by Jez Cajiao
“Prick!” I wheezed out, even as he glared at me.
“Humph! Right then, we will start this again. Johannes has told you of my offer?” The Baron asked, sitting back and staring at me. I took a deep breath and forced myself to straighten up and reply.
“You mean Daphne? All I got was that you had a job offer for me and you knew something about Tommy…”
“Daphne?” he asked, looking to the captain, who cleared his throat and responded quickly.
“Mr. Johannes, Sir. Jack and he didn’t get on well, and Jack decided to rename him ‘Daphne’.”
The Baron looked back at me and snickered, a cruel smile lifting the corners of his mouth as he gestured at me.
“I’d imagine that went down well. I like it. It can be his new name; should teach him some humility. Now, hit the boy again.”
The second punch to my gut nearly knocked the chair over backwards, and my host called out, “Again.” I got another punch, this time to my face, breaking my nose, then another, and another, in response to called out orders.
When he finally stepped back, I was on the floor, the chair tipped over long since. I was curled into a ball with what felt like broken ribs. The skin around my hand and ankle restraints were bleeding and raw from yanking at them. Hands grabbed me and set my chair back upright before the Baron again. He gave me a few seconds to catch my breath and then spoke.
“I like your choice of name, it suits him, however, know your place. He, like you, is my property, and property doesn’t name itself or others.” The voice was light this time as he played with his glass, obviously uncaring about my response and pain.
“So, to move along, I have chosen you to carry out a series of tasks for me, Jack. Your brother was employed to do the same and seems to have failed. As such, I require you to take on his contract. You will be paid handsomely for it and will have a great deal of expensive training before you represent me at the arena. Should you survive, you will be sent to do a small job, and retrieve some artifacts. All you have to do is bring them back. If you do this well, you’ll be rewarded. Fail, and you die. Fail me embarrassingly, and I’ll make sure everyone you ever so much as smiled at is slaughtered and their corpses defiled. Are we clear?”
I glared at him, but before I could get a response out, I saw the captain’s face. He’d moved to stand behind and to one side of the Baron, and he shook his head slightly, his face white and strained. My immediate reaction was to tell them all to fuck right off, but I knew where that’d get me. I needed to find Tommy, and they’d promised me that at least. I huffed out a breath and forced down my anger and the little worm of fear.
“Aye, we’re clear. I’ll do it.” I grunted.
“Excellent. Now then, a little bit more to tell you, and I can finally get on with more important matters. You’ve already taken up more time than I wanted to devote to this. You will be spending the next few months training. You will learn the truth about your bloodline and your abilities, and then we will see if you have what it takes to take your place in society.
“You are descended from me and my kind, Jack. As such, you have certain…gifts…that make you useful to me. Not least is the fact that your genetic code will be able to survive crossing through the Great Portal.” He looked at me again and snorted in disgust. “It’s obvious that this is beyond you. We will discuss things when you have had a chance to settle certain realities into your simian brain.”
He threw back his drink and got to his feet, stomping back through the doors into the room beyond and casually called back to the guard captain that had brought me in.
“Take him to his room and give him some background so he understands his place, then beat him senseless so he knows just how valuable that makes him to me.”
With that, his personal guards followed him, and the door closed, leaving the two of us in the room looking at each other.
“You’re a right fucking idiot, Jack, you know that?” the captain said, walking over untying me and offering me his hand to help me up. I slapped it aside and forced myself to my feet unsteadily, weaving a little with the pain. “Suit yourself. Come on. I’ll take you to your room and tell you what I can. Then, well, you earned it yourself.”
I limped out into the hallway behind him, fantasizing about beating him to death, until I saw the two guards that waited outside. They followed us down the halls to a separate wing of the building in silence.
When I was finally led into a room, I was halfway between fury and tears of frustration and pain, due largely to what felt like broken ribs grating against each other with every step. I was used to a little pain, and my dreams produced significantly more than I’d received back there, but not being able to do anything except take it… well, that sat badly with me. I slumped into a chair and the captain walked over to me, offering a glass of water before pouring himself a drink.
The room he’d taken me to was small, but well furnished, with a table, chairs, and refreshments. Another door on the far side presumably led into the suite, and I could hear faint voices and splashing as someone ran a tap.
“Jack! Focus, man. Jesus. You’re just like fucking Tommy,” he said, dropping into a chair opposite me and sipping. I raised my glass hesitantly to my lips and drew back in pain as the cool liquid poured over a split in my lip that I didn’t even remember getting. I tasted it and then took a large gulp, feeling the burn as it went down my throat, then looked at the man who’d just poured us both a highball full of vodka, straight.
“Who are you, who and what the fuck is the Baron, what the fuck just happened, and where’s Tommy?” I growled at him.
“Right. Okay, let’s start at the beginning, I guess. Some o’ this you’ll believe, some you won’t. Hell, maybe you will, I’m getting too old for this shit,” he muttered, wiping a hand across his eyes tiredly before sitting up straighter and looking at me. “I’m a Captain in the Baron’s Guard. The name’s Adrian West, but you can just call me West. I’ve worked for him for the last twenty years, and you’re the fourth I’ve seen recruited. Tommy was before you, that’s how I know him. I’m gonna tell you a load of stuff now, so do us both a favor and hold your questions ‘til the end, okay?”
I nodded at him, taking another swig, and he gave a tired grin.
“Good lad. Okay, first things first. The Baron doesn’t take any shit; when he says you’re a dead man, he means it, and if he offers to have everyone you know murdered and their corpses defiled, he means that too. As one of the men who’d have to do the actual deed, please keep your mouth shut around him from now on. I’ve got enough nightmares waking my wife up already. Secondly, the Baron is old and …sort of human. And I mean OLD. As near as we can tell‒that’s the other guards and I‒he’s over a thousand years old, easily, and he’s not the only one. You ever hear of the Illuminati?”
“Aye, some conspiracy shit,” I muttered.
“Yeah well, some of it’s made up, and some of it’s real. Turns out, there’s a whole gang of them. Nobles from the UnderVerse that ended up stuck here, some Cataclysm in their home realm that they all fled. Now they want to go back; issue is, it takes a fuck-load of mana to open a portal to there. Our world is shit for magic, and they all have to work together to send just one person through.” He sighed and shook his head in irritation before going on.
“Seriously, Jack, this never gets any easier to explain. Once someone is on the other side, they can go to the ‘Great Portal’ on that side. It can make a connection to this realm easily, and then it’ll be stable enough for the nobility to return through. None of them want another to be the one to open the portal, as whoever has control of it has control of them, so they fight it out before they open it each time. Twelve champions get put forward, and all of them have to be ‘blooded’. That means you must have both killed in service to your patron‒the Baron, in your case‒and you have to have a very specific genome. You, my boy, are related to the Baron somehow.”
“Nah, man. Look, we didn’t know our Da, b
ut he’s not gonna be a prick like the Baron. No way.”
“Jack; sorry, man, but it’s true. They took some blood at the hospital, and again on the flight over to make sure. You’re definitely related. More importantly, it means that both you and Tom are capable of being trained using their methods, and of using the Portal. Tom went through four and a half years ago, and now that it’s getting close to the tournament again, you’ll be trained and given a chance to do the same. That’s the best I can tell you.”
“Trained to do what? What the fuck is the tournament?” I asked, noting the way he’d skated around it.
“Ah, well, there’s no easy way to say this, so… fuck it, I’ll just say it. It’s a deathmatch. Twelve men and women go in, one on one, and kill each other. The final round is three of you, all in a free for all. No rules beyond the weapons, no holds barred.”
“Fuck off.”
“Jack..”
“No, seriously, fuck right off. Nobody does that kinda shit anymore, not since the Romans!”
“I wish. Unfortunately, Jack, it’s very much alive and kicking in this arena. Only difference is, it’s not a Colosseum anymore. The rich don’t like the poor watching nobles bleed; gives them the wrong idea. It is very much a private affair, with the nobles all feasting and placing bets. Gives you a good idea of the kind of assholes they are, doesn’t it.”
“Yeah, almost as bad as the kind of assholes that’d murder on another’s orders and ‘defile’ their bodies!” I shot back, seeing him flinch.
“Yeah, well, it’s not a choice. It’s a Geas.”
“What, a fucking cobra chicken?”
“No, you idiot, not a Canadian Goose, a Geas. It’s an old word. When you work for the Baron, you swear the Geas. It’s a magically-enforced oath. We get paid well, but once you take the oath, you have zero choice. He says ‘kill,’ you kill; ‘dance,’ you dance. You understand?”
“Bullshit.”
“Believe what you want, Jack. Just understand this: if he tells us to kill you, or anyone else, we will. We won’t like it, but that’s the way it is. Anyway, come six months’ time, you’re going into the tournament. How you do is up to you. You’ll be given training, weapons, and, if you’ve got the aptitude, magic. It’s up to you what you do with that training. You can toss it off, and we’ll drag you to each session. You’ll be beaten for not behaving, and maybe others will too, or they’ll be murdered. Then you’ll go in the arena and get slaughtered like the little bitch you are. Or you can embrace it. Learn from some of the best in the world, survive the tournament, and get sent to Tom. You pick, mate, ‘cause I guarantee you the people you’ll face in the arena won’t hesitate to gut you.”
I looked at him and he stared back as I tried to make my way through all this bullshit mentally. What I came up with at the end was that I had two choices. People that were heavily armed and not averse to giving beatings had kidnapped me, and I could either go along with it for now, or try to escape. They knew something about Tommy, though, so escape was out.
“Alright, color me interested then!” I said with a wide, obviously fake smile. “I can’t wait to get to fuckin’ Narnia!”
“It’s not Narnia, you prick, it’s the UnderVerse. It’s a realm that exists alongside our own, as it was explained to me. Think about all the mental shit people come up with: magic, vampires, goblins, and the weird nightmares that came out of Lovecraft’s mind. All of it, and I mean ALL, is influenced by that place. There, the worst of your nightmares are real, not just in your head.”
“And they want to fucking go there? And you’re calling me crazy!”
“Aye, well, it’s also the home of all magic. All the good shit from the fantasy books is real there, too. Elves, Dragons, flying cities, the fucking lot. Look, I know you don’t believe me, and I can’t say I blame you, but next week, you get to learn the same way Tom did. You get your Pearl.”
“You’re nice enough, and all that, but I ain’t letting you give me a pearl necklace, if you know what I mean…”
“Shut the fuck up, Jack. Seriously, you’re worse than Tom was, and he came close to being murdered weekly. The Pearl is a device, part magic, part nanotech type of shit. You’ll be given yours soon, and then the world will change; for you at least.”
“What’s this Pearl thing, then?” I asked.
"Buggered if I know.” He responded, “It’s some blend of nanotech and magic; you not listening the first time around? As to how it works, it’s not wasted on the likes of me. From what Tom said, it’s sodding painful when it joins with you, but makes training easier. You heal faster, plus it allows access to your magic. Last of all, it gave him some kind of magic heads up display. Said he could adjust it, make it show him things he missed, and tell him details. Best and weirdest thing is ‘leveling,’ though. Somehow, again, don’t ask me ‘cause I don’t fucking know how, it absorbs experience from all you do. Every fight, every skill, everything, and it converts it into an ability to ‘level up’. Tom was level five when he went through to the arena and fought in the tournament. Faced guys that moved like greased lightning, and he still won. When he came out, he was level six. I watched when he dumped all his points into strength. His muscles doubled in size; the man would have made Schwarzenegger crap himself. I’ve seen nothing like it.”
“Leveling up, like in a game, you mean?”
“Aye, like in some kind of game. I played DnD as a bairn‒don’t look at me like that, you prick‒I played as a bairn, and it reminded me of that. I’d get one myself, if I could,” he said, shaking his head and staring off into the distance.
“Why?” I asked, nonplussed.
“Why? WHY? Hell man, have you not listened? Tom said you were the bright one. It makes you practically immortal, able to do magic, and level up? All that, in exchange for a little pain?”
“Huh, fair point,” I conceded.
“Well, like it or lump it, you’ll be getting yours soon. Up to you how this next bit goes, though. The Baron said I was to arrange for you to get it once I’d filled you in some. You want to be a big boy and get it by choice, maybe earn a little respect from your guards, or you want to be tazered and chained down so they can insert it while you’re drooling? The Baron says it’s happening, so it’s happening. Your choice is how to face it.”
“You’re a right little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” I muttered, earning a grin in return.
“Aye, lad, medicine does you no good if it doesn’t taste bad! What’s it gonna be?”
“I’ll take it standing up,” I said, climbing to my feet again and grinning back at the guard as I did so, despite my own misgivings.
“Good man. Right, best to get this bit over with, and then I’ll let the girls take care of you. Sorry, but you had this coming.”
“Wha…” I started to say, only to find his fist hammering into my face. I staggered to the side, getting a knee to the guts that doubled me over before I could respond. An elbow to the back of the head dropped me hard. I managed a few swings and kicks, but he beat me with embarrassing ease, kicking me in the stomach before finally dropping down and punching me in the face again, and I blacked out.
I came to a few minutes later. West was standing over me, an empty jug in hand, as I spluttered and tried to make sense of what had just happened. I glanced around, seeing the water he’d poured over my head mingling with my blood on the marble floor where I lay.
“What’d you do that for, you dick?” I mumbled, checking my teeth with my tongue. I wanted to get up and kick his ass, but as he’d made clear, I had no chance.
“The Baron ordered it, remember? Be thankful he didn’t think to rescind your privileges as well. Now that my job is done for today, I’ll go and leave you to..”
“Wait! One more question!”
“Go on, lad,” he said, cracking his knuckles as he regarded me curiously.
“The Baron; you say he’s human, sort of, and I’m related to him. Well, what the fuck is he? I’ve not got scales and all t
hat!”
“Ah, well, yeah, that’s a fair question, I suppose, but that’s one the Baron will have to answer, I don’t get it myself. That’s down to the pearl, and that’s all I know. Sorry.” With that, he walked to the second door and knocked once before turning and walking back toward me. The second door opened, and two women came in. They exchanged a sad look upon sighting all the blood, but they bobbed polite curtseys to me as West pulled me to my feet. He told me to try to get some rest, then winked and walked off.
They were both beautiful and dressed to entice. One was tall and blonde, her short dress accentuating her long legs, while the other was a shorter brunette with an hourglass figure. . I realized that they were polar opposites, which was only highlighted further by their stunning features. I opened my mouth to speak, unsure of what to say, when the blonde beat me to it, leading me by the hand to the next room, which held the tub that I had heard them filling earlier.
Chapter Three
The next morning, I was woken by two new girls who were dressed in identical uniforms as the girls from last night, and they too were smiling and happy. They brought me breakfast, a thick porridge and fruit, and a set of workout clothes, before offering to help me in any way I wished. I grinned at them without thinking, and the pretty redhead smiled in return as she spoke up quickly.
“My lord, you have training with the arms masters this morning. I suggest that you prepare quickly, in order to avoid any repercussions for tardiness. We will, of course, be here to meet your needs when you return.” I just stared at them. They seemed so happy and willing to do literally anything I asked, but their behavior was just…off. I thanked them, ate the breakfast, and dressed quickly. When I opened the door, a new pair of guards stood waiting, and they led me along the corridors to a gym.
It looked much like any gym I’d ever been in, a collection of shiny machines and mirrors mostly, but on one side was a door that led through to a second room. The walls in that space were covered in weapons, and three men stood inside, talking. Two looked more average, fit and lean, but nothing special. The third, however, was a man mountain. He stood easily seven feet tall, and maybe the same across the shoulders. He looked like the kind of guy that’d kick sand on ‘The Rock’ when he was sunbathing. And get away with it. Deep black skin contrasted sharply with the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. A total lack of any body hair on his upper half and quite possibly the smallest shorts I’d ever seen on a grown man somehow served to make him even more intimidating.
