“We are in Euboia now, if my memory serves. Ziesqe’s famous palace, Zentule, is not far. If he intended on attacking Degoskirke, there would be activity in his holdings. His forces would likely muster from Zentule.”
“One last detail, General. The boy; you haven’t told me much about him. Besides being weak or helpless, what were the signs? How did Caspian manifest?”
“The Casque. An old possession of a long dead Caspian caused his early manifestation. But we had signs before. We spoke to a being claiming to be Caspian, while the boy slept. These conversations are what convinced myself and the others. This Caspian wasn’t fully realized and it was more like talking to a broken ego. Ziesqe tried to make an arrangement with Caspian through the sleeping boy.”
Chimerax heard this and stood in disbelief. His body trembled with outrage. Purple flame burst out in patches on the ground and on the cave walls. The air seemed to roil and pulse.
Puktifa heard the muscles flexing, saw the flames, and stood as tall as he could, never looking away, ready to die.
After a moment, the flames calmed. “A ryle attempted to bargain with the Voice of the Dead God?” Chimerax asked.
“Hearing the voice of the Usurper enflamed Ziesqe’s ambition. He felt himself raised, and among the heroes of legend. He believes he can control Caspian—reason and bargain with him even.”
“Releasing him was crime enough! What cowardice drives ryle to such unimaginable treason? Caspian cannot be controlled! He is our enemy! His every thought, a poison! His every action, turned to the destruction of your kind.” Chimerax paused, and took a heavy breath before continuing, “Part of me knew Xyth, we fought together once, and now he is broken beyond reason and nothing will end his suffering. The land surrounding that place will be blighted for a hundred generations. The creatures that crawl out of that festering sink will infest Euboia until the next cataclysm, and you, General, had a hand in it. You stood by while a ryle consorted with the Usurper.”
Puktifa stood ready.
Damn him. I admire his fearlessness. He would have ascended easily. Now he must be broken.
Chimerax rested a hand on Puktifa’s face. The General flinched, but did not cower.
“You would do well to scream.” Chimerax nearly liquefied him, but then paused.
They stood in tense silence.
Maybe something different for one so brave.
Chimerax felt that obscure and ancient third of his being, the dragon, working unknown forms of holy creation. Where his skin touched the General’s face, blazing purple script appeared and waved and smoldered like crisping paper.
The General changed. His body thinned and he sprouted hair from his pallid scalp. His tentacles receded, and his face grew a nose. Moments later, the change was complete.
A young man stood there.
The human felt his face.
“What? No! No, this is too much!” Puktifa slammed his fists against Chimerax and was startled at the pain, but Chimerax only watched the man’s face. “Make me right again or kill me!”
“I promise you a chance to regain some of what you have lost. You will never be called to ascend. This is a gift, young human.”
Puktifa fell to his knees.
“You have all your old talent and knowledge, but you will never wield the Counter, no, nor the false-Argument, yet you might regain some of that lost glory. Though I would be careful if I were you. There is a horde of apes outside this hole. They might take you as one of their own, or possibly tear you to pieces, but, if you make it past them, who knows what awaits?”
Puktifa clawed at his face and pulled at the alien hair, shaking his head in horror.
A punishment fit for the ryle and for the crime. It is up to him how to see it. Is he cursed or blessed? Even I do not know.
Chimerax floated up and out of the cave, the groaning cries of Puktifa echoing less and less as he ascended.
Once out of the hole, Chimerax reached out and caught an ape by the throat. The thing had tried to leap at him with a sharpened rock.
Dozens of others screamed in outrage.
Chimerax snapped a finger and the air became heavy. All sound dulled and deadened until there was silence. The other apes were terrified. They turned and escaped into the jungle.
“There is a man down there, go help him.”
Chimerax released the quivering ape and ascended higher. When he was finally above the trees he looked into the distance.
Zentule isn’t so far. Let’s have a look there, before Degoskirke.
Chapter 3
Ascending
Andy felt self-conscious without the contact lenses. He tried to keep his eyes glued to the floor, but a moment later he bumped into a brutox, who grunted and pushed by. He found himself in another raucous plaza. Luckily, all the attention was on the speaker.
Andy kept to the edges of the crowd and tried to slip by. He had nearly pushed through before a party of goblins were suddenly underfoot.
“Ey! Watch it tall’un!” one shrieked at him.
Andy cringed. He had stepped on the goblin’s foot.
“Sorry!” he said, trying to get away. He locked eyes with a pair of the surprised goblins and felt suddenly mortified that they knew what he was.
Andy backed away and felt the imagined hands of guards grasping him by the shoulder. He had seen a patrol a few minutes prior. Again, the guards wore polished plate armor and bore halberds and massive, wavy swords. They were large men, made taller with plumage in their helms. All this, mixed with their considerable armament, lent them an air of intimidation to which he was unaccustomed.
Despite his fear, no shouts or calls rang out. Minutes later, he crossed the street to avoid another patrol, which comprised a handful of armored guardsmen flanking a woman in red robes. The woman reminded him of the people he had seen at the gates.
He chanced a quick look at the guards as they passed and noticed that a pair bore ornate long guns.
Guns? Metal tubes on wooden stocks can only be one thing, but they look nothing like any gun I’ve ever seen.
Andy stopped at a crossroads to get his bearings. The roads in this part of the city were generally built over a grid, but fallen structures and sudden walls or elevation changes made for more turns and guesses than he expected. Andy waited until the street was almost empty before looking up. He scanned the horizon for the impossibly huge pillar. It was nowhere in sight.
How did I lose something that huge? It’s probably behind one of these buildings.
“Oh, wow,” a female voice said, from over his right shoulder.
Andy nearly froze.
A pair of younger women had just left a shop, not ten paces away, and they were both gawking at him.
Why did he take my lenses out? He should have just shown me how to do it myself!
“I haven’t seen a robe cut like that since my brother was accepted into the Apuiline, oh, five years ago, I think.”
“Don’t gawk, it’s rude, and he’s so young,” the other girl whispered. “He’s poor, probably from the Wreck, or beyond. Let’s not ruin his first trip to the city.”
Andy rolled his eyes at the issue of clothes again. He turned towards the young women. “Excuse me, could you show me where I could get something new to wear—nothing too expensive.”
The women shared a laugh. Andy looked behind them and saw why.
They just came out of a clothier’s shop.
“Come on then. I don’t have anywhere to be,” said the first woman, a brunette with a pointed face.
Her friend, a dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes and startlingly red lips reached out and grabbed him by the arm. “We’ll have you breaking hearts in a bell’s breadth.”
Bell’s breadth? An hour maybe?
Andy almost resisted, but their smiling faces disarmed him completely.
“Let’s dress him as a guildsman, I love their collars, and the tunics.”
They entered the clothier’s shop. A large woman wearing a
simple, if well-made, blue dress looked up from her work in surprise. “Don’t tell me you’ve burst a seam, Shel, you’ve just left a moment ago!” She spotted Andy. “And who’s this? Pull him out of the sea, did you? I suppose you took that robe off a dead man in a shipwreck?”
Shel laughed, “He isn’t a mer, Gilda. He’s just a scamp.”
“I’m—” Andy opened his mouth, but Shel instantly had a finger against his lips.
“Don’t tell us, you little fool,” she said, sounding cruel, but with a smile on her face.
“Well, what’ll it be, lad? A few outfits? Something for labor in the city? I know old Madj back at the theater might could use a lad with your looks. Why don’t I set you up in something dashing?” She stood up and turned toward the shelves, before a serious look came across her face. “And how would we be paying for any of this? Shel, Belle, have you taken up charity?”
Before the women could speak, Andy held up the small bag of coins.
Well, I can’t go around looking like an idiot, and these women seem like good people. I’ll be dressed properly, and I might learn something. This is money spent in pursuit of our goal.
They all stared at the little bag.
“I don’t take copper dags here, my dear,” Gilda said, coming over to inspect the bag.
Andy spilled the contents out onto the counter. The women gasped. The coins were all gold and silver.
“My lord!” Gilda sputtered.
“Is it a lot?” Andy asked.
“Who did you kill?” Belle replied.
Shel laughed over Andy’s sputtering denial. “What a man of mystery.” She played with his hair for a moment. “I’ve got it! You’ve fallen in love with a maiden of the Sunken Temple. You saw her going to pray in the waste, where you grow bloody heart-root with your destitute parents. Now, you’ve run away with four generations worth of family savings to make a new life, debating in the city, all the while you hope to see her lovely face again.”
Gilda cracked a sarcastic smile, while Belle shook her head and spoke, “But, he can’t have taken his family’s money. They have to die in a vicious brutox raid, or a freak skybreak, anything terrible really, otherwise he’s just a thieving traitor.”
“Oh! But that’s so awful. This way he can redeem himself by debating across the city and earning enough Sici to buy the family estate back from the evil ryle lord, who then betrays him anyway, and he’s stabbed in the back, but then he’s tended in a secluded grove by his love—”
“Is she always like this?” Andy asked Belle.
“She’s tying the knot soon, and I don’t think it’s everything that she hoped for,” Gilda said, butting in.
“It is everything I hoped for! It’s only—well, I miss the romance.”
Gilda raised a brow and spoke up, “Right. That aside, we still need to know what the young hero of mystery needs his new clothes for. I could see if Madj would take you on as an apprentice for some of this coin. It’s a good career, and you’d have idiots like these fawning in less than a year.”
The women huffed, but didn’t argue.
Andy felt surprisingly disarmed by all the women. He almost agreed, but resisted. “Maybe I’ll be an actor one day; I have something to do first.” The women shared wide eyed glances, but Andy continued before they could start up again, “I just need the clothes to blend in with a crowd. I need to look normal,” Andy said.
Gilda rolled her eyes, “Aye boy, fair enough, but what’s your trade? Are you a mason, a chef, a merchant?”
“Oh,” Andy said, before he realized that he wasn’t sure what he was. Instead of pondering overlong, he simply said the first thing that came to mind. “I’m a criminal, or I will be at least.”
The room went silent.
Andy cringed; he meant it as a joke.
Andy felt a hand turn him around to face all three of the women. It was Gilda, she and Belle stared at him. Shel stepped back, confused, at the sudden change in tone.
“What is it?” Shel asked, staring at Andy in turn. “Oh, he’s a bit naked. Gilda, be a dear and fetch a pair of nightroots; I’m behind myself.”
Gilda stared for a moment longer before rushing off, but Belle just stood there, her mouth slowly slackening.
“What on earth is wrong, Belle?”
“Boy,” Gilda said, rushing forward with a small purple carrot. “Eat this, now.”
Andy stepped away from them. “What is that?”
“What is that?” Belle repeated, with an almost angry look of disbelief plastered onto her face. “Where are you from?”
Gilda tried to offer Andy the carrot again. “It’s for your eyes; you’ve gone a bit naked. Or do your people go like that out in the blight?”
“Of course they don’t; the ryle hunt them down! Everyone knows that. How did he get past the Exegesuits like this?” Belle asked.
“Oh, you two are making such a fuss, he’s simply forgotten to take one! It’s his first time in the city.”
Gilda held up the carrot.
Andy shook his head.
“It’s for your eyes, boy, it’ll put them back to normal. You can’t go walking around the city like that. We’re a bit more understanding, near the Guilt, but anywhere else—”
“It’ll change my eyes? I won’t be able to see?” Andy asked.
That choice of words made the women step back.
Gilda nodded.
“I can’t do that right now,” Andy replied. “About the clothes,” he prodded slightly.
The women were silent.
Shel seemed annoyed. “What’s wrong with you two? He’s just a stupid boy!”
Belle slapped her. “He’s the damned Voice, you idiot!”
Gilda muttered something to herself, before looking up and speaking, “Yes, the right clothes, I don’t have the armor, but I can pull everything else together.”
“He isn’t the Voice,” Shel insisted, raising a hand in retaliation.
Belle pushed the hand aside and leveled on Andy, seriously. “How did you enter the city?” she asked.
“I came in through the Eighth Gate,” Andy said, suddenly feeling nervous.
Belle shivered, her body poised to flee the shop.
“Thousands of people come in through the Eighth, don’t be such a child, Belle,” Shel said, lowering her hand, though a tinge of doubt rang through her voice.
The two younger women shared a long look while Gilda rushed around her shop looking for something.
“How are you such a romantic about everything else, but so stupid about this?” Belle asked.
Shel was silent.
“Thieving I, through the Eighth Gate, fly!” Belle spoke, as if from memory.
“To Panobscura Ta-a-lionis!” Gilda sang as she started work on a familiar-looking cape.
“To hearth and Guilt, I, naked, fly!”
“Sisters, bare up my mantle, and I’ll call the bla-a-ade!”
“With God’s word by my side!”
“Bearing violet eyes, I-I-I will never die!”
Shel sang with the others, though she was still unconvinced. She grabbed Andy and searched him. Andy didn’t resist. “So he refused to cover up, that doesn’t mean—” she pulled out his pockets. “Look, no Argument. It’s not him.”
“Also, no Sici, either,” Belle countered.
She means the coins the debaters trade and wear. They call those Sici.
“What are you doing, boy? After we get you dressed, what are you doing?” Shel asked.
“I’m going up the pillar—”
“Which one?” Belle demanded.
Andy shied away. “The Guilt.”
“And what are you doing there?” Shel asked slowly.
Gilda looked up from her work, and the women stared in fear and expectation.
Andy sighed, not sure what to say. I’m getting sick of this whole Voice of God thing.
You’d best get used to it.
Andy froze in shock.
What? What the he
ll was that?
The women saw his expression.
Andy bolted for the door, but Shel reached out and grabbed him.
“Don’t go yet! If you’re—well, you need to be clothed.”
Andy shook with fear, his eyes looked for the source of the voice, but there were only the three women.
They didn’t hear it. If I even ask, it might upset them more. I need to get dressed and get out of here.
Gilda appeared with the clothes and placed them on the counter. Andy laid a hand on the familiar pile.
I’ve worn this before. Pythia—she put these clothes on me. Only, she put armor over them too. It’s the same outfit, only made by a different hand.
“This cape doesn’t deliberately snag on things, does it?”
Gilda shook her head.
“How much?”
“Call it gratis,” Gilda said. “Ladies, we have to dress him.”
Andy sighed as they walked him to the changing area.
Under other circumstances he would have been embarrassed, but Andy felt an urge to rush.
How can I rush? I have no idea what I’m doing. It would be like rushing into traffic, and won’t these clothes make me stand out?
Andy gritted his teeth as they tied the cloak over his shoulders. He recalled Pythia putting the cloak on him. A sudden rage boiled over. He shook and nearly ripped the clothes off.
“Is this a common outfit?” Andy asked, a fragile edge in his voice
The women looked at him in the mirror. They were suddenly afraid.
“Of course it isn’t,” Gilda answered, unsure.
“Didn’t I ask for something to help me blend in?”
Silence.
“I’m not the Voice of God!”
Gilda and Shel ran from the changing room.
“Is this a test?” Belle asked.
Everywhere I turn, I feel like something is waiting for me. Something is putting these clothes on me, and doing this to me. I can’t go home, and I can’t leave! I must walk out of this store wearing this damn outfit again!
Andy felt his hand hurt at how tightly he was grasping the collar of the cloak. He released and heard the fabric flex.
The Immortal of Degoskirke Page 4
