by Cebelius
He glanced up in time to see Marcus' thick lips purse, and the minotaur quirked a heavy brow at him as he said wryly, "Nope."
The two men chuckled together at that, and Marcus leaned next to him against the wagon. It creaked under the big man's weight, then settled.
"That ax is shit, but if you're sticking with it I can teach you a few things," he rumbled after a moment.
"Interested?"
Terry had forgotten all about the lumbering ax Prada held for him. He glanced down at it, then pulled it free. It felt impossibly light in his hands and there were chips in both sides of the double-bladed head. Still, it felt natural to him now, like shaking hands with an old friend.
"I'll stick with it," he said. "Feels right to me. That make sense?"
Marcus nodded slowly. "Yep. Come on."
Terry followed the big man. He was about six-six and broad, but also thick, with a barrel chest and a bit of a gut that did nothing to blunt the impression of strength he conveyed with every move. His tower shield was constructed of heavy, thick slats of darkened wood and if it had a handle could have been a door. The heavy mace that hung from his thick leather belt didn't have the stains or scuffs of its predecessor, but there was no doubt Marcus knew which end was which. He was just as cool, calm, and collected in battle as he seemed now, strolling through a green field in the orange light of evening.
The two practiced together until dark, and it was much less entertaining than Terry would have thought. He spent the vast majority of his time learning how to turn follow-through to his advantage, and make better use of both blades of the ax.
Marcus said very little throughout the exercise. He simply brought out his mace, showed Terry a grip, and then a swing. Then with a gesture he'd have the template imitate him. He'd make corrections, usually just by showing Terry again, and again the man would swing.
He never lost his patience, but Terry didn't know if that was because he wasn't exactly a slow study, or because the minotaur simply had no temper to speak of. Given all he'd seen of Marcus over the past weeks, he suspected the latter. Marcus had only ever raised his voice in the thick of battle. Never in anger.
When the last light of a sun long since set faded, Marcus lifted a hand and said, "Enough."
Terry nodded and gave the ax back to Prada, who took it without comment. As the two walked back toward the wagon the minotaur asked, "Feel better?"
"Yeah, actually. Thanks."
"Mm."
The big man clapped him on the shoulder as they walked into the light of a fire someone had started about fifteen feet from the wagon. Everyone else was already gathered there, but Terry's expression darkened when he saw who else was among them.
He looked at Laina, who held up her hand before he could get a word out, then pointed at a tripod with a triangle of tarp strung across the top as she said, "Boss? Sit."
He sat, never taking his eyes off Laina. After a moment, she said, "I know you don't want to hear it, but you left this to me and I want you to listen to her before we send her away."
Terry turned his attention to Asturial, who was squatting on upturned heels with a pained expression on her face. Her tail, usually self-supporting, was resting on the ground behind her and seemed unnaturally straight to him. He also couldn't help but notice, now that he wasn't enraged, that she was wearing the same clothes she'd had on when they'd met in the ring. Grass-stained and scuffed, with blood on her stomach and a heavily swollen lower lip, she looked a sorry sight, but he felt no sympathy. He was gratified in fact that Laina's milk didn't do for her what it did for him. Shy seemed to share his affinity for the stuff, but to everyone else it was undoubtedly helpful, but not a panacea.
I wonder if that has to do with my bond with Shy. Euryale never needs healing, so there's no way to test it.
"Well?" he asked after it became clear Asturial wouldn't be the first to speak.
The dragon stared at him, her luminous golden eyes almost glowing. Her pupils were slitted against the firelight, and it gave her face a decidedly alien aspect not at all mitigated by the slashes of ruby scales that edged her face. Her ears were long and drooped now under his withering stare. The haughty, domineering woman he had in his mind was nowhere in evidence.
With slow, pained movements, she shifted to her knees, and then put her face in the grass, kowtowing to him as she said, "I did not chase you, Terrence Mack. My body is destroyed. My hoard and my slaves are confiscated. I have nothing but what you see. When I woke, I was given my sword and banished from Florence. Following the road, I scented you, and followed you here."
"And?" he snapped, glancing at Laina with a scowl. The minotress frowned at him and jerked his chin back toward Asturial as the dragon continued.
"I am not helpless. I can be of use to you. I wish to join your company. I know that my word is worthless ... so I wish to submit myself to geas."
She raised her head as she said the last word, looking at Terry intently as she said, "Your geas. You are a theurge. That much is proven by the Rod of the Heart. A geas is a simple thing for a theurge."
"The fuck is a geas?" he asked. "Never heard of it."
Shy, seated next to Euryale across the fire from Terry, said, "A geas is a spell-bound vow. It's usually tied to the life of the oath-maker. Breaking a geas is instantly fatal."
"Prada, do we have a book on that?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," his familiar said, speaking aloud for the benefit of the others. "We do. It is as she says, a simple affair, but it will require some preparation, and about a pint each of your blood and hers to craft the circle she will stand in while she makes her vow."
Terry thought about that. He found the idea of having Asturial around distasteful, but the simple fact was that he needed power, and here it was, practically gift-wrapped. But the idea of the geas sounded off. What they were describing ... it just didn't seem right to him.
"What exactly are you offering me?" he asked, still chewing over his reservations as he asked.
She met his eyes and said simply, "Unconditional lifelong service."
"Hah, my life or yours?" he said with a smirk. "Given the way my life's gone lately, with assholes like you dropping on me all the time, you're not offering much."
Asturial's eyes tightened and Terry saw cracks in the face of contrition she was showing him. He leaned forward, elbows over his knees as he glared back at her and said, "Go ahead. Say 'when.' I fucking dare you."
"Without the Rod you would not find me so easily beaten, template," she said, her voice shivering with the obvious effort to contain her rising anger.
"I don't have to beat you again," he warned. "The Madsee's been just itching to kill you ever since we met, haven't you, love?"
Euryale's snakes hissed in chorus as she rose, striding around the fire to come and kneel at Terry's feet, rearranging her plunging white silk dress idly as she faced the dragon. He knew that from Asturial's point of view, she looked to be wearing a plain wooden mask with impressions for eyes and a nose, but no holes. If she removed that mask, the curse it shielded would be free to wreak havoc. Everyone else around the fire knew of it, and he was confident they would need no coaching to close their eyes if push came to shove.
Asturial blanched and said, "THE Madsee? This?"
"You spent a week in Florence and didn't even bother asking around?" Terry asked, his voice heavy with incredulous mockery. "You're a fucking dragon! All you had to do was ask anybody, anybody! And they'd have told you anything you wanted to know about us. Never occurred to you though, did it?"
He scoffed, shaking his head. "Jesus fuck, woman. Every time I think I've got a floor for your arrogant stupidity you go and drop the bottom right out again."
"Why must you demean me like this?" she asked, the quaver in her voice betraying the heat of the emotions she kept in check, if only barely. "I have offered you all that I am, for all the days of your life, and you mock me?"
"You damn right," he said, abruptly realizing what it was he d
idn't like about the geas she was offering. "You think I want a slave? You think I'd trust someone just because she's at the end of her rope with a gun to the back of her head and MY finger is on the trigger? What kind of a sick fuck do you take me for?"
He shook his head once. "I'm done with you."
Asturial stared at him, wide-eyed with parted lips. As he watched, tears gathered at the corners of her luminous eyes, then fell. She lowered her face again and pressed it to the grass, hands splayed to either side of her head as she said, "Please. Have mercy. I will do anything, anything at all."
"Oh I know," he said sourly. "Do anything. Say anything. Hide anything. Whatever you have to do to get what you want is fair game for the mighty dragon and fuck all us poor folk way down here beneath your notice. How many lives did that cost? Did they give you the number before they kicked your arrogant ass out of Florence? Stop wasting my time. If you can convince anyone else here to take you in, fine, but there'll be no geas. I'll still happily kill you if you give me an excuse, but I won't take away your personal responsibility for what you do with your life. You want to pay for your sins? Do it with free will. I won't be your cop out."
He hesitated, then glanced away and added, "Laina thinks you're worth something apparently, and it wouldn't be the first time she's seen something I don't. Convince her, and you can stay. Euryale, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep an eye on her until things are settled. If she gets scrappy she gets no mercy, no permission needed from anyone."
The glee in Euryale's voice was enough to chill his blood as she chirped, "Yes, Master!"
She seemed so eager that it gave him pause, and he grumbled, "Be fair."
This time, the gorgon sounded decidedly less pleased. "Yes, Master."
He got up and moved out beyond the firelight.
The Rod of the Heart still lay in the grass where he'd left it, and he picked it up, wincing as it flared to life and sent fire through his veins. At the moment though, he kept a hard lock on his feelings and went hunting for his backpack. It too had been left behind in the rush earlier, and he found it where it had been left.
I'm getting careless.
He shoved the Rod into the pack without ceremony and sighed softly in relief as the burning in his veins began to fade.
"Prada?"
'Yes, Master?'
"Get off, please. I want some time to myself."
He felt an insistent, lengthy tug from his middle as she not only slid from round his waist, but pulled her substance out of his body. It disconcerted him that she was literally oozing out from his pores, and he struggled not to think about that while it was happening. Finally, the last of her pooled into a sizable ruby droplet next to him and burbled, "Perhaps I should not have answered you inside your mind."
"Nope, it's long past time. You know the drill by now. I like to be alone in my own head. Having you in there all the time stresses me the fuck out, and I've got enough of that."
"You really hate her, don't you?"
He didn't need to ask who Prada meant. He nodded, staring out at the horizon. The stars were out, and a light breeze was blowing. The scents were so vivid on Celestine. Even without Shu's gift, he could appreciate how clean the air was.
Just makes me miss home more, sometimes. It was a shit world, but at least there I could walk down the street without hiding my face.
"The guy who had me killed was just like her," he said absently, looking up at the night sky. "Any means to any end is fair game. I hate people like that. I really do. The only thing you can trust about them is that they'll always do what's best for number one right that moment. They get so bad they don't even notice what happens to the rest of us. Nothing else matters but what they want. You think just because she's lost everything she's changed?"
Terry scoffed, "She's still the same arrogant, entitled, demanding bitch. She just doesn't have any juice left. She hasn't changed at all. I was waiting, you know? I had hopes, but the one thing I wanted to hear was the one thing she didn't say."
He shook his head. "I'm a shitty Christian, Prada. I'm not going to forgive someone who doesn't want to be forgiven. I won't even try."
Several long moments passed in silence. Prada's answer — when it came — seemed hushed, even for her. "Thank you, Master."
"For what?"
He glanced down at her and she shivered slightly. Her ruby substance was darkly reflective, and the stars shown back at him from her smoothly curving surface once the ripples subsided.
"You have given me a key insight into your character. Given my new understanding ... I don't think I'd have ever figured it out on my own. It is a valuable gift, and I shall ponder what you have said."
He chuckled and shook his head, turning his attention back to the stars, searching for any constellation he knew. He'd looked many times ... always in vain.
"Hope it helps," he murmured.
6
Night Terrors
The streets of Florence were empty, and Terry was alone as he walked. The air was utterly still, and though his nose was full of the myriad smells of the city none of its people were in evidence. Merchant stalls stood empty. No torches were lit. There was no laughter, no voices.
The city was dead.
He looked to his side and found that Prada was gone. He wore the trunks in which he'd arrived on Celestine as well as his fighting tape, but had nothing else.
There was no telling how long he wandered those streets. Time seemed to have no meaning and morning never came. Endless empty roads and dark doorways led him forever down winding paths that took him nowhere.
Finally, he came to a small plaza with a well in the middle of it, and there he saw someone drawing water. Relief washed over him in a wave and he approached, only to freeze a few feet away as he recognized the tawny fur and feline ears.
The Locutor's head turned, and kept turning until bones snapped and she stared at him with glassy eyes and hissed, "Murderer."
"Murderer!"
Whirling, he saw the Locutor's second, brandishing his curved, bloody sword in one hand. He held his severed head aloft in the other, gore dripping from the open neck as it screamed again, "MURDERER!"
"Killing you wasn't murder!" he yelled, backing away to keep them both in sight as he brought his fists up reflexively. The Locutor turned her body to him, but her head remained faced away as though reveling in her twisted, broken neck. Both of them closed in toward him as he said, "You came after me! It's not my fault!"
"Murderer ..."
With the grating sound of rocks being crushed together, the immobile stone features of Volai Hart appeared as her stone body moved with unnatural life, gliding toward him out of an alleyway.
"You're EVIL!" Terry screamed. "You forced me! I gave you every chance!"
"Murderer."
He turned and then was forced to leap backward as Ephe's serrated spider legs lashed out at him. He stumbled and fell to his knees as tears streaked his face and panic seized his heart.
"I didn't mean it," he cried, hands up as he pleaded. "Please believe me! Oh god, I didn't want anyone to die! I couldn't stop her!"
"Murderer."
It was Shu's voice, and something inside Terry crumbled. He couldn't look up. He didn't dare look at her. He just stared down at the stone cobbles as he held himself still, willing with all his might for the dream to end.
It had to be a dream. This whole world and everything in it was just a dream, because if it wasn't ...
"Murderer." "Murderer!" "Murderer ..."
All around him, more and more voices called out in accusation. Only one word ever came to his ears, and there was no comfort in that word. There was no justifying to be done. There was nothing he could say to any of them, nothing, at least, that would matter.
The dead didn’t accept excuses.
Everywhere I go ... this will happen everywhere I go.
He set his hands on the stone and bowed his head as he babbled, "Please ... please, I didn't mean it. I didn't know! I did
n't, I swear. Please ... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please God make it stop, I'll do anything, anything just make it stop! I'm so sorry ... please. Please!"
A new voice — one whose tone was starkly at odds with all the others in that it practically vibrated with annoyance rather than rage — intruded. "Pitiful. I come to find a hero, a template worthy of my grandchild, and instead ... this."
Terry looked up, startled out of his misery, to find that Florence and all it contained was gone. A wave of sticky heat hit him in the face along with bright sunlight, and he saw that he crouched at the edge of a sizable garden the likes of which he was certain he'd never seen in life.
With a start, true lucidity crashed down on him and he felt deeply ashamed. Glancing around, but seeing no one, he nonetheless felt compelled to defend himself.
"You seriously judging me based on my nightmares? Like I have any control over that shit?!"
No answer came, and he took another look around to get his bearings. White marble walls girded the area on all sides, but he only knew because of the scant gaps in the foliage that hung from the planters that capped those walls. Even these gaps somehow struck him as deliberate — a bit of white stone revealed to set off the greenery.
Flowers of every kind and description grew in profusion, and the sounds of myriad insects were loud in the humid, sunlit space. Bees moved from flower to flower, and the air was hot and still.
Terry started walking. Now that he was lucid the fact that his nightmare had so unmanned him didn't bother him, much. The fact that he'd been seen in that condition was deeply offensive. He knew — with his waking mind at least — that he had done what he had to do, to the best of his ability. That he still felt guilty about those who had paid the ultimate price was something no one had any right to judge him for, and he resolved to find out just who the hell was messing around in his head this time. He hadn't recognized the voice.
Just that it's female, which fucking figures.
As he moved he picked up additional details. Flowers perfumed the area he was in, but the scent was a touch too sweet. At one point, he paused and stepped to the edge of the gravel path on which he walked to crouch and push aside some leaves. Doing so revealed the corpse of something so far decomposed that nothing but twisted clumps of fur remained and he could only guess at the animal's original species.
