Ez Ozel: Prologue to Perdition

by Dave Oliver

  She wrapped her forearm around the cord and yanked it down as hard as she could. Her body screamed and burned under the exertion. She’d taken more wounds than she realized. She pulled on the cord again, relieved to hear the bells ringing far above. She collapsed. When she looked down at herself, she seemed to be bleeding just about everywhere. Her head swam and she clutched at her blood-drenched shirt.

  She lay there on the floor and waited for help. Hopefully Ragna wouldn’t hear about this. She’d worry way too much, and she might even insist they move back to the west wall. Casselle told herself everything would be fine. This wasn’t so bad, and her surviving the attack would certainly piss off the syndicate. She smiled at that and then lost consciousness.

  ***

  Casselle woke up in the infirmary with the light of morning punching her in the face. Her head throbbed. She let loose a small groan and Ragna appeared above her.

  “Hey! She’s awake in here!” Ragna looked down on her again. “Sweet shit you had me scared.”

  Casselle smiled. “Good to see you too.”

  Ragna pulled her seat close to the bed and sat down. “What were you doing there alone?”

  “I needed a break. Thought I’d interrogate the syndicate guy. Oops.”

  Ragna shook her head. “You ass. They got you on pain drugs, so you’re probably a little loopy.”

  “How am I? Did I lose anything?”

  “Lot of blood, but that’s it. You been unconscious a few days, but you look good considering.”

  “Sweet talker.”

  Ragna gave a sad grin and sat back in her chair.

  A familiar voice came from the doorway. “How’s she doing?” Rust slowly came into view.

  “She’s a little out of it, but in good spirits.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Rust looked into Casselle’s eyes. “I’m not sure why you were down there, but I’m glad you got out alive.”

  “Who were they? Syndicate?” Casselle asked, her head feeling heavy and her eyes wanting to close.

  Rust nodded. “They came to break your buddy out of jail. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Did you catch them?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, you made sure of that. One died, but the other two are in custody.”

  “Good. I want to talk to them.”

  Rust cocked his head. “Talk to them? What for?”

  “I want to know more about the syndicate. I want to know how to break them. I want to know more about that side of my father.”

  “Casselle…” He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. “I can tell you about your father. I served under him for many years, and we were good friends.”

  Casselle stared at him, either unable to speak or just remarkably uncertain of what to say.

  “He was a few years older than me, so he was already a Warden when I came up through training. He was sort of my mentor as I got going in this game, and we even partnered up a few times. He was a great man.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Same thing that’s happened a thousand times before. He did great, he got a lot of power, and the power ate him up inside.”

  “But how could… Why wouldn’t he just…”

  He placed a hand on hers. “Look, when you’re out of here, we’ll talk all about it. Your head’s not clear right now, so you wouldn’t get much from it. I’ll come see you when they let you go home.”

  “Thanks for coming to check on her,” Ragna said.

  “Of course. I made a promise to Rieger that I’d look after her like she was my own. I intend to do that.”

  Tears clouded Casselle’s eyes and she gazed out the window onto the sunlit cityscape.

  Rust headed for the door but turned around before he exited. “Oh, and you both need to be extra careful now. If you weren’t already, you’re going to be on the syndicate’s radar.” With that, he left and the doctor came in.

  Ragna squeezed Casselle’s hand as the doctor started discussing her condition.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alregon returned from his breakfast date feeling refreshed and full. He hadn’t had a date in decades, and his heart was just now settling down from his nervousness. He kept taking deep breaths all the way back to the hotel, but his chest still felt about to pop at any moment. Despite that, it seemed to have gone well. He’d gotten her laughing quite a few times, and she seemed genuinely curious about him and his quest to the east. It was unfortunate he couldn’t tell her much about it. How could you tell someone you were crossing the country to search for magic and mystery? It was better to stay vague and not ruin such an early impression.

  He turned the corner to the hotel alleyway and saw the town’s marshal still talking to Bish. The dead priest had been covered with a sheet, and there were a lot of curious people craning their necks trying to get a look at him. He couldn’t blame them. Everyone in the Commonwealth was told horror stories about priests when they were kids. They wandered across the land wielding holy magics to take the minds of the weak and vulnerable. Then once they had enough people under their thrall, they would bring about the end of the world. It was all written in the Grand Propter, though few people believed that book as a literal account anymore. He walked over to the sidewalk where Puma was standing.

  “Is everything getting sorted out?” he asked Puma.

  “Seems it. They were having trouble believing our story until we pointed out that icon over there.” Puma nodded down the street at a small piece of metal. It was an iron circle with four spokes coming out of it. One spoke was twice as long as the others, and an opaque crystal was lodged into the center of the ring.

  “What’s so special about the icon?”

  “It’s just like the storybooks. They use that thing to do their holy work.”

  “But couldn’t anyone forge one of those? Those tales are just stories, right?”

  “I wish.” Puma pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on. “He shoved that little icon into Bish’s face right over there, and it completely incapacitated him. Something shined out of it—something unnatural. I could feel the chill of it from up there on the cart.”

  “What did it do to him?”

  Puma shrugged. “Bish said it made him feel cool and happy. Like all the pain from his injuries slipped away and his entire body relaxed. If that’s not unnatural, I don’t know what is.”

  Alregon looked over to where Bish was sitting and talking to the marshal. “He seems to be doing all right now.”

  “Well, that’s another thing. He was getting trampled by this guy last night. He had to have broken at least one rib and his shoulder got pretty mangled at one point. Today he’s not even bruised.”

  “How is that possible?” Alregon asked.

  “Doctor says we just don’t know how to diagnose injuries. That’s shit, though. We’ve traveled long enough together and gotten enough wounds between us.” Puma looked about and lowered his voice. “We’re worried something from that icon might’ve gotten into him.”

  “What would that mean?”

  “No idea.” Puma leaned back against the wall. “No stories I ever heard about priests ever talked details about this stuff.”

  “If he’s touched by holiness, you’ll need to watch him.” Merrik stumbled out from his room, his cane wobbling and his eyes squinting upon seeing the sun. “Holy magic sucks the person right out of folks. Makes them obedient husks.”

  “How do you know that?” Puma asked.

  “It was all in Senrigal’s journals.”

  “Senrigal? Now who’s talking about fairy tales.”

  Merrik turned to him. “You believe in priests but doubt that Senrigal’s stories were based on some truth? Sounds a bit selectively naive.” He started to walk over to the icon on the ground.

  “Don’t touch it,” Puma yelled.

  “It’s just a conduit,” he called back. “Can’t do anything without a particularly powerful priest wielding it. From the sound of it, this priest
was trying to cast one of their most powerful holy rituals on your friend—enthrallment, Ez Ozel, ascension, or something of the kind.”

  He knelt down with great difficulty, grunting as he got close to the icon. The crystal was definitely something special. He fingered it with a distant familiarity. He’d read about these small white crystals that could be used by a very select few holy people to perform terrible miracles and blessings, but he’d always read that they were an opaque white in color. This one was gray. After a few moments, he gave a grunt and shook his head. He rose with an even greater set of grunts and walked back over to Puma and Alregon.

  “What are they going to do with it?”

  “Melt it,” Puma said. “They don’t trust it or what it’s capable of. Besides, nobody here has ever seen an actual priest before, so they’re all too terrified to take chances. I don’t blame them.”

  “A pity. That’s something truly rare right there.”

  “Why don’t you convince them to let you take it?”

  Merrik shook his head. “I’ve chosen a different route to get what I want. People should really read the Grand Propter and take it more seriously. That book shows clearly why no good can come from using holy methods.” He glanced back down at the relic. “Even if I got what I wanted from this thing, the price would be too great.” He walked back toward his room. “I’ll be ready to hit the road as soon as the marshal finishes up with tubby.”

  “I heard that,” Bish yelled.

  ***

  The rest of their journey eastward was a long and uneventful trek through plains and farmland, but the group was tense and quiet after the events at Comfort. They’d talk about the fight with the priest every now and then, and Bish had a lot of questions about Senrigal’s notes. Alregon was lost in his own thoughts about his date, Bish and Puma weren’t sure how to act around one another now that one of them had faced the icon’s taint, and Merrik was barely conscious most of the time. Without a road to follow, they meandered through tended fields and homesteads, but nobody gave them a hard time. Alregon kept a short leash on Bish so he didn’t go running off and stealing crops or fondling farmers or whatever else his little mind could come up with.

  It was early dusk when they reached their destination on the coast. Alregon nudged Merrik awake, and he stared smiling out to the sea. He craned his neck and looked around.

  “We should be able to see it from here,” Merrik said.

  “What are we looking for exactly?” Puma asked.

  “You’ll know it when you see it. Al, keep the coast in view and start heading south. Keep the beach just barely in sight.”

  Alregon turned south and kept a straight line with the coast as best he could. They rode for another hour, and the sun began to dip into the horizon. The light was fading, and Merrik desperately watched before they lost the sun completely. That’s when they saw it.

  Just ahead of them, a large object appeared from nowhere. A winding vine had torn through the ground and twisted in a grand, intricate pattern. Branches arced from the main trunk, and thorns protruded from the entire structure. In the very center was a small pool on a pedestal. It looked like a birdbath.

  Merrik slid out of the cart and onto the ground, where he fell when his surprised legs refused to catch him. His shocked gaze never left the object in front of him. He pulled himself up, slowly shaking his head at the beauty of the thing. It smelled like the forest in autumn, and he could feel a tingling energy flowing from it.

  “After all this time, it’s finally here in front of me.” Merrik crept toward the brilliant blue glow of the pool in the middle. “It’s even more beautiful than I imagined.” As he neared the large winding vines, he could feel potent energies from the flora tickling his exposed skin. He reached out to graze the surface of the inviting water, light ripples forming from his touch.

  “Merrik, wait,” Alregon cried.

  Merrik either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. His purpose was singular, and he was staring right into it. He slowly pushed his arm through the water’s surface and pressed his palm flat against the stone basin.

  He closed his eyes and let his mind swim as the conduit worked its magic, taking him to a new world. He felt good. He felt energized. He felt…nothing at all happening to his body. He opened his eyes and saw that nothing had changed. He was still standing on the coast of the eastern Commonwealth with his hand elbow-deep in a magic birdbath.

  “Are you okay?” Alregon shouted.

  Merrik shook his head and gritted his teeth. Something was wrong. His touch should’ve activated the stupid thing. The channel was open. Why didn’t it respond?

  “Didn’t work,” Merrik said as he walked out of the brush and back toward the cart. “Something’s wrong.” He ignored Alregon’s smiling, relieved face and went straight for his sack containing Senrigal’s journals. He leafed through some pages until he got to the part about solving the puzzle altar and Senrigal’s first trip to another world via the Carmine Conduit. “Did we mess up the puzzle? No, that doesn’t make sense. All the icons glowed.” He picked up another journal and skipped to where it talked about the Azure Conduit. “Nothing special about this portal in particular either.”

  “Seigneur,” Puma said. “Come have a look at this.”

  Merrik walked to where Puma was hunched over, right next to the interdimensional birdbath. He looked down—he dared not try to kneel on the soft sand—and saw a slimy white residue all over the ground. It was concentrated the most near the stone basin itself, and it faded into multiple strands of dried slime the further away it got. The furthest strand came out a few feet from the portal before it stopped. All of the strands curved southward.

  “Good eye,” Merrik said. “Something came out right here and headed southward.” He looked off to the south in the dusk. “If we follow whatever came out of there, maybe we can have it bring me through the portal. Or even better, have it teach me what I need to know without my having to go anywhere at all.” Merrik gave an excited chuckle, which caused him to cough uncontrollably until he was on his knees.

  Alregon rushed over to help him but was swatted away.

  “What’s around here, you two?” Merrik asked between gasps.

  Bish scratched his belly. “Not much between us and the big cities except a few coastal shacks. If you go north quite a ways you got Eralda. It’s a far trek, and there ain’t much of note up that way other than the military base, some small towns, and some real handsome women.” A glare from Merrik brought Bish back on track. “If the thing headed south, it’ll end up in Midden. Not much else down that way. It’d only take us a couple days on the coastal road to get there.”

  “Midden?” Alregon said. “I was hoping to avoid that.”

  “Don’t worry your head over it,” Bish said, smiling. “I got some friends there. The sheriff’s tough on violent crime too. Anyone tries to mug you or beat you up, they won’t stand for that. Can’t have a fancy-free pirate town if people is killin’ one another.” He flashed his rotten grin. If he meant to look duplicitous, he just came off as goofy.

  Merrik began to walk back to the cart with a great deal of strain on his cane. “We go to Midden then. We’ll search there while we resupply.” He looked even paler than usual, and his cane shook violently as he struggled to maintain his balance. “I trust you men will take extra coin for some extra time in our employ.”

  Bish laughed and walked toward the cart. Puma smiled and nodded to Merrik. “If you have the plats, we got your back.”

  “Well, then,” Merrik said. “Let’s camp here for the night and head out in the morning. I have a feeling what we’re looking for lies in Midden.”

  They got out the bedrolls while Puma started a fire. Merrik demanded a second bedroll, and a blanket still to go over that. Despite this, Alregon noticed that he was shivering as he drifted off to sleep. Perhaps this trip was a mistake. There was no telling if those old stories were even real. What if this strange artifact was simply that, a strange a
rtifact? That residue could have been bird droppings. If he let his master die on some harebrained journey for other worlds, what kind of caretaker would that make him? Maybe he could hold the group up in Midden—make them stay for an extended time until Merrik was better. There had to be at least one decent doctor there.

  Alregon’s thoughts were disrupted as he heard a groan from Merrik, followed by a cough that flung a concerning amount of blood across the ground.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Fierd slumped in exhaustion on the driver’s bench as the tired horses plodded along. It was getting warmer, and the endless tracts of mud started changing to firm dirt and grass. Hopefully that meant the plains were near. Fierd had just about had his fill of traveling. He missed the simple days in Camston—doing his work and falling into his warm bed at the end of the day. He actually missed all the people too. He’d likely have gone mad on this trip without little Karedess as a travel companion. It’s easy enough to think you’re a recluse until you actually have to live with nobody. Shit’s tough.

  “Fierd?” Karedess looked up at the tired hulk of a man. “Can I ask about when you got mad now?”

  Fierd sighed, disappointed to lose his train of reminiscence. She’d been asking about little else the last few days. “I told you I don’t like talking about it. But I guess it’s fair to tell you since you’ve got to travel with me. And you’re helping me start a new life and all.”

  “So…what is it?”

  “Can’t be sure about it myself.” Fierd scratched at his beard, small flakes of dry skin falling on his haggard shirt. “Couple years ago I was way up north past the Halefort. Supposed to be a few master steelworkers up there that our people wanted to do business with. Rasend weren’t a thing yet, and I stayed clear of the sovereign towns up there, so it was pretty safe except for the occasional Juris caravan.”