TR: 30

Chapter Thirty: Flames of Salvation

Zocks raced down the corridor, the fortress walls trembling around him as the horde of enraged creatures stormed into the bowels of Kl’athen Diar several floors beneath him. He came to the doors of the throne room, his hand reaching out instinctively to wrench the door open. As his fingers closed around the gnarled bone handle, he hesitated as the depths of his memory spewed out some old words into his prefrontal cortex, like a truck backfiring.

Anyone who opens that door will be dead upon entrance…

Those were Mokul’s loving parting words to him.

Zocks weighed the costs and decided he had to risk it. There had to be a way to explain his case. After all, very few problems were ever one-sided; such was the very essence of a problem. Both Zocks and the Wizard had failed to properly vouchsafe backup plans should their half-baked agreement fail which, in Zock’s hindsight, it was inevitably bound to do. And if Mokul was so myopic that he couldn’t admit his own poor planning then, in the end, he wasn’t truly a leader worth following.

Zocks pushed the heavy doors open, the demonic-looking heads inlaid into the ebony wood screaming at his face as if reminding him to stay out.  He rushed into the room, bracing against any kind of hellfire traps that should be automatically sprung by his premature return. None came. He threw himself prostrate before the Throne of the Departed, head bowed in supplication.

“My apologies, master. Forgive me for disobeying your orders but they would not stand to reason. They are on their way and I fear for your safety. I strongly advise that we evacuate the fortress immediately…”

A long silence followed, his heart beating furiously in counterpoint to the war drums just down the halls. A bead of sweat rolled down his face, fogging his goggles. Why wasn’t he answering? Was he contemplating his punishment? The silence–the prelude–was almost worse than the exposition–the chastisement. Zocks hated waiting, even if it was waiting for immense displeasure, which was sure to follow.

“Master?”

Zocks raised his head slowly, carefully, so as not to prod a likely already supercharged ego further.

The throne was empty.

Zocks frowned, getting to his feet. Hesitantly, he made his way to the throne, expecting some kind of cruel trap to spring, which wasn’t out of the question from what Zocks knew of Mokul’s character. But like the empty threat of his reentry, no smiting brimstone followed. Instead, the only trace that anyone had been recently present was a small piece of yellowing parchment, elegantly folded into an origami penis, placed just so in the center of the seat, taunting him. In his brief time on the other side of a three thousand year old interdimensional prison, apparently, Mokul had wasted little time being productive. All things being equal, Zocks all but knew the gift was meant for him. That and the specific… method of delivery was clearly not a hallmark of the Enesian postal service. Bitterly, he snatched up the piece of paper, unfolding it indelicately. Phallus unfolded, as he had suspected, the letter was addressed to him, personally. As he reread the last sentence to be sure that the words on the page were indeed real, the doors to the room burst open behind him, a sea of angry rioters pouring into the massive hall. At the fore, leading the bunch, was a man–a mage, judging by his robes–leading a stony troll by a harness strung around its neck. As the crowds poured in and the room began to fill to capacity, the frame around the door buckled and part of the wall gave way, stones and mortar dust cascading down to the floor as another massive forest troll, the stony’s much larger cousin and one of the same species Zocks had done away with back in the courtyard, pushed its way into the throne room.

“Where is he? I kill him for what he do to brother!” The troll bellowed, its voice so fierce that it carried even over the tumult of the thousands of other voices rip-roaring around it.

The mage towing the troll came up to the throne, stopping several blades away from a confounded-looking Squad Commander before a ghostly vacant throne. The mage raised his hand and the troll stopped, along with the hundreds of others behind it who managed to fit into the room. Slowly, the voices petered down until there was near silence in the fortress. Zocks looked up from the paper, shaking his head.

“Glad to see there is someone they will listen to.”

“You jest, but you do so before an empty throne. So not only are you an imposter, you are a liar too. Would you have us believe otherwise?” Said the mage.

“I am no liar. The wiz… our master was here, until recently. This is…not what we had agreed upon.”

The mage crossed his arms, looking as far from impressed as one could possibly look. “This agreement, it has changed then? So tell me–and all of them–where is he now?”

Zocks looked out at the thousands of staring eyes, glistening with rage, yes, but also a kind of hopeless adoration and wistfulness. A hope that he was about to obliterate. He looked down to the paper in hand, moving his mouth as if he had tasted something foul.

“He’s gone.”

***

Brian stepped out onto an enclosed balcony, the cloying glare transfiguring into tolerable sunlight, abating to the point that objects became discernible around him. He was several stories off the ground, looking out over tiled slate rooftops of squat, tightknit saltbox homes which stretched out as far as the light would allow them to be seen. A cool breeze danced across his face, reminding him of autumn days spent at the lake with his sister when he was a boy and she but a groundling. Though he knew he was in Symphonia, what he looked out onto didn’t seem to fit, as if he had suddenly stepped into another version of it, somehow. He looked back over his shoulder and the door that he had come through was gone, replaced by shuttered windows that looked as if no one had used them for centuries. The hairs on the back of Brian’s neck stood up–a trend that the place seemed to impart that he wasn’t overly fond of. Brian turned back and leaned over the railing, looking for a way down. There didn’t appear to be any designated exit so he opted to make his own. He slid his legs over the bannister and let himself fall down to the nearest roof, barely two blades beneath him. The tiles cracked as his weight bore down and several dislodged, sliding down the slanted roof, along with Brian. Managing to keep on his feet, he surfed down the roof, letting himself be carried over the eave where he hit the ground with a coordinated roll, coming round onto his feet, unharmed. He looked from the shattered tiles on the ground to the roof above, shaking his head. He turned to find himself in a dirt packed alley in the scant space between the houses which formed a makeshift row. While there were signs that people had once lived there–old washtubs and clotheslines, barrels and crates and those sorts of things–it didn’t appear as if anyone had used them recently. He passed by an open window and poked his head in, glancing around. The home was modest enough, a cot in one corner and a well kept kitchen and larder that seemed spotless, not even a cobweb. Yet the place had an eerie emptiness to it that told of disuse and dereliction. What had happened here? He continued on until a sound caught his ear. He passed by an alley running perpendicular to his position and the sound seemed to carry from that direction, so he turned and followed it. As he wound his way between the houses, following the source of the sound, it grew and grew until he could make out the voices of what sounded like a large crowd.

He emerged into an open square, framed in by the same eerily vacant residences on all sides. The square was packed with what must have been hundreds of people, all crowded around a wooden stage which sat at its epicentre. The folk were oddly dressed, as if they were taking part in some kind of historical re-enactment. Brian squeezed past bodies as he made his way toward the stage, eyeing the odd garments though everyone’s attention seemed transfixed elsewhere and no one noticed his questioning stares. At roughly halfway to the stage, Brian stopped as a tight knit wall of people had formed, making further progress a chore. Brian stood on his tiptoes to try and get a better look at just what was so damned important. The stage was weathered beyond its years, the planks of its scaffolding pitted and splitting from years of unforgiving weather. There was a raised platform on the stage upon which sat an equally worn and well-used gallows though, luckily, no one has hanging from it that day. Brian frowned at the sight of the thing: surely, the only place they existed anymore was in a museum. How long had it been since the last public lynching: one thousand years? Two thousand?

What on Rynn was going on?

As if to answer his question he saw movement on the stage and a figure appeared, emerging from somewhere behind the stage, climbing up into sight.

Sarin.

Mother was not with her but she held a small body in her arms which was not moving.

”Kade!” Brian yelled.

His voice was lost to the hubbub of the gossiping crowd as Sarin laid Kade down onto a wooden table in front of the gallows. She turned her head and looked back over her shoulder to a large monument which jutted into the sky, partially obscuring the sun. It was the steeple from a church and at the top was an open belfry with a large, hanging bell. Someone moved in the belfry and then the bell tolled, the sound echoing out ominously into the square where it rippled across the slate rooftops, the crowd dying to a hush. After three such tolls, Sarin turned back to a silent, enraptured audience.

“Let the ritual begin.” She said.

”Ritual?” Brian hissed under his breath.

“Let me begin by welcoming all of you back, marking this the three hundred and sixty first commemoration of the Times of Plenty. I see many familiar faces here today and it both warms and breaks my heart to see you again. For you have all been waiting too long, have you not? Deliverance, always just out of reach. Salvation nought but a flame to be whisked out by the cruel breath of misfortune. And while thirty years is but a sliver of time in the vast sea into which we have been cast, it has been a long thirty years, just like all of the countless decades before that. I see it in your eyes, I do; that weariness and near defeat that comes with an eternity of waiting—an insufferable burden. But suffer no more, you shall! For before me I have not just a mere boy but that very being which you and our mistress have all been waiting for these endless years. Brothers and sisters, here lies the key to your freedom, the end of your perdition. Behold: a harbinger!”

There was a wave of gasps and murmurs among the crowd as everyone seemed taken aback. Brian looked around him in confusion but no one met his gaze.

“Pardon me mistress.” A woman near the front piped up. “Not to question ye good judgement but is not the next day of reckoning nigh three hundred years hence?”

Sarin nodded. “She speaks true. The next harbinger was not due to return to this plane as told. But I have convened with Our Lady herself and she has confirmed that the words have been written. I ask you all thus: who are we to question her will? Mother, too, has inspected the boy and confirmed that what is told holds verily—he is kontarya’ta.”

Brian casually leaned over to the captivated man standing beside him.

“What’s a harbinger?”

The man’s head did not turn to acknowledge Brian as he spoke. “Kontarya’ta. The anointed one. The cure to our poison. The key to our prison.”

”Prison? What prison?”

Then, the man’s head did turn, yet his face was not entirely there. It was as if Brian could see partially through him, and those beyond him also translucent. He was surrounded by a sea of ghosts. And then came the smells; how he had not noticed them before he couldn’t say. Perhaps the wind had shifted or his attention had been allayed. Putrefaction filled his sinuses. The smell of rotting meat. Brian put a hand to his nose, coughing as he tried not to gag. As if that was answer in itself, the man turned back to watch the ceremony. Brian stepped backward away from the eerie figure and, in doing so, he passed right through an older couple to his left. He yelped in surprise and quickly veered out of their intangible forms, stumbling backwards into another, passing through them just the same. Overwhelmed, Brian lost his footing and fell onto his rear. He looked up through the sheer figure of a young woman who ignored him like the rest, his attention moving to the stage as Sarin continued her dark sermon.

“The boy came to us, already deeply tainted, and with the aid of Mother we have weaved Our Lady’s grace into his being. Now, as the hour draws nigh the point of exchange, we mustn’t tarry.  For his sacrifice will release our bonds and in turn, those of Our Lady. And we have all waited long enough, I say. So let this mark the turning of a new era, an eternity not of damnation but of salvation!”

Sarin raised her hands into the air, supplicating to an unknown god. The crowd erupted into a roar of triumph. From his point on the ground, things were not looking so good.

“Sacrifice? Not if I have anything to say about it!”

Brian pushed himself up and ran through the chanting bodies towards the stage, their forms shimmering like mist as he pass through each consecutive non-person. Sarin waved her hands to silence the crowd. The sounds quickly faded.

“Tonight, I would like all of you to savor this moment. For if sixteen hundred years have taught me anything, it’s that moments worth savouring do not happen often.”

Sarin’s tone became morose. “So much time spent, and blood spilled to bring us to where we are today. Were it not for the unyielding faith of our Mistress I may have given up long ago and written it all off as defeat. But today is a reminder that we are not so easily defeated, that good things do happen to those who are patient and strong enough to wait for them. To work for them! As we all did, those many, many years. And I can assure you, when the time comes that we are blessed enough to meet Our Lady in her true form, I know she will be proud. And when you see her, you can thank her for her divine influence, such that this boy walked right into our arms…”

Sarin trailed off as she turned to find Brian holding Kade several blades away from her.

“And right back out again.” Brian finished.

Sarin balled her fists. “You! How did you get here?”

Suddenly, a gust of wind billowed out of nowhere, cindery clouds rushing in overhead, the portent rumble of thunder above, a growling sky. Her hair whipped about in a fury as the wind howled around them, her eyes glowing with an ancient flame that told of things a child should not know, should not have seen.

“You dare interrupt our sacred rite?” Sarin snarled, her voice rippling in the gale enveloping her.

“You have have no right to be here. Leave now and release the boy!”

“I don’t know about you but I’m not too fond of feeding my friends to a ghost witch.”

“Witch? Witch?! Who are you calling a witch? You are speaking to nobility, waif. I am the daughter of a Lord Regent, ours an esteemed family going back generations. Who are you to call upon me with such disdain as would befit peasantry?”

“Those are some big words for a little girl. And I don’t care who you are…or were. You don’t know me and I get the impression you’ve never worked a day in your life, so you can’t know me anyhow.”

Sarin’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, there you are wrong, boy. I may look like a girl but I have lived twenty of your lives and have seen unspeakable atrocities–the darkest parts of man’s heart–things you couldn’t possibly fathom. And any dalliances that my previous life may have offered were undone threefold by the toils I have endured in death. Or death thereabouts.”

From down in the crowd, someone reached up and grabbed Brian by the ankle. He gasped, shocked by the fact that the previously immaterial person had suddenly become material. He jerked his leg away, stepping back from the edge of the stage.

“As you can see, we are neither living nor dead, but somewhere in between. We have been this way for longer than I care to admit. And what you hold there in your arms is our key to freedom. Would you deny so many lost souls their only wish, the most base of desires and humilities: just to be free?”

Brian looked around at the pleading eyes around him, though he struggled to sympathize with the eerie folk. He turned to Sarin and shrugged.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through but it doesn’t give you the right to just steal kids and feed them to some…some monster.”

“Ah, you refer to Mother. I should be offended but I will choose to see your ignorance for what it is: lesser thinking. Mother serves just the same as I and all the rest here. It matters not how she appears; Our Lady will accept any who choose to follow her. For you see, we are all just animals compared to her: compared to them.”

“Them?”

Sarin chuckled, her hair rippling behind her like tendrils of flames.

“Our Lady is many. In time, you will see, just as all the rest.”

“I’ve had enough of this. I don’t know what you’re up to–some kind of cult or something–but Kade and I won’t have any part of it. I’m going now.”

“Finally, we can agree on something. Yes, you will be going–back to the source, guided by Our Lady.”

Sarin raised her hands toward the sky, a lighting bolt cracking above, electricity gleaming in her eyes.

“When you see my mistress, tell her we await her coming with open arms. Our power will be hers!”

Sarin cranked her neck back and screamed at the sky, a bloodcurdling wail which echoed through the village and out into the lands beyond. A lightning bolt struck her and she erupted in blue flame, her blazing body lifting above the stage, weightless. Sarin’s gaze snapped back to Brian and she flung an outstretched hand his way. Kade ripped from his arms and into Sarin’s. Sarin carefully lowered Kade back down on the table and Brian wasted no time running to his friend. Sarin raised a hand nonchalantly toward Brian and he launched backwards three blades, his back grinding along the splintered wood surface of the stage. Sliding to a stop at the edge of the stage he quickly got back to his feet despite the stinging pain across his shoulder blades. He ran at Sarin and she flew towards him, meeting him head on. He threw a punch at her but she span wildly around him in circles, his shots hitting dead air. She whipped around him a blue vortex of fire, the hot air singeing the hair on his skin. A blue hand lashed out and grabbed him by the throat. Sarin hoisted Brian up into the air as she rose into the sky. Tendrils of smoke wafted into the air as the skin on Brian’s neck began to burn. He clung to her flaming hand with both his hands, groaning as the pain from his searing flesh began to become unbearable. Sarin laughed, holding Brian high above the crowd as she rotated in a slow circle, Brian kicking his legs frantically, gurgling as the smoke continued to fume around his face and hands.

“Let this one be an example of any who choose to oppose Our Lady!” Sarin yelled, smiling triumphantly.

She leaned in towards Brian, his legs kicking wildly as he struggled to breathe. “We will have our salvation, boy. And you will never see your friend again!”

She tightened her grip on his neck and Brian could feel his vocal cords about to burst from the pressure. Suddenly a bright flash blinded the air and he heard Sarin scream as her grip released him. He fell into the crowd of people, knocking over a group of them that were now suddenly not so untouchable. Brian slowly got up, holding his neck which ached a thousand pains. He looked up to see an extinguished and battered Sarin, pushing herself up from her knees on the stage. She stood up shakily, looking down in horror at her badly singed dress. Across from her, Jester stood on the stage holding his hand out at her, palm smoking. Under his other arm he held a limp Kade.

Brian laughed. “I never thought you would come back.” He croaked, his vocal anatomy partially destroyed.

“Neither did I. But I do love me a good ghost story. You drove a hard bargain.” Jester said with in a half grin on his face.

“Grab him!” Sarin screamed, pointing at the Jester.

The audience swarmed the stage, Brian covering his head with his hands as bodies collided into him, rushing past frantically to get at the imposter holding their ticket to freedom. Jester leaped over the swarm, landing beside Brian, a giant shockwave shooting out around them, sending the crowd flying into the buildings with spine crushing force. Brian looked around him in disbelief and
turned his attention to the Jester, gaping.

“How did…”

“There’s no time!”

He shoved Kade into Brian’s arms.

“Take him to the dockyard. Get aboard the S.S.Leviathan. Ask for Celine. She can help him.”

He looked at Brian’s neck. Deep black lacerations smoked across his windpipe.

“And you. Now go!”

Brian didn’t get anytime to probe further. The Jester turned back to face an enraged Sarin, flying at them in full fiery rage once more. Brian turned and ran back to the mansion, maneuvering around and over groaning half-translucent bodies laying contorted about, flitting in and out of existence as if their batteries were dying. He hadn’t seen it before but there was a clear alley leading from the mansion to the square which cut through the village. At the end of it he could see a pair of large double doors leading back into the manor, hopefully not far to an exit.

Back in the square, the two fought. A blue fireball burst out of Sarin’s mouth, sailing toward the Jester. The Jester held up his hand and a surge of purple electricity met the fireball halfway, exploding into a tangle of energy. Sarin lurched back from the contention, holding up her hand similarly, forcing the blue forward.

“You will not take him from us! Not when we are this close!”

The Jester trudged backwards, barring Sarin’s passage around. He looked over his shoulder to check on Brian, who appeared to have it made it to the doors. As Brian grabbed the handle he heard a metallic click as a bolt slid into place. He tried the handle but it wouldn’t budge. With his hands full of Kade, he wasn’t about to put him down again to try and punch the door down, so he attempted to kick it but he rebounded backwards, the door un-phased. He heard Sarin laugh from down the way.

“You won’t get away that easily, boy!” She cackled.

Still engaged with Sarin in a combat of the wills with their grappling energies, Jester freed one hand and aimed it behind him in Brian’s direction.

“Look out!” He yelled to Brian.

A seam of yellow light emanated around the door and Brian stepped aside just in time as the door blew off its hinge past him, falling into dirt with a heavy thud. Brian caught his breath and ran through the door. Sarin took advantage of the distraction and redoubled her effort, sending the blue energy surging through Jester’s counterspell. The energy hit him in the chest, sending him onto his back, his shirt a flaming blue mess. Jester took a deep breath, the sound of his inhalation magnified in the air around them as if the village itself was sighing. He blew a powerful breath and the flames were extinguished. He kipped himself up to his feet in time to see Sarin on the attack once more, a new orb of energy formed in her hand, ready to strike.

Brian ran through the opening into the mansion, into a long hallway. He stopped halfway down the hall and turned back as he saw the Jester running down they alley, moving faster than a human should move. Behind him, Sarin was in tow, soaring through the air, flinging blue balls of fire at her quarry. Jester dodged each onslaught with precision but Brian could see from his movement, superhuman as it was, that he was strained. As the two neared his position, the church bell tolled. Sarin stopped in mid air and turned to face the sound. Oddly, the Jester stopped as well, watching behind him as if paralyzed. Brian looked past them to see the sun slowly began to sink beneath the last jutting rooftop, an ominous shade stretching out across the village. As if sensing some kind of cue, the Jester raised both his hands at Sarin but only small sparks danced on his fingertips. He tried again but nothing happened. Sarin turned to him and smiled. Jester looked from his hands to Brian.

“I’m too late!”

He sprinted at Brian with newfound desperation but a streak of blue in the air cut him short of the door, smashing into his back and setting him ablaze with fire. He screamed as flames burst from his orifices, flailing as he tried to put out the fire. He careened backwards as if he were a marionette attached to strings, disappearing into the darkening sky obscured by the eaves. Sarin was nowhere to be seen but her laugh could be heard, echoing from all directions. The estranged mansion doors on the ground lifted up like corpses come to life and slammed into place in the doorway, blocking out Jester’s harried screams of torment.

***

Brian’s heart pounded in his chest as he raced through the zigzagging alleyways leading back into town. At least, he hoped they led back to town; fighting back immense pain in his neck, coupled with overexertion from nonstop running and the added weight of his friend in his arms, Brian practically ran on autopilot, hoping against all odds that he would end up somewhere recognizable.  The sky darkened above, a purpling ochre not unlike a bruise or a burn, like the burn at his throat which throbbed with the heat of a thousands furnaces. The pain was relentless and sharp, the shock striking at his consciousness which ebbed up to the surface and sank back down like a buoy about to drown.  It was a race against time in more ways than one; could he stay awake long enough to get to the dockyard? Before Sarin got to them? He could hear her snickering in the distance as he ran, though it was impossible to triangulate her position as the sound echoed all around him. He even wondered if, perhaps, it was all in his head. He wasn’t going to stop and take a chance to find out.

He came around a blind corner and, at last, he emerged into an area he finally recognized: the causeway which eventually led to the market. It was a different part of the boardwalk but he knew that if he followed the signs that it would lead him to where he needed to be. He was already by the water so that was half the battle right there. There was no signage in his vicinity so, after looking to both sides and seeing nothing unduly persuasive in either direction, he turned right. Most of the townsfolk had already gone in for the evening but there was still light enough that a few scant vendors stayed open to try their luck with the night crowd, though Brian didn’t think Symphonia likely had much of a nightlife. As he ran past the stands, people gave him odd glances. Brian guessed it wasn’t too common to see someone running with an unconscious boy in one’s arms. At least not in Symphonia. Eventually, he came across signposts which pointed him toward the dock. Luckily, he had already been going mostly in the right direction, with only a few course corrections needed here and there. The last of the kiosks petered out, the faint music of a snake charmer fading out of ear shot, marking the end of the commercial district. Brian found himself abruptly in an industrial area, surrounded by large freight cannisters indiscernibly marked, some with illegible graffiti. He maneuvered between the storage containers, stacked one on another like a miniature city. He could make out the boom of a large crane over the top of the sea-cans, pointing into the sky like an accusatory finger. He came into a clearing surrounded by a chain-link fence, barbed wire at the top. On the other side there was a large swathe of tarmac which billowed out into a quay with many abutting wharfs where the familiar silhouettes of monolithic ships had taken berth. He could see tiny shapes moving about near the base, people looking like ants from that distance. Working like ants too. He looked up to the fence. There would be no scaling it with Kade in his arms. There was a squat concrete building adjoining the fence and Brian decided to check it out. He hunkered over as he crept up to a window and peeked inside to find a security guard passed out in his chair with a crumpled magazine on his lap. Behind him was an open door which led to the other side. On the outside of the building there was a sign which read EMPLOYEES ONLY. Brian carefully crept across the room and out the other side, the snoring of the guard behind him, none the wiser.

***

The lady with flaxen hair smiled as she held the other woman’s hands gently in her own, their hair blowing gently in the sea breeze as they stood on the deck of the massive liner.

“My dear sister, life grants us many opportunities in life, and very few as bold as this. Don’t forget, in times of extreme cold, seek the warmth from within.”

The younger woman stood silent, her body rigid, poised in abeyance, a half-smile trying its hardest to play out on her face. Her grip tightened on the other woman’s.

“This town needs someone strong to watch over it. I…” The woman hesitated. “You cast a long shadow, m’lady. I fear I may not be able to follow so easily in your footsteps.”

The other laughed. “You are a sister, true, but you are still your own person. You will find your own path if you simply listen to the flows.”

The younger raised an eyebrow. “All true paths lead home.” She recited. “Yes, yes, so the lessons teach us. Though I can’t say I was always keen on old Nitra’s lectures.”

The flaxen haired woman leaned in with her hand to her mouth, a sneaky grin on her face. “That makes two of us, I think.”

They chuckled and embraced each other.

“Oh, how I will miss you dear sister. Though I think this town will not bereave my absence; Symphonia would do good to see my leave. Perhaps you can piece together the puzzle that I could not solve. You have the council’s blessing and the mayor has set aside an attendant to be at your beckon and call, should you need any advisement.”

“Oh, I fear that poor attendant will not hear the end of it.”

The other placed a gentle hand against the younger’s head, smiling warmly. “You will do well.”

The woman nodded in assent and forced a smile through her concern. “Yes. Yes, you are right, as always m’lady. We are of the same cloth, so it shall be. I know that I am in good hands, far as their reach may be.”

“There is no space that cannot be filled, for there is no space.”

“Nitra again?”

“Kynnanov, actually. Thirteenth century Scorssian poet.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you the sort to have free time to read.”

The older woman smiled. “Hmm, indeed. Though when one’s head is constantly assigned to a book of some sort, no one tends to notice if committee minutes turn to works of fiction in between.”

There was a sound from behind and the elder sister looked over her shoulder to see a well-dressed man standing in waiting with his hands clasped behind his back. She turned back to her sister.

“But I digress. The powers that be have summoned me. I am told that a storm is approaching so I shan’t tarry.”

“Ooh, a storm. Off on another adventure is it, m’lady?”

The other sighed, wrinkles threatening to mar the perfect skin on her forehead. “Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid.”

“Then I shall leave you to it. Take care m’lady and may the light guide you on your travels.”

The two embraced one last time, kissing each others’ cheeks. The flaxen haired woman watched as the younger made her way down the extensive gangplank leading from the ship to the dockyard below. She walked over to the bannister and leaned on it, waving at her sister before she disappeared into a horse-drawn carriage waiting for her at the bottom. The driver cracked the reigns and the carriage took off down the quay, the clippity-clop of the horses’ hooves echoing throughout the dockyard.

A gust of wind billowed up from below and she put a hand on her head, holding her braids in place. After the gale had passed, she wiped a tear from her eye, thankful for it in a way as the stinging bite of the autumnal sea air masked the truth of pain upon watching her dearly departed. She sighed and turned back to the man in waiting, nodding at him as she made her way across the deck. As she walked she looked up at the darkening sky above, massive thunderheads gathering above them. She didn’t like the feeling that she got from it, as if this storm was somehow…different. While those kinds of feelings could usually be written off as a sixth sense, for an Ovra’elle, sixth senses ignored could get one killed in her line of work.

As she followed the man through the galley entrance, a sound stopped her short of entering the ship. She leaned back out the door and saw a small gathering of crewmen leaning against the portside, pointing down into the dockyard, bickering and shouting among themselves. She made her way over to the lot, crew parting to give way once they saw who it was.

“What is going on?” She asked one of them.

“A boy! A stowaway, looks like. Guards caught ‘im up and it don’t look good for ‘im.” The sailor said.

The flaxen haired woman leaned over the edge and watched below as six security guards barred off someone trying to make their way up the ramp onto their ship. She couldn’t see who it was but they were indeed making a commotion. She watched as a young man came into view, his throat visibly marred with black scars, blood stains fresh on the collar of his shirt, struggling against the guards who in turn struggled with their charge, despite their number. In his arms she could see he held a younger boy who appeared to be either unconscious or dead.

“Oh my…” She said.

The boy began to scream. “I just want to talk to her! She has to help him, he’s going to die!”

The boy shoved aside two guards and got halfway up the gangplank before one of the guards managed to tackled him.

“You’re not going anywhere but straight to jail you little trespasser!” the guard snapped.

The other guards redoubled and pounced on the boy before he could get to his feet.

“Please!” He choked, holding the younger boy fiercely underneath him as the guards piled on top of him. “I don’t have much time! She’s coming for us! I need to speak with…speak with Celine!”

The woman with flaxen hair, gasped, pushing herself off of the railing and making her way down the ramp, stopping short of the scuff.

“Officer, please, let me speak to him.” She insisted.

One of the guards stepped between her and the others. “Miss, I strongly suggest you leave this matter to authorities. We don’t want you getting injured by this…ruffian.”

The woman glowered at the man. “I am the authority here. Or have you and your men forgotten that?”

The man turned and looked at her, as if for the first time. He took in her attire: emerald green dress with a large embroidered sash around the waist and upper arms, symbols on them that even a layman would recognize. Suddenly, his face went ashen.

He swallowed a dry lump in his throat. “Umm, yes ma’am…er, mistress.”

He turned to his comrades still attempting to restrain the boy but not having made much progress.

“Let him go!” He shouted at them.

The guards looked up at him with incredulous expressions.

“The lady says.”

They acknowledged her and, just like their superior officer, once they realized who was standing before them, they jumped to file as fast as their middle-aged, overweight wage-slave bodies would allow them to. The boy got to his feet and sneered at the guards who cast him equally disparaging looks as they walked back to their posts. He turned and looked at the woman.

“Thanks.”

He paused a moment and then began to run past her. She stuck out an arm barring his path and he stopped himself before running into it.

“What is the rush?”

She eyed his wounds. They were much worse than she had originally thought.

“My friend is sick, I need to find a woman named Celine. Do you know her?”

“I believe I may know who she is, yes. Tell me young man,” the woman leaned in towards him. “What is your name and what purpose do you claim, barging on to this ship like an ogre in mating season, which would catch the interest of Celine Ad’morea? Tell me that boy?”

“My name is Brian and I was sent by the Jester. Before he was killed.”

The woman studied him for a moment and then stepped away from him as if he had said something offensive. She put her hand on her bosom.

“Killed?” She barely choked out the word. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Who…what…could do such a terrible thing?”

Brian stood uncomfortably for a moment, feeling the glare of the guards on the back of his head. Suddenly it hit him.

“You’re Celine. Aren’t you?”

The woman looked up at him with swollen eyes, nodding. “Jester was a very close friend of mine. Please tell me who…”

Before Celine could finish a large flash of blue appeared in their periphery and they turned to watch one of the guards in the dockyard burst into blue flame, screaming as he fell to his knees, the other guards scrambling away like frightened insects. A second fireball hurdled toward them, striking the guard at the base of the gangplank, setting him ablaze just like his colleague. Screaming, he threw himself over the edge and into the sea where he disappeared with a sizzle, not resurfacing. The cackling of a girl rippled across the shipyard and a glowing blue figure emerged from within the city of shipping containers. Engulfed in flame, she sped toward them, screaming at the dawning sky.

“It cannot be…” Celine gasped.

“Sarin!” Brian cut off Celine. “She’s the one who killed him! And did this to me! I have to get out of here before I get us all killed!”

Celine put a hand on his shoulder, staying him. Her emerald green eyes locked on to his; they were the kind of eyes that one could get lost in but there was also a hardness to them, which spoke of a woman who was not often disobeyed.

“Get on to the ship. I will deal with her.”

Brian stared at her, frozen in her gaze. After a second he shook it off and took her advice, running aboard.

Sarin came careening in their direction, propelling two fireballs straight at Celine. Celine closed her eyes, a sense of calm washing over her. She delved inward, into that endless space of possibility where mind met material. She could feel the warmth of the flows emanating from the fireballs, sense their extension in space, their velocity, and even the pull of their gravity, as minute as it was. She became one with them, as they were with all of their surroundings, and as the space narrowed it equally became a vast plateau between them, a vast plateau into which she inserted herself. At the last moment she opened her eyes and with a sweep of her hand a wall of oceanic water shot up between them, racing upwards into the heavens, spreading out along the quay as a barricade formed. The fireballs hit the wall of water, dissipating into blue steam. Sarin grounded to a halt at the base of the wall, cranking her neck up as she watched the vast spell grow and grow. She screeched in rage and raced upwards, challenging the speed of the rushing water. As Sarin continued to chase the ever-pressing wall upwards, the blue flames surrounding her began to flicker, struggling to sustain themselves on the thinning air. Sarin screeched in fury and rammed the wall with her shoulder but the spell rejected her advance, the flames sizzling out where they had made contact, a sharp jolt of pain causing her to yelp in agony. The flames sputtered and then were extinguished as the oxygen ratio plummeted.

Below, Celine watched Sarin’s plight with vision amplified by the flows.

It was time.

Celine held her hands out in front of her, as if holding an invisible ball. She clenched her fingers ever-so-slowly, the tendons on the back of her hands sticking out from the exertion. She grit her teeth, sweat beading down her temple. As her hands began to compress towards each other, a cracking sound began to emerge from the wall. Rushing, liquid water began to crystallize and harden as it turned to ice. Celine shot her arms out above her head with a triumphant roar and a white flash at the base of the wall traveled upwards along its length, freezing it solid as it worked. The flash coursed rapidly upwards until it reached the burbling apex, exploding outwards in a cascade of freezing mist along with the rest of the wall, catching Sarin in its grasp. Sarin hardly had time to let out a croak before she too was frozen solid, her pallid skin looking even more ghostly beneath the layer of frost that encased her, her eyes jellified like a dead fish. Her momentum carried her upwards several blades before gravity took its hold, arcing gracefully back toward the earth along with the rest of the shrapnel from the wall. Suspended yet conscious, all Sarin could do was watch as the ground came rushing up, nearer and nearer, a concrete sea. She struck the tarmac and exploded into a billion pieces, along with the countless other shards of ice which rippled across the dockyard. Watching from the ship, Brian and the rest of the crew covered their ears as the bell like chimes of sextillions of ice crystals rained down on to the docks in a cumulative deafening roar. Celine stood silent and still, as if it did not affect her in the least. After thirty seconds of the symphonic crescendo, all of the pieces had fallen and the dockyard lay silent, just as the rest of them, glittering in the dying sun like a field covered in diamonds. Celine turned back and walked over to Brian who could only gape at her.

“That was… I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“Let’s pray that you never have to again. Come now, let’s get you and your friend there looked at.”

She glanced down at Kade, if not dismally. Celine led them into the ship, through the galley and into the living quarters where she brought them to a kempt room with a single bed and a small bureau in the corner. She took Kade and placed him on the mattress, undoing his jacket and covering him up with thick, wool blankets. She put a hand against his forehead.

“He holds onto life but by a thread. We must act fast.”

Celine sat on the edge of the bed beside Kade. She took up Kade’s hand in hers and Brian watched as her hand began to emanate a cool green glow against Kade’s skin. A twinge at his throat reminded him of his own injuries. Suddenly Brian began to feel light headed. He sat down in the chair at the desk in the corner. A woman poked her head into the room, acknowledging Brian with a curt nod. She spoke to Celine, something about leaving at first light but Brian couldn’t make out all of it as his vision began to fade in and out.

“I cannot do this on my own.” She spoke to Brian, some time later. He couldn’t be sure how long.

She wiped sweat from her brow with a handkerchief. “Go to the East wing. Ask for Sister Kora. She will come as long as you mention my name.”

Brian nodded and stood up. Before he could take one step he fell on his face.

Blackness.