by S. G. Night
Nelle’s face was stricken, frozen in an expression of pity, disgust, and melancholy. But she did not interrupt.
“They had my mother and Emma by the hair,” Racath said woodenly. “Took them both out on the grass and pinned them down. Ripped their clothes….Then each Goblin took a turn with them in the dirt, biting them and clawing them as they did. And all the while, Emma was screaming my name. Mom was praying. Their voices gave out after five or six Goblins. They stopped moving entirely a little after that.”
Nelle made a small sound. She put a shaky hand on his. “Racath….”
“Then the taller Demon turned and saw me,” Racath said, not stopping. “The firelight flared and I saw his face…he…he looked dead. Dead and rotting, like a corpse. He had no eyes, but I know he could see. He lifted a hand towards me, like he would strike me down from afar. But nothing happened. And I remember he looked confused, like I’d tricked him somehow. Like something was going wrong for him. I ran before he could send the Goblins after me.”
He took a long, deep breath, steadying the erratic pounding of his torn heart. “Then came Oblakgrad. I don’t even know how, but somehow I fled from the mountains entirely, and ended up inside the city walls. For the first time, I experienced the real world. The world outside my little valley. The world controlled by the Demons, the monsters that hated me and my kind for reasons I couldn’t understand. I ended up living on the streets. I was still young — my markara hadn’t started to form yet, and my muscles hadn’t filled out, so I could easily pass as just another Human street rat.
“I was there for two years. Two years spent begging for dots and pennies, scavenging for food, ducking the Arkûl guards, and looking for places to hide from the rain. I remember all the awful things that adults would call me. I remember how the ones in fancy clothes would look at me with disgust. But I also remember how many people looked just as rundown and broken as I was. Those were the good people, people suffering under the Demons. They were the ones who gave me pennies on Simtag.
“Eventually, I tried to join with some other kids, the street gangs, but when they saw the shape of my eyes they pushed me away. Called me a freak. From then on, whenever they saw me, they would chase me down and beat me senseless for fun. I hated them. I was afraid of them.”
He laughed humorlessly to himself. “Then one day, when I was eleven, they cornered me in an alley. They’d seen this old woman give me a whole dyre, and they wanted it. It seems like so little now, but then it was an entire week of food for me. So they chased me down again. I’d started to grow by then. My markara was just starting to fill in splotches on my arms. But I didn’t know how to fight, and I didn’t know how to use magic. So when they trapped me, I froze up. I didn’t know what to do. They closed in on me…their leader, a big guy named Carter, grabbed me by the shirt. He took my dyre. He said things to me. Called me names. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember it made me cry. Then he hit me in the nose.
“I was bleeding all over the place. Blood got in my mouth, in my eyes. Carter mocked me. Kneed me between the legs, then again in the gut. My head was spinning so fast it felt like it had been knocked off my shoulders. I threw up. The other kids were cheering.
“Then one of them came forward and got between Carter and me. Rodney. Scrawny little kid. None of the others liked him. They just kept him around because he was easy to pick on. He yelled at Carter, told him to stop. To leave me alone. Carter just laughed at him, grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the others. He laughed at Rodney and told the others that if they could crack Rodney’s skull before he cracked mine, they’d get an extra share of the dyre.
“So they turned on Rodney and started pounding on him. Five or six of them, just wailing on his face. He was curled up on the alley floor, not making a sound. Carter pinned me to the wall and started smashing my head against the stone. That’s how I got this, actually.”
He indicated the pale scar that ran over his eye, from eyebrow to cheek. “That’s where a sharper brick cut me when he was battering my face into the wall. After a minute, I started to black out. I remembered my family, what had happened to them. I remembered watching them, all their Majiski strength failing them as they were held down. Held down and beaten. Bitten. Broken.
“I felt weak, helpless, unable to save myself. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rodney. That sweet, innocent kid who had only tried to do the right thing. To stand up for me, for me! He was a light in a dark world, and they were killing him for it. Right in front of me.”
Racath’s fists clenched into tight knots. “And suddenly, out of nowhere, I was angry. I hated it. I hated being a victim, being at someone else’s mercy while they hurt me for who I was. I hated feeling helpless. I hated seeing an innocent person broken suffer because they weren’t strong enough to save themselves.
“I lost my childhood when I watched my family die. But I didn’t stop being a kid until I was being pummeled in that alley. In that moment of anger, I grew up. I became a Majiski. I realized how strong I was. I don’t remember how it happened exactly, but I got free of Carter. Bit him. Tackled him. Grabbed a loose cobblestone from the ground and smashed him in the head with it until he stopped moving.
“The other kids saw and stopped beating Rodney. They came to try to help Carter. Pulled me off him. I thrashed and kicked at them and got a few good punches in. But I still couldn’t fight them all off. I wasn’t trained, wasn’t skilled. But for the first time, I was fighting back.
“They probably would have killed me. But someone dropped down from the rooftops. A man wearing a black, leather cloak-coat and a hood. Weapons were strapped out all over his body.”
“Genshwin,” Nelle said. It was the first time she had commented. Her voice was quiet, as though she feared if she spoke to loudly, she’d shatter the story.
Racath nodded. “Yeah. That was Toren Valgance. He’s a Talon now, a good friend of mine. He was only sixteen, then. Just an acolyte — that’s what we call a younger Genshwin apprenticed to an assassin, so they can get field experience. But he’s always been enormously tall, even back then. In his Shadow, he could have been a god. He ripped the gang off me one by one and tossed them away. Literally, tossed them. Like they were balls of crumpled paper. He stood between me and them, and told them to leave. Leave, or he would destroy them. They left. Rodney was already dead. Toren recognized me as a Majiski and took me to Velik Tor.
“I knew right then that I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be strong, powerful, skilled. I wanted to be able to protect myself against the world that hated me. And I wanted to be able to fight for people like Rodney, people not strong enough to fight for themselves. I wouldn’t be a victim anymore. No one would ever, ever, push me down ever again. So I joined the Genshwin. And eight years later…here I am.”
“Why are you telling me this, Racath?” Nelle asked.
Racath looked down at the scars on Nelle’s arms. Gently, he reached out and touched them. “Because I owe you for telling me about this. Because I don’t want there to be anything hidden between us. No secrets. Because I wanted you to know that you don’t have to hide these from me. You don’t have to be ashamed of them. They are part of who you are, part of the experiences that have made you who you are today. And you are beautiful today.
“And I’m telling you this so that you can see my scars, too. So you can understand the person that I am today. My scars defined me: I am who I am because I refuse to be a victim, and because I refuse to allow the weak to be victimized while I have the power to stop it.
“That’s why I attacked that Goblin in the tavern the night we first met. That’s why I tried to stop the execution in Milonok. That’s why I started the riot in the Burrows. And that’s why I can’t stay in the domus forever, Nelle. Not because I have to, or because it’s expected of me. But because I couldn’t sit here in paradise while there are still people out there suffering under the heel of someone stronger than them. I couldn’t bear to be here while other
s have to live without a free sky.”
Nelle was crying still, but she was smiling at him. “Do you remember,” she asked. “A few weeks ago when you came complaining to me in the pit because Oron hexed you, and I yelled at you, told you to grow up, because you weren’t behaving like the man from my visions?”
Racath nodded.
“This,” Nelle said, gesturing at him. “This is that man. This is the man who Io needs. Who God needs. Who I need.”
He grinned around his tears. “Really?”
Nelle bobbed her head. “You’re not quite ready here, yet,” she said as she touched his bicep. “Or here.” She tapped his forehead. “Or here.” She touched his markara. Without her glove between them, the warmth of her touch rushed through him like welcome wind. “But you’re ready here.” Nelle placed her hand over his chest. Pride shown through her tears like sunlight through rain. “This...this is the heart of a Dragon. The heart of the Krilati.”
“You mean that?”
“Every word.” Nelle looked him in the face, her eyes searching. Then she laughed. “Your face gets all blotchy when you cry.”
Racath couldn’t help but laugh with her. “I get it from my mother. Just don’t tell Oron.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
They held each other then. He put his arm around her shoulder and she nestled into his chest. Silence fell between them, but it was a warm silence. They watched as the last drops of sunlight vanished behind the illusionary horizon.
She felt like home to Racath. Like having Emma back. A sister, a friend, someone he could trust. It was perfect. He only wondered if was there anything else that she might she not be telling him. And if she knew his future…what kind of terrible secrets might she be keeping?
***
THIRTY-THREE
Contraband
Notak shimmied along the narrow second-story ledge of the Dor’mon building. The grey-stone structure overlooked the bustling crowds of Bayfront Row, a street in the mercantile district that ran alongside Dor’mon Bay. Notak had rendered himself semi-invisible with the ‘Flage just before climbing up the side of the building, shrouding him from the people in the street ten feet below him. Step by cautious step, he inched his way toward a window in the side of the building — hopefully, his point of entry.
He and Rachel had arrived in the port city more than a week ago. It had been a grueling, nerve-racking trip; most of the routes and caravan roads that traveled between Dor’mon and Dírorth had to pass through Milonok. And Milonok was still in a state of turmoil since the Day of Severance. Without the transportation of the Drifters to rely on, they had had to travel on foot, off-road, down the eastern side of the Valcan River.
It had taken them days of work to find their next lead. Originally, they had believed that the man mentioned in Hammon’s manifests — Brahn — was manager of the Company in this city. Further investigation had disproved that theory. But, after what seemed like endless hours of searching, they had discovered his true nature.
Just yesterday, Rachel had discovered that Brahn Martell was indeed a Westward Trade affiliate, but his offices were separate from the main Dor’mon headquarters. He owned a building and warehouse near the docks, unmarked and unregistered, on a street long ago abandoned by the residents — which seemed, to Notak, suspicious to say the least. An off-the-books branch of Westward Trade could only mean one thing: black markets and illegal goods.
Just a moment ago, Notak and Rachel had split up: Rachel had gone to infiltrate the warehouse (conveniently located next door), while he was about to sneak into the offices. Their objective: to find any records or clues pertaining to their target.
The window sat slightly ajar. Notak could hear a pair of muffled voices coming from the room within. Quickly as he could, the Elf skirted the last few steps to the window and took a stealthy peek through the oily glass.
Inside was an office, dimly resembling Hammon’s chamber in the warehouse in Dírorth. Shelves, maps, and assorted silver knickknacks filled the walls. An ornate desk filled a large portion of the floor space. Behind the desk sat a thin Human with a narrow face and a head full of greasy, slicked-back hair. He reminded Notak of a well-dressed buzzard.
But a chill ran through Notak’s heart when he saw who — or rather, what — occupied the chair across the desk from the Human. A creature, roughly the same shape as a man. Roughly.
Its broad-shouldered torso narrowed out into a disproportionately small pelvis, and its gangly limbs seemed grotesquely overlong. Each hand and foot bore six spindly digits, the fingers and toes tapering out into needle-sharp claws. Its skin was a fleshy beige color, wrinkled and stretched across its oblong body, like the skin itself wasn’t large enough to fit the creature comfortably. Tendons bulged in the elongated neck that supported a round, bald skull. There was no nose to speak of, just two slits on its flat face beneath a pair of angular, scarlet eyes that bulged from shallow sockets. Even through the imperfect window glass, Notak could see row upon row of shark-like, matte-black teeth filling its mouth.
A Demon. A Demon of the Imp archetype, by the looks of it. It gave off that familiar aura that all Demons do, an aura of raw malevolence. The kind of aura that comes off a being so evil that its mere presence seems to damage your soul. Notak struggled to control his breathing; he had to stay calm, to focus, to prevent the Demon to affect him. But he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that, no matter how well camouflaged he was, or how intently the Demon was looking at the Human across the desk, it still could somehow see him standing on the ledge.
“…no need to be worried about the shipment, I assure you,” the Human said to the Demon in a slimy drawl of a voice. “Last month’s delay was unfortunate, but unavoidable. Things are still a little…disorganized, with my colleagues in Dírorth right now, what with the recent death of the manager there.”
When the Demon spoke, it sounded like it had a ball of steel wool lodged in its throat. “Your company’s internal affairs are of little concern to my master, Brahn,” it said. “All that he cares about is ensuring that the order for this coming Abur will arrive on time. The lack of punctuality your company demonstrated last month proved most…displeasing to him.” The Demon’s eyes flashed menacingly.
Brahn made a placating gesture at the devil. “And I told you, I am confident that the order will arrive here on schedule, on the 8th of Abur, ready for you to pick up on the 10th. The food, wine, fabrics, etcetera. Everything will be arriving from Dírorth on time.” He smirked as he mimicked the Demon’s emphasis on the last two words.
It was astounding. Brahn was just sitting there, perfectly calm, having a business meeting with a Demon. Not only that, but he was patronizing a Demon. There was not a hint of fear in his eyes.
The Demon responded by holding up a folded piece of parchment pinched between its claws. “My master also asked me to deliver this to you as well. An order for some of your more discrete products.”
Brahn frowned. “Let me see.” He took the paper from the Demon and unfolded it, his eyes narrowing as he read. “He wants ten pounds of king dust and five whole liters of saffron sap?” he questioned, eyebrow arched. “Must be one hell of an event he’s planning.”
“Can you supply the items?” the Demon growled.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Brahn said magnanimously, waving his hand at the Demon without looking up from the paper. “I’ve got plenty of that kind of contraband tucked away in the warehouse.”
“And your price?”
“Let’s see…” Brahn mused. “Ten pounds of spark and five bottles of head-wash…that’ll come out to about…hmm…twenty whole?”
The Demon nodded in agreement.
Notak almost choked. Twenty scion for a party’s-worth of recreational compounds? That much money could feed a small town for several months. Just how much coin did the gentry have?
“You can pick that up on the 10th with the rest of the stuff,” Brahn said. “The last item on the list though…that’s a bit
more complicated. Are these specifications absolutely required?”
“My master is adamant that they are met to the letter, yes.”
Brahn grimaced. “I don’t have anything like this in stock right now…I’ll have to get in touch with some of my associates. I can’t make any promises that this will be ready by the 10th.”
“I hope for your sake it is ready, Brahn. The Baron Monger is starting to question your reliability. He instructed me to remind you that the Westward Trading Company’s little backdoor market only exists because he allows it to. That privilege can be taken away.”
Notak nodded to himself. Baron Monger. They had a name. It was, more than likely, a pseudonym that the false god used to mingle amidst the Human gentry — an identity he wore in tandem with his status as Duke of Dor’mon.
“I didn’t say it was impossible,” Brahn replied placidly. “Just that I can’t promise anything.” He gave the Demon a cunning look. “Not for the standard rate, anyway. Getting something like this by the 10th is going to cost him.”
“How much?”
“Fifty whole,” Brahn said remorselessly.
“Fifty scion?!” The Demon gave a snort of disgust and disbelief. “Outrageous! Out of the question! I cannot offer more than—”
“I don’t haggle with messengers,” Brahn interrupted dryly. “So either your master will have to learn to deal with fixed prices, or come down from his ivory tower and dicker with me himself. Oh, but wait, I forgot!” The merchant held up a hand and made a sarcastic expression of realization, like he was having an epiphany. “He doesn’t ever come out, does he? All he does is throw spark-parties for whichever sycophantic lordlings are kissing his lofty hind-quarters this month.”
The Demon stood, clawed hands clenched. “Mind your tongue, Human,” it seethed, its horrific teeth bared in anger. “Or I will cut it out. You will—”
