The Grimjinx Rebellion

by Brian Farrey

  “How gullible do you think I am?” I said, glaring up at Edilman. “You wrote this translation yourself.”

  Edilman shook his head. “Sister Andris would be very angry to hear you say that. She slaved over it. I’d ask her to verify that but . . . she’s dead.”

  “It’s not possible,” I said. “That message—”

  “—is in a language that predates all known languages,” Edilman said. “Very few people living today could craft a message using it. But there it is. And it answers your question very neatly.”

  Edilman bound up, closed the distance between us in a single, giant step, and stabbed the message with his finger. “Yes. You owe me. I stole the Sourcefire, Jaxter,” he said, his mouth so close I could feel his breath, “because you told me to.”

  37

  The Abbot’s Story

  “Welcome a bitter enemy when a false friend comes knocking.”

  —Corenus Grimjinx, clan father

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the rows of unfamiliar symbols. Below each squiggle sat the corresponding translation in Sister Andris’s handwriting. As hard as I tried to deny it, I knew that Edilman was telling the truth. The message read:

  Edilman,

  I don’t have time to explain. When the rebels attack the Palatinate caravan, you must get to the Sourcefire first and steal it. Take the Vanguard from me, destroy the master medallion, and then leave. Once you’re safely away, hide the Sourcefire in the Keep at Vengekeep. Under no circumstances are you to mention this message to me until after you’ve hidden the Sourcefire. You’re looking for redemption, Edilman. This is how you earn it.

  It was signed with my name.

  “I couldn’t have written this,” I argued. “I don’t know this language.”

  Edilman leaned against a tree and sighed. “You’re very bright, Jaxter. Don’t start being stupid now.”

  No. I wasn’t stupid. I knew exactly how this was possible.

  “She saw it,” I said, opening to the message and reading it again. “Aubrin said she saw a hand write this. It was my hand. She copied down the message she saw in the vision.”

  Edilman tapped the journal. “At some point—maybe tomorrow, or next month, or in ten years—you’re going to write that message. At the same time, your sister will sneak a peek from the past and see it.”

  He leaned forward and pointed to a single word under my name. “What’s this bit?”

  Sister Andris’s translation read, “Guddlesark.” I smiled. “When I was little, I had an imaginary friend named Guddlesark. I never told anyone about him. I think I put that there to . . .”

  Edilman leaned back. “To convince yourself you wrote it?”

  “But what was all that ‘Eaj’ nonsense?” I asked.

  Edilman poked himself in the chest. “Edilman Archalon Jaxter. E-A-J.”

  My stomach burbled. Why would I tell him to do this? The Sourcefire theft made everything fall apart. We could have ended this after the attack on the caravan if we’d stuck with the plan and used the Sourcefire to bargain with the Palatinate.

  I felt suffocated. If this was all true, everything was my fault. I couldn’t hold it in anymore and, as Edilman jumped back, I threw up all over the ground.

  Bennock put his arm around my shoulders and handed me a flagon of water. I drank the whole thing in three mighty gulps as I sank to my knees.

  “If it means anything,” Edilman said softly, “I have a theory that you will write that message once life is back to normal. You tell me to steal the Sourcefire because you know for sure that it’s the only way to make things right. You know that if you don’t write that message, things will turn out much, much worse.”

  Worse? The Scourge was tearing the Provinces apart. There was no clear way to stop them. How could things get worse?

  “I’ll have you know,” Edilman went on, “this wasn’t easy. I had to sneak into Vengekeep in the middle of the night, carrying a box filled with glowing magical fire. Not the best way to stay inconspicuous. And your note didn’t mention how to get into the Keep.”

  I pictured the Keep. The entrance was marked by a stone dome in the very center of the town-state. A stone warrior guarded the dome’s door, his arm outstretched as if ready to strike. To open the door, you had to place a magic dagger in the warrior’s hand. A dagger that was kept by the Castellan.

  “So I got a chance to work on my burglary skills,” Edilman said. “I was a mite out of practice. But I broke into the Castellan’s house, stole the dagger, placed the Sourcefire in the Keep, returned the dagger so no one would be any the wiser, and left town before the Palatinate showed up and took over.”

  I’d barely heard anything he’d said. I still couldn’t quite fathom that I was responsible for all this. I peered at the translation again. “What does this mean? About redemption?”

  Edilman pulled his knees into his chest. “After the balanx attack a year ago, I fled Vengekeep. Got lost in the woods for days. I nearly starved to death. Then the Abbey appeared out of nowhere. It knew where it was needed.

  “The monks took me in and nursed me back to health. They saw I bore the brand of the High Laird. They knew I was marked for death. But they didn’t care. You see, their abbot had just died. And when that happens, the Abbey leads them to a new abbot.”

  He laughed. “They thought it was me. They thought I was meant to be their new abbot. And I was willing to play the part. It was going to be my greatest con yet. Imagine the heists I could pull with a legion of assassin-monks at my command. So I donned the abbot’s mask and threw myself into my best disguise yet.”

  His voice cracked and he fell quiet.

  “And then?” I prompted.

  “And then,” he said, “I got caught up in my own lie. I learned everything I could about the order, hoping to strengthen their allegiance to me. But the more I learned . . . the more I saw how reverent they were, how strongly they believed in their cause. . . . It stopped being an act. The Abbey brought the monks to me because I was in need. I just didn’t understand what it was I needed.”

  As his story ended, I understood what Edilman had needed. A lifetime of treachery had caught up with him. He needed redemption.

  “So, you took the Sourcefire to Vengekeep and hid it in the Keep like I told you to,” I said. “Then what? We heard the Abbey was destroyed.”

  “In the end, the Abbey’s desire to help those in need was our undoing. After Vengekeep, the Abbey went to where it sensed it was needed. We ended up in Merriton just as the Scourge descended on the city. The beasts tore the Abbey to pieces as soon as we appeared.” Edilman placed a hand on his acolyte’s arm. “Bennock pulled me from the rubble. The other monks weren’t as lucky. Bennock and I barely escaped with our lives.”

  I looked at Bennock. The acolyte added a log to the fire. I couldn’t be angry with him anymore. He’d been following his abbot’s orders . . . who’d been following my orders.

  “Come back with me to the mill,” I said. “We have to tell everyone about the Sourcefire.”

  Edilman laughed gravely. “I set one foot into that mill and my head will be removed from my body. Besides, the Sourcefire won’t do you any good. You can’t use it to bargain with the Palatinate anymore. Your new enemy is the Scourge.”

  The Sourcefire won’t do you any good . . . No, the Sourcefire wouldn’t do us any good. But the Scourge . . .

  “I have to go,” I said, rising.

  Edilman grunted. “Go with him, Bennock. You’ve been a good acolyte to an order that doesn’t exist anymore. No one in the mill will hurt you.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Come with me.”

  I hated the idea of both of them alone in the wilderness. I’d feel a bit better if I knew Bennock was safe.

  But Bennock crossed the campsite and knelt near Edilman. “I’m staying with you, Abbot.”

  Bennock’s honesty might have prevented him from ever becoming an honorary Grimjinx. But his unshakable loyalty would have made it hard to deny him th
e privilege.

  I made to leave when Edilman’s voice stopped me. “So do I have it?”

  I looked back. “What?”

  “Redemption,” he said.

  I swallowed. “I think you’re the only one who knows the answer to that.”

  Edilman sighed. He clapped Bennock on the back and nodded.

  “You always were too smart, Jaxter. Guess I just have to keep looking.”

  I hurried through the forest. If my theory was right, we could end all this madness fairly easily. But only one person could tell me if that was true.

  I had to find Gobek.

  38

  War from Within

  “Steal with one hand, wish for wealth with the other. See which hand fills up first.”

  —Baloras Grimjinx, architect of the First Aviard Nestvault Pillage

  When I burst through the door of the mill, I could still hear everyone arguing in the basement. They were trying to decide if they should join forces with the Palatinate against the Scourge or attempt to stop the monsters on their own. No one was giving any quarter.

  I heard a familiar moan from above. I shot up the rickety staircase to the second floor. The area was filled with great vats where giant blades once ground singegrain into flour. I searched until I found Gobek in the corner, his arms cocooning his head. I gave him a gentle nudge.

  “Gobek,” I whispered. “I need your help.”

  The shape-shifter stirred and squinted at me in the near darkness. “Is coming here for sleep. Is arguing over?” he asked. The yelling from downstairs drifted up through the floorboards. “Is silly question.”

  “Gobek,” I said, “when I asked what the Scourge was looking for, you said ‘death.’ I thought you meant they were looking to cause death. But that’s not right, is it? You meant the Scourge is looking to die.”

  Gobek sat up, wincing as he did. I thought of him back in the Creche, always suffering. Is being Gobek, is being in pain, he’d said.

  “Is not really death,” he rasped. “Gobek is making poor choice of words. Is problem with Gobek.”

  I sat next to him on his blanket. “The Scourge is nothing more than magical energy given physical forms, right?”

  Gobek nodded. “Is not meant to be. Is painful for something of one world to be forced into another world.”

  “So, ever since it was created,” I said, “the Scourge has wanted nothing more than to be magical energy again. The monsters are looking for a way to destroy their bodies and return to their natural state.”

  “Is very smart,” Gobek said, patting my knee. “Gobek is not belonging in this world, Scourge is not belonging in this world. Is forced by mages.”

  The creature grimaced. This was why he was in constant pain. And since he was made of magic, death wouldn’t come easily to Gobek.

  “The Scourge is looking for the Sourcefire,” I said. “It’s the only thing powerful enough to destroy it. That’s why it was only attacking places where it sensed magic. And now that it’s far enough south, it can sense the Sourcefire in Vengekeep.”

  Gobek nodded. There was only one way to stop the Scourge: give it exactly what it wanted.

  “Thanks, Gobek,” I said, shaking his hand. The shape-shifter smiled a pained smile and lay back down in his makeshift bed.

  I raced downstairs and into the basement where the climate had changed dramatically. The room had divided neatly down the middle. The Dowager and the mages on one side, the Shadowhands and the Sarosans on the other. The few rebels without a clear allegiance to one side or the other seemed to shift back and forth as each side’s arguments became more or less persuasive.

  I found my parents and Nanni sitting atop a pile of crates in the corner, watching the whole thing with looks that ranged from mildly amused to utterly disgusted.

  “This is why the Sarosans have always fought against the evils of magic!” Kendil pointed at Talian as his voice broke above the din. “We always knew it would come to this. Mages brought this upon us. We cannot use magic to solve the problem!”

  “Right now,” the Dowager argued, “magic is the only way to stop—”

  “The Sarosans have fought magic with natural means for years,” Reena said as she stood firmly at her father’s side. “If everyone had just listened to us and had magic outlawed—”

  “I don’t agree with the Palatinate’s methods,” Talian interrupted, “but there would be more order with a magical government in charge.”

  This caused an all new outburst of anger that shook the timbers.

  “Oh, that was a bad move,” Da whispered.

  “Let’s see him get out of this,” Ma said in return.

  It only got more heated from there.

  “Is that where this is headed?” Mr. Oxter said, turning to the Dowager. “Are we to defeat the Scourge, only to put mages back in charge?”

  The Dowager rubbed her temples. “We’re losing sight of the problem at hand. The Scourge will be here in days. We must decide if we’re to take a stand against it here or try to forge an alliance with the Palatinate.”

  The arguments swelled to the point where words were indistinguishable. It was all just noise.

  “You’re all wrong!”

  How I managed to bellow loudly enough to be heard above all that, I’ll never know. But there I was, standing on a crate, hands cupped around my mouth, and suddenly—finally—the room was silent.

  I pointed to Kendil. “The Sarosans have spent years trying to get everyone to believe like they do, saying that magic is evil.” When I saw Talian nod out of the corner of my eye, I whirled on him. “And mages staged a revolt because they wanted to impose their beliefs on everyone. Both sides have been fighting to get people on their side but neither stopped to ask everyone what they wanted.

  “You can’t force people to believe what you believe. You can’t take something and force it to be something it’s not. That’s what the Palatinate tried to do. They created monsters from magical energy, something it was never meant to be. And now we’re all paying for it. Haven’t either of you learned anything? There’s not just one way—your way. We need to use everything we’ve got—everyone’s skills—or we’re going to die.”

  No one moved or spoke. Also, no one looked particularly happy that I’d spoken in the first place. Except the Dowager. She looked proud.

  “Now, listen,” I said more quietly, “I’ve figured out what we need to do.”

  “Are we really going to sit here,” Kendil said, turning his back to me so he could face the rest of the room, “and listen to a boy who’s nothing more than a second-rate cutpurse?”

  As one, my family stood. We weren’t about to take that kind of slur. I expected the Shadowhands, fellow thieves to whom such an insult should have been unforgivable, to speak up in our defense. They didn’t. I looked at Reena, Holm, and Maloch. They stood by their respective fathers in silence.

  “Enough!” the Dowager said. “Every minute we spend fighting among ourselves, we . . . Jaxter?”

  Ma and Da led the way, followed by Nanni, and I brought up the rear as we went upstairs. Once we were gone, the arguing below started up again.

  The four of us went down by the stream. Nanni skipped rocks against the current as Da paced back and forth.

  “Everything we’ve done,” he spat, “and they just see us as cut—as cut—as that word.”

  “Jaxter,” Ma said, “what were you about to tell everyone?”

  I told them everything. Meeting Edilman in the woods, Aubrin’s journal, how the Sourcefire was hidden in Vengekeep, and how the Scourge monsters wanted the Sourcefire to rid themselves of their bodies. All three of them listened to me closely.

  “You’re right, son,” Da said. “We could end this if we give the Scourge what it wants.”

  “Can’t wait to see the look on old Nalia’s face when she learns the Sourcefire has been under her nose this whole time,” Ma said.

  “But the Palatinate isn’t going to help,” Nanni pointed out. “I
f we tell them where the Sourcefire is, they’ll only use it to enslave the Scourge again. Then we’re right back where we started.”

  “It’s simple,” I said. “We go to Vengekeep, rescue Aubrin, and get the Sourcefire.”

  Da pointed to the mill with his thumb. “They can’t agree on anything. They won’t help.”

  “Not them, just us,” I said. “You heard Talian. The Palatinate has made Vengekeep impenetrable. They’ve got enough defenses to fight off a siege for days, weeks maybe. But they’re expecting an attack from the Scourge. . . .”

  I pulled the Vanguard from Da’s pocket and held it up in the moonlight.

  “They’re not expecting the Grimjinxes.”

  39

  The Prisoner

  “The insult not well endured should be well avenged.”

  —The Lymmaris Creed

  We’d tried.

  Ask any of the 127 Satyran deities and they’d all swear by the Omnipantheon that we Grimjinxes had tried our hardest. We’d played within the system. Some of us had taken jobs as Protectorates. Some of us had worked in phydollotry shops. Some of us had tried to raise armies. What did that get us? A status as refugees, caught between power-hungry mages and the bloodthirsty monsters they’d created.

  There was only one way to finish this. And it wasn’t by playing within the rules. It wasn’t by listening to our allies fight among themselves. It was by striking out on our own and smashing every rule, law, and edict into a million pieces.

  In other words: being our true selves.

  I lay on my stomach near Vengekeep’s southern perimeter wall where the trees were thickest. As the moons peeked out from behind the thick cloud cover, I raised my spyglass and watched the pair of Sentinels who paraded along the top of the wall. Each held a glowing spellsphere, ready for action.