The two Urumi ignored his questions.
“Who did you find this time?” the Chosen inquired. He did not appear pleased with her.
“The boy’s father was losing the family shipping business. He worried about feeding his family. I convinced him that we would save it,” she harrumphed. The strength of the man’s desperation had drawn her to him. Even though her current mission, assigned her by the Chosen, was one of great import to the Urumi, her instinct, while not technically violating the Chosen’s orders, had told her to deviate from it. The decision had paid off. It had been easy for her dark figure – Urumi did not reveal their true forms to outsiders – to convince the man to give up his oldest child. He needed to feed the others; the man had no way of knowing that soon after his son’s Transmutation occurred, the deal would be void. Then, an even greater calamity would befall him, consigning him to the underworld. It was how the deal worked.
“He has reached the age of Transmutation. It is time,” the Chosen said simply. The Fragment was no longer required to complete the Transmutation after the first Urumi had been created.
Unceremoniously, the woman grabbed the boy by the shoulders.
“What’s happening? Let me go!” the boy whined.
The woman did not comply. Her Chosen moved towards the boy, placing a hand on top of his head with fingers outstretched. A bloodred energy emanated from them. The boy stopped fidgeting instantly. Slowly his figure began to grow darker. Eventually, only a shadow remained where the boy had been. The Chosen removed his hand. The shadow moved slightly and the boy reappeared. This time clad in black robes. He held a cape in one of his hands and a coiled sword in the other. Unlike before, his face was stoic and completely dry.
“Welcome to the Order of the Urumi,” the Chosen intoned.
The boy bowed with dignified acquiescence. He was now an Urumi; his soul was enslaved. He had one purpose: to fight for the glorification of his Dark Prince and be banned to His underworld at the end of his days. Never again would he know another dawn as a free person. There was nothing to be done but accept it.
The boy straightened and walked silently out of the grotto. The young woman remained.
The Chosen stared at her expectantly.
“Is there something more,” he said. It was not a question.
“While I was in Calcutta, law enforcement announced a search for a girl. It matched the description of one of the persons apparently working with the Society at our Invisible Circus. The one who disappeared shortly after. I checked with our latest client.” She moved her head in the direction the boy had gone. “His father told me that a girl matching that description bought a ticket from his company. She has left India.”
The Urumi’s leader nodded wisely. “You believe she may have the Fragment. What of the others?”
“Still in Madras, where I was shadowing them.”
His brow furrowed. “It could be a ruse by the Society, meant to throw us off track.”
The blue-eyed one shook her head. She did not understand why her Dark Prince had selected him as the Chosen. Clearly, she was far more intelligent. The Urumi warrioress envied his position. As long as she was consigned to the Order of the Urumi, she could have at least occupied the position that her abilities merited.
“Respectfully, my Chosen, I do not think so. The girl is fast. Eerily so for a human.” The female Urumi’s free hand moved to the shoulder that had been injured in the fight with the girl and her friends. While by no means one of the eldest of the Urumi, she was widely acknowledged for her speed and agility; she had been surprised that the mixed-race girl had been able to hold her own against the superhuman powers of the Shadow Warriors. The blond-haired one continued with her reasoning:
“True, the young man who was at the Invisible Circus is an excellent marksman. But, he can’t carry a gun with him everywhere he goes. Besides, he never had a chance to search for the Fragment at our event.”
The Chosen of the Urumi nodded again. “Still, we should guard against the possibility. Did your latest client say where this girl went?”
“San Francisco. She won’t arrive for two months.”
“Very good. When she arrives you’ll be there to intercept her.”
The milk-skinned Urumi was annoyed with her Chosen’s last statement. It was the obvious course of action. Yet, he’d pronounced it as if he’d handed her a revelation. She nodded obediently.
“In the meantime, I have another assignment for you.” He paced back and forth slowly as he continued. “In case the young man does have the Fragment, we must devise a way of compelling him to choose to give it to us. For what I have in mind, we will need to enlist a free soul to aid us.” Stopping, he looked at the altar. “It has been handed down to me from our Dark Prince that there is one person in a position to do our bidding who would be, at this point, particularly receptive to what we have to offer.”
Again, the female Urumi was put off. Not only did she doubt that the son of the Polish engineer had the Fragment, it was pointless to waste time actively attempting to manipulate him into handing over an object he most likely did not have. Or, she knew, would not give if he did.
She regarded the Chosen. Just past the age of Transmutation, he hadn’t even been an Urumi for long enough to bring in even one new recruit when he was selected. She wished that he would just tell her his plan, so that she could evaluate its viability. Somehow, she expected that he would be difficult.
“May I ask what you have in mind, My Chosen?”
He turned and looked directly at her. His eyes were stone cold.
“We will reveal our commands to you only when we believe it to be necessary.”
There was nothing she could do about it. The Chosen was the one to whom the Dark Prince and His six followers chose to speak. Still, if he actually did have a plan, he could at least tell her what it was. She wished that she could demand outright that she be told.
But she couldn’t. She was an Urumi now, created by the Chosen to obey him and the Dark Prince’s pantheon. Her free will had been subsumed. She didn’t hate the Dark Prince for it. She did, however, blame her father. His greed had wrenched her from the only home she’d ever known. Thinking back to when she had officiated at the Invisible Circus on that night when the powers of the Fragment had almost been unleashed in glory of the Dark Prince, she still felt that the captured Russian noble’s likely execution by the colonial authorities for espionage and incitement to rebellion would be far too quick and merciful for his greatest crime – enslaving his daughter.
Steeling herself for what was to come, Bozhena Alexevna Lubomirskaya looked back at her cult’s leader and asked, “Apologies, My Lord, may I at least enquire as to who this free soul is?”
With a cold smile on his face, Ziya al-Din bin Mohammed Ahmad told her.
Five
Stanislaw Tarkowski sat at a desk shoved into a corner of the attic of St. Thomas’s School. He was hunched over a piece of paper, the results of his latest Greek examination, which could best be described as a veritable sea of red ink. Next to him, Stas’s English friend, Mungo Gellhorn-Jones, was attempting to help Stas understand his teacher’s corrections:
“It’s because you’re using the incorrect verb tense. You should have been writing these sentences in the subjunctive past-progressive.”
“Did we ever go over that?” Stas asked, craning his neck and staring up at a corner of the room as if trying to remember.
“No,” Mungo admitted. “We learned it right before you got here.” He had been attempting to help his Slavic friend to catch up with his studies. But, because most of Stas’s lessons and classes were now over a year beyond his level of scholastic achievement, it was a difficult task trying to get the new arrival to complete his assignments, while giving him the necessary cumulative knowledge to understand them.
Suddenly, Stas stood up from his chair and moved quickly to the other side of the room. Looking at the floor, he began to pace back and forth rapidly.
“I know it seems difficult now, Stanley,” Mungo replied, “but this is the best school in Madras. Don’t you want to have a proper education? Knowledge of world languages?”
Stas shook his head.
“Mungo,” he went on derisively, “I am fluent in five separate languages. And all of them are spoken in the world today. Learning a dead language, so that I can read a bunch of philosophers who died two millennia ago…. It’s so...so...asinine.”
Mungo, the scion of a prominent English family, frowned. “What are you going to do knowing some African dialect? Learning ancient Greek is part of a proper English liberal education.”
“I’m not English!” Stas snapped at him. His voice had almost been a shout. The sandy-haired youth sighed and continued pacing. In some ways, knowing Swahili had kept him and Nell alive during the second part of their odyssey in Africa.
“Oh? What are you then?” Mungo said with a defensive chuckle. He intended the question as a bit of friendly ribbing, attempting to use the question that he’d originally employed to taunt Stas, when he had first come to the school, to diffuse the situation.
Stas stopped and glared at his red-haired schoolmate.
“Don’t,” he said at length. Stas turned and walked to one of the armchairs that had been brought to the attic from the director’s office only a few weeks ago. He collapsed into it and, sighing deeply, threw the pen he’d held in his right hand lazily onto the threadbare carpet.
“Stanley, what’s wrong with you?” Mungo asked. Although he had teased Stas about his country of origin during the month after the non-Briton’s arrival at St. Thomas’s and over the weeks and events since, Mungo had come to feel sure that Stas knew he no longer held the young Tarkowski in lower esteem. Still, it was true that on the way to Pondicherry, they had clashed over the rightfulness of the Crown’s claim to the diamond; it had annoyed Mungo that Stas could suggest that the people of India’s claim was at least equally valid. No loyal subject of the Empire should think that way, the red-haired boy told himself.
Stas had wanted to save Nell first. He and Malka had split off from Mungo and his father once they had reached Pondicherry, agreeing to pursue their separate goals. As it turned out, the whereabouts of the stone remained unknown, and the attempts of Mungo and his father to procure it hadn’t conflicted with saving Nell’s life. Although, Mungo thought sadly, his father had gone to his grave in the process. The two boys had not talked of their argument since the night on which they’d had it.
At first, Stas remained silent. It had been about two weeks since the discussion he’d had with his own father. But, Stas had not told his friend about the engineer Tarkowski’s plans of sending him to Switzerland. In fact, he had tried not to think about it, even as the prospect gnawed at him constantly.
Mungo sighed briefly, his freckle-covered face a mixture of concern and exasperation.
“Stanley, I can tell something’s bothering you. You don’t normally give up so easily. These entire past couple of weeks you’ve been…,” Mungo paused, looking for an appropriate word, “moody,” he continued quickly. “It’s like you’ve lost your confidence. Just tell me what’s going on.”
Another silence. Finally, Stas opened his mouth to speak, deciding he’d have to tell Mungo eventually. He just wasn’t sure his English friend would understand.
“My father. He’s sending me away from Madras.” Hearing himself say it out loud made the elder Tarkowski’s decision feel disturbingly real.
“Why? That doesn’t make any sense. With your marks? It’s only the first third of the school year.” Mungo sounded confused.
“That’s part of the whole problem,” Stas informed him. “He said he would wait until the end of the winter term. Then he’s sending me to Switzerland.” Resentment could be heard in his voice.
“Great. Then we have the whole rest of the year to get your marks up and change his mind,” the red-haired youth ventured hopefully.
Staring at the floor, Stas shook his head.
“No. It won’t.”
“Why not? If your father thinks that you can’t achieve here, we’ll bring your marks up. Then….”
“Then he’ll send me to Switzerland anyway. He thinks that my adventures in Africa and our recent expedition mean that the colonies aren’t enough of a ‘stable environment.’ According to him, our trip shows that I’m not responsible enough to be in a place like this.” Stas paused and then added in a lower voice. “Never mind that we saved Nell and the entire Indian subcontinent.” He got up from the armchair and resumed pacing.
Mungo frowned as he listened to his friend’s tirade. Now he knew that Stanley was really bothered by his father’s decision. In the six weeks he’d known Stanley, the Brit had never known him to be sarcastic. At the same time he began to feel a pang of annoyance.
At least you still have a father, he thought. His eyebrows rose as he processed Stas’s last statement.
“You didn’t tell him about….” Mungo was afraid to say it out loud, even though they were apparently alone. Still, it was apparent what he was talking about. “Did you?”
“Of course not. I couldn’t risk it.”
Something occurred to Mungo. It didn’t sound to him as if going to Switzerland was the calamity Stas made it out to be.
“Stanley,” he asked at length. “What are you so afraid of?”
The youth to whom Mungo had directed the question stopped. For the first time since their discussion began, he looked at Mungo directly in the eye.
“When I first came to St. Thomas’s, did you accept me?”
“Well, I suppose at first….” Mungo didn’t want to admit that he’d looked down on the newcomer with a suspect national pedigree. He gathered his thoughts and continued. “Look, Stanley. I regret the way I treated you when you first arrived. I thought you knew that. You’ve earned my respect.”
“Not until I knocked you on your behind to get it. And do you? Really? Do even bother trying to use my real name? And what about that first month after I got here? Would you have treated me the same way if I were English?”
Taken aback, Mungo opened his mouth to respond. Stas, however, didn’t give him a chance.
“Then there’s your father. He was convinced that I was a Russian spy just because of my name. Do you actually think I want to go to an entire country full of people like that?”
Now it was Mungo’s turn to be angry. Always having had a rather formal relationship with his father, he’d taken the man’s death rather well. Yet, it was difficult for him to hear his Slavic friend discount – if not untruthfully – his father’s memory, while in the same breath complain of his own father’s decision.
“My father died saving your life.” Mungo raised his voice in astonishment.
Stas initially opened his mouth, intending to retort. It had only been after a true Russian agent – Prince Alexey Lubomirski – had captured him and Mungo that the police chief had intervened, giving his life in the process. Stas was angry and frustrated; yet, he realized how his last statement must have sounded to his friend. He hadn’t meant to come across so callously.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” He continued in a quieter voice. “You’re right. Your father did save me and I’m very grateful for that.” He went silent for a few seconds as he turned away from Mungo, facing a shuttered window. The sun let through its slats cast bands of light across his face.
“But the truth is he never recognized me as an equal, never as worthy of the same respect. The same trust. And neither do you.” Stas thought back to his days in Egypt. He, his father, and Nell’s family had been some of the few Europeans at the Suez Canal site in Port Said, most of the British administrators preferring to live in larger Cairo or Alexandria. The majority of his classmates at the English school he had attended there had been the
children of Egyptian administrators. Outside of that, Stas’s free time had been spent either with Nell, or around the canal workers who came from all over Africa. He had been considered something of an anomaly; never actually considered one of them. Yet, they had respected him and even, he liked to think, looked up to him. The reception he’d received when he’d moved to Alexandria and then Madras had been a shock.
“Stanley...Shtas,” Mungo attempted to correct himself, mutilating the pronunciation of the short form of Stanislaw. “I’m sorry if you think we made you feel unwelcome. But you’re not British. You have to expect some different treatment from those who aren’t your countrymen. The distinction would be meaningless otherwise.”
The Egypt-born youth continued facing the shuttered window. He sighed.
“Who are my countrymen, Mungo?” From Stas’s tone it was clear that he didn’t expect his friend to provide an answer. Mungo remained silent. The quiet hung thickly in the air, like the question Stas had posed.
“Don’t you get it?” he continued. “No matter where I go I’m a foreigner. A man with no country, raised in a manner completely alien to any of his nation, yet not one of those he grew up with. If what you say is true, where can I go where I won’t be treated like an inferior? A second-class citizen?
“At least in Port Said….” He paused nostalgically. “At least there it didn’t matter. Even here, I was able to find some measure of belonging. But if this is how I’m viewed in a far corner of the Empire, tell me, how do you think I will be received in a place like Fribourg?”
Another silence. Finally, Mungo approached his friend slowly.
“Shash,” he tried, again getting the pronunciation wrong. “I don’t have any good answers for you. Maybe that’s just how it is.” Putting a hand on Stas’s back, he continued, “What I do know is that I consider you a friend, and that I’m willing to help you with school so that, maybe, at the end of the term, you won’t have to find out.”
Outcast_Keepers of the Stone_Book One Page 5
