by Simon Archer
I fluttered back down to the ground. I needed to find the shiny thing. I had forgotten what it was called. It let me see someone who looked like me. I think it was a… mirror? I didn’t know. Words didn’t come to me anymore.
But I found the shiny thing, and I looked at it to see the lady who looks like me. She was very beautiful, but she looked so tired. She had slim features, her skin like honeyed silk. Her eyes were so dark, I felt I could get lost inside them, but the swollen bags under them made her look so sad.
Why were you sad, beautiful lady? What has happened to you?
Wait, that was me! I remembered for the first time in a decacycle. I am the one inside the shiny thing. And it’s a mirror. The deafening silent noise, the itching inside of my head, was finally growing quieter, and I could hear myself think again. What had happened to me?
I looked down at my hand. I was clutching this brand, a platinum rod, only now it was tarnished and rusted. How could that be? It was made of the purest platinum. I was assured when I received it that it would last me to the end of my reign and the reign of a thousand baronesses after me. I was to rule the barony with the Brand of Civilization and watch over my people. Officium’s Brand was my charge. What happened to it?
I remembered… a man. Not a normal one. He was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, but pieces of his skin weren’t covered. Well, if you could call what laid beneath skin. The memory of the withered, dry grey leather that stretched over his skeletal frame sent a chill up my spine. I remembered more that he was dangerous. That I had to stop him from taking my barony.
So I tried to strike him, but he merely caught my Brand in his hand, and a spectral sludge of shadow crawled out from under the bandages. It dripped down to my hand, groping its way up my arm. Before I could pull myself away, before I could let out a terrified scream, I was entombed in it.
Everything after that is fuzzy. Something had happened to me. Something dark. But it was weakening now. Its hold on me was weakening. And I could finally fight back.
“You cannot resist.” a raspy voice dripping with bloodlust lashed out in my mind. “You are too hungry. You are too sleepy. You must claw. Must feed. Fight. You will die if you don’t! Everything will kill you if you don’t kill it first!”
“No!” I grabbed the sides of my head. I felt I could fly away from this voice and took to the air above my grand hall. Higher and higher, I flew towards the glass ceiling.
“You cannot leave!” the voice called again. I recognized it now. It was Officium, but he sounded different from what I remembered. He was sickly and oozed a bestial ferocity in his tone. “You cannot stay! You cannot leave! You cannot stay!”
“Stop it!” I shouted at him, flying ever upward. “Get out of my head!” I flew up to the glass ceiling. “Leave me alone!” I struck the Brand against the glass over and over again, trying desperately to break either it or the roof, whichever came first.
“You dare try to kill me?” Officium roared in my ear. “Then I will kill you instead!” The rod heated up, glowing brighter and brighter as my hand burned in its grasp. Try as I might, I couldn’t compel myself to drop the Brand even now. But the burning continued, forcing a tear from my eye.
In my rage, I dove towards the ground, holding Officium down towards it. I closed my eyes and prepared to kill this cursed rod at any cost. His rasping voice screamed at me, a crude mixture of a battle cry and a terrified howl.
I made a wish in that moment. No matter what happened next, I would do anything to be free of this torment, and I would be eternally grateful to anyone who saved me from it.
“That’ll be quite enough.”
A second voice called out from inside me. Softer, darker, with an even greater malevolence undercutting every word. Without my command, my wings flared, arresting my dead weight fall, then beat harder, levitating me above the ground. My arms and legs no longer listened to me. My grip on Officium still continued without my consent.
I remembered this voice. I remembered the bandaged man. He’s the one that did this to me. A name came to me then: Khem.
“You need not remember anything,” Khem breathed into my ear, “except for this: William Tyler is your enemy. William Tyler wants to kill you. William Tyler is not welcome.”
Like a mantra, those words repeated in my head. William Tyler is my enemy. William Tyler wants to kill me. William Tyler is not welcome. Again, the commands came, but in my own voice. Once again. And again. And again.
“William Tyler is my enemy.” I felt my own mouth sound it out as my throat pushed the air out. “William Tyler wants to kill me. William Tyler is not welcome.” I continued to repeat this over and over again, while it sunk deeper and deeper into me.
Why was I in this shiny room? Where was I? Why was I floating? Why was I holding this stick? I felt so scared and confused and hurt, and I couldn’t remember why. Did William do this to me? Of course, he did. He was my enemy. He was trying to kill me. He wasn’t welcome.
“He will be in the hills of the Marches ahead of your palace in a few hours,” a dark voice called out, though I couldn’t remember who it belonged to. “Send your drones out to kill the common people. They would be his strength against you.”
Yes, that’s a good idea. I’m glad I thought of it. But why would I do that? Didn’t I like the common people? I thought I was supposed to help them.
“Kill them! Now!” The dark voice seared into my mind, and my body began to move on its own.
I floated out to the balcony that overlooked this glittering kingdom of gold, full of round buildings shaped like beehives. The roofs were covered in dents and scratches, and down in the streets, there were trails of matted dirt covering every doorway, every trail, and every little yellow anthophilans that roamed the streets. My head pointed my eyes to look out beyond the wall to the rolling hills the voice talked about. I pointed far out towards them.
“Kill the common people!” I heard myself screech at the top of my lungs, echoing out into the town. “Kill them! Now!”
In a second, the buzzing of a thousand anthophilans rose up from the tattered streets, flying over the wall and heading deep into the hills.
I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to stop William Tyler from trying to kill me. He was my enemy. He was not welcome.
14
“You are a very good kitty. You are a very good kitty. You are a very good kitty.” Reggie repeated his penance over and over as we finally made it out of the tunnels. He didn’t have near enough fingers to count as many as he needed to, and despite his learning and brilliance, he couldn’t keep track of so many repetitions, so I imagined he was just guessing at this point. “You are a very good kitty.”
He sighed a sigh of victory. “I do believe that’s enough.”
“Not by my count.” Amalthea strode along as Petra and Silver rode on her back. Shikun walked beside them as I led from the front, while Reggie found himself in the back yet again.
“Blast it all, I was sure I counted right!” He took back to shuffling through his fingers as he looked up, lost in his cataloging.
“Just say a few more, sir knight,” Shikun encouraged Reggie, looking behind herself. “You’re probably almost there.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to say some extra just in case,” I pointed out.
“That will not do,” Amalthea said adamantly. “I demand an exact count, or I can’t be certain if he’s sincere or if he’s just fulfilling a quota.”
“William told you that you were not to be pulling these shenanigans anymore, Miss Amalthea,” Reggie chastised her. “Such childish behavior is not befitting of a sphinx of your stature.”
“I distinctly remember him saying I was only to stop after you submitted your one hundred and fifty statements,” Amalthea restated. “And I shall not release you a second sooner.”
“William, do you know how many I need?” he asked me.
I was as lost as he was, so I decided to go for the merciful approach. “Three more.”
&nb
sp; Reggie repeated his penance just so. With a pleading stare, he stepped forth to the great sphinx and put on his saddest puppy dog eyes. Amalthea looked upon the pitiful knight who had gone through so much today.
“I release you, Sir Reginald Thorpe.” Amalthea waved her paw regally. “Your apology is accepted.”
Reggie almost collapsed from relief, then picked himself up before he became too soaked from the wetland. He pumped both his arms into the air as he stepped ahead of the group and into the sunlight of the setting suns. We all watched as he screamed at the top of his lungs in triumph.
“How many did he actually get?” Petra whispered into Amalthea’s ear.
“One-hundred-fifty-three,” Amalthea answered.
I swear, my gut almost busted open from laughing so hard.
As I calmed myself down, I looked out past the terraces, far into the distance to see the Solspire, the great palace complex in the center of the Marches. Glimmering in the evening light, its golden walls looked breathtaking from here. A perfect subject for a landscape painting, if I had the talent to try it.
Something was moving by the great palace, though. As I squinted my eyes, it looked more like a couple somethings. Or a hundred. Or a thousand. I immediately jumped onto Amalthea. It didn’t matter what it was. If it was coming from the Solspire, it wasn’t good.
“We have to move. Now! To the Solspire,” I called my circle into action.
Petra raced over to Shikun as she took flight. Amalthea and I ran to pick up Reggie, who was still in awe of the growing swarm above the Solspire. In the blink of an eye, we were in the air and rushing towards the giant swarming army.
Amalthea’s eyes glowed with more Khalati runes, and a giant circle of runes made of white light appeared before us. As the circle pulsed, our speed doubled until we shot forward like a supersonic jet. I looked to the side to see Shikun and Petra, also being led by the same circle of runes. The wind stopped blowing in my hair, and the air pressure against my body died down. From my reckoning, this rune circle was blocking the air resistance against us, allowing us to fly faster than I could have hoped for before.
Before I knew it, we were right where the swarm was. We hung over a small town, and several thousand armored soldiers with insect wings spiraled above it. The people underneath cowered in their homes or struggled to find things to put between them and the menace above. I could feel the familiar tingle of the Khalati Record in my head as I prepared my strategy. Amalthea knew this battle was going to spread us out, just like I did, and we needed to coordinate if we were to win.
“Shikun, Petra,” I commanded in their heads. “You’re on crowd control. Kill as many as you can as fast as you can. Shikun takes the sky, Petra the ground.” I turned my focus down to the sphinx. “You’re on containment. Keep them from flying somewhere other than here. Reg, we’re protecting the people. Not a single drone touches them, got it?”
“Oh, thank heavens.” Reggie sighed with relief. “I appreciate the earthbound duties, William.”
“I’ll try my best.” Shikun dropped Petra off in the center of the town before flying straight into the heart of the assault. Her chest expanded before she breathed out a giant swath of silvery fire, charring several of the drones to ash before disappearing into the swarm in a flash of silver light.
“We have this handled, Shikun. Don’t worry.” Petra dug both her feet into the ground as roots grew from her shins, cementing her in her spot. Her legs cracked and bent as they morphed into a single trunk, and her hands stretched out to the clouds. They grew longer and longer as spiked branches grew from them, and more spiked branches from those. Soon, the sky above her was filled with spiked and barbed branches, like a colossal winter tree, each of the branches moving to skewer any drone that flew too near to them.
“Hopefully, this will help.” Amalthea flew in a circle around the swarm, and a trail of glyph circles followed behind her. The bee-like soldiers that bumped into the glyphs jolted from an electrical discharge before falling down to the ground. Before long, there was a floating dome of glyphs trapping the striped soldiers in a death cage. It was like a big magical bug zapper.
Soon, with Shikun char-roasting the skies and Petra skewering the airspace above the town, the swarm was suffering and, more importantly, bottlenecked.
Reggie and I, we had our own battle after the girls got us to the ground. Several of the soldiers were already there, and a few more made it through the blockade, and all of them were looking for townspeople.
They moved like monkeys, their arms stretched out in front of them, hobbling from one spot to the next. If they weren’t hobbling, they were gliding with their insect wings, trying to get the drop on any living thing that they could find. Their black and yellow-trimmed armor could have been a problem if it weren’t for the rusting and tattered nature of their kit. None of the soldiers had intact armor that covered anything vital.
One had thrown a door open, and as he scanned the inside for any unwary prey, I flipped over his back, using the momentum to throw him over mine in one fell swoop.
As he lay on the ground, I stuck him quickly with the Brand, turning his twitching body into a corpse. Another drone swung wildly at my side with his spear, but since he held it more like a club, I parried it quickly before landing a quick jab to his throat. As the drone stumbled back, another quick thrust of Libritas ended him.
Sensing someone behind me, I swung around and caught another one trying a similar tactic. I could only block the blow because his savage impulses seemed to imbue him with unrestrained strength. Before I could make my next move, a gunshot rang through the air, and the drone fell limp to the ground. I looked over to see Reggie unload another few shots into drones rushing him from his side.
He went to reload his revolver, and a couple of drones tried to take the opportunity to blindside him. I ran over to intercept them. I swung Libritas like it was Babe Ruth, and the impact and follow-through pushed my target into the one next to it. Both went flying off to the side before crashing to the ground in a broken heap.
“Much obliged, good sir,” Reggie thanked me as he snapped the cylinder closed, then fired off a few more rounds. “Though the Webley does good work, I’m starting to miss my poor machete.” Reggie shot the last two, ending another two drone’s lives with shots between the eyes, “but the reload is murder in a swarm like this.”
“We can’t all have magical weapons,” I said as I smashed Libritas into a drone’s jaw. He fell like a ragdoll. “I’d let you borrow the Brand of Freedom, but that seems disrespectful.”
“I wouldn’t want to.” Reggie tried to reload, but a drone closed the distance between them faster than he could put the bullets in. In one motion, the cunning Brit flipped his gun over so he could hold the barrel and struck the bottom of the drone’s jaw with enough force to snap the creature’s neck. “A good whack seems to do the trick just as well as a bullet, either way.”
“Which you don’t have a lot of,” I reminded him. “Hard to conquer a battlefield with superior technology…” I stuck one with my Brand and slammed my elbow into the other as part of the same move. Continuing that momentum, I extended my arm to crack the Brand’s rod against the drone’s neck. “... when a simple supply shortage makes it just a small blunt whacker.”
“I’ve been working on that with wyrm-fire.” Reggie jerked one forward by the neck until it was right in front of another drone charging him with his spear. The drone’s momentum knocked his compatriot’s spear to the floor, giving Reggie the room to let off another round to the other’s neck. “Several problems: One, I don’t know the yield of the stuff yet.” He pulled off three more rounds before having to reload once again. “Especially with the different colors to consider.”
“Have you tried mixing them?” I pinned two drones’ necks against the Brand’s rod. With a quick slam against the side of a house, I broke both of their necks. “Maybe using one like a primer and the other as the payload?”
“Oh, dear God in
heaven.” Reggie looked dumbfounded as he shot a drone to his side without aiming. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Probably a sign of your elderly state of mind.” I playfully jabbed Reggie in the ribs before planting another killing rune into an oncoming drone’s heart. “You can only spend so much time acting like a young buck before your mind starts slipping.”
“Is that so, my boy?!” Reggie was grabbed from behind by a drone but quickly flipped his attacker over his shoulder and fired a round into it before it could hit the ground. “I could still show you a thing or two. Take the piss right out of you, I tell you what!”
I could see Reggie sweating beads by this point, and his movements became more sluggish with fatigue, and I wasn’t getting any faster, either. We talked a good game, but neither of us could last forever against these guys. There were just too many of them, and they didn’t seem to care for their own lives. That made them far more dangerous.
Of all of my least favorite ways to die, “torn apart and eaten by bee men” was near the top of my list, right below “dipped into a vat of acid feet first” and “found in a restaurant bathroom after I tried a six-star dish.” We needed to end this fast, and I thought I had just the way to do it.
“Do you think that will work?” Libritas asked me, reading my thoughts. “It’s very unconventional, to say the least.”
“Unconventional is my forte, Libritas,” I sent back to her. “At any rate, it’ll get at least part of the job done.”
“Anyone left can be dealt with.” Libritas warmed up in my hand in anticipation. I think it had been far too long for her since she was last used so frequently. She seemed to be enjoying herself as I used her power.
“Shikun!” I called out to the dragon-girl through the Record. “Get down here. We’re finishing this now.” I turned to Reggie as we fought side-by-side. “Reggie, how much regular wyrm-fire do you have?”
“Enough for something dramatic, I suppose,” Reggie answered. “Just give me the signal.”