by John Mangold
“Why Thayne, just tell me that. Why?”
Torrez was not even certain himself what he expected as a response. The whole situation was far too surreal to fully grasp. Even now, a part of his mind still desperately clung to the possibility that this was all a dream, a nightmare that he would awaken from to find Shelia still alive. However, if this nightmare proved real, he wanted to know at least this much before the blast of a rifle ended everything.
“You always did think you were smarter than me, didn’t you, Torrez? Even when we were kids, you never missed a chance to rub your little Bocor tricks in my face. Well, who’s smarter now? With all your chud-head powers, you never even saw me coming!”
“What are you talking about? I showed you what I could every chance I got! I tried to tutor you-”
“You showed me chud! You let me learn the rudimentary hand tricks while you kept the real magic to yourself! You just wagered that I was too simple to know the difference, me being a mere grifter at the Coliseums. You didn’t think I was worthy of the good stuff, did you?
“But I was keeping you in the dark the whole time, playing your little game, letting you think I was the stupid one. You see, that dear master of yours, Voltulo, had a dirty little habit. It seems he wasn’t as clairvoyant as the Royals wanted him to be, so he decided to augment his abilities with a few regular doses of Methartisane.”
Methartisane, Torrez knew that drug well, along with the effects. A combination of two relatively harmless elements, one a standard wax used to seal private documents, the other a sour-tasting liquor which had never gained favor in the pubs. Under the right pressure and temperature, the two reacted to create a drug, which, amongst other things, drastically increased an Auspex’s clairvoyant skills.
However, there was a terrible price for this mystical boost. In addition to being highly addictive, Methartisane had the side effect of making the partaking Auspex highly susceptible to suggestion. As a result, the substance had been declared illegal almost as soon as it was discovered. Only the most ruthless black marketers would agree to sell the concoction, its recipe becoming a dark secret. As the implications of this revelation sunk in, a look of surprise must have been evident on Torrez’s face, for Thayne smiled broadly at his reaction.
“That’s right, you know all about that drug, don’t you? Voltulo forbade its use by his Neophytes. Well, it seems our shared master never practiced what he preached, which was all the better for me. It took some time, but I managed to track down the alchemist manufacturing Voltulo’s supply, then replaced him as the favored source.
“After that, I was able to sow little seeds in his mind, seeds which sprouted vines of doubt about his apt pupil, Torrez. With each exaggeration and lie, I managed to convince the old fool that I was his true friend, while you were a devious traitor plotting to overthrow him. Wonderful stuff that Methartisane. For all his augmented clairvoyance, he never saw what was coming and, more importantly, neither did you. You have no idea how hard it was to keep from laughing when you came to me to get you out of Santilis!”
“You chudmonkey, you engineered all of this! You destroyed our lives!”
“No, Torrez, I just pulled the trigger. You killed her. If only she hadn’t been so good with that blasted Wheeled Fiddle, Maluem would have been taken, and she would still be alive. For chud’s sake, Torrez, of all the masters you could pledge yourself to, you had to pick that Bocor skrite? The one with a bounty on her head that could pay off all my debts combined!
“Never mind, I really don’t care how you found her. It all worked out fine for me in the end, didn’t it? Like a ferd-headed dog, you brought that Bocor straight to me. You wouldn’t believe the look on the Royals’ faces when I told them I could deliver her right into their hands. Come to think of it, I doubt you would believe what they are going to pay me for my services! When this is all over, I’ll be one of the richest men you will ever see. Of course, that is not saying much, considering I will also be one of the last persons you will ever see!”
“So, what are you waiting for? You have the finger on the trigger Thayne. Why not end this now?”
“Oh, I would love to do that for you, Torrez, a favor from one old friend to another. Unfortunately, the Royals want you too. Apparently, they don’t think Maluem will give them what they want without a bit of leverage. I suppose they feel torturing you for some time will provide the grease to get her mind’s gears moving. I would have refused, but the bonus they offered was just too much to pass up.”
As Thayne mentioned this, Torrez noticed that he was wearing Maluem’s staff case across his back. It dawned on him that she had dropped the case when she had drawn her own staff out. The snake must have grabbed it in all of the confusion.
“So, you are saying they want the secret to Maluem’s power?”
“I suppose. It is always so hard to tell what those sick chuds are after. I just know what the Royals are planning to pay me when I get there. Now, if you would let go of my arm-”
“Fine, but it is all a waste of time,” Torrez replied, releasing Thayne so quickly that the man stumbled back, attempting to regain his balance while keeping his weapon leveled. “Maluem will never talk, no matter how they torture her. I, on the other hand, know exactly why they wanted Maluem. I know where the real prize is hidden. What if I could improve your bargaining posture a bit?”
“Why would you be so eager to do that?” Thayne replied, eyeing Torrez as though he were a rabid dog.
“Maluem was the one who led us here in the first place. If we never met her, we would never have come back here, and Shelia would still be alive. Maluem will get everything she has coming. All I ask as payment is the chance to give Shelia a proper burial and a swift death for me. I never could abide torture Thayne, you know that.”
Thayne eyed Torrez for what seemed like hours. From the expression on his face, Torrez began to suspect Thayne did not believe a single word he had said. However, as the rifle’s barrel lowered, Torrez realized that Thayne had more faith in his old friend’s gullibility than his guile.
“Very well, you tell me what the source of that woman’s power is, and I will do what I can.”
“You promise?”
“Just spill it, Torrez. You don’t have much choice, do you?”
“I see your point. Very well, Thayne, the answer to what they want to know is strapped across your back. That staff is the very heart of Maluem’s quest.”
“Torrez, you have got to be kidding me!” Thayne replied, raising the barrel back up to aim at Torrez’s head. “You always were a terrible liar. I tell you what, I will grant one of your requests, for old time’s sake. Goodbye, old chud.”
“Do what you will, Thayne,” Torrez said in a rush. “My death won’t change the truth. My runes showed me that staff on your back is the root of Maluem’s power, and my Runes never lie.”
Once again, the barrel lowered. Thayne kept his eyes still locked on Torrez as he pulled the satchel from his back, carefully glancing into the tube while keeping Torrez well covered. As he took in what lay inside, Torrez could sense the gears whirling inside the grifter’s head.
“These old bones hold the key to her power, huh? So, what if I were to claim this thing as my own? Her mystical energy would be mine, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess you could try. I mean, if the Royals lay claim to that staff, I doubt they would have much need for you, would they? Other than to pay you, of course. I am sure they will be very eager to do that. Never mind, Thayne. It would be best to leave the handling of such ‘Bocor Trickery’ to those who know such things better than you. Besides, if my runes are correct, that device would be impossible for you to handle-”
“Don’t you worry about what I can handle, son!” Thayne threatened, holding the rifle steadily on Torrez.
The gears in his head were whirring so swiftly now, Torrez could almost smell the sulfur coming out his ears. It appeared that the implications about the Royals’ choosing murder instead of payment seemed
to have struck a nerve in the scoundrel’s imagination. As Thayne grasped the staff, drawing it out with his left hand, Torrez did his best to hide his morbid fascination with what he knew would happen next.
Thayne barely had enough time to realize the source of his doom before the demon’s spine claimed everything that his body held within it and more. In micros, fat, muscle, and tissue dissolved as though being consumed from within. Desiccated skin was sucked taut over protruding bone like a sun rotted tarp over jagged rocks. With the cracking of dried sticks, Thayne’s mummified husk of a corpse collapsed to the ground, his withered claw still clutching the device that devoured him.
“…and my runes never lie. Looks like you will have to seek your paymasters in whatever inferno you land in. Don’t worry, old chud, I will send them to you directly.”
With a well-placed kick, Torrez freed the staff from Thayne’s death grip, brittle fingers splintering into dust as the device spun free. Then, Torrez scooped Dorjakt’s staff back into its case with all the care handling such vile objects required. It was more than a bit tricky as he had to be careful not to directly touch its surface. Using the case for leverage, along with a couple soft taps with his boot, Torrez managed to nudge the artifact back in place.
Once this arduous task was done, Torrez returned to Shelia’s side. Slinging the staff case across his back, he picked up his wife’s lifeless body to cradle her once more in his arms. Looking at her face, it was easy to believe that she was only sleeping, that all Torrez need do is wait for her to wake. But he knew this was only a wishful fantasy. As Torrez now saw it, he had only one chance to bring his love back to life now, and that rested with his master.
Torrez knew that Maluem had to be in the Royals’ hands by now, but they couldn’t have gotten her directly to the Capitol Citadel so quickly. Not in the middle of an artillery attack from their enemy up north. Most likely, they would take her to the nearest command post to await safe transport. As long as the bombardment kept up, that meant he still had a chance. He just had to hope that Thayne had arranged for some form of transport to bring the last of the promised haul to his masters.
34.
Well Matched Foes
The climb had begun quickly enough. Breaching the outer defenses had been almost too easy, with sensors placed in such predictable locations that even the dullest ferd could avoid them, even if the barrage tremors weren’t overloading them to near uselessness. The lone sentry that was standing watch was even more pathetic. Since the poor skrakk had no arms, she couldn’t imagine what resistance he could have mounted. Yet, he had turned to face her just before she struck and still failed to see her. Perhaps he was blind as well as crippled, that would explain those bizarre goggles he wore. Able-bodied guards must be hard to come by these days, Cruentus reasoned.
She was now one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two feet up the southern face of the Northern Command Post Tower, and there was still a significant distance to go. Cruentus could feel her eyes click within their sockets as they struggled to get a reading on the distance to the ground below. A small part of her consciousness insisted that clinging to the side of a structure so high up, with no lines or equipment, as artillery explosions rocked the surface below her, should be terrifying, to say the least. However, somehow this all seemed so routine to her, as though she had scaled such obstacles under far worse conditions countless times. Yet, at this moment, she could not cite one single instance where she had done so.
As Cruentus pondered this, her subconscious mind rattled off a stream of data whose source she could not pinpoint. The Royal Complex she was currently scaling was the northernmost command post in NuSam. It was made up of two towers of equal size but differing girths. The one she clung to, the skinniest of the pair, was used primarily to house detection devices that made up one segment of the Santilis long-range ‘Early Warning’ system. At its highest level was a long-disused listening post, made obsolete by recent technological advances. This would make an ideal location to launch an assault on the more massive tower as there was a narrow bridge linking the two steel peeks.
Cruentus did not know why she knew all of this, any more than she could explain how her passing would go undetected, even as she ascended across their sensors. She could just feel it in her bones, as surely as she knew her own name. The knowledge was carved into her mind, and no matter how it got there, she was determined to use it to her advantage.
Looking across the two hundred foot expanse between her and the mating tower, Cruentus’ mind turned to the reason she was attempting this insane climb. At the top of that structure was an aerial landing pad with an accompanying control bunker. It was there that Cruentus knew that the woman named Maluem was currently being held. She could feel her thoughts, her emotions in her own head like echoes in a cave. With each foot she climbed, these sensations grew sharper, along with nausea projecting from the other woman's psyche. This made what was already a challenging climb all that much more treacherous.
Yet, despite this, she knew she had to continue. She had to find out who this Maluem was. Since Cruentus had awoken in that cell, her mind was utterly her own, possibly for the first time in years. She was free to choose her own course and pursue whatever path she wished without some outside force manipulating her emotions to achieve some unknown goal. At that same moment, she had felt the presence of that other woman in her head. Yet, unlike the mental harnesses she suffered before, her mind felt like it had been expanded instead of violated. As if this woman was a natural continuation of her own mind, somehow.
How could this be if she had never met this Maluem before? Cruentus had dim memories of a family, memories laced in sadness she could not define. Were they dead? A voice in her head told her they were but would say no more. Their faces flittered through her thoughts like ghosts, each one frozen in a past she could neither recall nor forget. In all these mental snapshots, she could find no trace of this ‘Maluem.’ If her memories were accurate and her feelings of her family’s loss real, then who could this woman be? Could she be the answer to the tangled mess that her mind was now in? Could she hold clues on how to unwind it? Cruentus had to find out, no matter the cost. She had to come to terms with her fractured past if she was going to forge a future for herself.
With renewed determination, Cruentus turned her efforts back to the climb. Shaping her hand into a flat, knife-like form, Cruentus used the power of her forearms to drive a wedge between the mating edges of the supports holding the armor plates onto the tower’s surface. It seemed that these protective barriers had been put in place with large impacts in mind. The engineers had not thought to protect against close-range attacks on the inner structure. This was all the better for her. By exploiting these softer, inner metals at the armor joints, she could use the strength of her synthetic muscles to create one handhold after another as she ascended.
There were only two disadvantages to this approach. One, it was very demanding on Cruentus’s upper body. Her feet could not take advantage of the holes she created, and there were few other places to gain footholds. This meant she had to use more energy than she would like to advance up the side of the structure. Still, her synthetic muscles did not tire quickly. She should be able to make it with energy to spare for a fight, should there be a welcoming party. This seemed quite likely as the second disadvantage of her tactic was that it was noisy. Each blow she struck echoed like a hammer on a bell. She could only hope that the artillery impacts raining down around her would cover this.
As she crested the edge of a vast sensor array, Cruentus could see the observation levels' beginning. It seemed her mysterious information was not as accurate as she thought. Instead of a single observation deck, the tower looked to hold five. Each level identifiable by the gun slit windows that ringed the armored skin of the structure. Furthermore, these levels must have been abandoned for some time longer than she thought, as many of the windows were missing, apparently blown out from previous artillery strikes. In at least two areas,
gaping holes provided a silent testimony to direct hits on the structure. It had to be quite a sturdy construction to sustain such damage and not collapse. But she could not help but wonder why this had not been repaired? Perhaps this whole installation had been abandoned.
The deafening whistle of incoming artillery filled the air. A bit of trivia floated through her mind; those weren’t Furaxis Artillery shells falling now. The whistle was far too low. Ignoring this distracting information, Cruentus instinctively pulled her body as close to the metal surface she clung to as possible, gripping down hard on the supports securing the array to the tower structure. A mind-shattering roar flooded the air, drowning out all other sounds and thought. Cruentus clung on for dear life as the building shuddered time and again as three direct hits racked its war tested frame.
As the last one struck, Cruentus could hear the tortured scream of ripping metal as she felt the whole world begin to twist on its axis. Looking towards the tower, she could see that the array she clung to was separating from the building. A combination of years of monstrous stress, plus the damage she had created while climbing across the device, had spelled the sensor’s demise. It had succumbed to the call of gravity and, if she did not react quickly, she would join it.
With a savage lung, Cruentus threw herself from the Sensor Array to the main structure, grasping wildly at the void where the device had attached. Her outstretched hand struck something sturdy, so she clutched onto it with all her might. As her body swung from the pivot point of her arm, she used her momentum to bring her other arm round to find a second broken support mount to grasp. Then, she coiled her knees up quick to let her feet take the impact with the building’s skin, but no such contact came. As her clockwork eyes sifted the smoke-filled darkness, she found that she was dangling in front of a gaping hole in the tower’s side. It seemed that the array which had fallen free had left a massive hole in the tower’s skin. With an acrobatic flip, Cruentus slung her body through the gaping maw to land on the metallic decking within.