by Eddie Han
“Just because you’re a citizen, it doesn’t make you innocent. Only a citizen can commit treason. Your contact with the Samaeli and the fact that you’re not dead either makes you a liar or one of them. If you’re lying, you’re a fool. If one of them, you’re a traitor. We think you’re a traitor. And traitors have one thing waiting for them—the gallows, unless you’re willing to cooperate. Now tell us about these killings, your role in them, and disclose the location of the Samaeli.”
“I don’t know! How many times do I have to say it? You have the wrong guy. Yes. I saw the Samaeli because the Fat Fox forced me to open the breaker. I had no idea what was being transported. I didn’t know what they were when I saw them. I never even heard of the Samaeli until someone told me. That’s it. The whole thing, I wanted no part of it. That’s all I know.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Sentinel Helell walked up from behind Dale and drove a syringe into the side of his neck. As his vision blurred, Dale’s last cohesive thought was, I can’t believe I’m being poisoned again. This time he did not black out. But as the drug took full effect, Dale wished he had. Unlike the effects of somnidrone, whatever was injected in him put him into a heightened, sensory nightmare. It was as if the drug stripped Dale’s body of its ability to acclimate and dull its senses—the very ability to make living tolerable. Under the drug’s influence, the clothing was heavy, scratchy; the shackles cut on his wrists and weighed down on his ankles; the sentinels’ voices were like shrill screams. Everything was spiked to extremes. With no reprieve, Dale’s mind began to fragment. Time seemed to pass in staccato. He blinked and he was no longer in a chair. Instead, he hung from the ceiling, shackled by the wrists, naked.
Sentinel Walsh had in his hand a cat o’ nine tails. He vanished behind him. There was a crack. Dale cried out. The sting turned to a burn. The sentinel re-appeared. He asked some questions. Dale couldn’t understand the questions. Disoriented and writhing in pain, Dale blurted out things to try to make the whole thing stop. He didn’t know what he was saying. The incoherent babbling did not satisfy the sentinels. Another crack. And another. More questions. More random babbling. More lashings. Then suddenly the lashes stopped. Both sentinels were in Dale’s face, a stalactite of saliva hanging from his chin.
“What did you say?”
They struggled to get his attention.
“Hey! Did you say Enlil Fairchild?”
It was a name Dale had heard while under the spell of somnidrone the night before. He wasn’t aware he had slipped the name or why.
“What about him?” the sentinels continued. “Did he hire the Samaeli? Is he the next mark?”
Norman slapped him.
Just then, Champion Alaric Linhelm came barging through the door with Sir Thomas Grail.
“What in the Maker’s name do you think you’re doing?” Alaric shouted.
There was a lot of shouting.
The sentinels were cornered and stripped of the whip and their medical bag.
“Don’t come in here and tell me how to do my job when you failed at your own!” Sentinel Walsh shouted. “You’re in over your head, templar. Let us get the answers we need from our prisoner and—”
“This man ceased to be your prisoner when you brought him here! I must remind you, Sentinel, that you are on sovereign ground. Ground under the dominion of the Holy Order of the Benesanti. In accordance with the Mizraheen Treaty, the authority of the Republic is abnegated within these temple walls. That means this is no longer your prisoner. He’s mine.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Beg all you want. But do it on your soil. Thomas, show them out.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“This isn’t over, templar. You’ll be hearing from the Command Directorate.”
When they were ushered out, Alaric approached the half-conscious Dale.
“M’lord…forgive me,” stammered the templar guard who had been watching the inquisition from afar. “I didn’t know—”
With his good eye still fixed on Dale, Alaric addressed the templar guard. “Summon a cleric. Get him cleaned up and properly treated. If this one dies of an infection, you’ll be hanging from this ceiling.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“And I want a full report of what he disclosed to those barbarians.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
Alaric stormed out.
The templar guard released Dale from the chains and gently laid him down on the stone floor. Then he injected him with a tranquilizer.
CH 29
CHARLES VALKYRIE
Dale was on his stomach, lying on a cot. He was groggy and shirtless. A damp towel had been placed on his wounds. It did nothing to ease the throbbing, burning sensation. When he gathered his wits about him, he sat up and looked around. It was another holding cell—concrete walls, an iron door, a wire-guarded light on the ceiling, a washbasin and faucet beside the cot, and a toilet along the far wall.
He heard whistling from the next cell over.
Dale sighed. “Shit.”
The whistling stopped.
“You all right in there?”
“No. Who are you?”
“You can call me Charles Valkyrie. You?”
“Dale.”
“Well met, Dale. Wish it were under different circumstances.”
“What day is it?”
“The evening of the third.”
There was still time before the Harvest Festival but time was running out. And he still had to make sure the Shawls had heeded his warning and were long departed from Carnaval City. He then had to get word to Darius at the Ancile.
Dale got up and began a close examination of his cell. Starting with the door, he worked his way looking high and low throughout the cell. Other than a food hatch in the door that could only be opened from the outside, there was no sign of structural vulnerability. Dale sat back on the cot, put his head in his hands, and sighed deeply.
“Man, I feel like shit.”
“You got the serum.”
“Serum?”
“A chemical compound designed to extract truth. That’s what they stuck you with. A closely guarded secret even within the SSC. Consider yourself lucky, kid. A cat to the back is a hell of a lot worse without it. Although you do pay for that numbing with a piece of your mind.”
It was true. As much as Dale tried to command his mind to focus, he could not do it. The part of him that was aware of the gravity of the situation urged him on. Think. Think. How do you get out of here? But another part of him, still awakening from the drug’s effects, betrayed him, ushering him towards passivity. His mind and body kept telling him to lie down. It was all so tedious—the burden, the problem solving, the lethargy.
“So what brings you here, Dale?”
Conversation. Dale gave no reply to Valkyrie’s question. I have neither time nor the energy to talk to this guy. He got up again and, without much hope, began to look around his cell. Undaunted, Charles Valkyrie proceeded with a one-way conversation.
“Probably some hogwash reason, right? I was caught selling elf ears to local apothecaries as karis truffles. In case you don’t know, elf ears are common mushrooms virtually identical to the truffle variant found in the Wilds Deep. Of course, the mushrooms lack the healing properties of its identical counterpart. But it’s a chance to quadruple profits. Anyway, never thought swindling folk could be mistaken for terrorism but hey, if you’re an Emmainite, you’re as good as a Shaldean in this part of the world.”
“You an Emmainite?” asked Dale, as he continued his half-hearted search for some exploitable weakness in his confines.
“Why else would I be stuck here?”
Dale thought of all the Emmainites he saw on his raids into suspected Shaldean burrows during his time with the Republican Guard. He wondered if his neighbor looked like any of the men he’d killed in the name of service.
“‘Charles Valkyrie’ doesn’t sound very Emmainite.”
Char
les chuckled. “You got me there. I was born Sayeed Errai. Left the name when I left my home. You? You got a family name?”
“Sunday.”
“Dale Sunday. That doesn’t sound Emmainite either.”
“It’s not.”
“Well, it’s not Ka’eedish or Drashalmec. You even Lorean?”
“I’m half-Albian, half-Meredian. Full Grovish.”
“The Shaldea don’t recruit peaches. What the hell you doing down here?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. They think I know something about some assassinations.”
“You’re an assassin?”
“As much as you’re a terrorist.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re telling me.”
Dale gave up the futile search. He sat back down on the cot and buried his head in his hands. He thought about Uncle Turkish, Auntie Cora Tess, Mosaic. War was at hand putting the lives of his loved ones in peril, and he was locked in a cell. The feeling of helplessness welled into anger. He felt betrayed by the State Security Command, by the Republic for which he had made great sacrifices. The irony of being locked up by the very Republic he was trying to save wasn’t lost on him. Despair set in. What if I never get out of here? Dying, caged like an animal. He wondered if this was reparation for the lives he took. Maybe he wasn’t so innocent after all. Maybe this was a fitting way to pay for the crimes he had committed.
He rummaged through his pockets looking for a smoke and found the copy of The Walgorende’s Last Stand. On the inside of the cover was his name written in his twelve-year-old hand. It was faded, the ink bled and dried. He wondered what that little boy would think if he knew where he would end up thirteen years later. He turned to the first page and started reading.
A Mystic king about to be executed by a mage awaited his fate in a dungeon cell. How fitting, thought Dale, reading about a man in a dungeon while sitting in a dungeon himself. The king prays.
Deliver me from this spellbound world, the filth, the fog, the appetites, the noise. Deliver me from my flesh and bones born unto slow decay, this murky dream and the darkening days. And remember me, my Maker, when you come in your Kingdom that I may be with you in paradise when I wake.
As if his life were synched to the narrative, just as the executioners entered the dungeon to fetch the Mystic king, Dale heard a heavy door down the corridor open and close. He stopped reading and waited, listening as the voices and footsteps neared his cell. They stopped just outside of his door. Keys rustled. Dale set the book down. The sound of a click followed the sliding of a steel bolt. The door swung open and standing in the threshold was Sir Thomas Grail.
“Dale Sunday,” he said, crossing his arms. “Upon examination, you have been deemed a saboteur.”
“What?”
“In keeping vigilance against the threat of radicalism, heresy, cultism, cabals, and all other subversive elements, all groups disseminating their agenda or doctrine in secrecy, or without recognition of the Benesanti, or in violation of international laws, are considered threats to the peace in accordance with the Mizraheen Treaty, section four, article nine. And all affiliates of said groups are deemed ‘saboteurs of the peace.’ Thus, you will not be granted Sanctuary.”
“But I’m not affiliated with anyone.”
“The Samaeli would fall under the definition of ‘subversive elements.’ Your friendship with one of its assassins is something of an affiliation. You also assisted a criminal organization in smuggling the Samaeli into this very city.”
Dale thought, I must have sung like a bird under that serum.
“Nevertheless, you will be free to go after our verdict is forwarded to the State Security Command.”
“When will that be?”
“Tomorrow.”
“That’s too late,” Dale blurted.
The templar did not acknowledge Dale. He stepped aside. Selah stepped forward into the cell holding a wooden bucket, some cotton wraps, and a lidded wooden cup.
“Mister Sunday.”
“Prioress.”
“When I extended an invitation to the temple, this isn’t what I had in mind.”
“Me neither.”
“Lay on your stomach, please.” When Dale hesitated, Selah explained, “I’m here to treat your wounds.”
Dale did as he was told. Selah slowly peeled the cotton cloth from his back and reached down into the bucket to draw from it a sponge soaked in calamine soap. As she did, she whispered in his ear, “Is it true?”
“Is what true?
“What you said about the Balean invasion—is it true?”
“Uh, what did I say?”
Then in her speaking voice, she added, “This may sting a bit.”
It burned like ice. Despite the gentle touch, Dale flinched and clenched his teeth.
“Bear with me.” Selah blew on his back with little effect. Once she finished washing his back, she applied some aloe ointment and redressed the wounds with a blanket of gauze. “Drink this.” She held up the wooden cup. “It’s water from the seed of a tropical drupe. It’ll restore your spirit.”
Dale sat up and took the cup, the contents of which were a clear liquid, sweet and nutty. He paused, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He turned to Selah. She was the only person to whom he could make an appeal.
“I need to warn my brother,” he tried. “He’s at the Ancile. And I—”
Selah put her hand toward his mouth. “I believe you. I’ll be back,” she whispered.
Then she took up the bucket and left the cell. Thomas shut the door after her, locked all the latches into place, and shouted, “Lights out!”
On command, the lights went out. Dale sat staring at the door through which Selah had left. Could it be true? he wondered. Why would she believe me? What did she know? Based on the templar’s pronouncement, it was clear Dale had divulged much during the inquisition. There was no way of knowing what he had said. Like the fleeting memory of a dream, the bits and pieces of the inquisition continued to fade away until there was nothing. The only things left in Dale’s mind were the lashes to his back and the name Fairchild.
Dale got up and washed his hands and his face by the soft glow of a burning oil lamp left hanging just outside his door. The warm light seeped in between the cracks of his cell door. As he gently laid himself down on his stomach, he allowed himself to hope. With time running out, everything depended on Selah’s promise.
“Zaal’mavorte,” Valkyrie said into the silence.
“What?” asked Dale.
“Zaal’mavorte. ‘Shadows of Death.’ Or what you call in Standard ‘the Samaeli.’ Is it true? You got a friend in the group?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Probably for the best. But if it’s true, I must say, it’s a wonder you’re still alive.”
Valkyrie’s words simmered in the silence. Dale considered how dangerous Sparrow had become—how precarious his reunion with him had been.
“What do you know about them?”
“I can’t say I’ve ever had any contact with them,” Valkyrie replied. “At least, not that I’m aware of. But when I was younger, I remember a man came crawling into our village one day. I grew up on the outskirts of the Saracen and the nearest village from ours was more than five thousand strides away. We didn’t know how long the man had been traveling, but he was delirious, dehydrated, on the brink of death. And he was covered in dried blood. He kept whispering, ‘bezazu.’ Means devil in our ancient tongue. He didn’t survive the night. But from what he’d apparently told our chieftain, the Shaldean Riders had met with the Zaal’mavorte in his village. A few days later, he woke up covered in blood. All of the horses had been slaughtered. And his entire village was gone. His family. Everyone.”
“You mean dead?”
“I mean gone. Vanished. Without a trace. Like they were never there.”
It had the makings of a legend. But the uneasiness in his neighbor’s voice t
old Dale it was true.
“Like I said, kid,” Valkyrie added, “it’s a wonder you’re still alive.”
CH 30
IN THE MIRROR DIMLY
Count Enlil Fairchild was a private man. Only a few people knew what the head of the Parallel Mining Corporation looked like. Even fewer saw the old man on a regular basis. However, the name Fairchild was known in every corner of the developed world. He was, after all, one of the wealthiest men in one of the wealthiest cities in Groveland.
His primary place of residence was the largest estate in the exclusive gated community called the Foothills. It was located far above Carnaval City on its upper westside. A private enclave of the wealthy elite, the community had a twelve-foot wall along its entire perimeter. There was only one gate in. Most in Carnaval City only heard what was behind that wall. Though a small fraction of the city’s population lived in the Foothills, it represented more than half of the world’s wealth.
Each year, there was also a ball held at his estate on the eve of the Harvest Festival—a ball to which an invitation was considered somewhat of a measure of one’s position in society. Count Fairchild himself rarely made an appearance at his own events. This year, his estate was eerily quiet. Parallel Mining Corporation had just completed a move of their base of operations to Brookhaven in the South. It was an administrative nightmare that yielded Fairchild hardly enough time to attend a luncheon celebrating an old associate’s retirement. Even then, Fairchild excused himself early from the small gathering citing exhaustion, and he was home before sundown.
Aside from the servants who knew to stay out of sight, at home Fairchild would, at last, be alone. Over the years, he had grown increasingly weary of company. In fact, the exhaustion he was experiencing had little to do with the relocation of Parallel Mining. It was the mingling with people he found tedious. As he grew in stature, all of his relationships were with those who could gain something from the association with him. His friends had become panderers. All he saw around him was the pretentiousness brought on by competition. All he heard was gossip and empty flattery. There wasn’t an honest person among them. Their company had grown worse than isolation until isolation became his only reprieve—an escape from the loveless network. He was glad he would soon be free of them for good.
