by Riley Tune
In an instant I grabbed my throwing knife and quickly inserted it into the soft spot under the Clipasie’s chin. I immediately realized it didn’t have the desired effect. While using my dagger seemed to kill the beast instantly, my much shorter throwing knife didn’t. Apparently, the depth needed to do the job couldn’t be reached with the shorter blade.
While it didn’t kill the Clipasie, it did hurt it. He released his arms around me and used both hands to grab at his chin as he continued to yelp in pain. Before we drifted apart in the air, I reached for his arm and pulled myself onto him, and held onto its hair as I grappled onto its back.
My timing was close, but not close enough as we crashed into the ground and I was thrown from the Clipasie. The yellow mountain that was the Clipasie, had taken most of the impact, but I still had seen better days. The power of the Tongue was still around me and, as quickly as I could, I warped away to a safe distance.
Finding myself near yet another, abandoned home, I used it for support as I pulled myself up. My body ached, but I didn’t feel like anything was broken. “Thank The Keeper,” I said under my breath.
“Don’t run, boy. The fun is just getting started,” the deep voice of the man said. “Your King thought he could just wave a hand, send his muscle, and have his command granted. Well, me and my army, are here to stay. He’ll find out soon enough, just how dangerous the common man can be.” With that last word, the power around me seemed to triple and was so intense that it made everything around me seem to bounce around and move.
I shook my head to get my bearings. I looked around, and saw and the remains of the house I was standing on when the herd ran through it. I warped to it.
There it was. Resting alone while looking beautiful and deadly at the same time. The black steel of my dagger reflected the glow of the blue orbs falling around it. I could have warped it to myself but instead I hastily picked it up the normal way.
As my hands grasped around it, I used my power to wash away some of the pain I felt, and spat some blood out of my mouth. It was more blood than I expect to see. I touched inside my mouth and looked at my fingers. They were dirty but not bloody, yet I could still taste blood.
Then the blood touched my lips again. I wiped my nose and found the blood I was looking for. I had been so caught up in the fight that I didn’t realize my nose was bleeding so badly. On top of that, my head was still aching from hitting the Clipasie with it. Even with my power removing some of my pain, it still hurt.
“Find him,” I heard the voice scream out. My moment of peace was over, as I could feel the ground shake under the weight of Clipasie moving and searching for me around the village. It was time to end this.
I warped to the top of a house, and found the man and son, still standing in the same spot. “Father,” the son said, as he snarled pointing his finger in my direction. I didn’t wait for the enhanced power that was sure to follow, as the Tongue would be ready to command his army. I warped the boy’s flute away from him.
It appeared in my free hand and I broke it with ease. The boy turned red with anger, his shoulders began to rise and fall rapidly as his breathing quickly began to increase. I smirked at him and then quickly warped beside him. I placed my hand on his shoulder and warped again, taking him with me to the outskirts of the village.
I left him there as I turned to face the glowing area where the fire was. Naturally, because I could only warp in my line of vision, we were still close to the fire, but my enhanced sight allowed me to take him so far, that even if he ran at full speed it would have taken him some time to reach his father again. By then it would be too late.
I warped again to the fire, reaching under my cloak as I appeared. “Where is he. Where is my-” the man’s words were cut short, as my dagger sprung out from under my cloak. I expected him to try and run. Most people would This man, as his power suggested, was not most people.
He glared at me, nostrils flared, and eyes protruding. There was no fear in this man, as he accepted his fate. I warped, reappearing in a fraction of a second behind him, and placing my dagger on his neck. “This isn’t the end,” he said, as I dragged my blade forcefully against his throat.
The power radiating around me this entire time, faded away as the body fell to the ground. The rumble of the Clipasie army, stopped and for a moment all was silent. The silence was broken by a howl as one Clipasie was being attacked by two others. The control of the Tongue was gone, and so was the music to calm their fury.
The beasts around me slowly began to turn on each other. So much for them leaving peacefully. Some ran, but most of them fought. “Father.” I heard a voice scream as I turned. The son, breathing heavily and drenched in his own sweat, had made it back. He dropped to his knees as he saw his father's lifeless body, bleeding out at my feet.
I looked at him as he sobbed, unbothered by the fights going on around him. I put the hood of my cloak up and warped away, leaving him, his father, and their crumbling army of Clipasie, alone in the village.
4
I warped a considerable distance from where I left the dwindling Clipasie army, before I decided to be a little old- fashioned, and walk the rest of the way. Make no mistake, warping was great. A feeling of power like nothing else. A feeling that I wouldn’t trade for all the bronze in Thera. Still sometimes, I did just enjoy a good walk to clear my head.
This night in particular, so much was going on that I still needed to process. The lack of rain, mostly, was still taking some time to adjust to, and was honestly quite unnerving to me. I reached out my hands, cupped them, and let some of the falling orbs find a home there.
Like the previous orbs, they too, burst on impact. They seemed oddly fragile and if I attempted to catch one without damaging it, I would fail. I had noticed that the orbs, while still falling, were coming down at a slower rate, even though it had only been raining the orbs for a short period of time.
Something else that was on my mind was the man I had just killed in the name of the king. I knew Jolin and his people had the right idea. If the man didn’t stop what he was doing, for the fate of the kingdom, he would have to be stopped. What bothered me was that this man, this father, was so willing to put his life to an end over what he saw as a twisted version of freedom.
I had lived under the thumb of powerful people my entire life. Many of the people in Thera were not of noble, or royal, birth. We didn’t go to balls, didn’t have large amount of yolars at our disposal, and certainly didn’t live in lavish homes. We all struggled.
There had been plenty of times after my stepfather, Nowrt’s death that I went to sleep with my stomach crying out for food, but I preferred for my mother and the twins to eat first. So, I got it, having a king rule you isn’t ideal, but Jolin had so far proved to be a good king. A king that respected and had the best wishes for his people.
Sadly, the man and his son, couldn’t yet see that. Maybe the ruling family of royals in Galcon was different. If so he could have simply come to Thera. Not only that, but he was an overly powerful Tongue. He could have used his ability for any number of fields. Jolin certainly did. All in all, there were other paths he could have chosen, but instead he wanted power. A decision that put him in the way of my blade.
Now his son was fatherless, and I knew that burden all too well. I let out a sigh as I continued to walk. Many of the people that were on the streets from earlier apparently had decided to retreat into their homes. No doubt fearful of these unknown orbs.
Normally, in the rain, the streets would still be crowded with people shopping, begging, talking, anything. The rain was such a part of living in The Prime Sovereignty, that it was just expected to be there. With it gone, however, now the streets were barren. I could throw my dagger as hard as I could up the street before me and not touch a single person.
The palace was close now, and surely it would be abuzz with excitement as people with fancy titles, scholars, and the like, tried to figure out what was going on with
these orbs. I could tell them it was likely the work of a god other than their own, but who would believe me? Outside of Jolin and Vida, nobody else knew about my encounter with The Keeper. Not even Remy.
Vida. My heart seemed to beat unusually fast in my chest. Vida was at the palace waiting for me. Likely upset that she didn’t get a chance to come with me and see a Clipasie. Ever since I described them to her from my first encounter, she had been eager to change into one.
Vida seemed to like to change into people, or human- like creatures, of power. Her theory was that it made for a good ally in a battle. She was right, too.
Before, she used to change into an overly large, very powerful guard, who went by the name of Bren. I had never met the real Bren, but word got to us that he was being held by other guards until they figured out why he attacked them. In reality it was Vida, who had taken the form of Bren while we were breaking into the Emperor's sleeping quarters. Once in this form, she proceeded to savagely beat up the other guards on duty, one of which seemed to know Bren from their time in the academy.
Being friends with the newly- appointed King had its perks, and Jolin sorted the entire thing out, which resulted in the real Bren being released. Since then Vida had decided to change into a Battle Born, whenever she needed an imposing figure of strength. Even though I hated the form, I knew how strong a Battle Born could be. I faced off with two of them at once a few months ago. It wasn’t ideal, but they were under Rema Thorne’s, Remy’s sister, control. It was a tough battle, but I still survived. So, having one on our side did help.
While Vida could mimic the strength of a Battle Born she couldn’t cancel out a person's abilities the way a true Battle Born could. Perhaps their greatest strength wasn’t hers to copy, and since then she had decided to see a Clipasie, and use that as her go to form to take if she needed to gain the upper hand while in a tight spot.
Explaining to her why I left her behind will be a challenge. Even though she had orders to go with Jolin, she will find a way to make it my fault. Still, I couldn’t wait to see her. She was fire, strength, caring and passion personified, and I loved her.
She always made me feel better, her touch, her tough love approach, even the jokes she made as she helped clean me up after a job. Nights like this, when only my power was keeping me up and the pain at bay, were nights that being in Vida’s presence made it that much sweeter.
The thought of seeing her made me want to get to the palace sooner, so I decided to stop walking and I warped to the top of the building closest to me. I reappeared on the roof of the building and paused. I could see the palace from here as it stretched tall against the skies.
The palace was by far the grandest structure in Thera, and for the moment at least, I called it home. I prepared myself to warp, and then I noticed something. It was what at first glance looked like smoke. No, it wasn’t smoke. It looked like the darkness around me had taken form, and began to move around on its own. “What in Keeper’s name,” I said out loud as I looked around. The swirling and moving black essence wrapped around my feet, and then began to retreat back. I spun around and followed it with my eyes.
Where the moving darkness retreated back to wasn’t a place, but a person. Two of them actually.
Standing in front of me, on the rooftops, were two, tall, and oddly thin figures. They were both dressed in identical outfits. Outfits like nothing I had ever seen before. On their feet were blue wrapped cloth. The entire portion covering their feet seemed to be cloth, no sturdy part of the footwear could be seen.
Their trousers were black, but had a slight shine to them, and the bottom of the trousers seemed to run on the inside of the cloth shoes. Their hands were wrapped in the same cloth- like material of the same pale blue color.
They, from what I could see so far, didn’t have on armor of any kind. A bold move indeed. Even the most dangerous of people that Ember and I encountered, men fully capable of taking a life as easy as they took a breath, would have on some sort of armor for protection.
On their chests, these two seemed to have on some sort of layered vest, that had a shirt made of the same shiny material as the trousers they wore under it. Finally, their heads, and faces were covered. Both wrapped in the same cloth that covered their feet and hands. The only difference was that one of them, had on a hood. A hood that would have been fitting on a cloak, but this man didn’t have on a cloak. Instead his hood was made into the upper part of the layered shirt.
The one with the hood seemed to be controlling the moving darkness as it retreated to him and continued to swirl around his body. “What do you want?” I asked as I reached for my dagger.
I hoped that my voice didn’t betray me. For the second time tonight, I was feeling fear creep up inside me. It bothered me that these two had gotten so close to me without me noticing. Not only that but the moving darkness was something I had never seen before.
The figure with the hood held his hand up and for a second, a swirling band of smoky darkness appeared on the second man’s arm. It stayed there, swirling around in a circle. The second man nodded to the one with the hood and then they both looked at me.
They didn’t move at first. As if they were hesitant or simply thinking about something. Maybe they were reconsidering engaging me. Or they finally realized who they were dealing with. Either way, they hesitated for an instant. This moment was short- lived.
Everything seemed to happen so fast then and without warning. The one with the hood, vanished. Literally there one second and gone the next, but not like a Warper. Instead the hooded man seemed to turn into the black darkness that he controlled and moved along the air. Before I could react to this, I felt heat. Intense, pounding heat.
I turned my head to the second man, whose arms were on fire. I could feel myself backing up from him as my mouth fell open. I had never seen anything like the abilities that these two seemed to wield. The man with arms made of fire brought his hands together and a large sphere began to form in front of him. He was creating a circle of swirling fire.
I tried to warp the fireball away, but nothing happened. I could feel my power, and I could feel myself using it, but this thin man was apparently immune. I changed tactics and, with one hand, threw a knife at him.
Instantly, the ball of fire vanished and was replaced by a bubble of transparent heat. The bubble surrounded half of the man and as my knife touched it, it quickly began to catch on fire and turned to ash as it fell at his feet.
“Ok, new plan” I said. I touched my power again and warped, but before I could finish something wrapped around me. The hooded man had appeared again, and he had his darkness wrapped around me.
These rope like vines of darkness, had just done what I always thought was impossible. They pulled me right out of a warp. Not out of the air, or stopped me from warping, literally out of a warp.
When you warp, you get a feeling that I can’t explain, but you know when you have done it, and you expect the next instant to be someplace else, only this time the next instant brought me back to where I had been originally.
The vines of darkness had lifted me off the ground and slung me back down. My body found its momentum being stopped by the roof of the building. I heard a pop and instantly felt pain in my upper back, arms and shoulder.
I was lifted off the ground again and before this man, and his vines of darkness, could slam me down again, I warped. Thankfully, this time, I wasn’t pulled away. I found a chimney I could hide in, coming from out of the building. I couldn’t move my arm and had to fix my shoulder.
I could see the area around me start to glow as the man wielding fire came closer to me. I gritted my teeth and slammed my shoulder against the protruding chimney. I screamed out as my shoulder popped back into place. I could feel my throat dry as the one who commanded fire stood before me, and his partner instantly appeared from out of the darkness.
I didn’t have many options. Honestly, I had no options. I didn’t know who these two were
or what they were. For all I knew, there could have been more of them. My only chance would be to run, but with that hooded one able to pull me back from a warp, how could I?
I could feel the pain consume me now. I didn’t even have time to recover from the Clipasie encounter and now here were these two. Wielding powers unlike anything I could imagine. The Battle Born seemed like such easy foes in comparison to these two.
The man who could manipulate the fire held his hands up and created a sword. The sword was of pure fire, yet he held it in his hands and even his clothes didn’t burn. The hooded one summoned some more of those ropes of darkness from out of himself, but this time, there were points at the end.
I ignored my dagger and reached for my last remaining throwing knives. I slung one at each of my attackers. I knew it would be pointless. The dark vines from the hooded man snatched my blades out of the air instantly, but that was all the distraction I needed.
I warped, coming back into existence behind the man wielding the sword of fire, I placed my hand on his back and almost screamed out with pain. Even though his clothes were still intact, his body felt like I had just placed my hand in the middle of a fire I fought through the pain, and smell of my own flesh burning in my hand and enhanced my vision for a second as I saw a warp point almost across the city. I warped away with him.
As soon as we appeared, I removed my hand, and warped away again, leaving him with the whole distance of the city between himself and his partner. Ideally, I could have used my powers to warp back, but such a far warp was stressful on the body. Rarely would I had even warped that far, but it seemed like life or death. Mine.
My hope was that the man with the fire couldn’t move like his partner could and they would have to regroup, giving me time to get away.
