“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
Looking up at the massive sixty-foot gates, I felt a surprising urge to be honest. “Someone told me the King Below was coming back. That a Fourth Great Shadow War was going to come and I needed to join the fight to save the world. That if I didn’t participate, there would be a hundred years of darkness.”
Mikael snorted. “Fine, you’re a wonderful liar. What do you want to do once you join?”
I looked down at my right hand and gave it a squeeze. “I want to build things.”
“Too bad you’re only good at destroying.”
“What?”
I turned to Mikael then and saw his face dripping blood from the hole in his throat, his eyes glazed over as in death. He was like he’d been when I’d found him on a nameless, unimportant battlefield during the Fourth Great Shadow War, stabbed by a Fomor during a battle of no particular import, having been distracted at a crucial time by a friend’s death.
Above our heads, Twilight’s End transformed into a refurbished palace as a vast decadent city of brothels, gambling dens, and bars was built at the floor. The city of Twilight’s Rest was the reward for the Shadowguard winning the Fourth War and the defeat of the King Below. Its members were drawn not from criminals and disgraced knights seeking redemption, but the nobility’s extra children now.
Around us the Ashlands changed as vast, mystical towers designed to suck the toxic magic from the ground were being erected, canals dug from the oceans hundreds of leagues away, and topsoil transported from far beyond—all to make the Ashlands bloom. It was said eighty thousand of the empress’s enemies had already died in the process. Such was the King Above’s vision of the future.
I awoke with the feeling of sunlight against my face, coming through the window of the captain’s chambers. The Ghostly Runner was an expensive ship for a smuggling vessel, equipped with many luxuries absent for the common criminal. Trade was the life blood of the Iron Order and those willing to bring valuables to the North were well compensated. Perhaps too well compensated, though there was little that could be done about that.
I took deep breath and looked to the naked form of Regina at my side, thinking about what Mikael would have thought about my marriage to a woman in whom the blood of his people flowed. He probably would have laughed at me. My opinion of elves had improved markedly over the past few centuries, perhaps realizing humans had no leg to stand on when condemning another species for callousness.
They never had.
Awakening in the present, I slid out of bed. I lifted my muscular frame and took a moment to look in a nearby dressing mirror. Dressing the old-fashioned way, brushing my teeth, and using the privy, I tried to pretend I was alive, but there was no point in that. I didn’t need sleep, food, water, or rest. I was a creature of magic now, god or not, and just impersonating a human being. The real Jacob Riverson had died centuries ago and was remembered as a very different person than he was. He also would have been horrified by the person he’d become.
So why wasn’t I?
Walking out in the plain black attire I’d been wearing before, I decided to get some fresh sea air in order to clear my head. Opening the door and locking it behind me to preserve Regina’s privacy, I saw the figure of Captain Vass with his arms crossed beside the door. He was well over six feet tall, skin the color of a shining bronze, white haired with a body so well formed it might have been two men merged together. The captain enjoyed his adornments with several gold necklaces around his neck, many rings on each finger, and a tattoo of two naked mermaids entwined in a sensual embrace.
Aside from his lewd body art, Captain Vass’s chest was clean-shaven with only an ill-fitting black vest over it. Like all Fir Bolg men, he had no hair on his body and a pair of great antlers extending from the side of his head. He was wearing a pair of loose white linen pants with a pair of rune-covered hand-axes too large for most men and a pair of lightning pistols. Each would have cost more than a war horse in the Imperial capital and he’d gone to the ridiculous length of having all four gilded.
“The Gods Between bless you,” Captain Vass said, speaking with a thick South Island accent. “Assuming that’s not going to cause you to burst into flames, Black Sun.”
“It will take more than the concerns of dead gods to worry me, pirate,” I said, smirking. The Fir Bolg worshiped gods long gone, slain by the Lawgiver and Trickster. On some level, I admired their devotion while on others, I just found it silly.
“Smuggler, not pirate. I trade the goods they steal, not take them myself.”
“Ah. Of course, how silly of me.”
“Not that I haven’t engaged in some banditry every now and then.”
I rolled my eyes. “How long until we reach Kerifas? It was a ten-day journey across the sea in my era.”
“We move a bit faster in my time,” Captain Vass said, gesturing the horizon. One of his crew, a tiny boggan woman with braids who looked almost comical next to Captain Vass, handed him a spyglass, which he handed to me.
Walking to the edge of the ship, past a seasick Ketra vomiting over the side, I lifted the spyglass and looked to the horizon. What greeted me was the sight of six massive stone statues rising from the waters, each two hundred feet tall and made in the shape of female messengers with blindfolds over their eyes. The statues were contorting in pain and linked together with gigantic chains running through manacles around their wrists.
The Guardians of Kerifas were golems created by the Terralan Dominion, forged from mountains and enchanted to serve as protectors of the city during times of crisis. Each noon, they let out a terrifying, mournful song of despair that was meant to break the wills of the slaves that were trained and bred in the city. The Terralan were long gone, but the guardians remained.
The city was visible beyond, no longer a place where nothing but human misery was trafficked, filled with over half a million souls and endless trade from all corners of the Southern Kingdoms. The bay around the guardians was full of hundreds of vessels ranging from G’Tay junks to Imperial Man-o-War and new machines that looked like they were somehow made of floating iron. The air above the sky had hippogriffs, dragons doing their daily exercise, and other signs of a modernized city.
But I noticed something odd about the formation of the city’s defenses. The dragon roosts were at strategic locations for deployment inside the city walls and all the iron ships had their immense cannons aimed at the interior. A dozen garrisons were visible but, again, far within the walls instead of alongside them.
It was a city the empire was ready to slaughter at a moment’s notice.
Not defend.
“Welcome,” Captain Vass said, slapping me on the shoulder with an immense hand, “to Kerifas, City of the Damned.”
Chapter Sixteen
“City of the Damned, huh? Cheerful name,” I said, staring out into the harbor beyond. We were only a few minutes away from arriving in Kerifas.
“What did they call it in your era?” Captain Vass asked, taking position beside me and crossing his arms.
“The City of Traitors,” I said, frowning. “The city opened up its gates for the King Below at the start of the Fourth War. When we retook it during the final days, everyone wanted to raze it to the ground and put the populace to the sword.”
In the end, they’d been enslaved. It had been an unfair decision, even then, because the populace had no choice in surrendering. It was either surrender, flight, or death. Kerifas was a natural landing point for the King Below during his invasions and was one of the most vulnerable points in the North.
“Let us hope they are equally treasonous today as they are in your time,” Captain Vass said. “Otherwise, it will be very difficult to take the city.”
I frowned. “You seem remarkably untroubled about allying yourself with my cause.”
“You mean my decision to work for the Ultimate Evil?” Vass said, the corners of his mouth widening into a smile.
“Yes.”
/> Captain Vass snorted. “The Fir Bolg were once the rulers of this continent and over the past twenty ages, have lost every one of our homelands. We live now at the sufferance of kings and queens not our own. We are blamed for disease, lice, poverty, and other misfortunes. The stupid amongst us fight with groups like the Free Army or the Golden Arrow. They kill the innocent and claim this will somehow lead to us becoming a great nation again. The smarter amongst us sacrifice their pride and dignity so we can co-exist as something akin to equals with the lowliest of men. They believe, someday, we will achieve a better life that way. I think differently. Neither side will amount to much.”
“So you fight with me in hopes of a better life for your race?”
Captain Vass’s smile turned sour. “No, Black Sun, I think you will kill many humans and elves. You will drench the lands in blood and grind the Anessian Empire into dust. I also think you will make me a rich man doing so. That, for me, is enough.”
Lovely. “I suppose I asked.”
“The man who thinks too much on his actions invites only sorrow. We are all pawns of our emotions and past. Live in the moment, enjoying what pleasures life offers, and you will not die with regrets.”
“I’m dead, Vass.”
“A dead man who regularly fucks two goddesses and rules a kingdom the size of a continent.” Vass leered.
“Captain…”
“Is it true the silver-haired one picks out concubines for you to share from every race? I have had dryad women before and Bachaun but never both—”
Clenching my fists, my voice took on a dangerous tone. “Leave.”
“As you wish, Black Sun. As you wish.” Captain Vass spread out his arms as if to indicate he was joking then turned around and walked away.
That was when I heard Ketra vomit again. It was an impressive amount of noise for a woman her size.
Looking over my shoulder, I asked, “Forgive me for asking, but how is it a woman who rides dragonback is seasick?”
Ketra pulled out a wineskin and rinsed her mouth out before spitting over the side. “I’m not seasick, I’m poisoned. Those damned stag heads gave me bad food.”
I crossed my arms. “I can’t imagine why if you use such loving terminology.”
Ketra shot me a glare. “I’m a friend to the Fir Bolg. I believe all races should be equal, titles should be abolished, and wealth as well as land evenly distributed amongst the people.”
“Speaking as a peasant, I’ve never found my kind has wanted equality. We’ve just wanted to be rich and powerful ourselves.”
Ketra closed her eyes and scrunched her brow as if trying to push away a headache then turned around. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Ser Jacob?”
“I don’t know you, Lady Ketra—”
“Just Ketra.”
“I don’t know, Just Ketra. You’re Regina’s cousin and ward-sister, so that naturally inclines me to like you. However, you have brought a large amount of complications into my life and I don’t know if you realize the full consequences of your actions.”
“I have seen and dealt death up close, Ser Jacob. Many nobles and their servants have died by my hands.”
I grimaced. “Which doesn’t increase my trust.”
“The Army of Free Peasants—”
I cut her off, curious about this organization she kept mentioning. “May I ask what that is and how it came to exist?”
“Oh.” Ketra blinked, surprised by my interest. “Well, after Gewain and I escaped from the Massacre of Whitehall, we were impoverished and desperate.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know anyone in Whitehall,” Ketra said, her eyes narrowing. “Your condolences are well meaning but empty.”
I nodded.
Ketra continued. “Gewain has always had a gift for oratory, though, and his writing is better still. His…uhm, companion, Rose, and he were very close and the bard suggested a war of words might be better.”
“Rose is his lover?”
“You’ll meet him,” Ketra said, looking uncomfortable. “He is working on securing the Jarl and Earl’s alliance for us in Kerifas. But yes, he is like Serah is to Regina in that way.”
I raised an eyebrow. People in the future were peculiar about sex in ways I did not understand. “Go on.”
“My brother wrote a book describing the atrocity. The Massacre of Whitehall was florid and despicably poetic for such a heinous act, but it made our homeland’s destruction a rallying cry. He went from village to village, raising troopers, working with nobles, and attempting to persuade them to undermine the empress whenever possible. He had to make many promises, some of which were contradictory, but started spreading the movement. We even allied with the Golden Arrow. The Golden Arrow are—”
“I know who they are. You have made a poor choice of allies.”
“The Golden Arrow fight for the freedom of the Fir Bolg.”
“Tell that to the thousands of their kind whom they have murdered.”
The Golden Arrow was an extremist religious sect born in Fireforge. After my death, Jassamine and then-Emperor Eric the Great had launched a war upon the Fir Bolg’s homeland. The pair had conquered the kingdoms there, forced the populace to convert to the Path, and divided the Fir Bolg across the Southern Kingdoms to make sure they never recovered their previous strength. The Golden Arrow sought to retake their race’s homeland, which they argued was best accomplished through the indiscriminate killing of humans. However justified their greviances were, it was hard to sympathize with them. They were child-killers and thieves.
“They’ve been good friends to us,” Ketra said. “Kana, our contact, was there when no one else in the empire lifted a finger to help us.”
“If so, it’s only because they wanted something.”
“Forgive me, but you’re styling yourself after the God of Evil and everything Regina tells me says you’re grossly misunderstood.”
I paused. She had a point. “Please go on.”
“We’ve had a lot of small victories since then but nothing that has amounted to anything. We need to—as much as I hate it—ally with the local nobility who oppose the empire. The ones who want to force them out of their territory and restore their privileges. If we can gather an alliance of all those who hate the empire together, we can defeat them and make a more equal society.”
“Your solution to creating a more equal society is to ally with the traditionalists who hate the empress’s reforms and religious zealots?”
“Gewain can make it work,” Ketra said, looking up. “He’s like Regina. He makes people believe.”
I nodded. “If he’s like her then I believe you. How much of your rhetoric do you believe?” It was hard to wrap my head around a woman of the Imperial royal lineage having embraced such radical views.
“All of it. I saw what unrestricted power and authority could do to my homeland. I want to make the world a better place.”
I’d seen several peasant revolts and they tended to get out of control quickly. Many times, the rationing and taxes during the war had forced the commons to seek justice with torch and pitchfork. They massacred any nobles they could lay their hands on, good or bad, and they ended up with the rebels slaughtered to the man along with all their loved ones.
Always.
They would not care if Ketra was on their side, had spilled blood with them, or was a friend. In the end, they would see her as one of her class by birth and if she lasted past that somehow then it was only to see the doom of her dreams. The world was built on a pyramid of oppression, lies, and brutality. It was not ready for equality and its people did not want it. Only a bigger slice of bread and someone to blame for their troubles.
“I was a reformer once, too,” I said, thinking back to my time with Jassamine. “How to do that is the question and the cost is often far—”
“Whatever arguments you are about to give me, I suspect I’ve already heard and with far greater eloquence.”
I sig
hed, knowing further discussion was fruitless. “Very well.”
Ketra looked up. “Tell me, do you really not think the empress and her cronies need to be stopped?”
I looked up to the seagulls flying around the mast. “I merely wish to share a piece of advice.”
“Which is?”
“My uncle fought against the Fire Kings with the Fir Bolg rebellion. He overthrew them and instituted an assembly supported by the local chiefs. He was made a great hero in the name of freedom, justice, and honor. Fifty years later, the Fire Lands were destroyed and all the Fir Bolg clans were scattered and their civilization ruined. The very empire that had supported the Fire Kings’ overthrow annihilated the Assembly.”
“And your point?”
“Don’t lose sight of the fact your enemies are people too or you may become what you fight.”
Ketra looked unconcerned. She plopped herself ontop of a trio of barrels latched to the deck. “Is that what keeps you up at night? That you might end up becoming the villain rather than the hero?”
I glared at her. “I did become the villain.”
Ketra bit her lip before giving me an appraising look. “I can see why Regina loves you.”
“Sometimes I find that hard to believe.”
“She feels the same.”
I looked down at her. “Oh?”
“Regina has always struggled hard with being loved. Her upbringing in the Northern Wasteland with the Shadowguard was hard, and I think worse things happened there than just the death of her parents. She struggles to do good and help others as well as live up to her family legacy but I don’t think she’s ever felt worthy of it. That is why she wants revenge, I think. It keeps her from having to think too hard on it. Also, if she overthrows tyrants, then maybe she’ll be worthy of being loved.”
That was a remarkably similar feeling to how I felt. “I think you underestimate her.”
“All I know is that in the past two days, the only thing she’s said about you and Serah is how much she loves you both as well as how lucky she is to have found you. She often questioned why either of you would care for her. Yet, all I’m seeing is someone willing to go to war for people who he doesn’t really believe in the future of. All because of my sister asking you to do so.”
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