as he leaned against the table. “I don’t even know wha’s goin’ on. Maybe they are jus’ tryin’ to sweep-it all under the rug.”
“No one takes responsibility.” Elyiaes murmured. “This damned country. All parties and debauchery. Why did I settle here? Why did I raise Ilyfae here?”
“She did pretty well, though, di’n’t she?” Rokaro said, rubbing his temples.
She did. She was better than all of these frauds.
Elyiaes went through the papers again and found one document he had skimmed too quickly. It was stuck to another page. He gently pulled the paper apart, and as he did, something fell into his lap. A tiny, crumpled note caked in dried blood. It was the birthday card he snuck into her jacket pocket so long ago. He forgot about it because of the fight they had right before she stormed off to the Crystal Theater.
What did we argue about?
He stared at the birthday card and the message he wrote for her. Feeling lightheaded, he pushed back his chair and rose. The rapid movement made him stumble. He held the note tightly to his chest and started shaking violently. It had been five years since he last cried, five years since Rokaro took him to see her corpse, five years since his world collapsed, but it felt like yesterday. His pulse pounded in his head and he couldn’t catch his breath. Five years, but he was right back in that moment.
Some stupid philosophic argument about good and evil. Some meaningless thought exercise. A judgemental moment I can never have back.
“That’s enough.” Rokaro said, placing a comforting arm on Elyiaes’ shoulder. He pulled Elyiaes into a stiff hug to stop him from seizing up. “Relax, mate.” He wasn’t good at comforting, but Elyiaes accepted the gesture all the same.
After a few minutes, Rokaro picked up the bloodied note from the floor. He pocketed the card as Elyiaes composed himself.
Rokaro flashed an old fashion Nov Romaran salute, a feeble attempt to dismiss the emotion. “You’ve passed through the hardest part. It’s time to move on.”
Elyiaes begrudgingly returned the salute.
Taking a deep breath, Elyaies returned to his seat and Rokaro sat too, but seemed more intent on staring at the golem than continuing the conversation. Elyaies went back to scanning the documents, flipping through the autopsy report. He paused at an observation.
Organs liquified?
They claimed she had taken an extract of Dragon’s Bane, a popular party drug. They said she may have overdosed, but Dragon’s Bane, from what Elyiaes understood, was far from lethal. Even if one overdosed, it should have slowed the heart to a stop. It did not cause organ damage, not on the scale of what happened to Ilyfae. There must be something missing, some redacted part of the report. It didn’t add up. No. He understood. An overdose would be uncomplicated. It happened all the time. This was Faltus, afterall. There wouldn’t be any real questions.
“Thank you Rokaro,” said Elyiaes. “For always coming to play cards with me.”
“Well, you suck at it.” Rokaro sniffed, not catching the finality hidden in Elyiaes’ tone. “I’m just helping you practice.”
Elyiaes grinned. “I’m better at chess.”
He returned to the documents. Names--lots of names. Pawns and knights--a grand game.
“Find what you need?” Rokaro asked.
“Sometimes, being on the defensive sets up a good counter,” Elyiaes said absently. “I might have to buy you that bottle of wine after all.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“You’ve helped me more than you know.”
Rokaro sobered up a little, and eyed his friend. “You’re not goin’ to do anything stupid, are you?”
“Of course not,” Elyiaes laughed. “I do need to see Casi’Ah about something, though.”
“The Matriarch of Magic? You two mingling like Lav Lu Lovebirds?” Rokaro jabbed.
“I fix things for her,” Elyiaes said. “She returns the favor.”
“Nothing repairs a rusty box like smashing it with a loose pipe, eh?” Rokaro joked.
“Anyway,” Elyiaes said, pointing to the toxicology report and trying not to blush, “what I really need to get my hands on is this ‘Unknown Substance’ they didn’t bother to analyze.”
“I gotta ‘nother surprise for’ ye,” Rokaro said through a burp. He rummaged through his coat.
How many pockets does he have?
“Where did I put it? Ah! ‘Here you go!” Rokaro exclaimed, producing a tiny golden parchment. “It’s an invitation.”
Elyiaes scanned the card.
Nahvad’s birthday concert at the Crystal Theater. The same theater where Ilyfae...
“Hey now, don’t do anything stupid,” Rokaro laughed, but Elyiaes sensed a warning in his voice.
Like kill Navhad? Not if I don’t have to.
“No.” Elyiaes chuckled. “I am no fool.”
“Still,” Rokaro said, shaking his head to clear it,“you might find some answers at the theater. Aim low. If you wanna know about drugs, Nahvad has a slew of degenerates working in that theater who might give you some answers. There’s a girl who works there, Reyna, I think. She’s practically Nahvad’s left hand, and she runs Dragon’s Bane to all of Nahvad’s special guests. She’s a fixture at these types of events.”
Elyiaes recognized the name. He rifled through the report and found it. Reyna was one of the last to see Ilyfae alive.
“Elyiaes, please.” Rokaro said, sounding almost sober. “I only ask you to make the right move. These people,” his gaze drifted to the window, as if half-expecting a spy, “they will kill you. You may be good at chess, but you’re acting like a pawn trying to single handedly win the game.”
“A pawn can do much, but only if it is in the right position.”
Rokaro gave him a sad look as Bubo flew from Elyiaes’ shoulder to perch on Flitz’s head. It lets out a spurt of steam fogging the windows. Tears of water streamed down the pane. With a weak smile, he stood and rested his hand on Elyiaes’ shoulder.
“From all the stuff I’ve seen you create with that beautiful mind of yours,” Rokaro said, glancing at Flitz and Bubo, “nothing seems impossible anymore.” Rokaro waited for a reply, but got none. After a minute of awkward silence, he straightened his coat and left, swaying just a bit as he opened the door.
After a moment of contemplation, Elyiaes directed Flitz to secure the perimeter. He needed to make sure his friend wasn’t followed. Elyiaes stared at the unfinished tea sitting on the table. Was it really that awful?
“I really don’t want to move.” Elyiaes muttered.
A familiar tapping drew his attention.
“W-O-R-K-?” Bubo pecked at the alternate alphabet board hanging over the fireplace.
“Yes, Bubo.”
No more defense.
“It’s time I put my heart into it.”
“W-E-!” Bubo pecked loudly. The homunculus’ head spun in circles displaying its indignation before flying to the upstairs workshop. The interaction was brief but felt real. Elyiaes stood motionless for a while, holding his tea.
It really does taste like shit.
He emptied the rest of the cup onto the floor and moved to his work desk. After Fidgeting with a locked drawer, he pulled out a long, tightly rolled scroll. He unrolled it on the desk, weighting the corners with stones, and scanned the spider web of names and notes. He began writing names in blank spaces. He circled some, drew lines connecting others, expanding the intricate pattern of words and symbols.
Very soon, Ilyfae. Very soon. I’m so close.
Even in Faltus where every structure doubled as a work of art, The Crystal Theater was an architectural wonder. An indoor and outdoor amphitheater, the ringside seats basqued in the soft light of twilight, yet the clear crystal roof that gave the theater its name could be rolled into place to protect against rain, or to refract moonlight in a beautiful kaleidoscope. Mirrors, strategically placed, could enhance the effect, creating an almost mystical environment to delight audiences of the varied performances that graced the theater. But tonight, no such tricks were necessary.
Only the most well connected Edwed were graced with tickets to what would be the most seminal event of the year. Several Matriarchs were in attendance, of course, along with their entourages of poets, assistants, lovers, and childhood running mates. Acrobatics in skin tight bodysuits of garish hues tumbled through the broad entrances, skillfully avoiding attendees as they flipped, contorted, and balanced on any object that could serve as a makeshift stage.
Edwed minors in grotesque costumes shambled, skipped, and danced through the aisles between seats playing harps and flutes, and always seeming to stay on beat with each other despite distance and the low roar of the crowd. Some dancers roamed through the audience, faces concealed in jeweled eye masks with single ivory horns affixed to them. They snuck up on the unaware, frightening them with their sudden appearance, evoking screams and laughter from the raucous crowd. Beneath the surface of it all, pills and tinctures and needles and pipes passed from hand to hand, a wave of artificial euphoria sweeping through the attendees. This would be a night to remember.
“Edwen, Edwon, non-binary, transitioning, everything out and in-between, citizens of Faltus, welcome!” A spotlight, generated from who knows where, haloed the speaker, a pale skinned Edwon in a billowing costume of a dozen colors, her face streaked with bright red and blue paint. She gestured to the upper balconies, her smile wide enough for all to see her jeweled teeth. “And a special welcome to our beloved Matriarchs and our illustrious Mother Supreme. Tonight, we celebrate one of the greatest artists in all of Faltus, nay, one of the greatest artists in the history of Gregorr-Sheav!”
She extended her hands in both directions, a universal signal for quiet. A hush settled over the amphitheater, as a lone figure approached the piano dominating center stage. Her long gown of gold and silver thread trailed behind her, and the creamy hue of her smooth skin, speckled with spots of soft pink, complimented the fabric perfectly. The quiet remained so absolute that thousands in the open air amphitheater could hear birds, the distant ocean, and the soft touch of the Edwon’s every step. It was only when the ring master gave a low bow and sang, “I present to you, your host, Matriarch of Art, Nahvad” that the crowd erupted in a roar of cheers and applause, shaking the amphitheater to its foundations.
“Thank you my dear, Reyna!” Nahvad said. She spoke softly, but something amplified her voice so all could hear. She ascended the steps to center stage and kissed Reyna’s cheek softly, lest she get any of the bright makeup on her lips. “As always you flatter me with your introduction.” She touched a ring on her finger, killing the amplification of her voice and whispered in Reyna’s ear, “Make sure that Mother is tended to and given all the hospitality I can offer. And don’t be stingy with the Dragon’s Bane. I want this party to be epic, do you understand?” Reyna gave a nod of acknowledgement followed by an elaborate bow for the crowd before exiting the stage.
Nahvad turned a wide, welcoming smile to the audience. “Tonight, I will perform all of my classical hits! And who knows?” she said, touching a single painted fingernail to her full lips. “Maybe I’ll unveil something new.”
The crowd roared with delight, but none as loud as Reyna herself. She skipped in delight backstage, revelling in the heat rolling through her body. Dragon’s Bane gave her the most wonderful high without the anxiety and the downs other, less refined substances often produced. As she heard the music begin to pour from the stage, all she wanted to do was dance, but even with her focus clouded, she remembered her mistress’s words.
“Come quick, come quick!” She called, and several Edwed Minors emerged from the shadowy recesses of the backstage. Most of her runners were Minors for many reasons. They could weave in and out of the crowds effectively and most were willing to work for small tinctures of Dragon’s Bane. Tonight, though, she could afford to be more generous. She opened a pot full of the thick green liquid. She opened a case filled with empty, stoppered vials, waiting to be filled. Nahvad had spared no expense.
“Only take a little!” Reyna said, spooning doses with a small metal ladle and dripping the viscid stuff into eager mouths. “We are here to distribute. We must leave some for crews of all the Matriarchs and all of Nahvad’s friends.
The stage crew lapped up their doses, and Reyna took another for herself, just to keep the wave flowing. She pulled out a tiny harmonica and blew a single note, a signal that froze the Minors in place like trained pigs. It was time to fill the vials for distribution and give each of them their assignments. She was about to begin when she noticed that one Edwed still shuffled about. He was taller than the others, tall even for an Edwed Major. He wore one of the jeweled, horned masks of a crowd lurker, the players meant to stir up crowd participation. Reyna blew her harmonica again, but he seemed to ignore her, instead looking about the rigging with quick, nervous glances.
“Um, hello?” Reyna asked, but the figure ignored her, instead moving up to the cauldron. He took a vial and filled it himself.
“Um, excuse me?” Reyna said, annoyed.
The Minors turned toward him, lips stained green, grumbling and cursing. They moved to surround the Edwed, blocking off any exit. Reyna went to blow another note from her harmonica, a signal to take the Edwen and hold him for the guards, but she found herself breathless and lightheaded. Trying to regain focus, her knees suddenly gave way and she fell. She wasn’t alone in this. One by one, her runners fell too. Only the lone Major remained standing. From the direction of the stage, she heard several pops, followed by shouts of panic. As Reyna’s consciousness waned, the cacophony grew louder, but her mind tumbled into a void and seconds later, she heard nothing.
**********
Nahvad’s finger danced on the piano keys making it sing as only she could. Everything she played evoked an avalanche of applause and she soaked it in, revelling in the attention. She lived for these moments.
Her voice poured from her in harmony with the keys and the crowd settled, mesmerized by the rhythm, the beauty, the enchantment of her song. She could feel them. She always could, and even as she crafted her music, she crafted their reactions, bringing them up and down with the tempo of her music. Her talent enslaved and delighted them, the paradox of performance, the power she held in her ability to produce perfect notes in perfect order. Her performances were far greater than any of the party favors circulating through the audience. She brought them into her mind, into her world, and gave them all a glimpse of her raw essence.
But for Nahvad herself, only the Mother Supreme mattered. Normally, she would be lost in her own rapture, one with the music, but every few minutes, she searched for that pristine painted face, that gentle nod of approval, before progressing to the next symphony, the next movement, the next act. Yes, it was Nahvad’s birthday but this performance was her gift to the Mother.
Mid crescendo, something diverted her attention and caused her to play a single discordant note. Fireworks lit up the sky, but the explosions were out of rhythm with the music. Nahvad carefully orchestrated such things, and this was not part of the show. They looked cheap, and unimpressive. Maybe some poor fan outside, someone who couldn’t afford a ticket had set them off. Normally, she would not care, but this was her birthday. The Mother Supreme and all the Matriarchs were here to enjoy her majestic performance. These ugly blasts were ruining everything. This would not do.
“Vulgar display.” Nahvad whispered as another series of explosions disrupted the flow of her music. She made a gesture with her hand towards the back of the stage. She was signalling for Reyna to help fix this mess, but her attention was taken elsewhere. She noticed a small bird circling overhead, seeming to dodge its way through the detonations. The beauty of its flight caught Nahvad off guard, long enough to not notice that there weren’t any runners in the theater coming to her aid.
It descended slowly, and Nahvad watched it like a hungry cat. It swooped into a dive and landed atop of the piano, but Nahvad did not stop playing. The bird hopped up and down and for a moment, Nahvad thought it cute until it jumped onto the keys abruptly ruining her song. She stopped playing and the crowd, swaying under her power, stopped too, looking around confused. First a barely perceptible hum vibed through the colorful collage of intoxicated Edwed, but that hum slowly grew into an irritated buzz of gossip as their stupor fell apart.
Something felt wrong. Nahvad took a closer look at the bird. Its feathers had a metallic sheen to them. Its head twisted, and where its eyes should have been, there were only spinning gears. This was no living animal.
“What are you?” Nahvad asked aloud. The bird’s beak opened revealing a tiny amount of honeycomb. Nahvad noticed a small bit of jade dust shifting inside its mouth, an active component to a trick she was familiar with. “So, you’ve ruined my performance. What message does your master have that couldn’t wait?”
The mechanisms inside the bird clicked and a loud recorded sentence emanated from the device:
“I have been patient long enough. The time for change comes. The measure of a soul is what one will do when gifted with the freedom of truth.” The message ended, and the bird’s head spun in a circle. When it clicked back into place, the message repeated. “I have been patient long enough. The time for change comes. The measure of a soul is what one will do with freedom of truth.” It spun again, and repeated again, over and over.
The confusion got the better of the audience and they grew restless, some getting up from their seats. Several more explosions, louder than the previous ones, shook the theater, and shouts rang out. Panic is contagious. Soon, all the Edwed in the audience were scrambling over each other to reach the exits.
Nahvad tried to see The Mother through the pandemonium, but the mechanical bird distracted her as it tried to peck at her face. She swatted at it, but only caught air. In frustration, she slammed the piano cover shut, trying to catch it, but it flitted off and took flight.
“Shoot that thing down. Now!” She screamed, waving her arms to guards nearby the stage. Her command fell on deaf ears though, as plumes of gas filled the amphitheater. Those caught directly, coughed violently. Nahvad strained to see through the residual mist when a blast of light cut through the chaos, shining down from above. A bright rocket with a long trail of smoke rose in the air and then exploded in a flash of sparks and color. It illuminated the mist which had formed words, skywriting hanging suspended above the amphitheater.
“THE WORLD WILL KNOW PEACE WHEN LOVE CONQUERS YOUR POWER!”
Memories of another attack in the Crystal Theater made Nahvad’s breath catch in her throat. “Protect the Mother!” she tried to shriek, but the gas made her gag. She activated her ring, yet even amplified, her voice was lost in the series of explosions that followed the first. Pyrotechnics flashed overhead and more smoke poured into the arena which had turned into a frenzy of movement. Chaos now firmly reigned in the Crystal Theater.
Guards rushed to protect their respective leaders as hordes of common folk on the lower levels poured through the exits. Edwed were trampled by other Edwed stampeding through the packed arena to get as far as they could from the stinging clouds of gas.
“Is Mother okay?!” Nahvad yelled as the guards hustled her away from the theater.
“She’s protected and safely evacuated from the area,” one of the guards said.
“Good!” The terrorist might have ruined the show, but at least those who needed to be safe were guarded well enough. Nahvad looked around for her assistant. “Reyna? Where are you? Captain, where is my Reyna!”
“I haven't seen her.” The voice belonged to Captain Rokaro, who had appeared through the smoke. “Your safety is our highest priority.” He directed some guards to escort Nahvad away.
“Captain Rokaro!” Another guard appeared and screamed over the din. “We’ve found overheated mechanical devices planted everywhere!”
“Any news of the culprit?” Rokaro asked.
“Not yet, sir. We’re still looking!” The guard reported.
“I want extra men on all the Matriarchs, and double for The Mother.” Rokaro shouted.
“What about the culprit?” Another guard asked.
“Set a perimeter south of the stadium. Whoever we’re looking for couldn’t have gotten that far,” Rokaro replied. “We’ll find him.”
Nahvad seemed satisfied that measures were taken to bring everything under control and allowed herself to be shuffled away. She did not see the worry in her captain’s eyes as he scanned the crowd. She didn’t hear the silent prayer he whispered for his friend.
“I’ll keep them here for a bit, Elyiaes. But that is all the time I can buy you.”
**********
“Flitz, take her to the bed. She’s starting to wake.”
They were in a rundown storage shed north of the Crystal Theater. The communal nature of Faltus made privacy difficult to come by, but Elyiaes had a few places.
In a dark alley next to the abandoned building, a jeweled mask and costume had been stuffed into a trash bin. Inside the small hovel, a young female Edwon Minor lay strapped to a bed. Elyiaes stared at her, sweat beading down his neck. He paced in tiny circles around the room.
“You can do this,” Elyiaes muttered. “You can do this.”
He grabbed a bag and searched through its contents, mumbling a script he’d prepared for this moment. Reyna groggily opened one eye. She blinked in and out of consciousness, weakly struggling against her bonds. Looking in a mirror, he tried to mentally prepare himself, but he felt distracted. Maybe it was the lack of light in the room, but his reflection looked dark. Shaking off the malaise, he pulled up a chair next to his captive and did his best to mask his nerves.
“Um, hello,” Elyiaes said. He had rehearsed the lines a thousand times, but found his mind blank.
Reyna, now fully awake, shook violently in the bed, wiggling her restrained body to no avail. She stopped moving and started to scream.
“Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am?”
Elyiaes looked at her and took a deep breath. “You are a tool.”
“A tool that will cut your disgusting throat!” Reyna growled, “Let me go or I’ll…” She gasped for air as Elyiaes injected a syringe into her arm. The amber-green liquid dispersed through her vein and she slumped in the bed. Her face split into a wide grin, cracking the thick layer of makeup caking her skin.
“Now, now.” Elyiaes says quietly, placing the now empty vial of dragon’s bane on a side table. “It would be better if you didn’t resist. Feeling relaxed now?”
“What… You…” She sighed and struggled to talk. Her words came out in broken phrases as she looked at Elyiaes through cloudy eyes.
“You didn’t let me finish. I wanted to say that I’m a tool too,” Elyiaes whispered, “but unlike you, a pin or a tack, I am a knife.”
“How dull, wait…wait,” Reyna said, her voice quivering. “I know you. You’re her Papa?”
Elyiaes stared at her for a long moment. He drew a light hammer from his bag, a tool he had infused and tinkered with. It had a gas compressor and had a driving piston attached to the end of its head.
“I will crush everything you and your master have built.”
“Pathetic!” Reyna slurred and laughed, mocking Elyiaes’ attempt at intimidation.
Enough with this jester.
Elyiaes drew another vial from his bag. His hands trembled as he held the liquid, afraid to drop it. This one contained a sapphire blue liquid. It took a moment for him to locate the proper vein in her neck, but he steadied himself and injected her with this new drug.
Casi’ah, this better work.
Reyna’s laughter continued for a while. Eventually though, she went quiet. Rather, she struggled to breathe, inhaling in short intervals. Her eyes turned glossy and white. She went stock-still and her motionless body drew some concern from Elyiaes. He looked at the potion he acquired from the Matriarch of Magic.
Did I give her too much?
“Are you still here?” He asked nervously, snapping his fingers. Reyna tilted her head upward and nodded.
Good, good. She’s still coherent it would seem.
“Let’s start with something simple,” Elyiaes said. “What is your name?”
“Reyna.”
“What is this drug called?” Elyiaes held the vial of thick green liquid from the cauldron in the Crystal Theater.
“Dragon’s Bane.”
“Ok now for something harder,” Elyiaes continued. “Did you kill my daughter, Ilyfae, the Matriarch of Science?”
“…No.”
“Who killed my daughter?” Elyiaes asked coldly.
Reyna struggled to speak, “I don’t know…she...”
“She? Was Nahvad involved in my daughter’s death?” Elyiaes said.
“I don’t know…”
“Did Nahvad provide Dragon’s Bane to my daughter?”
“Yes…”
“Who made this drug?” Elyiaes pressed on, the questions coming out rapidly. “Who supplies Nahvad with this drug? Where do you get this drug from?”
“Tekinesh…”
Finally, an actual clue that leads somewhere.
“Who in Tekinesh makes this drug?”
“Many…”
“Who from Tekinesh came to see Nahvad recently?” Ilyias growled, his patience running thin. Reyna began gurgling foam from her mouth. She struggled against the bonds holding her, the leather cutting into her skin.
She’s fighting the drug.
“Focus!” Elyiaes ordered, “Or I’ll inject you again! Tell me about your most recent contact from Tekinesh!”
“Agents… from… Skul’prata…” Blood trickled down Reyna’s mouth as she struggled to speak. Her teeth clenched, and her ghostly pale eyes were regaining their old color. The twisted visage of Reyna lying in the bed covered in blood caused Elyiaes to pause. Thoughts of Ilyfae’s dead body came to his mind. Feeling squeamish, Elyiaes shoved his seat aside and moved his face close, his ragged breathing synchronizing with hers.
“Give me a name!” Screamed Elyiaes, grabbing Reyna by both arms and shaking her. For a moment, it looked as if Reyna would reply, but instead her eyes blinked rapidly and a horrible, guttural cry erupted from her throat.
“…Fuck… You…” She said, and she chuckled, flashing a wicked grin, “Fuck You!”
She looked crazed. She gave Elyiaes a mad look, then sighed and bit into her tongue. Noticing this, Elyiaes grabbed her chin roughly. He pulled open her jaw and poured a liquid into her mouth, frantically splashing it over her teeth and gums. Reyna’s mouth went numb and she lost any remaining control over her body.
“Well,” Elyiaes breathed, “you called my bluff.”
Casi’ah, your truth serum works, but only lasts a minute.
“You... Stupid... Man!” Reyna babbled. Her words came out muffled as her jaw lost all feeling from the numbing agent. She blurted out globs of blood and spittle after each word. Her skin looked stretched and dry, as if her body was drained of its vital nutrients. She resembled a ghostly skeleton. A huge blotch of coagulated blood formed a nasty looking bruise around her neck. “Nahvad… Will… Kill… You!”
Casi’Ah, what did you give me? The drug has some nasty side effects.
Elyiaes stooped down and tried to clean Reyna up. He wiped the blood and spit from her jaw. “Don’t fret, I promise this will be over soon.”
Seeing the blood trickle down her jaw reminded Elyiaes of that night. The night Rokaro let him into the cleric’s monastery to see his daughter’s body on the cold slab. He shuddered and started to cry, his tears falling onto Reyna’s face. She hiccupped a glob of blood in the back of throat and spit a ball of black mucus into Elyiaes’ eyes. She bit at his fingers as his hand strayed a little too close. Elyiaes winced in pain and stared at Reyna, his eyes filled with bottled rage. She cackled and thick blue liquid trickled from her eyes, ears and nose. With her mouth numbed, she choked on her own fluids pooling in her throat. Her laughter came out awkwardly as it sounded different to Elyiaes’ ears.”
“Pa... Pa…Pa…Pa...”
Elyiaes’ tried to breathe, but his chest felt heavy and his pulse raced. Blinded with hatred, he couldn’t think. An endless void of sorrow broke Elyiaes down, melting his core. Images of the replica construct he worked on to recreate his daughter popped into his mind. Memories of Ilyfae’s head dangling at her side helplessly. Reyna’s laughter echoed in his head; his sanity falling apart. A singular thought came to him in this moment of doubt. This Edwed did not deserve to breathe either.
His hands clamped around Reyna’s throat, anything to stop her laughter. She did not struggle. She smiled.
I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!
The argument he had with Ilyfae the night of her death repeated in his mind. The night they fought when she shouted ‘I hate you’ as he tried to lecture her on morals and ethics. Why did he get so angry for things he thought were childish, or wrong? Stupid ideas he presented as truths, his ‘holier than thou’ sense of justice, a will to uphold duty and honor. The last words he remembered saying to his daughter the night she left him forever, “Do the right thing. Even if what you do is drastic. At the very least, try to be good.”
This last thought loosened his grip. He looked up, horrified. The young Edwon lay motionless, her smile locked into place.
What have I done?
Reyna’s head lolled to one side. Elyiaes untied her bonds and started chest compressions. Nothing. He pulled a homemade health potion, poured it into a syringe and injected it into her sternum. Nothing. Flitz, sitting quietly in the corner of the room, let out a gust of steam.
“I’m sorry,” Elyiaes whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Bubo came in through a high window, flying circles around Elyiaes. Its head still spun around and around. It landed on Elyiaes’ shoulder relaying its recorded message again and again.
“I have been patient long enough. The time for change comes. The measure of a soul is what one will do with the freedom of truth.”
I’m such a hypocrite.
Bubo’s recording continued for a bit longer before finally running out of tape. Elyiaes sat quietly, unable to break his gaze from the Edwed he murdered. He thought about the conversation he had with Rokaro. How he treated this whole affair like a game of chess. His naïve expectation that he could win without a cost.
Lives are not toy pieces in a game.
Distant shouts of guards outside brought him back to the moment. Slowly, he collected his things and turned to look at Reyna one more time. He rifled through his belongings and spotted the folder of notes he gathered, Ilyfae’s notes. He knew he needed to continue her work…
But at what cost?
He directed Flitz to head back to his workshop. He looked at Bubo on his shoulder and walked in a different direction, toward the harbor. Bubo pecked at him gently as if he were pecking at his alphabet board. Even without it, Elyiaes knew the pattern.
“Where?”
Elyiaes ignored the bird. He wasn’t sure of himself anymore. Reyna had not given him much, but there was one connection. In Ilyfae’s notes he had seen the name, Skul’Brukt and the reference to Skul’prata could not be coincidence. He tried to focus his thoughts on his daughter. Bubo pecked at him again, but Elyiaes had no energy to respond. If he was to bring her back, he would need to play differently. It’s the only way he could recall her, reforge her, revive her. Bubo pecked a third time. Elyiaes inhaled a deep breath of salty air as he approached the docks. He remembered the birthday card he wrote for her. He remembered the promise he made to her.
All will be well my Love... For all Eternity...
“Where?” Bubo pecked again.
“Tekinesh.”
Special (A Gritzern short story)
Author: Bryan Henery
Gritzern stepped onto the dirt floor of the arena for the first time. Oh, he had been here before—in the stands, laughing and drinking in the lowers with the rest of his friends. His family could not afford the luxury balconies above where monied Edwed showed off the latest fashions imported from every corner of Gregoor-Sheav. No, he caroused with the other youths, just old enough to partake in the festivities, but still viewed as children playing in the shadows of the adults.
But now he stood in the center ring, saber in his right hand, dagger in his left. The saber felt odd, but the knife had a comfortable weight, like his cooking knife, a tool, not a weapon.
Why me?
“You are the only one,” his father, Britall, had pleaded. “Your family is counting on you.”
Gritzern scanned the lower seats and found him. Britall’s silk shirt, darkened with sweat, clung to the rolls of his gut. His eyes darted about, and his nose pulsed like a rodent’s. He looked desperate and afraid. Gritzern despised his father, one of the few things he and his mother, Morata, had in common. She sat next to Britall as protocol demanded, but Gritzern saw her recoil when his elbow brushed hers.
Yes, Mother, we know. You married beneath you.
Britall’s Bistro, one of the finest eateries in all of Jo Vey, but still an eatery, still a business for servants. Why Morata accepted Britall’s proposal, Gritzern could only guess, but he knew she complained every day since. “You have no ambition! This restaurant isn’t enough! How can we live like this, in old clothes, with no servants? I am no hostess!”
Her shrill nagging echoed in Gritzern’s head, a song of dissatisfaction, the lament a debutant denied.
The sun assaulted Gritzern mercilessly. He scanned the upper balconies, lingering on the empty seat of Lord Alvara, the bastard who issued the challenge. ‘Fashionably late,’ as expected, and no one would dare complain. They would sit, panting and sweating, awaiting the pampered lordling.
Coin is King in Joun.
“You must not win,” Britorri, Gritzern’s brother, had warned. “We cannot embarrass Lord Alvara, or we will lose everything!”
Britorri had seemed so earnest, but now he sat in the stands, seated with a few cronies, the same cronies who haunted Britall’s, drinking and eating for free. Parasites, sycophants, fools! Gritzern sneered, staring at his brother for a long moment, but Britorri did not meet his glare.
You should be in the pit, brother. You are the eldest, the adult. But Britorri had no spine.
“Lose, honorably,” he had said.
Gritzern spat. What would Britorri know of honor? Gritzern was practically a child, but he knew how to swing a sword. Britorri only knew how to shop and play at nobility. The crowd teemed with dandies just like him, children of the middle class playing at wealth, pretending they had value, power, but in one moment of dissatisfaction, Lord Alvara showed clearly where real power in Lo Vey resided.
An undercooked filet, this whole mess over an undercooked filet. Never had Gritzern seen an Edwane so flushed, so indignant over such a small thing. But worse, when his father came from the kitchens to deal with the complaint, he did the unthinkable. He contradicted the mighty and moneyed Lord Alvara.
“Sir, the meat was cooked to your specifications.”
“The nerve! The audacity! I demand satisfaction!” And that was all it took.
Lose honorably, Gritzern, you must!
His father’s words echoed his brother’s. His mother had watched through dark unreadable eyes. They all knew the nature of duels. Lord Alvara could not be humiliated, but losing too badly would also be a disaster. His father and brother could lose badly. Only Gritzern had the skill to lose honorably.
And now you understand, boy. Now you understand your place in this little game.
Gritzern whipped his gaze around the arena. There was no one there, but the voice sounded as if it were in his ear
You are a pawn.
He spun about, weapons held at ready, but still nothing. The crowd paid him no mind though, their attention drawn to a gilded alcove set above the upper decks. They rose like a wave, all eyes on Lord Alvara’s grand entrance. He wore a fine purple robe stitched with so much gold embroidery it seemed he should collapse under its weight. His broad, fat-faced smile triggered cheers through the arena. Lord Alvara nodded, accepting the fake addulation as his right, but when his gaze fell upon Britall, his lips curled into a sneer. Britall bowed respectfully in return, then stood at attention until Lord Alvara settled his bulk into a high backed, heavy oak chair. No one sat until Lord Alvara did.
Why?
Gritzern did not expect an answer to his thought, but the voice returned, a rhythmic whisper in his head. Because, boy, the value of an Edwed in Joun is measured in gold. But you know this already, and so does he.
Gritzern clenched his teeth looking from face to face. Why did they all abase themselves before this pig? Why did his father submit like a worm? And then he found Lord Alvara’s eyes locked with his own, and before he could stop himself, he raised his blade in salute. His stomach twisted with the act.
See, boy? Even you. Conditioned to respond.
Gritzern closed his eyes and hissed, “Get out of my head!”
You were meant for more, Gritzern.
On the far side of the arena, a set of ironbound doubled doors creaked open. The hinges squealed in protest. Faces in the crowd twisted into scowls, the harsh sound an affront to their delicate senses.
Gritzern’s could smell the perfumes and cloying sweetness of the smoke curling from fashionable glass pipes. Whispers caressed his ears, the snickers, the bored yawns, the polite pandering of the lower class abasing themselves before their betters. He listened to the politics of the mob, the clink of ice, the sighs of the vendors moving up and down the rows, and his own heart pounding in his chest.
“Don’t win, Heralds forbid, you can’t win,” his father had pleaded. “Such a slight to Lord Alvara is unthinkable, but…lose well.”
Lose honorably.
There is no such thing, the voice whispered. There is no honor in this.
Gritzern spied a figure in the lowers, sitting alone, ice blue eyes calm and focused. His bald head had several gold rings piercing his light brown scalp and he had dark stripes framing his eyes. He wore plain robes that seemed out of place among the garish colors and exotic fabrics around him. With a surety Gritzern couldn’t explain, he knew the voice belonged to this Edwane.
Gritzern did not want to look away, even as his opponent entered the arena, holding a rapier high. But when the Edwane snapped the short whip he wielded in his off hand, Gritzern reluctantly gave him his full attention. The Edwane did not wear dusty leathers like Gritzern, but rather a perfectly tailored coat, midnight blue with embroidered stars. His breeches were tight, emphasizing the muscles in his legs and his silver hair had been styled in a wave. He spun in a circle, favoring the crowd with a broad grin, and pausing to give Lord Alvara a low, exaggerated bow. Then he turned to Gritzern and smirked.
The whip cracked again, accentuating his contempt.
A whip.
A weapon meant to punish, to inflict pain.
Lose honorably.
This fop had no intention to let him lose honorably. The whip meant humiliation and pain, a master disciplining a slave. Gritzern’s hands tightened, clenching his own weapons until his pale green knuckles turned white.
You are better than this, Gritzern, the voice whispered. You are special. He looked back at the crowd. The bald Edwane was gone, but the voice still whispered in his head. You are meant for more.
“Today!” A large Edwane bellowed through a cone shaped horn, drowning out the roar of the crowd. “Today, we settle a matter of honor!”
There were still mumbles and whispers, but the crowd settled to near silence.
“The illustrious, the magnanimous Lord Alvara, whose reputation is above reproach, has been slighted. Should he let this stand?”
“No!” The shout was unanimous.
Above reproach.
Did any of these fools know a thing about Lord Alvara or his reputation?
“Britall, the baker,” the announcer said, pointing at Gritzen’s father. The crowd responded with boos and hisses.
A baker. They owned one of the finest restaurants on Jo Vey, yet they called him a baker, “He has answered the challenge with his child, his son.” And even this was an insult. By labeling Gritzern Britall’s son, he announced that the family could not afford a proper champion. They would have to dirty their own hands.
“Lord Alvara presents, Demontressan the Quick!” Gritzern’s opponent gave another bow with more flourish than before, and punctuated it with another crack of his whip. Gritzern waited for his own introduction, but the announcer went silent, letting the crowd cheer. After several moments, he shouted, “Let us begin!”
He had no name. He was Britall’s son. A nothing, a nobody, a child, a body to be abused for the crowd’s enjoyment.
His gaze drifted to his father, sweating, ringing his hands. His mother, bored, listless, looking longingly at the entourage surrounding lord Alvara. At least they had the good sense to leave his young sister at home. Ilse, innocent, pure, the only ray of light in this ruse of a family. And then he spied his brother, whispering to a friend. He saw an exchange of coins. Britorri looked down at him pointedly.
Lose honorably.
Demontressan advanced, snapping his whip. The champion smiled, holding his rapier loose and low, his stance sloppy. Blood pounded in Gritzern’s temples. He remembered all the sessions with his tutors, learning to parry and feint and thrust. He never wanted any of it. He wanted to make bread, but he had talent and his mother would not let talent go to waste.
Lose honorably.
Demontressan waved his rapier, wiggling its point an arm’s length from Gritzern’s face, mocking him, his posture, his eyes, his smile a mask of scorn.
Lose.
Gritzern moved before thinking, his own blade slapping Demontressan’s rapier aside. He dropped his weapon and stepped under the champion’s guard, grabbing a fist full of the fool’s shirt with his now free hand. He pulled Demontressan close enough to smell his cologne; close enough to see the surprise; close enough to spit in his eye before he switched his grip on his knife and drove the blade through the fine blue coat, through Demontressan’s upper chest, and into the Dandy’s heart.
The look on Demontressan’s face seemed more confused than pained. Hot blood poured over Gritzern’s hand, and he let go of the knife, freeing his opponent to stumble and sink to his knees. Demontressan looked down at his wound and then up at Gritzern, realization dawning. No more parties, no more mistresses, no more shopping, no more faux duels. Gritzern saw the horror building, the finality of it. He knew he should have felt something as he watched Demontressan die, but he only felt a void, a darkness within. He felt as empty as the corpse that collapsed into the dust of the arena.
Dead silence enveloped him for several moments. Then Lord Alvara’s deep voice boomed, “This is outrageous! Seize him!”
The command triggered a roar of shouts and gasps. Gritzern looked from face to face. His father, slack jawed and stupid. His brother gripped a piece of paper, his face taut, sweat beading in droplets on his forehead. Lord Alvara barked orders, but no soldiers rushed Gritzern. One of Lord Alvara’s attendants whispered in his master’s ear, no doubt informing him that a death in the dueling pit, though rare, was a legal outcome. And then Gritzern spied his mother. Morata sat back, folding her manicured hands in her lap, face placid, a slight smirk gracing her jade green lips. She looked almost…proud.
How long had he craved her pride? How he longed for that look, that adoration, but not like this. He glared at her.
Now, Mother? Now am I acceptable?
His stomach twisted as he scanned the crowd, the lowers, the uppers, the princes in their luxury boxes, the paupers elbow to elbow, drunk and laughing at this grand joke. It all blended together, a mass of revelry, opulence, decadence, words, words, words tumbling in his head, and he bellowed, “Look at you! What are you? Strip away your silk and powder and what is left? What lies beneath your shallow facade, your fake manners? You don’t know what you are. Your blank stares say it all...nothing! Look at you!”
But no. Vapid and empty. He could have been yelling defiance at the sky. They were all the same. Marked by a seat, a set of clothes, signs of station and privilege, but all the same. Here in this microcosm, he gazed upon all of Joun, a writhing mass of fools that seemed a painting, an awful still-life image of a people with no soul.
With a growl, he picked up his saber and hurled it at the crowd. It fell short, striking against the protective wall surrounding the pit and clattered in the dust. No one acknowledged the gesture. They chattered about what he had done, but Gritzern himself had fallen beneath their notice.
He looked at his opponent’s dead eyes staring into the sky. His knife stood at attention in the Edwane’s chest.
“Look at you,” Gritzern whispered, and walked away, leaving the weapon where he planted it.
***
It had been hours and Gritzern still sat in the dust of the arena staring at his hands, caked with black blood.
“Quite the show you put on.”
He knew the voice without looking up. It had been in his head. The bald Edwane’s shadow engulfed him. He seemed bigger up close.
“Go away,” Gritzern said. “It’s over.”
“Yes, it is,” the Edwane said, taking a seat next to Gritzern, “in more ways than you can imagine. Do you know what is happening to your father’s restaurant?”
He didn’t, but Gritzern could guess. The true owners of the building would converge with contracts, pointing to clauses that allowed them to double or triple the rent. His father probably stood before the gates of Lord Alvara’s estate pleading with guards for an audience, and the rough Edwed would take cruel pleasure in denying him. His mother would be packing. She would leave Joun. She had a cache of jewelry to finance the trip. Somewhere in Jvar VunGal, somewhere where her refinement and grace could land her a new husband or sponsor. Of his brother, Gritzern didn’t much care. Britorri would be packing for different reasons. Who knows how much he had bet. Too much, Gritzern guessed. Poor Britorri would never make it past the docks.
And what of Ilse? Would Mother take her? No. Ilse would stay with father and witness the whole sordid mess. Eventually, they would ship out to one of the outlying colonies to become the lower class of the lower class. Father would cook in a shithole while Ilse scrubbed tables or worse, and all because of Gritzern. All because he couldn’t lose with honor.
He buried his face in his hands and fought back tears.
“Yes, Gritzern. You know what is happening, don’t you?”
Gritzern would have asked how the Edwane knew his name, but the question seemed stupid. Besides, by now his name had likely graced the lips of every gossip in the city. He would be the story of the day, and tomorrow…a cautionary tale or worse, the butt of the latest jokes.
“Leave me,” he said. “I am in no mood.”
“My name is Borgan.”
“I don’t care if your name is Shadzog,” Gritzern spat, “leave me.”
“You know, Gritzern, your family is not the first to be broken by Joun’s greed. The very foundations of this city hide the bones of the many who served as step stools for the few. And you know why?”
It wasn’t a question.
“Come now Gritzern, you said it yourself after you murdered that fop.”
“It wasn’t murder,” Gritzern said. “I killed him within the rules.”
Borgan laughed a rich, deep laugh. “Of course you did. And when Lord Alvara strips your family of all its dignity and leaves you as paupers, he will do it within the rules.” Gritzern lifted his gaze, but his angry retort died on his lips. Borgan stared back at him unblinking. Finally, Gritzern broke and the tears he had been holding back tumbled down his cheeks.
“It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”
Borgan shrugged. “No, it isn’t. Look around you.” He gestured to the tapered towers, the lush trees, and the manicured streets of Jo Vey. “Look at this place. It is not a place of Edwed. It is a place of things, a place of baubles, a place of piled gold. Tell me, what happened to you when you killed that fool, Gritzern? What did you feel?”
Gritzern didn’t answer, but his eyes glazed over. He remembered the anger in his gut, the sick feeling, the burning in his chest before he struck. He remembered the feel of hot blood pulsing over his hand, the moment of control, of mastery, of ownership over his own life. And he thought of his father, poor pitiful Britall who would never know that feeling, who only knew fear.
Borgan nodded as if he had answered. We are different, Gritzern. We are special.
Gritzern glared sharply as the words vibrated in his head.
“How are you doing this?” The ghost of suspicion crawled into his mind, but at the same time, Gritzern felt warm. Special. Oh, if only it were true. “Who are you?” Gritzern said. “Why are you torturing me?”
“I’m like you,” Borgan said simply. “Or at least I was, but then someone came along and offered me what I’m going to offer you—a chance to be who you truly are.”
Borgan held out his hand toward the arena behind them. After a few moments, Gritzern’s knife, still crusted with Demontressan’s blood, came floating through the air. Borgan seemed to be controlling its trajectory. He guided it until it stopped, hanging in the air in front of Gritzern.
Gritzern snatched the weapon out of the air. “I’ve seen parlor tricks before. Let me guess. You want to take me to some dark room in a cheap Inn so you can show me how ‘special’ I am. No thanks.”
Borgan smiled, clearly amused. “No, Gritzern. I’m going to give you a choice. Go home, try to scrape some life from the ruin you created. After what you’ve done, you will be a weight around your family’s neck. You will crawl down several rungs on the social ladder but may still find a place in this hierarchy of perfumed fools.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small blue chip with a number printed on one side and an eye painted in intricate detail on the other. “Or come to the dock in two hours. This dock,” he pointed to the number, “and join my friends and I. Find out who you really are.”
“I don’t know who you are.”
I told you, I’m Borgan. In Gritzern’s head, Borgan’s voice had a music to it, a cadence that soothed him. And I’m special, like you.
He rose and strode away without another word.
What a crazy old fool. What does he think I’m going to do, just drop everything? Then he thought, What does it matter? I’ve lost it all.
He sat for several moments, no clear answer coming to mind, but one word kept repeating over and over.
Special.
***
Five Years Later
Nigel did not act like a Nov Romaran. Yes, his deep red skin spoke of his lineage, but the perpetual half smile, the gleam of mischief in the Edwane Major’s yellow eyes seemed uncharacteristic of the staunchly conservative legionnaires Gritzern had encountered. Even now, ankle deep in sewage with hellish sounds echoing down the tunnel, Nigel seemed more excited than scared.
“Hold the line!” Borgan barked, more to Nigel than Gritzern. Borgan held his heavy, hand-and-a-half sword before him, slick with fluorescent blood. The corpses of the corrupted Edwed lay strewn about, twisted parodies of the Edwed they had been. Nigel giggled and stuck his tongue out at Borgan but readied his serrated spear all the same.
Six of the corpses lay half submerged in the muck, their limbs bloated, puckered, and teaming with ruptured boils. Something down here warped their flesh, turned them into creatures of nightmare, but not Gritzern and his companions. They were special, as Borgan kept reminding them. And what of the dead, Borgan? Were they all special too?
Mezzerflitta and Liandra, the two Edwone Minors, kept to the back, relying on Gritzern, Nigel, and Borgan to protect them. But in truth, the two Minors were their only hope. Mezzerflitta mumbled in a guttural, almost animalistic language and her eyes rolled back into her head. She claimed she spoke the will of the Ancients, but Gritzern wasn’t so sure. Nevertheless, he felt the power of her incantation pouring into his limbs. He looked to Borgan and saw his eyes alight with that same power. The Romaran winked at him, but Gritzern could see the slight tremble of his lip, betraying the fear under his companion’s resolve.
Liandra stood resolute, green flame flickering from her delicate, childlike hands. Her black eyes shined with a fierceness Gritzern rarely saw. She usually only had that look when things were bad.
“What do you see, Nigel?” Gritzern hissed. Nigel had the sight, among other gifts, and his vision could pierce the deepest shadows.
“Don’t have to see it,” Nigel whispered. “I can feel it. Can’t you?”
“Fuck off!” Gritzern growled, but knew the Romaran spoke the truth. The voices screamed, giggled, and roared, voices like Borgan’s mind speak, but these intruded, cutting through his thoughts like a knife. He knew they belonged to the corpses scattered about them, the last memories of Edwed before their lives had been sucked dry by the thing that approached.
Mezzerflitta’s chant faded to a low mumble and her voice returned to its normal sing-song cadence. “Don’t think. It will use your memories against you.”
“Mind blank, done.” Nigel still hid behind his grin. They had faced many trials together, many enemies, but this foe was different. It stank of the beyond.
Gritzern glanced at Borgan feeling a stab of anger. You said we would do great things, we’d be like the Heralds. You said we were chosen.
Borgan chuckled, hearing his thoughts. We are chosen, boy. I didn’t say what we were chosen for.
Gritzern gripped his saber tight and sank into a low stance. The gibbering at the edges of his thoughts intensified, drowning out Borgan’s sending. So many minds ripped from their shells. They clawed at him, trying to get in. Nigel’s trembles were more pronounced now and Gritzern knew he fought the same battle. Borgan’s face seemed cut from stone, blank and eternal.
Click, click, click, click.
The creature rounded a bend just ahead. It filled the tunnel, its spindly limbs bracing its bulbous torso in all directions, like a spider with no clear back or belly, just a dark mass sprouting multi jointed, insect-like legs. Many of its limbs were hooked like those of a mantis, and one lashed at Gritzern. He sidestepped, letting the spiked limb sink into the muck and strike the stone beneath.
Gritzern delivered a chopping blow with his saber that felt like cutting into a thick tree. His blade sank into its carapace with a dull thunk but did no real damage.
Several more limbs lashed out, each different in shape and flexibility, but all barbed, clawed, hooked, or otherwise cruel and deadly. Gritzern felt his hair synge as a ball of Liandra’s green flame streaked past him and slammed into the monster’s core. It exploded in a blinding flash provoking a sickening squeal. When Gritzern’s vision cleared, he saw a hooked tendril darting for his throat and barely rolled back in time to avoid it.
Gritzern felt his limbs grow heavy as Mezzerflitta’s magic fled from him. He looked back, alarmed, and saw the Edwone fall to her knees with two barbs, as long as javelins, protruding from her chest. She screamed, and her eyes bulged as the flesh around the wounds pulsed and blistered filling the air with a smell like rotten meat. Gritzern moved to help but before he could reach her, he heard Borgan’s voice in his head:
She’s gone, boy. Focus on the living.
Gritzern ignored him and knelt at Mezzerflitta’s side. Her eyes looked watery and unfocused. She seemed to look through him.
“Don’t let it…take…” and her face contorted into a mask of horror. The veins in her skull burst, spraying Gritzern’s face with black blood. She slumped and breathed a last, gurgling breath.
Gritzern!
Borgan hewed about with his sword, each blow accompanied with a flash of light as he poured his psychic energy into the blade. He ripped limbs from the monster, and fluorescent blood bubbled and hissed when it touched the sludge of the sewer. Gritzern watched, horrified as small, wormlike tendrils wriggled from the wounds, growing and twisting to replace the body parts it lost.
“Mazzaeplatenatcc!!” Liandra shouted, and beads of purple light launched from her fingertips, slamming into the thing’s torso, punching fist-sized holes through its carapace. It shrank away from the attack, but a tentacle shot forth from one of the wounds and wrapped around Liandra’s neck. She tried to shout, but the sickening crack of her neck cut her off. It yanked her off her feet, her head flopping on her shoulders in a morbid parody of a rag doll, and pulled her close to be torn to pieces.
Borgan still stood in the creature’s path, his psychic energy a nimbus of light around him, warding off the half-dozen limbs that sought his life. Nigel blinked out of a puff of black mist and stabbed at the thing with his spear before blinking back into the nether world of shadow, protecting himself from harm. Seconds later, he blinked back and struck again, but before he could disappear, an amorphous pod sprang from the creature’s body. It formed a gaping maw with jagged, pock-marked teeth that latched onto Nigel’s torso. The Romaran screamed and Gritzern knew his concentration had broken. He would not escape as the jaws tore through his ribs. As with Mezzerflitta, the veins in Nigel’s skull erupted and boils of corruption burst from his skin.
The voices roared in Gritzern’s skull now, a cacophony of shouts, shrieks, and laughter, a symphony of the damned. He heard the voices of his friends in the deluge, Nigel cackling, Mezzerflitta screaming, Liandra weeping, as their souls fermented in the belly of this beast.
Borgan stood firm. His light seemed dim, but he still lashed about him with controlled ferocity. Gritzern dropped his saber and clutched at his head, feeling the pressure of the creature’s mind and all the minds it had devoured, probing, pressing, searching for weakness. He heard Nigel’s voice, giggling, pleading.
Gritzern, please!
Then he saw it. Through the mess of regenerating limbs, the ruin of sticky green blood cascading through the air with each of Borgan’s blows. Gritzern saw the core of the thing. Its maw opened like a flap, and a cluster of eyes, hundreds of them, flitted about in all directions. The cluster sat too high for Borgan to strike, floating just out of reach, watching its stubborn prey struggle. It seemed to have forgotten Gritzern altogether.
He clenched his jaw pushing back at the wave of voices tearing at his sanity. He had dropped his saber, but still gripped his knife, the long knife that served as a symbol of all he had seen, all he had done, the knife that had wrought so many changes in his life.
He charged but felt slowed, as if were running through water. He kept his focus on the cluster of eyes, struggling to take each step. Images flooded his head. No longer the memories of others; these were his own. Lord Alvara, his father, his mother, that damned champion with a name he’d long forgotten, and more. A stream of enemies paraded through his field of vision, dead eyes, blood, and gnashing teeth. Then the true focus of his hate, Borgan stood in his mind’s eye. He hated him for pulling them all into this, for convincing him he was anything more than a chef’s son. The memories stretched, as if they were being pulled away from him, but he clung to the hate and with each step, the malaise that slowed him dissolved until he found himself at a full run.
The creature did not see him coming until it was too late, until he leapt with the knife clasped in both hands, screaming as he released five years of pent-up anger. Tentacles and claws and snapping teeth moved to intercept him, but too late. He would not be denied. With a roar, he sank the knife to its hilt into the ball of eyes.
The cluster of eyes burst apart, each flicking about wildly, searching for purchase as their light faded. Gritzern felt himself flung from the massive beast, felt as if he floated, suspended above the slop of the sewers. He felt the creature’s blood burning his face, could feel his skin peeling, but all these physical sensations were fleeting, a candle before the inferno of real pain.
A thousand flashes of memory assaulted his mind, pictures, scents, touches, and tastes, the feel of a thousand lifetimes pressing into his skull. He felt Nigel’s guilt when he threw down his shield and spear and abandoned the line of his fellow Nov Romarans. He knew the shame of fleeing into the night and understood Nigel’s smiling mask, the one he wore to hide the coward in his heart. He felt Mezzerflitta, kneeling in a room full of fools and idols, praying to the Ancients, feeling their energy course through her veins, the reverence, the power that came with knowing a truth that was not a truth. He tasted the sulfur on Liandra’s lips when she first summoned the burning flame, first knew she was special, and in each memory, he saw Borgan’s smiling face and honeyed words promising something more.
A flood of sensations, of loves, of wounds, of tears, all the collected impulses of Edwed devoured by this thing. They exploded upon him, seeking footholds in his mind, seeking to force Gritzern, the real Gritzern, to flee from the realm of his own body, his own mind.
He screamed, clutching at his head, clutching at his soul as if it were something physical that could be ripped from his breast and the memories screamed too, the screams of the dying as these imprints of Edwed, long dead, thrashed against oblivion, against the void that came to claim them.
Gritzern hissed, “I am Gritzern, I am Gritzern,” and the dead, incorporeal things lashed at his consciousness. “I am Gritzern! I am. I am. I…I…I…I!”
And still they assailed him, but he shrank into his thoughts, into his shell, where his doubts, his pain, his anger, and his guilt could hide. He shrank into a place where he could be cold. “I am…” And in this place, the void closed, darkness like a cancer eating away his flesh, making all it touched the same empty rot. It poured through his mind, eating these foreign memories, consigning them to the cold oblivion in which they belonged. “I…am…Gritzern.” And the darkness finally found his core, and the world went black.
***
Gritzern did not surface all at once. He drifted. He fought against awareness. There would be pain in the return. Like a child wrapped in a blanket, he wanted to sleep, to stay wrapped in a cocoon of warmth, but his senses persisted. Water dripped, dripped, dripped down the walls. Sewage, foul and burning his nose, so close, touching his face. He breathed, ragged and wet, and then opened his eyes slowly, a sliver at a time.
He smelled the sewer, but also something worse. He pushed himself up to his elbows, the filth hanging from his face in long strings. His cheek burned and he touched it gingerly. The creature’s blood had burned deep and he knew there would be a scar. He looked about.
Mezzerflitta still lay on her back, still dead, but the barbs that killed her had melted into inky pools that stained her chest. The creature's body had dissolved into this same sticky black dye that coated the walls and drained sluggishly into the thick grey water of the sewer. Nigel and Liandra’s bodies looked partially dissolved, horrid, incomplete replicas of what they were, and Gritzern could still feel the shadow of their memories skirting the surface of his mind.
Borgan sat against the slime crusted wall, his sword resting on his knees. The blade looked pock marked and rusted from the blood of the foul thing. He stared at the opposite wall, stared at nothing...
“Borgan,” Gritzern croaked. “Did we win?”
Borgan did not look at him.
“Are you wounded, Borgan?”
Still, no answer. He stared and Gritzern saw his nearly black eye twitch like a pulse.
“Borgan! Talk to me.”
“I’m sorry, Gritzern.”
Gritzern cocked his head. An odd thing to say, especially for Borgan.
“I don’t care about—”
Borgan raised his hand and Gritzern felt his voice contract as his Mentor willed him to silence. He turned and stared Gritzern in the eyes.
“I'm sorry, Gritzern. I am so sorry for what I did to you.”
Gritzern’s eyes narrowed, and his face twisted. He tried to speak, but Borgan’s will held him fast. He felt as if he had forgotten how to use his voice.
“I know,” Borgan said slowly. “I know the promises I made.” He looked over to Mezzerflitta. “I know the promises I made to all of you. I did not lie. I made you special.”
All the anger of the last year boiled in Gritzern’s gut. He wanted to shout. He wanted to stand up and launch himself at Borgan. But his mentor’s will held him physically as well. Borgan turned to Gritzern, and in his eyes, Gritzern saw raw regret.
“I made all of you special, they told me to. They told me to raise you up and then see if you would break.” He paused, his eyes seeming to drift, looking through Gritzern. Then he shook his head and smiled a grim smile. “I was the same.”
He stood up, sheathed his sword, and walked up to Gritzern. He cupped his chin gently in his gauntleted hand, his grey eyes wreathed in what looked like burgeoning tears.
“I’m sorry, Gritzern, sorry for dragging you down this path, sorry for filling your head with all this shit. I can’t change any of it. All I can say is…no more.”
He turned on his heels and strode through the muck. As he did, Gritzern felt his muscles loosen, felt his jaw unlock and he gasped.
“That’s it?” he croaked. “Five years, and that’s all you have to say?” Gritzern spied his cutlass and snatched it up. His fist squeezed the rough handle as he stalked after Borgan. “You promised us! You promised us greatness! You said we would walk the road of the Heralds, you said we would be heroes! Look at me!”
Borgan kept walking, but Gritzern heard him in his mind. I am a bastard, Gritzern, but I delivered on my promise. Do you think the Heralds were happy? Do you think they loved and laughed? All heroes have one thing in common. They suffer.
Tears of frustration streamed down Gritzern’s face. He remembered the fallen: Nifflenar, Koralia, Mortessar, Kalamade, the list went on and on. The “heroes,' picked up in ports and farms and hovels. The blood of the Heralds flows in your veins! The joy and pride at hearing those words. And then he remembered each of them impaled, torn apart, tortured on racks in Tekinesh drug dens, hunted on the frozen plains of the Wastelands, all in the name of the next quest, the next test of greatness.
He wanted so badly to plunge his cutlass into Borgan’s back.
Do it.
The words boomed in his head, the sending more powerful than any he had received before, and he knew Borgan wanted to die. He knew Borgan was truly done.
“No, Borgan. I will not make this easy. You need to know what you did to us. You need to remember every day the dreams you crammed in our heads. You told us we were special!”
You are special. But you ask the wrong question. Is being special a curse?
Gritzern stopped, standing ankle deep in filth, he stared at Borgan’s back. He searched for words. He looked down at his hand, gripping his weapon, ignoring the pain from dozens of burns.
“You are weak, Borgan. That is all. You are too weak to embrace destiny.”
Borgan stopped and stood very still for several moments. When he turned, Gritzern saw the one thing he could not abide, the one emotion that made him growl and stalk forward pulling his blade to a ready position.
He saw pity.
But before he reached Borgan, something moved in the darkness. The air behind Borgan shimmered. The glow filled the tunnel, coalescing into a huge, vaguely humanoid shape made of shadow and wreathed in orange light. Borgan did not see it, and though Gritzern had been intent on his mentor’s death, years of fighting by his side could not be erased and he barked out a warning.
“Behind you!”
Borgan reacted, drawing his sword in one smooth motion and spinning on the shadow-thing. The blade connected with its side with a sound like an axe sinking into a tree, but the blade did not penetrate and the dark entity barely noticed the blow. Its massive hand shot out, engulfing Borgan’s head.
A voice, like the grating of stone, echoed through the sewer tunnel. “Yes, Borgan. You are done, but you shall not walk away. None of us walk away.”
The creature lifted Borgan off the ground, his legs flailing. Seconds ago, he had been ready to die by Gritzern’s hand, but Gritzern felt his emotions surge into his consciousness. Borgan’s psychic screams filled Gritzern’s head and forced him to his knees.
“Do you think you are different, Borgan? Do you think you can simply stride off into light and be done with all this? No. You consigned them all to the dark; you will join them.”
The creature's hand flexed and Gritzern felt the pressure as if Borgan’s head was his own.
“We all choose our path, Borgan.” It gave one more squeeze and Gritzern heard a sickening crunch. Borgan’s thoughts winked out. “We all choose what we are willing to pay.”
Gritzern vomited violently. He felt Borgan’s death. Nay, more than death. The thing drank Borgan’s essence and destroyed him utterly. Gritzern wretched again, then looked up as the dark thing advanced.
“Stay back!” he shouted, holding up his cutlass in what seemed such a futile gesture. “Stay back!”
“And what of you, little Edwane? Would you follow your master into the void?”
Gritzern felt frozen in place. He could not run. His sword felt small, a twig in the face of an avalanche.
“Look at me. What do you see?”
Gritzern wanted to shut his eyes but couldn’t. He stared into the darkness, into this creature that seemed cut from a starless sky. He looked, and the darkness swirled and he saw a ship and he saw himself standing at its helm, and then he saw a fortress and he stood at its apex with slain enemies splayed about, and he saw himself, older, scars criss crossing his once handsome face, and he saw strength in his eyes, and he saw Edwed following, looking at him with awe, and he saw the knife in his off hand, the grim reminder of where he began and all he had seen.
“Look at me. What do you desire?”
Gritzern felt himself falling into that darkness and he saw himself as if in a mirror looking back, and he saw power and will and control as he fell into himself and he was confused at how surrender could be strength and bondage could be freedom and a simple boy could walk the earth as a god and he knew he wanted and abhorred everything he saw in that mirror.
“What, little Edwed, do you really want?”
His knife was in his hand, his symbol, the trappings of a boy long dead. “I…I…I want to be special.”
The darkness had no face, but Gritzern heard the smile in its voice.
“Yes. I can use that.”
***
30, 40, 50 Years later...Who can tell?
Gritzern fingered the scar on his cheek. He could barely feel it through the others that criss crossed his face. So many battles, so many wounds, so many deaths.
He did not look in mirrors anymore. They reminded him of dreams best forgotten. An Edwed Minor made his way up the gangplank. The first of his next crew. He sighed and rubbed his temples. Yet another crew.
“Gritzern, right? The name’s Obi.”
Gritzern cocked his head and regarded the Minor. “Does it matter?”
Before Obi could answer, Gritzern turned and headed to his cabin, leaving the young Edwane confused and annoyed. He thought of Borgan and scowled. No. He wouldn’t cross that line. He wouldn’t speak that lie. He would never tell them they were special.
But now he stood in the center ring, saber in his right hand, dagger in his left. The saber felt odd, but the knife had a comfortable weight, like his cooking knife, a tool, not a weapon.
Why me?
“You are the only one,” his father, Britall, had pleaded. “Your family is counting on you.”
Gritzern scanned the lower seats and found him. Britall’s silk shirt, darkened with sweat, clung to the rolls of his gut. His eyes darted about, and his nose pulsed like a rodent’s. He looked desperate and afraid. Gritzern despised his father, one of the few things he and his mother, Morata, had in common. She sat next to Britall as protocol demanded, but Gritzern saw her recoil when his elbow brushed hers.
Yes, Mother, we know. You married beneath you.
Britall’s Bistro, one of the finest eateries in all of Jo Vey, but still an eatery, still a business for servants. Why Morata accepted Britall’s proposal, Gritzern could only guess, but he knew she complained every day since. “You have no ambition! This restaurant isn’t enough! How can we live like this, in old clothes, with no servants? I am no hostess!”
Her shrill nagging echoed in Gritzern’s head, a song of dissatisfaction, the lament a debutant denied.
The sun assaulted Gritzern mercilessly. He scanned the upper balconies, lingering on the empty seat of Lord Alvara, the bastard who issued the challenge. ‘Fashionably late,’ as expected, and no one would dare complain. They would sit, panting and sweating, awaiting the pampered lordling.
Coin is King in Joun.
“You must not win,” Britorri, Gritzern’s brother, had warned. “We cannot embarrass Lord Alvara, or we will lose everything!”
Britorri had seemed so earnest, but now he sat in the stands, seated with a few cronies, the same cronies who haunted Britall’s, drinking and eating for free. Parasites, sycophants, fools! Gritzern sneered, staring at his brother for a long moment, but Britorri did not meet his glare.
You should be in the pit, brother. You are the eldest, the adult. But Britorri had no spine.
“Lose, honorably,” he had said.
Gritzern spat. What would Britorri know of honor? Gritzern was practically a child, but he knew how to swing a sword. Britorri only knew how to shop and play at nobility. The crowd teemed with dandies just like him, children of the middle class playing at wealth, pretending they had value, power, but in one moment of dissatisfaction, Lord Alvara showed clearly where real power in Lo Vey resided.
An undercooked filet, this whole mess over an undercooked filet. Never had Gritzern seen an Edwane so flushed, so indignant over such a small thing. But worse, when his father came from the kitchens to deal with the complaint, he did the unthinkable. He contradicted the mighty and moneyed Lord Alvara.
“Sir, the meat was cooked to your specifications.”
“The nerve! The audacity! I demand satisfaction!” And that was all it took.
Lose honorably, Gritzern, you must!
His father’s words echoed his brother’s. His mother had watched through dark unreadable eyes. They all knew the nature of duels. Lord Alvara could not be humiliated, but losing too badly would also be a disaster. His father and brother could lose badly. Only Gritzern had the skill to lose honorably.
And now you understand, boy. Now you understand your place in this little game.
Gritzern whipped his gaze around the arena. There was no one there, but the voice sounded as if it were in his ear
You are a pawn.
He spun about, weapons held at ready, but still nothing. The crowd paid him no mind though, their attention drawn to a gilded alcove set above the upper decks. They rose like a wave, all eyes on Lord Alvara’s grand entrance. He wore a fine purple robe stitched with so much gold embroidery it seemed he should collapse under its weight. His broad, fat-faced smile triggered cheers through the arena. Lord Alvara nodded, accepting the fake addulation as his right, but when his gaze fell upon Britall, his lips curled into a sneer. Britall bowed respectfully in return, then stood at attention until Lord Alvara settled his bulk into a high backed, heavy oak chair. No one sat until Lord Alvara did.
Why?
Gritzern did not expect an answer to his thought, but the voice returned, a rhythmic whisper in his head. Because, boy, the value of an Edwed in Joun is measured in gold. But you know this already, and so does he.
Gritzern clenched his teeth looking from face to face. Why did they all abase themselves before this pig? Why did his father submit like a worm? And then he found Lord Alvara’s eyes locked with his own, and before he could stop himself, he raised his blade in salute. His stomach twisted with the act.
See, boy? Even you. Conditioned to respond.
Gritzern closed his eyes and hissed, “Get out of my head!”
You were meant for more, Gritzern.
On the far side of the arena, a set of ironbound doubled doors creaked open. The hinges squealed in protest. Faces in the crowd twisted into scowls, the harsh sound an affront to their delicate senses.
Gritzern’s could smell the perfumes and cloying sweetness of the smoke curling from fashionable glass pipes. Whispers caressed his ears, the snickers, the bored yawns, the polite pandering of the lower class abasing themselves before their betters. He listened to the politics of the mob, the clink of ice, the sighs of the vendors moving up and down the rows, and his own heart pounding in his chest.
“Don’t win, Heralds forbid, you can’t win,” his father had pleaded. “Such a slight to Lord Alvara is unthinkable, but…lose well.”
Lose honorably.
There is no such thing, the voice whispered. There is no honor in this.
Gritzern spied a figure in the lowers, sitting alone, ice blue eyes calm and focused. His bald head had several gold rings piercing his light brown scalp and he had dark stripes framing his eyes. He wore plain robes that seemed out of place among the garish colors and exotic fabrics around him. With a surety Gritzern couldn’t explain, he knew the voice belonged to this Edwane.
Gritzern did not want to look away, even as his opponent entered the arena, holding a rapier high. But when the Edwane snapped the short whip he wielded in his off hand, Gritzern reluctantly gave him his full attention. The Edwane did not wear dusty leathers like Gritzern, but rather a perfectly tailored coat, midnight blue with embroidered stars. His breeches were tight, emphasizing the muscles in his legs and his silver hair had been styled in a wave. He spun in a circle, favoring the crowd with a broad grin, and pausing to give Lord Alvara a low, exaggerated bow. Then he turned to Gritzern and smirked.
The whip cracked again, accentuating his contempt.
A whip.
A weapon meant to punish, to inflict pain.
Lose honorably.
This fop had no intention to let him lose honorably. The whip meant humiliation and pain, a master disciplining a slave. Gritzern’s hands tightened, clenching his own weapons until his pale green knuckles turned white.
You are better than this, Gritzern, the voice whispered. You are special. He looked back at the crowd. The bald Edwane was gone, but the voice still whispered in his head. You are meant for more.
“Today!” A large Edwane bellowed through a cone shaped horn, drowning out the roar of the crowd. “Today, we settle a matter of honor!”
There were still mumbles and whispers, but the crowd settled to near silence.
“The illustrious, the magnanimous Lord Alvara, whose reputation is above reproach, has been slighted. Should he let this stand?”
“No!” The shout was unanimous.
Above reproach.
Did any of these fools know a thing about Lord Alvara or his reputation?
“Britall, the baker,” the announcer said, pointing at Gritzen’s father. The crowd responded with boos and hisses.
A baker. They owned one of the finest restaurants on Jo Vey, yet they called him a baker, “He has answered the challenge with his child, his son.” And even this was an insult. By labeling Gritzern Britall’s son, he announced that the family could not afford a proper champion. They would have to dirty their own hands.
“Lord Alvara presents, Demontressan the Quick!” Gritzern’s opponent gave another bow with more flourish than before, and punctuated it with another crack of his whip. Gritzern waited for his own introduction, but the announcer went silent, letting the crowd cheer. After several moments, he shouted, “Let us begin!”
He had no name. He was Britall’s son. A nothing, a nobody, a child, a body to be abused for the crowd’s enjoyment.
His gaze drifted to his father, sweating, ringing his hands. His mother, bored, listless, looking longingly at the entourage surrounding lord Alvara. At least they had the good sense to leave his young sister at home. Ilse, innocent, pure, the only ray of light in this ruse of a family. And then he spied his brother, whispering to a friend. He saw an exchange of coins. Britorri looked down at him pointedly.
Lose honorably.
Demontressan advanced, snapping his whip. The champion smiled, holding his rapier loose and low, his stance sloppy. Blood pounded in Gritzern’s temples. He remembered all the sessions with his tutors, learning to parry and feint and thrust. He never wanted any of it. He wanted to make bread, but he had talent and his mother would not let talent go to waste.
Lose honorably.
Demontressan waved his rapier, wiggling its point an arm’s length from Gritzern’s face, mocking him, his posture, his eyes, his smile a mask of scorn.
Lose.
Gritzern moved before thinking, his own blade slapping Demontressan’s rapier aside. He dropped his weapon and stepped under the champion’s guard, grabbing a fist full of the fool’s shirt with his now free hand. He pulled Demontressan close enough to smell his cologne; close enough to see the surprise; close enough to spit in his eye before he switched his grip on his knife and drove the blade through the fine blue coat, through Demontressan’s upper chest, and into the Dandy’s heart.
The look on Demontressan’s face seemed more confused than pained. Hot blood poured over Gritzern’s hand, and he let go of the knife, freeing his opponent to stumble and sink to his knees. Demontressan looked down at his wound and then up at Gritzern, realization dawning. No more parties, no more mistresses, no more shopping, no more faux duels. Gritzern saw the horror building, the finality of it. He knew he should have felt something as he watched Demontressan die, but he only felt a void, a darkness within. He felt as empty as the corpse that collapsed into the dust of the arena.
Dead silence enveloped him for several moments. Then Lord Alvara’s deep voice boomed, “This is outrageous! Seize him!”
The command triggered a roar of shouts and gasps. Gritzern looked from face to face. His father, slack jawed and stupid. His brother gripped a piece of paper, his face taut, sweat beading in droplets on his forehead. Lord Alvara barked orders, but no soldiers rushed Gritzern. One of Lord Alvara’s attendants whispered in his master’s ear, no doubt informing him that a death in the dueling pit, though rare, was a legal outcome. And then Gritzern spied his mother. Morata sat back, folding her manicured hands in her lap, face placid, a slight smirk gracing her jade green lips. She looked almost…proud.
How long had he craved her pride? How he longed for that look, that adoration, but not like this. He glared at her.
Now, Mother? Now am I acceptable?
His stomach twisted as he scanned the crowd, the lowers, the uppers, the princes in their luxury boxes, the paupers elbow to elbow, drunk and laughing at this grand joke. It all blended together, a mass of revelry, opulence, decadence, words, words, words tumbling in his head, and he bellowed, “Look at you! What are you? Strip away your silk and powder and what is left? What lies beneath your shallow facade, your fake manners? You don’t know what you are. Your blank stares say it all...nothing! Look at you!”
But no. Vapid and empty. He could have been yelling defiance at the sky. They were all the same. Marked by a seat, a set of clothes, signs of station and privilege, but all the same. Here in this microcosm, he gazed upon all of Joun, a writhing mass of fools that seemed a painting, an awful still-life image of a people with no soul.
With a growl, he picked up his saber and hurled it at the crowd. It fell short, striking against the protective wall surrounding the pit and clattered in the dust. No one acknowledged the gesture. They chattered about what he had done, but Gritzern himself had fallen beneath their notice.
He looked at his opponent’s dead eyes staring into the sky. His knife stood at attention in the Edwane’s chest.
“Look at you,” Gritzern whispered, and walked away, leaving the weapon where he planted it.
***
It had been hours and Gritzern still sat in the dust of the arena staring at his hands, caked with black blood.
“Quite the show you put on.”
He knew the voice without looking up. It had been in his head. The bald Edwane’s shadow engulfed him. He seemed bigger up close.
“Go away,” Gritzern said. “It’s over.”
“Yes, it is,” the Edwane said, taking a seat next to Gritzern, “in more ways than you can imagine. Do you know what is happening to your father’s restaurant?”
He didn’t, but Gritzern could guess. The true owners of the building would converge with contracts, pointing to clauses that allowed them to double or triple the rent. His father probably stood before the gates of Lord Alvara’s estate pleading with guards for an audience, and the rough Edwed would take cruel pleasure in denying him. His mother would be packing. She would leave Joun. She had a cache of jewelry to finance the trip. Somewhere in Jvar VunGal, somewhere where her refinement and grace could land her a new husband or sponsor. Of his brother, Gritzern didn’t much care. Britorri would be packing for different reasons. Who knows how much he had bet. Too much, Gritzern guessed. Poor Britorri would never make it past the docks.
And what of Ilse? Would Mother take her? No. Ilse would stay with father and witness the whole sordid mess. Eventually, they would ship out to one of the outlying colonies to become the lower class of the lower class. Father would cook in a shithole while Ilse scrubbed tables or worse, and all because of Gritzern. All because he couldn’t lose with honor.
He buried his face in his hands and fought back tears.
“Yes, Gritzern. You know what is happening, don’t you?”
Gritzern would have asked how the Edwane knew his name, but the question seemed stupid. Besides, by now his name had likely graced the lips of every gossip in the city. He would be the story of the day, and tomorrow…a cautionary tale or worse, the butt of the latest jokes.
“Leave me,” he said. “I am in no mood.”
“My name is Borgan.”
“I don’t care if your name is Shadzog,” Gritzern spat, “leave me.”
“You know, Gritzern, your family is not the first to be broken by Joun’s greed. The very foundations of this city hide the bones of the many who served as step stools for the few. And you know why?”
It wasn’t a question.
“Come now Gritzern, you said it yourself after you murdered that fop.”
“It wasn’t murder,” Gritzern said. “I killed him within the rules.”
Borgan laughed a rich, deep laugh. “Of course you did. And when Lord Alvara strips your family of all its dignity and leaves you as paupers, he will do it within the rules.” Gritzern lifted his gaze, but his angry retort died on his lips. Borgan stared back at him unblinking. Finally, Gritzern broke and the tears he had been holding back tumbled down his cheeks.
“It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”
Borgan shrugged. “No, it isn’t. Look around you.” He gestured to the tapered towers, the lush trees, and the manicured streets of Jo Vey. “Look at this place. It is not a place of Edwed. It is a place of things, a place of baubles, a place of piled gold. Tell me, what happened to you when you killed that fool, Gritzern? What did you feel?”
Gritzern didn’t answer, but his eyes glazed over. He remembered the anger in his gut, the sick feeling, the burning in his chest before he struck. He remembered the feel of hot blood pulsing over his hand, the moment of control, of mastery, of ownership over his own life. And he thought of his father, poor pitiful Britall who would never know that feeling, who only knew fear.
Borgan nodded as if he had answered. We are different, Gritzern. We are special.
Gritzern glared sharply as the words vibrated in his head.
“How are you doing this?” The ghost of suspicion crawled into his mind, but at the same time, Gritzern felt warm. Special. Oh, if only it were true. “Who are you?” Gritzern said. “Why are you torturing me?”
“I’m like you,” Borgan said simply. “Or at least I was, but then someone came along and offered me what I’m going to offer you—a chance to be who you truly are.”
Borgan held out his hand toward the arena behind them. After a few moments, Gritzern’s knife, still crusted with Demontressan’s blood, came floating through the air. Borgan seemed to be controlling its trajectory. He guided it until it stopped, hanging in the air in front of Gritzern.
Gritzern snatched the weapon out of the air. “I’ve seen parlor tricks before. Let me guess. You want to take me to some dark room in a cheap Inn so you can show me how ‘special’ I am. No thanks.”
Borgan smiled, clearly amused. “No, Gritzern. I’m going to give you a choice. Go home, try to scrape some life from the ruin you created. After what you’ve done, you will be a weight around your family’s neck. You will crawl down several rungs on the social ladder but may still find a place in this hierarchy of perfumed fools.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small blue chip with a number printed on one side and an eye painted in intricate detail on the other. “Or come to the dock in two hours. This dock,” he pointed to the number, “and join my friends and I. Find out who you really are.”
“I don’t know who you are.”
I told you, I’m Borgan. In Gritzern’s head, Borgan’s voice had a music to it, a cadence that soothed him. And I’m special, like you.
He rose and strode away without another word.
What a crazy old fool. What does he think I’m going to do, just drop everything? Then he thought, What does it matter? I’ve lost it all.
He sat for several moments, no clear answer coming to mind, but one word kept repeating over and over.
Special.
***
Five Years Later
Nigel did not act like a Nov Romaran. Yes, his deep red skin spoke of his lineage, but the perpetual half smile, the gleam of mischief in the Edwane Major’s yellow eyes seemed uncharacteristic of the staunchly conservative legionnaires Gritzern had encountered. Even now, ankle deep in sewage with hellish sounds echoing down the tunnel, Nigel seemed more excited than scared.
“Hold the line!” Borgan barked, more to Nigel than Gritzern. Borgan held his heavy, hand-and-a-half sword before him, slick with fluorescent blood. The corpses of the corrupted Edwed lay strewn about, twisted parodies of the Edwed they had been. Nigel giggled and stuck his tongue out at Borgan but readied his serrated spear all the same.
Six of the corpses lay half submerged in the muck, their limbs bloated, puckered, and teaming with ruptured boils. Something down here warped their flesh, turned them into creatures of nightmare, but not Gritzern and his companions. They were special, as Borgan kept reminding them. And what of the dead, Borgan? Were they all special too?
Mezzerflitta and Liandra, the two Edwone Minors, kept to the back, relying on Gritzern, Nigel, and Borgan to protect them. But in truth, the two Minors were their only hope. Mezzerflitta mumbled in a guttural, almost animalistic language and her eyes rolled back into her head. She claimed she spoke the will of the Ancients, but Gritzern wasn’t so sure. Nevertheless, he felt the power of her incantation pouring into his limbs. He looked to Borgan and saw his eyes alight with that same power. The Romaran winked at him, but Gritzern could see the slight tremble of his lip, betraying the fear under his companion’s resolve.
Liandra stood resolute, green flame flickering from her delicate, childlike hands. Her black eyes shined with a fierceness Gritzern rarely saw. She usually only had that look when things were bad.
“What do you see, Nigel?” Gritzern hissed. Nigel had the sight, among other gifts, and his vision could pierce the deepest shadows.
“Don’t have to see it,” Nigel whispered. “I can feel it. Can’t you?”
“Fuck off!” Gritzern growled, but knew the Romaran spoke the truth. The voices screamed, giggled, and roared, voices like Borgan’s mind speak, but these intruded, cutting through his thoughts like a knife. He knew they belonged to the corpses scattered about them, the last memories of Edwed before their lives had been sucked dry by the thing that approached.
Mezzerflitta’s chant faded to a low mumble and her voice returned to its normal sing-song cadence. “Don’t think. It will use your memories against you.”
“Mind blank, done.” Nigel still hid behind his grin. They had faced many trials together, many enemies, but this foe was different. It stank of the beyond.
Gritzern glanced at Borgan feeling a stab of anger. You said we would do great things, we’d be like the Heralds. You said we were chosen.
Borgan chuckled, hearing his thoughts. We are chosen, boy. I didn’t say what we were chosen for.
Gritzern gripped his saber tight and sank into a low stance. The gibbering at the edges of his thoughts intensified, drowning out Borgan’s sending. So many minds ripped from their shells. They clawed at him, trying to get in. Nigel’s trembles were more pronounced now and Gritzern knew he fought the same battle. Borgan’s face seemed cut from stone, blank and eternal.
Click, click, click, click.
The creature rounded a bend just ahead. It filled the tunnel, its spindly limbs bracing its bulbous torso in all directions, like a spider with no clear back or belly, just a dark mass sprouting multi jointed, insect-like legs. Many of its limbs were hooked like those of a mantis, and one lashed at Gritzern. He sidestepped, letting the spiked limb sink into the muck and strike the stone beneath.
Gritzern delivered a chopping blow with his saber that felt like cutting into a thick tree. His blade sank into its carapace with a dull thunk but did no real damage.
Several more limbs lashed out, each different in shape and flexibility, but all barbed, clawed, hooked, or otherwise cruel and deadly. Gritzern felt his hair synge as a ball of Liandra’s green flame streaked past him and slammed into the monster’s core. It exploded in a blinding flash provoking a sickening squeal. When Gritzern’s vision cleared, he saw a hooked tendril darting for his throat and barely rolled back in time to avoid it.
Gritzern felt his limbs grow heavy as Mezzerflitta’s magic fled from him. He looked back, alarmed, and saw the Edwone fall to her knees with two barbs, as long as javelins, protruding from her chest. She screamed, and her eyes bulged as the flesh around the wounds pulsed and blistered filling the air with a smell like rotten meat. Gritzern moved to help but before he could reach her, he heard Borgan’s voice in his head:
She’s gone, boy. Focus on the living.
Gritzern ignored him and knelt at Mezzerflitta’s side. Her eyes looked watery and unfocused. She seemed to look through him.
“Don’t let it…take…” and her face contorted into a mask of horror. The veins in her skull burst, spraying Gritzern’s face with black blood. She slumped and breathed a last, gurgling breath.
Gritzern!
Borgan hewed about with his sword, each blow accompanied with a flash of light as he poured his psychic energy into the blade. He ripped limbs from the monster, and fluorescent blood bubbled and hissed when it touched the sludge of the sewer. Gritzern watched, horrified as small, wormlike tendrils wriggled from the wounds, growing and twisting to replace the body parts it lost.
“Mazzaeplatenatcc!!” Liandra shouted, and beads of purple light launched from her fingertips, slamming into the thing’s torso, punching fist-sized holes through its carapace. It shrank away from the attack, but a tentacle shot forth from one of the wounds and wrapped around Liandra’s neck. She tried to shout, but the sickening crack of her neck cut her off. It yanked her off her feet, her head flopping on her shoulders in a morbid parody of a rag doll, and pulled her close to be torn to pieces.
Borgan still stood in the creature’s path, his psychic energy a nimbus of light around him, warding off the half-dozen limbs that sought his life. Nigel blinked out of a puff of black mist and stabbed at the thing with his spear before blinking back into the nether world of shadow, protecting himself from harm. Seconds later, he blinked back and struck again, but before he could disappear, an amorphous pod sprang from the creature’s body. It formed a gaping maw with jagged, pock-marked teeth that latched onto Nigel’s torso. The Romaran screamed and Gritzern knew his concentration had broken. He would not escape as the jaws tore through his ribs. As with Mezzerflitta, the veins in Nigel’s skull erupted and boils of corruption burst from his skin.
The voices roared in Gritzern’s skull now, a cacophony of shouts, shrieks, and laughter, a symphony of the damned. He heard the voices of his friends in the deluge, Nigel cackling, Mezzerflitta screaming, Liandra weeping, as their souls fermented in the belly of this beast.
Borgan stood firm. His light seemed dim, but he still lashed about him with controlled ferocity. Gritzern dropped his saber and clutched at his head, feeling the pressure of the creature’s mind and all the minds it had devoured, probing, pressing, searching for weakness. He heard Nigel’s voice, giggling, pleading.
Gritzern, please!
Then he saw it. Through the mess of regenerating limbs, the ruin of sticky green blood cascading through the air with each of Borgan’s blows. Gritzern saw the core of the thing. Its maw opened like a flap, and a cluster of eyes, hundreds of them, flitted about in all directions. The cluster sat too high for Borgan to strike, floating just out of reach, watching its stubborn prey struggle. It seemed to have forgotten Gritzern altogether.
He clenched his jaw pushing back at the wave of voices tearing at his sanity. He had dropped his saber, but still gripped his knife, the long knife that served as a symbol of all he had seen, all he had done, the knife that had wrought so many changes in his life.
He charged but felt slowed, as if were running through water. He kept his focus on the cluster of eyes, struggling to take each step. Images flooded his head. No longer the memories of others; these were his own. Lord Alvara, his father, his mother, that damned champion with a name he’d long forgotten, and more. A stream of enemies paraded through his field of vision, dead eyes, blood, and gnashing teeth. Then the true focus of his hate, Borgan stood in his mind’s eye. He hated him for pulling them all into this, for convincing him he was anything more than a chef’s son. The memories stretched, as if they were being pulled away from him, but he clung to the hate and with each step, the malaise that slowed him dissolved until he found himself at a full run.
The creature did not see him coming until it was too late, until he leapt with the knife clasped in both hands, screaming as he released five years of pent-up anger. Tentacles and claws and snapping teeth moved to intercept him, but too late. He would not be denied. With a roar, he sank the knife to its hilt into the ball of eyes.
The cluster of eyes burst apart, each flicking about wildly, searching for purchase as their light faded. Gritzern felt himself flung from the massive beast, felt as if he floated, suspended above the slop of the sewers. He felt the creature’s blood burning his face, could feel his skin peeling, but all these physical sensations were fleeting, a candle before the inferno of real pain.
A thousand flashes of memory assaulted his mind, pictures, scents, touches, and tastes, the feel of a thousand lifetimes pressing into his skull. He felt Nigel’s guilt when he threw down his shield and spear and abandoned the line of his fellow Nov Romarans. He knew the shame of fleeing into the night and understood Nigel’s smiling mask, the one he wore to hide the coward in his heart. He felt Mezzerflitta, kneeling in a room full of fools and idols, praying to the Ancients, feeling their energy course through her veins, the reverence, the power that came with knowing a truth that was not a truth. He tasted the sulfur on Liandra’s lips when she first summoned the burning flame, first knew she was special, and in each memory, he saw Borgan’s smiling face and honeyed words promising something more.
A flood of sensations, of loves, of wounds, of tears, all the collected impulses of Edwed devoured by this thing. They exploded upon him, seeking footholds in his mind, seeking to force Gritzern, the real Gritzern, to flee from the realm of his own body, his own mind.
He screamed, clutching at his head, clutching at his soul as if it were something physical that could be ripped from his breast and the memories screamed too, the screams of the dying as these imprints of Edwed, long dead, thrashed against oblivion, against the void that came to claim them.
Gritzern hissed, “I am Gritzern, I am Gritzern,” and the dead, incorporeal things lashed at his consciousness. “I am Gritzern! I am. I am. I…I…I…I!”
And still they assailed him, but he shrank into his thoughts, into his shell, where his doubts, his pain, his anger, and his guilt could hide. He shrank into a place where he could be cold. “I am…” And in this place, the void closed, darkness like a cancer eating away his flesh, making all it touched the same empty rot. It poured through his mind, eating these foreign memories, consigning them to the cold oblivion in which they belonged. “I…am…Gritzern.” And the darkness finally found his core, and the world went black.
***
Gritzern did not surface all at once. He drifted. He fought against awareness. There would be pain in the return. Like a child wrapped in a blanket, he wanted to sleep, to stay wrapped in a cocoon of warmth, but his senses persisted. Water dripped, dripped, dripped down the walls. Sewage, foul and burning his nose, so close, touching his face. He breathed, ragged and wet, and then opened his eyes slowly, a sliver at a time.
He smelled the sewer, but also something worse. He pushed himself up to his elbows, the filth hanging from his face in long strings. His cheek burned and he touched it gingerly. The creature’s blood had burned deep and he knew there would be a scar. He looked about.
Mezzerflitta still lay on her back, still dead, but the barbs that killed her had melted into inky pools that stained her chest. The creature's body had dissolved into this same sticky black dye that coated the walls and drained sluggishly into the thick grey water of the sewer. Nigel and Liandra’s bodies looked partially dissolved, horrid, incomplete replicas of what they were, and Gritzern could still feel the shadow of their memories skirting the surface of his mind.
Borgan sat against the slime crusted wall, his sword resting on his knees. The blade looked pock marked and rusted from the blood of the foul thing. He stared at the opposite wall, stared at nothing...
“Borgan,” Gritzern croaked. “Did we win?”
Borgan did not look at him.
“Are you wounded, Borgan?”
Still, no answer. He stared and Gritzern saw his nearly black eye twitch like a pulse.
“Borgan! Talk to me.”
“I’m sorry, Gritzern.”
Gritzern cocked his head. An odd thing to say, especially for Borgan.
“I don’t care about—”
Borgan raised his hand and Gritzern felt his voice contract as his Mentor willed him to silence. He turned and stared Gritzern in the eyes.
“I'm sorry, Gritzern. I am so sorry for what I did to you.”
Gritzern’s eyes narrowed, and his face twisted. He tried to speak, but Borgan’s will held him fast. He felt as if he had forgotten how to use his voice.
“I know,” Borgan said slowly. “I know the promises I made.” He looked over to Mezzerflitta. “I know the promises I made to all of you. I did not lie. I made you special.”
All the anger of the last year boiled in Gritzern’s gut. He wanted to shout. He wanted to stand up and launch himself at Borgan. But his mentor’s will held him physically as well. Borgan turned to Gritzern, and in his eyes, Gritzern saw raw regret.
“I made all of you special, they told me to. They told me to raise you up and then see if you would break.” He paused, his eyes seeming to drift, looking through Gritzern. Then he shook his head and smiled a grim smile. “I was the same.”
He stood up, sheathed his sword, and walked up to Gritzern. He cupped his chin gently in his gauntleted hand, his grey eyes wreathed in what looked like burgeoning tears.
“I’m sorry, Gritzern, sorry for dragging you down this path, sorry for filling your head with all this shit. I can’t change any of it. All I can say is…no more.”
He turned on his heels and strode through the muck. As he did, Gritzern felt his muscles loosen, felt his jaw unlock and he gasped.
“That’s it?” he croaked. “Five years, and that’s all you have to say?” Gritzern spied his cutlass and snatched it up. His fist squeezed the rough handle as he stalked after Borgan. “You promised us! You promised us greatness! You said we would walk the road of the Heralds, you said we would be heroes! Look at me!”
Borgan kept walking, but Gritzern heard him in his mind. I am a bastard, Gritzern, but I delivered on my promise. Do you think the Heralds were happy? Do you think they loved and laughed? All heroes have one thing in common. They suffer.
Tears of frustration streamed down Gritzern’s face. He remembered the fallen: Nifflenar, Koralia, Mortessar, Kalamade, the list went on and on. The “heroes,' picked up in ports and farms and hovels. The blood of the Heralds flows in your veins! The joy and pride at hearing those words. And then he remembered each of them impaled, torn apart, tortured on racks in Tekinesh drug dens, hunted on the frozen plains of the Wastelands, all in the name of the next quest, the next test of greatness.
He wanted so badly to plunge his cutlass into Borgan’s back.
Do it.
The words boomed in his head, the sending more powerful than any he had received before, and he knew Borgan wanted to die. He knew Borgan was truly done.
“No, Borgan. I will not make this easy. You need to know what you did to us. You need to remember every day the dreams you crammed in our heads. You told us we were special!”
You are special. But you ask the wrong question. Is being special a curse?
Gritzern stopped, standing ankle deep in filth, he stared at Borgan’s back. He searched for words. He looked down at his hand, gripping his weapon, ignoring the pain from dozens of burns.
“You are weak, Borgan. That is all. You are too weak to embrace destiny.”
Borgan stopped and stood very still for several moments. When he turned, Gritzern saw the one thing he could not abide, the one emotion that made him growl and stalk forward pulling his blade to a ready position.
He saw pity.
But before he reached Borgan, something moved in the darkness. The air behind Borgan shimmered. The glow filled the tunnel, coalescing into a huge, vaguely humanoid shape made of shadow and wreathed in orange light. Borgan did not see it, and though Gritzern had been intent on his mentor’s death, years of fighting by his side could not be erased and he barked out a warning.
“Behind you!”
Borgan reacted, drawing his sword in one smooth motion and spinning on the shadow-thing. The blade connected with its side with a sound like an axe sinking into a tree, but the blade did not penetrate and the dark entity barely noticed the blow. Its massive hand shot out, engulfing Borgan’s head.
A voice, like the grating of stone, echoed through the sewer tunnel. “Yes, Borgan. You are done, but you shall not walk away. None of us walk away.”
The creature lifted Borgan off the ground, his legs flailing. Seconds ago, he had been ready to die by Gritzern’s hand, but Gritzern felt his emotions surge into his consciousness. Borgan’s psychic screams filled Gritzern’s head and forced him to his knees.
“Do you think you are different, Borgan? Do you think you can simply stride off into light and be done with all this? No. You consigned them all to the dark; you will join them.”
The creature's hand flexed and Gritzern felt the pressure as if Borgan’s head was his own.
“We all choose our path, Borgan.” It gave one more squeeze and Gritzern heard a sickening crunch. Borgan’s thoughts winked out. “We all choose what we are willing to pay.”
Gritzern vomited violently. He felt Borgan’s death. Nay, more than death. The thing drank Borgan’s essence and destroyed him utterly. Gritzern wretched again, then looked up as the dark thing advanced.
“Stay back!” he shouted, holding up his cutlass in what seemed such a futile gesture. “Stay back!”
“And what of you, little Edwane? Would you follow your master into the void?”
Gritzern felt frozen in place. He could not run. His sword felt small, a twig in the face of an avalanche.
“Look at me. What do you see?”
Gritzern wanted to shut his eyes but couldn’t. He stared into the darkness, into this creature that seemed cut from a starless sky. He looked, and the darkness swirled and he saw a ship and he saw himself standing at its helm, and then he saw a fortress and he stood at its apex with slain enemies splayed about, and he saw himself, older, scars criss crossing his once handsome face, and he saw strength in his eyes, and he saw Edwed following, looking at him with awe, and he saw the knife in his off hand, the grim reminder of where he began and all he had seen.
“Look at me. What do you desire?”
Gritzern felt himself falling into that darkness and he saw himself as if in a mirror looking back, and he saw power and will and control as he fell into himself and he was confused at how surrender could be strength and bondage could be freedom and a simple boy could walk the earth as a god and he knew he wanted and abhorred everything he saw in that mirror.
“What, little Edwed, do you really want?”
His knife was in his hand, his symbol, the trappings of a boy long dead. “I…I…I want to be special.”
The darkness had no face, but Gritzern heard the smile in its voice.
“Yes. I can use that.”
***
30, 40, 50 Years later...Who can tell?
Gritzern fingered the scar on his cheek. He could barely feel it through the others that criss crossed his face. So many battles, so many wounds, so many deaths.
He did not look in mirrors anymore. They reminded him of dreams best forgotten. An Edwed Minor made his way up the gangplank. The first of his next crew. He sighed and rubbed his temples. Yet another crew.
“Gritzern, right? The name’s Obi.”
Gritzern cocked his head and regarded the Minor. “Does it matter?”
Before Obi could answer, Gritzern turned and headed to his cabin, leaving the young Edwane confused and annoyed. He thought of Borgan and scowled. No. He wouldn’t cross that line. He wouldn’t speak that lie. He would never tell them they were special.
SKULBRUKT (A Sheezo skulbrukt short story)
Authors: Kristen Coleman & Bryan Henery
Kytau Skulbrukt picked up his pace to a limping jog. It was all his old legs could manage on the uneven, cobblestoned path. He was late and his daughter, Ambelina, would be furious. Her last test, her graduation, and he knew it would be dangerous and grueling.
Sheezo pushes them too hard, he thought.
Kytau loved his wife, but she expected so much of their seven children. Some, like Ambelina, handled the pressure well, while others…
He pushed the thoughts out of his head as he did with most unpleasantries. Best not to worry about things he couldn’t control.
The training compound loomed, a squat structure resembling a guard tower. Upon closer inspection, what appeared to be a closed structure was actually a thick stone wall surrounding an arena. Complete with bleachers and luxury pavilions, Sheezo allowed some of her more affluent clients to stage gladiatorial games here, taking a cut of all gambling proceeds of course. Most assumed the structure served no other purpose, but Kytau knew its real function. It hid Sheezo’s training compound, tunneled beneath.
He bypassed the main entrance, a set of gilded brass gates shaped into the likeness of two serpents glaring at one another with jeweled eyes. He made his way around the structure, searching for the side entrance. He always had trouble finding it, for the door had been constructed to look like part of the stone. Old eyes, he guessed. Sheezo never had any trouble, but Sheezo didn’t have trouble with much of anything. He often wondered why his wife had not aged as he had. She was just as beautiful as the day they met some twenty years ago.
He’d been no slouch either back then, a burly seaman with fierce blue eyes and an imposing physique. If he were a ship, he’d have been a sleek war galley. Now he felt like an old fishing boat, ready for retirement.
There it is.
He spied the outline of the door, just a slight discoloration, and felt for the keyhole. It had been set at an angle, making it all but invisible. He fished a glass key from his pocket and slipped it into the opening. Something snatched the key from his fingers, and the doorway slid aside of its own volition, driven by some mechanism Kytau couldn’t begin to fathom. Inky darkness filled the passage beyond. The morning sun seemed to recoil rather than pierce it.
He whispered the command word Sheezo had taught him. It had taken weeks to learn the syllables. It was unlike any language he had ever heard, and he’d heard many. Even now it took him several tries to get it right, but when he did, several lamps burst alight illuminating a spiral staircase descending into the earth. He heard a clink as the glass key fell into a small box built into the wall. He retrieved it and shook his head. Best not to worry about things he didn’t understand.
Kytau carefully made his way down the steps. As he passed each lantern, it winked out, leaving him in darkness for half a second before another flared to life further along. The stairway circled its way through a hundred feet of stone, delving into the depths of the earth. Kytau had no idea how Sheezo had the place excavated. He preferred to be kept in the dark when it came to Sheezo’s business or her experiments, especially when they didn’t directly involve him. He knew she kept no secrets, not from him, but there were many truths he wanted no part of.
At the bottom of the stairs, he found a more obvious door and opened it using the same key. His daughter, Ambelina, beamed a smile at him from the other side. She had her mother’s pale blue skin and flawless beauty, but she lacked the piercing, guarded eyes. She wore her emotions openly, like her father.
“You’re late,” she scolded, wagging a finger at him. “Mother is not happy”
“She worries too much.” Absently, he slid his hand into the pocket of his coat and felt the letter he’d been given. He tried not to frown. Perhaps she hasn’t worried enough.
“C’mon,” Ambelina said, hooking his arm with hers. She led him through hallways lined with doors and down several switchbacks. In one passage, he smelled sulfur. In another, the scent of rotten meat. He kept his eyes pointed straight ahead.
Best not to look at things he didn’t want to see.
They emerged in a glass booth within a large, domed chamber—the Testing Room, or the real Arena, as Sheezo liked to call it. She and their son, Bragorious, waited within. Sheezo glanced over her shoulder and gave Kytau a curt nod. Bragorious did not acknowledge him, his dark eyes fixed on a figure just beyond the glass. Kytau frowned. Bragorious looked older. He was only a few years older than Ambelina, yet the lines in his dark blue face seemed deeper than they should be.
Kytau followed his son’s gaze to an Edwone Minor with deep purple skin and green eyes. She wore an iron collar with a chain around her neck. It was tethered to a large ring set in the floor of the Testing Room. Her eyes were dull, her expression bland, and stapled wounds from fresh surgeries criss crossed her bare chest. A squat, metal contraption with tubes and wires running in and out of it filled the chamber behind her. Even through the glass, Kytau could hear the machine humming.
“Ambelina,” Sheezo said. “Close the door behind you.”
Ambelina obeyed, and Kytau held back, recognizing Sheezo’s instructional tone. She would not appreciate being interrupted when honing her weapons.
“Pay attention to the Edwed in the Arena, daughter.” Sheezo had a panel set with several fluorescent jewels in front of her. She reached out to touch one, making it glow a soft purple. “Watch closely.”
She pressed it, and the Edwone burst apart with a loud crack, spraying the glass with splotches of black blood. Half of a hand hit the clear surface and seemed to cling to the glass for a moment before slowly sliding to the floor, leaving a trail through the gore in its wake. Ambelina winced, but Sheezo showed no reaction. Kytau looked away in time to catch Bragorious’ slight smirk.
“Now you know the stakes, daughter,” Sheezo continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you fail, it will be your blood staining the glass.”
Kytau frowned but remained silent. Sheezo had explained it to him so many times. Their children were her weapons and they had to be tempered. He did not like it, but best not to worry about…well…best not to think about it at all.
In moments, the blood beaded and ran down the magically treated glass, pooling on the stone floor. Soon they had a clear view once more. Of the Edwone, only a burned patch of ground and her blackened collar remained.
“Now, Ambelina, enter the Arena and begin your focusing exercises,” Sheezo said. “Bragorious, please bring in the other specimens and prepare the machine.”
Bragorious looked at her for a long moment before complying, “Yes mother.” Kytau noted the pause, a calculated act. These minor rebellions had been more frequent lately. Again, he thought of the letter in his pocket. Once both children had entered the arena, Kytau approached.
“I assume you have something for me,” Sheezo said without looking at him. “I assume it is why you are late.”
“Aye,” Kytau said drawing the letter from his coat, but hesitated before handing it over. “Are you sure you want to go knocking on this door?”
Sheezo took the envelope and nodded. “Bragorious has grown…willful. I must know if it is more than simple adolescent angst. I have invested too much in him, in all of them.”
Kytau sighed as he watched Bragorious lead four more slaves into the arena. They all had the same empty eyes, the same surgery scars, the same collars and chains. Once secured, he brought out another, an Edwane major with the deep brown skin common to the nomads of Jvar Vungal. Bragorious walked him to a spot away from the others. He left this one unchained, and turned to the machine. He began turning dials and checking tubes, making adjustments that Kytau could not begin to understand while Ambelina stood with her eyes closed. The air warped around her, rippling as she gathered her energy for what was to come. Kytau had seen enough tests. It wouldn’t be easy, but Sheezo was right. She was forging weapons, and weapons needed to be sharpened.
The thought made him glance back at Bragorious and he caught his so
n staring back at him, his eyes empty of expression. He’d seen that look from his wife when she surveyed a new batch of slaves: appraising, calculating, cold.
“Ambelina,” Sheezo called and Ambelina opened her eyes. “I have armed these,” Sheezo gestured to the slaves chained to the floor, “with explosive devices like the one I demonstrated, as well as some other unsavory surprises. One contains a key that will shut down the test apparatus. Once you have found the key, this last specimen,” she nodded toward the unchained Edwane, “will activate and try to kill you. I have programmed him with several nasty enchantments, so do be careful. Your test will begin in sixty seconds.”
Bragorious retreated to another observation booth where he could monitor the machine and the slaves, though in truth, Sheezo had performed these tests so often, there was little room for error. Still, Kytau felt beads of sweat on the back of his neck.
It’s necessary. Sheezo needs her weapons.
He heard a sharp, almost imperceptible intake of breath. Sheezo held the opened letter in front of her and though her expression was blank, Kytau knew better.
“What is it dearest?”
“It is worse than we thought,” whispered Sheezo. She handed him the letter. “See for yourself.”
He read. Then he read again, hoping he’d missed something, misunderstood something. “No,” he whispered and looked up First at Bragorious, then at Ambelina. Her hands were flowing from one arcane symbol to the next as she psychically investigated the first of the slaves. “What will we do? What will this do to our family?”
“For the moment,” Sheezo said, as calm as if she were discussing the weather, “we do nothing. We watch the testing, and when it is finished, we will confront them.”
“Confront them? What do we say?” His heart thudded. He tried so hard to stay out of his wife’s work, his children’s training, to ignore all the doubts that crept into his head, but this…this…he could not ignore.
Sheezo, seeming to sense his unease, slid into his arms and lay her head against his chest. “Don’t worry, my love. I can handle this. Ambelina will be guided by me.”
“But Bragorious”
“Do you trust me?” Before he could answer, her soft lips touched his. When she pulled back, she whispered, “I have steered us through many storms. I can navigate this one.”
“I love you,” is all he could say, and she smiled.
“And I you.” She turned sharply as Ambelina detonated the first of the slaves. It exploded in a burst of flames, but Ambelina had surrounded herself in a veil of scintillating colors that repelled the heat. Two of the other slaves were not so lucky. When the fire hit the first, she erupted, tentacles bursting from the scars in her chest as if they sought to flee the doomed body. The second seemed to fall apart, a corrosive dissolving him from within. The last sank to his knees, his skin blackening and peeling in the heat of the fireball, but otherwise remaining placid, his milk white eyes staring at nothing.
“Clever,” Sheezo said, “she activated three traps at once.”
The tentacled mutation rushed Ambelina, the chain tearing its charred head from its body, but the creature no longer seemed to need it. Ambelina thrust her open hand out, shouted a word of power, and clenched her fist. The creature collapsed in on itself with a sickly squelching sound, followed by the cracking of bones. In moments, only a fist sized ball of quivering flesh remained.
Ambelina smiled. The last one had to have the key. She looked at the Jvaran off to the side. He still had not activated. Kytau watched as she weaved more protections about herself; ever cautious, like her mother. This test was proving to be no test at all.
Kytau looked up at Bragorious. His eyes moved from one mangled body to the next, studying, calculating; again, so like his mother. But then his expression changed, like a switch being thrown, and Kytau saw amusement play in his eyes. Bragorious looked at Ambelina and cocked his head to one side. She waved a hand and shards of light lanced through the Jvaran slave, tearing him to shreds. Bragorious nodded approvingly at the preemptive strike. Ambelina smiled back and her hand unconsciously went to her belly. Bragorious turned to his father, something of a challenge in his eyes. Kytau let the paper drop from his hand.
He knows that we know. He doesn’t care.
Ambelina retrieved the key from the still smoldering Edwed, digging it out of the corpse’s chest. She quickly disarmed the machine. A rather anticlimactic end to the challenge. As the smoke cleared, Sheezo snatched up the dropped letter, and she, Kytau, and Bragorious all entered the Arena at once.
“That wasn’t so hard,” Ambelina beamed, but one look at Sheezo’s face made her take a step back. “Mother, I”
“No, Ambelina. You are going to be silent–you are going to listen.”
Bragorious licked his lips, “Yes, mother.”
Sheezo’s face tightened. Kytau put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. The letter crunched in her clenched fist. “You are both going to listen.”
Bragorious stared at her for a long moment. Then his wide mouth burst into a grin that did not touch his eyes. “It is not wise to command what you cannot enforce.”
Ambelina ran to Bragorious, her lip trembling. She clutched his arm, “Bragorious, she knows!”
“It does not matter. It is not her business.”
“How is this not my business?”
Sheezo’s voice had a dangerous edge, and Kytau stepped between them shaking a finger at Bragorious. “Son, you impregnated your sister!”
Bragorious burst out in a laugh that sounded more like a cackle, a release of something pent up inside him. “Did I ruin your little experiment, Mother? Tell me, how does it feel to lose control?”
“Bragorious,” Sheezo breathed. The hairs on Kytau’s neck stood on end, a sign she was gathering power. “Choose your next words very carefully.”
“Why, mother? Why should I be cautious?” Dark energy curled about his open hands. “You can’t make me do anything.”
Kytau was backing away now, but Ambelina took his place between them. “Stop this, both of you!” She turned to Sheezo. “Yes, mother. Our child grows inside me. We love each other. You always said we were more than ordinary Edwed, we were set apart. We need each other.”
Bragorious smiled. “Don’t you see, Mother? She belongs to me.”
“This is not what I created you for.” Sheezo’s voice was cracking. Kytau could tell it was all she could do to keep from shrieking the words. You have a larger purpose, a larger destiny. This nonsense will end. I will take care of that monstrosity inside of you and then”.
“That’s mine too. Touch my things,” his eyes shifted to Kytau, “and I’ll break your toys.”
“Boy!” Now Sheezo was shouting, “you are playing with things you do not understand!”
“I know exactly what I was playing with when I fucked her!”
“Enough!” Sheezo clapped her hands and azure bonds of force snaked out of the ground, seeking to envelop Bragorious. A dark nimbus of energy surrounded him, repelling the spell.
He sneered and flung a bolt of dark energy, not toward Sheezo, but toward his father. Kytau had seen what Bragorious’ black fire could do and raised his hands in a frail attempt to defend himself. He expected to die, but Sheezo raised a wall of pure force, intercepting the attack.
Kytau turned to his wife, pleading, “Please don’t kill him,” but all mercy had fled from Sheezo’s blazing eyes.
Not that it mattered. Bragorious was laughing again, the unhinged laughter of the mad. “You created weapons mother, but creation is not control. Swords cut both ways!”
Another volley of black energy bolts exploded from his hands. This time, he aimed at the ceiling. The supports that held back the thousands of tons of earth above them warped and decayed. They began to groan under the weight. He reached out to Ambelina.
“Come, Ambelina. Let’s leave your Mommy and Daddy in their little tomb.”
Ambelina recoiled, looking confused. “Our parents.”
Bragorious cocked his head for a fraction of a second. Then he said, without a shred of passion, “Experiment over. I’ve evolved,” and he hurled a pulsing ball of black fire at his mother”
Sheezo raised her hands and the ball of energy shredded into harmless wisps of smoke.
Bragorious stared at his mother, then his sister. “Very well.”
He snapped his fingers and disappeared.
“No!” Ambelina wailed and stumbled toward the spot he had vacated.
Just then, a large chunk of masonry fell from the high ceiling and smashed her head with a sickening crunch. As she collapsed, more debris rained down, and she was lost from view.
Kytau stared, unable to process, unable to move as the debris rained down all around them. He barely felt Sheezo grab his arm and drag him into the control booth. She slammed the door and worked her hands furiously. Lines of energy poured from her, snaking out to reinforce the space against the avalanche of rock and dirt that sought to bury them. Then darkness. Cold, quiet darkness.
Hours later, Sheezo stood above ground, just beyond where the arena had been. All that remained of the structure was a great sinkhole. She slumped with exhaustion. Protecting Kytau and herself had taken a great deal of energy and it had been all she could do to transport them both from so deep underground.
Kytau approached, dirt still smearing his face. “Agents have been alerted. The hunt is on. We probably sent them to die.”
Sheezo shrugged, “I know, but bodies leave a trail.”
Kytau put an arm around her, and she allowed herself to be pulled into his broad chest. She held back the tears. They were useless now. “He will pay for this. For all of it.” Her children, her plans, her weapons. A setback, nothing more, she thought, but she had never been able to lie to herself so easily. This was a fucking disaster. “He will pay.”
Kytau nodded and pulled her closer. “You must do what you must do, dearest.” He knew his son had to die, but if he didn’t say it out loud, he could stay safe in the dark.
END
Sheezo pushes them too hard, he thought.
Kytau loved his wife, but she expected so much of their seven children. Some, like Ambelina, handled the pressure well, while others…
He pushed the thoughts out of his head as he did with most unpleasantries. Best not to worry about things he couldn’t control.
The training compound loomed, a squat structure resembling a guard tower. Upon closer inspection, what appeared to be a closed structure was actually a thick stone wall surrounding an arena. Complete with bleachers and luxury pavilions, Sheezo allowed some of her more affluent clients to stage gladiatorial games here, taking a cut of all gambling proceeds of course. Most assumed the structure served no other purpose, but Kytau knew its real function. It hid Sheezo’s training compound, tunneled beneath.
He bypassed the main entrance, a set of gilded brass gates shaped into the likeness of two serpents glaring at one another with jeweled eyes. He made his way around the structure, searching for the side entrance. He always had trouble finding it, for the door had been constructed to look like part of the stone. Old eyes, he guessed. Sheezo never had any trouble, but Sheezo didn’t have trouble with much of anything. He often wondered why his wife had not aged as he had. She was just as beautiful as the day they met some twenty years ago.
He’d been no slouch either back then, a burly seaman with fierce blue eyes and an imposing physique. If he were a ship, he’d have been a sleek war galley. Now he felt like an old fishing boat, ready for retirement.
There it is.
He spied the outline of the door, just a slight discoloration, and felt for the keyhole. It had been set at an angle, making it all but invisible. He fished a glass key from his pocket and slipped it into the opening. Something snatched the key from his fingers, and the doorway slid aside of its own volition, driven by some mechanism Kytau couldn’t begin to fathom. Inky darkness filled the passage beyond. The morning sun seemed to recoil rather than pierce it.
He whispered the command word Sheezo had taught him. It had taken weeks to learn the syllables. It was unlike any language he had ever heard, and he’d heard many. Even now it took him several tries to get it right, but when he did, several lamps burst alight illuminating a spiral staircase descending into the earth. He heard a clink as the glass key fell into a small box built into the wall. He retrieved it and shook his head. Best not to worry about things he didn’t understand.
Kytau carefully made his way down the steps. As he passed each lantern, it winked out, leaving him in darkness for half a second before another flared to life further along. The stairway circled its way through a hundred feet of stone, delving into the depths of the earth. Kytau had no idea how Sheezo had the place excavated. He preferred to be kept in the dark when it came to Sheezo’s business or her experiments, especially when they didn’t directly involve him. He knew she kept no secrets, not from him, but there were many truths he wanted no part of.
At the bottom of the stairs, he found a more obvious door and opened it using the same key. His daughter, Ambelina, beamed a smile at him from the other side. She had her mother’s pale blue skin and flawless beauty, but she lacked the piercing, guarded eyes. She wore her emotions openly, like her father.
“You’re late,” she scolded, wagging a finger at him. “Mother is not happy”
“She worries too much.” Absently, he slid his hand into the pocket of his coat and felt the letter he’d been given. He tried not to frown. Perhaps she hasn’t worried enough.
“C’mon,” Ambelina said, hooking his arm with hers. She led him through hallways lined with doors and down several switchbacks. In one passage, he smelled sulfur. In another, the scent of rotten meat. He kept his eyes pointed straight ahead.
Best not to look at things he didn’t want to see.
They emerged in a glass booth within a large, domed chamber—the Testing Room, or the real Arena, as Sheezo liked to call it. She and their son, Bragorious, waited within. Sheezo glanced over her shoulder and gave Kytau a curt nod. Bragorious did not acknowledge him, his dark eyes fixed on a figure just beyond the glass. Kytau frowned. Bragorious looked older. He was only a few years older than Ambelina, yet the lines in his dark blue face seemed deeper than they should be.
Kytau followed his son’s gaze to an Edwone Minor with deep purple skin and green eyes. She wore an iron collar with a chain around her neck. It was tethered to a large ring set in the floor of the Testing Room. Her eyes were dull, her expression bland, and stapled wounds from fresh surgeries criss crossed her bare chest. A squat, metal contraption with tubes and wires running in and out of it filled the chamber behind her. Even through the glass, Kytau could hear the machine humming.
“Ambelina,” Sheezo said. “Close the door behind you.”
Ambelina obeyed, and Kytau held back, recognizing Sheezo’s instructional tone. She would not appreciate being interrupted when honing her weapons.
“Pay attention to the Edwed in the Arena, daughter.” Sheezo had a panel set with several fluorescent jewels in front of her. She reached out to touch one, making it glow a soft purple. “Watch closely.”
She pressed it, and the Edwone burst apart with a loud crack, spraying the glass with splotches of black blood. Half of a hand hit the clear surface and seemed to cling to the glass for a moment before slowly sliding to the floor, leaving a trail through the gore in its wake. Ambelina winced, but Sheezo showed no reaction. Kytau looked away in time to catch Bragorious’ slight smirk.
“Now you know the stakes, daughter,” Sheezo continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you fail, it will be your blood staining the glass.”
Kytau frowned but remained silent. Sheezo had explained it to him so many times. Their children were her weapons and they had to be tempered. He did not like it, but best not to worry about…well…best not to think about it at all.
In moments, the blood beaded and ran down the magically treated glass, pooling on the stone floor. Soon they had a clear view once more. Of the Edwone, only a burned patch of ground and her blackened collar remained.
“Now, Ambelina, enter the Arena and begin your focusing exercises,” Sheezo said. “Bragorious, please bring in the other specimens and prepare the machine.”
Bragorious looked at her for a long moment before complying, “Yes mother.” Kytau noted the pause, a calculated act. These minor rebellions had been more frequent lately. Again, he thought of the letter in his pocket. Once both children had entered the arena, Kytau approached.
“I assume you have something for me,” Sheezo said without looking at him. “I assume it is why you are late.”
“Aye,” Kytau said drawing the letter from his coat, but hesitated before handing it over. “Are you sure you want to go knocking on this door?”
Sheezo took the envelope and nodded. “Bragorious has grown…willful. I must know if it is more than simple adolescent angst. I have invested too much in him, in all of them.”
Kytau sighed as he watched Bragorious lead four more slaves into the arena. They all had the same empty eyes, the same surgery scars, the same collars and chains. Once secured, he brought out another, an Edwane major with the deep brown skin common to the nomads of Jvar Vungal. Bragorious walked him to a spot away from the others. He left this one unchained, and turned to the machine. He began turning dials and checking tubes, making adjustments that Kytau could not begin to understand while Ambelina stood with her eyes closed. The air warped around her, rippling as she gathered her energy for what was to come. Kytau had seen enough tests. It wouldn’t be easy, but Sheezo was right. She was forging weapons, and weapons needed to be sharpened.
The thought made him glance back at Bragorious and he caught his so
n staring back at him, his eyes empty of expression. He’d seen that look from his wife when she surveyed a new batch of slaves: appraising, calculating, cold.
“Ambelina,” Sheezo called and Ambelina opened her eyes. “I have armed these,” Sheezo gestured to the slaves chained to the floor, “with explosive devices like the one I demonstrated, as well as some other unsavory surprises. One contains a key that will shut down the test apparatus. Once you have found the key, this last specimen,” she nodded toward the unchained Edwane, “will activate and try to kill you. I have programmed him with several nasty enchantments, so do be careful. Your test will begin in sixty seconds.”
Bragorious retreated to another observation booth where he could monitor the machine and the slaves, though in truth, Sheezo had performed these tests so often, there was little room for error. Still, Kytau felt beads of sweat on the back of his neck.
It’s necessary. Sheezo needs her weapons.
He heard a sharp, almost imperceptible intake of breath. Sheezo held the opened letter in front of her and though her expression was blank, Kytau knew better.
“What is it dearest?”
“It is worse than we thought,” whispered Sheezo. She handed him the letter. “See for yourself.”
He read. Then he read again, hoping he’d missed something, misunderstood something. “No,” he whispered and looked up First at Bragorious, then at Ambelina. Her hands were flowing from one arcane symbol to the next as she psychically investigated the first of the slaves. “What will we do? What will this do to our family?”
“For the moment,” Sheezo said, as calm as if she were discussing the weather, “we do nothing. We watch the testing, and when it is finished, we will confront them.”
“Confront them? What do we say?” His heart thudded. He tried so hard to stay out of his wife’s work, his children’s training, to ignore all the doubts that crept into his head, but this…this…he could not ignore.
Sheezo, seeming to sense his unease, slid into his arms and lay her head against his chest. “Don’t worry, my love. I can handle this. Ambelina will be guided by me.”
“But Bragorious”
“Do you trust me?” Before he could answer, her soft lips touched his. When she pulled back, she whispered, “I have steered us through many storms. I can navigate this one.”
“I love you,” is all he could say, and she smiled.
“And I you.” She turned sharply as Ambelina detonated the first of the slaves. It exploded in a burst of flames, but Ambelina had surrounded herself in a veil of scintillating colors that repelled the heat. Two of the other slaves were not so lucky. When the fire hit the first, she erupted, tentacles bursting from the scars in her chest as if they sought to flee the doomed body. The second seemed to fall apart, a corrosive dissolving him from within. The last sank to his knees, his skin blackening and peeling in the heat of the fireball, but otherwise remaining placid, his milk white eyes staring at nothing.
“Clever,” Sheezo said, “she activated three traps at once.”
The tentacled mutation rushed Ambelina, the chain tearing its charred head from its body, but the creature no longer seemed to need it. Ambelina thrust her open hand out, shouted a word of power, and clenched her fist. The creature collapsed in on itself with a sickly squelching sound, followed by the cracking of bones. In moments, only a fist sized ball of quivering flesh remained.
Ambelina smiled. The last one had to have the key. She looked at the Jvaran off to the side. He still had not activated. Kytau watched as she weaved more protections about herself; ever cautious, like her mother. This test was proving to be no test at all.
Kytau looked up at Bragorious. His eyes moved from one mangled body to the next, studying, calculating; again, so like his mother. But then his expression changed, like a switch being thrown, and Kytau saw amusement play in his eyes. Bragorious looked at Ambelina and cocked his head to one side. She waved a hand and shards of light lanced through the Jvaran slave, tearing him to shreds. Bragorious nodded approvingly at the preemptive strike. Ambelina smiled back and her hand unconsciously went to her belly. Bragorious turned to his father, something of a challenge in his eyes. Kytau let the paper drop from his hand.
He knows that we know. He doesn’t care.
Ambelina retrieved the key from the still smoldering Edwed, digging it out of the corpse’s chest. She quickly disarmed the machine. A rather anticlimactic end to the challenge. As the smoke cleared, Sheezo snatched up the dropped letter, and she, Kytau, and Bragorious all entered the Arena at once.
“That wasn’t so hard,” Ambelina beamed, but one look at Sheezo’s face made her take a step back. “Mother, I”
“No, Ambelina. You are going to be silent–you are going to listen.”
Bragorious licked his lips, “Yes, mother.”
Sheezo’s face tightened. Kytau put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. The letter crunched in her clenched fist. “You are both going to listen.”
Bragorious stared at her for a long moment. Then his wide mouth burst into a grin that did not touch his eyes. “It is not wise to command what you cannot enforce.”
Ambelina ran to Bragorious, her lip trembling. She clutched his arm, “Bragorious, she knows!”
“It does not matter. It is not her business.”
“How is this not my business?”
Sheezo’s voice had a dangerous edge, and Kytau stepped between them shaking a finger at Bragorious. “Son, you impregnated your sister!”
Bragorious burst out in a laugh that sounded more like a cackle, a release of something pent up inside him. “Did I ruin your little experiment, Mother? Tell me, how does it feel to lose control?”
“Bragorious,” Sheezo breathed. The hairs on Kytau’s neck stood on end, a sign she was gathering power. “Choose your next words very carefully.”
“Why, mother? Why should I be cautious?” Dark energy curled about his open hands. “You can’t make me do anything.”
Kytau was backing away now, but Ambelina took his place between them. “Stop this, both of you!” She turned to Sheezo. “Yes, mother. Our child grows inside me. We love each other. You always said we were more than ordinary Edwed, we were set apart. We need each other.”
Bragorious smiled. “Don’t you see, Mother? She belongs to me.”
“This is not what I created you for.” Sheezo’s voice was cracking. Kytau could tell it was all she could do to keep from shrieking the words. You have a larger purpose, a larger destiny. This nonsense will end. I will take care of that monstrosity inside of you and then”.
“That’s mine too. Touch my things,” his eyes shifted to Kytau, “and I’ll break your toys.”
“Boy!” Now Sheezo was shouting, “you are playing with things you do not understand!”
“I know exactly what I was playing with when I fucked her!”
“Enough!” Sheezo clapped her hands and azure bonds of force snaked out of the ground, seeking to envelop Bragorious. A dark nimbus of energy surrounded him, repelling the spell.
He sneered and flung a bolt of dark energy, not toward Sheezo, but toward his father. Kytau had seen what Bragorious’ black fire could do and raised his hands in a frail attempt to defend himself. He expected to die, but Sheezo raised a wall of pure force, intercepting the attack.
Kytau turned to his wife, pleading, “Please don’t kill him,” but all mercy had fled from Sheezo’s blazing eyes.
Not that it mattered. Bragorious was laughing again, the unhinged laughter of the mad. “You created weapons mother, but creation is not control. Swords cut both ways!”
Another volley of black energy bolts exploded from his hands. This time, he aimed at the ceiling. The supports that held back the thousands of tons of earth above them warped and decayed. They began to groan under the weight. He reached out to Ambelina.
“Come, Ambelina. Let’s leave your Mommy and Daddy in their little tomb.”
Ambelina recoiled, looking confused. “Our parents.”
Bragorious cocked his head for a fraction of a second. Then he said, without a shred of passion, “Experiment over. I’ve evolved,” and he hurled a pulsing ball of black fire at his mother”
Sheezo raised her hands and the ball of energy shredded into harmless wisps of smoke.
Bragorious stared at his mother, then his sister. “Very well.”
He snapped his fingers and disappeared.
“No!” Ambelina wailed and stumbled toward the spot he had vacated.
Just then, a large chunk of masonry fell from the high ceiling and smashed her head with a sickening crunch. As she collapsed, more debris rained down, and she was lost from view.
Kytau stared, unable to process, unable to move as the debris rained down all around them. He barely felt Sheezo grab his arm and drag him into the control booth. She slammed the door and worked her hands furiously. Lines of energy poured from her, snaking out to reinforce the space against the avalanche of rock and dirt that sought to bury them. Then darkness. Cold, quiet darkness.
Hours later, Sheezo stood above ground, just beyond where the arena had been. All that remained of the structure was a great sinkhole. She slumped with exhaustion. Protecting Kytau and herself had taken a great deal of energy and it had been all she could do to transport them both from so deep underground.
Kytau approached, dirt still smearing his face. “Agents have been alerted. The hunt is on. We probably sent them to die.”
Sheezo shrugged, “I know, but bodies leave a trail.”
Kytau put an arm around her, and she allowed herself to be pulled into his broad chest. She held back the tears. They were useless now. “He will pay for this. For all of it.” Her children, her plans, her weapons. A setback, nothing more, she thought, but she had never been able to lie to herself so easily. This was a fucking disaster. “He will pay.”
Kytau nodded and pulled her closer. “You must do what you must do, dearest.” He knew his son had to die, but if he didn’t say it out loud, he could stay safe in the dark.
END