“So when should I expect my next visit from your independent contractors then?” Garm asked, incredulous. “Should I inform you of my next vacation, so your assassins don't try and take out my brothers too?”
Now it was the Underking's turn to be quiet a moment. Toma strained to focus on Leonid, who was finishing up his discussion with the lead Judicator. Leonid turned and waved the Outriders over.
“I am learning that it is far more difficult to rationalize certain actions with one's mind than it is to rationalize actions with one's heart,” the Underking sighed. “So long as this is the last time we meet, then I consider us quit of each other.” And with that, the Underking walked forwards towards the Judicators alone. Garm seemed too shocked to follow, and Toma stayed still, fearing any action on his part would break whatever spell was between Garm and the Underking.
Nothing was said as the Underking was escorted away within the nigh impenetrable walls of the Judicator's Tower. Only Leonid rejoining them broke the silence, and Toma was thankful for it.
“Well, all that and not even so much as a thank you,” Leonid said. Toma blew out a breath he didn't even realize he had been holding at the Weaver's words. The Weaver appraised Garm for a moment before continuing. “I've got some preparations to make, but I'll meet you all for drinks at the Gladiatrix later tonight.”
“What kind of preparations are you making?” Toma asked.
“The going back to Bellkeep for battle kind of preparations,” Leonid said, his voice a touch grim. “Even with some sort of impending conflict with Melcara on the horizon, we can't just let a neighboring city-state collapse on itself. So myself and a few other colleagues of mine are hopping back on the Dauntless tomorrow morning to help the Bellkeep army retake their city. You kids bought us a lot of good will with your little rescue mission in Bellkeep. Knight Captain Garrey and his men couldn't stop singing the praises of Tethis' Outrider Legion thanks to you. It would be in bad form to turn our backs on them now.”
Toma suppressed a shudder. The last thing he ever wanted to do was go back to that hellhole of a city and face those nightmares again. But, he realized with a small rush of pride, if he was called upon to do it, he would. As if reading his mind, Leonid put a friendly hand on his shoulder.
“You're a good kid, Toma. And you've got to tell me how your little gadgets worked later. I've got some new ideas to run past you and Vegard. Preferably over a few bottles of something strong.” He winked at Toma then nodded respectfully at Garm. “Garm. People heap praise on soldiers and their ability to kill when they need to. But I think it speaks more when they show the ability not to kill. Even when they really, really want to do it.” With that, the Weaver turned and walked towards the Weaver's headquarters with a whistle. As if he wasn't going to do battle with horrifying monsters the following day.
“I don't think I'll ever get them,” Toma muttered. “Wizards I mean. Mages, Weavers, whatever.”
Garm grunted in agreement, then rubbed his head. He threw another look at the now-closed gates of the Judicator's Tower before turning to Toma. “My head is killing me,” he said. “If I never take vigilate again, it will be too damn soon.”
Toma laughed. “Let’s go find a bite to eat. That should help. With the head at least.”
Ryker got comfortable in his chair, reclined a bit, and did his best not to listen in on the conversation at the table. But it was hard. The Gladiatrix was pretty empty before noon, and there wasn't enough background noise to drown out his table.
“Well, I mean you have to remember, I'm more of a field medico than an actual physician,” Vegard was saying. “There are probably a hundred other people you could ask in the city to get a better answer.”
Edda sighed. “Yeah, but I only really trust you guys,” she said, before taking another sip from her cup. “I only really know you guys,” Edda added softly.
“I get that, yeah.” Vegard frowned a little, gesturing with his hands. “But memories, head trauma, things like that are really complex. We still don't know a whole lot about the mind. Mages and wizards and the like can go about mucking up in there, and they'll claim they know what they're doing, but the actual workings in there are still pretty mysterious.”
Ryker drifted off a bit as Vegard went on a little more about his medical knowledge. That was a plus about Vegard, he thought. He knew what he knew, and knew what he didn't. And to be fair to the big guy, Vegard did know quite a bit about a lot of different things.
“What are you looking for, anyways?” Nerthus asked. “Do you think you could just go to an apothecary and get some pill that would fix your memory?”
“Why not?” Edda said, a slight edge to her voice. “I feel like I'm so close to remembering...something. But it's all so gods damned random. It's infuriating. Every time I taste something, or smell something, or even piking look around, some small part of me is hoping it will trigger some memory. And another small part of me is getting really annoyed by that. I'd settle on something making me forget that I've forgotten anything.”
“Something like that would be pretty nice to have sometimes,” Vegard said, his voice suddenly sad.
Uh oh, Ryker thought. The last thing he wanted was Vegard to think about his wife again. Ryker may have been a callous, selfish man, but for some reason he hated it when Vegard dwelt on his pain. In a manner that was almost sympathetic instead of obnoxious. He stood up suddenly, gesturing to a barmaid to bring another round to their table.
“Just what we need,” he said, hoping to get a rise out of them. Anything to distract them from their pain. “A spy who can't remember, and a soldier who can't forget. It's never a good sign when I'm the most emotionally stable person here.”
“Excuse me,” Nerthus said, “but I'm sitting right here.”
“Oh,” Ryker grinned as he pulled his coat on, “I'm well aware of that.” He set a few copper pennies on the table to cover the Hale that they were drinking and turned for the exit. He was halfway there when Alek and Johan walked in. He gave them both a smile and a wave as they walked towards him. “Finally, I'm glad you two are here. You need to go lighten the mood over there,” he told them, pointing at the table. “Our spy friends are extra morose this morning,” he jibed, loud enough for the two women to hear him. He turned back to his friends and lowered his voice, doing his best to sound sincere. “And Vegard isn't doing so well. The vigilate withdrawals have him thinking about Flavia again. Go cheer him up or something.”
“Where are you headed?” Johan asked.
“Just got to go stretch my legs a bit,” Ryker responded lightly. “I'll be back in a little while. Don't drink the place dry without me, Alek,” he added as he walked out into the cool Tethis morning.
Ryker didn't have a destination in mind as he walked, he just needed some sort of privacy from his friends. He wasn't sure what was going to happen in the next few minutes, and would rather they weren't around him in case it was something...odd.
Looking within his own mind, Ryker visualized himself sitting in his chair before the Door in his mind. The door was still slightly cracked open, and he had a mental image of a small sliver of light from his mind escaping out into the darkness of whatever separated the mental from the physical. He tried to keep the image in his mind as he walked, but it was a little too complicated. He let the image slip momentarily as he ducked into an alleyway. Sitting himself down in a comfortable position, Ryker leaned against a wall, closed his eyes, and formed the image again.
“Okay Phaedra,” he said. “Let's talk.”
“For the hundredth time, I'm not the Phaedra,” came the Phaedra's voice from beyond the door, and Ryker had the fleeting picture of a figure huddled by the Door, trying to bask in what meager light escaped out. “The Phaedra just called to me. Gods your dense.”
“You've helped out a lot,” he said, noting that the more he interacted with this spirit, the more casual it has become. Funny thing, that.
“True,” the Phaedra said. “But I'd be lying if I
said I did it simply out of the goodness of my heart.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Ryker said. “You had to show me you have value, that you can help me help my friends, my brothers. And you did. We'd not have found the Underking if you didn't do...whatever it was you did to me. And that is why we need to talk.”
“Oh?” Ryker could almost feel the eagerness tinged with fear and desperation in the spirit's voice.
“What happens if I open this Door to you?” he asked bluntly.
“Then I can come in, obviously.”
“Now's not the time for jokes,” Ryker said, his voice stern. “This may be our last conversation.”
“Sorry, sorry,” the Phaedra said, and Ryker was again aware of the desperation it was feeling. It must not have a lot of time left. “Be a little more specific then,” it said, “and I'll answer you as best I can.”
“You can't, like, take control of me, right?” Ryker asked, unsure of his wording. “I'll still be the one in the saddle?”
“Correct,” it said. “I'm more of a passive Rider. There are those of my kind that are a little more...forceful in their methods, who feed off of more than just sensation. Who desire control.”
“But not you.”
“No, not me. I subsist off of sensory input. What you experience, I experience. In exchange, I bolster your ability to sense things. Your senses, your metabolism, things of that sort.”
“The better for you to feed off of,” Ryker said, realization dawning.
“If you want to put it that way, yeah,” the Phaedra said. “But I'd really prefer it if you focused on the positive things in life.”
“You're also speaking a lot more casually,” Ryker said. “Not like the strange fairy-tale ghost you were before.”
“It's part of the attunement process. Helps facilitate more efficient communication between Rider and host.”
“I see,” Ryker said. He shifted his position in the alleyway, and it translated into him shifting in his mental chair. “So what happens if I close the door instead?”
Fey was quiet for a handful of heartbeats. “Then I die,” it said plainly. “In another day or two, I'll basically starve to death and fade away.”
“Then what happens?”
“Then you've got a sign posted on your psyche that says 'vacancy' and another Rider will find you. Eventually.”
“And they would be worse than you?”
“Some would be, yes.”
Ryker sat silent for a moment. “Will I still be...me? Will I change at all?”
“You'll be the product of your choices,” Fey said. “Like everyone else. You just won't face those choices alone.”
Ryker was surprised by how quickly he made his decision. “Okay then. Looks like I'm accepting a roommate.” Ryker stood, both physically and mentally. With a mental push, he threw open the Door, both of its imaginary doors swinging outwards. In his mind's eye, just for an instant, he saw it outside of himself. A beautiful, luminescent figure, nothing at all like he had expected. The warmth he had felt earlier flooded his mind as Fey stepped across the Door's threshold. Ryker braced himself for something. Anything. But nothing happened.
“Nice place,” it said, and Ryker pictured it looking around before vanishing from his sight. But it was still there. It was everywhere within him now, like a soft, warm blanket covering him from head to toe. But aside from that, there wasn't anything else.
“I...I don't feel any different,” Ryker said, taking stock of himself.
“That will change slightly,” it said. “Just give me some time to get settled in.”
“Then what?” Ryker asked, his chest tight with nervous anticipation.
“Then life happens, and we experience it. However you want.”
“I think...I think I'm going to need a few drinks. For such a, you know, huge event that just happened in my own gods damned mind, I expected more fanfare.”
“Isn't that how it always goes?” it asked, and Ryker could all but see its smile.
“Wonderful,” he said, walking back towards the Gladiatrix. “I'm possessed by a spirit as cryptic and sarcastic as myself. I hope you like Fireseed wine.”
“I'm not sure. Let's find out!” the Phaedra exclaimed, and laughed within him. Ryker smiled, an easy, genuine smile, and the nervous knot that had formed in his chest faded away. He chuckled and picked up the pace.
Maybe, just this once, the gods were laughing with him.
“He was there. Aldir's son. He was…magnificent.”
The Akvan was seated in the primary building near the excavation site, a large, hastily-built wood and brick building bustling with attendants and scholars busy pouring over books, scrolls, and diagrams. Before the Akvan himself was a table stacked high with papers. A thin onyx ink pen was in his armored hand, looking almost comical contrasted against his formidable frame as he wrote, the ink burning a bright green on the parchment. His similarly armored lieutenant stood before him, smaller in stature but no less malignant in appearance. Yet despite their appearances, no one there seemed in awe, terrified, or otherwise The only sound in the tent was the low murmur of quiet conversation among the workers. The Akvan was silent as he wrote, scratching the pen on paper for a handful of moments. The writing completed, he set the pen down, rolled the parchment up, sealed it, and placed it in a passing attendant's hands. The attendant nodded in acknowledgement and walked out of the tent. The Akvan looked up at his lieutenant as if for the first time.
“He has awakened then?” the Akvan asked.
“No sir,” the lieutenant replied. “But he came to the brink, I believe.”
“What drew him out into the light like this?” the Akvan asked, his muted, metallic voice betraying no emotion.
“From what we’ve been able to gather after the fact, Bellkeep had been infiltrated by a Bifron, with help from a sorcerer co-conspirator from within the nobility of the city. The City Watch had been compromised, and they nearly overran the city. ”
“Indeed? What happened to this Bifron? It could raise many complications if left unchecked.”
“It was slain, by members of the Dominion's Outrider Legion. What they were doing there, I have no idea as of yet, nor do I know which Outrider unit it was, but I-.”
The Akvan raised a hand, silencing the lieutenant. “There is no need. Of them I am aware. They travel with Aleksander, not knowing who he is. Perhaps they need to fall under further scrutiny now, especially if they were able to topple a Bifron. Return to your duties. I will call for you when a new task is ready.” The lieutenant saluted and walked out of the pavilion.
The Akvan remained motionless for a little under an hour while the scholars and workers busied themselves around him, all the while variables and uplift modeling fragments played through his mind. Finally reaching a conclusion, the Akvan resumed his writing. There was still time enough to seek out Aldir's son. Time enough to finish what was started. Only, perhaps now the timetables would need to be revised, the Akvan decided. Perhaps a reunion of sorts would be required far sooner than he had anticipated.
Epilogue
“Find my Phaedra. Return it and bring the vessel that stole it to me.”
The words boomed in the shadow constructs limited minds. An echo chamber of torturous sound that drove them through pain and the fear of even more pain if failure happened, as the braying of hounds drove the fox. Though their host bodies within screamed and fought against them, that was nothing compared to the sound of their master's commands.
The shadows cut through the eastern forests of Tethis, their travel forms all but imperceptible in the night sky. Though speed and stealth were their priorities, the shadows had diverted enough of their resources to cognition, and they knew to avoid causing any escalation or detection that may alert their quarry. To violate directives would displease their master, and even in their limited cognitive state, they knew that displeasure could end in dispersion.
“Find my Phaedra. Return it and bring the vessel that stole it t
o me.”
Within their travel form, the shadows' primitive instincts could feel the resonance between the device one of them carried and the Phaedra medium grow stronger by degrees the further west they traveled. That resonance with the Phaedra and its host was the shadows beacon, their only goal. It mattered not that the chase may last weeks, months, or years. The shadows could exhaust their host bodies and find replacements. In theory, they could run indefinitely. Could track indefinitely. Could change into combat form and back indefinitely.
“Find my Phaedra. Return it and bring the vessel that stole it to me.”
They would find the Phaedra and the vessel that stole it. Even if they had to rip the vessel to shreds to do so.
Chasing Down Glory: The Outrider Legion: Book Two Page 51
