Warsinger

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Quite a remarkable woman, actually,” Vash finished. “Who somehow manages to have healthy, normal relationships despite what you and your disturbingly-proportioned friend put her through.”

  “You fought the Pacific Alliance!” he blurted. “They created HEX! They killed everyone! My parents, YOUR parents-”

  “Dude, use your brain for literally one fucking second,” I said. “Let's say her human dataset came from some Pacific Alliance death camp. What does that imply to you?”

  “That… she… was there.”

  “Riiiight. Annnnd?” I waved my hands. “Who gets killed in death camps, smart guy? The guards? The officers in charge? I’ll give you a hint: It begins with P and ends in ‘risoners’.”

  “I don't know what she was doing there!” he spat. “It was ages ago! Who cares?!”

  “I do. I care enough to lock your ass in a cell and throw away the key.” I nodded to Vash and jerked my head to the door.

  “Wait...!” Jacob shied back as we hauled him up. “No! This is crazy! You don't even know what happened! If I did anything! This is -!”

  He squealed all the way to the cell, and kept ranting as I did a cell check, untied him, and slammed the heavy wooden door in his face. When the slot was closed and I was sure he couldn't see me, I sagged against the far wall and rubbed my eyes.

  “You alright, Dragozin?” Vash sounded as serious as I'd ever heard him.

  “Yeah.” I shook myself out, staring at the door as Jacob shoved at it from the other side, howling about his freedom and the Admin Panel and Nicolas. “Just tired. Real tired.”

  Vash nodded. “Tell Istvan where to find me, will you? I'll stay here and make sure our new friend doesn't go on any adventures.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Let me know if he says anything about the Warsingers.”

  “I will.” He seemed about to say more, but instead, his mouth turned down and twisted the net of scars on his face. “Hector, Suri and I have... talked... and because of some of our shared experiences, she has honored me with her confidence.”

  “She has?” I was surprised to feel a twinge at that. “She's... never told me anything about what happened to her, really. Just implications.”

  “I doubt she ever will,” he said. “She worries you would not handle it well, but also, I think she wants your relationship to be a clean slate, unstained by the past. I can't break her confidence, but I will say this. While he is loathsome, Jacob is the lesser of the pair. By her own admission, he had moments of mercy and lucidity and nearly released her more than once. So, for Suri's sake, let me see what I can do to reach him.”

  “Reach him?” I recoiled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Vash glanced at the cell door. “Foul-mouthed and crude as I am, Dragozin, I wear a lot of different hats. One of those hats is, astoundingly enough, 'spiritual advisor'. Burna is not a god of forgiveness, but those of us who dwell in his darkness must remember that he is wedded to Veela the Eggmother, Goddess of Children. I respect Burna, but there must be balance in life. Too much darkness erodes the soul.”

  I frowned, pushing back up off the wall. “Some people aren't worth forgiving. There's things you can't forgive.”

  “You don't have to forgive him. Nor does Suri. But consider this. If a man does something evil, he has a choice in the aftermath: to continue doing evil, or to choose to try and make things right,” Vash said. “If you block the path of redemption - which is already very steep and difficult once you've fallen to this level of depravity - what are you left with?”

  “Hnnn.” I grunted.

  “Well?”

  “More evil, I guess.”

  “Exactly.” Vash nodded. “And remember this: Jacob is an immortal, like you and Suri, and therefore capable of making your lives miserable forever. So as a kindness to you all, I will see what I can do. There would be nothing more healing for Suri than a groveling, teary-eyed apology from this cretin.”

  “I can think of a couple other things she'd find healing.” I snorted. “Like the opportunity to tear his liver out through his asshole.”

  “She may yet have the chance,” Vash said. “My counsel is not a guarantee of success. Some people are irredeemable, and the only solution is to put them down like dogs. We shall see. As it is for all of us, it is up to Jacob to decide what kind of person he wishes to be.”

  Chapter 44

  I found Suri and Kitti on the flat roof of the Great Hall, a large deck that looked out over the courtyard. I jumped up to the edge of the rampart just in time to see Kitti yell and charge Suri with a practice sword, bringing it down in a clumsy two-handed swing.

  “You're telling me everything with those shoulders, girl!” Suri parried the blow with her practice weapon, an oar taken from a rowboat. “Less twisting at the waist, more spine! Come at me straight, and don't let up!”

  “YAAAAAHHH!” Kitti followed her as she stepped backward, chopping with all her strength.

  “That's it! You can do it! Ten more times! One, two, three - that's it, don't let up! Four!” She counted down as the girl, dripping sweat, beat on the oar with the blade of her sword. By the end, the oak practice sword was dented and Kitti was panting, her flaxen hair plastered to her forehead. She looked up, and her mouth formed an 'O' of surprise when she saw me perched on the wall.

  “How's the Berserking going?” I called out.

  “Great!” Kitti punched the air, then winced, clutching her shoulder. “Ow.”

  Suri gave me a warm smile, then returned her attention to Kitti. “You were gettin’ the right kind of power into those downstrokes by the end. How's do your arms feel?”

  “Like jelly.” Kitti's hands trembled as she tried to sling her sword over her back in the Berserker style and dropped it with a clatter. “I don't even know if I can do my hair.”

  “I'll do your hair for you, kid. Or...” Suri's eyes flashed with mirth. “Hector over there is really proud of his. Can you do her braid?”

  “Anything for you, sugartits.” I winked at her, then froze as Kitti turned the color of a cherry and I remembered that she was barely fourteen. “And by that, I, uh, mean the bird. You know... the rare and lovely Scarlet Sugartit. You find them in the Endlar.”

  Suri roared with laughter, slapping Kitti on the shoulder and sending her stumbling forward a few steps. “Go on, then. He won't bite you.”

  “But, Countess!” Kitti bit her lip, shooting me a doe-eyed glance. “He's the Voivode! Do you perhaps have a lady-in-waiting who could, umm...?”

  “You don't have to take anything off for his High Lordliness to do your hair.” Suri planted her hands on her hips. “You got a comb, Hector?”

  “Darling. What do you take me for? A barbarian?” I placed a hand against my chest. “I have THREE combs, hair oil, leave-in conditioner...”

  “See?” Suri grinned broadly. “He's such a pretty-boy, isn't he?”

  Kitti finally giggled, and relaxed enough to dance over to me. She turned around so I could reach her plait. “Honestly, I've never seen a lord with hair like yours before.”

  “You should see Vash's,” I said, starting on it with the comb. She wore her straight blonde hair in a simple Dutch braid, a job so easy I could have done it with my eyes closed. “He's a Baru, and he hasn't cut his hair in thirty years.”

  “Thirty years!” Kitti gasped. “How does he even stand the weight of it? Mine is barely to my waist, and it's so hot and annoying. I'd much rather have hair like Suri's.”

  “So cut it,” Suri said with a shrug. “Fuck'em. Wear your hair how you like.”

  Kitti shook her head a little as I gathered it up for the braid. “I can't do that!”

  “Why the hell not?” Suri came to a stop in front of her.

  “No man would marry me if I didn't look like a lady,” the girl replied primly.

  I couldn't help but laugh. “That's not true. Suri's a lady with short hair, and I'd marry her in a heartbeat.”

  There was a brief, awkward pause whe
n I realized what I'd said, Suri realized what I'd said, and we looked at each other with an expression of complete and utter surprise at how easily it had slipped out.

  “Ooh.” Kitti glanced between us as my hands paused.

  Suri cleared her throat and looked past me to the courtyard. “So... how's Karalti doing? Looks like she just curled up and flaked out down there.”

  “Yeah, she did. Didn't even say a word to me.” I cleared my throat, tied off the plait, and let it drop. “Sorry to ask, Kitti, but I need to speak with Suri about something. Important Berserker business.”

  “Sure!” She danced away from me, and turned with a sly expression. “Well, Lady Suri - who's showing everything with her shoulders NOW?”

  “Brat.” Suri sniffed, but as the girl giggled and fled, she smiled fondly. Only once Kitti was down the stairs did it fade around the edges.

  “Looks like that helped,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Suri's lips quirked. “So... how'd it go?”

  “Kicked him in the junk a couple of times for you,” I said, stretching my hands until they gave a satisfying pop. “Didn't really get any useful info from him yet, but he knows some stuff about how you ended up here.”

  She considered that for a while. “Do I want to know?”

  “Beats me. Historically speaking, you don't like hearing about the Total War, Australia, or any of that shit… so probably not.”

  “That's changing.” Suri leaned back against the rampart beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “You hear enough people talk about something, you start to believe it. I had no reason to care about what the Wardens said, but you and Rin, and Vash-”

  “Vash?” I cocked my head in confusion. “Vash talks about the Total War?”

  She nodded. “He says he's had dreams about it, and that a lot of people do. That a lot of folks he's counselled had dreams of a great big war, with places and things they can't put a name to. Grief they can't describe, sounds that terrify them, fears they don't understand. He said it’s been getting more commonplace over the years.”

  Just like Kira, the healer from Lyrensgrove. “You've been talking to him a lot?”

  “Yeah. He's easy to talk to,” Suri said. “While you were out flying with Karalti and we were hanging out in the Tellak, there wasn’t room to do anything except eat, sleep, and shoot the shit. Speaking of shit and shooting, though – you said we didn’t learn where the Warsinger was, right?”

  “Nope.” I sighed. “I haven’t had a chance to properly grill Mehkhet yet, though. Jacob did tell us one thing that's important to the Great Warsinger Hunt of 2057, though. You're not just a descendent of Sachara. You basically ARE her, physically. Jacob and Nicolas kind of... meshed your personality and her body and cloned her.”

  Suri blinked a couple times. “Huh. That'd explain why I can’t remember my parents. I mean… I figured I had ‘em. But I can’t remember their faces, their names… nothing like that.”

  “You're taking this better than I expected.”

  She shrugged. “Doesn't matter what they did or how they did it. I'm me, and they'll never be able to change that. Besides - if it's true, I’m guaranteed to be able to use the Warsinger.”

  I offered her an arm. She smiled, and leaned into me. “I'm glad to hear that. Sad to say, there's a historical precedent of video game characters with big swords finding out that they’re clones, learning about their tortured pasts, and going crazy. Then they set fire to the hero's hometown and shamble around with the corpse of their dead mother giving people space cancer. It's a bad scene.”

  “Sounds like it,” she said. “You know something, though?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking back, to the bad old days,” she said. “Reliving it. But something’s occurred to me… I think I might know where Sachara’s tomb is.”

  “Really?”

  “Really, though I only put two and two together after hearing what Mehkhet said about ‘the heart of the lion’. When I escaped Al-Asad, me and a few mates did it by levelling our strength up, then digging our way out through one of the cell walls,” she said. “First we broke out into some worm tunnels, and by following those, we ended up in these crazy ruins. There were a whole lot of buildings, and one that looked kind of like a big temple edifice. We didn't hardly stay there, because we weren't in the mood to fuck around... but I'll bet good money that's where we need to go.”

  My heart sunk. “Oh jeez. Everything above and below Al-Asad is like… completely fucked.”

  “Yeah, but I reckon those ruins are far enough away from the prison to have survived,” she said. “They aren’t directly underneath. I don’t remember how far, but I remember the walk taking forever.”

  “The sandworms are probably still stirred up. And if the fortress collapsed in on them...”

  She laughed. “Then we're a bit fucked, yeah.”

  “I got a look at the Sandworm Queen before we teleported out of Al-Asad. That thing is Level 100.”

  “Yeah. But if I could sneak out, we could sneak in.” She rolled her head to look at me. “Besides, if the Warsinger's in there and we stir up the Sandworms, maybe we can use it to fight ‘em. And if so… I guess we’ll be able to see if the thing lives up to all the hype, won't we?”

  Chapter 45

  Suri and I went to bed early, but got to sleep late. It was the first time we'd shared a proper bed in actual privacy since Taltos, so we took our time with each other. By the time we passed out, it was close to dawn. I left her sleeping in the huge four-poster in the Count's quarters, and went to slumber the day away in my bathroom sandpit.

  There were a lot of little loose ends to tie up before we returned to Al-Asad to explore the ruins. The first thing we did was organized a vid-meeting with Rin. Suri and I both knew there was a lot of specialty equipment we couldn’t afford to be without on this expedition, most notably things like harnesses, pulleys, belaying rope for rappelling, zip-line cable and – in our dreams – hookshots. We forwarded her a thousand Olbia for materials and made a wishlist: climbing equipment, armor reinforcements, weapon repair, and gas masks. She agreed to all of it – on the provision that if we found any ancient ruins, we screenshot everything and loop her in on voice and/or video.

  Taethawn had successfully finished liberating Vyeshniki, and needed to return to Karhad to rest a minimum of three weeks before the Orphans Company could be deployed on other quests. The players I'd contracted to find the missing noble children had returned mixed results. They’d found most of them, but had lost a battle against a Yanik slaver and his pet T-rex and three of the kids were now MIA. Thanks to Ur Gehlan, refugees were now being settled in the regions we needed help with the harvest. Every success had increased our Renown: both my Renown, as Voivode, and the Renown of the region as a whole. That bump in fame was attracting the attention of NPC heroes and one more group of players, a trio of Meewfolk who called themselves the Mews Brothers. Based on the name alone, I was willing to give them every quest they could handle.

  There was some levelling to do, as well, and training. I had two Mark of Matir abilities to choose from and a couple of points to spend. Karalti was only 746 points away from reaching Level 15, and there was zero reason we couldn't immediately go out and earn that EXP. Karalti and I made an early afternoon hunting trip to the hills. Three hours and ten [Violent Ordogs] later, she had levelled up, we had chosen her new spells – Painfeeder and Shadow Wave – and she’d gained her next Path of Alacrity ability, Death From Above.

  Painfeeder

  While this spell is active, convert half of any damage taken into Stamina. Burns 1 MP per 5 seconds.

  Shadow Wave

  Rippling shadows disorient enemies and inflict moderate damage. Causes one or more of: Confusion, Blindness, Deafness, Rage, Nausea to living enemies.

  Death From Above

  Expend 100 MP to immediately teleport a short distance above or behind an enemy and deal a powerful non-elemental sonic energy attack that ignores armor. Flyi
ng enemies (including other dragons, but excluding constructs and undead) are afflicted with severe Vertigo, which disrupts the enemy’s gyroscopic orientation and impedes their ability to correctly navigate in the air. Vertigo lasts between 5-60 seconds, depending on the enemy’s Stamina or Integrity. Undead and constructs will take damage, but not become disoriented.

  Damage is equal to your dragon’s Dexterity divided by her Wisdom x 750 (current damage: 4125).

  At Level 20, your dragon is able to use her sonic attack to disorient flying undead. At Level 25, she can disorient flying constructs.

  Karalti wasn’t going to level for a while after this one. She needed roughly twice the EXP per level that I did. I’d be Level 26 after gaining 2868 more points, but she needed to accrue 7464 before she’d hit Level 16. It was all stat training for both of us from here.

  After she was leveled, I turned my attention to my own Path, and the new abilities that were available to me:

  Spectral Gaze

  When triggered, this ability drains 1 HP per 5 seconds, but you gain the power to see in the dark, as well as detect living beings and magical items through walls and other surfaces.

  As much as I really, realllly wanted darkvision, I held off on selecting a new ability for now: because at Level 25, I now had access to Level V combat abilities. I had four points to spend, and they were distributed between Jump, Master of Blades, and Mantle of Night. The first two were for the damage and crowd control; Mantle of Night V boosted my movement speed and special attack power by 25% for a cool 120 seconds, a massive improvement from its Level III incarnation.

  Mark of Matir abilities were a bit different to the normal smorgasboard of combat abilities I was presented with whenever I leveled. Every time I gained a level and got my two or three combat ability points, I could go back and pick up anything I’d unlocked. With the Mark of Matir offerings, which I received every four levels, I had to pick one and could never choose from either of them again. The abilities, naturally, we always awesome, making it very hard to choose.

  Dark Vitality