by CJ Perry
“Wait,” she said, realization settling upon her battered features. “He was not trying to start a war. He -”
“Yes, he was. And I don’t think your king has any idea.”
Celia pointed at him, chains jingling. “It is you who has been misinformed. The prophecy says it is your mother who starts the war. I came here to -”
“It’s easy enough to prophesize a war when you plan to start one, isn’t it? Your High Priest used your hate to make you a pawn in something much bigger than revenge.”
“The High Priest said that finishing what my father started would stop the war. Just because the means also served my ends does not make me a pawn.”
“There was to be no war before you showed up.”
“Only a fool would believe that.”
“And why is that?”
“It is well-known that your people blame ours for their enslavement. Our God will always be guilty in your precious Empire,” she spat. “Do you expect me to believe that your mother is content to let bygones be bygones? To not exact revenge now, when your Empire thrives?”
“Both the God of Light and the Night Goddess share responsibility for that. In time, I can-”
Celia laughed, a mirthless, sardonic sound. She rested her back against the wall and shook her head, eyes up at the ceiling. Justin folded his arms and waited for her cynical amusement to pass.
“What’s funny?” He asked.
“I'm sorry,” she said, with no sincerity. She reached to wipe her eye, but the chains stopped the motion short. “I thought you were going to tell me that you would convince your mother that her Goddess was to blame for her people’s enslavement.”
“So?”
“So, I was picturing her trying to climb you like a tree to get her hands around your scrawnyneck.”
Justin’s jaw clenched. He had been called scrawny all his life, and the word irritated him. He was slender, true, but his minotaur heritage still made him stronger than most men in the Empire. He took an extra moment to answer, composing himself.
“The Empress listens to me. And she doesn’t want a war. Just to rebuild her Empire.”
“The High Priest’s prophecy says otherwise.”
“Then tell me this prophecy.”
Celia sneered. “Why should I? You already said that it was just a ploy.”
Justin took a deep breath and a moment to straighten the gold collar of his crimson robes. This conversation was going nowhere. He retrieved the torch and turned for the exit. He spoke without turning around.
“I only stayed to try to help you. Once you told me the sword’s lineage, I had all the information I needed to destroy it. But if -”
“No!” Celia screamed, her chains pulling taut with a jingle and clink. “You can’t!”
Justin turned back. Her undamaged eye accused him as she leaned against the limit of the chains. Of course, she valued the sword, but her panic suggested more than mere concern over a religious artifact. Despite her fury, she was on the verge of tears.
“You’re willing to face the Abyss, but the mention of destroying the sword brings you to tears?”
She threw her weight against her chains with a grunt of effort. “I’ll kill you, you pampered brat!”
“Why?” Justin asked.
“Because you’re a pathetic-”
Justin held out a hand. “I meant, why do you value a piece of enchanted metal more than your own soul?”
“I don’t,” she said, and strained against the chains one last time before collapsing against the wall, breathless.
“Clearly, you do. The sword is on my desk right now, waiting for me to destroy it. Unless you give me a good reason not to, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
Celia sneered at him. “You are a sad excuse of a man.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you deny what you really are to appease your mother.”
“I know what I am. And if you knew me, you would know that I speak my mind.”
“But not your heart. The Night Goddess is evil. You know it. You feel it, just as I do, because you are a servant of the Light. There is no other way to lift up my father’s blade.”
Justin scoffed and offered her a sad smile. “If you only knew how much you just sounded like my mother. You are just opposite sides of the same coin.”
“But when I say it, it rings true. Does it not?”
It did, but as a Red Wizard Justin had been trained to hold impartiality as paramount. Her beauty and strength drew him to her, even though he knew that without her chains she would have already killed him.
“No, it doesn’t,” he said, and headed for the stairs. He stopped half way, compassion getting the better of him. He understood what it felt like to go hungry or thirsty, even just for a day. “Are you sure you don't want some water? Something to eat, maybe?”
Celia sat back down on the floor and shook her head.
Justin shrugged. “Suit yourself. I will check on you tomorrow, and see if you still feel the same.”
Chapter Four
That Knight
That night, Ayla sat on the edge of the bed as Deetra braided her hair in utter silence. Some of the Red Knights the Guardian killed had just joined the ranks; squires with less than a week of wearing the red. She had given the more experienced knights time off for the Empire’s birthday.
Deetra finished Ayla’s braid and laid down with her head on the pillow. Ayla turned and traced her finger along one of Deetra’s tattoos, an Orc tribal maze of swirls and angles that started below her chin. Her wife had sworn her life and soul to the Dark Queen to save Ayla from the brink of death. The Goddess had come in the flesh to accept her oath as both knight and wife to Ayla.
Ayla followed the tattoo down over Deetra’s throat and between her breasts. It covered her rib cage on both sides, and circled her navel with a tribal winged serpent eating its tail. Ayla traced the Ouroboros and then up to the spot where the Guardian’s sword had pierced her chest. Only a fine line, an almost imperceptible scar, remained of her wound.
“A couple inches to the left and I would have lost you.”
“That sword isn’t natural.” Deetra ran a hand over her head, bald and tattooed save for a single strip of dark hair down the middle. It had once been hues of brown and gold, bleached from long days in the vineyards. Years of wearing her helm and time indoors let it grow back to its original mink brown.
Ayla sighed. The gesture meant Deetra needed to say something, but held her tongue. The flat line of her mouth and tense posture told Ayla what Deetra’s voice did not. She had a problem with Ayla superseding her about Justin and the Guardian. After half a day of the cold shoulder, it was time for Deetra to get it off her chest.
Ayla climbed over Deetra to her side of the bed and propped herself up against the headboard with a pillow. She pulled the cotton sheet up over her ample bosom. Deetra just stared up at the granite ceiling past the candle chandelier.
“I’m tired of this, Deetra. Just say it.”
Deetra’s jaw tightened. “You don't want to hear it.”
“Say it anyway.”
“You shouldn’t have let Justin near that Guardian. That bitch should have died in Freedom Hall.”
Ayla sighed. “Justin is the only one who can figure out how to destroy that sword.”
Deetra rolled her eyes. “Just bury it somewhere.”
“There are too many questions. And I don't think burying it for some other Guardian to find is the answer to any of them.”
Deetra shrugged. “We have all the answers we need. Her name is Celia. Her father was Dylan. She’s from the south. I think Justin wants her alive because she has a pretty face. He wanted her, even if just for an instant.”
“That’s ridiculous. And those aren't all the questions. We just don't know what the others are. Justin says we don't know what we don't know.”
Deetra ran both hands over her head again, sat up, and put her feet on the floor. More Orc tribals trace
d the length of her spine from the base of her skull. She rubbed her temples and gave a derisive snort.
“For the love of the Goddess, Ayla, please don't start quoting him.”
Ayla folded her arms, pinning the sheet. “He’s the most educated man in the Empire. I think quoting him is-”
“Ayla, please. I can't do this tonight. I just lost eight knights and there’s a seven-foot boy who hates me with a sword that can cut my armor like bread. I just need the Empress’ blessing to burn the bodies, and some sleep.”
After Deetra and the Empire’s Army helped Butch claim the throne of the Orc tribes, he had declared Deetra an honorary clanswoman. Her head was shaved and her body tattooed with a ceremonial dagger and ink made with the ashes of fallen clansmen. As Empress, Ayla forbid the burning of the dead.
The Temple writings did not decree one manner of burial over the other. It had been a personal choice, made after being burned at the stake in the name of the God of Light. Among the Orcs her decree was never enforced, but Ayla attended all funerals held in Hornstall. Pyres still brought back visions of that day; the smoke and fire made her toes tingle in her boots. That had been the worst part, her feet.
Deetra’s shoulders shook as she faced the window. Ayla’s heart softened. She let go of the sheet and crawled over to kneel behind her. She kissed the back of Deetra’s neck and again under the ear. Deetra shivered.
“I’m sorry,” Ayla said, running her hands over Deetra’s shoulders. “Of course you can, so long as the families agree. I will visit them privately, instead of attending the funerals.”
Deetra shrugged and wiped her cheeks with her palms. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”
Ayla smiled. Deetra, in fact, had not raised her voice in the slightest. Deetra leaned back against her, the muscles in her shoulders relaxing. She turned her head to the side to look at Ayla from the corner of her eye.
“This was an act of war.”
Ayla closed her eyes. Justin had been right. Since the treaty and trade agreement with the Dwarves that had ended the Orc raids, the clans had grown increasingly restless. With no enemies, they had taken to squabbling amongst themselves. The High-Chief and Ayla’s dear friend Butch was at his wits end to keep them under control.
“We’re not ready for another war just yet.”
“This can’t go unanswered.”
“It will be answered,” Ayla said. She pressed her breasts to Deetra’s back and kissed her neck, provoking a sigh. She whispered, hands descending to Deetra’s chest. “Lay with me.”
Deetra turned and met her lips. A long kiss brought them back to the bed.
Chapter Five
The Sword of Light
Justin paced in his bereft, windowless room in the center of the main keep. He had been home almost a year and still had not decorated. There was a desk, a bed, and a barren bookshelf. He was a minimalist at heart, like his Mother.
He had chosen the room upon his return. The habits of his vocation mandated quiet. Though, this time, the silence worked against him. Memorizing the simple spell to Identify the sword had taken him twice as long as usual. His thoughts kept drifting to a girl with eyes the color of spring grass. The Identify might help him understand why she valued the sword more than her own soul, but thus far, it still had not worked.
He fell asleep early, waiting for the Identify to complete. He woke an hour ago to find that the sword still lay on its mounts, the spell still searching the sands of time for the story of the blade. The lineage had not been enough, or perhaps not entirely accurate. More information would speed up the process; narrow the search. But Celia’s interrogation had not gone as well as he had hoped.
The sword had to be destroyed if he wanted to have any chance of stopping Celia’s assassination attempt from starting a war. His mother and the people had to know that the threat of the God of Light could be managed. His mother had acquiesced to taking Celia alive, proving she would still consider a peaceful resolution. Deetra, on the other hand, had not, and was probably already whispering words of war in his mother’s ear. But, without the sword, Celia would have died at the front gate without incident, and Deetra would have no fear to leverage.
Deetra had fought in the Orc Clan War for nine years. Led by Deetra and Butch, an Orc Freeman at the time, the ragtag army of the newborn Empire managed to beat five Orc clans into submission. It started the autumn after the Battle for Freedom, while Justin’s mother still carried him in her belly. From birth to almost ten years old, Justin grew up in a nation at war. When it was over, Butch forced the chief of each clan to swear an oath of fealty, and Butch, the first ever High-Chief of the five clans, made one to Ayla.
Since then, the clans and Hornstall had remained in an uneasy alliance, but Orcs prided themselves in their abilities as warriors, with an emphasis on the ‘war’. They believed that only through victorious battle, or glorious death, could they earn favor with the Dark Queen. The High-chief spoke of the restlessness of the clans often enough that the Empress stopped listening. Justin had not. His intolerance and hatred of war was misinterpreted by Deetra and his brothers as a lack of constitution. Justin did not lack the stomach for war, rather, he possessed enough imagination and empathy to understand its true horror.
During the war, Justin’s mother instructed the Generals to keep the wagons of bodies of the fallen soldiers covered, and bury the bodies outside of the city. Every day, more wagons and river boats arrived to deliver the dead. There were so many that Justin lived with the fear that they would lose, and one day, the Orc tribes would come over the walls of Hornstall to kill him and his mother.
When Justin was six, his stepbrothers had taken him over the walls of the docks and showed him the covered wagons in a field a mile from the river. The bodies laid in haphazard stacks of several dozen per wagon, each pile covered with canvas. James had lifted one of the tarpaulins and an arm had tumbled out and onto the ground. Justin had shrieked, earning himself a punch in the stomach from Victor.
Eleven years had passed since that night, but Justin still remembered the tin wedding band on the hand. That was the true horror of war. Deetra saw only the battle. She felt the loss of her men, for certain. But she seemed to give little thought to the generation of children who grew up suffering the loss of a father or mother – the families torn apart. That simple tin band had scarred Justin more deeply than any pile of bodies. It was a symbol of love severed by war and lost forever.
He blinked the image away, and stopped in front of the bookshelf. He picked up the tin ring. One day, when he grew powerful enough, he would cast a Lore on the ring, and give it to the wife or child whose husband or father had been stacked in a heap like so much trash.
The sun had not yet risen, but once it did, word of the Guardian would spread like wildfire. After that - unless he could destroy the sword and give them a solid “win” - Justin would have little sway over his mother’s decision. The people of Hornstall would demand the Guardian’s sacrifice to the Dark Queen. Any chance of avoiding war would evaporate.
A thought buzzed through the back of his mind like a pollen-drunk bee in a field, lazy and distant but filled with purpose. Celia said something about her father as she entered the temple…what was it? Justin closed his eyes and evened out his breathing. “Only still waters can reflect,” Master Rashidi had told him, time and again. Several moments passed in silence while he cleared his mind, waiting for the words to surface. Finally, they did.
…my Lord spared him from the Abyss, and now he is my light in dark places.
The moment she stepped over the threshold, the sword had started to hum, and the intensity of its glowing blade went from the dull glimmer of torchlight to the blaze of an inferno. Her claim about her father might just have been literal. If her father and the sword had become one and the same, it would explain her panic at the thought of the sword’s destruction. The Orcs knew the secret of binding spirits, but the items became useless afterward – cursed.
As an Illusionist, Justin had no talent for such things. He would have to ask Victor, who was a master of fetish objects of this sort. Justin frowned at the sword. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to Victor again. If the best predictor of future behavior came from studying past behavior, Victor was just as likely punch or stab him as he was to answer any questions.
When Victor returned for a visit, they used to play with sticks in the Children’s Garden, and chase each other through the hedge maze. Victor began hunting for his own food - in accordance with Orc tradition - at a very young age. By the time he turned eleven, Victor had become a deadly playmate.
Justin was the same height, but eight months younger, of far slighter build, and as the youngest, the subject of Victor’s constant hazing. He had broken Justin’s nose three times, and his arm once. When Mom really could kiss injuries better, roughhousing went to the extremes.
The last time the three brothers played in the hedge maze, Victor hid for an hour. Worried, Justin and James had searched for him. As Justin rounded a corner, Victor lunged at him. He hadn’t had time to blink, let alone move, before Victor plunged a stick he had spent the last hour sharpening with his teeth, into Justin’s rear end as a joke.
Blood poured out of the wound and the two-inch-thick stick would not come out - until Victor ripped it out. With the pain, and the heat and dehydration, Justin had fainted. He had a vague memory of his mother healing him with a prayer and some water from the fountain. But the part that hurt Justin the most was waking up wet, bare-assed, and face-down on a bench a few minutes later to the sound of his entire family laughing. The jokes about asses and holes, none of them funny, did not end until the day he left for his apprenticeship.
No, he would not be asking Victor anything. But without more information, Identifying the sword could take days, or even weeks. And without a proper Identification, researching the means of its destruction would prove impossible.
After their exchange at dinner, Victor would not be in a helping mood. Alone and with no spells memorized, Justin may as well saunter up to Victor naked and ask for a beating. Maybe one day, Justin would learn to keep his mouth shut. Justin only needed to know why the Orcish-fetished objects became cursed, and if the possibility of binding a spirit without such a negative result was possible. Victor too would want to see the sword destroyed. If Justin started with an apology, maybe Victor would forego the usual punch in the face.
