The Arclight Saga

by C. M. Hayden

  Everything inside of him poured out in that moment, and he began to sob in the darkness. His body trembled as the tears came, and everything suddenly seemed so pointless.

  He thought of home, of his mother, his brothers. He thought of what his father would say if he could see him like this, broken, ragged, and starving. Unable to stand, he laid back and stared up at the sky through his tears. The ever-still stars burned, like twinkling diamonds against the endless black. They were soothing, somehow; and in that moment, the whole world drifted off into nothingness. There was no city. No desert. There was only him, the earth below, and the sky above. And…

  “They don’t make them like they used to.” Aris’ voice was hard to misidentify. Taro turned his head and saw the magister sitting against a crumbling brick wall and staring up at the sky, too. “Artificers, that is. I mean look at you, blubbering like a little girl.”

  “Aris?” Taro said, momentarily lifting his head, then laying it back down. “You’re not real.”

  Aris picked idly at the sand beside him. “Probably not. You’ve got quite a nasty bump on your head. If I were to guess, I’d say you’ve got minor brain damage and are suffering from delusional hallucinations. Understandable. But the crying? That’s just you being a little bitch. You’ve got every advantage, and here you are wallowing in the dirt. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Advantage?” Taro choked. “I can’t even walk.”

  “You marched through a god-damned tundra with nothing but a walking stick, but this is too much for you?” Aris picked up a clay roofing tile that had fallen in the alley and lobbed it at Taro, striking him in the shoulder.

  “Ouch,” Taro said reflexively. “That hurt.” He rubbed his shoulder.

  “No, that can’t be. I’m a delusion, remember? Try to keep up.” Aris walked to him and sat cross-legged. “You still need to save your sister, right?” He nudged him. “Come on, get up.”

  “She doesn’t need saving. She looked just fine to me.”

  Aris shook his head gravely. “You can feel it, can’t you?”

  “Feel what?” Taro asked.

  “Don’t be coy. Now that Vexis is a fair distance away, you can’t dismiss it as just proximity to her. The darkness looming about the place. I’ve felt it, too.” He leaned forward.

  Taro knew it to be the truth. There was some sort of gnawing presence that filled every corner of the city, but as he’d had more pressing issues to deal with, he’d mostly ignored it. But it was there, like a splinter in the back of his mind.

  Taro stared at Aris long and hard. “You’re not a delusion?”

  “Woah, I wouldn’t go that far. You’re still pretty cracked in the head, let’s be honest.”

  “You’re really good at not answering my questions,” Taro snapped.

  Aris laced his fingers together. “The Arclight is always with you, Taro. It’s a part of your soul. Of every magister’s soul. Your open templar is a small, candle-sized piece of the huge roaring bonfire that sits atop the Magisterium. It’s as much a part of you as your own beating heart.”

  “And that means…”

  Aris smacked him against the head. “Do I have to spell everything out for you?” He pointed to himself. “I am the Arclight, Taro. I opened the first magister’s templar a long time ago; and while the number of magisters has grown, I’m still with each and every one of them.”

  “That sounds poetic.”

  “Actually, it’s a huge pain in the ass. Mortal’s souls are like blizzards of irrelevancy, with anger, ambition, sex, and avarice clouding everything so much that you can’t see two feet in front of you. Let it all fall away, Taro, and you’ll see your way forward.”

  “Can’t you just tell me my way forward?”

  “I’m not a god. I’m not omniscient. I don’t have all the answers, or even most of the answers. All I can do is tell you what I know, and that’s this: whatever’s coming is a far worse than what happened in Endra. The forces Halric and the Shahl were meddling with could split Arkos in half.” He paused and placed his hand over Taro’s heart. “Listen.”

  Taro listened. He focused on his templar, like it was a small flame. Against it brushed a darkness so strong that just the radiant malice from it made Taro jump. He stared at Aris, trying to catch his breath. “What is that?”

  “That is what you need to find out.” Aris’ form flickered and faded a bit. “I have to go.”

  “Wait,” Taro said, extending his hand. “Why?”

  “Projecting myself this far takes a lot.” He tapped Taro’s forehead. “And your senses are starting to come back to you.”

  In the distance, Taro heard footsteps falling against the road just outside the alleyway. Aris looked toward the noise and nodded. “Looks like I can help you just a bit.”

  “How’s tha—” Taro began, but just as the words left his mouth, Aris jabbed his fingers against the bloody wound on his arm. Taro yelped so loudly that the footsteps ran toward him.

  When Taro opened his eyes, Aris was gone and instead an older man loomed over him. He was on the far side of fifty, with silver hair and a long brass chain around his neck. He glanced around the alley, looking almost owlish in his mannerisms, then knelt to check Taro’s pulse.

  “Gods below,” the old man said, looking almost afraid to touch his bruised body. “What happened to you?”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The Kindness of Strangers

  The old man tore a piece of cloth from his sleeve, wrapped it around Taro’s arm, and tied it tight to stop the bleeding. He then put his hand on the back of Taro’s head and helped lean him up.

  “Dizzy?” the man asked. Taro nodded. “Just take it nice and slow. Don’t strain yourself.”

  “I got jumped,” Taro said, rolling onto his side and pushing against the grain.

  “That much I can see,” the man said gently. He looked at the base of Taro’s missing foot and part of his leg. “They took your walking stick?”

  Taro shook his head. “I don’t have one. They…” He turned his head one way, looked, then the other, and looked again. “My leg.”

  “I don’t think there’s much hope of finding that lying around.”

  The man was clearly trying to be lighthearted about the whole thing, but it only annoyed Taro. His prosthetic may not have been his own flesh and blood, but it was as much a part of him as his own limbs. Without it, he felt helpless.

  “No,” Taro said, his voice strained, “my wooden leg.” He was so distressed he was almost rambling. “Why would they…”

  “People don’t need a reason to be cruel, lad.” He held out his arm. “Come now, grab hold and we’ll get you cleaned up. My home’s not far, and my wife’s expecting me for supper. I’m sure there’s enough for an extra plate.”

  Taro reluctantly grabbed hold of his arm, and the man hoisted him up. He was surprisingly strong. He had the rough, calloused hands of a working man; but his clothes were fine dyed linen. They were a dark purple that looked black in the low light.

  “My name is Azra,” he said conversationally, as he helped Taro, one step at a time, through the alley.

  Taro gave him his name, but he didn’t offer anything else. He was much too focused on scanning the alley with his eyes. There wasn’t much to see. Some obscene graffiti on the sandstone walls, tarnished wooden beams stacked in a pile and covered with spider webs, and a raven cawing from a rooftop. When they got near the end of the alley, Taro’s heart jumped. There, snapped in half and in a puddle of muck, was his prosthetic. He let go of Azra, momentarily, and almost fell to the ground.

  “Easy does it,” Azra said, holding him up. They walked toward it, and Taro snatched the prosthetic from the ground. Splintered shards of wood pressed out of the bottom and top halves.

  “Now don’t get all choked up,” Azra said, seeing the tears swell up in Taro’s eyes. “I’ve got some stuff back at the house that’ll fix that right as rain. You’ll see.”

  The old man couldn’t know just h
ow damaged the prosthetic was. The magistry runes lining the heel were ruined. Even if he could jerry-rig the pieces back together, without his inscriber and the proper inks, he couldn’t restore them.

  The runes did two things: they lightened the weight of it, giving Taro more ease of motion and making the heel turn when needed. It also reduced the pressure caused from the wood pressing against the stump of his leg for hours at a time.

  Taro tucked the pieces under his arm and did not speak. He was happy Azra didn’t try to make him, and soon they were at the old man’s home. It was a modest place just a block down the road. Sandstone with a wood and cloth overhang outside, it had one main story and a side entrance to a cellar. The glassless windows were lit bright with firelight, and the smell of spiced meat and steamed vegetables radiated from within.

  The door wasn’t locked. The inside was as modest as the outside, but well-kept. The kitchen and the common room were— technically speaking—the same room, separated only by a small incline. The floor was little more than dirt covered with straw, and two chickens pecked around the floor beside four small children. The oldest of these children was a boy around Decker’s age. None of them seemed particularly emphatic about the stranger their father had just let into the house.

  Azra removed his fine cloak, brushed it off with his hand, and hung it carefully on a hook. He then removed his brass chain and hung that up, too. Under these bits of finery, he was dressed as plainly as his family. Simple, frayed trousers and a gray shirt with two missing buttons.

  “You’re late,” a woman called from the kitchen. Her voice was accompanied with the noise of cabinets closing.

  “I brought a guest,” Azra said. He paused, then spoke again. “Could you boil some hot water for me?”

  The woman, presumably his wife, came from the fireplace in the kitchen. When she saw Taro, she almost dropped the ceramic gourd she was holding. She set it onto a counter and rushed toward him with all the care of a concerned mother.

  “You poor thing,” she said. They led him to a wooden ‘couch’ (it was little more than a hardwood frame with some feather padding wrapped in frayed cloth). Still, it was several steps up from his prior situation, and the warmth of the nearby hearth was soothing.

  The whole room, and indeed the entire house, was filled with a great many candles of various shapes and sizes. Most of them weren’t lit, but they lined the mantelpiece, the shelves, the walls, and the windowsills.

  “He was jumped in the alley off Docker Road,” Azra said as he disappeared into another room. He returned a moment later carrying some proper bandages and a vial of clear liquid.

  “Those ill-looking Kaeld boys, no doubt. Damn savages,” his wife said. She ran her hand against his cheek and brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. “Don’t you worry, hun, we’ll get you patched up.”

  Over the fireplace was a rack of tarnished metal. Above it were two hooks; on the right hook hung a cast iron pot of stew, while the left hook was empty. Azra’s wife busied herself by leaving out the back door and retrieving some water from the pump-well in the backyard.

  Taro removed his shirt, revealing the bruises running on his sides. His ribs ached, his ears still rang, and the whole world seemed a few shades too dark.

  When the water was simmering but not quite boiling, Azra’s wife (who Taro learned was named Meia) dipped a rag into it and pressed it against Taro’s bruises. The hot water stung for a moment, but the pain quickly faded into relief. He sighed and sat back, as she touched another cloth to the vial of clear liquid and then to his cuts and scrapes. It was some kind of strong rubbing alcohol, and it made him jump a few times; but after what he’d been through, he didn’t pay it much mind.

  After several minutes, Taro realized just how much of a jerk he was being. He opened his eyes, bowed his head a bit, and thanked them both from the bottom of his heart.

  “It’s quite all right, lad. I can only imagine what you’ve been through,” Azra said. He’d retrieved a pipe from the mantelpiece and was packing in some tobacco as he spoke. “We’ll get you some food; and you can sleep here if you want. I’ll take you back home tomorrow. Where do you live?”

  Taro hesitated just long enough for Azra to realize there was something wrong. “I…I don’t…”

  “I see,” Azra said simply. “Well, eat up either way. We’ll get you squared away as soon as we can.”

  While they waited for the food to finish, Taro inspected his ruined prosthetic more closely. He ran his fingers along the destroyed runes, and tried his best to apply just a small bit of templar. Nothing happened. The runes were stone cold. While his attention was on the fragments in his hand, out of the corner of his eye he noticed he was being watched by the four children. They peered at him as if he were some animal in a zoo.

  They were wide-eyed and silent, much quieter than his own brothers and sister. There were two boys and two girls, ranging from around seven to twelve. The oldest of them, Bran, mustered the courage to talk to him and introduced both himself and his siblings: Cori, Aleshi, and Finos. He was a plucky, tall boy with a moon-shaped tattoo under his left eye.

  “Why does he look funny?” the youngest, Cori, said after Taro told them his name. She had light hair with a strawberry-blonde tinge to it. She was playing with a bald ragdoll that was missing a leg.

  Bran shoved her. “That’s rude!”

  The comment was enough to elicit a smile from Taro, despite his pain and uncheerful disposition. “I’m Endran,” he said.

  The children couldn’t have looked more shocked, but there was a strange sort of fascination lurking behind their eyes. No doubt they’d never seen an Endran before, much less had one sitting in their living room like a regular person.

  “You don’t look like a wizard,” Cori said frankly.

  “I’m not a wizard,” Taro said. “Most Endrans aren’t, actually.”

  “That’s not what my teacher says,” Finos, the second oldest, said. He didn’t look up from his feet when he spoke. “She says you’re all godless heathens.”

  “He can’t be a wizard,” Cori said. “If he was a wizard he could grow a new leg, right?”

  While the children discussed this at some length, Taro didn’t find it amusing. He decided that, fair or not, he didn’t much care for any of them and confided to himself for the rest of the evening. The food was good, though: warm chunks of lamb, potatoes so tender they melted in his mouth, along with salted sweet corn and butter. It was as good as his own mother’s cooking, though he tried not to dwell on that fact too much. Thinking of her only made him ache for home.

  To be clear, Taro was certainly very grateful. His belly was full, and he wasn’t sleeping outside. But he had a hard time feeling much better, and as he fell asleep that night, he remained unsettled. His body ached, his leg hurt, and his mind was full of unpleasant thoughts. Despite being only a few blocks away from Nima, he’d never felt farther away from her than he did at that moment.

  _____

  Taro awoke late the next morning. From where he lay on the couch, the sun shined directly onto his eyes from the thin crack in the drapes. He sat up, wiped his eyes groggily, and patted around in the place on the floor where he’d left the pieces of his prosthetic. When he found that they weren’t there, he had a brief moment of panic.

  Meia’s voice called from nearby. “It’s alright,” she said softly. “Azra’s got it in the shed, out back.” She went to a closet and retrieved a long, lacquered walking stick. She held it for a moment, closed her eyes, then brought it to Taro with a bright smile. “Here. This should help you get around.”

  Taro took it. It looked very old and well-used. About two-thirds from the bottom was a frayed rope wrapped around enough times to make a gripper. The head of the staff curved and almost made a perfect loop.

  “It used to belong to my oldest boy. He’s off in Celosa. He’s such a wonderful boy, but I don’t get to see him too often these days,” Meia said, anticipating Taro’s question. “It’s been collect
ing dust here for years now. Keep it.”

  Taro pulled himself up, balancing on the staff. At Meia’s direction, he proceeded out the back of the two-room house and into a tiny backyard. There were alcoves on the right for swine and sheep, and chicken wire surrounded the area. Opposite the house was a rickety shed with large aluminum vats sitting outside. There was a rather foul odor coming from inside, something like oil.

  Inside the shed, Azra was sitting at a makeshift desk. The desk was little more than a plank of wood supported by stacks of empty crates. Taro’s prosthetic was on the desktop beside a bucket of what smelled like chemical adhesive. Azra, however, wasn’t working on it at the moment. Rather, he was holding onto a short, fat candle about three inches around. It was the kind of prayer candle used in the aculam. He was using a porcelain stylus to inscribe a prayer onto it. When he noticed Taro, he sat the half-inscribed candle down and gave him his full attention.

  “Feeling better?” Azra said, pointing to Taro’s bandaged chest and arm.

  “Much better,” Taro said, rubbing where his ribs were hit. “I thought I had a broken rib. I think it’s just a fracture though.”

  “A good thing at that, too. If you were bleeding on your insides there wouldn’t be much I could do.” Azra pulled up a chair for Taro. “You shouldn’t stay on your feet too long, child.”

  Taro sat and leaned the staff against the rickety shed wall beside him. He took a good look around. The shed seemed dedicated to chandlery. There were molds for a dozen different candle sizes, aluminum plates with indented letters, and long spools of wicks hanging from hooks nailed to the walls. Also on the walls were four tiers of aluminum racks packed full of ceramic candleholders. Further back in the shed, separated by a fabric curtain, were more rancid-smelling drums.

  “You’re a chandler?” Taro asked, though it was more of an observation than a question.

  Azra nodded. “It puts food on the table. The Grand Aculam lets us sell just outside the basilica. Bran’s out that way right now with the sell-cart.” He pushed the candle he was working with away and pulled Taro’s prosthetic closer to him. He rubbed the lens on his eyeglasses with the hem of his shirt and stuck them back on his face, leaning close to look at the point where the two pieces of wood met.