Convergence

by Joe Jackson

  “Gods be with you all,” she whispered.

  With the Silver Blades off on their dangerous mission, Kari thanked her employees again and began gathering up the pouches with the help of her mother-in-law. They finished soon enough, and it was finally time for Kari to get some rest and spend some time with her kids.

  *****

  Kris’ legs tensed ever so slightly as he landed on solid ground once again. When his vision cleared, he saw he was in some sort of office building made of obsidian, warm under the strong light of the sun. The chamber was large and open, with a number of elestram sitting behind a counter as though it were a bank back home. He glanced over his shoulder as his friends got their wits back about them, and strode forward before Eliza could even say anything.

  Kris didn’t know terribly much about the denizens of Mehr’Durillia. He’d heard stories and learned some basics during his time training under Celigus Chinchala, but lessons always took on an entirely new context when experienced, not just learned. He was glad that Kari had sent along the syrinthian cadet, Liria, as the girl undoubtedly had more insight into the people here than Kris or any of his other companions would, no matter how sheltered a life the girl had led. He did find it odd to be assigned a syrinthian escort, but he trusted Kari’s instincts.

  His mind almost wandered as he considered Kari and the way she’d clung to him just a few minutes before. She was reeling, and he wished he could be in two places at once, that he could stay behind and comfort her while he also worked to free his friend. The situation with Kari being a widow was delicate, but he was looking forward to exploring their relationship when he and his companions returned.

  First, though, he had to make certain they did return, and that required focus.

  The cold look the elestram woman sitting behind the counter gave him at his approach might have stopped the average person in their tracks, but Kris was pretty sure he knew how to wipe the humorless gaze from her face. Eliza called after him, but Kris strode right up to the counter without waiting. Elestram were tall, but at almost six and a half feet and with an impressive wingspan, Kris knew how to cut an imposing figure even before one of the jackal-folk.

  “Name and business?” came the dispassionate inquiry from the elestram, her usage of the Citarian trade tongue accented but practiced.

  “Brigadier General Kristofer Isaiah Jir’tana, the Warlord; son of Kaelariel Arakiel Jir’tana, the Ascending Dawn,” he said, and he had to make a conscious effort not to laugh at the sudden slack-jawed wonder of the elestram workers before him. He heard Eliza curse quietly behind him, but paid her little mind. “Don’t worry, I’m here on a diplomatic mission. Duke Curlamanx of Si’Dorra is holding one of my friends hostage, and I’ve come to… negotiate his release.”

  Eliza was suddenly beside him, tugging insistently on his arm. “Kris, what are you doing?” she hissed.

  “Oh, come on, Eliza. Everyone’s going to know we’re here five minutes after we walk out of this building no matter what we say.” Kris turned back to the elestram female, who still had yet to make a single notation in her logbook. “We’re not here to cause the Overking any grief. I’ve come to secure my friend’s release, that’s all. I’m not here on my father’s behalf. I give you – or more precisely, His Majesty – my word on that.”

  “And your companions…?” the jackal-woman asked, her voice as distant as the thoughts behind those wide golden eyes.

  “Corbanis Tesconis, Serenjols Tesconis, Sonja Tesconis,” Kris began, pausing until the elestram began logging the names. “Aeligos Tesconis, Elias Sorivar, Gabrius Tevone, and…”

  “Se’lucia Liria Aliristis,” the syrinthian girl filled in when prompted.

  “And we have a few others meeting us, if someone remembers she’s supposed to go pick them up…”

  Eliza glowered at Kris, but then shook her head. “I will be right back,” she said.

  The elestram was quietly taking notes in her logbook, and Kris tried to read whatever it was upside down. It didn’t help that it was in infernal, but he was at least satisfied that she wasn’t going to call down a legion on their heads the minute they walked out the door. Kris didn’t imagine there were that many people visiting Mehr’Durillia on a whim, but the logbook showed that they kept very close track of who arrived. And, thus far, that was all the woman had written into it: Their names and their destination.

  Kris turned to Liria after a silent minute. “Se’lucia?” he asked.

  “Yes?” she answered, eyes widening slightly.

  “Are you a priestess?”

  “No, sir,” she answered.

  Kris snorted. “Don’t call me sir,” he said with a chuckle. “Just wondered because of the way you introduced yourself.”

  “Se’lucia means daughter of Lucia,” she explained. “It really only bears meaning in the families of the priesthood, but is common among all my people. I prefer to go by Liria.”

  “And I prefer to simply go by Kris. You don’t need to call me sir unless we end up at war, which is obviously far from our goal here.”

  Liria smiled but didn’t reply. Kris got a good feeling about her. While he normally might have hesitated to trust a syrinthian – any Mehr’Durillian, for that matter – the fact that Kari trusted Liria said a lot. During the War, Kari had been like something of a barometer for people, one Kris could use almost without fail to figure out who to trust and who to keep an eye on. For the most part, his brigade had been dependable, upright people, but in a unit of five thousand, there were always bound to be some troublemakers. So often, Kris had been able to use Kari’s reactions to people as a gauge to determine how much faith to put in them.

  As his thoughts drifted to Kari, he was glad to find that she wasn’t too put off by the fact that she had been one of his idols growing up. It had felt weird to tell her that he had pictures of her on his walls, particularly when she was dead at the time, but then again, it was a weird thing for a dead woman to come back to life, no matter what his faith may have said. He could still imagine those pictures: The artists’ renditions were rarely perfect – they had a tendency to make her a bit more voluptuous than she was in truth – but Kari hadn’t been far from his expectations when they actually met for the first time. And her personality…

  Kari was, in virtually every respect, what Kris wanted in a woman. The alpha in him said that he’d be better suited to finding a mate he could protect, but that was really the one thing he was happy to be “disappointed” about. Kari was one of, if not the most gifted of fighters he’d ever met, a natural-born leader, and someone whose convictions burned with a glow like heated steel. Now she was Avatar of Vengeance, bringing her as close to the pantheon as Kris was as Kaelariel’s first-born child. No, she wasn’t the type of woman that would need protecting, but she complemented him in a way he hadn’t found in any other woman in over thirty years.

  It was strange to him that they were finally coming together after she had been married to Grakin. Kris had long held a particular viewpoint when it came to certain parts of one’s destiny, and catching Kari on a rebound didn’t exactly fit with his beliefs. Then again, he had to admit to himself that Kari being resurrected didn’t exactly fit with them, either, and it was quite possible he was being taught a lesson, so to speak, about becoming too rigid in his mindset.

  He smirked and shook off the thoughts as Eliza finally arrived with the rest of their group: Earl Markus Garant, Katarina and Sherman Moreville, and a woman named Sharyn Valsares who was apparently a werewolf. The Earl he knew by reputation from the War; the twins he knew by extension through the Silver Blades. The werewolf, on the other hand, he knew nothing about, yet contrary to what many might have suspected, he was looking forward to getting to know her. If Kari – not to mention the Earl, a paladin – put their trust in this werewolf, it said a lot about her. And that piqued Kris’ curiosity more than his suspicion.

  What caught Kris by surprise was the other man who arrived with them: The Duke of Sutherland
. Krycyd had hardly become aware of his surroundings before he smiled and approached Kris, and the two embraced. “Been a long time, how’ve you been?” the Warlord asked.

  “I should be the one asking you,” Krycyd returned. “How bad were things on Dannumore?”

  “Bad enough, but it’s at an end for the moment,” Kris answered. He cocked a half-smile when he saw all the interested looks the two of them were getting.

  “Are you two related?” the dark woman, Sharyn, asked. She sniffed as inconspicuously as she could, and Kris had no doubt she was checking their scents.

  “We are half-brothers,” the duke answered.

  “By the same mother,” Kris elaborated. “Krycyd is James Jalar’s son, and I’m the son of Kaelariel, as you probably already know. But we’re both sons of Julie-ann Sil’Addarra, Queen of Askies. I’ll explain more while we travel.”

  Sharyn looked back and forth between them. “Wouldn’t that make him a prince, too?”

  “Yes, though Kris is the first-born,” Krycyd answered. “So I serve as the Duke of Sutherland despite having a higher royal title on paper.”

  “How did that even happen?” Aeligos queried. “Doesn’t the queen – your mother, I guess – live up in the Strekan Province?”

  “She does again now. She lived in Gnarr for years, though. It’s a long story, and really not important enough to bother with right now,” the Warlord put in.

  “I had no idea the two of you were related,” Markus said as he approached. He bowed low to Kris, but the Warlord simply reached for a handshake after the noble’s gesture of respect.

  “Look, not to sound ungrateful, but please don’t treat me like a prince or the son of Kaelariel or whatever else. We’re all among friends here. We’re a team, I’m nobody’s boss, and there’s no need for anyone to stand on ceremony.”

  “Quite right,” Krycyd said. “Noble titles are all well and good back home, in court. But they have little place here, with what we face.”

  “What do we face, exactly?” Sharyn asked.

  “That, we’ll explain on the road. I think Sonja has an idea of where we’re going?” Kris said, and the redhead nodded. “Great. Let’s get the rest of you checked in, and we’ll get on the road as soon as they let us. We’ve got a long trip and probably a lot of work ahead of us.”

  Kris introduced the new arrivals to the elestram woman, who logged their names into her little book. When she finished, she looked back up to Kris with that impassive, golden-eyed gaze. “Are we free to leave?” he asked when she said nothing.

  “I see no cause to hold you here,” she answered after a moment. “If the Overking has reason to question you…”

  “We’ll be stopping back through here on our way home,” Kris offered when she trailed off. “If His Majesty has any questions, I’ll answer his summons then.”

  The elestram nodded. “Then you are free to go.”

  “Eliza: As always, thank you,” Kris said, being echoed by many of his companions. “I’m not sure how long we’ll be. But we’ll contact you when we get back here, if you’re not already here.”

  “I will likely be back home,” she answered. “The less there is to draw attention to you and your work, the better.”

  Kris nodded, and with that, he gestured for everyone to follow and led them outside. Eliza made her egress before they left the building. Kris had heard stories of Anthraxis and Mehr’Durillia as a whole, but again, stories could only prepare one so much for the stark reality of experience. The blazing, angry sun that bathed the black glass city in a constant barrage of heat was like nothing Kris had ever seen before, even in the deserts of Dannumore. He had seen a great many things, but he had to remind himself that he was on another world altogether, and many of the rules from home might not apply here.

  “The Overking’s palace,” Sonja said, gesturing toward the forty-story obsidian tower at the city’s center. It required a great deal of neck-wrenching to look up at, but Kris wasn’t impressed. Buildings like it were quite common where he was from, and even over in Dannumore, they had some cities with massive structures close to, if not quite the same size as this. At Kris’ questioning glance, the archmage said, “Come; north is this way.”

  “Where we headed, exactly?” Kris asked Sonja as they walked abreast.

  “We have a few options. We can either try to walk through King Morduri’s realm of Pataria, King Emanitar’s realm of Tess’Vorg, or else we can stick to the road between them, which I believe is open territory. Based on what I… heard, I think Kari has a good enough relationship with Morduri now that we can walk through his realm without trouble. There’s a village at the south end called Moskarre that we’ve been to a couple of times; they might be able to tell us for sure.”

  Kris looked around the city as they headed toward the north gate. Harmauths, erestram, and even the odd sylinth made appearances among the more common mallasti and elestram. Kris knew about the larger Mehr’Durillians, but was still stunned by their size, though he didn’t let it show. Of greater interest to him were the valirasi. Though they were shorter than him on average, they could fly, and flying creatures presented an entirely different set of challenges and dangers. How many of them might live in Si’Dorra and how many of those might be used by Arku and Curlamanx to fight off attackers, he wasn’t sure. But it was something he’d have to take into account.

  “Corbanis, can you give me details on what the Order knows about all the different types of Mehr’Durillians when we camp for the night?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Of course,” the Tesconis patriarch agreed.

  “I can aid in that as well,” Liria offered.

  Kris smiled and turned forward again. The city wasn’t crowded, but it was busy, especially near the center. The Anthraxis Council was coming into session soon, Kris knew, and that meant the servants of the kings had a lot of work to do before then. Whatever they had to do, though, very few of them ignored the presence of the large band of rir and humans walking the main thoroughfares of their lord’s capital city. Some were more discrete than others, but virtually none of them failed to take in this interesting party making its way to the north gate.

  It was hard to keep from turning and grinning at them as he walked. There would be a time and a place for that; war with the Overking was coming at some point. Now wasn’t the time, though. Kris was satisfied playing the part of the somewhat-humble traveler, one who would strike back at the lesser kings when they overstepped their bounds while recognizing, however falsely, the power and authority of the Overking. It would take no small amount of planning to bring him down, and the Warlord knew that the most important piece of that puzzle was back home, recuperating.

  It was difficult to keep his mind off of Kari now. Everything circled back to her at some point, whether it was tactics or passion. He was so immensely proud of her as a friend, astounded by how far she had come since the Apocalypse. She was a great fighter and a capable leader then, but now, she bore the mark of Zalkar the Unyielding, served as the Avatar of Vengeance, and had the entirety of the Demonhunter Order under her control. Now, Kris had a very close relationship with someone who commanded an army the likes of which he could use to fight this battle.

  All considerations for the future, he thought. Erik was their priority now, and in the process of freeing him, Kris couldn’t make it too obvious what they were planning on the whole. If the kings caught wind of their true aim, they could preempt nearly anything Citaria could throw at them. Celigus had long warned against any thoughts of invading Mehr’Durillia, such that Kris’ father, Kaelariel, had given it little thought since the Apocalypse. With the acceleration of events, though, that wasn’t going to hold true for long. The Overking and his council were clearly interested in invading Citaria, and that affected everyone, from commoner to deity.

  They reached the north gate, and Kris turned and surveyed the city before him. It was a bastion: Though it operated like an everyday city back home normally, its thick walls
and imposing obsidian tower said that this would be the last holdout even if the entirety of the rest of the world slipped from the Overking’s grasp. The sole weakness still managed to be a strength: It was set in the middle of a flat, open plain, which made siege from all sides possible, but that same open plain made the potential attrition in taking it staggering.

  Kris didn’t have to say a word. The more tactical minds among his companions – Krycyd, Corbanis, and Aeligos at the least – clearly saw what he was seeing. He turned silently and passed through the gates, not even bothering to return the stares of the erestram guards. Kris had his fears, worries, and doubts, but he had long lived by the creed that you never let your enemies see you sweat, even when you did. If they thought you didn’t take them seriously, then at worst, they figured they could fool you; at best, they came to fear you.

  The broad, arid plain on which the Overking’s city sat was barren and stale, baked dry under that relentless sun and devoid of any sort of life that Kris could see. He nodded to Sonja and the archmage took the lead, guiding them steadily toward Pataria to the north. Kris watched those of his companions who weren’t serilian-rir – or half-guardian, more specifically – for signs of fatigue. When the sun set and it seemed a good time to rest, he had them make camp. He’d expected to be able to reach Pataria the same day, but Sonja didn’t seem surprised that they didn’t.

  “King Morduri said there’s no wildlife in the Overking’s realm, and that there is little chance we are bothered by anyone here,” the archmage explained as they began setting up their bedrolls and a cooking fire. There wasn’t much in the way of wood or other things to burn for a fire, but true to form, Sonja created one with a thought, and a pan and a kettle were quickly set up over it.

  Kris looked around at the Silver Blades, impressed with what he saw. No order needed be given: They all did what was required without prompting. Soon their camp was arranged in a wide circle around the fire, and many of his companions even shed their armor and weapons in light of Sonja’s assurance. Kris’ armor was paluric, so he didn’t bother taking it off, but he suspected he wouldn’t be wearing his sword for very long.