by Joe Jackson
Her first order of business was to see to the duke’s wishes with respect to Joaquim, her former assistant. Kari had spared him for so long on behalf of his mother, who still tearfully came to see him once per week. The woman was distraught: She understood what her son had done, and the consequences it should bring, but her love overrode that. It made Kari think of her conversation with King Koursturaux wherein the demon king admitted to killing some of her own children.
If your children tried to kill you, I suspect they would meet the same end, no matter what you may think now, before it has happened.
Kari couldn’t even imagine a betrayal of that magnitude. But now she had to wonder what Joaquim’s mother would think in the wake of the deadly attacks on the city the night before, once it came to light that he was at least partially responsible. Could she, would she forgive him? Her love might know no bounds, but there was loving your child and then there was sticking up for them after they’d caused an untold number of deaths. Joaquim had indirectly worked with demons – not just Mehr’Durillian people, but actual demons – and had cost dozens, possibly hundreds, their lives.
There’s really only one thing left I can do with him, Kari thought. But ultimately, the choice is going to be his, just like the choice to betray the Order to its enemies.
Just one thing to take care of at the campus, and then there would be no more avoiding it: Kari had to survey the remains of her destroyed house. Everything she and Grakin had built together was now ash, including the many unique and varied gifts they had received for their wedding. All of it was gone, nothing left for her to remember him by but the wedding band she wore on the chain of her dog tags, the tree that grew over his grave, and – of course – their children. She’d have to check with Aeligos or even Typhonix, but Kari was pretty sure the money was all gone, too. There would be nothing to use to rebuild the house before the harvest, which was far off, and yet she still owed the trade guilds thousands to repay what was now destroyed.
Ironically, Kari felt bad for the guards posted at the gates to the Order’s campus. She was the one with tears in her eyes, but she was more concerned with the impact it had on her people, who no doubt wanted nothing more than to see their Grand Commander strong and confident. Instead, they saw a broken and crying woman cracking under the stress of her post. She stopped to face them, and in that moment, she was amazed to see that she was beyond wrong.
The guards saluted her respectfully, not breaking eye contact even when they bowed their heads. “Ma’am, is there any way we can be of further service?” one of them asked.
Kari returned their salutes. “You’re doing exactly what you need to be doing,” she answered. “Keep this campus secure. There’s no telling when we may have to shelter people here again.”
Just speaking calmed her heartbeat, and she wiped the tears from her face absently. Her men agreed with further salutes, and Kari continued onto the grounds. She realized then that she wasn’t broken: She was still putting one foot in front of the other, moving forward and guiding her friends and allies in her wake. So many years ago, her friend, the assassin Eryn Olgaryn, had told her not to be ashamed to cry or be weak, but simply to work to make certain whatever caused her to cry or feel weak made her stronger in the end.
And I just killed a handful of Sekassus’ princes, Kari thought. Wait until my people hear of that. They already see me as their symbol of strength, and they don’t know any of what happened on Mehr’Durillia yet.
Feeling a bit more confident, Kari strode toward the prison, and her determined steps and the set of her face drew a number of others behind her. Included in that gathering were the two military-themed priests of the Order’s council: Masters Arinotte and Perez. They asked no questions and made no attempts to stop her, simply following behind. Even the prison guards accompanied her when she strode down the underground hall until she came to a stop before Joaquim’s cell.
“The duke passed sentence on you,” she told the cowering form of the human as he hid his face behind his pulled-up knees. “Death. I assume he wants me to cut your head off and either bury you in a shallow grave or burn you in the trash pits south of the city. That’s not going to happen.”
Kari paced back and forth before the cell’s bars, the others giving her space as they waited to hear what she would say. She figured they’d be disappointed, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t let that deter her from the only course of action she could settle on.
“I’m not going to kill you at all. But I’m also not going to hold you here forever, forcing my people to waste their time looking after you.”
Silence fell in the prison, and even the Mehr’Durillian prisoners approached the bars of their cells to listen to the conversation. Kari waited, and eventually Joaquim’s eyes came up to meet hers for the first time since she’d imprisoned him.
“I’m going to give you a taste of what you’ve done,” she told him quietly, though that didn’t seem to explain much to anyone. “Exile, Joaquim. I’m going to send you into exile, but it’s not going to be here; nowhere on Citaria. You… are going to Anthraxis.”
“You can’t…,” he whispered.
“I can, and I am. There’s a mortal quarter in Anthraxis where you should be able to live out your sentence – possibly the rest of your days – in relative safety. But you’re going to live in the shadow of the Overking for that time period, and you are going to get a very real glimpse of what it is you nearly brought upon this city and our world as a whole. There are, however, going to be a couple of stipulations you must follow.”
“First, you are not to return home until you receive permission from either myself or the council of this Order. If any of our hunters find you back on Citaria without permission, you will be killed on sight, no questions asked. Anthraxis isn’t going to be the nicest place to live, but as I said, you should be safe, and you can live out your days or the days of this sentence in some semblance of peace. Stay there, or move to one of the kings’ realms – I don’t much care, as long as you don’t make any attempts to come back here.”
“And second, I have people posted in Anthraxis on a permanent basis now. If they find that you are still selling secrets or acting as any sort of informant for any of the kings, I will have you found and killed. I am providing you a mercy, and if you take advantage of that, the response will be, fittingly, quite merciless. I advise you to live as much of a life of anonymity as you can. Do you understand everything I’ve just told you?”
“Y-yes, ma’am,” he managed with a shudder.
“Your only other option is a swift death, as the duke ordered. You do have this choice; I can’t take that away from you.”
“I-I will accept the exile, Lady Vanador.”
Kari nodded. “I’ll see to it someone takes you to Anthraxis in the next few days. Guards, take him to the showers, let him get cleaned up, and get him some fresh clothes and provisions for a stay in Anthraxis. Then you get in contact with his mother and pass along word of this sentence, and if she’d like to speak, tell her I’ll be happy to give her my time when possible.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the guards said, moving forward to open the gate.
Masters Arinotte and Perez both stared at Kari, but these were prideful stares, and both men nodded and saluted her before they took their leave. The Avatar looked around at the other people before her. “What are you lot doing? Need me to find something to keep you busy?”
Despite the chuckles, the rest of those who’d come to witness what happened departed with all haste. Kari smirked after them, but then made her way farther into the prison and stood where she could see all four of the Mehr’Durillian prisoners. She folded her arms across her chest, then looked the first three in the eye. The erestram sat against the wall of his cell, not bothering to look up at her, but he was an unrelated matter anyway.
“What am I going to do with you three?” she asked.
One of the mallasti held his hands out through the bars. “Have our fingers fixe
d, I hope,” he offered somewhat meekly in uncertain tones, the Citarian trade tongue clearly not familiar to him.
Kari nodded; that was a small enough mercy. “Guard, have a runner go fetch one of Tigron’s priests, if you would,” she said over her shoulder, being answered affirmatively. She turned back to the prisoners. “I suppose it would be a waste of time to ask why you did what you did last night.”
“Do you not understand what is so simple?” the elestram male asked. “We do as we are ordered by our king.”
“Why not follow the teachings of your goddess instead?”
She was answered by three scoffs. “Our goddess is dead, you fool,” said the other mallasti, the one who had tried to attack Kari the night before. “The kings killed our goddess. Follow her teachings? To what end? So that the wrath of our kings is directed on us instead of you?”
“To stand up and fight the kings, to take back your world,” Kari offered, wary of saying too much and word getting back to Mehr’Durillia of her involvement in the Sorelizarian rebellion.
“How ever did you rise to your position, being so naïve?” the other mallasti asked. “Fight the kings? They killed our goddess. What threat are we to them? No, it is better to do as they command here, that their wrath and zeal fall elsewhere and not on our own families.”
Kari grimaced. It was a bad situation, and she could only fault these attackers so much for doing the will of their king. She didn’t pity them, not completely, but neither did she have any desire to kill them. If anything, she understood what they’d done more than someone like Joaquim, but that didn’t mean she could let them go. On the other hand, holding them indefinitely wasn’t an option for more than one reason. It was possible, however improbable, that she could one day let them go if the kings were overthrown, but that was a long-term goal. She needed to find a way to deal with them before then, but doing so without defaulting to execution would be a difficult task.
“A priest will be coming to see to your fingers. Remember what I told you: If you cause any trouble or injuries, your lives will end. Not just the offender’s, either; all of you. You may still find a way out of this imprisonment, but it’s all going to hinge on being of no trouble to me and mine. Is that clear?”
She was answered by three bobbing heads, but she looked past them to the erestram as he rose to a crouch before the bars and beckoned her over. “May I speak with the one who subdued me?” the wolf-man asked in infernal.
“I’ll pass along your request,” Kari returned in the imperious language. She wasn’t sure why he wanted to talk to Karinda instead, but thought maybe she could leave his fate in her hands.
With no further information coming, Kari left the prison. Oddly, she was starting to find strength in moving around rather than trying to rest. She was still exhausted and sore all over, but the more she moved, the easier it was to deal with the pain. She figured she’d best take advantage of the situation and see to her other tasks while she could. She still had to go take a look at her home, send forth the Silver Blades to rescue Erik, and then go about giving condolences to the many families of those who’d died in the line of duty the night before. Not the least of whom, she thought with a grimace, was Albrecht Allerius.
Oh, my friend, she thought. How I’m going to miss your advice and your smile.
*****
Kris was waiting for her when she left the campus, and she wondered if he had just gotten there or if he was avoiding walking its grounds for some reason. “Are we good to go?” he asked.
“Yes,” Kari answered. “Eliza is here to take you all.”
The Warlord nodded even as she told him. “So where are you headed?”
Kari wondered how well Kris and Eliza knew each other, but didn’t want to get off on a tangent. “To the house,” she sighed. “Have to see if there’s anything left to begin rebuilding with.”
“I can go home when we get back, see if I can help out financially,” he offered.
“It may not be worth it,” Kari said, shaking her head. “I may just sell the land and let it be someone else’s headache. I have way too much to think about to go through this again. Plus, I can never… I can never rebuild the house Grakin and I built.”
Kris stopped her long enough to wrap her in a comforting hug, and Kari held onto him, a rock in the center of the torrent. They remained silent the rest of the way to the estate house, though some of the family was there when they arrived. The damage wasn’t substantial, it was absolute: Only the chimneys remained, and even those had been compromised by the intense heat of the fire. The rest of the house potentially saved by Samasurassa’s breath had since fallen, charred to an unstable husk that collapsed under the weight of its own despair. It was just as well: Kari didn’t want to look at a half-destroyed house. In some odd way, it was better that it was gone completely.
“This was the house I built with my husband,” Kari said to no one in particular, though she had the attention of her friends and family as she spoke. “This was the house I gave birth to my daughter in…”
“We will rebuild it, Lady Vanador,” came a voice from behind her.
Kari turned to behold most of her workers standing there. In the forefront was Manuel, one of her best and the man who acted as supervisor for most of the other staff. “I wish I could, Manny. I really do,” she said. “But it cost me a small fortune to rebuild this place the first time, and I already have too much debt with the trade guilds.”
He produced a pouch that he was hiding behind his back and handed it to Kari. She started when she realized what the jingle was, and her gaze snapped back up to meet his. “I can’t take your money,” she said.
“Lady Vanador, you gave us all a gift the likes of which we’d never seen or expected to see in our lifetimes,” he said. “It was incredibly generous of you, but now you need it more. Please, take it and have your house rebuilt.”
The others came forward and began leaving the pouches of coins Kari, through Typhonix, had given them as bonuses for the New Year’s celebration. One hundred gold coins per employee quickly added up, and staring down at all the pouches at her feet, Kari realized she easily had enough here to rebuild the house and then some. She looked back up at the solemn but encouraging faces of her employees, and for the second time this day, Kari broke down into tears.
Even the syrinthians came and offered Kari the coins they’d been given. Kari sank down to her knees and let all the emotions of the last eighteen hours pour out through her eyes. Kris knelt beside her and hugged her again, and from the occasional sniffle, she guessed some of the rest of her family were nearly as touched as she was. Despite all she had lost, everything the house represented, she knew now that it was only a physical manifestation of the riches she possessed. It was the love and friendship of these people – her family, Kris, her employees, and even the syrinthians who now worked for her – that was her true wealth.
The house could be rebuilt. Her heart didn’t need to be.
“I’ll repay you all two-fold, I promise you,” she managed through her tears.
Manuel was the one to help Kari to her feet, and Kris let him. Kari hugged her supervisor, and finally managed a smile when he asked, “How is Mr. Typhonix?”
Kari didn’t know how her brother-in-law was, too wrapped up in the events of the last half a day to even ask. She turned to Kris, as did the rest of the gathering, and the Warlord smiled, but rocked on his heels a little.
“I don’t want to give you too much hope,” he qualified his coming statement, “but I think the surgery went perfectly. Ty still has a long path ahead of him: He hasn’t used his legs in a long time, and it’s going to be a while before he can walk, much less get back to the way he was. But from what I saw and heard, the surgery was a complete success.”
Kari was in danger of running out of tears, but she hardly cared as she leaned into Kris again. It occurred to her that she hadn’t mentioned her feelings or intentions toward him to the family yet, but guessed this was going to
do that well enough. She sighed quietly and swallowed her nagging worry; it would all be explained in due time.
Soon Eli, Jol, Liria, and Aeligos joined them, bringing along someone whose presence made Kari smile. Gabrius, the half-brys paladin and member of the Avenger Order, had apparently agreed to go with them as well. The lot of them arrived only moments before Eliza and Sonja, and though they weren’t sure of what had happened, Kris gave them no time to ask. With the entirety of their strike force gathered, he quickly demonstrated the authority of command that made him so effective during the War.
“Say your goodbyes and let’s get ready to go,” he said, nodding toward Eliza, who returned the gesture.
“Eliza, is this going to attract too much attention?” Kari asked as she straightened up.
“Perhaps, but the timing is perfect,” the half-succubus answered. “The kings have the coming council session to worry about, and if Kris and the others make it clear they’re going straight into Si’Dorra, that should leave only Arku perturbed.”
Kari looked back at Kris, and he nodded confidently. “Don’t worry, Kari, we’ll be fine. It may be the first trip to Mehr’Durillia for many of us, but it’s not my first dance in the fire.”
Kari had only to think of what their brigade had been assigned to do during the War, and she couldn’t disagree. “Make sure you ask Liria for advice when you need it. She may not have ever left Sorelizar before coming here, but Mehr’Durillia is her home and she can give you insights into a lot of things. Right, Liria?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the syrinthian cadet replied.
Kari was pleased when Kris put a hand to the girl’s shoulder and nodded again. “All right, no long goodbyes. I hate them and I know Kari does, too. Eliza, get the spell prepared.”
Kari accepted hugs from her friends and family, but soon, they were joined hand-in-hand with Eliza at the head of their circle. With a whoosh and a pop, they all disappeared, whisked away to the depths of Mehr’Durillia. It may not have been the underworld in truth, but Kari couldn’t stop a grimace from crossing her face. She had just sent her friends and family to the homeworld of their most powerful enemies.