by Mike Truk
“Even if it means fighting me?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t want to. Don’t do it. He’s right. Gremond’s just a man, but what he represents - it’s more on the scale of the Family than anything else we can understand. We can’t fight him. Not without making everything far worse in the long run.”
Again Pony rumbled, but this time there was a panicked sound to it, a sound of desperate unhappiness. And, to my horror but not complete surprise, Pogo slowly walked across the room to stand by Yashara’s side, head hanging low.
“If you believe by doing this we can help my bretheren, then… then I will follow your lead,” he said.
Fuck.
I was losing Yashara. Losing Pogo. Tamara had already told me she was going to peel away after this was done to find a worthier cause, a worthier leader. Cerys? Cerys was brittle glass, just one tap away from shattering. Iris was becoming ever stranger and more alien. For how long would she align herself with my cause? That left only Netherys, whose delight in my struggles stemmed in large part from Mother Magrathaar’s prophecy that I would bring blood and ruin to the cities of Khansalon.
I felt my strength leeching out of me. We were on the verge of fracturing irrevocably. And all the while Gremond watched me, smug and self-assured, hands linked behind his back, one eyebrow raised.
What could I do?
“Kellik,” said Gremond, voice kind, sympathetic. “Yashara has allowed that your true enemy is the Family. I find that admirable. But think on this. The odds of your succeeding against that fearsome organization are already impossibly slender. How much more impossible would they become if you had the full might of the Nautilus company on your heels as well? Can you defeat the Family and the Nautilus company at the same time? Of course not. Use your head. I know you’re upset. I know this is galling. That you loath me, and probably with good cause. But these are the moments that define everything that is to come. Use your wits, boy. This particular toss of the die came up pips. A smart man knows when to walk away from the table and minimize his losses.”
To walk away. To lose Yashara and Pogo. For everything we’d striven to accomplish in Port Lusander to have been for nothing. The loss of the Bonegwayne. To then probably lose Tamara and Cerys. To return to Port Gloom with Netherys and Iris to take on the Family by ourselves, or set out for some other city in the hopes of learning more about the king trolls there.
I stared at the Eye. It gleamed, strange, liquid ripples of light playing over it. There it was, right in front of me. A genuine king troll artifact which had given a normal human like Gremond such power that he’d turned hundreds if not thousands of goblins into the perfect workforce.
Something fierce and bloody minded coalesced within me. A stubborn will to power that brooked no denial. That cared naught for carefully reasoned arguments. If I turned away now I would lose everything that mattered. So why not take what I desired, the consequences be damned?
The Eye was mine. It belonged to me and my kind. And with it, I would change the nature of the world such that nobody would be able to stop me.
“Pony,” I said, voice low and rippling with power. “Neutralize Yashara but don’t hurt her.”
“Fuck,” said Yashara, drawing her scimitar in a smooth gesture.
Pony grunted in the affirmative, and then both of his fists caught fire, blazing up with a white, coruscating light that hid them completely within their center.
Everybody startled, including Pony.
“What the…?” Yashara lowered her blade. “What… how?”
“That’s brilliant,” said Iris from the back of the group, obviously delighted.
“Don’t throw everything away,” said Gremond, still not sounding worried. “Use your head, boy. Last chance.”
Little did he know that I’d already thrown everything away. Had lost everyone. Everything had already grown infinitely harder. But damn it all to the Ashen Garden if I’d walk away. If I’d let impossible odds start stopping me now.
“Give me the Eye,” I said, and poured all my power into those words, filled them with every aching imperative that my heritage bestowed upon me.
The Eye glimmered, and Gremond’s smile turned apologetic. “I think not.”
That checked me. How…? The Eye. It had to be insulating him against my powers.
“Then I guess we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way,” I said.
“As I said.” Gremond took hold of the Eye, lifting it from his chest. “I think not. Nobody move. Everyone stay where you are and take no aggressive actions whatsoever.”
And his words flowed out over the room like searing fire, sinking into me and wrapping coils of flame around my thoughts, binding them in place.
I heard Pony grunt, and out of the corner of my eye saw him tremble as he sought to take a step forward - and failed.
Cerys had an arrow nocked to her gloom bow, the fletching drawn back to her cheek - but through her arm shook, she didn’t loose.
Nobody moved.
Gremond’s smile was that of a very, very satisfied cat that’s managed to corner the market on cream. “There. Now you understand the depths of your folly. Don’t fear. I’m not a violent man. I won’t slit your throats one by one as you stand there. Instead, I believe I’ll have my captain disarm you all and take you into custody. Yashara? Arrest these fools. We’ll have them bound and delivered to the magistrate for prosecution as is the law of the land.”
Yashara stood frozen, lip writhing back from her teeth, knuckles whitening around the hilt of her scimitar as she wrestled either with the Eye or her own desires.
“Yashara?” Gremond’s voice became a fraction more impatient. “Think on the endless number of swamp goblins who will suffer if you disobey. This is but one man. They are an entire race. Which is of more import in the grand scheme of things?”
Tears brimmed and then flowed down Yashara’s cheeks. She drew herself upright and gave a slow, painful nod. “You’re right,” she said, voice cracking with a surfeit of emotion.
“You’re free to move,” snapped Gremond. “Summon the guards, and take these idiots into custody. Now.”
Yashara lowered her gaze, her shoulders hitching, and then she slowly shook her head. “I can’t,” she grated, her words little more than a rasp. “I thought I could - but…”
“I am disappointed,” said Gremond, voice tight, words clipped. “Alas. It will go -”
With a cry Yashara exploded toward him, scimitar whipping up and around.
“Stop!” shouted Gremond, clasping the Eye, and Yashara staggered and froze, her blade but a foot from his neck. He drew back, panting with fear, and then sneered at her. “Idiot! For this I’ll have you taken down and put to work with the goblins. Branded and collared and broken. Beast. How dare you, you foul beast!” And he struck her across the cheek.
Fury nearly choked me. My whole body was shaking.
“But first… I think I’ll enjoy you.” He reached back out and touched her cheek where he’d just struck her, then traced the line of her jaw. “You’re impressive, I’ll give you that. Yes. And I’ll command you to enjoy it. Until I tire of you, and then when I’ll send you out to gather xantham vine with a command that you do it willingly, joyfully, knowing that it is the best thing your kind can do for civilized society -”
I focused on the chains that bound my thoughts. They were so familiar. Their power was the same as that which I summoned when I gave my own commands.
King troll power.
My power.
And like that, I saw how they were part of me, not distinct at all. That awarness made all the difference. Like realizing that a prison door was closed but not locked. I slipped their bonds, absorbed their energy into my own soul, and was free.
“Guards,” Gremond was saying to the men by the door, “summon a full squad to handle this situation. I’ll command these idiots to their cells, but I want -”
I took a step forward.
Gremond froze, eyes n
arrowing. He clasped the Eye. “Stop moving, Kellik.”
I took another step, a cruel, wicked smile crossing my face.
“Kellik. I command you with the power of the Eye. Stop moving.”
Each time I felt him lash me with the overwhelming might of the artifact, but each time I absorbed its power into myself.
“You don’t know everything,” I said, voice low. “You think you do. You think you understand how the world works. That your company owns it. Masters it. That everyone dances to your tune.”
“Guards!’ Gremond’s voice rose to a shriek. “Stop him! Stop him now!”
The pound of footsteps. I turned at the last moment and looked both men in the eye as they came at me. “Stop.”
My word was a lash, simmering with power, and they froze in their tracks, blades still raised.
I turned back to Gremond.
He was staring at me, eyes nearly bugging out, mouth working but unable to speak.
“But this is an ancient world,” I said, walking slowly toward him once more. “And it holds many secrets, harbors many terrors. Powers beyond your comprehension, Gremond. Forces that once made the world dance to their tune. Powers that didn’t just wield artifacts like the Eye. Powers that created them.”
He backed up against the window. “Very well. You can have the Eye, of course, and you and your friends are free to leave. I misjudged you, and badly, I’ll own to that, but there’s no need to compound that mistake. And gold. I’ll give you - how much would be appropriate? Ten thousand crowns. Yours. Now. Just - just leave.”
I stepped up to him, raised the tip of my blade, and pressed it to his chest. “It’s too late, Gremond. You’ve aroused my ire. Your existence offends me. What you represent. What you do. What your company does. All of it.”
He sneered at me, head pressed back against the glass. “Well that is your fucking problem, Kellik, because the Nautilus company won’t stop, it’ll never stop, and we’ll find you and -”
I slid the tip of my blade into his chest, pushing it through muscle and between ribs and into his heart.
He jerked, blood rushed up to spatter over his lips, and his eyes went wide as he clenched my blade, cutting his fingers on its edge.
“No,” he whispered, voice wet and clotted. “Not like this. I -”
I shoved the blade all the way home, rammed it through him as hard as I could, then drew it back, blood fountaining from the wound.
For a moment Gremond stood there, blood running down his chin, blood soaking his suit, and then I tore the Eye from around his neck and kicked him in the chest with everything I had to send him crashing through the window, out into the air, to fall in a hail of scintillating shards into the yard below.
All activity stopped. Hundreds looked up at me, tools or whips in hand. Swamp goblins, guards, tradesmen, drovers, those who were stirring the huge vats, an entire industry, the visible manifestation of Nautilus’ power.
Nobody behind me moved. Everyone remained frozen.
I stood there, panting, staring out over the compound at the swamps beyond. Gremond was dead, but I knew I’d lost. Lost Cerys, who’d just watched me use my power to slay a man. Lost Yashara and Pogo, who I knew would make the swamp goblin’s plight their own. Lost Tamara, who’d never follow me now. I could practically feel the attention of Nautilus - the invisible, theoretical idea of the company - swirling and gathering around me, focusing its vast, Khansalon-wide attention on my being. Knew that I’d called down upon myself a vengeance that would never end, would never cease, for as long as Nautilus believed it could make a profit from these swamps.
I stared down at the swamp goblins. Caked in mud, their bodies bowed down by exhaustion and despair, looking up at me not with hope or excitement but dull resignation. Knowing that no matter who died or what changed up in this office, in the long run their fates remained the same.
I clenched my fist about the Eye.
Bowed my head.
The sheer scale of the injustice that stretched out across these swamps beggared the mind. The endless cruelty of it. And for what? For gold.
My thoughts swirled. Chaotic, frenetic, my hopes and dreams and the love I felt for my friends and partners a maelstrom that was flying apart, torn asunder by the cruel realities of the world.
I’d won this small encounter.
But I’d lost in every way that counted.
I squeezed my eyes shut, grief and rage and frustration rising within me. What use the Eye, what use my own power, if I couldn’t imprint my will upon the world? Change it for better? Destroy ideas like Nautilus, uproot corruption like the Family?
There had to be a way. A way to change all of this. To wrest victory from such abject defeat.
Shouts were rising from the yard now, confusion and alarm. Nautilus operatives running toward offices, calling guards.
Awakening to the threat that I posed. Stirring the first of its infinite resources to oppose me.
No.
I pulled the Eye about my neck, intent on using its power to quell the men who were rushing to the office, but then -
It was like being driven under by a tidal wave, my mind, my consciousness tumbled and submerged in a great roar of power.
The Eye opened itself to me, and I saw, at long last, why it was so named.
My consciousness expanded, and every person around me and in the yard below registered as a small flame, a slender light, a matrix of energy so complex and wondrous that to contemplate any one for too long was to grow bewitched by its patterns.
Hundreds spread out across the yard, visible in my mind’s eye even through walls, running down hallways, gathering in knots. Humans and goblins, a few orcs, the vast population of the Nautilus compound.
All of them suddenly subject to my will.
This was how Gremond had changed the fortunes of his company. Had brought the goblins in line. Had forced them into willing slavery.
But he had been but a mortal man.
In my veins ran the blood of the kyeengtruhls themselves.
I inhaled deeply and forced my awareness out, past the walls, over the swamp.
More flames spring into being. Work crews. The goblin settlement into which families had been relocated. Soldier barracks. Warehouses.
Farther.
The neighboring compound, perhaps half a mile away.
I felt feverish, sweat prickling my brow.
Farther.
Out over the swamps themselves. The faint tapestery of life, the life forms too simple to really register, but here and there groups of goblins at work.
Such power. Such mastery. With this I could wreak havoc in Port Gloom. With this I could set myself up as its master. Order everyone to do as I desired. To lead lives of order and justice, to root out all corruption. I could reshape the city to my will, and bring about a new age, a new era of prosperity. Port Gloom would rise from the ashes of its current morbidity, and with me as its ruler, I would find my father, crush him, and then -
I staggered, pressed my hand to my temple. And then what?
I turned. Surveyed my friends. Yashara, watching me wide eyed. Tamara, her irises buring platinum gold. Iris and Netherys, both equal parts fascination and delight.
Cerys.
Her gaze was like a dash of cold water upon my face. What did she see? Could she glimpse my thoughts? Of course not, that was nonsense, but the pain in their depths, the horror - her words came back to me: What does it mean for me to still care for you after your revelation? That… that I can still have feelings for a monster? Doesn’t that make me a monster, too?
And I understood. It wasn’t horror for me, but rather horror for herself. What she saw herself becoming by my side. The fate that she had accepted when she killed Aurora. The fate to which I would now bind her with the power of the Eye.
Reeling, I turned back to the window. To the compound, the swamp. I could fix this. I could order her to not be afraid. I could command Tamara - well, no, she’d be resistant to my
commands, but I could reason with her, tell her I needed her, and then bring Iris to heel, order her to create for me an army -
I saw again Cerys gaze, her anguish, and recoiled.
No. What was I thinking?
And a single, slender ray of reason slipped into the chaos of my thoughts. A desperate, final way to make everything right. To avoid the yawning abyss of power and temptation that the Eye was opening for me.
And before I could second guess myself, before I could reason my way out, I took it.
With brutal power I thrust my thoughts out over the compound, past the walls, and out over the swamps. Gathered each and every goblin mind into the palm of my hand, and then reached for more. Searched for miles in every direction, finding the work teams, the solitary scouts, the harvesting crews, each and every one, till my mind shook, thousands gathered within its control, a roaring filling my very being, the fabric of my soul tearing asunder, the Eye itself shaking in my palm, burning my flesh -
- and I sent out one overwhelming message, one terrible command, a single and solitary order: search out the xantham vines, and where you find them, destroy them utterly.
My hold on them released. My strength poured out of me and I fell to the ground. Cries and shouts came from my friends as they regained their autonomy. I lay there, and felt the power of the Eye recede and then disappear.
Used up.
The artifact broken in some irrevocable way.
My awareness of the land, the minds, those thousands of flames went with it, and when Yashara knelt by my side, the others rushing up to gather around me, all I could do was laugh weakly.
“Kellik?” Yashara cradled my head on her thigh. “What is it? What happened? Why are you laughing?”
I closed my eyes. I was so exhausted. “The Nautilus company,” I said.
“What of it?” Tamara’s voice, stark with concern.
“I… I found a way.” With great effort I opened my eyes and smiled up at them. “Despite everything Gremond said. I found a way to destroy it. ”
Chapter 19
“What are you talking about?” asked Tamara as Yashara helped me sit up.