by Arden Ellis
"Sers," Kenilworth addressed Wright and Kai, "you see before you Scholar Preston, finest of my alchemists; the cause of all this trouble, and if we are lucky, the end of much more."
Preston turned back to Wright. His right arm rose—stiffly, with limited motion—to clasp his leather satchel before him. He spoke meticulously, quiet but not timid. "I understand your skepticism, ser knight. From the very beginning people have sought protection from the curse in the most unlikely of places, chasing tales of magical shrouds and healing cups. But this is no fairy-tale relic. The Counteragent is a matter of science."
"Science? What use is that?" Wright struggled to level her tone. "It is alchemists such as yourself who have long said that the curse will endure forever."
"It's not a curse," Preston said patiently. "Merely an artificial airborne agent composed of bio-mechanical particles that break down the chemical bonds present in what our ancestors knew as 'plastic'. Where our bodies die and decay, their creation was eternal; before long it was choking the world. What we call the curse was our ancestors' attempt at saving themselves. And just as they created it, we can bring it to an end."
There were many priests who would name such sentiments the highest blasphemy, but Wright had never been religious. Whether the ones that came before were gods or men scarcely mattered to her. They'd cursed the world, and that was that. But there was a glint in Preston's eyes that made it hard to dismiss him. With a slow breath to ground her in this bizarre new reality, Wright forced her questions down.
"The gods, as you call them, never intended to destroy their world," Preston continued. "I have spent my life studying their manuscripts, those which could be salvaged—after the agent they dispersed throughout the atmosphere began to turn against them, every one of their scholars fought to stop it."
"They clearly failed," Kai muttered.
"True. But their efforts were not wholly in vain." Gingerly, Preston opened the flap of his bag and drew forth a sheath yellowed paper, as thin and crinkled as dry leaves. "These pages were recovered from within a godsruin near the edge of our borders. They tell of a research facility off the coast, on what is now Lord Tintagel's land, in which they were testing methods of mitigating the worst of the chemical's effects."
Wright raised an eyebrow. "And they created the Counteragent?"
Preston hesitated. "Well. That is more difficult to determine. At the time these reports were dispatched, they claim to have made a breakthrough in deactivating the active agents of the curse; it is entirely possible they succeeded."
Wright frowned. "If they had, why wouldn't they have brought such a cure forward decades ago?"
"That is what you are being sent to find out." Lord Kenilworth leaned forward in his seat. The light was fading; only the sharp lines of his face were visible in the gloom. "Ser Kai confirmed the existence of their research facility; we wish to know what happened to their work. If there is the slightest chance they discovered protection against the curse, we have no choice but to pursue it."
His eyes slid between the four people before him: Wright, Kai, Preston, and Silva. They lingered the longest on the last. "I have no desire to place the fate of such a crucial mission in the hands of a sellsword," he said flatly. "Ser Wright may have promised your life, but I see no reason not to throw you in a cell until their task is complete."
"That is certainly within your right," Silva said. "However, if you wish for the mission to actually succeed, it will take more than a sword-swinging drunkard to blunder around until she finds it, even if you send a babysitter."
"This 'sword-swinging drunkard' nonetheless succeeded in penetrating deep into enemy territory and retrieving essential intelligence," Kai snapped.
"And then was promptly captured."
"Enough," Kenilworth said firmly. "You are offering your services as a guide?"
"My knowledge of the land and its defenses will prove essential, I assure you." Silva paused, and inclined her head. "For a price, of course."
Wright bit her tongue—surely the lords wouldn't consider entrusting the success of such a mission to a blackmailing mercenary? And yet Warwick waved an idle hand, unconcerned. "Whatever Tintagel was paying you, we can double it. But only on the safe return of our fine knights here—and the alchemist that they will be escorting."
"You're sending him with us?" Kai's gaze slid over to Preston with scarcely veiled disdain. "With all due respect, lords, dragging a scholar across the leagues of enemy territory between us and our destination will make completing our mission doubly difficult."
"I assure you, ser knight, I am more than capable of holding my own." Preston spoke before either of the lords had the chance, his voice mild and his eyes hard. "I have some experience with missions in the field. I will not slow you down."
For a moment, Kai met his eyes in an open challenge. When his gaze did not waver, she snorted and looked away. "You had best hope you don't."
At last, Lord Kenilworth seemed satisfied. He turned to Kai and Wright. "This mission must be carried out in utter secrecy; I need not say what could happen should our enemies discover such a powerful tool first. Take your rest tonight; you leave before dawn tomorrow."
With that, they were dismissed. Warwick rose first, beckoning for Kai to follow her down the stairs; Preston and Silva quickly followed, the guards close on their heels. Silva would sleep with a watch on her door tonight.
"Ser Wright," Kenilworth said as she rose to leave. "Remain with me."
Apprehension curling in the pit of her stomach, Wright lingered before the dais until the room was clear of all but the remaining guards. She stood at attention, her jaw tight and her eyes cast down. As a child she would stand in this very spot, reciting her knowledge on everything from battle tactics to geography beneath his sternly paternal gaze. She had lived for the flicker of a kind smile on his face when she proved herself time and time again. Now, he looked on her with something worse than anger: disappointment.
"This is the second time you have failed me, Ser Wright."
"My lord," she addressed him formally. "If I acted rashly in granting the sellsword safe passage, if I did not perform your will—"
"It is hardly relevant now, ser knight." Kenilworth said with a sigh. "Silva has outmaneuvered us. We must hope that your error in judgement will work in our favor. Still, you must watch her closely—and save an eye for your fellow knight, as well. Tenuous allies Lord Warwick and I may be, but that mad dog of hers is not to be trusted."
He stood up and stepped off the dais, settling a hand on Wright's shoulder. Without the benefit of her armor, his fingers squeezed her flesh like a vise. "Our alchemist seeks great knowledge, as is natural. But there is power to be found in the relics of which he speaks—power over the curse, the greatest force in our world. That is your true mission. Nothing else matters. Whatever you discover, you will see it returned to me—and me alone." He stared into her eyes, the same hard expression on his face that he had worn when her training with the lance or the sword had fallen short of his expectations. "Warwick is a powerful ally, but I believe you understand her true nature as well as I do. We cannot allow her to obtain such a weapon, and risk her using it against us."
Wright forced her face to remain as neutral as she was able. "I would guess that at this very moment Lord Warwick is instructing her knight to do the same, my lord."
Kenilworth smiled at her; normally such a gesture was a prize to be cherished. "I would imagine you are right. But if it comes to the sword, we both know which of you is the better knight."
Wright bowed her head. The gesture helped hide the doubt in her eyes. "I will see it done."
He nodded, a smile on his lips. "I am sure you will, ser. I admit, your most recent failure to quash that raiding party did give me cause to doubt—but this shall be your opportunity to redeem yourself."
Unbidden, the same excuses she had offered in their last meeting sprang to her lips once more. "My lord, if you will—they were only starving villagers, refu
gees from a town swallowed up by a wandering curse. They stole out of necessity. Their deaths would have accomplished nothing."
For a moment, she thought that Kenilworth would reprimand her once again. But he only smiled, shaking his head sadly as he patted her on the back. "Your gentle nature does you credit, ser. But the reason behind a crime is no excuse for the crime itself. The penalty for stealing from my reserves is death. We must deal in absolutes—the smallest crack in our resolve will allow chaos to worm back in." His hand fell away—he stepped back towards the throne. "Do not hesitate this time, Wright. The sellsword, Ser Kai—even the alchemist—you must think of them only as tools, or as obstacles. And obstacles must be removed."
Wright inclined her head once more. This time, her expression was totally blank. "Yes, my lord."
A gentle touch beneath her chin raised her head again. For a moment, the image of Kenilworth as the stern but just lord was gone. His eyes were kind. "You have always been like a daughter to me, Wright. The best of all my lost children. I have no doubt that you will succeed."
She held his gaze with the fervency born from a lifetime chasing moments such as these. "I will not fail you," she whispered, and when she bowed to kiss his ring her words seemed to linger against the cold stones like a prayer.
She left quickly, her palms slick with sweat as she hurried through the heavy doors into the dark hush of the waiting chamber beyond. But it was not utterly silent, for she was not alone. The sound of quiet voices made Wright turn, and she marked Warwick and Kai lingering in a far corner of the room. The torches had yet to be lit; there was only the blue gloom of dusk from the windows to see by. Based on the set of Kai's jaw and the tone of Warwick's voice, Wright was willing to bet that Kai's own upbraiding was well underway.
At that moment, Warwick glanced to the side and caught Wright watching. Her mouth became a thin line. She made a final sharp comment to Kai before sweeping away, her own guards staying at a more discreet distance and abandoning Kai in the shadows.
For a moment Wright considered doing the same. When Kai met her gaze there was an edge in her eyes, anger and shame and some unnamed, consuming emotion that made the hairs on the back of Wright's neck prickle. But then it was gone, whisked away beneath the cover of Kai's customary smirk.
"Enjoying the show?" she said, approaching Wright with a swagger in her step. She stopped a short distance away, leaning on the wall and crossing her arms over her chest. The dim light from the high windows blurred the angles of her face, her dark hair hanging like a curtain around it, getting in her eyes. She didn't brush it away. Wright repressed the inexplicable urge to do it for her.
"It's nothing you don't deserve," Wright said coldly. "Failing your mission was one thing. Drinking yourself through half of Lord Tintagel's wine reserves was quite another."
Kai snorted and turned her head, balanced between dismissal and irritation. "At least I did not present a faithless mercenary with all she needed to blackmail both our lords into allowing her to come on a crucial mission."
"You would murder a messenger to cover up your own mistakes?"
Again, that wild anger flashed behind Kai's eyes. She pushed away from the pillar and took a step closer, so close Wright could feel the air stirring with each breath. "Your own lord was considering it until your bloody honor foiled his plans."
"Lord Kenilworth follows the Code. I wouldn't expect you to understand that."
Kai opened her mouth, a retort clearly on the tip of her tongue. But something made her stop. She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, staring at Wright in cold amusement. "You really are a fool if you think that honor will get you anywhere."
Wright's laugh rang cruelly on the stone walls. "It is enough if it keeps me from becoming like you."
Kai blinked. It seemed a flicker of real pain crossed her face before she raised a hand to her brow. "Blessed gods," she muttered. "How will we survive each other?"
Wright turned and left her without another word.
CHAPTER THREE
A cool blue fog hung over the hills in the predawn hours as the four riders set out. Silva had retrieved her pistol, sword, and battered armor, carved with sigils as well as battle-marks; Preston carried no weapon except a wooden staff strapped to his saddle. Not many saw them go, and those who did watched their strange company in askance: an alchemist, a sellsword, and two rival knights.
Kai had showed up to saddle her horse up red-eyed and sullen, but otherwise as fit for duty as Wright dared hoped for her to be. Her short hair was scraped back into a tie at her nape, and she wore only her usual clothing of dark cotton and leather. From the clank and heft of her saddlebags, she was not such a fool as to leave her armor behind. As they set off towards the very lands that had defeated her, Kai's silence was as permeating as the damp in the air. Preston and Silva followed her example—the only sound was the soft clink of their horse's hooves on the cracked black road.
Wright's eyes scanned the thicket beside the path, reins held tightly though they were still within the bounds of Kenilworth's land. Nowhere was truly safe. It was a fact that all denizens of the cursed world learned early and learned well.
The road they took was well-traveled at first, a sporadic stream of traffic heading to and from Kenilworth Castle. They passed traders and their carts laden with hand-crafted goods, scavengers toting leather sacks full of godthings, farmers and their families herding goats to be sold on the market. Abandoned automobiles dotted the sides of the road, some still surrounded by the faint distortion of the curse; as they made their way farther from the central city, they passed a group of people in ragged clothing struggling to push a car the rest of the way off the road. Chains rattled around their ankles. Their overseer stood nearby, watching the travelers with a blank gaze. The prisoners did not so much as raise their heads.
Many already bore evidence of the curse's touch, the iridescent scars creeping up their legs and arms where the dangers of their labor sentence had left its mark on them. The starving raiders who Wright had spared would likely have seen such a fate. Wright could still recall their gaunt faces in perfect detail, the dull sheen of utter hopelessness in all of their eyes. Some of them were no more than children, starving, desperate for whatever food they could find.
Wright forced herself to sit straighter in the saddle, her gaze high and remote. The failure had been hers, for ignoring her lord's will. Without justice, there could be no order. If the words rang hollow, she would simply have to keep repeating them.
On their third day of steady travel, they reached the final outpost on the edge of Kenilworth's land. It was an old village, dating back to the years just after the fall of the gods. No one understood the nature of the curse back then, and so they fled into the woods far from any godsruin that might bear its corruption. Newer towns might spring up clustered around a consecrated ruin, to take advantage of the existing structure; the houses here were wood and sod rather than salvage, squatting low to the ground and hairy with moss, tendrils of smoke rising from their chimneys.
From the moment they passed the opening in the wall of stone and cultivated brambles that circled the settlement, Kai immediately looked at home. Her eyes lit up as she eyed the sagging mud-brick facades crowded against the muddy road, the idle people that stood with pipes clenched between their teeth in the shadow of their eaves. This was her element, a hard place of hard vices—Wright, on the other hand, clenched the reins tighter in her gauntleted hand. The air was full of dust from pelts and rugs being beaten clean, the smell of venison cooking over a fire mingling sickeningly with the scent of melting hooves for glue. No friendly smiles here. There were knives on every belt, and even a few guns; though Wright would wager they had stopped working long ago, serving now only as a deterrent.
Before they had even passed the gate, a child with her legs sitting atop the low wall took one look at Preston and gasped. Without a word she hopped off her perch and tore off into town, out of sight. Wright and Preston exchanged a look; she
shifted her cloak so that her hand-and-a-half sword was visible to all, within easy reach of her sword arm. She could feel the eyes of the villagers watching the slow gait of their horses down the dirt road.
They had not made it far into town before the child reappeared, leading a gruff-looking man who walked with a limp behind her. Wright and her companions reigned in their horses as he approached, but unlike many of the townsfolk, he carried no weapons.
He nodded a silent greeting to Wright before turning to Preston. His eyes flicked to the brand on his shaved scalp. "You an alchemist?"
Preston glanced at Wright, but she saw no apprehension in his gaze. "I am."
The man nodded—Wright saw the child tighten her grip on his hand. "Your timing is fortuitous. We've a problem with our well."
"Your well?" Preston frowned. "I'm afraid I have little experience with—"
"We fear it's the curse." The man shifted his feet, planted his cane more firmly in the soft dirt. "This morning, we found the body of a traveler beside our well. Half his jaw clear melted off. None of us have dared draw water until we can have it tested."
At once Preston straightened, swinging out of the saddle and fumbling for his bags. "Any others affected yet?"
"No. We sent a messenger out this morning. Our water reserves should keep us for a while, but last time we needed to test a new plot of land we waited for three weeks for an alchemist from the keep."
"I understand. I can take a sample of the water, determine if it can be cleansed—" He turned back to Wright. "I'll need time."
Farstride tossed his head nervously, and Wright patted the side of his neck with a resolve she did not feel. "Go. We'll meet you when we've finished here. And Preston," she said, spurring Farstride closer as he hesitated. She leaned forward with a glance at the villagers. "Watch your back—we may not be on enemy lands, but safety is far behind us."
