by E G Stone
Liberty or Death
Yolanda and I settled in a small tavern somewhere just beyond the border of the vampire territory. The tavern seemed a little convenient, the biggest building in a tiny village sitting at a crossroads just beyond the border. It was surprisingly well populated, though, with creatures of all sorts drinking and eating and making a serious racket. Yolanda said that the denizens of Elsewhere enjoyed two things almost as much as they enjoyed gathering power and causing trouble: alcohol and caffeine. As a result, there were almost as many cafes and taverns—not bars, mind you—per capita as any of the major cities in the mortal realm. This, oddly, made me feel a whole lot better about things.
Yolanda left me at the tavern, saying that she would deal with the artists—this, apparently, included a memory modifier. She handed me two gold coins for my food and drink and I happily left her to deal with the unfortunate humans caught up in this mess. I don’t know how she managed to get the artists back to Florence, but when she came in to sit next to me, they were gone.
“Want something to eat?” I asked, lifting my hand to call over the barkeep. She was some sort of gargoyle-type creature, with large bat ears, a visage of stone and long, deadly claws. Yolanda ordered eagerly and I took a long sip of my…I think it was mead. The drink went down smoothly and I felt the slight release of tension that the alcohol gave.
“Where did they go?” I asked. Yolanda shifted in the seat and shrank a few inches. She was almost back at normal size and she looked particularly tired, covering up at least two yawns in the space of a few seconds. I guess battle magic isn’t for the faint hearted or the under-caffeinated.
“There are not all that many ways to the mortal realms,” Yolanda said. “I had to whistle up a Ferryman.”
“A Ferryman,” I said blankly.
“Ferrier of souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead, wherever the souls go,” Yolanda explained. “Or, in this case, from Elsewhere to Florence.”
I took another pull of my mead, feeling oddly calm about having sent four humans with a rock troll to go meet a Ferrier of souls to the land of the dead. I had other worries to consider. “This place just gets weirder and weirder.”
The gargoyle barkeep set down two large plates of brisket before Yolanda and myself. My assistant dug in gladly, scarfing the food faster than some dogs. I watched, picking at my own food with a fork.
After a few minutes, Yolanda looked up at me, sauce smeared all over her face. She frowned. “You seem…sad? Where your face gets all pinched and worried?”
“Sad,” I confirmed. I leaned back in my chair, staring at the wooden whorls of the table. “I killed someone.”
“You mean the vampire.”
“Yeah,” I kept my eyes on the table. “And not an hour later, I was laughing.”
“You did not kill him,” Yolanda said firmly. I looked at her in pure surprise. She held out her hands. “Truly. He was the one who fed on you. He tried to bind you to his will. And neither he—nor you—knew what would happen. He died, but it wasn’t your fault.”
“He still died because of me,” I said. My throat suddenly felt very tight; I didn’t think I could eat any more of the brisket.
“Yes,” Yolanda agreed. “But that does not make it your fault.”
I said nothing. I knew that what she was saying was the truth. There was nothing I could have done. I couldn’t change things. That didn’t mean the guilt was going to go away. The whole situation had been my fault. Maybe that was why I was so glad to have left Yolanda to send the artists back to Florence. I had suggested to Thaddeus that they use human artists to paint portraits, in order to increase social media views. I mean, I hadn’t known what the consequences would be, but perhaps I should have. Everything I had learned in the mortal world about vampires—no matter how far fetched—agreed on one thing: they were predators, killers. Telling someone back home how to increase their social media hits would have done very little. Here, it nearly cost four people their lives, and killed one other.
“Did you know that all vampires used to be human?” Yolanda asked after a moment.
My stomach dropped to my feet and I pushed the plate of brisket away. Yolanda grabbed it and ate without asking. I didn’t begrudge it to her at all. “I thought they were demons. Possessed corpses or something.”
“Vampirism, like a cold, is a disease. Or a virus. Whichever,” Yolanda said between forkfuls. “It only affects humans. It is also only spread by contact with bodily fluids. Blood, primarily.”
“So, what, under their pretty facade, they’re just diseased humans? I saw the queen’s face change when I had her pinned.” I clenched my hand where I had held my blood. If what Yolanda said was true, then I had not only killed someone, but threatened a human. Not an undead monster.
“Are there no diseases that change your appearance? That make you less human, less what you were? Where the disease takes control of you and your actions?” Yolanda asked. She finished off my own lunch and pushed that plate away, too. “They are diseased. The blood they take feeds the disease, making it stronger. Until the human parts are pushed so far aside that it is only the disease talking.”
I swallowed down bile. “I think you’re talking about a parasite,” I breathed. “A foreign entity that uses a body as its host in order to live and propagate and survive. Malevolent. Controlling.”
Yolanda waved a dismissive hand, “Disease, parasite. One is smaller, the other bigger. It matters not. Vampirism destroys all that they were until they are literally nothing more than slaves to their drive for blood. The human mind, gone. The human soul, gone. All that remains is the disease.”
“So, what, you’re saying what I did to Thaddeus was a mercy?” I snapped. Yolanda blinked her large yellow eyes at me, a faint smile touching her mouth.
“It is no accident that Mercy is an assassin,” she said softly.
I sat back in my chair like she had physically hit me. I didn’t know what to say to that. How to react. I felt anger, pain, guilt, relief, a myriad of emotions that I couldn’t easily sort through. My throat grew tight again and I bit my lip to keep from letting the hysterical sobs out. I clenched my fists in my lap to keep from hitting the table.
The gargoyle barkeep came by to collect our plates. Yolanda paid for her meal and drink with another couple of coins and we were left in peace again. Peace being a relative term. I didn’t say anything. Yolanda didn’t seem terribly inclined to say anything, either. So we sat there for a while, me trying to process everything and failing miserably. That left only one thing to do: get back to work. My problems paled in comparison to what would happen if Yolanda and I didn’t figure out what had happened to Magnus—that could potentially mean the end of the world.
“Can we still get an appointment with the Order of Silence?” I asked quietly after I couldn’t stand hearing my own thoughts anymore. Yolanda nodded.
“We will have to clean up,” she said, gesturing to my bloody shirt and her torn and ripped jeans and shirt. “The Order has strict protocol regarding appointments.”
“Is there any chance of getting some sleep in there?” I asked. I might have had a chance to be unconscious, but there was nothing about it that had given me a rest. Coupled with dealing with a horde of angry vampires, I was beginning to feel the day. Not to mention Yolanda must be tired. I had no idea what battle magic took out of a person, but given how much she had eaten, I doubted that she was any less tired than me. I could have been completely wrong, though. I had no idea how much trolls ate on a daily basis.
Yolanda shook her head, pushing back from the table with a clatter of wood. The patrons looked at us for a brief moment before apparently deciding that we were beneath their interest and getting back to their drinking and dining. “The longer we take to get this situation resolved, the worse the imbalance will grow.”
“Really? How can you tell?” I followed her out of the tavern and we trudged towards the closest wyvern station.
“Someone is running around
with the power to cause death without Death being the wiser,” Yolanda said flatly. “How could the imbalance not grow larger?”
“Ah.”
She stopped at a clothing store two fronts down from the tavern. We ducked inside and she made a purchase from what looked like an elf. And not a Tolkien-style elf. This looked more like your friendly Christmas elf, minus the pointed teeth. One of these days, I was going to have Yolanda take me on a creature-identifying tour. I didn’t want to accidentally offend someone for misidentifying them. I doubted that all my limbs would remain intact if I didn’t learn quickly.
Yolanda handed me a clean sweater and I pulled off my old shirt. Some of the fabric caught in my wounds and I whimpered. “I have been injured more in the last two days than I have in my entire life,” I complained as I pulled the sweater over my injuries, trying not to start them bleeding again. The Order would just have to deal with it. “I mean, I never even broke a bone before this!”
“You have a broken bone now?” Yolanda asked. She had changed faster than I did. And it was a strange sight indeed to find Yolanda in a dress. Her bulk made the fabric stretch and I finally realised that, troll though Yolanda might be, she was also pure muscle. It was like looking at one of those pictures of female body-builders, except this one was built more like a brick wall and had a whole lot more power. And grey skin with no hair. Anyways. The dress was a medieval gown and kirtle style and Yolanda had a belt around her thick waist. I was surprised to find that it didn’t actually look bad. I shouldn’t be so harsh on my assistant, I supposed.
“No,” I shook my head and tried to figure out where to put my old sweater. Yolanda handed it to the elf-thing, who glared and muttered something unkind under its breath. “I was just saying that as an example.”
“You cannot be killed. I would think a few cuts and bruises would be negligible in comparison,” Yolanda said. We left the shop and headed towards the wyvern station. I grumbled.
“It still hurts,” I said. “Hey, wait a minute, isn’t the wyvern that way? Where are we going?”
“The Order of Silence cannot be reached by wyvern,” Yolanda said. I tried to ignore how happy she sounded about that. She nodded her head towards a large building—though not nearly as large as the tavern—surrounded by well-kempt gardens and a wrought iron fence. I frowned, trying to puzzle out why it looked familiar. I had never seen the building before, but its pointed spires and many stone carvings reminded me of something. When I figured out what it was, I staggered in shock.
“Is that a church?” I asked. Yolanda looked up at the building and back at me.
“Yes. Of course it is,” she said. “What else would it be?”
“They have churches in Elsewhere? I just sort of thought that…I don’t know, the supernatural had no purpose for God. Or gods or whatever. I mean with so much power at their finger tips, why bother worshipping something else?”
“The supernatural, as you say, probably understand more than others the limits of power,” Yolanda scoffed. “Why, then, would they scorn someone who has so much? Not all are religious, true, but humans did not invent religion.”
“You just rarely hear of things like werewolves and dragons in the same breath as, well God or gods,” I said. Yolanda laughed at that and shook her head. We walked up the steps to the church and I looked at the building with wide-eyed curiosity. It looked exactly like a real church—Catholic or Anglican or something straight out of a gothic novel—except the carvings weren’t of people or gargoyles. They were things like faeries and dragons and dwarves. I was about to go into the church when Yolanda caught my arm.
“It is commendable that you are curious, but the Order of the Silence is this way,” she said, pulling me around the side of the edifice. We walked around the massive church and I saw where Yolanda was heading. A graveyard.
“Okay, hold on, I thought that the Order of Silence wasn’t connected with Death. Just that Mercy worked for him on occasion,” I said as we walked amongst the first tombstones. They were haphazardly arrayed, some straight and tall, others leaning with the words nearly faded to time. Even as we walked through the yard, I could feel something prowling around. It set my teeth on edge and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Yolanda stiffened and swallowed.
“They are not connected with Death. Directly. But the Order, ah, likes balance, and order from chaos,” Yolanda said. Her voice was just a little too loud to be talking with me. The presence I sensed got closer. I started looking around as quickly as I could without getting whiplash, hoping that whatever was out there would make itself known. There was nothing quite as scary as something hunting you that you couldn’t see.
“Yolanda,” I said slowly, my voice wavering.
“Be still,” the troll hissed through her teeth. She continued moving forwards, though, not helping at all. I did as I was told and froze. It’s a good thing I did, too, because just as I stopped moving, something jumped through the spot I would have been had I taken another step.
The thing landed in a slide and slammed a slab-like shoulder against one of the tombstones, nearly shattering the stone. It turned and let out a low roar. I stared and tried not to look threatening. The thing was like a tiger and a lion had gotten together and birthed a rhinoceros-sized monster. It was definitely feline, its shoulders rippling with power. Its hindquarters were set on a lower line than its shoulders, like a hyena. The creature’s neck was thick, holding up a head and muzzle that were bigger than most dogs. From its muzzle protruded two long fangs, thicker than two of my fingers. It had a slight stripe pattern to its pelt and no tail to speak of.
“Yolanda…when did sabre tooth cats become not extinct?” I squeaked. Yolanda was nowhere in sight. “Yolanda?”
The giant cat set its slitted eyes on me and let out a low, rumbling growl. It stepped forwards, its claws drawing gouges into the ground. The thing crouched, readying itself to leap at me. “Yolanda!” I said, trying not to edge into a scream.
The giant cat snarled, its fangs gleaming. From somewhere to my left, the troll bellowed, in reply to me or to the cat I wasn’t sure, “We have an appointment!”
Immediately, the cat sat back on its haunches and regarded me in that haughty manner that the domestic versions had mastered. I staggered back and leaned against a tombstone to keep from falling over. I turned and saw Yolanda standing before a monument of some sort. There was a statue of a winged being with feathers sprouting off in different directions. It looked somewhat humanoid, but there was an eagle’s beak and large, predatory eyes. At the base of its feet there was a stone cat, much like the one regarding me with quiet hunger. Only the stone one was much, much smaller.
“What is that?” I pointed at the feline.
“An Ennedi Tiger,” a new voice said. I whipped around and saw a small, ancient man walking towards us. He wore deep green robes and had a staff that he leaned on for support. He had grey, wispy hair that stuck out in two tufts from the top of his head. His eyes were large and round and a deeper amber than Yolanda’s. I don’t know what it was, but there was something about him that made me think it would be really bad to cross him. Maybe it was the dispassionate look that he was giving me. Maybe it was the way the cat started purring. Or maybe it was the knicks and scratches in his staff.
“That’s an Ennedi Tiger?” I asked, taking another look at the being. It regarded me cooly. I shivered. This was one of the things that had killed Magnus. For all I knew, it had been the one that actually killed Life’s warrior. I might not have been able to die, but I doubted that I would enjoy living through having my guts opened up.
“A guardian. The protectors of balance. Much like the Order of Silence,” the man said shuffling forwards. He came right up to me and I was a bit disconcerted to discover that he barely reached my hip. The tiny man appraised me with those enormous eyes and nodded firmly.
“We have an appointment,” Yolanda repeated quieter. “We did not expect you to meet with us, Ancient One.”
I looked at Yolanda in question. She mouthed “follow” to me. I did so, taking maybe one step for every three or four of the man’s. The Ennedi Tiger watched me pass by with little more than quiet interest. I was fairly certain that if the Ancient One spoke, the Ennedi Tiger would happily disembowel me.
“Um, Ancient One,” I said tentatively, “where are we going?”
“To the Order, of course,” the tiny man said, blinking up at me. Then, he stepped through the monument and vanished. I made a sound in my throat and the Ennedi Tiger huffed.
“Seriously?” I demanded. Yolanda stuck out her chin belligerently.
“Follow him,” she said. I shook my head. Being almost killed, injured, flying on a wyvern, meeting vampires, and everything else that had happened was all quite enough for me without requiring that I also walk through walls. Or statues. Whatever.
Yolanda seemed to disagree.
She stuck out one hand and gave me a very thorough shove. I yelped and fell through the statue. The world bent around me, colours becoming sounds and heat warming me from seemingly nowhere. I felt a little like my insides were being microwaved.
Then, I stumbled to my feet in the middle of an enormous stone cavern. There were stalactites falling from the ceiling and slick, dark stone wherever I looked. There were a few small lanterns hung from the walls. They gave off only enough light for you to sort of perceive the world. Details were blurred, shadows danced. And that prickling feeling I had felt in the graveyard? It had multiplied by about a thousand.
The Ancient One leaned on his staff and gave me a wide smile. I saw Mercy standing to one side, her head bowed in some sort of deference or respect, not making me feel any better at all.
“Welcome to the Order of Silence,” the man said. “Would you like a tour?”