by Jeff Kish
“What elemental manipulation are you?” Talkem barks.
“Now, I say! You finally ungag me to-” Talkem aggressively draws his sword, and Ospif changes his attitude. “W-Water shaping! Though I’m afraid my more refined talents are in rune programming.”
“Useless,” he grunts. He marches over to the screaming assassin, still being wrestled into submission by Hyrel. He rips the gag from her mouth and says, “We’re in need of your ice-” She spits at him to cut him off, and Talkem calmly wipes his face. “Perhaps introductions are in order. I am Comman-, well, former-Commander Thayo Talkem of the Valvoran military. A good friend of mine named Corpit Luk secured you and delivered you to me. Perhaps you met him in your travels?”
She curses to herself at the Krypta boss’s name, not to mention her defeat at Tema’s hands.
“And this,” he continues, spreading his arms wide, “is the Third Kingdom, otherwise known as the wastelands to the south. My informant tells me a binding chamber is nearby, but, as you can see, we may need to swim a half-mile to get there.”
Fire tries to get a read on him. “You’re awfully open with all this.”
“Because we will be working together,” he explains. “You and I will soon become inseparable.”
Fire suddenly realizes what he means by ‘binding chamber’, and she yanks on her cuffs once more.
“You are an ice elementalist, correct?” he asks. “And a strong one, I can only presume. You will freeze the swamp so we can walk on it.”
She gives a playful tug on her chains. “I can do that if you remove these.”
“My, so quick to offer your services,” he notes. “We will only be releasing one of your hands, and you will have a knife cutting into you at every move. If you fail to comply with my demands, you will endure a brief torture, and we shall repeat this cycle as often as necessary until you submit.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate me,” Fire warns.
“I would never underestimate a runic,” he assures her.
Hyrel forces her to her knees, unlatches one of the specialized bindings around her hand, and simultaneously twists the newly-freed arm over her head. Fire bites her lip at the pain even as she tries to resist him, but he spins her around and bends her arm into the water. “Now freeze it,” he orders. When Fire continues her struggles, Hyrel withdraws a bright red rune from his pocket. “Ever see one of these?” he asks, holding the rune above her forehead. “It’s always entertaining to shape the elements that make up a person.”
Fire dares him on with unyielding eyes, but Talkem places a hand on Hyrel’s shoulder. “Please don’t break my weapon.”
He shrugs. “Then a less menacing threat is in order.” He swaps the rune out for a knife and rests its blade against her forehead. “If I can’t break it, may I scar it?”
Talkem sighs. “I’d prefer you to conceal any damage.”
Hyrel rolls his eyes at the repeated chastising, but he obediently repositions the blade and presses it into Fire’s underarm. It slices through her garment with ease, and she bites down hard to resist screaming. He gently twists the blade, and though she doesn’t make a sound, it’s clear from her trembling that the pain is severe.
“The torture will stop the instant you freeze the water,” Talkem assures her. “It will also continue until you do so.”
His captive squeezes her eyes shut as her tormentor continues to increase her level of pain by expertly targeting nerves. She can’t stop the tears from flowing as her face twists with agony.
“Impressive resolve,” Talkem comments.
“My longest lasted just under two minutes,” Hyrel brags. “The trick is to ensure the victim remains conscious. It does us no good if she blacks out from the pain.”
Despite his hatred for Fire, Ospif can’t help but be appalled. “You’re Valvorans, aren’t you? Act like civilized men, you brutes!” he cries out.
Talkem turns a nasty glare to him. “Only royal blood could spout such ignorance.”
“Someone approaches!” the Eagle pilot cries out, pointing into the trees.
Alarmed, Hyrel withdraws his dagger, bringing relief to Fire as he scans the horizon. “I don’t see any-”
Talkem holds a finger up to quiet him. He closes his eyes and extends an open palm toward seemingly open space. His brow furrows in focus until his eyes snap open. “Glerym is correct. Someone lurks beyond the tree line.”
“Then we’d best not take any chances,” Hyrel affirms as he withdraws a rune from his pocket. “You might want to look away.”
His allies obey, and Hyrel twists his head as he positions a white rune inches above Fire’s face. Fire realizes what’s coming and squeezes her eyes shut, but her eyelids are incapable of shielding the intensity of the flash rune at point blank range. She screams in agony as her captor releases his hold on her shoulder, and the pilot forces her to her feet.
“Now to see who approaches,” Talkem says. Cupping his hands over his mouth, he shouts, “Come out!”
At first there’s no answer, but then a figure darts between the trees, seemingly running on the swamp’s surface. It becomes apparent that their aggressor bears a sideways cloak that flutters in the wind as he approaches.
“The earth shaper!?” Talkem exclaims. “How is that possible?”
“Must we fight two of these monsters in a single day?” Hyrel asks in disbelief. “Glerym, fire up the sky boat! We must withdraw for now.”
“No,” Talkem says, “he’ll be upon us in moments. We do not have time to escape.” Removing his jacket, he adds, “Besides, I am tired of running, and we may stand a chance if we work together. He is without an arm, after all.”
“Let us hope it makes a difference.” Hyrel clamps Fire’s restraint back on her wrist and warns, “Take care of her, Glerym. It’s on your head if you lose her!”
Fire immediately attempts to fling her head back into the face of her new restrainer, but he dodges the strike while flinging her aside. He stomps on her back and shoves her forehead onto the damp surface of the island. Ospif, meanwhile, seizes the chance to dive into the sky boat, desperate to avoid yet another skirmish.
Hyrel heaves a fireball the moment Era is within range, but the runic dances around the danger while bringing chunks of land to the surface of the swamp with each step, providing himself with plenty of room for maneuvering as he swings wide. When he swerves to make direct attack, Talkem unleashes a powerful blast of wind, which sends Era flying backward, but he catches himself on the rapidly solidifying surface of the swamp water.
Talkem fires another powerful shot, but Era effortlessly raises a wall from his platform to deflect it before continuing his weaving path toward the island. “Have you more of those flash runes?”
“You read my mind,” Hyrel replies as he tosses a small rune into the wind stream. The gale carries it to Era and impacts the water before him, and it detonates with a powerful radius that prompts even its users to shield their eyes.
Era rubs at his eyes, though the indirect blast saved some of his vision. He closes in on the island, maneuvering so as to use the sky boat to cover his approach.
Hyrel climbs to the sky boat’s roof and flings fireballs in rapid succession at his target. Era bats most of them away with ease, but the fire maker can tell the flare rune had its effect. However, as he unleashes another blast, Era allows himself to sink below the surface and disappear into the dark waters surrounding them.
“Did I get him?” Hyrel calls, holding a fireball at the ready.
Talkem watches all around the island in anticipation. “We should be so fortunate.”
As if in response, the ground shakes violently. Crevices form as Era seemingly tries to rip the island in two, and the sky boat tips over from the intensity of the quake, prompting a hasty leap from Hyrel.
The Eagle pilot stumbles from the tremor, giving his pinned captive the chance she needs. Fire lets loose a howl as she twists away and sweeps his legs out as Era’s attack intensifies. Des
pite her blindness, she leaps on him and mercilessly beats him with her bindings until he is no longer conscious.
Hyrel moves to aid his ally, but Era vaults himself from the waters, propelled by an expanding rod of earth attached to the swamp’s floor. He lands in front of Hyrel with a sizeable club, deflects a pair of desperate fireballs, and cracks his weapon over his adversary’s head. Talkem unleashes a gale that nearly blows the runic off the island, but Era attaches his club to the ground to hold himself in place.
Talkem maintains his barrage on Era as Fire snatches Hyrel’s dagger between her boots and flings it at the commander with impressive aim. It grazes his shoulder, causing him to stumble toward the tipped sky boat and trip over the harness spread across the ground. His legs become enwrapped as Era charges in, and the air maker reacts by firing such a powerful volley that his body is flung backward by the force. The entangled harness rips the steel chair from the sky boat as Talkem is violently propelled over the surface of the swamp before sinking into the thick waters.
Era stares after him in disbelief. “I guess that worked out.” He hurries to Fire and looks her over. “Are you hurt?”
She swats him away. “I’m fine.”
“What’s with the attitude?” Era gripes. “I think I just saved- Ah, that’s it, isn’t it? You’re tired of me saving you?”
“Shut up,” she spouts, glancing his direction, but her blindness prevents eye contact. “It’s not that. I’m just blinded from the flash rune.”
“The one they threw at me?”
“The one they triggered in my face.”
“Ouch.”
She raises her bound hands and asks, “Can you find the key?”
Era squats next to their victims and searches pouches and pockets until he finds it. As he works the latches, he watches out over the swamp where his opponent disappeared. “That chair strapped around his legs… You don’t suppose…?”
“Yes, I suppose and hope he’s dead.” When her hands are free, she asks, “The other two are out cold, right?”
“Yeah, right here.”
“Throw them in too.”
Era cracks a smile before it dawns on him how serious she is. “You’re not joking.”
Fire holds her wounded arm up for Era to see. “One of them dug a knife into me. I’m going to return the favor.”
“By killing him?”
She stomps her foot and snaps, “What good are your idiotic ideals? You and I… WE’RE NOT HUMAN! They treat us like… like things! Objects to be controlled! Whatever moral code we had when we thought we were human is a thing of the past. It’s us versus them now. Accept it and drown them.”
His friend’s rant elicits the pain of all Era’s recent mental musings, and he wonders if that isn’t his underlying justification for using Jem the way he has. “You’re right, Fire, but… I can’t give up that part of me. My ideals may not be from my father, but they’re the last part of who I am. I’m not killing anyone.”
Fire sits on the ground to wallow as Ospif pops his head out of the tipped sky boat, aghast at the sight of his runic savior. “By the blood of my ancestors, how do we keep meeting?”
“Ospif!?” Era cries out. “How did you end up out here?”
“How did we get here?” he replies. “We came via sky boat, obviously. How in blazes did you get out here?”
He raises one of his feet and wiggles his muddy toes. “I ran on the water… sort of. Had to shape the swamp’s floor with my feet while-”
“No, you nitwit! How did you travel to these wastelands in the same timespan that it took us to travel by sky boat?”
“Oh. Kind of a train-thing,” he tries to explain. “Jem calls it the Freight Bird.”
“Naturally, that demonic Allerian is with you,” Ospif scowls. “Just what is this business you’ve suctioned me into? What is this ‘runic’ notion everyone keeps carrying on about?”
Era offers a sad smile. “We’re still figuring it out, ourselves. It’s the entire reason we went to Alleria.”
“And dragged me along for the ride. You couldn’t have filled me in?”
“We’re trying to keep it a secret, though plenty of bad guys seem to know about us.” He glances down at Hyrel and Glerym and asks, “So who are these guys? I thought I was chasing after Luk’s men.”
“You don’t recognize their garb?” Fire asks. “Think back to Canterin.”
Era’s eyes bulge. “These are the ones who attacked us?”
“Not these two, but they’re all part of the same group. Luk sold us to them after Tema ambushed us and…” Her breathing escalates as she fails to contain her anger.
“This is it, right?” he asks. “No one else?”
“This is it,” Ospif affirms. “Well, there were more, but only these two made it this far.”
“Plus the air maker guy.”
“He was a commander,” Ospif informs him. “Commander Talkem, specifically, clearly working for personal gain. I hope they have stripped his rank by now.”
“Whoa, so now I’ve fought two of them?” Era realizes.
“Shut up with the pleasant chatting,” Fire cuts in. “Have you been watching for your victim?”
“Watch for him? He’s been under for an eternity, now.”
“He’s an air maker, right? Couldn’t he make air to breathe underwater?” she challenges. “If so he’d still be breathing out, so the bubbles will serve as evidence.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” Era says. “Guess I’ll go for a walk onto the lake-swamp thing.”
“And leave me with this loser?” Fire asks. “I’m coming with you.”
“Works for me.” Era grabs Glerym’s sword and hands it to Ospif. “You’ll stay here and make sure these two don’t wake up.”
“Y-You want me to watch these brigands myself?”
“Sure. They’re unconscious.”
“And if they awaken?”
“That’s why I’m giving you the sword.”
He crosses his arms in contempt. “I refuse to comply with your whimsical and presumptuous authority.”
Fire clamps her hands over Hyrel’s wrists and forms icy shackles, and she does the same to Glerym. “Now they won’t give you trouble. Watch them or I will stab you.”
Ospif reluctantly submits to his fate. He takes the sword and says, “Hurry and go, already.”
Using his bare feet, Era raises an earth bridge from the murky depths, extending toward the last location he saw Talkem. He wipes his brow and says, “Path is set. Can you see it?”
“I can make out shadows,” she says. “I’m fine to walk, but you’ll need to be the eyes.”
“Oh, right,” he says as he leads the way. “Why are you coming, then?”
“Anyone is better company than the royal pain.”
Era scratches his head and says, “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said about me.”
They reach the end of the path, and Era extends his arm to warn Fire. He watches the waters while feeling through the earth that reaches to the swamp floor, but there are enough pieces of debris that a fallen body would be impossible to identify. He raises their earth path higher into the air and helps Fire sit on the floor, her feet dangling over the edge, and he grabs the spot next to her as they watch across the water in awkward silence.
“See anything?” Fire asks. “Bubbles?”
“Nothing yet,” he says. Fire begins doodling in the mud next to her, which catches Era’s attention. Realizing he can get away with it, he stares at her as she mindlessly sketches, and he wonders what their relationship will be now that she is a runic as well. His heart begins to race as her short, dark hair glistens in the sun, its hue matching her blinded, deep blue eyes.
“Anything now?”
“N-Nothing,” Era stutters, swinging his attention back to the water. After a few moments, he asks, “So how are you doing?”
“Are you seriously asking me that?”
“Hey, I know how hard it is, Fire
, because I’ve been there. I’m still there!” She says nothing, and Era watches over the water in frustration. “Do you even have emotions? Is that why it’s easy for you to kill people?”
“Excuse me?”
“You have no problem killing others,” he says. “I keep asking myself ‘why’. I keep thinking you’re not a bad person, that you’re not this killer you think you are.”
“I’m not a killer,” she insists, “but I’m willing to end a life when deserved.”
“Deserved? I mean, I know Tema poisoned your arm, but that hardly seems deserving of death to me. To you, on the other hand, it’s a severe offense.”
“You don’t know me,” Fire whispers, her eyes squeezed shut.
“There’s that, again. I think by now I know you.”
“You don’t,” she insists. “I lied… about Tema.”
“You lied?” he asks in confusion. “About what? You already showed me the wound.”
She slams the ground in frustration. “Why? Why do I care so much about what you think?” She looks to him with unfocused eyes and admits, “Tema… She didn’t just poison me.”
“Oh?”
“That scammer, Orlan… Hallie didn’t leave me over that incident. His little stunt angered me. Frustrated me. I wanted a bigger job, to regain standing in the eyes of the market.” Her voice trails, but she squeaks out, “Hallie would have been fine to climb back over time, but I… I wanted it faster than that.”
“So what happened?”
She pulls her knees up and buries her head into her arms. “We took on the highest-level job we could get. A town mayor set up a laundering operation and was funneling money and goods to the Allerians. Traitorous rat was wanted dead or alive.”
Leaning in, Era is once more taken by the facets of Fire’s past. “An assassination?”
Fire remains stoic. “No, not an assassination. We planned to take him alive. All things considered, it was a job we probably could have handled. But, then, nothing on the market is ever as easy as it should be.” She explains, “The mayor had made enemies on both sides of the border and, as it turns out, the Allerians didn’t want him alive. Tema planned her hit on the mayor the same night we raided his manor.”
