by Tim Paulson
Very few of the planned projects had required questions or notations from him. Things had improved significantly since he'd taken over from his predecessor years ago. He'd righted the ship and mended the sails, a feat worthy of high praise given what he'd been forced to work with.
The best part being that the better everything functioned, the more time was freed for him to pursue more strategic objectives. Such as those in motion at this very moment.
As the sun streamed in from his partially opened window blinds, an old imperial invention but one he quite enjoyed, it cast bars of light upon his stacked papers and threaded fingers. Partially in light, partially obscured, much like his machinations. So many plans were unfurling like so many sails, armies on the move, rabble marched in the streets, yet he knew so little. He was forced to wait, to be patient, while his pieces danced upon the board.
Patience was not one of his virtues.
He sat back in the chair, bringing his hands to his lap, listing all the items that might go awry, one by one. Every single one of them had back ups in place to prevent total failure, often several layers, yet as every baker said, the proof was in the pie. Until it reached fruition, he would know little.
There was a rap on his door.
“Enter,” Buckley ordered. This was the news he'd been hoping for.
“Sir,” said the Captain as he moved to the center of the room and clasped his hands behind his back. “We have failed to breach the engine core room.”
“Our losses?” Buckley asked as he walked back around his desk and sat down in the tall leather chair.
“Forty three,” the man said, expressionless. A true professional.
“Mmmm,” Not what he'd been hoping to hear. “What's your assessment?”
“We need more men and more time. There are too many of the creatures. I've never seen them this aggressive.”
“I see,” It truly was something, that flood of power pouring from the machine. The problem being that as long as the conveyors were broken, they weren't getting any of it. It was a complete waste. Luckily, he had a plan. “The outer walls are still keeping them at bay?”
“As of now, yes.”
“Good. I want you to pull your men back and reinforce there.”
“Yes sir.” No hesitation, even though the orders seemed foolish, even cowardly. Buckley loved mercenaries.
“I expect we'll have visitors soon and I want you to monitor them but do not interfere. Do you understand?”
The captain nodded solemnly.
“Excellent. We may yet turn this to our advantage.”
“Yes sir.”
Buckley waved his hand. “Thank you. You are dismissed.”
The man nodded curtly, turned and left without a word.
Only moments later Buckley's assistant appeared in the doorway.
“Mr Buckley sir,” she said.
“Yes?”
“We just received word from your expeditionary force. They are in position and ready.”
The first truly good news of the day.
“Wonderful. Please send a reply immediately,” he said as he threaded his fingers together like a cage. “Tell them I want them to wait. Make it clear, they must hold until they are ordered to proceed.”
“I will sir.”
“Thank you, that will be all,” he said and leaned back in his chair.
* * *
The bed in the room assigned to Mia had been quite comfortable, even if the room itself had been somewhat odd. However actual sleep had come to her only fitfully. She'd spent much time, staring in the dark, thinking. Now she sat feeling drained, looking at the food she'd taken, trying to summon the will to eat.
At the bidding of the baroness a great oval table the color of midnight had risen from the floor in the central chamber. Its surface was plated like the back of a beetle but little of that could be seen due to the incredible array of steaming breakfast foods.
The chairs that surrounded the table were every bit as grotesque if not more so for they were formed from the interlocking fingers of hundreds of skeletal human hands. Despite this they were surprisingly solid and quite comfortable. Mia sat back in hers, scanning the faces around the table.
Liam wore a stern look in his seat to the right of the baroness. As hard as his face may be, Mia could see the obvious discomfort in the way he shifted uncomfortably and kept glancing anxiously at the black wizard's skull faced minions. It seemed he'd chosen the seat next to his mother more for the need of comfort than anything else.
To the baroness's left sat Vex, the black wizard who'd used his witchery to force her obedience. Mia would not forget it. He sat calmly, neither eating nor drinking, his thin gray fingers clasped in front of him, an intense look in his blood red eyes.
In front of Vex on the surface of the table sat the golden haired doll that housed Harald whom Mia knew only too well. Harald was currently stroking a breakfast roll, clearly longing for a tongue to taste it.
Next to Vex sat Celia who like several others had recently bathed and returned wearing a skin tight black suit that covered her from the top of her neck all the way down to her hands and feet. Celia had discarded her skirts for this clothing, keeping only the gray cloak over top.
Doubtless this change in dress that eschewed skirts of any kind would be seen as highly inappropriate in the majority of polite Tian society. If any puritans saw it they'd burn Celia at the stake without a second thought. Lack of chastity was as much a sin as witchery in their eyes. Mia wasn't about to judge however, she hadn't worn a skirt in more than a decade and had to admit the attire looked quite comfortable.
Beside Celia sat Aaron who'd been virtually drug from his recovering wife's sleeping chamber so that he could have some breakfast and attend Christine's meeting. He ate little however, instead drumming his fingers on the table, waiting to be allowed to return. Since Giselle had been brought in the previous evening Aaron hadn't left her bed side, even to bathe as the others had done. He still wore the dusty sweat stained technician's uniform he'd traveled in.
To Aaron's left sat Henri. He too wore a determined expression as comfortably as the smooth gray suit that had replaced his blacksmith's leathers. The form fitting garment made him look good, especially in the shoulders.
She looked up to see Celia staring at her. The girl winked.
Mia glared.
She'd tried to seat herself away from Henri, hoping some distance would give her the chance to master her feelings but all her efforts had done is place him opposite her. Now he sat there, directly in the center of her field of view, unavoidable.
“Can we get on with whatever you want to discuss?” Aaron said. “Giselle is alone.”
The baroness nodded. “I believe we can. We're all here.”
Harald stood and strode to the center of the table, his knitted yarn arms clasped behind him. “The salave kagal must be destroyed as soon as possible.”
“Yes, we should go to it.” Vex said.
“No!” Liam said. “Our castle has been stolen by murderers helped by those who called themselves our friends. They would have killed us all. Our first priority has to be returning home to exact vengeance on them and defend the castle from the armies of the emperor!”
“I agree,” Aaron said. “The veil company has been using these machines for decades. I learned about them in school as a young boy. Why should we go into the lion's den when our home is vulnerable and under imminent threat from an invading army?”
“Aaron makes an excellent point. Why is this new thing they've created so much more dangerous?” the baroness asked.
Vex raised a gray hand and opened his mouth to reply but he was cut off by an irate Harald.
“That's because the boy is a fool who knows nothing! Simply piercing the veil is wildly different from an emuq kagal! How can you not see this? Has so much knowledge been lost? Has man degenerated to the level of chattering rats?”
“Kagal, you keep saying it, what does that word mean?” Aaron
asked.
“What the hell do rats have to do with anything?” Liam said, his eyes narrowed.
“Kagal means gate or hole. Imagine you took a pin and pierced a man's skin,” Vex said gesturing toward his thin forearm with one clawed finger.
“Salmu, always with the morbid analogies,” Harald said, rolling his eyes.
Vex ignored him and continued. “The blood would ooze from the wound but not freely. This is like piercing the abzu. It gives you a trickle of power but it's also relatively safe. An emuq kagal is like cutting a hole from the flesh, it bleeds profusely and risks permanent damage.”
“Quite a picture,” the baroness said, grimacing.
Vex placed his hands on the table. “But do you understand?”
The baroness nodded. “I do. Why must we take care of it right away?”
“Given what happened here it's clear their kagal is incredibly unstable. It may even be capable of causing a return of the dakul shiwasuul,” Harald said.
“I'm not familiar with that term,” the baroness said, shaking her head. “Vex, explain.”
Vex sighed. “Dakul shiwasuul is the name our kind gave to the phenomenon that ended our world. It severed the abzu. More than a thousand years passed before it returned at all and then only a trickle, but by then it was too late. We'd fallen to anarchy and ruin. We depended on it. Losing it destroyed us. Only now after several thousand years has that trickle begun to approach its former strength. The danger is growing. Your people are following the same path.”
“They must be stopped,” Harald said.
“How likely is it?” the baroness said.
“Extremely likely,” Harald said. “If these salave fools are indeed using their machines to carve knives into the abzu, what you call veil, disaster is assured. I'm sure to their primitive minds a kagal is nothing but a contraption where you use more crystals and more power comes out. It's only a matter of time before they push it too far and all is lost for another three thousand years. If it even comes back at all. Many of us thought it never would.”
“What is that word? Salave? What does that mean?” Aaron said.
“Yeah, what is that?” Liam said.
The baroness waved her hand. “It's not important, really.”
“It means humans with no connection to the abzu,” Vex said.
“It means slave, servant, lowly nothing,” Harald said.
“What? Which is it?” asked Aaron.
“Actually... both.” Harald said. “Back when we were alive people like you were nothing, less than nothing.”
“That's terrible!” Aaron said.
“Of course you would say that but you didn't see what we built. This city was called Zabar imbaru. It was once my home. I loved it in life, but it was a minor village, a retreat really and it's been ravaged by time and war. The glories we created, the absolute majesty of-”
“Oh shut up,” Vex said. “The point is that using a kagal is dangerous, even for us.”
Harald waved his arm. “Bah, we were doing fine. But these sala... people are clearly not. Already they've caused a major disruption, enough to destroy our own well designed and perfectly functional kagal. Disaster is coming, mark my words.”
“Just because the veil company can do something doesn't mean they will. I'm not sure I believe they'd endanger us all. It seems far fetched,” Aaron said.
Henri cleared his throat. He looked tired, like he'd aged a thousand years in the last few days.
Mia felt for him. Whatever he'd gone through in his past it hadn't prepared him for what had happened to his son.
“I think you're wrong Aaron,” he said. “I worked at Veil. I taught at the institute for several years. Their single overriding goal, above all else, is to acquire power. For years they've been frustrated by the steadily lowering output from their veil piercing engines. It's not well known this is the case, for obvious reasons, but it is.”
“Interesting,” Harald said. “That didn't used to be true. Abzu piercings worked indefinitely.”
“Well it is now. When I left there was no known solution. Finding one was the institute's foremost goal. In the meantime the company was forced to expand all over the region, building new machines one after the other, hoping to keep pace with the losses. I can guarantee they will eventually push their gate machine to the maximum if they haven't already.”
“I've heard enough. We must handle Veil first,” the baroness said.
“No!” Liam said beside her. “I won't allow it!”
Aaron stared blankly at his brother in law, too shocked to even respond.
“Be quiet Liam!” the baroness said. “You're not a baron. You're still a boy and you've no right to order anyone at this table.”
Liam slammed both his fists on the table, his face warped with rage and stood up violently, the Tian double cross he wore around his neck shining in the light.
“I won't be a part of this! We should be killing the men who stole our home and saving father! Have you even thought of him you... witch!”
“Liam!” Aaron blurted out from across the table.
“We should not be consorting with... these creatures. They're abominations against God! Witches, monsters,” Liam shook his head.
“It's not that simple dear,” the baroness said.
“Yes it is. The righteous man suffers not the evils of witchery for it leads to the house of the devil!” Liam quoted from the Tian bible.
Mia was surprised that he remembered anything of the interminable Sunday services at the Aeyrdfeld church. She had attended once, when asked by the baron. That had been enough.
“No... dear, listen-” the baroness said, trying to reason with him.
Liam wasn't having it. He waved his hands at her as if swatting her words away like flies.
“How can I? How can I listen to you? You lied to me. We attended church all my life and yet you're a witch. This whole time. A devil worshiping witch! Where are we now if not the house of the devil?” he said.
She began to respond but he cut her off.
“Tell me this mother. If you can tell the truth without burning your tongue. Does father know what you are?”
“No,” she said. “He knows I'm different, that I have ways to accomplish things that other people can't. But beyond that, no. He couldn't know Liam, not really, not the full truth of it. I had to protect him.”
“Liam, I think you're taking things too literally. You need to be rational about this. She saved Giselle's life, clearly-” Aaron said.
Liam glared at him.
“Be rational? Rational? These are witches doing forbidden demonic sorceries and you're telling me I should be rational? Is that not a chair shaped from human bones in which you sit?”
Liam spat on the floor. “I'm leaving this place. I'm going home to find father and do what's right-”
“Mia please catch him for me,” the baroness said as her fingers wove circles in the air.
“-what? No!” cried Liam.
He tried to turn and run but instead his eyes unfocused and his body went limp. Mia was up and under him in less than a second. She guided his body gently to the floor, wishing very much that Liam had consented to take a bath like the others.
“He's asleep?” Mia asked as she placed his head gingerly on the floor.
“Yes,” the baroness said.
“How long?”
“Quite a while. I made it a strong one, why?”
Mia waved a hand before her nose as she stood up.
“Ah. Vex would you be kind enough to have some of the acolytes bathe young Liam?” the baroness said.
The black wizard nodded and gestured toward two of the skull headed beings who immediately moved to comply.
“So there are no further objections to this plan of action?” Harald said. “No more idiotic superstitious nonsense?”
“Be kind to Liam,” the baroness said. “He's young, only fifteen summers.”
“That beast is only fifteen? Good gracious,
” Harald said.
The baroness shrugged. “He comes from a lineage of large men.”
“Are you sure there aren't trolls in that line?” Harald said, leaning against a plate of swirled cinnamon buns.
“Unfortunately, Harald is incorrect,” Mia said, hands on her hips. All eyes turned to her.
“What do you mean?” Harald said with a comically furrowed brow on his tiny face.
“We have no plan.”
Henri nodded. “I agree. Getting in to the Veil company is not as easy as knocking on the door. I may be able to get a few of you into the facility but Veil has many guards.”
Vex tilted his head. “Yes. Years ago, I tried shut down their first machines. I succeeded several times but they learned. They've acquired items that interfere with sorcery. They're quite dangerous.”
“Why?” Aaron said, sounding very tired. “Why would you attack the veil company? What have they ever done to you?”
“Once again, you understand nothing!” Harald said throwing up his tiny stuffed arms.
Vex's blood red eyes locked on Aaron. “I am the bound guardian of this place. I am alive for one purpose only: to prevent the use and spread of our knowledge, especially by sala... by humans. Our legacy is supposed to be buried lest it cause untold destruction as it did for us so long ago.”
“So you just assume misuse, that's what I'm hearing,” Aaron said.
“If you'd seen the things I have. You would too,” Vex said.
“Mia is right. We should consider a plan,” the baroness said. Her eyes drifted down to her hands. “Unfortunately daring plans of a tactical nature are usually the purview of my husband and he's... indisposed.”
“Where is he?” Aaron asked.
She held up her hand. “I won't discuss that now. Perhaps later. He won't be able to help us, that much is certain.”
Aaron nodded, using a hand to stroke his chin. “Well... Perhaps you could employ a diversion of some kind.”
“Like what?” Vex said.
“Something large. Something damaging enough to force the company to respond,” Aaron said.
Mia was surprised that Aaron would help them. He'd seemed more interested in defending the company than following the course advocated by the wizards. Perhaps he was simply trying to do his best to help his family. It was admirable. She wished she could help but had no idea what could possibly be damaging enough to...
