The Dark Levy: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Ten Tears Chronicles - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 1)

by Alaric Longward

  ‘Shoddy spell?’ Dmitri said spitefully. ‘It was as powerful as yours. Call me paranoid, but I think that is probably a part of the reason you did that bit of murdering. And yeah, he made a mistake of some kind. But you did not. Yours was crafted with skill and guided by devotion to your sister, and my cynical side thinks you wanted no competition like Ron. You made no mistake, girl.’

  ‘I did, boy,’ she hissed and Dmitri rolled his eyes. ‘Why keep questioning it?’

  ‘You are not speaking truthfully,’ Albine said with finality, and Dana stared at the small girl with frustration.

  ‘Perhaps I did make a mistake,’ Dana said coldly. ‘Perhaps I should have roasted the meddling French girl or perhaps even you,’ she told Dmitri.

  ‘Perhaps you should have,’ he said angrily, pushing her. ‘I never killed anyone for profit!’

  ‘Hey!’ Lex said. ‘No touching the girls.’ He pushed Dmitri back, and the two faced off.

  Alexei was comically trying to step between them as our hosts stared at us mutely, with growing impatience. Dana smiled thinly at the argument. ‘Look.’ Alexei pointed a finger my way as he squeezed between the two to face Lex. ‘That girl should not have made the cut,’ he said darkly. ‘She can't cast a spell or couldn’t at least, for some reason. You don’t get second chances when you fail. You should be out. And that sister of hers is a killer. And she is here with us.’

  ‘You are talking about her as if she should be dead,’ Lex sneered. ‘We are not applying to any damned military school. And yeah, it's terrible he died,’ Lex said, but for some reason I thought he might have grinned, ‘but it's not her fault. Had that …’ his eyes wondered to Cosia who was staring at us, ‘thing told you your sister would die because she cheated and helped you two nervous shits with your failed spells, would you have stood there like a lump of shit? No. Now shut the hell up,’ Lex insisted, and I noticed Cherry was holding my hand. I squeezed it, gratefully. ‘You shall not hit a girl as long as I stand here. Don’t turn into animals. She is alive and shouldn’t feel bad about it. And we should hate the ones who did this to us.’ Lex’s eyes scourged Cosia.

  Cosia hissed, and we stiffened. ‘Silence, saa’dark. Stop your powerless yapping. You’ve had your fun. Now we shall all move up, and you shall stop this argument or you shall dance to the whips until one more falls. Keep your rotten mouths closed, you whimpering children unless you cannot be civil,’ she yelled. ‘Dress in these.’ Thin robes appeared on the floor and we warily grabbed them. Albine was struggling with her hem, for she was short and so was Cherry, but soon we were a sullen, huddled group of unwilling slaves and students, adjusting the strange garbs. The robe was not very practical, and indeed not very warm, being thin. There was no footwear. Cosia nodded. ‘No boots for those who would run. Your feet will bleed, and you will be easier to sniff out.’

  ‘What are we going to …’ Anja began to ask, but a whip slapped on the floor before us, silencing the girl.

  ‘Silence, you damned fools,’ said one of the newly arrived snake women. She was tall and muscular; her snakes were bright yellow and orange as were her eyes. Her face was tattooed with red and dark twirls, with dark smudges in the middle of her cheeks, looking like a skull’s eyeholes. ‘Move up, lively now, girls. And call me Mistress Bilac. I’m the Fury Whip of the Dark Water Clan and Cosia’s partner in putting you in your damned places. I’m not nice as she is.’ She turned to go.

  ‘Damned to hell,’ Lex murmured, and we followed them, all of us turning to look at Ron’s corpse, save for Dana, who followed Bilac. Then we were past the doorway, into a medieval-looking passageway, complete with sputtering torches. Apparently, the snake women did not use magic for everything. They guided us to a door and Ulrich passed it, kicking it savagely. Cosia’s fingers twitched around her whip, but she did nothing for now, nor did the other guards. There were some four around us, armored and wary, none speaking, but just coaxing us up a wide set of stairs. The tall, muscular snake woman with yellow serpents was leading us up, and Cosia came last. I stumbled a bit, stepping on my robe’s hem, and one of the women danced after me, her whip slashing the wall near me. Cherry pulled at me, blanching, her small face pinched with fear, and Lex stopped to support me. Able was walking before us, and I smiled at him as he smiled at me, apparently grateful for trying to spare him Dana’s flames.

  ‘Happy you made it,’ I told him, for no spell had been asked of him, and he smiled back.

  ‘You OK?’ Lex said, gazing at me and then at Able. ‘You feeling fine?’

  ‘Fine?’ I grinned tiredly. ‘No, not really. Are you? We are …’

  ‘Prisoners,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty wild, isn’t it? But at least they have a plan for us. That’s the first ever for me, having any sort of plan, even made by someone else.’ He smiled inanely and then glanced back at Ulrich and up ahead at Dana. ‘Look, despite everything, you have friends. OK?’

  ‘Right,’ I told him silently. ‘I’ve never had friends, you know? Only a sister.’

  ‘Really?’ he grunted. ‘Why? You don’t look impossibly ugly. And you seem twice as smart as I am.’

  I rolled my eyes at him and shrugged. ‘People don’t like me. I don’t like them. Whenever I made the effort, people snickered at me, mocked me, and thought me a freak. I don’t know why.’

  ‘You seem a bit nervous, perhaps that’s why,’ he shrugged uncomfortably, looking away. ‘Not easy to get close to, perhaps? Few make the effort, you know, if it's not easy. If you are not like them. Empty headed.’ He smiled at his own flattery, and I gave him a ghost of a smile.

  ‘I am nervous. Is that strange?’

  He clapped his hand on my shoulder with relaxed familiarity. ‘Well, now you try and make a new start, eh?’

  ‘Hardly an auspicious beginning for that,’ I whispered as we both stared at Dana’s back. ‘Everyone thinks I should be dead.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said and then smiled as I glowered at him. ‘Ulrich might actually pray for it, but the rest will forgive you. They’re just scared. Try to act cool. Wasn’t really your fault, and you shouldn’t apologize for breathing.’

  ‘We are all in deep trouble, anyhow,’ I said heavily. ‘They had one of us killed, just like that. Snuffed out like a candle. What we left behind was far better than this.’

  ‘Damn. If you’re always this cheerful, no wonder you’re lonely. But I agree all of it sucks. We can’t even touch the … Shades,’ Lex said.

  ‘Well, perhaps whoever rules … Aldheim? Was that the name?’ He nodded. ‘Whoever that is, has a different name for it and kinder manners. We have to get out of here.’ Able stopped before me, and I nearly fell as I tried not to bowl him over. ‘Uups,’ I said, placing a hand on Able’s shoulder, helping him up. Lex and the others stared at me as I spoke to him. ‘You OK?’

  Able nodded. He did not seem hurt from the flames that had danced very near him.

  I heard them whispering behind me. Just like they had before. I turned to look at the two Russian boys who had been snickering, and their faces went slack. ‘What?’ I asked them.

  Alexei grinned at me. ‘Nothing. Each to their own.’ Anja nudged him, and he looked sheepish. ‘Sorry. About that small trouble we had down there. We just … I don’t know. The blondie is right. I know it was not your fault, and we should not have said you should be dead. That sucked.’

  ‘Fine,’ I told them. ‘Thank you.’

  Anja nodded ahead at Dana. ‘I guess your sister is pretty talented …’

  ‘She is. Always was,’ I agreed.

  She was nodding. ‘But you see, it’s a problem, isn’t it? The next time they wish to test us, it's one of us again, should it be a similar test. And you did fail, no?’ she continued. ‘You see this? It’s all wrong, of course. It should not be like this, but it is. I want to be fair, but …’

  Ulrich’s eyes met me briefly; his eyes were haunted and cold. ‘He is after blood, not fairness,’ I whispered.

  ‘Damned right,’ he agreed soft
ly but ferociously, and I looked away from him.

  I shook my head in regret, feeling cold. ‘I had a fresh start here. Now I’m back to what I had at home. That’s not fair either,’ I told myself. ‘Though here people are actually looking to have me killed.’

  ‘We all had a fresh start,’ Anja grinned. ‘So did Ron.’

  Dmitri leaned on me, holding my arm. ‘You fizzled. You did nothing. And your sigil is different, no? Are you saying we should all die for that?’

  ‘Hey,’ Lex warned him, and Dmitri stepped back reluctantly.

  ‘I said it’s not my damned fault,’ I growled while pushing Able up the stairs. ‘Shut the hell up already. I don’t blame you for having no hair.’’

  He laughed. ‘Well, that is our fault. You could blame us for it. We are bald because we used to get into fights a lot,’ Dmitri said happily. ‘Best not have stringy stuff up there that can be grabbed.’ He leaned over to me. ‘Yeah. We are sorry for saying that bit about you dying. But you had better understand; we won’t let that shit happen again. What just took place? Never again. Your fault or not.’

  I grabbed Able’s arm as he stopped to stare at the walls. I tugged him along and climbed with him.

  ‘Fine,’ Dmitri said, looking at me incredulously and bent to whisper to Alexei, and both shook their heads and laughed until Anja slapped their heads.

  I glowered at them, and they gave me blank looks bordering on mockery. Nothing had changed. Nothing. I was awkward, on the defensive, and now the people around me had a cause to fear my faults. Dana might kill again. If I failed again, perhaps she would. One bully tried to have me killed; others were hoping me dead, laughing at me. Dana gave me a long, speculative look, her eyes strange. Disappointed? Tired? Yes, I had failed again, and she had gotten into trouble for it.

  Why had she? For love, for her? She was different, and I felt I knew her less than I knew Lex. Or even Ulrich. Him I could understand, kind of.

  We walked up another dusty staircase with wooden support beams, and water was dripping and flowing from cracks in the walls in thin rivulets. The staircase seemed to spiral up for ages. We were soon exhausted and stumbling along. I tried to help the hurt Cherry, and Lex appeared to help me drag her. I eyed Dana, who was walking up the stairs, first of us, far ahead, just behind Bilac, first on any line, as usual. She turned to regard me again, and I stared at my little sister, a ruthless killer. She had possibly saved me. Perhaps, for we still didn’t know if Able would have been able to weave a spell. She was ruthlessly determined. The mask she had worn all our lives was gone, and I saw her in a new light.

  I loved her. Still did. Or did I? Was she something I would learn to hate? Grandma had told me to find my own way. I looked around the group. It would be hard to do that, for they all hated me already. Save perhaps for Lex. And Cherry.

  As if reading my thoughts, Albine appeared on my side, whispering. ‘Let’s forget about you. Tell us about her.’ I shook my head and stared at Dana. She had killed for me. Should I tell them she had killed before we came there? Not for me. For her. No.

  ‘She saved me. She is suffering, even if she looks composed,’ I said. ‘I know her. She’s keeping a stony face and maintaining a façade of calm, but she is kind and generous. Has been to me, always. She is harmless as any of us.’

  ‘You don’t believe it,’ Albine insisted. ‘That she is harmless. Is she even sane? To kill so casually? You seem …’

  ‘Mad as well?’ I asked her bitterly.

  ‘A bit,’ she agreed, and I heard Alexei giggling at that. ‘Perhaps something that runs in the family?’

  ‘Who are you to tell me what I believe and what is true?’ I asked, growing angry with her.

  ‘It’s her sister, frog eater,’ Lex said, exasperated. ‘I’m sure she won’t betray her trust, no matter how many questions you clobber her with.’

  ‘Frog eater?’ Albine hissed, the teen’s face screwed in hatred. She nearly pushed Lex, then changed her mind and cursed instead. ‘Harebrained pirate,’ she hissed at him.

  ‘I was a smuggler, Frenchie,’ he answered darkly. ‘Never saw the wide ocean. You damned kid.’

  ‘I’m not a frog eater,’ Albine pouted. ‘And a smuggler is a thief as well.’

  ‘All Frenchies like frogs,’ Lex grinned. ‘Seen it in Louisiana. Roast them, sprinkle them with herbs and eat them. I know.’

  ‘Come to France, one day, you stuttering fool,’ Albine spat. ‘We’ll roast you.’

  Lex opened his mouth to lash back at her, but sighed instead. ‘Hey, I don’t dislike France. You helped us out in the war and all, but you are like a porcupine. Hard to get close to.’

  Anja shook her head as she walked past Lex. ‘We are all frogs, and she is right. Dana did roast him deliberately, and I too wish to know more about her.’

  ‘It’s over,’ I told them tiredly. ‘Let it lie.’ I was sure Dana would hear what we were talking about soon, should they get even a bit more aggressive.

  ‘No,’ Anja insisted, not giving up. ‘You are drawing lines between us. We are open and honest. Take us, for example. Yesterday in St. Petersburg, I helped to set up the family store, like a good girl. Later, I stole vodka and drank an excess of other spirits in a strange tavern. Then spent the early night with a strange captain of the guards. OK? I do that. I sleep around. I was unhappy as hell, but still tried to have some fun. The 15th was bound to be bad, and so I made sure I was blasted and knocked out. Then my brothers fetched me, and I woke up to my face being stuffed into a wound of a dead man. Now I am being herded up these stairs by short, murderous women things with worms for hair. They also consider us scum. We are frogs. Likely they could sprinkle us with herbs and eat us too. That’s what we are, commodity or dinner. That’s what I did yesterday and what I’m doing now and that is all there is to know about me. Us.’

  ‘So?’ I asked her.

  ‘So, there are no secrets here. None. Not between this lot. But she already lied to us …’

  ‘According to a kid!’ I said too loudly. I thought I saw Dana smile.

  Anja continued calmly, ‘And you are refusing to be part of the gang. This is a world where we have to rethink ourselves. Your sister did already. But she had better think twice about choosing my brothers or me over you. We wish to know more about her. It's fair, and she is not telling. We have to be a team to survive here.’

  ‘As Lex said, you too would have done anything to save your family,’ I told her as I helped Cherry hop over a wet stair. ‘That’s all there is to it. She did this one thing, probably in a panic, and I cannot fault her. She killed once for me, and I’m alive.’

  ‘No, that’s not true …’ Albine began, but I glanced at her murderously.

  ‘Right,’ Anja said, eyeing Albine strangely. ‘I agree with the Frenchie. There is more. And you are not right. Had they chosen one of mine, either of the bald idiots? Most of us would have talked about it first,’ Anja said unhappily. ‘Reasoned with them?’

  ‘Roasted Ron would have been happy to see me dance around in flames,’ I reminded them. ‘He was not trying to reason and talk about it.’

  ‘She’s got a point, sister,’ Alexei agreed with a grin, and I liked him briefly.

  Anja sighed. ‘Never said I liked the guy. But he didn’t murder another one of us.’

  Dmitri shrugged while picking his nose. ‘When Uncle Andrey told us we might have a way to escape our miserable lives before we were thrown into jail, I for one didn’t think it would be this weird. The Black Dolphin Prison is probably a dancing celebration compared to this place but had we been thrown there, that shithole, it would have been filled with people like her. Killers. Much less lovely, of course!’ Dmitri shouted the last words and Dana, far ahead smiled down at us. Dmitri grinned. ‘Shit. Perhaps I just saved my life. Perhaps she will spare me for the last. Even the pirate there sees she is dangerous and …’

  ‘I said,’ Lex hissed, ‘that I am and was a smuggler.’

  ‘Don’t matter,’ Alexei a
dded. ‘You look like a pirate. Sort of salty and empty-headed.’

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ Lex spat, and I giggled. He went on, ‘Coming from two petty criminals who look like convicts or escapees from an asylum, all this is pretty thick. Be careful, or I’ll use those shiny, bald heads of yours to shine my rear,’ Lex grunted.

  ‘Yeah, we get the asylum thing a lot. Usually from street corner drunks,’ Dmitri laughed.

  ‘How did you end up here, captain?’ Alexei asked Lex. ‘Did you kill anyone? We didn’t.’

  Lex shrugged. ‘I told them already. And no, I didn’t kill anyone. Though I did drink the blood, and so did you.’

  ‘You with them, then?’ Anja asked him, indicating Dana and me. ‘And not with us.’

  ‘Is that the way you want this?’ I asked, tired with the whole setting. ‘You and us?’

  ‘No,’ Alexei answered. ‘Didn’t you hear us? We asked you to share something, but you will not. Even we, the less bright ones in the family know we have to stand together. But you have to tell us about her. We insist, in fact.’

  Lex spat. ‘You Russkies look like you get your hiney kicked around a lot. Let her think for herself, at least for a moment. OK?’

  A whip slapped on the stone next to us.

  ‘Move it,’ hissed one of the snake-headed females. ‘You’ll have time to fight later.’

  Lex shuddered, releasing his fist and gave Dmitri and Alexei one last baleful look. He whispered to me. ‘I wish I had come in two years’ time and been spared this awful mad crew. Ten Tears. Damn. Such a weak name.’

  ‘At least you know how to fight back,’ I whispered to him with some jealousy. ‘I was always just a rag for bullies. Can’t handle them.’

  ‘It's easy, just punch ’em until they shut up, or you pass out. Then rinse and repeat until they avoid you, either for fear or for pity,’ he grinned. ‘Damn, but I wish my uncle had told me more about this. But likely he thought we would be served a banquet and taken to a luxurious spa.’

  ‘I wonder if these shit walkers make life bearable for the bastards back home for luring us here,’ Albine spat. ‘They promised happiness and joy, and we are handed a fistful of shit.’