Daughter of War

by Brendan Wright

  "What do you want?"

  He knew there was no hope. The voice wouldn't leave him. Even if it wasn't real, he would be tortured endlessly by invisible words if he didn't do as he was told.

  The invasion must happen as soon as possible.

  "But... I stopped it, like you said. Riffolk; the creature he was using... You told me to-"

  I told you no such thing. You have been tricked.

  "But how? You appeared on my ceiling, no person can do that."

  A pulse shot through his mind, bright and hot, and for a moment all he could feel was inhuman rage. Consumed, the office around him utterly disappeared behind the burning light in his mind. He'd never felt anything like it; he wouldn't have believed it possible.

  I do not know who is responsible. You will find out for me. I do not appear in your world unless I am summoned, and even then only in a limited form for a short time.

  The blinding rage slowly calmed, and his office gradually appeared again, though it didn't look solid until the light in his head was completely gone. Something else spoke to me, he thought. Whatever that voice is, there's more of them.

  Mathys

  Mathys returned to the lab the day after Mara tried to show him the alleged secret underground lab. He'd taken note of the corridor she went down when she found the storeroom she suspected. Finding it again wasn't particularly difficult; unlike Mara, Mathys spent a lot of his time around secrets and in unfamiliar areas, so navigating a lab he'd been to once before was achievable.

  He reached the storeroom at the end of the corridor, moving slowly and carefully. Despite his cynicism regarding the lab's existence, he didn't take chances; and if the lab was where Mara said, and still hidden, it was likely Riffolk was still alive. If so, the fact that he'd remained in hiding after the creature's escape told Mathys that he didn't want to be found, which meant Mathys needed to be on guard.

  The door to the storeroom was destroyed, as with most of the others. But Mathys spent a lot of time around crime scenes, and he'd seen every kind of property damage. The marks here were directional, all pointing from the back of the room to the door, and then down the corridor. He'd catalogued the marks in each corridor, noting them each separately and closely. Almost all the marks throughout the rest of the lab were directionless; almost as if they'd been placed one by one, with no goal.

  When he looked closely, a clear path had emerged; from the storeroom Mara led him to, all the way out to the destroyed wall where the creature escaped into the street. This told him two things; firstly, the creature had definitely escaped from behind the back wall of the storeroom, and something or someone wielded the same kind of destructive energy as the creature itself.

  Mara shot lightning from her bare hand, he thought, and killed three of my men. If Riffolk was still alive, could he be using her as a weapon? Was his own wife the result of one of his evil experiments? Her confusion and fear is genuine. He didn't believe she would be in on whatever Riffolk was doing, but Mathys wouldn't have been surprised if Riffolk was somehow using her without her knowledge.

  The shelves at the back of the storeroom hid a secret entrance; he was certain. He looked closely, and there were signs not only that the back wall had been partially destroyed, but that the shelves could move. In that moment, he cursed himself for being so dismissive of Mara's claims of a secret lab.

  He unholstered his gun, made sure it was loaded, and gave the shelves a hard shove to the side. Nothing happened. He pushed, pulled, tried everything to move them; nothing. On a whim, he lifted, just to see if they'd budge at all.

  A low creaking split the silence, and the shelves gave way slightly. Mathys almost let go in shock, but managed to hold its weight. He kept pulling up, and when its movement stopped, he pulled outwards; the shelves, as one unit, swung out to reveal a blackened hole in the wall and a flight of stairs leading down into darkness.

  "Is there anyone down there?" Mathys called.

  No one answered. Idiot, he thought, Riffolk is down there and now he's ready for me. He started walking slowly down into the dark, his gun trained evenly in the centre of his field of vision. Mathys had seen battle many times, had even been on the front lines on the north shore of Shanaken during one of their crusades. He knew all too well the sense of fear, anticipation and certainty that followed every soldier into battle. I will die today, he thought, every time, this is it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the lab opened out to him through yet another destroyed doorway. Completely dead, empty and dark. Mathys felt his spirits drop slightly; after the intense flood of emotion leading up to battle, the anticlimax of an empty room hit him hard.

  Nothing stirred in the massive room. In the centre, he saw the hulking remains of a giant glass tank, exploded from the inside. A few metres from that, a headless corpse lay in a pool of blood, the darkness making the blood as black as midnight. Riffolk? He thought, or the Tyran girl? Then he remembered Mara had said she'd shot Riffolk with a dart gun.

  When he reached the body it was confirmed; a skinny female in dark clothing that matched Mara's. She was telling the truth. He spent a while in the underground lab, inspecting everything, finding nothing. There was no equipment, no lighting or power, no sign of recent activity other than the dead body and the exploded tank.

  Suddenly paranoid, he stood still for a moment, eyes closed, straining to hear anything in the silence. It was a heavy, dead silence, the kind Mathys had experienced at dawn on the battlefield in Shanaken, when the fighting stopped and the dead lay piled on the sand.

  A small sound made his eyes fly open; a tiny sound, as though it was muffled by walls, in a different room. Immediately dropping into a crouch with his gun level, he scanned the room, trying to find the source of the sound.

  Bright light bloomed from one side of the lab as a low rumble echoed. Mathys heard the slight grunt of a male's voice followed by a few heavy metallic thunks. Decades of training and habit forced his eyes shut and the heels of his hands over his ears, his gun momentarily pointing uselessly towards the ceiling. He felt the explosions and saw the bright flash of light through his eyelids, and despite his hands his ears split into high pitched ringing.

  He moved as soon as the explosion was over, heading straight for the door and aiming towards the source of the light, shooting as he ran. He didn't bother reloading after the first shot; unless the attacker had closed in on him, guns were much less effective from across a room of this size.

  Even so, as he neared the door two shots rang out, each within seconds of each other. Clangs echoed from the ball bearings hitting the metal walls, but Mathys wasn't hit. He bolted up the stairs, reloading only when he was sure he couldn't be hit. Two shots, that fast? He though wildly, no one can reload these guns that quickly! He was sure of two things as he escaped the lab; Riffolk Hayne was alive, and he was working with someone else.

  Riffolk

  Riffolk let out a slow breath. He held the book in front of him, its power mingling with his own. A feeling he couldn't describe filled his entire body; a feeling of pure energy and peace at the same time. It felt like the book had been made for him, and it was finally where it belonged.

  A red flash suddenly filled the room, and he looked straight at the glass screen on his bench. Corby, he thought, I should have known he wouldn't be able to let the mystery go. They'd shown up the day before, snooping around the lab, and Mara had been unable to find the entrance, as he expected. He'd relaxed too soon; he knew exactly the kind of person Mathys was, and should have known he would come back alone.

  Cursing, he placed the book back in its chest and closed the lid, grabbed his gun and a handful of flash grenades, and waited to see what Mathys would do. The Commander managed to find his way down into the underground lab, and spent far too long inspecting the area. If given any more time, he would find Riffolk's safe-room; it was time for him to die. He put the dart gun down and unholstered the real one.

  Riffolk opened the safe-room door and tossed out the flash
grenades without hesitation; Mathys was an experienced soldier, and wouldn't go down easy. After the explosion, he ducked back out of the safe-room, his gun raised, but Mathys was already moving, and aimed back at Riffolk as he moved. Riffolk stepped behind the wall, but not fast enough. The boom of Mathys' gun was as deafening as the flash grenades, and Riffolk felt a thump on his thigh followed by searing pain.

  He ducked out and fired twice at the running Commander, but it looked as though he missed. He swore, loudly, after he was sure Mathys was gone. There was no point giving chase now; his leg throbbed, and Mathys already had too much distance on him. At least he hasn't seen my face, he thought; though it was little comfort. Mathys was no fool, he'd know Riffolk was alive now.

  He closed the safe-room door again, and began packing everything. He felt remarkably out of control. He'd never been this far on the defensive before; usually he was the one making moves and forcing others into corners. Sighing, he prepared for his next step; it was time to move again.

  Mara

  The bench she lay on was always cold. She was still being kept, and though they hadn't run any more tests on her, she figured it was only a matter of time before Commander Corby told the scientists about her power. He hadn't visited her in at least a day, maybe two; her sense of time was warped.

  She spent the time making little sparks in her hands, making them dance and flash. Aside from the excitement of magic, there was an indescribable joy she found in the lightning. Watching it arc from her fingertips, knowing she was controlling it, made her happier than she'd ever been.

  The sparks never burned her, nor her clothes, they were just fun to watch. She made a cascade of them flow from her hands onto the floor, and gasped as they bounced and winked out. They made such a beautiful whooshing sound, like a river of pale yellow fire.

  The creature hadn't spoken to her again either; she was totally alone. Why won't you speak to me? She thought it as loudly as she could, trying to send the words out to wherever the creature may be. At least the magic was still hers.

  I have been busy, child.

  Mara jumped off the bench. She hadn't been prepared for an actual answer.

  "What have you been doing?"

  Thinking, and exploring. And learning. My memory is coming back.

  Her eyes went wide, and her skin erupted in cold bumps.

  "Does that mean you know... what you are?"

  I am Taranos, the God of Power.

  "God? You're really a God?"

  One of the five, yes.

  "So the others... the ones trying to get to Pandeia... they're as powerful as you?"

  Three of them, yes. Only one is far more powerful than the rest of us.

  One thing still didn't make sense to her.

  "How did you end up here? If you're a God, how did Riffolk have you in a cage?"

  He knows my weaknesses, my strengths; his intelligence is beyond human.

  Elana

  One discovery left her as unsettled as she was confused. Without the magic of the Kaizuun, she never would have known. She was prowling through the military district, trying to locate anything that might afford her some extra knowledge of the Ermoori before she left, when she kicked a loose stone on the pavement. It skidded across the ground and clanged into a bin. A shout broke the eerie, lifeless silence.

  "What was that?"

  She dove silently into an alleyway, drawing her sword as she swept into a crouch. The man who'd shouted appeared as a bright aura through the thick fog, craning his neck to see. He was looking in a different direction to where Elana had been; towards where the rock hit the bin. She relaxed her guard slightly, lowering her gaze and breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Then she stopped, her breath cut off mid sigh. She was staring at the ground; solid pavement. And yet there were hundreds of people down there... thousands, toiling and moving in organised lines and circles. They moved the way colonies of ants moved along the forest floor, and up tree trunks; in formation, never stopping, never losing rhythm.

  Something about it made Elana's stomach churn. She knew at once that these people were slaves, working for the Ermoori somehow. Her mission was supposed to be over; but she couldn't abandon thousands of underground slaves. Something had to be done. They had to be saved, helped.

  She wondered if the Duulshen knew. They couldn't possibly... could they? But she suddenly realised that as well as saving lives, helping the slaves would strike a blow against Ermoor that they may never recover from. Her attention returned to the guard; but after a brief search of the alley around the bin, he was satisfied there were no people around. He wandered off, leaving Elana to herself again.

  Her gaze kept being drawn to the thousands of people working under her feet. Ermoor was a truly terrible place; every time she looked, she found something horrible lurking within the city. Omatus used slavery, but at least their slaves worked outside in farms, tending to orchards and more or less surrounded by life. The slaves of Ermoor worked underground; no natural sunlight, no trees, just the shadows of a dead city.

  Mathys

  A lot of pieces had fallen into place. Riffolk was alive, and he'd been holding the creature in a secret lab underneath the lab that had been shut down. After his death, he'd hidden the lab once again, but he apparently had yet another secret lab, another layer of secrets. The creature escaped, destroying everything in its path. Riffolk used its energy to damage the rest of the lab to disguise his secret.

  His working theory was that the creature's energy had transferred to both Riffolk and Mara in its escape; from examining Mara's wound, and from her assertion that the creature had attacked them both, it seemed to be the only conclusion. It made no sense to him, but there was no other explanation for what Mara could do. The lightning she shot from her hand was inescapable proof.

  He'd only heard bits and pieces of the project, just what Riffolk and Arthor had spoken about whenever Arthor let him sit in on their meetings. Enough to know it was wrong. Enough to fear for their souls. Seeing the cage it was held in had made him feel sick.

  He was back at his desk, and as always happened with complex cases, a notepad covered in hand written words, phrases and names sat before him on the rich wood. Staring at it, he felt as though he understood a lot of what had happened, but much was still a mystery. What was Riffolk up to that he wanted to remain 'dead'? What exactly was the creature, and how did Riffolk come by it? Why was Mara in the lab when the creature escaped?

  Added to the pressure from the Twelve to locate and capture the creature, Mathys was beginning to feel overwhelmed. It would have been difficult enough to sort out the problems within Ermoor itself, but the creature had headed straight to the west once it left the lab; to the swamps and wastelands outside the city.

  Ermoor itself only took up a fraction of the country's land mass. Of the rest of it, the eastern half was foggy swampland, and the rest to the west was brutal desert just like Theara and Omatus across the sea. Searching that massive wasteland would have been difficult even for the entire Ermoori military; for the small forces at Mathys' disposal, it was impossible.

  He rubbed his eyes again, and one of the candles flickered as it neared the end of its life. Almost out of wax, the tiny flame guttered, steadied, and guttered again. The puddle of melted wax below it grew until it finally engulfed the brave little flame.

  Riffolk was a bigger threat now than he'd been before he 'died'. Mathys had written to the Twelve advising them, but they were unwilling to consider the possibility that he was still alive at all. Each day, he was beginning to lose his faith in the Twelve more. They'd never been so blind before, and the events of the last few weeks were far more troubling than the Twelve's reactions implied.

  It would have to be handled outside of the law. Mathys was a very moral person, he always did what he knew was right. He tried as best he could to abide by the Twelve's laws. But sometimes what was right conflicted directly with what the Twelve wanted to do. He'd done what needed to be done in the past. He'd gone a
gainst the Twelve, in secret. He'd even done terrible things in the name of justice.

  No one knew but him. Even the Twelve Crowns themselves didn't know the things he'd done, and they kept a close eye on everything. Now that Riffolk was such a threat, and the Twelve were intent on being blind to it, Mathys had to once again resort to terrible actions to bring peace to his great city.

  He knew the consequences. He'd never been caught, of course, but that didn't bother him anyway; the consequences on his soul, however... The things he'd done were terrible, and deserved an eternity in hell. But he was doing them in the name of peace, and justice, and all he could do was pray that God would forgive him.

  Breathing slowly, preparing for the days and nights ahead, Mathys prayed again. No matter what happened, people were going to die soon.

  "Let my actions lead to peace," he said, "let my hand be guided by your will. Let no innocents be harmed, and let the world know the love of God. For the good of all."

  Mara

  Mara hadn't slept well since the conversation with Taranos. She was already scared of Riffolk; but to know he was feared by an actual God, if that's really what the creature was... She almost couldn't bear the thought.