Fallen Victors

by Jonathan Lenahan

  “I know you have, and this is your reward,” the Priest said.

  “Reward?”

  “Your continued allegiance. Why waste a servant as good as yourself if I can keep you around forever?”

  “I, I don’t understand.”

  I blended with the wall behind me and took another swig of whiskey.

  The knife cut, and the prisoner fell to the floor. The Priest stepped around him, avoiding the blood that dripped its way through the stones.

  “Take the body back to Marman. It will be a good subject.”

  I ran. Shame burned through me, but I ran. What had I just seen?

  Let me out.

  Queen Melanie

  “The plans are going well?” Melanie eyes the Cao Fen priest, his red robe the sole source of color in an otherwise dreary room.

  “Better than expected. Soon, we should have enough Grey People to begin defending our borders properly, mercenaries or no.”

  “My borders, you mean.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  Windowless, the candles lighting the room could be counted on one hand, rendering shapes and figures hazy and leaving dark corners open to imagination, allowing Talliver and Melanie’s personal guard to blend with the gloom. Melanie sat on the room’s only chair, its back high. Three steps separated her newly red nails from the floor, its only decoration a square red rug nudged against the bottom step, just large enough to fit the priest’s bended knee.

  “How much longer?”

  “A year at most, Your Majesty, if you want to provide cover for the entire border, that is. As of now we can only manage pockets.”

  Melanie rubbed her temples. Another year paying mercenaries. Another year cozying up to their company leaders, and another year lying to them of Prolifia’s imminent windfall; she wore deceit better than a grandmother wore her winter shawl, but waiting for the Cao Fen’s go-ahead on this plan tested her patience.

  “Any problems thus far?”

  “Nary a one. Half a year, people might become suspicious about the disappearances – the streets are emptying too quickly for my liking – but that will be unavoidable.”

  “Can you take any from the mercenary companies?”

  “We could, yes, Your Majesty. It will prove trickier, but perhaps worth the effort.”

  “Do so. This entire endeavor will be useless if we exhaust our own population to complete it.”

  A hand presented her with a silver goblet and then retreated. She took a sip. “Oh, and that small issue we spoke of? Take care of it. Don’t you have a man in Fayne? Use him.”

  A bow. The priest exited the room, leaving Melanie alone with her guards.

  Talliver leaned over her shoulder. “Meeting with Kross next, Your Majesty. The Glass Room.”

  She sighed. “Of course.”

  They walked through the castle at a brisk pace, Melanie’s guards surrounding her like a phalanx, plowing through those who didn’t scurry from her path quickly enough. An impudent few risked dirty glances after they’d passed, reflected in Talliver’s mail, and Melanie noted their faces for a later date.

  She passed the throne room, where Olen received Prolifia’s petitioners, a practice Melanie loathed. From morning until early afternoon, he sat, twice a week, hearing their cries for help, arbitrating every little thing in their lives, like children.

  And children they were, which is why they needed her stern hand. Olen coddled them far too much, and if left to him, the mercenaries would slowly desert Prolifia and leave it defenseless, opportunity for Prolifia’s enemies to ravage Olen’s children. Melanie glared at one of the nobles too slow to bow out of the way. No, somebody had to be firm.

  She turned a corner seemingly made entirely of dirt, and then, with a look both ways, slid open a door hidden within the wall. Talliver shut it behind him.

  A scent of paper and dust. Tomes covered every inch of available wall space, making her fingers itch. A faint shadow of Rupert’s blood still ghosted the floor. She crossed to her desk against the far wall, mashed between two bookshelves, and withdrew a sheet of paper, delicately embossed with her seal in the upper right-hand corner.

  Forty minutes later, she placed the pen back into its inkwell, her thumb tar-dipped and spotting her dress. The servants better be able to remove the stains. She sprinkled pounce across the paper, vibrated it, shook the extra pounce back into the pot, and rolled the paper into a tube that she placed in a fold of her dress. Leaving her writing desk, Melanie sat in the same chair in which she’d greeted Rupert weeks ago and waited.

  “Talliver.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty?” he appeared next to her shoulder.

  "He's been waiting out there long enough. Fetch him."

  A few minutes passed, and Talliver reappeared. “I think he’s coming soon, Your Majesty.”

  Of course, she thought. Always the power game with him. A few more minutes passed.

  The hidden door slid open and then closed. Extraordinarily thin, almost to the point of emaciation, the man wore his skin like a coat, a spectral ghost bound to a frame. His face flaunted round, absurdly fat cheeks, decorating a head that seemed top-heavy when compared to his body. Frigid green eyes looked back at her.

  Talliver moved closer to her side.

  She smiled, keeping her eyes narrow, her breathing even. It was as if another person lived inside Kross, one that used the eyes as more of a link to the outside than as part of the whole. His long hands folded themselves on the outer edge of the table, and a single burnished nail protruded to tap against the table. Dink. Dink. Dink.

  They stared at each other. If only she trusted the Cao Fen, then she wouldn’t need to arrange backup. Melanie slid the letter across the table. Neither spoke.

  “Talliver?”

  “Your Majesty?”

  “Kindly inform my guest of the job.”

  “Fayne,” Talliver said. “A small group, no more than five. They are to be considered powerful. Their dossier is in front of you.”

  Kross’s face didn’t change.

  “Twenty thousand per head, alive. Ten thousand, dead.” Talliver wiped his brow. “Is that all, Your Majesty?”

  “Yes, it is. Thank you.”

  Kross rose, the dossier in hand. He left the room as lightly as he’d entered.

  Melanie released the chair’s arms, its wooden frame creaking. Kross never changed. She wasn’t scared of him, not precisely, but he unnerved her, and with good reason.

  “Talliver.”

  He leaned next to her, awaiting her command.

  “Why do I keep returning to him?”

  “Because he’s the best there is, Your Majesty.”

  “You’re right, I suppose. How do you feel about him, though?”

  “Honestly?” Talliver licked his lips. “He unnerves me, Your Majesty. That story of what he did to the priest a few years back? That was . . . unholy.”

  Melanie remembered the story well, didn’t think many would forget it. The Cao Fen had put a bounty on his head, but out of pride more than anything, making it so small that none would risk Kross’s wrath by pursuing it. Even now, people still said that whenever Kross entered a church, the priests exited out the back door. Melanie liked his style, and had hired him twice more, but still only employed him as a last option; she didn’t want to become too dependent on a man that wielded more fear than she herself did.

  She stared at the glass table and watched her fingers dance across its surface, still slightly shaky. A slam of her hands against the reflection and she pushed her chair back, where it tilted and spiraled on its hind legs before it fell to the ground with a brittle crash. She slid the door open and then closed, nothing remaining to right the chair, nothing remaining to right her plans if all went wrong.

  Angras

  "What is right and wrong?"

  It’s a question. Morality is different for everybody, isn’t it? What’s right for one is wrong for another, and vice-versa.

  “Yes, but,” somet
hing pushed me forward, forcing me to pursue the question, “don’t you think there are boundaries? Things we should never do? Inalienable rights and wrongs?”

  People have said that before as well, especially about those like us. Morality is the herd instinct in the individual, and fear is its mother. To the naive, an action without appropriate consequences seems unsightly, but that’s only because they lack the foresight to see the eventual good. People try to draw lines in the sand for us, telling us not to cross them. But you know what?

  “What?”

  Cross them we do, and the things we learn end up benefitting those who drew the lines in the first place. They grumble about our methods, but when it actually benefits them, they simmer down and sweep it under the rug.

  I poured a glassful of the red wine. “Hypocrisy.”

  Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confronts us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. Tell them there is something in it for them, and they’ll stand down. It’s only when they don’t see the benefit that they attack it as inhumane or whatever it may be.

  “So inalienable rights and wrongs are?”

  Nonexistent. Morality? Take it, I say. Even if it exists, it’s always going to be ignored, tossed to the side when they see the benefits outweigh their sense of right. You’re only as good as the world allows you to be. Better, I say, to forge ahead, looking at the tangibles. Set a goal, accomplish it, do it, and don’t worry about the rest.

  A sip of the wine. “Thank you.”

  Isaac

  The ground rippled in front of his face, like the surface of a pond broken by a skipped rock. Crymson’s horse faded into the distance, and then sprang back, twice as close. Sweat coated Isaac’s skin, but he shivered and rewrapped the blanket around his shoulders, tucking its ends beneath his armpits and squeezing tightly, its once soft fibers chafing against his suddenly anemic skin.

  Surely the blanket had caught their attention by now. Surely his trembles had evoked questions in their minds. Why didn’t anybody help him, or at least ask?

  Abandonment. They wanted the fever to lay waste to his body, even though he did everything for them. What more could he offer, other than his sanity? This is what they asked for, right?

  Crysmon turned in her saddle and looked at Isaac, her brow wrinkled, drawing notice to her hair, almost but not quite long enough to tug. She ran a hand over it, and then said something to Alocar out the corner of her mouth.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, pitching it so that only Isaac could hear.

  Instantly, he regretted his earlier thoughts, and chided himself for being so selfish.

  “Hot. Cold. Everything in between. Still here, though.”

  “The magic?”

  “The magic,” He licked blood from his cracked lips, and then tilted his canteen and took a long pull. A few droplets fell to his hand and his tongue lapped those up as well, bits of dirt grinding between his teeth before he swallowed. Isaac had told them the dangers of storing magic, and even with what felt like only a quarter filled, he knew he was entering perilous territory. His magic didn’t just sit and rest; it flowed, running through him like the blood in his veins. The world felt fuller, brighter, like somebody had drawn sharp, bold black outlines around the figures in it, making them and everything in the world more pronounced.

  Including the pain.

  The draw of the magic caressed him with its smooth arms, their hair burned away by the fire that gave structure to their bones and sinews. It whispered for Isaac to take more, and still more, and when the sun reached its zenith, the whispers grew to shouts, calling for him to take in as much as he could and never look back, to become one with the magic in a way he’d never thought possible.

  Only the night afforded him some relief, the moon’s soft glow easily ignored in comparison to the inescapable blaze of the sun. During the day, even as felt he was dying, being burned from the inside out, the sun’s brightness urged him to draw more from its rays. The temptation grew more difficult to resist with each passing day, a temptation that would end him if he allowed it.

  Isaac locked his hands around the saddle pommel, using the joint-cracking pressure to help him ignore the sun. “I’ll be fine. Just don’t make me take on more than I can handle. If I can’t control myself, then I don’t want to hurt anybody who doesn’t deserve it.”

  He closed his eyes, letting the horse drag him where it may. He’d known drug addicts in his past, and the more they used, the more addicted they became, satisfaction increasingly distant; being a Blessed meant being a magic addict. Everything has its price. The fuller his tank, the more powerful Isaac became, but so too did his vulnerability increase. His mentor had compared his power to a haymaker: if it connected, he’d knock the target out, but it also increased the addictiveness of his power, like opium added gradually to the water supply.

  Behind him, Teacher laughed, and Isaac heard Slate’s honeyed voice. Envy bit at him like the pick of an axe. After five years a prisoner, after Whispers had stymied that envy and isolated him from its wrath, he felt the pinpricks of it yet again. Sometimes, he missed Whispers. But then he reminded himself that bonds were not created at once, not fashioned fully mature; rather, Slate and Teacher had built that bond, painstakingly and over years, until the resulting wall was large enough that nothing could tear it apart, and Isaac felt comforted, if only slightly.

  A child meandered across the front yard with the naïve steps of one who hasn’t yet encountered the world’s cruelty. His sister followed, picking him up where he fell and righting his course when he toddled off the beaten track. Behind them, their parents watched from the surety of their front porch, the smiles creasing their faces all that needed to be said of the family’s demeanor.

  “Come on,” whispered Isaac’s mentor. To the parents, he said, “Hullo the house! Mind if I approach?”

  A nod from the parents. Isaac’s mentor walked to the porch, but not before telling him, “Go on, go talk to her.”

  The sister held her brother in her arms, a squirming package of energy and curiosity. As Isaac neared, she placed him on the ground but kept her hands on his shoulders, the brother’s chubby fingers attempting to pry hers away.

  Isaac stopped before the siblings. He looked at the sister’s eyes, the color of a springtime butterfly and just as pretty. She looked back at him, neither speaking.

  “I’m Isaa-”

  “I’m Gra-”

  They both stopped. The brother took advantage of the confusion and tumbled into the grass, chortling as he rolled. Isaac stepped nearer. “I’m Isaac.”

  Up close, her eyes looked golden. “Grace,” she said.

  They stopped that night along another of the Idranian’s tributaries, the grass and life around its bank lush and vibrant. Isaac dismounted his horse and staggered into the middle of the water, shallow enough that his feet never left the ground, leaving the others behind to make camp. His skin bleeding magic, steam rose from the portions of the river that swirled around him, the only sound the gentle current, the only feeling one of small fish nibbling at his legs.

  Teacher joined him, relaxing in the warmth of Isaac’s dispelled heat.

  “That warm?” Crymson dipped a toe in the water and submerged her foot.

  “I let a little magic bleed at night. Helps give me some relief. It’s enough to heat the water, but only for a small area, with the current and all.”

  “These need a wash anyway.” Crymson waded into the water, and after getting the fire roaring, Alocar joined, similarly clothed. Only Slate stayed at the camp, pointedly looking the other direction.

  “Feels nice to bathe some of this dust from my old body.” Alocar sunk deeper into the water. “This makes you feel better?”

  “Enough that I can get some sleep.”

  Teacher got up and left the water. The other three remained, content to be nothing more than living, breathing stones in the river’s current.

  T
he sound of bare feet slapping the earth made Isaac turn his head.

  “I’d rather not,” said Crymson, following Alocar, who had already started splashing to the shore.

  Teacher, arms pumping, reached the shoreline, and launched himself into the river with, tucking his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. A fountain erupted near Isaac, ten feet tall if it were two. He ducked back, tripped over an unfelt stone, and fell beneath the water’s surface before he bounced up, spluttering. Crymson was unabashedly wringing her clothes dry on the shore, and Alocar was walking back toward the fire still, fully clothed and sodden.

  “What was that!” Isaac shouted at Teacher, whose smiling face popped up from beneath the water. Isaac turned to leave, his face hot, leaving a trail of steam to follow –

  Slap! The back of his head rocked with something warm and slimy. He reached back: mud. Isaac’s hand tightened, and the dark muck squelched out from both ends.

  Fever forgotten, momentarily caught in the exhilaration of something as innocent and fun-filled as a good old-fashioned mudfight, Isaac ducked beneath the water and grabbed double handfuls of mud. He pushed off the bottom and exploded more than five feet from where he’d gone under – in the dark of the current, he should be impossible to spot. Whirling, ready to fire, another slap rewarded Isaac, slipping down his neck and into his collar. He heard laughter and turned, but Teacher again disappeared.

  Isaac waited, handfuls of mud still held above the water, the left underhand and ready to toss, the right cocked behind his shoulder and ready to throw. His senses, amplified by his stored magic, leaked through, sharpening his vision to the point that the night outside looked like a bright day, and light beamed through the water to the things beneath its surface: several fish, a rock, and – there! Teacher, in the same place as his last throw, holding fast to the roots of underwater plants. Shoulders squared, Isaac readied himself to throw, waiting, waiting.

  Near the shoreline, Slate had turned to face the river, his legs drawn up in front of him and his arms around his knees.