Bloom & Dark

by Regina Watts

  It was more likely that the conspirator responsible for the death of my mistress’s serpent, the attempt on her life, and any previous assaults before my arrival, would be someone who worked in the palace or was in and out of it with daily regularity. Someone so commonplace they were like a bug on a wall—invisible, unseen. And who better to fill that position than a vizier? The closest to the Materna, and the most blessed with connections throughout the castle. Even once I managed to distinguish logic from my kneejerk feelings on the dearth of femininity that made her stand out, I still could not help but think that there was something very suspicious about Trystera.

  This was why I focused in on her, I think, as she made her way through the crowd—but why she attracted my attention in that moment only became evident when I took a longer look. She held in her hands not one goblet, but two.

  Upon seeing my lady occupied with Indra and Odile, a look of displeasure tightened Trystera’s permanently irritated features. Nonetheless, she slipped through revelers and soon emerged at the base of the Materna’s throne.

  Valeria looked up from her conversation. “What is it, Trystera?”

  “A bit of wine for you, Madame,” Trystera suggested with as close to cheerful a tone as I’d ever heard from her. “You’ve been sitting up there for hours now—you need to have something to drink, you’ll lose your voice.”

  “Ah,” said my lady, extending a languid hand without looking the vizier’s way, “yes, thank you, Trystera…”

  How ridiculous I would feel for this moment in retrospect! How it pains me to look back through the tunnel of time and feel my stomach twisting into knots of panic as Trystera mounted the stairs to the Materna’s throne. How ridiculous now my fright seems as I tried to determine a graceful way to prevent my lady from drinking what could quite possibly have been poisoned wine. How I cringe and grind my teeth and awaken in the dead of night with a groan of embarrassment every time I remember taking what I hoped would seem like a casual step forward—ostensibly toward Indra and Odile—that instead resulted in my shoulder bumping roughly into Trystera’s arms.

  Both goblets of wine flew from her hands, red wine spraying across me while the gilded cups clattered upon the floor. While Indra, Odile, and a few guards gasped, high-strung Valeria made a noise that was closer to fright before she realized that her life was not at imminent risk—that it was only me, an oafish, clumsy human. Red wine splattered all across my tunic and stained Trystera’s cloak, and while the women around me gasped I tried to come up with a quick, feasible explanation for why I had stepped forward at the time that I did.

  Luckily, there was no need. Trystera, wide-eyed, gasped in a fury and looked down at herself. Her clothes were as drenched with red wine as mine. Stripping out of her spoiled cloak and down to her dry bustier, the vizier looked at me with absolute disdain. “You absolute idiot—if you weren’t as soaked as I, I’d have you whipped right in front of this blasted banquet. I’ve half a mind to anyway.”

  Above the giggling of Indra and Odile, Valeria arched a brow. “You would have my slave whipped, Trystera?”

  The tranquil expression my lady turned in my direction demonstrated perfect understanding of why I had done what I had. “You cannot stand here in clothes dripping wine, Burningsoul,” she told me. “Is your pass ruined?”

  I slid the scroll from my belt and rolled it open. The sigil still had one more day of use before it would dissolve in my hand, and though it was now spotted with a few drops of wine, the collision had left it no worse for the wear. “It’s fine, Madame.”

  “Then hurry up and change your clothes. Be back here as soon as you can.”

  With a hard look of concern, I realized I had miscalculated. I might have saved the Materna from potentially poisoned wine, but I was now forced to leave her alone at this banquet overflowing with people. Seeing my concern, she caught the attention of a nearby guard and assured me, “I will be perfectly fine without your stewardship for a few minutes, Burningsoul.”

  “I’ll get you some more wine,” the vizier began, turning away with her cloak under her arm.

  “That’s not necessary, Trystera.” While the right hand of the throne paused to throw a curious look over her shoulder, Valeria smiled thinly. She waved down at the shimmering gold gown clinging to her curves and revealing, as usual, a distracting amount of flesh. “I quite enjoy my dress the color that it is…and if my voice does decide to depart for the night, so much the better. Saves me a responsibility.”

  Though a look of even deeper annoyance pinched Trystera’s features, she nodded to my mistress and stormed into the depths of the banquet. Though Indra and Odile looked poised to tease me for my apparent clumsiness, the Materna waved a hand to me. “Go on.”

  I nodded, said my good-byes to Indra and Odile, and then, pass in-hand, made my way through the party. The wine caused the fabric of my tunic to cling uncomfortably to my flesh, its resemblance to blood earned me more than a few stares while I slipped past the durrow guests—but, in as merry a mood as the revelers were in, not even a guard saw fit to stop me while I exited the throne room. The halls of the palace were littered with guests going to and fro, sometimes slipping from the party to head to someone’s apartment. Truly the atmosphere was different than I had ever experienced it—bright enough to match the glowing aesthetics of the Palace itself.

  As much movement as there was, and as many people as there were coming in and out of the banquet hall, I was surprised to see the guard who usually stood watch outside my lady’s chambers was in her usual anteroom post. If she was at first surprised to see me, she soon glanced at my reddened torso and understood so well she laughed. I had not yet seen her so much as smile, I realized, and chuckled a bit with a glance down at my person.

  “I didn’t know the party was so wild,” said the guard with good humor. “Maybe I should have asked for the shift off after all.”

  “Just me and my clumsiness…are you alone here today?”

  “Only until the banquet’s end…Madame’s empty chambers don’t exactly need an excess of protection from the repairman.”

  “The repairman?”

  “Yes,” she said while leading me to the front door of my lady’s chambers. “That little berich, the handyman—I can never remember his name.”

  “Nibel,” I answered, impressed with my own ability to recall the name from the mists of my busy memory. “And while we’re on the subject—this is embarrassing, Madame, as I see you all the time, but—”

  “Fiora,” she reminded me, nodding in my direction while she opened the door. “You’ll have to forgive my professional distance…Madame does not have a history of longstanding slaves, so I don’t really bother getting to know them. Although, after that business with the serpent, I have a feeling I’ll see you around for quite awhile.”

  Holding the door for me, the guard nodded with respect as I waved back to her. “Sorry about the wine,” she added with a chuckle.

  “Don’t worry…at least it wasn’t mine.”

  The door shut behind me and, alone in my mistress’s chambers, I did not even think about the guard’s mention of the repairman. Sighing in relief, I removed my wet tunic and only when free of it heard the grinding of some metal tool. A few steps into the hallway adjacent the sitting room, I saw the cause: Nibel, down on one knee, busily fixed the hinge of my lady’s bedroom door. At my footfall, his head whipped in my direction, hand frozen in motion with its dwarfish screwdriver.

  “Ah,” he said, “Burningsoul, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right—it’s good to see you again, Nibel.”

  “Likewise.” His voice was faint with distraction as he turned back to his work, bending over the hinge again while saying, “Hope you’re not trying to get in here just yet.”

  “Oh, no, just here for a change.” I showed my wine-stained tunic and the berich looked at it somewhat disinterestedly. Perhaps there was envy there, I decided while vanishing into the unused chambers intended for me. It seeme
d the berich, like Fiora, was expected to work nearly round-the-clock. In other words, it didn’t seem likely that the almost invisible man would be offered even the opportunity to have wine spilled on him, let alone to drink it or revel with the rest of the palace.

  I shook my head, pitying him while I dried my chest and changed into a fresh tunic. What a shame that a man should be called upon to slave in my lady’s chambers, even on a feast day! A shame, too, that it was here he found himself. Somehow I felt almost responsible for his assignment—though they were not my apartments, I nonetheless spent as much time in them as my lady and felt a misplaced sense of ownership developing.

  But, a funny thing. In all the time I’d spent there, Valeria had never complained to me of the door. Nor had I noticed the hinge whining or rusting or otherwise exhibiting any other kind of issue.

  Stepping out again, now more quietly, I observed the berich produce an oddly-decorated pin for his hinge. He was about to slide it home into the embrace of the leafs when I announced my presence by saying, “You know—”

  Nibel jumped slightly, cursing, almost dropping the pin that he held quite delicately in his hand.

  “—who was it, exactly, responsible for mentioning to you that the Materna has a problem with her door?”

  “Couldn’t tell you who noticed it,” answered the berich with a grunt as he went back to the task, moving a little quicker now. “I’m dispatched by the guards who work down below overseeing the forges. They say, I do. I don’t ask in between.”

  “That may be the case, but I think there’s some confusion. To my knowledge, that door has never given us problems. Perhaps you were meant to go somewhere else?”

  Sliding the pin home in the new hinge, the berich said without looking, “If that’s the case, I’ll hear about it soon enough and rectify the situation.”

  Inspecting very quickly the completed task, the berich rose, took the toolbox in his little gray hand, and turned to head down the hall. “Worse things in the world than a new door hinge you don’t need.”

  “I suppose that’s true…ah! But wait, friend—”

  Nibel tried to make his departure fast, but I rested a friendly hand upon his shoulder and smiled evenly at him. “Don’t you think you’d ought to try the door to make sure the hinge is in order?”

  “I’m not about to go opening doors uninvited into the Materna’s chambers,” he protested. “I’m just here to fix the problem.”

  “Why, sure—but you don’t want to be called up here out of your way again, do you?”

  “I go up and down that lift all day anyway, Paladin—let me go, now. I have other jobs to complete.”

  “But how can you, when this one isn’t complete? Go on.” I twisted him in the direction of my lady’s chamber, then released him with a shove in the direction of the door. “Why don’t you check to see if it’s working now?”

  Looking at me sidelong, the dwarf asked, “Why don’t you?”

  My hand rested upon Strife. The dwarf exhaled low and glanced back toward the door again, shaking his head. “This is what happens when slaves spend too much time around durrow…they get the idea that they’re better than the rest of us. You have no power to order me around.”

  “And I will apologize to you when you show me that the door works,” I said, still far more comfortable with Strife’s pommel against my hand. “But, at the moment, I can’t help but wonder something rather concerning…and until I have it proved to me one way or another, it is, in fact, my responsibility to demand that you fulfill the task allegedly assigned to you.”

  “‘Allegedly,’” repeated the berich, a faint sneer in his voice as he bent to place his toolbox down. “And what is this concerning notion you’ve begun to wonder?”

  “That the conspirator within the Palace walls is neither a regular visitor nor a member of the Court, but a lowly slave just like myself.”

  “Oh, Burningsoul!” Laughing low, the berich lingered by his toolbox for a second before straightening up again. “Don’t insult me—you and I have nothing in common.”

  In a movement far faster and more startling than I’d given him credit for, Nibel whipped his screwdriver from the toolbox and lunged at me with the head poised straight for my gut. Strife was free of its scabbard before the Nightlands dwarf could fully close the distance. My blade slashed, the magical steel singing through the air to the berich’s curse of pain.

  The screwdriver fell from his hand.

  As acidic blood splattered across the handle of the tool, the device corroded before my very eyes.

  IN THEIR MIDST

  THERE WAS NO time to fully absorb what I was seeing before Al-listux emerged from the body of the dwarf who had long ago been added, by one spirit-thief or another, to the collection of forms the hideous extensions of the alien hivemind assumed. While its cells changed so radically that the increase in size brought to mind the growing of a plant from the depths of the earth, I struck another blow with Strife, or tried. The demon caught the blade in its good hand, a hiss crawling from its hideous tentacles as its yellowed eyes stared dead into mine.

  You would have done well to take my offer of friendship, Paladin, said the demon, shoving me back a few paces down the hall. How great the rewards would have been! Now, the only reward I have to offer you is death.

  “Weltyr will decide when I’ve earned my rest,” I assured the beast, raising Strife as its facial tentacles vibrated with a green energy. The plants on either side of the hall slowly swayed and waved, their motions faster as I took a step toward the beast. Swinging Strife in a broad arc was a struggle in the confines of even the wide hallway: I made do, striking forward with the blade as though it were a lance.

  The branches of a nearby plant flung themselves out at me and caught Strife’s blade in its grip. Jaw set, I attempted to tear the sword from its clutches to no avail. A tendril soon snapped out and gripped my wrist in an effort to prise me away from the sword.

  You survived my broodmates only by virtue of your companions, warned the beast, making a steady approach. You will not be so blessed a second time.

  Funny it should have said such a thing at such a moment. With the sword caught, my instincts turned immediately to the powerful prayers I had been taught as a boy. I called upon Weltyr, my lips moving fast in a silent chant that ran through my mind as effortlessly as a dream in sleep. Within that same mind, I visualized one of my Lord’s runes—a vial component of our prayers, and more powerful when physically represented but still imbued with great divine energy when envisioned in the mind.

  As I called upon my god to dispel the hateful magic of the spirit-thief, the vine wilted upon my wrist. Soon the branches of the plant loosened their grip on Strife. I managed to jerk the blade away, but by that time the spirit-thief had closed the distance between us and caught hold of my tunic. It dragged me close, its foul-smelling tentacles enclosing my face and wasting no time in attempting to fill my every facial orifice.

  Since you love your mistress so, you’d might as well be the one to kill her. Here, Paladin—ah!

  Gritting my teeth, I slashed Strife wildly through the air. I might have cried in victory to feel it catch upon demonic flesh if doing so would not have permitted the entry of those hateful probes into my mouth. While the pain of the spirit-thief echoed through my mind, I drew the sword back and hacked forward again, now slamming the blade all the deeper into the damned creature’s wrist.

  As its tentacles loosened its grip on my face, I snapped the bone of its wrist clean through and savored the slap of its slimy hand flopping to the floor. While I leapt back to avoid the spurt of acidic blood that followed, the hateful demon reeled away and braced itself with its good hand against the marble wall.

  Burningsoul, you fool! Why would you put so much at stake to defend those who enslave you against your will? What could you possibly have to gain by consenting to a life of servitude?

  “I wouldn’t expect a monster like you to understand.”

  Strif
e at the ready, I charged forward—but the demon was readier, still. With a magic word in a language like the wet gasp of a drowning man, an animated sword appeared out of nowhere. The blade floated in the air before the demon as though held by an invisible soldier. It parried Strife and sent me bouncing away, backing toward the sitting room while I caught each strike of the magical weapon with my own. “Nor would I expect a monster to fight like a man…it still strikes me as pathetic that you would stoop to means such as this.”

  Another prayer sped past my lips while the demon, protected for the moment, followed me out to a space more suitable for battle. One of its tentacles curled as though in a hateful sneer. How can you think your god will protect you from me, Burningsoul? He was the one who sent you here to die!

  As if in answer to the disgraceful thing’s question, I raised my blade. The subterranean room flooded with a bright explosion of daylight—as though the sun itself stood above my head. Even my eyes, having missed the sun for some weeks now, filled with tears and had to briefly shut: but the spirit-thief, with its sensitive eyes unmeant for the surface, howled with agony and stopped in place to throw its hand over its blinded face. The magical sword that had kept on slicing managed to sweep across my arm and leave a trail of blood behind, but it was a small price to pay to incapacitate the sorcerer for even a few heartbeats. Incensed into action amid the flood of adrenaline the energy caused me, I struck the magical blade heavily from the air. It bounced across the floor, then disappeared as though in a kind of sudden implosion.