by Riley Tune
Before I could climb deeper into the self-pity of my mind, I realized we had begun to slow down. Looking out the window, I could see we had ventured deeper into Pradeep's lands. Beyond the fields, where some of its grow shelters were kept. Finally, the carriage stopped, and moments later a swift knock came to the door. Ember took a final gulp from his bottle and then left it on his seat as he opened the door.
Standing outside was, of course, Jolin. Ember hopped out and stood beside him. He stood there as rain continued to fall on him. He had removed my cloak and was holding it in his hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Lox,” he said as I stepped down and took the cloak from him. “Follow me, gentlemen,” Jolin said as he quickly turned and began walking. Ember followed and, as soon as my cloak was on, so did I. It smelled faintly sweet on the inside, now, after Jolin had worn it.
“Jolin, what’s with the attitude?” Ember asked as he followed behind Jolin.
Jolin paused for a moment and stopped walking, then suddenly continued. “Attitude, Mr. Ember?” he asked.
“That’s just what I mean. What’s with the Mr. Ember, Mr. Lox, and so forth.”
Jolin simply continued to walk, and was currently leading us through what seemed to be a grow shelter graveyard.
“I learned at a young age, Mr. Ember, to respect everyone. Man, woman, child, nobleman, royalty, or commoner. In the Prime Sovereignty, social status is everything, and it can be taken from you at a moment's notice. A lesson I have witnessed firsthand. I find it easier to just treat everybody the same.”
We turned around a bend. We were deep in this place now. Many abandoned grow shelters surrounded us. From the looks of them, they were old. Many had caved in on themselves, making them look as if some giant being had punched half of the building in. These, I would guess, were some of the first grow shelters ever made. They were shadows of the grow shelters used now, like the one my mother used to work in. These grow shelters had more steel and pipes, and less glass. Newer grow shelters were constructed of mostly glass, and had only steel frames to hold it all in place.
Why had Pradeep, or its royal family, simply allowed the ancient shelters to stay? Why not destroy them and build anew?
“Don’t mistake me for a polite fool, though, Mr. Ember,” Jolin said as he approached one of the smallest and most dilapidated grown shelters. “I still have my secrets. I am a Tongue, as you would say, and people tell me the most amazing things.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” Ember replied.
“Here we are. For a moment I thought I was lost,” Jolin said.
“Lost?” I asked him. “You didn’t know where we were going?”
Jolin opened the large front door of the old grow shelter. Surprisingly, it didn’t make a sound. Not even a little creak from the metal. This was odd, considering that the surrounding buildings looked like they would make noise if you only looked at them too long. Somebody had gone out of their way to make sure our entry would go unnoticed.
“I had an idea,” Jolin said as he walked inside. “But with the rain and approaching darkness, many of these buildings look the same. We don’t have torches here, so let’s just be glad we made it before nightfall came.”
Ember waited and allowed me to go in first. He stood outside in the rain and looked at a neighboring grow shelter. He warped away for a moment, and then returned back to the door. “All clear,” he said as he stepped inside and shut the door. He had warped to higher ground to make sure we weren’t being followed, or, at the worst case, being set up.
Inside the grow shelter smelled different. One would expect the smell of dirt, maybe animal droppings, or even mildew, but instead it smelled clean. Just as with the door, somebody had done some work on the inside as well.
“Just up ahead,” Jolin said as he pointed. From where we stood near the entrance were some steps that led down to a lower level, and a walkway that led directly in front of us. Whatever had once been at the end of the walkway was no longer there, because that portion of the building had collapsed and created a wall of debris. Aside from that, the remaining parts of the grow shelter looked to be in good shape.
We walked down the steps, every foot making loud clanking sounds on the metal. The steps had seen better days. They were completely rusted, and very small amounts of the metal were visible. At the bottom of the steps was a room that had the word Division Head on it, but many of the letters were faded. While it was getting darker around us, on the inside of this room, visible light peered from the cracks of the door's frame, and could be seen through the dirty glass. I could see what seemed to be two shadows moving.
I saw Ember’s hand disappear, and followed suit. If this was some sort of elaborate setup, they wouldn’t get the drop on us.
“So you finally, at long last, get to meet our enigmatic benefactors, Mr. Ember and Mr. Lox,” Jolin said as he knocked on the door. “It’s me,” he said, as both of the moving shadows suddenly stopped moving. “I have them with me.”
“Them?” I heard a male voice say from behind the door.
“Come in,” a second voice called from behind the door. This voice was female, yet seemed stronger and more dominant than the male voice. Jolin turned the knob and opened the door. Ember glanced at me over his shoulder and gave me a slight nod as he mouthed the words, be ready.
The door swung open, and light from the burning lamps poured over us. Jolin walked in as Ember and I followed.
Two people stood at a large square table. There was a male holding a large, thick book. He looked like he could have been in his late twenties, and he was tall. Taller than me, but about the same height as Ember. He was thin, but not in a lean, muscular way; he had styled, dirty blonde hair, and a face that flaunted a stubble of the same color. His eyes seemed to be sunken in, as if he hadn’t slept in days, and he was wearing common trousers and a shirt, but he looked out of place in them. Aside from his tired expression, everything about him screamed wealth, from his clean hands to his styled and trimmed hair.
To his right was a woman, who, while older, resembled him greatly. She was a little shorter than Jolin, and as she turned her head to look at each of us, her long blonde hair swayed from side to side. She truly was beautiful. She had blue eyes that seemed to flicker in the light of the lamp, high cheekbones, and a curvy figure. She, too, seemed out of place in her casual clothing.
“Keeper, it can’t be,” I heard Ember whisper under his breath slightly. What had he figured out that I hadn’t? While these two before me looked familiar, I couldn’t remember where I had seen them before.
Honestly, I didn’t care who they were, to a certain extent. They had organized an ambush on Ember and I, an ambush that had almost gotten my leg chopped off, and just coming to meet them here had put us in danger. We were Warpers; we usually didn’t encounter groups. The scope of our powers isn’t as effective with multiple people coming at us.
I could feel my fist balling up, my chest heaving, and my breathing sounded louder than normal. It got worse the more I looked at these two, and I had had enough. I drew my dagger and took a step forward, but felt Ember quickly holding me back by my arm. My motion to attack wasn’t missed by the others in the room, as they all flinched some as I took that step. Even Jolin reacted.
The woman’s eyes were still wide, and she had taken a step back closer to the wall. As if that would have done any good. I didn’t want to kill them; I couldn’t have, even if I'd wanted to, because of the curse, but I was angry enough to want them to feel some sort of pain. Maybe the type of pain that you experience from a massive cut on the leg. That seemed fitting.
“Take it easy,” Ember said to me with gritted teeth in more of a whisper.
I put my blade up and leaned back against the far wall of the room. I wanted to be as far from these people as I could.
Now that I had a full view of the room, I noticed something about it. It was clearly a place that hadn't got much use. Aside from the table, chairs, and the lamps, the room was compl
etely empty. Spotless and clean, but empty.
Jolin walked to the table and pulled a chair from it. Sitting down, he removed some of his wet clothes and let them hit the floor beside him. “Much better,” he said, as he sat, shirtless, and let his hands hover over one of the lamps on the table.
“What is this, Jolin?” the woman asked. “We asked you to fetch the man called Ember.” “Nobody fetches me. I don’t care who you are. Speak that way about me again, as if I’m a hound, and you will have more to worry about than him,” Ember said as he pointed at me. “And he won’t be able to hold me back, I assure you.”.
“What my sister means,” the tall man said, “is that we asked you to bring us Ember, and you bring him, plus another. What is the meaning of this, Jolin?” He spoke with a slight accent. They both did, but his words were more soothing. Not like Jolin's ability, but he spoke as if he were addressing a council instead of two killers.
These two were definitely used to giving orders and having people fear or respect them.
“We needed a Warper for the job,” Jolin replied. “We’ll now we have two. Mr. Ember, and his pupil, Mr. Lox” Jolin pointed to me as he said my name. Both the man and woman stared at me with a blank expression for a second.
“Two Warpers,” the woman finally said, as she looked at the man who was her brother.
“This is interesting indeed,” the man said as he sat down and opened his book. He seemed to be reading. Was he that carefree that he would rather read right now?
I had had enough of being left out of the loop, and the more they spoke, the more my fingers began to drum on the handle of my blade. I could feel the vein pulsing in my neck, and if I looked at them silently any longer, I felt like I was going to glare a hole into them. So I finally spoke.
“Who are you two?” I asked. “After that stunt at The Clarkton, I at least deserve to know who was responsible for me almost losing a leg.”
“That was her idea,” the man said as he continued to flip pages in his book. “I never agreed with it, honestly.” The lady stiffened as my eyes met hers.
“Who they are,” Ember chimed in, “are nobles. High nobles. Rema Thorne, and her younger brother Remy. In Thera, these two are heads of a noble family that wield as much power as royalty.”
A wave of knowledge hit me as hard as the ground I had fallen on earlier. That’s why I knew I had seen them before. Thera was the only kingdom without a royal family, because the Emperor himself governed us. The Thorne family were his closest associates, and often did things on his behalf. No wonder Ember was told this job would pay well. Why would they, of all people, have a job that required me, Ember, and Jolin?
As if he was in my head, Ember asked what I had just thought.
“What I want to know is why one of the richest and most well-known families in all of the five kingdoms has a job for a Tongue and a pair of Warpers?”
Just at that moment, another knock came at the door.
11
Instantly, Ember and I drew our daggers again. Jolin perked up at the table, while Remy continued to read his book.
“No doubt, that is the last member of our crew,” he said as his sister slowly walked to the door. I don’t think she wanted to move too quickly because of our drawn daggers. I couldn’t blame her. From what I had gathered, Ember trusted these people about as little as I did. With that lack of trust, however, came a large amount of curiosity.
As the door opened, a tall man slowly limped in under the aid of a cane. He had pale skin, a long hooked nose, and thick gray hair on the sides, but was bald up top. I had never seen so many wrinkles on one face before. His robes were dragging on the floor as he slowly turned to place a hand on the door knob. I thought he was going to shut the door behind him, but then he looked at us and spoke.
“Who are these three?” he asked, in a voice that was very raspy. He sounded like he had sand in the lining of his throat.
“These are the other people who will be joining us,” Rema said. She pointed to us individually as she spoke our names.
“The shirtless one sitting is Jolin.” Jolin waved with energy at the old man. The old man grunted at Jolin, but didn’t speak. “Jolin is a Tongue, he will be invaluable on this job,” Rema continued.
The old man slowly shifted his glance to us.
“These two are Ember and Lox, our Warpers. Naturally they will do the dirty work when the time comes,” Rema said.
“You told me that there would be two others, not three,” the old man said as he continued to hold the knob of the door. After thinking for a moment, he slowly closed it.
“We assumed there would be,” Remy continued. “I assure you, we didn’t expect two Warpers for the price of one, but here we are, Vida.”
Vida? So the old man was called Vida. An unusual name for a man in his sixties.
“In any case,” Rema said, “an extra Warper can only help our cause.”
Vida looked at us all slowly, as if he was pondering what to do. If I were him, I’d have just left. What could a man of his age, a man who could barely walk upright, offer on whatever this mystery job was?
It was at that very moment that the old man did something unexpected. He tossed his cane to Jolin, who caught it in the air with his brow raised. Now, the man was standing upright.
“So this is the gang then. Some high nobles, a Tongue, and two Warpers?” Vida said, but in a voice not his own. Even Ember’s mouth dropped open at this.
Vida, who moments ago had had a voice that sounded like stones rubbing together, now had the voice of a younger female.
“What in the hell?” I said, moving closer to Vida slightly. Jolin simply looked at Vida, and then he glanced at the stick in his hand.
“Mr. Remy, Ms. Rema?” Jolin said, as he looked to them for answers. Neither of them said a word. Instead, they grinned at each other, and then back to Vida.
As the old man moved, his hand changed. And then, not just his hand, but his entire body. Clothes and all. While he had been, moments ago, standing six feet tall, he now began to shrink to a little over five and a half feet. The balding head adjusted, and the gray hair on the sides seemed to retract into his skull and become short and black.
“Changeling,” Ember said as he stepped back.
As Vida smiled at us, the old face of the man began to contort and change. The wrinkles and pale white face began to fade away and were replaced by smooth, light brown skin. The old and sunken eyes were replaced by vibrant round ones of a honey-brown color. The thin, dry, cracked lips, weathered by years of age, began to expand. In their place were the round, perky lips of a young woman.
Even the clothes, the long dusty robe, changed into a form-fitting pair of trousers that revealed a strong frame. Up top, a white shirt, worn by many women from the Walden kingdom.
The changing stopped, and now, before us, where a man ravaged by time had once stood, there was instead a woman. Perhaps one of the prettiest I had ever seen. That aside, I had no idea what I had just witnessed.
“Where in the all the Kingdoms did you find a Changeling?” Ember asked slowly.
“This Changeling has a name,” the woman snapped as she went to sit down in the chair across from Jolin, who still hadn’t moved since the change had started.
“This is Vida Orax,” Rema said as she stood beside Vida and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Judging from the looks on your faces—” She looked to me and then back to Jolin. “I’m guessing some explaining is in order. Vida is—”
“I can speak for myself,” Vida said as she removed Rema’s hand from her shoulder.
She was a feisty one, clearly. She had fire inside her. Maybe it was the years with Ember that made me admire this fire, but I was beginning to like her already.
“Hey—Lox, was it?” she said to me as I came back to reality. “You mind not smiling at me in such a creepy way?”
I felt Ember nudge me in the side.
“Either of you know what a Changeling is?” Vida asked, as sh
e slid her chair back some in order to put her feet on the table. “I know you do,” she said as she pointed to Ember. “You two—” She waved a finger to me and Jolin. “Not so much.”
She adjust her feet on the table and placed her hands behind her head.
“The Keeper, just like he did with all of you, saw fit to make me a Changeling. Able to change my appearance into any person I have seen in my lifetime.”
Oh, no. Not her too. Was I the only person alive in The Prime Sovereignty who didn’t believe in The Keeper?
“Changelings are incredibly rare,” Ember said out loud to the group. “Rarer than Warpers, and we are rare.”
“You’re right,” Vida said as she stood and walked over to Ember. He had almost a foot of height on her. As she got closer to us, I could feel my skin beginning to tingle. “So you’re Ember. I thought you’d be bigger.”
“You’ve heard of me?” Ember said with a slight smile.
“Before I got into this line of work, I lived on the streets of Walden, Pradeep, and Thera for four years, and every major death was attributed to you. Some of which I’m not even sure were yours. They didn’t all mention you by name, of course, but they all would say it was a Warper. Some said the name Ember.”
She turned and looked at me up and down. “Never heard of you, though.”
“He's my student,” Ember said defensively. I don’t know why, but for the first time, hearing him introduce me as his student made me feel like less of a man.
“Clearly,” Vida said.
“So, wait,” Jolin said as he stood up. “I’m a Tongue, but only an inward Tongue. So people are forced to tell me the truth when I want them too. Then there are rare people who are outward Tongues— people forced to tell the truth to anybody they speak to. Those poor bastards.”
He pointed over to Ember.
“You just referred to yourselves as inward Warpers, and I’ve seen you warp. Are you saying that there are outward Warpers too? People able to warp others, but not themselves?”