by Ren Ryder
I chewed on my fingernails. “I don’t want to fight Fin or hurt Sammie more than I have already, but I can’t let Ouroboros go unchecked. Somebody has to do something.”
“Maybe you’re right Kal, but does that person have to be you?” Bell asked, playing the devil’s advocate. “Think about it, we could leave all this trouble behind us and return to the Otherworld. Don’t forget, you’re a king now. There’s a place waiting for you back on the Other Side. We can carve out a kingdom together, you and me.” Bell started bouncing around in sudden enthusiasm for her idea.
I shook my head side-to-side. “Maybe someday, Bell, but today we’re back in New London… and I can’t just leave and have another time distortion make everything we’ve done to get back here meaningless.”
Bell sighed. “I figured you’d—”
Neil appeared in front of us in a flash and pointed the tip of a rapier in my face. “Many men died today while you and your friend stood by and spoke to the enemy like old friends at a tea party. Were you in league with them all along?” The enforcer’s words were cold and precise, but an intense anger bubbled under the surface.
Bell spluttered. “That’s not fair! Kal killed the feathered serpent and I attacked that nasty woman, or didn’t you see that?!”
I rubbed my eyes and looked again at the destruction wreaked by Sammie and her cohort of monsters. The Grand Library was a mess of shattered shelves and displays. Tomes and scrolls had been ripped to shreds in the fighting, the knowledge contained within them forever lost to the world. If not for the blood splattered across the surfaces and bodies lain in heaps on the ground, I would have thought a tornado had gone through the place.
Those that survived the attack were gathering their dead in one section and two medics were attending to those that might still be saved in an impromptu triage center. The enforcer had seen to his men before confronting me, as I imagined any good commanding officer would in his position.
My opinion of the man went up a few notches.
I pushed my finger against the sharp end of Neil’s rapier, and blood welled from my fingertip. It sizzled and burned on contact with the steel. “Seeing as you haven’t stabbed me with the pointy end of this yet, I suppose you want to hear my side of the story. You mind if we take a seat?”
“You want to sit? Fine. Follow me,” Neil commanded.
Neil seemed mighty suspicious of me, but all the same he led me deeper into the library where he sat me down on one side of a long wooden reading table. I wriggled around on the bench, uncomfortable with the way the enforcer remained standing at one end of the table with his rapier pointed at me.
“Speak,” Neil commanded.
In as condensed a format as I could manage, I summed up my ill-fated clash with Ouroboros over their slave trade, leaving out as many identifying details as possible. I even described my first foray into the Otherworld and my interaction with Queen Titania. I had to take a break and calm myself before I spoke of the time distortion I encountered on my return to New London, and I rushed through a brief retelling of my battles against Ouroboros and saving the children, leading to my capture.
I placed heavy emphasis on my position on Ouroboros, but although I was watching closely for a reaction, Neil gave me no indication of being aligned with them.
My story stuttered to stop as I closed in on Sammie’s betrayal, but I managed to speak around the topic by connecting Duke Regulus Maddox to the criminal organization and mentioning his insane quest for immortality. Somewhere in the middle of all this Neil had sat down and sheathed his rapier, and was now leaning into my story with an intense stare. Coughing, I rushed through my fight against the wyrm in the Under and fall into the abyss, implicating Sammie and tying her into the power structure of Ouroboros.
Speaking the words aloud felt like stabbing needles into my heart.
With as much clarity as I could, I spoke of the trials of the Seven Year King and the many challenges I faced on the Other Side. When I saw the keen interest in the enforcer’s eyes, I spoke less and less in detail of the events that took place there, speaking more to my encounters with Fin and the bond we had formed in our time there together. I glossed over my victory and said nothing about the complex history I’d discovered or my adversarial relationship with the faery king, Oberon.
I traced the grains in the table with my fingers. “And then, well, we arrived back in New London a stone’s throw from here to encounter those vampires. The rest I think you know,” I said, then shrugged.
“That’s quite the fantastical story. So unbelievable in fact that I find myself wondering how much of it can be true.”
“I came back to New London to fight Ouroboros. If you believe anything, believe that.”
“It’s all true!” Bell interjected.
Neil made a face. “And what exactly is this little creature that always seems to be hovering around you?”
“You can see her?” I asked, surprised.
Neil nodded.
Bell took to the air and buzzed through the enforcer’s airspace before fluttering back to my side. “I’m a sylph and I have a name, thank you very much! Hmmph! At least Fin had the decency to revere me!”
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to offend you, little sylph.”
I winced.
Bell flew right up in Neil’s face. “Little! I’ll have you know, I’m above average height amongst my kind! And my name is Bell, don’t forget it!”
Neil seemed at a loss for words for awhile. “Right… Bell. I’m sorry, outside what I’ve heard just now I can’t say I know much about faeries other than bedtime stories and tall tales. I’ve never encountered one myself, but with monsters coming out of the woodwork, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I scratched my nose and looked askance at Neil.
“We’re not monsters! We are known as the Fair Folk, Good People, the Gentry, Little Folk, Honest Folk, the Hill People, and Good Neighbors, amongst other things, just not faeries!” Bell yelled.
Hearing Bell go on a tirade about propriety in relation to the fae was nostalgic, especially since it wasn’t directed at me this time. I smothered a grin and leaned back on the bench I was sitting on, happy that Bell was too occupied to notice my reaction.
Neil bowed in his seat. “I apologize for my lack of tact, I didn’t mean to say your kind are monsters. Please excuse my ignorance. I meant no disrespect, honorable sylph.”
With those magic words, Bell brightened and sprinkled faerie dust around the room as she bathed in the glow of the compliment paid to her.
I mouthed the word “sorry” to Neil while shielding my face from view with a hand so Bell couldn’t see.
“I hope you don’t mind my reporting on what you’ve said here to my commanding officer. This talk of f—fair folk and Ouroboros’s involvement in our monster problem is crucial information for my compatriots. If we’re to stop whatever nefarious plans this organization has for New London, the enforcers need all the information we can get.”
I furrowed my brows. “Are the enforcers equipped to fight Ouroboros?” I asked. “You may answer to the emperor, but the Duke has connections in the Royal Quarter, and last time I checked, Ouroboros owns The Watch.”
Neil smirked. “You’d be surprised to discover just how much leeway our organization is afforded to act independently. And I assure you, we enforcers are equipped to deal with the jobs that no one else can.”
Bell shot over to my side. “Kal, this is great news! You don’t have to fight Ouroboros alone!”
I waved Bell down as she circled me, her face lit up with excitement.
I wasn’t so easily excited by the mere possibility of help. I wasn’t sure of Neil’s role within the enforcers, but I assumed a sub-captain wasn’t at the top of the hierarchy. Even without the Duke’s influence, politics could interfere with whatever action the higher-ups may want to take. Besides, I wasn’t going to leave everything in the hands of a man I’d just met.
There was a glint in
Neil’s eyes when he asked, “Why don’t you come with me to make the report? That way we can all be on the same page.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back. “I don’t think so. I just got back, and I have personal business to follow up on before anything else.”
Neil clicked his tongue. “Are you sure I can’t convince you? I didn’t think much of you when we first met, but I saw you take down that feathered serpent. The enforcers could use a man like you, although your involvement will have to be kept under wraps.”
“So you did see!” Bell said.
I swallowed back my bitter amusement rather than scoff at the enforcer like I wanted to.
Neil must have sensed my thoughts, because he said, “I may not be able to force you to come with me, but here, take this.”
Neil unsheathed a small dagger from his sword belt and slid the blade under the purple eight-pointed star stitched into his leather breastplate. He still retained the lion-headed imperial arms insignia that sat just above where the enforcers’s emblem used to be. I raised my eyebrows as he reached out and proffered the patch to me.
The enforcer shook his outstretched hand, insistent. “Take it. You’ll be able to use it to make your way through the Royal Quarter, I’ll make it known to the imperial guard that should they see someone with this, they’re to be treated with respect and taken to enforcer HQ.”
With obvious reluctance, I grabbed the patch and stuffed it inside one of my pants pockets, which at this point were over-full with stuff.
“So, I’m free to go then?” I asked.
“You’re free to go,” Neil said with a nod.
We both stood at the same time, looking at each other as if we were trying to solve a difficult puzzle. I pushed the bench with the back of my leg and swung around so I could stand unencumbered.
“I’d offer to help with the clean-up, but I really should be going.”
“Yeah, we’ve got things to do! Places to see!” Bell said, sounding self-important.
With the sun rising on the city, I wanted to put the Grand Library far behind me before it was overrun by casual spectators and passersby.
“That’s quite alright, I have everything in hand here. Take care. Oh, and if anyone asks you what happened here—”
“Mum’s the word,” I said, making a show of zipping my lips.
“Right,” Neil stretched out his hand.
I took the enforcer’s hand in my own and shook it. His aura buzzed with enigmatic power and virulent strength. When I released his hand and stepped back, the man had a look of shock and wonder on his face. Seeing no better opportunity to make my getaway, I turned and headed towards the exit, trying to look unhurried.
I threw up a parting hand over my shoulder, waving goodbye. “See ya.”
I passed the triage center, where two overburdened medics were caring for the wounded. Dead bodies lay in a haphazard pile nearby, more than a score of them by my quick estimate. Sammie had ordered her chimeras to kill so many with so little care, and for what?
Something crunched under my boot and I lifted my foot off the floor to see what I’d crushed underfoot. The remains of a small glass display lay in a heap on the ground, shards of glass and metal all that remained. Laid atop it all was a small vellum scroll, which let off a bright light after my contact with it.
There was something about it that called to me.
“Ooh, what’s that, it’s glowey!” Bell exclaimed.
Looking around, I found the imperial guards were far too preoccupied to be watching me. Crouching down, I picked up the scroll and unfurled it with care.
I sucked in a breath when I saw it. There, almost dead center, nestled amongst twenty-odd other runes, was a symbol I was all too familiar with. The harvest rune. I rubbed my neck near my jugular where Oberon had marked us Champions at the beginning of the trials for the Seven Year King. It was still there.
“Bell, do you know what this is?” I asked.
Bell flew in close to get a better look. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she shrugged.
“I think these are for runecasting, look,” I pointed out the harvest rune, then motioned to the mark on my neck.
Bell ogled the scroll, then me. “They’re the same!”
The scroll shone brighter the longer I held it, until something inside it reached out and sparked a connection with me. The runes on the page burned into my retinas and through my mind, searing themselves into me.
I fell back onto my ass and threw the scroll away from me, holding my hands up to protect myself. The scroll caught fire midair and burned to a crisp as I watched. I blinked away the afterimages of light from my eyes until I could see normal again.
“That’s… I hope that wasn’t bad,” Bell said.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
Bell buzzed off towards the exit without a second thought. “I’m way ahead of you. You’re the one that stopped to take in the scenery!” Bell complained.
Chapter Four
The air was harsh and biting as I took a deep breath, happy to feel anything, even if it was pain. A thin veil of fog hung low over the city, pressing down on its inhabitants.
With the dim light of midmorning showing through the gaps between buildings, a sense of normalcy had returned to New London. Crowds of people went about their business as if the quiet of the night had never been. Still, there was an odd feeling in the air, as if this was all a facsimile of normality that New London’s inhabitants were actively trying to curate for themselves.
It was as if they were all telling themselves: everything is normal, everything is fine, don’t worry.
People would rather believe a beautiful lie over a hard truth.
My mind was a jumble. Pressure built up behind my skull, making my brain feel three sizes too big. Runes flashed through my eyes, overlaying on top of my vision as I stumbled about like a drunkard through the morning foot traffic of the city.
Passersby gave me a wide berth, for which I was thankful. New noises filled the city, sounds of cart horns honking and the huffing and hissing of steam-engines. More than once I almost collided with a moving cart, having to hop out of the way at the last moment to avoid getting crushed.
I’d told Neil that I had personal business to attend to, and that was true, but my feet led me beyond my goal. I hobbled through the Middle Quarter, past the Wasted Minstrel in the Lower Quarter to a patch of blackened earth. In a change since my last visit, a field of wildflowers bloomed around the ring of dead, charred earth. I wobbled over to lean against a broken column reaching towards the sky like a broken finger.
My heart twisted as shame and regret filled me.
“You would’ve known what to do,” I told the broken earth.
I strained to feel for Father Gregory’s presence, but found no trace of him. I did sense the stained, still-potent cold iron buried beneath the earth. Underground where the lectern used to stand, the weapons used by the Ouroboros hunters rested where I’d left them.
I spoke to thin air, saying, “It seems like all the choices I make are wrong, and nothing good comes from anything I do. The consequences of my actions are hard to look at, and dealing with them only seems to get harder the longer all this goes on. I don’t know how to live with the choices I make, I really don’t.
“Having faith in myself seems impossible, and looking outside myself for faith leads me down a darker path still. And you know what’s funny? No matter the world, I’m a miserable excuse for a person. I have something to tell you: I found out I’m less than human, so maybe I’ll always fail to understand what this is all about, life. I wonder what you would think of me now, Father.”
Would he reject me after learning what I am, like the dryad Claea insisted he would?
Maybe I wished for a higher power to condemn my existence, as if that would make it easier, but there was only empty silence.
I clawed at my chest where the Father’s cross used to dangle from a chain around my neck. “I lost y
our cross in the Otherworld. I’m sorry,” I apologized to the ghost of the Father.
“Why come back here, Kal? Just to torture yourself?” Bell interjected. “There are a lot more productive things to be doing than this.”
Somehow, spewing all my bitter regret and angst out into the world in this place relieved me of some intangible weight that went hand-in-hand with my existence. I didn’t feel better, not exactly, but I felt lighter for having spoken the words aloud.
A small smile tugged at the corner of my lips. “I think I got what I came for. Let’s go.”
“Go? Go where?” Bell asked.
“To see an old friend and find out if anything good came out of what I’ve done,” I told her, turning on my heel and leaving the ruins of Father Gregory’s chapel behind me.
My brain felt like it was packed with gauze while the runes marinated in my skull, but at least they weren’t flashing across my vision anymore. I had no idea what kind of power they held, but I knew that finding out needed to be one of my top priorities. If I was going to fight Ouroboros, I needed every advantage possible.
Bell alighted on my good shoulder and peered into my right eye from the side. "You have friends?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Tch. Maybe Rex isn’t my friend, but he’s the closest thing I’ve got to one.”
Bell flew ahead of me then turned to face me. “You mean that wrinkly old guy? That’s sad, Kal. Don’t forget you have me~”
I blinked. “Oh right, I forgot, I have you, huh. We’re friends, right?”
Bell did a somersault midair. “Best friends forever~”
With a thin smile, I said, “Right. At least we have each other.”
Walking through the outskirts of the Lower Quarter, I couldn’t help but think that even as New London entered a new era of prosperity and technological advancement, the poor subsisted on society’s leavings. Cast to the peripheries, the working poor were the pillars that held up the foundations of the world, yet they were treated like lepers by the upper class. You would think with such an absurd abundance of wealth and power, New London would remake itself into a utopia, but that wasn’t what happened.
