by Jeffrey Hall
Requiem thought about it. He had hefted her about and set her down in both Drip and Pink, but that was before he heard about the man in the mask. That was before the wumps became spooked by that strange shadow. There was something afoot, he was sure of it, and he was sure it was something to do with the girl. Leaving her by herself was a dangerous scenario for the girl, but he wasn’t about to do what the Geomage had told him to do with a child wrapped around his neck like a scarf.
“She’ll lose water.”
“Then I’ll make her a drip stone.”
“Drip stone?” said Requiem.
“One of the uses of sapphire.” She picked up a blue stone from the pile at her feet. “Used it plenty of times before when I was dry. I can make one and hang it over her, drop it right into her mouth.”
“She’ll get filthy,” said Requiem.
“I won’t be long. I can change her if needs be.”
“Now you’re a healer too?”
“This is what I offer,” she said. “If you don’t like it then take her and go.” When she spoke she looked as though she didn’t believe it, that if Requiem called her bluff then she would come scrambling to his feet and beg him to reconsider. But she was right. He needed her and he had no other solution.
“Get on with it then,” said Requiem.
The woman held up the sapphire, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. Instead, one eye opened and looked down to the book in her other hand.
“What?” said Requiem.
“Forgot the spell.” She immediately collapsed to her knees, brushing aside the stone on the floor so she could spread the pages of the book and find the right passage.
“I thought Geomages studied every facet of the stones they treated with?”
Dash kept turning the pages, ignoring his question, until she arrived at the one she needed. She read, whispering to herself, and then held the stone higher.
“Gath Lorin akraban somi pori aquara!”
The sapphire darkened and then relightened brighter than before as she held it in her hand. A jewel of water formed at the highest point of the stone. She turned over the sapphire and watched as the drip fell from it and was replaced by another.
“How long will that last?”
“This is a bigger stone. Holds more essence… Three days. More than enough time.”
Requiem nodded. She went to the bed and dislodged one of the glimmer stones that were implanted in the ceiling overhead. She replaced it with the sapphire and then adjusted the girl so her mouth lined up with the steady drip that now tumbled down from the stone.
“Let’s make this quick then,” said Requiem as Dash brushed her hands as if to signify her work was completed.
The Geomage nodded. She turned to get her things.
As she did, Requiem looked over the sleeping girl and felt the same regret he often had before he’d leave Sasha and Mote to go on another job, and question whether or not he was doing the right thing. And like all those times before he told himself he was. He went to look away and turn his back to her but his eyes stopped on the opened pouch on the girl’s hip.
“You know what this is?” He reached in and pulled out the starry stone.
Dash looked up from her things and squinted. “Toss it here.”
Requiem obliged.
She fumbled with it, turning it over in her hand as if it held some lock to undo. “Never seen a stone like it.”
“You think the person you’re going to might?”
“Maybe.” She put it in her pack.
“You lose it and I’ll take it out of your hide.”
Dash smiled. “You’re very protective of things you know nothing about.”
He ignored the comment. “It might be important to her. I’d like to know a little more about her so I can talk with her when she wakes up.”
“Need a conversation prompt?”
He shook his head. “Need to know what I’m doing all this for.”
“Saving a little girl’s life isn’t good enough?”
“Not good enough for you either.”
She ran a hand through her hair and went towards the door. “No such thing as doing good for free anymore, is there? The Younger is probably taxing that now too.”
“Not sure it’s the Younger’s fault.”
Dash opened the door and invited him through with a wave of her hand.
“Lock this door tight now.” He took one last look at the girl on the bed.
Dash exited, closed the door, and showed that it was locked. “Satisfied?”
“If you’re back before I am, make sure to watch over her.”
“You mean to make sure your plant is good and watered,” said Dash.
He didn’t smile.
“Only kidding.”
“I’ll be back with your debt settled.”
“I’ll be back with her stone.”
They nodded to each other and parted ways.
Requiem arrived at the doorway to Proth’s Prodigy’s hideout to see a pair of mopey looking thugs hefting a box into the passageway. A man with a spiral tattoo on his face overlooked the work and saw Requiem approaching by way of the unsturdy rope bridge, one that swayed and threatened to bring him crashing to the purple bosom of the Abyss prematurely, before he was done.
Gangs, he thought. Always in the hardest-to-reach places.
“You lost?” shouted the tattooed man.
“Not at all. Found exactly who I was looking for.”
The man ushered the others inside, and stood fully in the doorway, his hands going to two curved blue daggers.
“Only people looking for me are those with a debt to pay or a death to meet early.”
“Good thing I’m here for the former.”
The man squinted as Requiem came to a stop at the end of the bridge. “Don’t know you.”
“No, but you know my associate. Dashinora.”
The man’s face hardened at the name of her. How badly had she screwed them over? And just how badly would she do him?
“You here to bleed with her?”
“I’m here to bleed for you.”
“I’ll cut that tongue out before it speaks any more nonsense.”
“Dashinora said she made a mistake. She wants to atone for it. I am her atonement. I’m here to help you with your next job, whatever that may be.”
The man laughed. “You? Help us with a job? We’ve no need for hands a few years away from arthritis.”
“What about these hands?” He rolled up his sleeve and showed some of the scars that decorated them, markings that looked like tattoos in their own right.
The man stepped back. “By the Abyss, am I looking at that right?”
“You are.”
The man looked from Requiem’s wrist to his face and then back down. “Who are you?”
“Requiem Balestone,” he answered, for what felt like the hundredth time in a handful of days.
“What in the name of Moonsland are you doing here?”
“I’ve business with Dashinora.”
“Not important, I hope. She’s just as likely to sell you out for a bag of black lens.”
“So I heard.” He was feeling worse and worse about his decision.
The man looked him up and down. “Huh,” he said as if he were a riddle that had stumped him. The man waved him into the tunnel.
The darkness immediately engulfed Requiem and his hand went to the hilt of his sword beneath his robes as if he had just entered the den of a monster. The colorful spirals that were painted along the walls made the place look happier than it was, as if the cavern’s purpose was to entertain a baby rather than stir up the nefarious deeds that no doubt were thought up in such a place. In the darker pockets of that cavern he could see haggard-looking men and women strapping on armor and weaponry.
Requiem couldn’t help but smile to himself. Not so long ago he would have been hired to wipe out a place like this, but now he was contracted to work for t
hem.
How quickly our fortunes change, he thought as he continued to follow the man deeper into the cavern.
They arrived at a back room, where another man sat in a chair shirtless, smoking a pipe, stroking the brown fur of a currow-currow, a fat, cave-dwelling rodent with a nimble tongue used to reach mites in the small bores of rock littered throughout mines.
“Wait here,” said Requiem’s escort.
The man with the tattoo on his face went to the other and whispered in his ear. The man with the currow-currow in his lap turned to look at Requiem. By Dash’s description he assumed that he was Carry.
“Is it true? One of Proth’s own brothers stands within my room?”
“We weren’t kin,” said Requiem.
“That stone you both share might say otherwise.” Carry stood, bringing the near slumbering rodent to his chest. He didn’t use his hands to smoke his pipe. He sucked in from one side of his mouth and blew out the other, talking around it like someone with a speech impediment. “The Abyss looks fondly upon us to put you here before us.”
“Not the Abyss. Blame Dashinora.”
Carry smiled and brought the rodent to his lips. “Do you hear that? We have that conniving Geomage to thank for this gift?”
“I am here as a peace offering. Here to help you with your next job.”
“Funny how she so freely admits her mistake now that she has her desire in her hands. As if her short handing us a few dozen fire bones is as easily forgettable as leaving a stew on a stove for too long.”
“Sounds like you knew what you were getting into before you made that deal.”
Carry sighed. “Regrettably so. There are few Geomages who have treated with fire bones who will work with individuals like us, and because of that, we cannot be choosey. For now.”
“Well, let me help you and ease the new wound she’s opened on you.”
Carry paced. “We are honored to have you here, Requiem Balestone. What your kind has done to Moonsland has been unbelievable. Something we have based our existence upon. Proth created a new world with a stroke of his sword. We plan on doing the same.”
“How’s that?” said Requiem, eyebrows raised. This wasn’t the statement of a common thug, but rather one of a worshipper. A devout.
“Prove that you follow in your kin’s footsteps and perhaps you’ll earn the truth. For now I would be a fool to put my hands on the most powerful weapon in the world and not ask why it’s here.”
Requiem folded his hands behind his back. “Dash and I have a deal. I require the service of a Geomage and had no payment to offer other than my blade.”
“What service?” said Carry.
“The healing of a young girl.”
“Your daughter?” said the man who had escorted him inside.
“He has no daughter, Shint. Nor any offspring any longer, if rumor serves me correctly. His only son died a decade ago.”
The one Carry referred to as Shint eyed Requiem. “That true?”
Requiem pursed his lips. He hated that everyone knew his business. Privacy was one of the many things the scar stone took from him when it exalted him from miner to hero. Now everyone could remind him of his losses, of his failures.
He ignored Shint. “The girl isn’t kin. Just someone that needs saving.”
“See?” said Carry. “A true hero, through and through. We are fortunate to have such a full heart on our plates.”
“No full heart here,” said Requiem.
“Good,” said Carry.
“What would you have me do?”
“We’re raiding a caravan,” said Carry. “A heavily guarded one at that.”
“Thieving a part of your services?” said Shint.
And Requiem laughed to himself. At least some secrets were still his own. “You have no idea.”
Chapter 9
Dash stood before a set of gaudy doors deep in the heart of upper Bothane, a band of sweat on her forehead thanks to the stairs she climbed to arrive there. The doors themselves were two slabs of clavabor, a rock of cream white, one often used by artists as a canvas thanks to its color and malleability. Upon the door there was a strange depiction of nature, a black forest with a brown sun rising over it, turning the ripples of clouds beside it pink and frothy. A set of knockers shaped to look like hands hung from the door’s center.
She looked up at the building, which loomed over her like a mountain she did not wish to attempt, and exhaled.
She had gotten herself into some mess. Not only had she kicked the hive of Proth’s Prodigy, she had sent one of the Scarred to be the exterminator of her problems.
One of the Scarred.
She could barely believe it, but she was sure that the man who had entered her store was real and not some hallucination from the black lens.
She had put her hand on the girl. She had smelled the ardent reek of his clothes. She had felt the warmth of the scar stone as it stared back at her, hungry, never satisfied.
He was real, and so was his predicament. This was her end of the bargain, and she needed to keep it, no matter what the cost. Though, she looked down the street and thought how easy it would be to keep going, just to keep walking, and never look back.
Proth’s Prodigy was legion, but Requiem was only one man, and surely no man, no matter their power, could find her amidst the world.
But would she find more black lens amidst it?
Focus, Dash.
She raised her hand and struck the knocker. The sound it made was akin to a miniscule thunder.
She waited. When, after a few moments, there was no response, she knocked again.
This time she heard a shrill voice from the other side immediately. “Museum is closed or can’t you read?”
“I’m not here for the museum, Chendra.”
“Who is that?”
“It’s Dashinora. Please don’t walk away. I really need you. It’s a matter of life and death.” The words stumbled out of her like the essence of a stone.
Silence pervaded the other side.
“Chendra? Chendra!”
But still, there was no response.
“I knew it,” she mumbled to herself, cursing, thinking of some other out. “Should never had trusted—”
“I’ve heard life and death plenty of times from your mouth.”
“Please! I’m serious.”
“What do you need?”
“I’m looking for a stone—”
“For the last time I don’t have any black lens. It’s a display only. A teacher. Not your fix.”
“Not that,” said Dash, saddened that Chendra’s response was that. “I need dadaline.”
There was silence again, until the door opened with a loud shriek as if it were a bird on the hunt rather than a slab of stone. Inside, there stood a woman not much older than Dash. She had short brown hair that hung just below her ears and wore a tunic and pants heavily encrusted with jewels that clacked as she moved. A long necklace flirted with her belly, its silver chain interrupted by the dozen black stones woven into it. When she squinted at Dash the wrinkles that would soon come with middle-age were visible.
“You come to me for something like dadaline?”
“I had no one else.”
“You must be desperate.”
“I am.”
Chendra looked her up and down. “Your hair is more purple.”
“And you’ve more gems upon you,” said Dash quickly.
“It pays to have powerful connections.”
“You mean it pays to be inside a powerful bed.”
Chendra shook her head. “Nothing’s changed, has it?” She stepped inside and started to close the door.
“Wait!” shouted Dash, pushing it back open. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to bicker with you.”
“Right. You came here, to a museum, for a random, petty stone, not to a miner or another Geomage. Because you seem to remember you have not screwed me over, unlike them.”
“Please, Chendr
a.”
“Why should I help you?”
“Because you’re my sister.”
Chendra chewed her lower lip, thinking. Without another word she turned and walked into the museum, leaving the door open for Dash to follow. She slipped in behind her before she changed her mind.
The grand hall of the Ode to the Fallen Kingdom ran out before her like a pristine cavern, one not subjected to the careless swings of the miner’s axe, but instead one carved out by chisel and pick. The ceiling was near flat and smooth. Pillars rose on either side like bones keeping the body in place. And draped from the ceiling high above there were tattered and stained flags, relics recovered from the disaster of Old Bolliad. The kingdom that fell into the Abyss. The one cut away from Moonsland by the sword of Proth Alimark, one of the Scarred.
A person with power like the man she had just hired...
“Close the door behind you,” said Chendra.
Dash obliged, and the door clunked shut.
“We can’t let any more street litter sweep in with the wind.”
Dash held her tongue, wanting desperately to tell her sister to go play on the Edge, but doing so would put her back where she had started. She was walking the Edge herself, and one wrong word would send her over. Besides, she wanted to get this over quick. The shadows were already stirring. She could hear them whispering. The black lens on her hip was already pulling at her, inviting her to escape the voices and the reality of her life, telling her that if she could come back one more time she would find him.
Pushing her sister would only delay that. Instead, she swallowed and spoke with a lighter tone. “The Ode has come a long way since I last visited,” she said, marveling at the glass cases that lined the walls, each holding some relic.
“The archeologists of the break have been busy. Lord Larken has been generous with his wealth.”
Their eyes met.
Chendra hurriedly said, “He still sees great value in recovering the broken remains of his father’s kingdom on the side of the world.”
“I didn’t interpret it any other way.”
“Good,” said Chendra as she kept walking, her feet tapping on the polished surface as if she were slapping the ground for impeding her. “I wouldn’t want that loose tongue of yours to spill the wrong rumors.”