by J C Maynard
They came to the riverbend and heard squirming coming from behind a fern. General Lekshane pulled it aside to reveal the messenger boy who Gallien had tied up. General Lekshane pulled out a knife and held it to the boy’s throat. Trying to hold back tears, the boy pushed his head into the tree trunk behind him. General Lekshane pointed at the birdcage. “You are a Ferramish messenger?” The boy didn’t move, but breathed rapidly. “I would like you to write a letter to your generals stating that your navigators were wrong, and they led you to a far more dangerous part of the forest where your soldiers went mad and fought amongst themselves. You will tell them that only three of your spies survived and that you are abandoning post before the madmen catch you.”
The boy narrowed his eyebrows in hatred, promoting General Lekshane to take his knife and run it slowly across the boy’s shoulder, drawing blood. The boy breathed in sharply through his gagged mouth. “Now let me make this clear, boy. We can make this very difficult . . . very difficult.” General Lekshane took his knife and tore the boy’s ear in half, causing the boy to scream, muffled in his gag cloth. Tayben flinched, feeling as if it was wrong. A flash appeared in his mind of little Ferramish schoolchildren in Aunestauna who looked so similar to this boy in front of him. General Lekshane frowned. “You think I enjoy causing pain, do you?” Tears streamed from the boy’s eyes. “You think I like hurting you?” After a long silence, the boy eyed his birdcage and agreed to write the letter.
After it was finished, General Lekshane and the Phantoms examined the style, formatting, and codes of the classified Ferramish military letter so that they could forge them in the future, sending false reports to the Ferramish generals — misguiding their troops into traps.
General Lekshane knelt down to the boy and grabbed him by the hair. “Thank you, young man. You’ve done the world a great service.” General Lekshane raised his sword and swiftly brought it down on the boy’s neck, slicing through like a butcher.
He grabbed the birdcage, petted the messenger bird, and placed the letter in its talons. And as the bird fluttered up through the canopy, Tayben’s ears could hear the whispering of the enchanted air hanging over a bloodstained forest floor.
Vree Srine
Chapter Fourteen
~Night, September 23rd
Vree opened an eye and reached under her pillow, taking out a small playing card. The moon shone through a window above her and onto the card, which had an address and description written on it.
2309 Laythelt Lane, Second Floor
Decorative Porcelain Shield with Engraving
Back by 3AM
Vree sighed and lifted a leg out of bed. For the past year, she had been nocturnal, waking when the sun set and going to bed when it got light. She set her feet on the cold wood floor and stretched her arms out, ready to start the new night. It was an easy job. Leave, steal, return with loot. Every night a new target. Tonight, leave, steal a porcelain shield, return by three in the morning. Food was largely up to the individual to find. And, as always, if they found any playing cards, they were ordered to steal them as well.
Vree put on a shirt, pants, and a leather jacket and strung a bag around her shoulders. Fixing her hair a bit in her bedroom mirror, she clasped a necklace behind her red, snake bitten neck; hanging on it was a small silver ornament — an olindeux from her twin sister, Venessta. Vree’s memory jumped back two years to the desert.
~Two Years Prior
“Vree,” said Venessta, holding the same silver ornament, “this is an olindeux; don’t ever lose this. We have to stick together when we go to Aunestauna; we’ll have to find a way to get by. But anything is better than here . . . hey, are you listening?”
Vree nodded and looked out her tent at rolling dunes of sand lit by the midnight moon. “Shkro u baan eht aabu zjaaru shol.”
Venessta put her hand on Vree’s arm. “You have to practice speaking their language, Vree. We’ll be in Aunestauna soon. Come on, practice.”
Vree sighed as she looked out at the desert night. “I said: You don’t have to tell me all this.”
“So you promise you’ll keep this?”
“I promise.”
On top of Riccolo’s manor, Vree took out the playing card again, visualizing where she needed to go. Bounding across planks over the occasional torchlit street, Vree wound her way into the third district where she stopped on the top of a theatre. A little shack built up from an attic leaned quietly in the night. Kyan. Trying to hear if he was there, she stepped closer to it. Kyan stirred inside, and she left the rooftop.
Reaching a large, stone house in the first district, she slipped in through an open window. A little girl lay asleep in a bed beside the window, and Vree stopped. Her mind jumped back again. What are you doing, Vree?
~One Year Prior
“What are you doing, Vree?” said Venessta as Vree pulled her through the vibrant and bustling streets of Aunestauna.
“I’ve found us a job!” Vree exclaimed, “five hundred argentums a month, Venessta! Five hundred!”
“You can’t just go around chasing everything. I doubt its safe.”
“Trust me,” said Vree, “I know what I’m doing.” she pulled her twin past a horse and wagon. “We aren’t making enough now, especially since the price of our room at the inn went up.”
“What’s the job?” asked Venessta.
“We would be working for a shipping company that sells textiles to Parusemare.”
“Who offered you the job?”
“His name is Riccolo, he definitely knows what he’s doing.”
Vree brushed her hair out of her olive skin face and briefly picked up a doll at the end of the girl’s bed. Vree walked out of the girl’s bedroom and into a hallway from which she could see firelight and the shadow of a man reading on a chair. She peered over the edge of the railing at what she assumed to be the girl’s grandfather, an old man with a ring of white hair; the man only had one leg. Silently, she opened the doors of various rooms looking for a porcelain shield. What’s the point of a shield if its made of porcelain? Can’t be solid porcelain . . . can it?
Vree opened the door to another room, which was bare, except for a porcelain shield on the far wall. She closed the door behind her and traced a finger along the pure porcelain’s smooth edge until her almond eyes settled on an engraving at the top.
Presented to Sir. Laythelt by
His Highest Emperor and King Gallegore Wenderdehl
For Bravery and Courage during
The Battle of the Endless Night
Vree whispered to herself, “This is from the King Gallegore.” I can’t steal this . . . this is without price. Her reflected face stared back at her in the porcelain, almost like an image of her twin.
~One Year Prior
“Vree, don’t do it.” whispered Venessta. “It's not worth it. We can run away.”
Riccolo smiled with a snake in his hand. “You can never run from me. No matter what, I’ll find you.” Riccolo carried the snake to Vree. “It will only hurt for a few weeks . . . after that, the venom subsides.”
Vree snapped out of her reflective state and gently pulled the shield of porcelain off the wall. It was thin but heavy. The sheer amount of money this was worth could support Vree for years to come. I could take it for myself . . .
~Ten Months Prior
“Come on Venessta!” yelled Vree as she jumped onto the back of a horse with a bag of Riccolo’s treasure strung around her back. The street in Aunestauna was crowded as usual, and Venessta ran through it and jumped onto the horse, carrying a similar bag.
Together, they rode through the maze of streets and out into the countryside, carried nearly thirty miles by their horse. When they stopped for the night to make camp, the twin sisters fell asleep with a feeling of safety they had not felt for some time. Vree drifted seamlessly to sleep, ready for a new life in Oakfoot; but her eyes shot open when a hand with a rag closed over her nose and mouth.
She awoke many hours later back
in Riccolo’s Manor. Her sister was tied in a chair next to her and Riccolo sat in a dark corner sharpening a knife.
Vree took the shield and shoved it into her bag. I can never escape, she thought, I have to do this. Vree exited the room, taking one last look at the veteran below who had helped unite the continent under the one great king, Gallegore. Vree continued on silently down the hall, into the little girl’s room, and out the window. Once on the roof, Vree pulled the bag with the shield off her shoulders, wanting to see it again in the moonlight.
A fist from behind rammed into her temple and knocked her down. The bag with the shield bounced with a ring and a girl from behind who had been waiting for her to steal it picked it up to take it for herself. She too wore a leather jacket but was masked, as other thieves in the city were. Vree grabbed the girl’s ankle, who tried to dive away from her with the porcelain shield. The masked thief kicked Vree’s nose and ran away across the roof, but stopped on the edge when she realized the next building was too far away to jump. Vree stood up, dizzy from the punch and prepared to fight for the porcelain, but her body went cold when the masked girl cocked her arm back with a knife in her hand. Just as she began to throw it toward Vree, a dark figure rammed into the masked girl, knocking both the knife and her off the house to the stone street below.
Vree ran forward on the roof and leaned over the edge. The girl lay sprawled on the street below with blood gathering around her head. The person who had knocked the thief off the roof had grabbed onto a windowsill to stop their fall. The figure jumped down to the street below and grabbed the bag with the shield. To her confusion, the figure threw the bag up to her on the roof. Vree’s heart sank when she caught it and heard dozens of shattered pieces of porcelain clatter in the bag. The figure below looked familiar . . . Kyan? Just as quickly as it came, the figure vanished behind a building. A steady stream of blood from her nose dripped on the bag as she held the shattered shield on the roof.
When she returned to the manor, Riccolo was waiting for her in the moonlit foyer. His glare turned sour when he heard the jingling of porcelain fragments in a bag. With blood from her nose dripping down her whole front, Vree dropped the bag of porcelain on the floor.
“Care to . . . explain, Miss Srine?” said Riccolo.
“There was another thief.” said Vree with her head down.
“I assume that’s why you’re bleeding.”
Vree nodded.
“Well I’m going to make you bleed a lot more than that.” Riccolo paced around her like a hawk ready to dive and snatch its prey. “One small item . . . and you couldn’t bring it back in one piece.”
“It’s still worth hundreds if not thousands of argentums.” said Vree.
“Well it’s worth a hell of a lot less now that you’ve shattered it!” he screamed. “Oh, but I’m sure that this other thief was quite tough to handle.”
“She was waiting for me on the roof.”
“She?” he laughed.
“She threw a knife at me!”
Riccolo stopped circling her. “This thief had bad aim, did she?”
“. . . Someone else stopped her and pushed her off the house.”
Riccolo kicked the bag of porcelain. “Oh Great Mother, please tell me it wasn’t Kyan who swooped in to save the day . . .” Riccolo smiled in Vree’s silence. “It was, wasn’t it? . . . He went with you to steal it because, on the way there, you went to his shack to screw him! Didn’t you, you little slut!” He grabbed Vree and threw her to the floor.
Tears welled up in her soft, brown eyes as she tried to get back up. “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”
“You lying bitch!” Riccolo drove his foot into her already bleeding face. “Whores like you just want to get dirty; doesn’t matter who he is, as long as he’s screwing you!”
Vree drove her nails into Riccolo’s arm, drawing blood. “You pervert!” Blood streamed down her face and onto the floor. “You sick creature!”
“Oh, Vree, now my feelings are hurt.”
Vree kicked the bag of porcelain away from him. “Go to hell.”
He grabbed her and whispered in her ear. “You know what happens when you fight me . . . How will I ever be able to trust you?”
~One Year Prior
“How will I ever be able to trust you again?” said Riccolo as he paced between the Srine twins who were each tied to their own floor-bolted chair facing the other. “I gave you a home, and food, and a life free from your wretched past, and what do you do? You try to escape . . . that hurts my feelings.”
“You’re a snake!” yelled Venessta.
“Fitting, isn’t it?” laughed Riccolo.
“One day someone will drive a knife through your heart.”
Riccolo smiled. “Is that so?” He pulled out a deck of cards from his cloak and shuffled them as he paced. “I don’t accept disloyalty. You two need to be punished . . . but how will I ensure that this won’t happen again? Now, seeing you two are compelled to rebel together, the best option would be to eliminate one of you from the picture.” Vree stared at the playing cards in Riccolo’s four fingered hand. Riccolo stood over Venessta. “I think it’s unfair for anyone but you two to decide your fate.” He fanned out the cards. “Lower number gets their throat slit . . . Choose.”
Venessta shook her head with tears running down her cheek.
“Fine,” said Riccolo, “I’ll draw for you.” His fingers grazed over the cards and snatched one. Riccolo smiled and showed them, laughing, “Seven . . . right in the middle.” He turned toward Vree. “This makes things interesting.” Tears streamed down the sisters’ faces and when Riccolo offered the fanned out cards to Vree, she shook her head. “Then I’ll draw for you too.” Riccolo whipped out a card and smiled. “Ten.”
“NO!” Vree screamed for him to stop, but Riccolo stepped behind Venessta so that Vree could see him slice his knife through her neck. Vree screamed in horror; her twin lay limp in her bonds, blood gushing down her body.
Riccolo knelt beside Vree and stroked her tear covered face. He clicked his tongue as she screamed at the corpse in front of her. “What a shame . . . if you had only listened . . .”
◆◆◆
Riccolo closed the door to Vree’s bedroom. It was four in the morning — almost time to go grab dinner and sleep, but he still had his second meeting with the client. Riccolo left the manor and walked to the designated abandoned house a few blocks away in the fourth district.
When he arrived, the client was already there. Sitting at a table beneath a boarded window, the man was tall with a stern face. “Hello, Sir.” Riccolo nodded back and sat at the table. The man spoke in a hushed voice. “All the information you need is in this letter here.” The man handed Riccolo a piece of parchment. As Riccolo read it, the man added, “If you have one of your thieves steal it, you must not tell them the reason for my request. Create a lie for why you’ll steal it. Say I want it to impress a woman or something of the sort.”
Riccolo set the parchment down, which had Whittingale’s signature on it. “When do you need it done by?”
“Within the month, but you must notify me of the night you plan to do it. Do you agree to the terms and your compensation?”
Riccolo signed the contract — not as Riccolo, but as Kyan. He smiled and shook the man’s hand. “I don’t normally make deals, but this one, I cannot refuse.”
Back at his manor, Riccolo’s sighed as he walked over to his bedroom window where his breath was visible in the cold morning air. “Who to send, who to send?” He took off a glove and looked at his cut-off finger. “Kyan . . . I want him . . . but how to make him comply?” He tapped on the glass. “There’s something different about him . . . something bizarre.”
Many Different Happenings
Chapter Fifteen
~Morning, September 19th
Calleneck flinched when he heard a scream echo across Winterdove Lane; Aunika and Mrs. Bernoil stopped their dusting in the kitchen. Staring at the other two with a worrisom
e face, Calleneck set down his book on the Bernoil’s kitchen table and rushed out the door, followed by Aunika and Mrs. Bernoil.
The cobblestone street was wet and a thick morning fog hung over Seirnkov. Another shout rang out, and on the street the three could tell whose scream it was. Gilsha, thought Calleneck. The three ran across the street and down another and saw Gilsha Gold running after a wagon cart pulled by horses. She screamed “No, please! They’re my brothers!” On the cart, three little boys reached out with their hands and called after Gilsha. “Don’t take them!” she screamed. “You can’t! Father stop!” A man whipped the horses to quicken. “Father, stop! You can’t leave! I raised them!” Gilsha slipped on the wet cobblestone street and fell onto the ground, scraping her arms and knees. Calleneck and Aunika ran up to her as the horses pulled the cart around the corner, disappearing into the bustling capital.
Gilsha knelt on the cold ground crying and the Bernoils stopped above her. Aunika put a hand on her arm and tried to get her to look up. Finally she did, revealing her disheveled face and swollen red eyes. “He took them.” she said hopelessly. Her blond and brown hair hung in her face and dirt from the street stained her white blouse. “My father took them. My baby brothers; he took them.”
Calleneck knelt down. “Why?”
She started crying again. “My father has been looking for an excuse to take Garner, Gimb, and Gline from me and mum; and now mum is very sick, she’s bedridden.” She wiped her tears. “He said he doesn’t want my brothers to get sick too.”