by Mike Truk
“Never?” asked the dark elf, raising one brow.
“Well, not since I first met Tamara,” I allowed. “But I swore to Cerys back on the Bonegwayne that I’d not become a monster. Torturing people, using my powers to control them - that’s the kind of stuff I promised not to do.”
Netherys threw up her hands. “Madness. But very well. As you command, oh virtuous leader.”
I looked over at Cerys, trying to gauge her reaction. She simply looked away, a band of muscle appearing and disappearing over the joint of her jaw. Was it too late? Were all such gestures and words futile now?
Damn it.
Using my power was really fucking tempting. But Cerys… it was more than just not wanting to offend her further. She was, I realized, a form of moral compass that I’d lost track of myself. Even though I didn’t quite see it, I had to trust her instincts. Had to, if I wanted to remain Kellik. If I wanted to avoid becoming what Aurora had sworn to destroy.
“Let’s go,” I said. I suddenly couldn’t stand to remain in this tomb a moment longer. I marched forward and entered the portal.
There was a brief moment of disorientation, of piercingly bright light stabbing through my eyelids, and then I stepped out into a perfectly circular room topped by a dome upon whose apex was painted the sun in shimmering platinum gold paint.
It’d been years since I’d last been inside a temple of the White Sun, but there was no mistaking it. The walls were lined with archways that opened to a covered walkway that ran all the way around, and which the priests were meant to follow hundreds of time each day as they contemplated the sun’s perfection and prayed their mantras or whatever it was they did with their spare time.
This one was freshly made, the paint yet glossy and pure, the floor so smooth and clean it looked like a fine sheen of water lay over the white marble.
Ironic, I thought with a sneer as I looked around myself. King trolls and the White Sun both had a thing for white marble.
His holiness was in conversation with three acolytes off to one side, and when he caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye he gaped. An unlikely expression on his brutally hard face, but before he could cry out his objections Pony came in after me, ducking his head to get through the portal, followed by Netherys, hood pulled forward once more, and everyone else.
“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted, striding forth, scattering his acolytes without a second thought. “This is holy ground, you are forbidden from entering the sanctum -” And I saw his words be checked by the realization of where we had to be coming from. “And where is Exemplar Aurora? What are you doing coming from there -”
I just didn’t have the patience any more to put up with this kind of blustering. I drew my blade and leveled it at him, stopping him in his tracks. “We’ve come for the Eye, your holiness. You know exactly of what I speak. Where is it?” And what is it? I wanted to add, but one thing at a time.
“The - how do you know about - this is preposterous!” His shout echoed off the walls. “Markham! Get everyone!” He hunched his shoulders as he assumed a combat stance, his massive, blocky fists glowing with white fire. “We’re about to show these idiots just how big a mistake they’ve made.”
One of the accolytes bolted toward the closest archway, the other two moved to flank his holiness, falling into similar stances.
“I don’t have the time or inclination to fight you,” I said, “but we’ll do whatever it takes to get the Eye. Tell me where it is and you can live.”
His holiness snorted. He didn’t seem intimidated in the least. “You think me an old man you can push around, boy? I’ve been breaking heads since before you were born. My blood burns with the power of the White Sun. You could have brought five war trolls with you, and it still wouldn’t -”
“Enough,” said Tamara, pushing through the ranks to step to the fore and stare his holiness in the eye.
The man’s face went slack. His hands sagged, eyes widened, and for a second time he gaped, blinking and trying to understand what he was seeing before him. “You -?”
“Yes,” said Tamara, voice bleak. “I don’t claim to understand it, but it is so. There’ll be no fighting. We’ll not defile this sanctum with blood. I speak with the authority of the White Sun. Tell me what the Eye is, and where it’s located.”
The sound of running feet grew louder, and then a dozen - no, easily a score of accolytes and priests came flooding in, some still chewing or wiping at their mouths with the hems of their sleeves, to fall in behind his holiness and then - well, stand there and gape as alongside him.
Seeing a brand new exemplar will do that to you, I guess.
The revelator was stunned. “But… how? I met you just last night. You weren’t…”
“I am now.” Authority swelled Tamara’s voice, and I thought I heard something of Aurora’s confidence in her words. The sound gave me a chill. “Answer my questions, please.”
“The… the Eye, yes.” His holiness drew out a white cloth with which he patted at his scalp. “A relic from another era that we recovered from the tomb. It resisted our attempts to destroy it, so we held it there in trust as is our sacred duty, until - well. I don’t know how Master Gremond came to learn of it. But he approached us and made an offer. He would finance the construction of this temple, expand the scope of our authority in Port Lusander, and deliver an annual tribute to help spread the faith across Khansalon if in exchange we allowed him to use the Eye.”
Even I was shocked by this. “You gave Gremond a king troll artifact?”
“We did no such thing!” His indignation bruised the air. “It is on an extended loan, its use overseen by our most powerful priests, and in exchange the entirety of the White Sun prospers! Nautilus prospers, which means more xanthan vine is gathered, which means alchemists and healers across the breadth of Khansalon prosper, and in turn, their patients, those who would die or live crippled lives. This one act is the pebble dropped into the vast ocean that is civilization, and its benefits -”
Tamara cut in, her voice rich with disgust and horror. “You’re allowing him to use a king troll artifact to boost profits?”
The revelator was rapidly exchanging awe for irritation. “I don’t expect you to understand. Aurora didn’t. The money is but a means toward an end. Money is power. And if with that power I can extract hundreds of thousands of gold crowns from these swamps with which to -”
“You,” said Pogo, stepping forward and pointing a shaking finger at the priest. “It’s because of you that my people are enslaved!”
His holiness sneered. “Your kind was already enslaved before this exchange. The Eye simply allows Gremond to be far, far more efficient about it. But beyond that, your kind does not count as a ‘people’, goblin. The White Sun spreads its protective rays over all higher races. Not every svarten or goblin.”
Pogo was fairly shaking with fury. “Actions dictate morality! Character dictates our worth! By that universal measure you are worse than rectal leeches!”
His holiness probably hadn’t been unfavorably compared to those before. At least, not to his face. His expression darkened, but before he could respond Tamara raised her hand and caused it to glow with a pure and wondrous white light.
A sigh escaped dozens of lips as accolytes and priests gazed upon this small miracle with reverance.
“Enough,” said Tamara. “The Eye is with Gremond?”
“Aye,” said his holiness, sounding surly and resentful. “Under careful watch, as I said. A temporary loan for only as long as it suits us.”
“Which,” I said, not bothering to keep the scorn out of my voice, “I’m guessing would be forever. Anyways. What’s the quickest way there?”
“You can go on foot,” said his holiness, lip curling in disdain, “for all I care.”
“Exemplar,” said another priest, an older woman whose white hair was cut close to her angular skull, “his holiness opens a portal to the Nautilus compound when it is time for our priests t
o exchange shifts.”
“Besetha!” The revelator’s reprimand was a sharp bark. “You will speak only -”
“Where?” I asked, trying to capture her eye. “Where does he open the portal?”
The older lady pointed off to one side, and I saw a mosaic of white and gold stones arranged like interwoven rays of the sun on the floor. I strode up, drew my gloom key, and carefully pushed it forward. It met resistance and stopped. I turned it, and the portal sprang into being, the same rushing, blazing oval as the first.
“By Blind Fortuna’s perfectly globular tits I love this thing,” I said, giving its thorny side a very, very careful kiss. I looked over my shoulder at the others. “Shall we?”
“Cease this at once!” His holiness marched forward four steps only to stop when Pony let out a low rumble. “You may not break into the Nautilus compound in such manner! I demand -”
“Enough,” said Besetha, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Your holiness. Enough.”
He whirled upon her, fist raised as if to strike, and then froze when he saw the faces of the other accolytes and priests. There was something flinty in their gaze, something obdurate that stayed his hand.
I didn’t wait. Stowing the key, I drew my blade, and stepped through the portal.
Again that moment of disorientation, and then I emerged into a very different room. Wide and low, the far wall was a series of floor to ceiling diamond-pane windows that looked out over a massive bailey, contained on all sides by a great wooden pallisade whose inside sported a walkway along which Nautilus soldiers patrolled. The bailey was a hive of activity, with barely a square yard visible for all the crates, tents, stirring vats, marching troops of goblins, their human overseers, the dozens of carts, the outbuildings, and more. All of it orderly, all of it efficient, all of it watched by Master Gremond who stood before the windows, hands linked behind his back, gazing out over his compound at the swamps beyond.
To my shock I saw Yashara standing to one side before a huge iron door, unbound, brow lowered as she gazed out over the same view. A couple of Nautilus guards by the door, but otherwise they were alone.
Yashara’s face betrayed immediate shock and then something akin to guilt or chagrin; I didn’t have time to register it exactly because Gremond turned around to stare at me pensively, whatever shock he might have felt masterfully hidden behind his poker face. A large, golden amulet hung around his neck, an abstract design of swirls and blades that might feasibly have been an eye.
The king troll artifact.
Pony, Pogo, Netherys, Tamara, Cerys, and Iris and her family all spread out behind me and before the burning portal.
“Yashara,” I said. “Are you all right?”
“She’s fine,” said Gremond. “And free, as you can see for yourself. I appreciate the enigmatic missive that Elsa delivered for you, but there’s really no need for violence. Yashara is free to go whenever she pleases. Isn’t that right, captain?”
Captain?
Yashara stared at me with a hard, inscrutable gaze. “That’s correct, sir.”
“Captain?” I asked. “Sir? What the fuck is going on here, Yashara?”
“She’s signed on to work with the Nautilus company,” said Gremond, betraying no small measure of satisfaction. “I immediately recognized her worth and made her an offer. We reviewed the particulars, there was some back and forth, and she accepted. She’ll begin working for me tomorrow as soon as she clears things away with you. It was one of her clauses.”
“Yashara?” Pogo’s voice shook. “You can’t be serious? You have taken a contract with them?”
Pain, guilt, and then resolve all flashed across her face. “I’m not working for gold, Pogo. In exchange for my service he’s promised to improve the conditions under which the goblins are working. I didn’t realize how bad it was here until he showed me. How brutally he’s treating them. It’s… it’s worse than anything I could have dreamed. They’re dying, Pogo. Faster than they can raise new children. It’s…” Her face screwed up in horror. “It’s beyond words. But in exchange for my service he’s agreed to improve their conditions. Give the men time with their familes, to lower xantham vine quotas, to discuss their living conditions and see what improvements can be made…”
Her eyes glimmered with tears. “I can’t walk away from what’s happening below. I have to do something. And if working for his security means making a difference in thousands of lives, then I’ll do it.”
Pony rumbled deep in his chest, such a fearsomely intimidating sound that even I felt my gut clench in fear. I’d never seen such anger in the war troll’s normally placid face. He took one step forward, toward Gremond, but then Yashara raised a hand and cried out, “Pony, please - stop!”
“Indeed,” said Gremond, his smug smile never leaving his face. “It’s a mutually beneficial contract. I gain her obvious expertise, while she helps me lengthen the lives of my employees by bettering the quality of their lives. Everybody wins, it seems, except you, Kellik. So sorry.”
I felt my heart swelling with horror and confusion but worst of all a sense that this was beyond me, the powers at play here beyond my ability to reason with, to fight.
“Now, before you start shouting or threatening or whatever it is you think is most appropriate, let me lay out a few facts,” said Gremond, turning around to gaze back out the window, presenting us all contemptously with his back. “The Nautilus company has never been so profitable. This is, obviously, but one branch of its operations, the majority of which are located in Olandipolis, but our compound has in the span of two years become the single greatest contributor to company profits across all of Khansalon. Last year we generated a net profit of over seven hundred thousand crowns. Do you understand what that means? That is higher than what we estimate any single city, even your Port Gloom, Kellik, with its infamous ‘Family’, is capable of extracting from its tax base. And that is net. The head of the company is most pleased. Plans are in motion to buy out the Ram and Griffin companies within the year. To build new compounds deeper within the swamp, expanding into the north east and south. We’ll be laying down the necessary infrastructure early next year, beginning with roads built on beds of crushed coral extracted from the harbor with the help of the lampetramen, and then continue expanding as far as the swamps allow. Our five year plan projects five fully functioning compounds like this one, assuming our buyouts go as planned. Our twenty year plan projects fifteen placed over a range of a thousand six hundred square miles, all of whose proceeds will be funneled through Port Lusander and from there out to the grateful world.”
“I don’t give a damn what you’re projecting,” I began, but he raised a hand impatiently, cutting me off.
“Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say. That you’ll stop me before that can happen, will cut my throat, burn this compound down, and so forth.” He looked over his shoulder at me, eyebrow quirked. “Am I right?”
I could only glower.
“But understand this, Kellik. Even if you kill me and raze this compound to the ground, burn our stockpiles of xantham vine and do whatever else makes you feel better, you won’t have defeated the Nautilus company. It is a vast and powerful entity, an idea, Kellik, whose operation generates tremendous amounts of gold for everyone involved. This compound would simply be rebuilt within months. A new director would be appointed to replace me, new soldiers shipped in, and the goblins put back to work, their families brought back to our camps, and so on. Your violence here will have achieved nothing. You can’t stop my company, Kellik. I doubt you even understand what it really is.”
“I can stop you,” I said, “and my being a simple man would make that really fucking satisfying. I can take the Eye away from you, making it so you can’t operate nearly as effectively as you’ve been doing.”
Gremond looked at my pityingly. “Oh Kellik. You truly are out of your depth. Do you think the Nautilus company would let you walk away from this? Especially if you took the Eye?” And he rea
ched up to caress the amulet.
“It can’t be destroyed,” he continued, “at least, that’s what I’ve been led to understand. I suppose you could toss it into the depths of the ocean, but believe me, we’d find it again. When its use is so profitable, we’d employ whatever magical means necessary to bring it back into our grasp. Whether that meant recovering it from the sea floor to hunting you down and killing you and your friends if you decided to keep it. So no. You can’t keep the Eye out of my company’s hands. You can’t impair our operations here. You can’t do anything to stop the march of progress. You can’t even travel to Olandipolis and destroy the Nautilus company - yes, I can follow the train of your thoughts - because even if you murdered the head director and slaughtered the entire board, they’d still be replaced.”
Frustration was rising within me like a howling storm. My mind was racing. How could I fight him? I was sure I could kill him if I wanted to, take the Eye - and I needed to do that, regardless - but how could I wipe that smirk off his insufferable face?
“Captain Yashara?” Gremond glanced over at her. “You understand everything I’ve said, of course?”
She nodded.
“And you understand how much worse it would go for the swamp goblins if Kellik here is allowed to get away with murder and arson?”
A more grudging nod.
“Then as my newly appointed captain of security, I’d expect you to prevent that from happening. Which means, Kellik,” he said, turning back to me, “that you would have to kill Captain Yashara here so as to get to me.”
I searched her face. “Is he right, Yashara?”
Strong emotion played across her face. Anguish. Fury. But she slowly mastered herself. “I’m sorry, Kellik.” Her voice was raw. “But I warned you on the Bonegwayne that this would happen. I won’t let the goblins continue suffering. If there’s anything I can do to help them, then I’ll do it.”