The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “You bitch,” one of them said, an accusation that stung. “Come here, sweet talk the secrets out of our drunks… No. Not on ours.”

  Another laughed, a wheezy high sound out of place in the darkness. “Let’s cut her. Make her squeal.”

  “She’ll never tell them. She’ll forget.”

  Three different voices. She’d been right. She couldn’t see them entirely well, they were still bathed in shadow but she didn’t need her eyes to know where they were. They left a great greasy stain in the air around them. She could touch their minds, their prideful small insignificant minds and she wanted to vomit. Anger coursed through her, a fire being fanned in the pits of her stomach and she savoured its sticky smoke radiating across her muscles as she gracefully rose to her feet.

  “The bitch rises!”

  She cocked her head to the side, still furious with herself for failing to sense this coming. Right now, they thought she was an easy target. They had basic knives, she could smell the fish on them… Fishermen. If she never saw another one of them for a month, she’d be happy. They didn’t know who they were dealing with. They thought her someone small. Someone weak. Just a nobody…

  Good! Use that to your advantage!

  She heard her master’s voice in her mind, the memories bringing back painful emotions and she felt her face crack into a ghoulish smile. Those who usually saw it didn’t tell anyone about it. She withdrew the cylinder of metal from her bag, mentally chastising herself for not carrying it on her person and held it to her side.

  “I will warn you now,” she said coldly. Her voice radiated danger, she put every emphasis of the Kjarn into it she could. They felt potent in her mouth. “I haven’t seen your faces. You can walk away right now and I’ll forget this.” It didn’t even sound like her voice anymore. She sounded older. Crueller. “If you don’t, I assure you that nobody else will see your faces ever again. Anonymity isn’t always a blessing, boys, sometimes it’s a curse.”

  She felt their hesitation, their sudden rush of fear and uncertainty. That was all she needed, she savoured the emotions and drank it in deeply.

  “She lying!” One of them finally said. Whether he believed it or not she couldn’t quite say. He sounded like he did. His emotions were too jumbled. Maybe he was messed up on narcotics.

  “She doesn’t…”

  “Get her!” The all-too overconfident guy almost shoved his two buddies forward at her and she sighed, leaping forward in one graceful motion the same time she thumbed the button on her kjarnblade.

  With a crackle and a hiss, the pink and silver blade of energy erupted from the tip of the cylinder, illuminating the alley in its brilliant glow. By the time they’d reacted, the weapon was already little more than a blur as she swept through them, her mind barely processing the motions as it went through their bodies with no effort at all. The weapons used crystals to focus pure Kjarn energy into a formidable blade capable of cutting through almost anything with ease.

  Because the Kjarn links all things… Master Amalfus’ words once again came to mind. Those two hadn’t been a trouble at all, she’d wondered if drawing her blade was the best thing to deal with them. And then she’d decided she wanted to make a statement. Already the third guy had started to run, she’d gestured with her free hand and the invisible force of the Kjarn had yanked him back to her, like a hand on his collar…

  Up here on the mountain, she’d wondered if her drawing her blade in anger had been as much to do with the way they’d gotten the drop on her as easily as they had. Her master would have been furious with her. Her rival would have had a field day with his amusement at her petulance. Nobody knew. Nobody would ever know. The dismembered remains of the first two guys were right now hidden in the cellar of their leader, his mind a shallow fraction of what it once was. Even now the law was on its way to his home following an anonymous tip.

  As clever as she had been, it still didn’t change the fact she’d abused her powers against the grand scheme of Master Amalfus. He’d taught her caution and vigilance to temper the formidable power he assured her that one day she would wield.

  Sometimes she missed his teachings. More than that, she was sure Gideon Cobb knew where he was. Cobb had been taken in by the master at the same as her. They’d been trained together. They knew each other inside out. And he’d told them that one day, one would kill the other to become his rightful heir.

  She’d often thought about that. Killing Cobb. Not that she thought she couldn’t. She could under the right circumstances. It’d be just the case of ensuring that everything was right. Maybe that was the only way to bring him back to her.

  It wasn’t good to think about this at a time like this. Memories of her time with Amalfus was bringing her out into a cold sweat, cooling but at the same time uncomfortable. She just wanted to get to the top and…

  Kyra looked up, saw the few ledges up closer to the top. So far, she’d been trying to make it up under her own steam. She felt like she’d done well. It’d be a simple matter to leap the last few hundred meters in a series of bounds, using the Kjarn to augment her body.

  Except that’d be cheating. She didn’t like that thought. It made her feel unclean. She’d made it this far on her own and that she’d gotten so high only to balk and rely on the Kjarn for the last hop would devalue the first nine tenths of the trip.

  That’d be what Gid would do. Not her. It was through gritted teeth that she pushed the urge down and slowly began to scan the immediate environment for the next best handhold. She would do this.

  Personally, she’d always felt stubbornness was a good characteristic to bear. To keep going through thick and thin no matter what, it was what split the strong from the weak. But at the same time was it not a form of weakness to fail to admit when it was futile? Perhaps. There would appear to be a thin dividing line between admirable determination and senseless recklessness.

  As she reached the top, tipped herself onto the flat of land of the peak and lay there baking in her own sweat for a few long moments, she felt a surge of triumph rip through her that she’d done it. Plenty of times she’d considered her course of action. Every time she had conquered that negativity. She was strong. Stronger than Gid. He was nothing more than a nasty overgrown boy with an inflated sense of his own power. If he was in contact with their master, it was only because he needed more instruction. She was the one he’d sent out into the world. Gid was being kept closer to home. He wasn’t trusted.

  Maybe it wasn’t true. It was her read of a not quite relished situation and it would be the one she stuck with. To acknowledge it as anything else would sincerely damage her faith in the great scheme.

  Thus, the character of Master Amalfus was summed up. You give a mission to a politician, they achieve what they can through politics. You give a mission to a violent man, they do it through violence. Her master was a schemer. And a good one as well from her understanding of him, limited as it may be. Under his guidance, she’d learned to manipulate the Kjarn, she’d built her kjarnblade and he’d turned her loose in every sense of the word.

  It felt good to feel her muscles ache again from the exertion. Her short boyish hair was caked in sweat and dust as were her coffee-coloured arms and legs but that didn’t matter. She’d conquered the Trabazon. As she lay there, she closed her eyes and let her mind wander out into the area around her, seeking out for any trace of what she’d come to find. If there was a kirofax on the mountain, she’d find it in no time. The Kjarn would make sure of that.

  Yet it was the Kjarn that soon told her she wasn’t alone long before her eyes picked out the ship docked up in the distance, not a big one but certainly packing a very thick hull. She paused, sat down on a rock shadowed by larger rocks, out of the way of potential onlookers, and took up the meditation pose, legs cross-tucked beneath her. She didn’t normally enjoy the act but it did have its uses.

  One does not always need to enjoy. Consider it a tool, its use to be neither loved nor hated but vital.


  Through that single act of concentration, she found the ship powered down, by her guess it could take up to ten people. She could smell dog amidst the metal and the oil, a pair of black clad guards stood behind to watch over it. Both were armed…

  She inhaled sharply at that realisation. Not because she feared them. Fear was for the weak. They didn’t have anything to worry her. No, she worried at what their presence might mean. More than that, should she seek out the kirofax that were rumoured to live up here, they’d be less than willing to show themselves in the presence of so many strangers. She pursed her lips angrily. What were they here for then?

  Curiosity is a sin. To sin is to be human. To be human is to be curious. That had been another lesson endowed to her. This one she’d never gotten the meaning of, not at first. It had taken its time coming to her. And ultimately, she had, although in different words to the ones Amalfus had laid down to her.

  We can’t deny who we are.

  So yes. She was curious suddenly. Especially since the locals had seemed keen on keeping what was up here a secret. So maybe it wasn’t the local kirofax population they were interested in. What could prompt armed men to come up here in force? If she had the answer, it wasn’t coming to her easily. Still perched in the shade of the rocks, she felt herself expanding her consciousness out further into the…

  Aha! Cave.

  Shocker. Up here in the mountains was the last place anyone could realistically expect to find a cave. She rolled her eyes beneath her lids and continued to probe further, down past the lips of the cave, down and down and…

  Kyra sensed the sudden emotions and violent auras of battle and involuntarily she recoiled. Whatever was going on down there felt savage. Something strange was going on here. Maybe they were Unisco. Maybe. They didn’t feel like an official presence though. She could touch the minds of the two guards from here and they felt furtive, shifty even. Like they didn’t want to be here. Like they shouldn’t be here.

  We can’t deny who we are. She smiled and dropped down off her rock, wrapping herself in the anonymity of the Kjarn as she strode out into the space between the edge of the mountain and the ship, halving the distance between herself and the armed men in a matter of moments. Gently she grazed their minds, just enough to keep them from noticing her and secure in her confidence that it should be enough, Kyra stepped past them, close enough to smell them. It had an astonishing effect on the weak minded, especially when they were lulled to boredom.

  She preferred the subtle stuff to raw displays of power, being honest with herself. Gid had once ripped a moving ship out of the air to prove a point, something that had infuriated their master. She felt she could do the same yet chose not to. Far easier to manipulate the pilot into landing. A mind was easier to manoeuvre than a machine, for her anyway. And as Amalfus had pointed out to Gid, what if the ship had been damaged by being ripped off its vector? He’d looked chastised, she’d felt a surge of glee until he’d rounded on her and inquired of her what if the pilots mind had been too strong to control?

  Always there was some middle ground to consider. Often your first thought of action was also the most dangerously impulsive. But far more than that, she’d had impressed upon her the dangers of inactivity. The worries of choosing the wrong path to the point that in the end you did nothing.

  That had never been her problem, she thought as she strode down into the darkness of the cave. Just as she had in the alley the previous night, she didn’t need her eyes to see the twists and turns of the tunnel, the Kjarn guided her footsteps and the sensations of violence grew ever closer. Just as a precaution, thought she intended not to use it unless the situation was dire, she drew her kjarnblade from her bag and held it in her hand.

  Before long the tunnel led down into a cavern and she found traces of light up ahead, light and the faint auras of heat in the air. She heard yips and growls, howls and roars and she couldn’t shake that pervasive feeling of unease that filtered through her as she looked on through the half-light. Still she walked on, spirit summoner down in her other hand. Just in case she needed to fight.

  It’s good to avoid a fight. Sometimes it’s impossible not to. She hoped she didn’t need to fight here. Curiosity had brought her in here but she’d need to get herself out if the situation was not to her beneficiary. Nothing worse than a fight that couldn’t be won. Or even one that could have been avoided in the first place. The walls were cold around her, she couldn’t sense any life teeming out of them. Odd. Normally when she opened her senses up to the subtle whisperings of the Kjarn, she could ‘hear’ all the things that nobody ever saw. The vermin, the insects, the parasites… They might not leave much of a presence but a trace of one regardless. For it to be completely devoid of life… Curious.

  Reaching the mouth of the corridor, she leaned against the wall and craned her neck down into the pit below, suddenly curious as to what she might find. A rough path had been cut down the side offering a way down below. It didn’t look natural, she raised an eyebrow at that, tracing its path around to the voices and the flames.

  Men. All of them armed with assault weapons, all firing off in the direction of something she couldn’t quite make out. Ice blue bolts… Heavy-power stun blasts if she had it right. They’d been one of Master Amalfus’ favourite training tools. Oversized wolves lurked in front of the men as well, all black furred with very prominent claws and teeth, a pair of curved horns emerging from their heads…

  Despite her best efforts, the gasp slipped out from her. Devil hounds. It was unusual to see those. Here in Serran they were a bad omen. Some said they harvested the souls of those that deserved to die. Her eyebrow ascended higher, she grimaced as she fixated in on them. The Kjarn was distorted through them. Like an echo repeating out through the cavern, impossible to pinpoint anything down about them. Even their exact location came out vague. She could see them with her eyes but should she close them and rely solely on the Kjarn, it’d be unlikely she’d be able to lock them down.

  Exactly the reason she should walk away. The devil hounds were launching explosive blasts of fire into the shadows, bathing it in sticky orange heat and just for a moment, she thought she saw something lodged into the corners, the target of their attacks not quite cowering but clearly taking cover.

  She should walk away. This wasn’t anything to do with her. With fire and stun blasts converging in on whatever was trapped down below there…

  Woah!

  Whatever they were after, it didn’t have a sense in the Kjarn like anything she’d ever experienced before. When she touched it, she got one impression at the forefront of her mind and one impression only. Possibly the same reason eight men and twice as many devil hounds were trying to pin it down.

  Power!

  It was power tinged with something else but that didn’t matter to her. She’d long since failed to acknowledge weak emotions so she didn’t care much that this thing was frightened. It was powerful. And it was alive. It didn’t feel human.

  She fingered her spirit summoner, a small grin playing about her face. Maybe she’d see the way this played out. An invisible force ripped one of the devil hounds up and hurled it back against the pit wall less than twenty feet below her and she heard a spine crack. Involuntarily she flinched and then cursed herself for it. Idiot!

  Unusual. It was very unusual for a creature to be able to employ telekinesis in the wild. Normally they could only use it following genetic augmentation. Not many knew it but that was the Kjarn coming into full force, making the modifications not only possible but workable. All life was connected. Through the Kjarn, humans and animals became connected, through the Kjarn spirit calling became possible though very few knew the actual reason behind it.

  She was so caught in her thoughts she almost didn’t see the pillar of flame erupting towards her, a few of the devil hounds had caught wind of her amidst everything else. They had very strong olfactory senses, she remembered suddenly, leaping forwards to evade the fire tearing through the rock. It
had suddenly gotten too hot to stay there and she was over open air, tumbling towards the ground. Simultaneously she activated her kjarnblade and her summoner. Ravalix materialised the same time as her blade, a great snake fashioned out of copper and silver coloured rocks. Unharmed, she landed on the giant head and took in the surroundings. The black-clad men had already turned their attentions to her, the rifles now pointing in her direction and she sucked in air and gave Ravalix a quick command. Deal with the hounds!

  And then she was off, the brief reprimands of her stupidity faint in her mind. Only briefly. She couldn’t afford to recriminate.

  The first blast came towards her and with great difficulty she batted it back the direction it had come with her pink and silver blade, the force of it almost tearing the weapon from her hands. Laser blasts were a form of energy. The refined focused Kjarn that made up her blade was a superior form of energy. Simple effort to repel it away from her. She saw the refracted blast hit a man, not the firer and he crumpled in on himself as he went down, she dropped down into a roll across the floor, feeling blasts chip up stone behind her as she took the legs off the goon closest to her and he went down screaming, his last shots flailing wildly up into the ceiling of the cave. He wasn’t dead, she could still hear his screaming through her Kjarn-fogged mind and she thrust her blade backwards, cutting him off mid-sound before striking back two more blasts, the force of their assault pushing her back a few inches.

  She gestured with her free hand and watched two of them suddenly fly backwards, drank in their shock and fear as they hit the wall and went down, she felt the snapback through the Kjarn as the life suddenly left them. Suddenly breathless in the pit of her stomach, she silently cursed and swept her blade up in front of her in a defensive formation, anything to keep back the shots until she could catch her breath.

  Behind her, Ravalix was ripping through the devil hounds with all the lack of subtlety one would expect from a twenty-foot snake made of solid rock and metal. She felt more shots come in at her and she only just found them to parry at the last moment, gulping in stale air as stun blasts hammered in on her, her features bathed in pink and silver light as she struggled to keep them back, both hands on the busy blade…