by Rosie Scott
“I was dragged down to one of her many torture chambers. Secured to this cold metal slab. My stock of poisons was brought over to the royal district over the next few weeks, and they started torturing. Like I said, Achlys didn't order me to be killed, but the idea was to eventually kill me through torture. They injected all sorts of shit into my veins. Whether it was good or bad luck, nothing worked.”
“What do you mean it didn't work?” I questioned.
Mirrikh lifted up one eyebrow. “One poison was supposed to make me lose control of my bowels. Didn't happen. Another was supposed to paralyze me. Didn't happen. They finally used the poison that was supposed to make me burn alive from my veins.”
“Didn't happen,” Nyx replied, understanding his direction.
“Why?” I asked.
Mirrikh shrugged. “I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever know. Maybe I worked too long with poisons and breathing all of the stuff in the air over decades made me immune. Maybe it's some anatomical defect. Regardless, they couldn't kill me with poisons, so they stopped trying. That's when they busted out the old-fashioned torture techniques and combined it with the last poisons I'd had in my laboratory.”
“But poisons didn't work on you,” I protested.
“Not the ones that affected the body,” Mirrikh replied. “They busted out the ones which affected the mind. For decades, I laid on that slab getting injected with all sorts of poisons I'd made. One that made me feel like my veins were full of bugs.” Mirrikh pulled his other shirt sleeve up, showing a scar that appeared as if he'd scratched straight through all layers of his skin with his own fingernails. “One that caused hallucinations. Another that caused severe paranoia. All the while, they're burning and cutting me up like they're terrible cooks butchering a rack of ribs.”
“Dear gods,” I murmured. “When did it stop?”
“Not until Quellden was taken and Alastor here found me and the others in the torture chambers.” Mirrikh glanced over at Calder with a look of rapport. “It was years and years that I was tortured. I think Achlys stopped wanting me dead because it was so entertaining watching me literally shit myself with fear from my own creations. I still have bits and pieces of memories of her and other heirs laughing at me as I was tied to that table reacting to whatever it was they put in my veins.”
“I'm so sorry that happened to you,” I said sympathetically.
Mirrikh shrugged. “You've already had a part in stopping it. You were a little late, though.” Despite his words, he smiled flirtatiously at me as he swirled a finger beside his ear. “The body can be mended so much easier than the mind. I won't mince words. Years of torture broke my mind. I'm fucking insane, Kai. I'm just warning you now.” Mirrikh huffed with amusement. “I promise you that I am loyal to Alastor, which means I am loyal to you. But sometimes I may act in such a way that gets you not to believe it.”
“Tell her why,” Calder encouraged.
“There are dozens of versions of me up here,” Mirrikh said, tapping on the side of his head. “Each of them knows this. None of them can stop it. My personalities change when they want to. Sometimes I'm the same person for days, sometimes mere minutes. I cannot control it.” His black eyes rolled over me flirtatiously again, before he chuckled. “Hell, like now. All I can think about is sex. I could barely get through that story without imagining doing all sorts of things to you.”
“Hello?” Nyx raised a hand. “I'm here.”
“You can be there with us,” Mirrikh replied before he chuckled and put a hand over his face. “I know, Alastor. I'm doing it again.”
Calder nodded. “Yep.” He then glanced over at me. “Mirrikh's horny side is his most dangerous.”
“Is it now?” Nyx asked excitedly.
Calder's nostrils flared as he crossed his arms over his chest. “How many women have you paralyzed, Mirrikh?”
“Oh, many,” Mirrikh replied, to which I couldn't help but laugh.
“You're that good, huh?” I questioned.
Mirrikh chuckled. “Nothing I say fazes you, does it? Unfortunately, it is not my skill that causes it. It is my blood.”
“You are full of surprises,” I replied, sensing there was more to his story.
Half of the Alderi's mouth rose in a sly smile. “I am. Anyway, Alastor found me in that torture chamber. Learned of my skills and my potential. Taught me the ways of the beastmen. Given my obsession with blood and injections, I fell in love with the study of blood mixing. I learned alteration, so I knew I could become a beastman. The only problem? I couldn't find the right animal to transform into.
“Alastor sent me alongside his diplomats to Nahara to collect samples from the creatures there. The only blood the beastmen have gotten from Naharan creatures is blood that is traded. There was one creature in particular which had never been tested because its blood is unlike any other and extremely dangerous to obtain.” Mirrikh lifted an eyebrow at me as if he knew I would know the answer.
“The Naharan scorpions,” I said, my stomach aching as I was forced to remember Theron's death.
He nodded. “Their venom is not only injected from the stinger, it runs through their very blood.” Mirrikh stopped talking for a moment. His black eyes fell to the ground, before he blinked rapidly and glanced back up. In just a matter of seconds, I could tell his personality changed. Once lustful eyes were full of rabid, frantic energy. Mirrikh continued where he left off, though his voice now matched the energy in his eyes. When he spoke again, he rambled. “I knew that if anyone could become blood-kin with a scorpion, it would be me. I ran a few tests. Started by separating the scorpion's blood from its venom as exacting as I could. Tested the blood with mine. Found it mixed with little issue. Injected the scorpion venom into my veins. I found it did not affect me. Not only does Naharan scorpion venom paralyze, it is acidic. It burns. You can survive being injected, of course, but while you are paralyzed it's going to hurt. It didn't paralyze or hurt me.”
I nodded, though I said nothing. That wasn't something I'd particularly wanted to know given Theron's death.
Mirrikh grinned happily as he chattered, “I completed the blood mixing process. Transformed successfully. Look!” Abruptly, he grabbed one of the surgical blades from his belt. I felt Cerin grab my arm as if to pull me back to protect me. But I felt no hostility and remained as I was, watching Mirrikh quickly slice the blade across the skin of his scarred forearm. Greenish-brown blood splattered out onto the grass by Mirrikh's boots, sizzling as if in protest of the oxygen in the air. The oddly colored blood began to drip down his arm, but Mirrikh simply lifted the wound to his face, slurping off the excess blood before grabbing bandages from his knapsack. “I am now blood-kin with the Naharan scorpion,” he rambled happily, wrapping the bandage around his new wound, “and I'm the only one.”
I watched him tend to his wound. “By the gods,” I finally said, causing Mirrikh to glance up at me. “You are fascinating.”
Calder chuckled roughly at that as Mirrikh beamed with pride. “I'm glad that's your response, love. I halfway expected you to tell me to send him back to the underground.”
“Now, hold on,” Nyx spoke up, holding one finger in the air. “Your blood is venomous. I get that. Why are you paralyzing women during sex?”
Mirrikh finished his bandaging and put the rest of his supplies back in his knapsack. “All that needs to happen is a bit of my blood gets somewhere with close access to her bloodstream. Her mouth, her—”
“We get it,” I said abruptly, stopping the explanation short.
“And some women are into some very odd things,” Mirrikh went on, shaking slightly with nervous energy. “I'm not one to turn down a request.”
“Good. Then don't turn down mine,” Nyx replied.
“Nyx.” I grabbed her arm, glaring at her pointedly.
“What?”
“Really? He could paralyze you.”
Nyx shrugged. “Temporarily.”
“The Battle of the Dead,” I said vaguely, forcing
her to remember Theron's death.
Nyx grimaced. “Hell, I remember, okay? If anything, I kind of want it to happen. I want to know what it feels like. Maybe then I can shed some light on what he was feeling.”
I shook my head, exasperated. “Well, I'm not going to tell you what to do.”
“Good.” Nyx directed her attention back to Mirrikh. “You busy?”
Mirrikh smiled nervously, his face twitching sporadically. “I can be.”
With that, Nyx and Mirrikh wandered off. Cerin turned to Calder and lamented, “You saw that man and thought, 'I know what he needs! The power of transformation.'”
Calder laughed and said, “At least he's already used to it, in a way.” He grinned at me and added, “I should've known you would like him. Our years apart made me forget just how open-minded you are, I suppose. I really did miss you, love.” He came over to hang an arm on my shoulders.
“I'm not as convinced by him,” Cerin pointed out.
“Of course you aren't,” Calder teased. “He couldn't stop ogling your woman.”
“Yeah, but I'm used to that with others, namely yourself,” Cerin retorted, to which Calder laughed again.
“Why does he call you Alastor?” I asked.
“That's how he got to know me,” Calder replied. “I've taken on the dual-name thing underground. Many of the Alderi insist on calling me by my given name, particularly if they were in hard times during the time of the liberation. I don't know if Azazel ever told you, but Alastor means avenger. Using it sometimes gives the people hope. For all others, I tend to prefer Calder. I'm just so used to it anymore.”
“Well, good,” I replied, “because I'm used to saying Calder, and I'm not changing it now.”
Calder smiled at me mischievously and said, “You can even scream it if you'd like.”
Cerin exhaled roughly and rolled his eyes. “This is what I have to deal with.”
Calder and I could only laugh.
Fourteen
40th of New Moon, 427
A dwarven man rummaged through a box just behind an open door, skimming through various pieces of jewelry. The man was only about three and a half feet tall, and I would have bet gold on the circumference of his gut being larger than his height. He had a face that was wrinkled with age and colored with sunspots, and deep brown eyes appearing three times as large behind bifocals meant to help him study detail. His long gray hair was just long enough to lay on his gut rather than fall past it, and the coarse beard on his face was so unruly that parts of it sought permanent shelter between his lips.
I found the older man to be quite adorable. It was rare to see elderly people in most places of the world other than Nahara and Chairel since elves and gods tended to keep their youthful appearance until the later centuries of their lives. I knew dwarves had a lifespan just between the two extremes of the world. Outside of war and work accidents, dwarves were known to live to be between two and three hundred years old. I figured the man was nearing the end of his life. I wondered how he felt about living his whole life just to watch his homeland get taken by the end of it.
“Yours was silver, correct?” The old man asked me, looking up from behind his bifocals with abnormally large eyes. The sight was so cute I couldn't help but smile as I answered him.
“In color, correct. I requested steel for its material.”
The man nodded, bringing a ring slowly over to me and putting it up on the counter. “Take a look at it and let me know what ya think,” he said. “I hope we got everything right.”
I picked up the ring meant for Azazel, inspecting it. It was made of stainless steel, ensuring it would not bend or wear down over time and could last through a beating. The band was wide and just thick enough to be durable and flashy. A longbow was carved into the flatter face of the ring, tilted to its side to leave room on the bottom left and top right corners for the image of two karambits. In the band to the left of the face, I'd had “Azazel” carved. To the right was his surname “Beriah.”
I turned the ring in the light, letting the nearby sconces brighten up the steel on the inside of the band. As I'd requested, it had been engraved.
To my light and my shield: it is time for chaos. Love always, Kai Sera
I looked up to the dwarf. He appeared nervous as he waited for my answer, so when I replied, he was visibly relieved. “It came out perfectly. Thank you so much.”
“I've worked on jewelry all my life,” the man replied, as if unwilling to take a compliment. “Well, and weapons, but I prefer making jewelry.” He chuckled softly.
“So you made this?” I questioned. “I placed the order with a woman.”
He nodded. “My daughter works the counter sometimes.” His chubby cheeks reddened as he said, “I've been sleeping more and more as I've aged. Old age isn't fun, ya know. Your body ages, but your mind doesn't. That's the worst. I have all these ideas of what I can do with my time, and then my body decides differently. I wake up with dreams, but I fall asleep in reality.”
“I can only imagine,” I sympathized. “Are there any problems you have that a healer can help with?”
“Oh, I'm too far gone, my dear.” He shook his head.
“Would you mind if I checked you for injuries to see if there's anything I can do?” I questioned.
The man hesitated a moment. “Will I have to take off my clothes?”
I chuckled. “No. I can reach over across the counter and try it.”
“How much will this cost me?”
“Nothing. It costs me nothing but time, and you've made a beautiful ring for someone who's dear to me. It's the least I can do.”
The older man finally nodded and stepped closer to the counter. “Okay.”
Sik la trama. White life magic filled the space between the man's forehead and my palm, the warmth of the energy pulling my attention to his extremities.
“Put your hands up on the counter for me,” I requested, repeating the spell over his hands when he did so. When the heat remained over his hands, I asked, “Do you have pain in your joints?”
“Oh, all the time,” he replied. “I was diagnosed with arthritis some time back by a traveling healer from Chairel.”
I shook my head. “It's not arthritis,” I murmured. “Do you bruise easily?”
“I do. Stubbed my toe on the door frame a few weeks ago. It is still discolored.”
I pulled back from him. “I'm going to take a guess that you eat a lot of meat.”
The older man chuckled. “That's all I eat, my dear.”
“Well, you're either going to have to start incorporating plant foods into your diet, or you'll have to start eating some of that meat raw.”
The man recoiled back from me as if I'd just bit him. “What? Why?”
“You have scurvy, friend. The nutrients you need are in plant foods. If you don't want to eat them, you'll have to refrain from cooking some of your meat. The heat from cooking strips food of a lot of its nutrition.”
He gave me a quizzical expression from behind his glasses. “Ya don't say?”
“It could be the cause of your sore joints and your fatigue,” I replied. “I can't make you young again, friend, but I can at least try to make you more comfortable.”
The dwarf nodded quickly, before chuckling and saying, “My daughter's gonna kill me. She's been tryin' to get me to eat my vegetables. I can't stand the things.”
There was the low hum of sudden activity outside then, interrupting our conversation. I heard soldiers talking and shouting orders. At first, my heart started to beat in anticipation of an attack. I hurried to look out of the glass window of the small jewelry store. Because the window faced east and the store hung from the edge of a mountain, it offered a view of the ocean from over the grasslands. Beneath dull gray skies, Eteri warships were arriving at the shore. Cyrus, Uriel, Dax, and Leura had finally arrived to consolidate our armies after leaving men in Pisces to run it. The energy of excitement began to hum through my veins, for that meant that ou
r planning for Olympia would start tonight.
“Ya have to get movin'?” The old dwarf asked me as I looked back to the counter.
“I do. I apologize.”
“Don't apologize, dear.” He smiled slightly at me. “I never imagined the day would come, ya know? My whole life we've fought with Eteri. My grandmother was a Hammerton general. Her father was a soldier. It goes back in my family line. Our countries have been fightin' for so long that it felt like neither of them really intended on actually makin' progress, just bickerin'.”
“For your family being so involved in the army, I'm surprised you are not more hostile to me,” I commented.
The old man shrugged. “There will always be war. People will always find reasons to kill each other. I decided long ago to not get involved. I know ya are my enemy. I can't bring myself to care. I've worked my whole life here as a jeweler. I just want to keep working in peace until I die and can leave my life's work to my daughter. You've been kind to me. I'll take that at face value.”
I reached out a hand to him, and the short man took it. We shook hands as I marveled at our odd situation. “I appreciate your kindness as well, and the beautiful work you did on the ring.”
“I'm just happy to have gotten gold for it,” the old man chuckled. “When my daughter told me ya paid for it, I thought she'd lost her mind.”
I laughed softly. “She didn't. But she will lose her mind if you don't start eating your vegetables.”
The old man chuckled as I left his small shop, walking out onto the wooden walkways alongside the mountain while I pocketed Azazel's ring. I decided to give it to him when we were alone. I didn't want the other Renegades feeling left out. Ideally, I wanted to eventually have all manner of prestigious gifts and items for the Renegades to wear and own that showed their rank and position, but I wasn't rich. These things would come in time.
A flash of shiny black and yellow Sentinel armor pulled my attention to the deck of an Eteri galleon on the shoreline as I made my way through the grasslands. Uriel was in the midst of helping to unload supplies from his ship one crate at a time. While the Sentinel had his back turned, I hurried up the ramp to the deck to wait behind him to surprise him. Finally, he turned, beaming as he came face to face with me.
