by Rob J. Hayes
More mumbled words. The tapping draws closer. A grunt, so close Josef can feel the air move against his skin. "And they call me blind." The voice is harsh, chewing on words rather than speaking them.
A sudden snapping noise and flames sprang to life nearby. Josef startles. Scampers back as the flames reveal a small, furry, eyeless face with a manic grin and sharp, serrated teeth. A tahren! He's never seen one before, but it could be nothing else. The little creature is grey with age and some of its fur has worn thin. It wears a belt covering its loins, trinkets hanging from leather loops. A bandoleer crosses above and below each arm, festooned with little pockets.
The creature scratches at its bulbous belly with clawed hands and points at the lantern. "You take it," it says in that thick voice. "I don't need it."
Josef stands and reaches out slowly. The little creature looks harmless, but the most dangerous things often do. He snatches the lantern and backs away quickly. Shining the light around him. He's in some sort of laboratory. There's a large desk, full of books and ruffled papers, a huge Source being used as a paperweight. Along the nearest wall are lines of bookshelves, each one packed with tomes.
"I'm guessing you're the chosen one?" the tahren says as it waddles away.
Josef shakes his head. "No! I don't think so. I'm just… My name is Josef Yenhelm."
"Inran of Rock Helm," the tahren says. "And if his mastership has brought you here without escort, you must be someone more special than just."
"Where is here?" Josef asks.
"His mastership's personal study. Where were you before?"
"Do'shan."
Inran lets out a whistling breath. "Half the world away. He's pushing his Portamancy to the limits."
The tahren walks over to a nearby table and shoos away a rat that was nibbling at the leftovers on a plate. He scoops up the plate and a nearby mug, sniffs at the contents, and shakes his head. "That's gone off. Do you see a bottle around anywhere? I'll need to replace it before his mastership tries to drink from it."
Josef crouches and scoops up a mostly empty bottle from the floor. It smells of vinegar and reminds him of home. His first home. His father always smelled of vinegar; used it to clean the saddles and tacks. Vinegar and old leather. Such comforting smells. "Your master is Prince Loran?"
Inran shakes his head and laughs. "His mastership isn't a prince. Can't be a prince without a kingdom… or princedom."
Josef follows the tahren as he continues moving about the room, picking up discarded plates and pushing papers into orderly piles. He keeps his distance. He doesn't trust the little creature. "But he is Loran Orran?"
Inran snorts. "Of course. Where do you think you are?"
"I don't know," Josef says. His throat closes and he coughs, coughs, coughs. He can't stop coughing. He feels so weak and weary, his limbs leaden, weighing him down. Is that what innate Sourcery does to a person? Without a Source to draw the magic from, the power must come from the person. Of course! The magic is his. It is him. The healing, it must have drained him. Josef pats at his chest where the sword had pierced him, run him through. No trace of a wound, not even a scar.
The tahren plucks the bottle from Josef's hands. "Maybe you should sit down. Your heart is racing, and you smell stressed. This way." Inran leads Josef back to the table and pulls out one of the chairs. Josef is too tired to be scared anymore, too tired to mistrust the simple act of kindness. He collapses into the chair. "I'll bring you some food and something to drink," says the tahren. "Would you like that, boy?"
"I'm not a boy."
"Of course, you aren't," Inran says. He pats Josef on the arm and waddles away, his claws clicking on the stone floor with every step. Josef places the lantern on the table and stares into the flame, watching dance a futile little jig on the wick.
"Oh," Inran's voice floats out of the darkness. "I'm sure his mastership mentioned before he sent you on ahead. Don't touch the cages."
Josef remembers cages from another time, full of animals and monsters, cowering in fear, clawing to get out. He also remembers his friend, Barrow, trapped in such a cage. What if he's done it again? What if there are more children here, locked in cages? Experimented on. Tortured.
There's a sound like paper ripping and a new portal opens. For just a moment, Josef sees Eska, held suspended in an invisible grip. He wants to go to her, to hold her, to be held by her. He wants it more than anything, that reunion. They've been apart too long. They were never meant to be apart. Loran Orran steps through, and the portal snaps shut behind him. She's gone. Taken from him once again. Half a world separating them. Frustration and exhaustion war within him and Josef sobs.
Loran Orran flaps his robes, depositing dust and sand on the floor, and glances towards Josef. "I hope you're not as ungrateful as your friend, Yenhelm."
"Is she alright?" He asks, begs. He needs to know she's alive, can't fathom a world without Eska in it.
Loran Orran waves away the question. "Inran? Inran, why aren't the torches lit?"
The tahren mumbles words, so quiet they were nothing but a whisper.
"Well that's all fine for you. Some of us can't navigate in the dark." Loran moves off into the darkness, grumbling something Josef can't hear. A thump and a curse later, and a torch on one of the far walls sputters to life, orange flames eagerly licking at the wall. Loran Orran rubs furiously at his left knee through his robes. Behind the prince, set out along the wall, are dozens of cages, metal bars shining in the torch light. Some are empty, but not all. They are not for animals and beasts. These cages hold people! Terran, pahht, tahren. Prisoners, ragged and malnourished. The dead eyes of those who have accepted their fate and have no fight left in them.
Josef lurches upright and backwards, pushing away from the table, his chair tips and clatters to the stone floor. "I've seen this before," he says, his voice weak and rasping.
Loran Orran turns to Josef, his eyes bright in the torchlight. "You remember? You and Helsene both, odd that the memory block has degraded on you. Perhaps the others, too, are beginning to remember. Interesting."
"What did you do to us?" Josef asks. But he already knows. Deep down, he already knows.
"What does it matter? The past is past. That's actually the first rule of Chronomancy. The past is always behind us, the present moves ever forward at a varying pace, and the future is always looming, always changing."
Josef staggers back, his legs entangling in the chair. The world tips and he hits the floor in a painful sprawl. "You put magic in us. Are you doing the same to them?" He points toward the cages.
Loran Orran stops by the table and plucks the lantern, holding it forward. He looks like a kind old man in the gloom, his wrinkled face a picture of sympathy. It's all lies. "It really doesn't matter what I did to you, Yenhelm. What matters now, is what we are going to do together."
"What?"
A gnarled hand reaches out, hanging in the air in front of Josef. An offer of help, of partnership maybe. An offer veiled in secrets. "You are the chosen one, Yenhelm. I made certain of it. I made you the chosen one, and together, we're going to bring the Rand back. All of them."
Chapter 7
I slept for a full day. Actually, it was more like a day and a half. After pulling Horralain from his nightmare, my exhaustion finally caught up with me. We moved away from the amphitheatre, though I do not remember doing so. Back down the path leading up to it and out into the city of Do'shan once more. Hardt found us a building, one that wasn't occupied by the feral pahht, and we claimed it for our own. Apparently the ferals fled at the mere sight of me, even stumbling and barely conscious. They feared me as feverishly as they worshipped Aerolis. I suppose that was something I had earned. They were not the last people I taught to fear me.
As soon as we were inside, I collapsed against a crumbling wall and knew no more. Hardt draped half a dozen cloaks over me as I shivered my way into sleep, and I'm told Horralain stood guard for hours until a similar exhaustion took him. The big Terrelan thug b
ecame a second shadow after that day. He devoted his life to protecting mine, perhaps as payment for a debt he felt he owed, or perhaps just to show gratitude. Maybe it was because he needed someone else to make the decisions for him, and I had stepped into that role and proved more than capable. It's a shame his dream problems were so much easier to resolve than my real ones.
When finally I woke, I was ravenous. I have been hungry a great many times in my life. Down in the Pit we never had enough to eat, and all Sourcerers develop a hunger that is beyond the need for food, but after days of sleep, the hunger was something else. We had a decent store of salted meat, taken from the packs and pouches of dead soldiers, but it would last only a few days at most. I wondered if our small flyer was still nearby. There was a town below Do'shan, we had passed it on the way, and there would be food aplenty down there.
Our group was subdued. Not just in attitude, but there was something else as well. A cloud of ill feeling hanging over us all. Horralain followed me about like a lovesick fool, dogging my heels. Hardt watched the city outside, standing guard near an empty door frame. Ishtar paced, refusing to admit she would be better served by resting her ankle. And Tamura sat nursing an old kettle he found, boiling the water within and occasionally adding things to the mix. Worse than all of them, though, was Imiko. The little thief sat in a corner of our building, staring at nothing. Not even her little ringlet could cheer her solemn mood. She barely even noticed my approach. I kicked her foot to get her attention, and Imiko startled, fear bleeding from her eyes. It shamed me that I caused that fear. With a sigh, I lowered myself down next to her.
"Does he have to loom so close?" Imiko asked sullenly, nodding at Horralain. The big man was standing over us both.
"Go away." At my order, Horralain took two steps backward and waited there. "Apparently looming is what he does now."
Imiko snorted and went back to her thorough contemplation of the floor.
"You couldn't have stopped him." I guessed at her feelings. During the Iron Legion's assault, the little thief hadn't fought like everyone else. She hadn't even tried, just collapsed and screamed at him to stop hurting her friends. It was more than I managed. "Even Hardt and Horralain couldn't get close, you had no chance. I guess, sometimes a passionate plea is worth more than a knife in the back."
Imiko sobbed and drew her knees close, hugging them against her chest. I reached up and put an arm across her shoulders, pulling her into a hug. It felt awkward, and not just because the girl was taller than I, but because it wasn't the sort of thing I did. That was how Silva comforted people, with compassion and contact and love. I comforted people by drinking with them and burying the pain.
"We'll get him," I promised her. "I'll get him. I'll repay him in kind for all the pain he caused us. The Iron Legion will die for everything he has done, all the atrocities. For what he did to me. For what he's doing to Josef even now." Imiko let out a whine, but I wasn't listening anymore. My anger was a boiling thing inside of me, bolstered by Ssserakis' confirmation that the Iron Legion would pay. "I just have to find him first. Learn some new tricks. We need more power."
"It's not that," Imiko said between sobs. I realised I was gripping her tight, and she pushed away from me, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I know I couldn't stop him. I don't care. I killed someone, Eska. More than one." She reached down beside her and pulled up a small knife, the blade stained reddy brown with drying blood. "People are dead because of me. Because I…" Imiko held the knife before her, gripping the hilt hard between white knuckles. It shook in her grasp, as though she wanted nothing more than to let go but couldn't unwind her fingers. So, I did it for her. I took her hand and peeled back her rigid fingers, then plucked the knife away.
I don't know how to console people, I never have. Comforting and easing people's pain is simply not one of my skills. It's a lack in me, and I'm aware of it. It is not because I do not understand, and not because I do not feel for them, but simply that I know no words that can help. Silva was good with such moments, always knowing just what to say and when to say it, or sometimes when to say nothing at all. All I know how to do, is shoulder the burdens myself. After all, what's one more death, or even a hundred more, laid at my feet?
"It's not your fault, Imiko. It's mine." Truer words, I have rarely spoken. "You just held the knife. I gave it to you. I directed it. Without me, there would have been no need, and no target. It's not your fault. It's all because of me."
I looked about our little group. Homeless and wounded. Beaten and sullen. Even down in the Pit, despair had not crouched above our heads so closely. It wasn't just comfort or consoling they needed, and those who did would be better looking towards Hardt and his giant shoulders. They needed something else from me. They needed direction and purpose, and I had that to spare.
Pushing back to my feet was difficult. Sleeping in the chill had stiffened my limbs, and my ankle still hurt from being twisted. Between my various cuts and the cracked rib, the simple act of living was painful, but I've endured worse. At least my injuries would leave no memorable scars, not like some I have suffered. My hand found my left cheek and rubbed along the proud line Prig had left there, a reminder that even the pettiest of actions can leave a mark upon the world. All eyes turned to me as I stood there, as though my friends could all sense the weight of what I was about to do. Even Ssserakis stirred within me, its curiosity distracting it from the fear that surrounded us.
"Horralain, come with me." Terrans and pahht share a few common traits, and among them is strange attraction to mystery. Everyone could sense I had made a decision, and the implications hung in the air between us. When I stormed out of our little building, Horralain on my heels like a loyal dog, the others followed behind, driven on by curiosity.
I marched towards the amphitheatre as well as my leg would allow. It was more of a limping lurch, but I put my all into the act. Hardt asked a question behind me. Tamura answered him by saying A fire does not see the ash is leaves behind. It has already moved on to burn something new. I wondered if I was supposed to be the fire he spoke of. I'm not certain a metaphor has ever been more apt for my life. Everything in my way burns and all I leave behind is ashes.
Feral pahht watched us from shadows, their fear making them stand out to me as clear as the day was gloomy. Ssserakis was still weak, but the horror had fed well during my day and a half asleep, and my shadow shifted with every step as my passenger tested its new limits. Perhaps it was a result of our bond growing stronger, or perhaps the horror simply better understood its own capabilities within my confines. It claimed Ovaeris was different from Sevoari, the rules were different, yet I think neither of us truly knew what that meant. We were both discovering what the other was capable of, even as we discovered what we ourselves could do. For all our differences, Ssserakis and I made a good team.
I pointedly ignored the blackened sand where I had burned Silva's body. I needed no reminder of the consequences of my actions, especially when I had another act in mind that I knew might bode even worse for us all. Dozens of frozen bodies littered the arena floor, most of them already stripped of anything useful or worthwhile. Corpses do not rot and fester as they should in the cold, they stay preserved for a long time. Imiko let out a strangled sob and I heard Hardt rumble a few words. She would fare better in his care than mine. Discarded weapons, many of them bloodied, lay forgotten amidst the sand. Close to the centre, next to a giant body with a crushed chest, lay the great hammer; one of the ten weapons that fell when the moons collided. Its head lay half buried in the sand, its haft sticking upward.
Blood spotted the sand near the centre of the arena. Some of it was Josef's from where Prena had run him through, and some of it was mine from the injuries I had sustained. Already it seemed so long ago, but in truth it was less than two days gone. I stopped near the two small pillars that had been grown from the floor, the evidence of my meeting with the Iron Legion. When I turned around, I found the others nearby, watching me and waiting as though I we
re about to do something wondrous. I suppose they weren't far wrong. I was about to change the world.
"Aerolis!" I shouted the name to no answer. None of us had seen nor heard the Djinn since it fled the amphitheatre two days earlier. I think the others were happy about that. I should have been, too.
What are you doing, Eskara?
"I made a deal." I was answering Ssserakis, though I suppose the others thought I was talking to them. "Actually, I made two deals. It's time we both made good on our promises."
"Aerolis, the Changing!" I raised my voice even louder than before.
A wind rushed into the arena, stirring coats and hair as it came. Imiko clung tighter to Hardt's side and the big man sent a worried glance my way. Ishtar let out a groan and hobbled closer on her crutch, mumbling as she settled down on one of the earthen stools the Iron Legion had grown from the sand.
"I hope you know what you are doing, terrible student. This creature is not a thing to be trifled with."
"I made a deal to free you, Ishtar," I said. "I suppose we could have just chopped your leg off instead."
My sword tutor let out a chuckle. "I did not say I am not grateful. Only that I hope you are not stupid."
The wind grew to a howl and blew in from all over the arena, coalescing into a swirling maelstrom of madness just a few steps away. I squinted against the sand thrown into the air.
"I am not some servant to be summoned." The Djinn's voice was no longer a grating rumble of stone on stone, but more like a whistling howl of a cyclone.
"And yet…" I said with a savage grin.
The swirling vortex grew more violent and the Djinn drew closer. Wild winds tugged at my coat and looted cloak. "In your arrogance, you are mistaking my patience for generosity, terran."
I didn't back down, instead raising my chin in defiance. I could feel the Arcstorm inside of me and knew my eyes were flashing with the lightning I kept bottled up. "And you mistake arrogance for competence, Djinn."
