Knives in the Night

by Nathan A. Thompson

  Petal actually squeaked back in surprise and flew over to give the other sprite a hug. After a moment, I realized why.

  The other fairy was the water sprite we had saved from the first Pit ship we had encountered with Via back in the Sun-Jeweled Seas.

  The former Pit victim had volunteered to be assigned to one of the first troops on the ground for rescuing the next of Avalon’s worlds, and to take one of the most vital tasks in making it happen.

  The two sprites finished hugging just as the group from Avalon stepped out of the Pathway.

  It took a long time, because a surprising number of people had traveled through at once. I wasn’t sure how that worked, and I tried to remember how many people could walk through a Pathway this size. Then I remembered that Chris’ scientist, whose name I still hadn’t bothered to learn, was supposedly working with my own people on making the Pathways more efficient.

  At any rate, about three dozen brown-cloaked Wealthwalkers filtered into the wide room and took position as advanced guards. None of them did anything more than nod at me, however, so I waited for the person in charge to step through.

  The next group consisted of a mix of soldiers from two different worlds: the Gaelguard of the Woadlands and the Scholar-Marines from the Sun-Jeweled Seas. The blue-green men of the second group nodded at Gabin, and I noticed that some of them were carrying long Scripted staves—like the ones composing our ships’ fire spells.

  Breyn blinked in surprise when he saw the Gaelguard, and after a moment I saw why.

  Alum and Brama were leading the group, the first of the painted warriors I had ever encountered, back in the dungeons of Avalon’s Rites—and they were also Breyn’s parents.

  “Alum,” I said to the older man as he walked up to me and clasped my hand, “it’s been a while.” I turned to greet his wife, but the fire-haired woman had walked straight up to her son and began rapidly speaking in a dialect that I hadn’t heard of, which the mindscreen was having trouble translating. But judging by the poor boy’s wilted look, he was being interrogated over everything he was supposed to have done in the past few weeks—including things his mother had no doubt asked him before the last few times he had seen her.

  I grinned and reflected that it sucked to be him right now. Sure, I had all sorts of complicated relationship problems, but at least I didn’t have to deal with—

  “Hello, dear.”

  I turned to gape at the woman I had known for literally all of my life.

  “Mom?” I asked stupidly, trying to work through my surprise at seeing her. “Um, hi. I didn’t know you would be coming too.”

  “Well, dear,” the blonde woman said slowly, with a neutral expression, “you see, the leader of this war happens to be my only son, and he put in a call asking for aid while I was asleep. I decided that, since I apparently have magic now and his issue is literally a matter of life and death, I should come and offer him support, while getting to make up for a bit of the time I lost with him while he was kidnapped and tortured. Speaking of which, did any of those fine folk who tortured you and murdered your father happen to stick around in this place?”

  “No, ma’am,” I answered quickly. “Killed the last one yesterday. I checked with the locals to confirm.”

  “I see,” Mom said, still speaking in a neutral tone, “and did you make it clean, to prevent any unnecessary suffering?”

  “No,” I said, my voice becoming flat and hard. “That’s never been my concern, and it puts my own people at risk for a number of reasons. I stabbed him until he gurgled. Then I cut off his head.”

  Her face softened immediately.

  “Good boy,” she said in a hoarse voice, eyes tearing up. She threw open her arms and wrapped me in a hug.

  “I’m here now, son,” Mom whispered as she squeezed me tightly. “Any way I can help. Any way at all.”

  I battled down my awkwardness and let the poor woman hug me for as long as she needed, carefully trying to do the same.

  Our roles had reversed again. Where before in the last two years, my mother had to be gentle with me because of my disability, now I had to consider the fact that I was strong enough to wrestle an Earthling bull to the ground and break its neck with my bare hands. Stell had said that it was hard to use my strength accidentally, but still, it wouldn’t hurt to be careful.

  At least until the rest of my family had a chance to catch up with me.

  But my mother didn’t hug me for very long. She let go, patted me on the arms, and looked for her adopted daughter.

  “Hi, Mrs.—” Val began, before her foster parent cut her off.

  “It’s ‘Mom’ or ‘Mother,’ dear,” the blonde woman corrected her gently. “We’ve talked about this. The courts don’t matter anymore. Now come here.”

  The short Asian teen was swept up in the same hug I was, except that our mother had to lean down, since the fourteen-year-old was still shorter than the both of us. But Mom was still able to tell how her adopted daughter had changed.

  “You’ve gotten taller,” our mother mumbled into Val’s dark hair, “and your muscles have toned more.”

  “Um, thanks,” Val said awkwardly as she patted the older woman’s back gingerly, “I got a lot of power here after I stabbed some asshole hiding under a rock a whole bunch of times.” Her eyes widened, as she realized she had just used profanity in front of our parent. “I mean—”

  “You can call those people whatever you wish, honey,” Mom told her gently, still squeezing her close, “just as long as they never get to hurt either of you ever again.”

  “He actually wasn’t from Earth,” Val clarified uncomfortably, “he was just—”

  “I don’t care, dear,” our mother replied. “You were always a good girl, and you’re with Wes. I trust you enough to only kill people that need it.”

  “Thanks… Mom,” the little Asian teen said, and our mother’s face brightened all the more.

  “Now,” she said as she let go of my sister and took a step backwards, “we all came because you put out a call for help, and we’re all getting bored with training or lounging around your fancy new house.”

  “We?” I asked, feeling confused.

  Just then, the rest of my family walked into this desert world.

  My sister Rachel, and her friends Himari and Andre. Davelon and his parents. Christina.

  “Hey, guys,” I said as my sister walked up to give me a hug, “thanks for coming.”

  “Samantha, Kayla, and Gabby are still helping to make equipment back home with their Saga magics,” Rachel said as she let me go, “but the rest of us all came to answer your call to war, bro. And next time,” she added with a brief glare, “don’t expect anything different.”

  “Fair enough,” I conceded, thinking of my other foster sisters, as well as Little Gabby, who was probably going to get adopted as well. I knew Sam was doing awesome things with Shaping magic, and Kayla was just starting to learn about Script magic, but I’d had no idea that Little Gabby was already finding her own niche. Good for her, I decided. “I have to say, though, I wasn’t expecting all of you, and I haven’t had a chance to understand what your strengths and powers are.”

  Also, I have no idea if you’re strong enough to help fight on this level yet, I thought to myself.

  “Also, you have no idea if we’re actually strong enough to help fight on this level yet,” Rachel provided out loud.

  She wasn’t using the mindlink.

  She was just being my sister.

  “And you’re being careful with us, even though, unlike you, we can come back from the dead.”

  “You really need to get over that, dear,” my mother added in a gently disapproving tone.

  “Don’t worry,” Val offered, apparently deciding to help gang up on me, “he took forever to be okay with me helping, too.”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, trying not to growl as I spoke, “because, as I know very well, dying sucks, and it can leave a mark on you, even if it’s temporary. Bu
t now that you’re here, I’m going to let you all help in any way you can. And by that,” I continued, as a lightbulb went off in my brain, “I mean you’re going to remain under Guineve and Virtus’ command. I’ll use you to help the fairies run messages to and from Avalon, so I want at least two of you to be on duty here at all times. But the rest of you will get your orders from Avalon, since I won’t have time to manage another group at the same time as my own—and I don’t want to be the one in charge of sending my family on dangerous missions. When I do send a message along the battlelink or through our fairy whisper spell network, you will relay the information, and then help Avalon relay its response back to me. They will be in charge of deciding where the rest of you will go. That means you will get orders preferably from Guineve or Virtus, but if you can’t reach them, you will instead listen to Alum, Brama, or the head captains of the Wealthwalkers and Scholar Marines. Starting immediately.”

  “In that case,” Rachel replied without missing a beat, “Guineve and Virtus ordered us to inform you that our original plan was to do the following: everything you just said, in the exact same order you recommended, only they explained it way more clearly.”

  She crossed her arms and flashed me a smug smile.

  “Sorry, bro,” she added, “I couldn’t resist. It’s been too long since we got to tease each other. But you should know that you’ve got plenty of people on top of things, and we’ll do everything we can to help you just concentrate on the things that only you can do. We’ll all take care of the rest.”

  “That’s right,” Davelon said, walking up next to her. Rachel gave him a small, inconspicuous half-smile that would reveal absolutely nothing to anyone who wasn’t me, but instantly set all manner of older brother alarm bells ringing in my head. “We’ve got plenty of good coaches. Enough to let you just concentrate on what you need done, without worrying about us screwing anything up.”

  The hell I can, my overprotective, older brother instinct screamed, before the more rational parts of my brain reached over and throttled it. Calm down, the sane side of me said. Davelon is a good guy. He’s been a friend of the family for years. He’s looked out for me in the past. I probably couldn’t find a better man to take care of my sister.

  Also, the even saner part of my mind said, he might not even know that she likes him yet.

  “Good to hear,” I said meaningfully, partially as a test to see just how far their relationship had progressed. My sister’s small half-smile vanished immediately, reminding me of a deer reacting to the crack of a twig.

  Davelon just blinked in confusion.

  “Seriously,” I said with a larger, completely relieved smile, “it’s good to have you guys behind my back. Thank you all.”

  “No problem, man,” my best friend said with a wide smile, holding out his arms. “Come here, bro.”

  Yup, I thought as my old teammate and I pounded each other’s backs. No idea. Crap. Now I need to worry about what Rachel might do to him.

  But I reminded myself that lives were at stake, and just decided to let the matter go.

  For now.

  “Okay,” I said, as I caught a glimpse of a few more fairies flying through the Pathway. “Since that’s the case, I’ll just let you all handle things here. I am going to ask that one of you go to contact Headmaster Moram at the local Testifier college, and we should probably set up some sort of guard for him, as well. Actually, that person can just come with me, along with enough people to form a communication line there.”

  Mom, Rachel, Davelon, and Davelon’s dad all wound up going along to meet with the Testifier representative. He received them all graciously, and when I explained the details of my plan, just as graciously reminded me that both Song and Air magic had uses for communication as well.

  A key detail I had forgotten, but I didn’t let that bother me. Even if it turned out that the battlelink would stretch across both worlds, there was no reason not to have as many communication lines as possible.

  Especially in a world war.

  Then the old man led me back to the stables, where the Risen horses were waiting for us. He encouraged me to get faster mounts when I had the chance, but for the time being, these animals would have to do.

  I still didn’t have any complaints. The horses were far faster than our own bodies, almost as fast as flying would be, without using any of the mana.

  And if we did use mana to enhance them, I realized, we’d be much, much faster.

  Besides, I thought they were beautiful. They weren’t very big, but we didn’t need them to be. And it was kind of cool to watch the way their bleach-white manes and brown coats seemed to shimmer when they trotted through the sand.

  But daylight was burning. If we wanted to reach the next city before our enemies or Stell’s Satellite did, we had better hurry.

  We mounted our new horses, and I inhaled deeply, activating the Breath.

  I exhaled, and waited for it to return.

  I felt it, then, the different voices.

  It is not right.

  He should not even have been able to appear so soon.

  Hurry, hurry.

  Go quietly, so that the locals do not see and rise up.

  They have been so hard to control.

  So hard to crush completely.

  All because of that bitch.

  Find her too.

  Right, I thought, those assholes.

  They were coming for us, too. But they were far away and scattered. I had a good chance to get to Mejem long before their armies did. Unfortunately, the force stationed at that city was already much larger than the one we had just faced in Nedjena.

  But that was okay. On to the next voice.

  He is so far away.

  Why does he have to be so far away?

  Why do I now have to drop everything I’m doing, and go for him?

  I have been handling things for years without him.

  And now I’m suddenly expected to just let him take charge?

  He had better be able to make up for putting me through all of this!

  Yup, I thought, that’s one of Stell’s Satellites, alright.

  I tracked her movements, and found that she was moving substantially more quickly than Warren’s armies were—probably because she was just one person, especially one who had known these lands all her life.

  Her route, if she followed her current trajectory, would take her through the city of Mejem, so if we hurried, we could get there in time to meet her.

  Yet again, there was one more sensation. And, disturbingly, this one was the most aware—and currently the strongest, by far.

  Who are you? it asked, reaching through the Breath to challenge me directly.

  Who are you that moves the sands to speak?

  Do you know me?

  Have you heard of me?

  Do you know that you must submit?

  Or will I have to slay you, and take your wealth for myself?

  Hey, fuck you! Teeth shouted immediately. And shut the hell up! We don’t owe you a copper piece! No, fuck that. You give us your treasure! You owe us rent for being an asshole!

  Dude, calm down, I said to the FNG. He can’t even hear us right now.

  Well, fuck him anyway, my inner dragon snarled. Thinks we owe him our wealth, just because he woke up from his nap without breakfast waiting for him. He can turn on his own goddamn coffee pot! Fucking Fiends and their fucking entitlement and schemes!

  Dude, I said, as I felt the hate wash out from him. You’ve never even met a Fiend. You’ve never even mentioned the name before. Where is this coming from?

  Genetic memory, Teeth spat back. I remember it now that I’ve heard this prick a second time. It’s the once-common name for one of dragonkind’s oldest enemies. Our two species warred for control over the Expanse. And theirs lost, because they suck. And they suck because they try to take everything from everyone. All the treasure, all the gold, all the people. All the beauty. And then they waste them.

 
Teeth, you want everything, too, I pointed out, even as I gave the order for my retinue to move out. I let Salima take the lead, and I kept part of my attention focused on maintaining the necessary magic to increase our horses’ speed—because the same spells that made our own bodies run faster worked just as well on our mounts. Think about it. I can hear you in there. You want all of the food. All of the treasure I can get, especially the things that can go boom. And especially all of Stell.