by C. T. Rwizi
The Maidservant tenses up in her seat. River might not know why, but he has a knack for knowing when the “big man” is about to summon them. Sure enough, he has no sooner finished speaking than a tremor of power ripples across the ground beneath their feet.
No one but a mystic with the Umadi ancestral talent in their blood would sense this tremor—though it isn’t quite a tremor, more like a shadow blanketing the earth as a storm cloud floats by. Either way, it’s a clear message from the man who rules the land from which she and River and many other disciples draw their strength, and it says: Come.
A command the Maidservant could never defy even if she wanted to.
River gives her a self-congratulatory grin, teeth showing through a thick beard. “See? What did I tell you?”
Uttering a curse, she waves a glowing arm over the table, banishing both talisman and mind stone back into her Voidspace. “I’m so close,” she mutters. “Closer than I’ve ever been. I can feel the walls cracking and giving way. I just need more time.”
River frowns at her in concentration. He scratches his beard, seeming to weigh the words in his mouth before he speaks them. “You know, little fly, I have no idea what you’re up to, and I really don’t care that you haven’t told me, but . . . you know I’m with you to the end of the world, right?”
The Maidservant blinks at him, this stupid walking conundrum of a man. She has seen firsthand how ruthless and cruel he can be, how callously he can kill, how black his heart is. She has seen him slaughter countless innocent souls. And yet he can stand there and feel genuine concern for her?
How is he not a howling, hateful void? How is it that he expects her to feel something as he does? How dare he expect this from her. Who does he think he is?
She gives him an icy smile. “You’re not going soft on me, are you, River?”
He lifts his open palms in a gesture of appeasement. “Point taken.” And without another word he moves into the hut to collect his spear of tronic bone where he left it balanced against the wall. “We should get going.”
For some reason the Maidservant is annoyed that he doesn’t say more or try harder; she cleanses herself of that useless sentiment by focusing on the lingering pain of her tattoos, inviting a purifying torrent of hatred to wash over her. Instantly sobering.
A minute later she whisks them both into the Void, and they sweep toward the village in the valley in a cloud of swiftly moving flies, leaving the hut forever.
The secluded village is a group of thatched mud huts surrounding a central compound. The Maidservant and River materialize from the Void in a recently cultivated field just south of the village and watch for a time as it slowly wakes up to the morning.
A woman with a baby swaddled on her back is bent over as she sweeps the dry earth around her hut with a brush of twigs, stirring up clouds of dust. Not far from her, two young boys in brightly colored kikois enter a pen and start herding a group of bleating goats out of it. A trio of teenage girls moving in procession walks up a well-beaten path from the river, balancing earthen jars on their veiled heads. Distastefully quaint, how these people seem to take their peace for granted.
“I like this part,” River says, idly twisting his metalloid spear.
The Maidservant studies him and notes the predatory glint in his deep-set eyes. This is the River she understands, the bloodthirsty brute. “What part?” she says.
His teeth show as he practically salivates at the village. “Watching while they’re still going about their lives. They have no idea what’s about to happen to them.”
The Maidservant looks back at the village. Some part of her prods itself to see what she feels about what she must do here; as usual, it comes up empty. “Then let’s change that.”
Stretching his neck muscles and grinning a feral grin, River ignites his three-ringed shards with the moon’s power. And then they attack.
River is a Fire mystic, and though his sorcery might not be particularly skillful or powerful, his deadliest spell can enshroud an unwarded victim in devouring moonfire.
He’s also quite lethal with his spear. While he skewers and burns everything in his path, the Maidservant shapes the Void into sharp projectiles that she launches at doors and windows all around the village to catch everyone’s attention and draw them out.
The door in her mind, however, the one that always rattles more fiercely whenever she commits violence, demanding that she open it and use its dark power: that one she keeps shut. No need for it just yet.
Screams disturb the peaceful skies. A startled man runs out of a hut with a machete; she launches a Void spear at him, and he goes down with a cry, his chest split in half. River clenches a pulsing fist, and a woman goes up in flames. They kill for a full minute before an old woman kneels behind the Maidservant with her hands thrown up.
“Please!” she cries. “By the Blood Woman, stop!”
Both the Maidservant and River stop their killing to consider her. By the kaross of hide draped over her shoulders, they know she’s one of the village elders.
“Where is he?” the Maidservant asks her, knowing she doesn’t need to elaborate.
Anger twists the old woman’s face, tears trickling down her wizened cheeks. “How could you be so evil? Have you no heart? We are peaceful people, and yet you butcher us like swine.”
“You can’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” The Maidservant finally opens the door in her mind, and her shards flare with dark energy.
She almost sways at the staggering force that pushes against the door in response, a throng of profane spirits attempting to rush out of that other realm all at once, but she remains outwardly calm. Beneath the surface, her whole body vibrates from the tremendous effort of bracing her will against the door and allowing only one entity to come through, a particular fiend in the form of a malignant web of black slime.
She shuts the door as soon as the fiend leaps from her hands and straight onto the old woman’s face, where it immediately crawls into her eyes, nostrils, and ears, burrowing into her head. The old woman lets out a cry as she claws at her face, but she is powerless to stop the webs as they begin to consume her mind, stealing the information the Maidservant wants.
Eventually she falls to the earth as a deadened husk. The other villagers scream.
Ignoring them, the Maidservant calls back the inky webs. They flow into her shards from the woman like streams of oil, and she closes her eyes as she feeds on the knowledge they acquired. Then her eyes fling open, and she points to one of the larger huts. “He’s in there.”
With a throw of his burning hand, River releases a blast of moonfire that collapses a third of the hut’s round wall. A figure coated in dust emerges seconds later with his palms raised in surrender. “Please, stop! Why are you doing this?”
The free agent. He is young and somewhat fat, and the Maidservant discerns his whole story just by looking at him. Probably a disciple’s bastard who’s been treated like a prince his whole life. It all went to his head, making him think he could awaken and rule his people as some sort of mystic chief. Now many of them are dead because of his folly.
Idiot.
She can sense the way he has rooted his shards to the land beneath their feet, like he’s a tree drinking arcane sustenance from the earth. Unfortunately for him, there’s another power rooted to this village and to a great swath of the Umadi savannas, and it demands a steep price for sharing even the smallest square foot of its land: complete and unquestioning fealty.
“You have claimed land that belongs to the Dark Sun without his permission,” the Maidservant tells the mystic.
His lips tremble with fear, and he stutters. “B-but this is my home! The land of my forefathers, and rooting myself to it doesn’t affect the warlord’s power at all!”
River leans on his spear, crosses one foot in front of the other ankle, and smiles like he thinks the young mystic is an idiot. “But this is the Dark Sun’s land, you see, and he only shares it with those who pledg
e allegiance to him, which you have not, hence our presence here.” He looks at the Maidservant, his face comically incredulous. “You’d think everyone would understand this by now, what with all the killing and burning we do to drive the point home.”
“What do you want from me?” the free agent says. By now all the villagers who are still alive have gathered behind him to listen, a wretched crowd of shocked and tearful people huddled together like terrified sheep around their shepherd.
The Maidservant scours their faces before her gaze falls back onto the young mystic, who presses his palms together.
“Please. How can I fix this?”
She is blunt with him, and as she speaks, his eyes grow progressively wider. “Offer a gift of blood to the Dark Sun as penance for your transgression, and a second as proof of your allegiance to him. Once that is done, we will leave you be.”
“Two blood offerings?” He casts an apprehensive glance over his shoulder at the people behind him, two of whom he must now kill if he is to save what’s left of his village. When he looks back at the Maidservant, she sees a fragile glimmer of defiance in his eyes. “And if I don’t?”
The Maidservant crushes that glimmer with her next words: “Then we kill everyone here, burn down the village, and take your head back to our lord, who will keep it as a trophy.”
The villagers gasp. Some of them wail. The free agent starts to stutter again, making floundering gestures. “B-but I only wanted to help my people! I-it’s why I awoke! We’re far from any other settlements, and we don’t have a healer—”
River blessedly interrupts him with a raised hand. “I’m going to stop you right there. Your sob story? We’ve heard it all before. ‘Oh, we have no healer, and my mother was dying.’ ‘Oh, we needed to protect our families from raiders.’ Well, guess what: No one told you to root yourself to the land. You could have healed or protected or whatever without taking what isn’t yours.”
“And you’d have just left me alone?” the mystic bursts. “I doubt that very much! Everyone knows the warlords don’t leave free agents alone.”
River smiles. “Ah, so you laid your roots anyway, knowing that if we did come for you, we’d come whether you laid roots or not. Which means you knew exactly what you were doing.” He raises a bushy eyebrow at the Maidservant. “Can I kill him now?”
“Make your choice,” she says, ignoring River. “Two blood offerings and allegiance to the Dark Sun, or death for you and all your people.”
Tears are now pouring down the young mystic’s face. “That isn’t really a choice.”
River rolls his eyes. “Devil’s tits, boy. We’re not here to mother you.”
“My patience is at an end,” the Maidservant says, “and destroying your little village would mean nothing to me. But whether that happens is up to you. So what will it be?”
Covering a sob with a hand, the young mystic turns around to face his people. “I’m sorry. I thought I could do this without bowing to a warlord, but such is our fate.” His shoulders start to shake, and his voice breaks. “Please don’t ask me to choose who dies. I can’t! I need two people to offer themselves for the sake of the rest.”
“How typical,” River mutters with a cynical shake of his head. “A free agent asking others to make things easier for him so he doesn’t have to live with the consequences of his decisions. I’m tempted to gut him just for that alone.”
“Easy,” the Maidservant cautions him. “No killing unless he fails.”
River doesn’t hide his disappointment, but he obeys.
While the free agent settles things with his people, she reaches into her Voidspace and withdraws a medallion of witchwood infused with the ciphers of her lord’s mystic Seal. Palming the medallion, she fills it with essence from her shards until it is saturated, then keeps filling it until the power arcs out of the medallion and manifests above the village as a black sphere bounded by a brilliant halo of colorful light, almost like the moon during a solar eclipse.
At the sight of the orb, the villagers gasp, many falling to their knees. Even if they have never seen it before, they now know that this vision is the Dark Sun’s mystic Seal, his symbol of authority and power. When the free agent spills the blood of his own people beneath its light, their agony will feed the warlord’s power. Marginally so, but what matters is that he will know it happened, and he will be pleased.
Intense hatred briefly blinds the Maidservant’s vision. She rides it out by remembering how close she is to her freedom. Soon there’ll be nothing holding her back, and she will spit on his bloody corpse.
She banishes the medallion back to the Void and replaces it with a ritual witchwood dagger, turning her attention back to the villagers. Two elderly men with defeated postures are now flanking the tearful mystic, all three staring up at the Seal like they think it might swallow them whole.
“Will these be your victims?” the Maidservant asks, and the mystic sobs his assent.
“Why is it always two old men?” River mumbles to the side.
Ignoring him again, the Maidservant says: “While they still draw breath, you will take their ears, lips, tongues, and finally hearts. You will speak your pledge to the Dark Sun both times. Do this incorrectly, and you’ll have to repeat, which means another victim. Understood?”
Broken and distraught, the mystic falls to his knees.
She proffers him the dagger. “Now choose who goes first.”
22: Ilapara
Seresa, along the World’s Artery—Umadiland
The hovel Ilapara steps into on her way to work is the Vuriro Transporters office here in Seresa, though office is very generous, considering the lack of a floor and the lingering stench of wet mud and goat shit.
Nothing much in the way of furniture inside, just a rickety old table, behind which sits a gaunt, pipe-smoking foreman drowning in paperwork and the folds of his oversize dashiki. A hand-painted sign hanging perilously above him tells potential customers to BE SAFE! BE SMART! TRAVEL WITH VURIRO TRANSPORTERS! and then proceeds to list the exorbitant destination-based prices for doing so, all in bright-yellow standard script.
Once upon a time, Vuriro Transporters was her old employer’s biggest rival. Now, with Mimvura Company effectively extinct, Vuriro is the biggest mercenary company in the heartland of Umadiland. Business has been splendid for them of late, which is why she is here.
Despite the ill-favored atmosphere, quite a lot of money changes hands in this hovel, so there’s a younger man standing next to the table like an overgrown guard dog. Looking at his brawny arms and the ax clinging to his back, one would likely think twice about trying anything funny in here.
But Ilapara happens to know that those muscles are purely cosmetic, so she has no qualms about approaching the table and clearing her throat. For one thing, she has a long shiny spear in her right hand.
“Foreman Jijima,” she says in greeting. She keeps her expression polite and nods at his guard. “Rufa.”
Rufa flashes his pearly teeth and winks knowingly at her. A pang of regret cuts her so sharply she has to fight off a grimace. I’m never getting drunk again.
The foreman finally raises his baggy, bleary eyes from his paperwork. “What do you want now?” he says, mumbling around his burning pipe.
Far from the greeting she was hoping for, but Ilapara has never gotten a job by being thin skinned. She keeps her voice level, professional, politely expectant. “You told me to come check this morning. Has anything opened up?”
“Sorry, girl, but I’ve got enough lackeys on my payroll.” And with that dismissal, the foreman returns to his paperwork. Just morning, and he’s already in a surly mood. Not promising at all.
After three comets scraping a living in stopover towns, insistence has become Ilapara’s default. “You hired Rufa, Foreman Jijima,” she says with a little more steel in her voice. “He can’t swing a blade to save his life.” She shrugs at Rufa. “No offense, but it’s true.”
Rufa grins and returns the shrug.
“I still got the job.”
“Which is what confuses me,” she says to the foreman. “If you can take him on, why can’t you take me too? You know I’m worth it, and the whole thing with Mimvura Company blew over a half moon ago. I’m in the clear.”
Foreman Jijima drags deeply on his pipe and pulls it out. He shakes his head as he exhales. “What does a man have to do for some peace around here?” He seems to be addressing Rufa, but the boy’s smart enough to know the question’s rhetorical.
“You want to know why I hired him and not you?” Jijima says to Ilapara. “I’ll tell you.” He leans back in his chair and jerks his pipe toward Rufa. “I look at him, and I see a big boy no one wants to mess with. See those arms? They win fights without doing anything. You and I know they’re worthless, but see, our clients don’t. He scares the shit out of people. That’s what they want to see—it’s what makes them feel safe.” He points at Ilapara. “You, on the other hand—they take one look at you, and they see a pretty girl trying to prove something.”
“I have experience. I have fought and even killed. I would be a real asset to your company, Foreman.”
“I know your record. I know it, all right? I’ve heard lots of good things about you, but here’s the thing: This job is as much protection as perception. Our clients don’t just want to be safe; they also want to feel safe.” He points at Rufa again. “That feels safe. You feel like a risk—or worse, a stunt, and stunts invite the wrong kind of attention. Sorry, girl, but I’ll have to pass.” Jijima slips his pipe back between his lips, returns to his work.
All right. Time to try a different tack. Ilapara breathes in deeply. She was hoping not to have to resort to this, but it worked the last time she wanted a job, so . . . “I’ll take two-thirds pay if you sign me on,” she says.
That catches Jijima’s attention. Something slithers behind his eyes as he seems to consider the idea for a second, but then he smiles and shakes his head. “That would be criminal.”
