The man who was not Su had a terrible presence, and Cory wasn’t sure he liked his tone neither. “What is it, then?”
“You can call me...Kurt.”
“Kurt?”
“Kurt.”
“What in the hell are you doing here, Kurt?”
“I need your help.” Kurt’s laughter was harsh and it filled Cory with a deepening sense of dread. “You see, I came to this world through a doorway in my mind, and can’t seem to find my way back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The phone call you just got, most likely from the prison they threw me in?”
“Yeah, how—”
The escaped patient!
“Yes, it was me,” Kurt said, his mouth twisting into a vicious grin. “You’re quite slow, you know that? The shelter that the police deposited me in could not handle me, so to speak, so they decided to put me in one of your mental hospitals. It was useful to me in a way, as they gladly taught me your language—in hindsight, a thing not too dissimilar from the language of the Masku on my world—and I was able to learn much about your people from the television and what books the orderlies had on hand.
“But then, they were threatening to up the dosage on the tranquilizers, and any more than what they were giving me would have severely dampened my ability to channel my Sulen. So, I decided that the place had served its purpose.”
“Sulen?”
“The nearest translation is spirit—” Kurt rolled his eyes. “—but that’s not exactly right. Don’t try to figure it out, it’s useless for you to try to comprehend anything I’m telling you. Suffice it to say, I’m not from this world. You probably suspected as much when you first found me, even if you couldn’t admit it to yourself. The...being...I made a bargain with wanted me to come to this world, but I’ve yet to discover why that is.”
“The being?”
Mako vali Oreseth!
The words Kurt had been shouting to the setting sun came back to Cory. His heart rate escalated, and for a moment images of a burning sky flashed through his mind.
“You needn’t concern yourself with the details,” Kurt said.
“How am I going to help you if I don’t know them?” Cory asked.
“It’s not you that I need.”
“Then...” Cory shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Then, as he watched, a strange blue light emanated from Kurt’s stumps. The light seemed to twist and loop around the man’s head and face, until, somehow, it solidified into two transparent hands that covered his stumps.
That’s how he skinned them rabbits!
Cory’s heart was in his throat, his back pressed firmly against the wall.
“I need your name—” Kurt waved his hand over his face, and it was as though Cory was staring at his own reflection—“and your face.”
Kurt stood up and approached him. Cory tried to run, but found that he couldn’t move. A blinding white light surged in front of Kurt’s outstretched transparent hand. He could feel the heat from it forming, blistering the skin on his face. He felt his bladder empty itself all over the bran’ new carpet he’d just put in.
“But, I do not need you,” Kurt said.
CHAPTER ONE
SAGE
I dedicate this vessel in the name of Oreseth!
Sage’s eyes jerked open. Sweat beaded atop his brow, and his breath was short.
The pain he’d felt in his nightmare faded slowly as he took in the dank and arid smells of the cave that made up his room. The Olloketh crystals were bright with that familiar fresh morning glow.
There was a vast network of the crystals scattered throughout the cave systems of the mountain, embedded in the rocky walls and natural supports of the subterranean city. When the sun came out at the start of each long day, it charged the crystals, brightening the inner caves a little bit. The old-timers claimed it made living underground slightly easier, but his friends hadn’t known anything else.
Even if it was survivable, he couldn’t help but find himself dreaming of the surface, where the Masku lived.
Sitting up, he ran his fingertips across his gut where the blade had pierced his flesh.
Just a dream, he thought.
The nightmare was always the same:
He stands alone in the rain, staring at a formless white horizon. Storm clouds dance all across the sky, cascading into the distance, almost as if they have a life of their own.
If he stares long enough, he can make out the shape of tiny, cloudy hands reaching out, grasping at nothing: perhaps begging for release from some ethereal prison?
Looking up, he sees a crimson eye staring down at him.
The eye of the storm.
The clouds swirl around the eye, but do not dare to touch it. He hears the distinct sound of leather boots slapping against rainwater-soaked earth behind him and turns, drawing Suleniar from the scabbard that hangs off his waist.
His attacker is a mere silhouette against the constant lightning flashes beyond, but he can’t help but feel like this presence is somehow familiar.
Fires rip through Sage’s body, spreading to the very bones in his fingers. He can’t feel his own Sulen. The blade he’s trusted his whole life feels heavy in his weakening grasp.
He wonders if the stranger is somehow sapping his strength. Or... His eyes drift to the crimson eye above.
Before he can think, the attacker draws his own blade and rushes at him. Instinct and adrenaline take over. Metal clangs against metal, ringing through the damp air. Sage manages to deflect the silhouette’s attacks with wild, haphazard parries and slashes. Finally, he thinks he sees an opening and presses his attack, but the silhouette seems to know his every step, his every move.
The bastard is in full control. He’s toying with Sage.
He feels his sword fly from his hands, watching helplessly as it lands on the formless white ground several feet away; the blade skids in the rain and he contemplates diving for it.
His breath traps in his chest as his back splashes and smacks against the wet ground. He didn’t see the kick coming. He closes his eyes, anticipating a killing blow that never comes.
Instead of killing him and claiming his victory, the silhouette rambles. “You disgust me,” he says, in a familiar rasping voice. “You could be the greatest of our line, but look at you!”
“Who are you?” Sage says, feeling the answer just at the edge of recollection.
“You don’t deserve that body.”
“Answer the damned question!”
There’s a flash of lightning, and a crimson symbol ignites over the silhouette’s forehead. “I dedicate this vessel to Oreseth!”
The silhouette leaps forward and plunges a dagger into Sage’s belly.
“Now, give me back what belongs to me!”
He wants to argue, wants to tell the silhouette that he doesn’t have a damn clue what he’s talking about, but he feels himself slipping away as he lays staring at the eye of the storm. The crimson eye becomes more and more vibrant. He can feel it peering into his soul, drawing deep the hidden power that he wished he’d been able to use against the silhouette earlier, but what it reaches for feels so different from his own Sulen. It feels twisted and angry, and yet...
He smiles—
“Sage!” His grandfather’s voice was old, raspy and tired, bordering on senility. It was a voice belonging to a man who had lived for eons, seen dozens of cities like this one fall at the hands of enemies whom the Council of Elders and the history tomes claimed were daemonic beings. A voice that was now tired of its own miserable existence.
Sage couldn’t really blame him, even if he didn’t believe most of the legends.
The echo from his grandfather’s shouting and grunting bounced off the cavern walls, followed by the tapping of his cane.
“I’m up,” Sage said.
His grandfather tossed the curtains aside, hunching low through the doorway. The old man crept toward Sage’s bed, his hands s
haking feebly to maintain his grip on the cane. It was hard to believe that he had ever been a great Sulekiel warrior, back when their people hadn’t been forced to live like rats beneath the mountains.
His grandfather had lost most of his hair, and what was left had gone white as phantom’s light. The old man’s cheekbones were nearly razor-sharp in the dim light of the Olloketh crystals; his thousand-processions-old skin seemed to cling to his bones like a wet sack.
“Lazy bastard,” Gramps said. “You sleep so late, it’s a wonder you don’t lapse into the Astral Lands!”
Sage tossed the covers aside and stood up, carefully avoiding banging his head against the low, jagged ceiling next to his bed. “Didn’t you know? We’re both there now, this is merely—”
*****
“I dedicate this vessel to Oreseth!”
And just like that, he feels as though his body is lost in the midst of that terrible, never-ending white void.
Only now, there seems to be a dim crimson glow to his surroundings.
“—and that’s the problem with your lot. You’ve all grown lazy. You’ll be the death of us all. When I was your age, we trained long before first moon and kept going till our bodies couldn’t take no more, and we were ready to take the Trials by twenty processions or younger! None of this waiting round till you’re twenty-five or thirty nonsense!”
Sage hadn’t even realized the old man was talking. How long had he been zoning out for?
The old man smacked him across the arm with his cane and Sage lurched. “Don’t just stand there like an idiot. Get dressed already, we’re going to be late!”
“Late for what? I don’t have any lessons today! Kiel suspended me, remember?”
“Elder Geidra is summoning the whole city to the cathedral.”
“What for?”
“I’m not supposed to say, and it’s not your place to question the Council’s orders. You should know better.”
The old man’s thick white brow furrowed, casting even more wrinkles across his sagging forehead. Sage wondered if his late mother’s hair had been the same color Gramps’ hair used to be. His grandparents rarely mentioned their past.
He was hiding something now, though.
“I don’t see how any meeting that Geidra is hosting has anything to do with me, I’m not even a—”
The old man smacked his arm again; his fading grey eyes smoldered with a rage that had not quieted even in the last fifteen processions. “That’s enough lip out of you, boy! The summons is for everyone, not just Valier. That includes the sons of traitors.”
Sage’s eyebrows clenched together, anger flaring inside him like a freshly stoked fire. If the old man tried that again—if he called him son of a traitor again—he’d catch that cane and kick him right through the...
He caught himself. That was just what they expected him to do, wasn’t it?
“What?” his grandfather said. “Well, if you’ve something to say, go on and say it!”
Sage remained quiet, trying to calm himself. It was no use fighting the old man on the subject; he’d have to attend this meeting one way or another.
“Well?” The old man shook the end of his cane at him, his teeth bared. “Get to it already!”
Sage maneuvered himself away from the wrath of his grandfather’s cane till he was standing next to his closet. “Fine. I’m awake. You can go away now.”
Gramps muttered something under his breath.
Sage found one of his tunics and slipped it on; the material was old and scratchy against his skin. He grabbed for his cloak and boots and sat back down on the bed.
For some reason, his grandfather was staring at the wooden floorboards that...
No. There was no way he knew about the sword, right?
But when Sage looked up again, the old man had turned and started down the tunnel, his voice bouncing back to him. “I expect you out in five minutes.”
Sage breathed a sigh of relief.
He didn’t want to think of what the penalty might be for possessing an amplifier blade, especially not one that had been gifted by a traitor.
2
He was out in three minutes to find his grandfather pacing around the living room and grumbling incoherently while his grandmother cleared the table of half-eaten fish and utensils. The old man hurried them out the door as soon as he saw that Sage was coming down the stairs, and it was all he could do to snatch up a cold fish to munch on.
Outside their home, the city of Yce Ralakar was busy. The familiar smell of damp sediment slapped Sage in the face, and the roar of rushing water from the river mostly drowned out the constant complaining from his grandfather.
Sage followed his grandparents into the crowds of Sulekiel following one of the city’s many branching wooden walkways.
Thousands of lights twinkled in the haze left by the rushing of the river at first light, each belonging to a stone building where a family or several families of Sulekiel resided. People of all stations and colors were pouring in from paths and cavern offshoots.
The river spanned the entire city and fractured into hundreds of fissures and subterranean lakes which led to smaller caverns and offshoots of the city. It was fed by a lake at the top of one of Mount Paronis’s peaks. In some ways, it was the city’s lifeline. It allowed for them to grow crops—at least those that would grow underground—and they used nets to catch the fish and other creatures that swam its length.
Families of Sulekiel gathered on raised wooden pathways in the distance, funneling through the caves, around massive support pillars, and the brilliant glow of massive, overhanging Olloketh crystals. They were heading toward the stone walls of the central cathedral, towering up to the rocky ceiling of the cavern, with its vaulted chambers and tiered statues of long-dead warriors and Elders alike.
Watching his people as they swarmed beneath the stalactites that hung above the city’s core like ancient, jagged blades fit only for eldritch giants, Sage couldn’t help but think that they looked like insects.
Sage caught a glimpse of Takarus’s coal skin, shimmering like reflecting obsidian, as he rushed through the crowds toward him, a worried look on his face. “Sage, hold up a second!”
“What is it?” Sage asked, stopping in his tracks and forcing other Sulekiel to complain and walk around them.
Takarus brushed his silver hair out of his eyes and peered up at Sage. “Came to warn you.”
“About?”
“I overheard my father talking last night. He suspects someone’s been bypassing the main gate after second moon.”
“And I wonder who he suspects?”
Takarus’s golden eyes narrowed. “You. Duh.”
Sage laughed. “He suspects me for every little thing.”
“But you wouldn’t leave the city, right?” Takarus’s eyes were pleading.
Sage had to be careful how he answered. Takarus’s loyalty to Sage ended where his love for his father began.
Sage shook his head. “If I was, don’t you think I would have told you?”
“Good. That’s a relief!” Takarus’s eyes softened. “He was talking about exiling you. Especially after the things you said during training yesterday...”
“Exiling me?” Sage’s hands balled into fists. Was what he’d said about treating the healer caste better really that taboo? “For what? Words?”
“Look, what you said really riled him up!”
“Seems to me, if he’s such a great warrior, Kiel shouldn’t feel so damn threatened by mere words.”
“Come on, man,” Takarus said, sulking. “He’s my father. He means well...”
“You keep saying that.” Sage found himself staring into the crowds of passing Sulekiel, who were making a show of trying to avoid eye contact with them.
He could see what the public thought about the two of them talking out in the open like this written in their soured expressions. To think, Takarus, son of the Commander of the Valier, would risk delinquency by associating with Sage...
Son of the traitor who sacked the city fifteen processions ago!
When the two of them were children, it had always been easy for Sage to ignore how different their stations in life were...
Now?
Sometimes he wondered if Takarus was as blind as his sister was to the flaws of life under the rule of the great High Elder Geidra.
Sage glanced around, scanning the crowd of Sulekiel passing them by, then cleared his throat. “Where’s your sister?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Takarus said. “This is serious.”
“Kirana’s usually sewed to your hip, I just want to make sure she’s not going to ambush me and accuse me of something.”
“I snuck out, left her behind.” His friend’s golden eyes drifted back the way he came suspiciously. “She said I shouldn’t speak to you.”
“You better go find her then and tell her you never saw me.”
Takarus sighed. “Can you at least be careful how you talk to Father?”
Sage shrugged, putting on a brave face. “I’ll try.”
“Great!” Takarus chuckled, shook his head, and fell back into the crowd. “I gotta go. She’s probably looking for me!”
Sage nodded, and caught up with his grandparents, who were just about to enter under the grand arch.
“Where the hell did you run off to?” Gramps asked, glaring at him.
“Oh, Malos, leave him alone,” Sage’s grandmother said, yanking the sleeve of his grandfather’s cloak. “He was just talking to his friend.”
Sage smiled. At least his grandmother had his back when it mattered. “Takarus just wanted to tell me something about yesterday’s lessons.”
“Ah, good,” Gramps said. “Best to better your station by making friends with the right people, rather than those freaks you typically surround yourself with.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sage asked.
His grandfather didn’t have a chance to finish; it was their turn to enter the cathedral.
The river rushed violently below the Bridge of Tears, a massive natural bridge that, like most features of Yce Ralakar, was carved from the cavern’s own stone. It was the only access point to the cathedral. The river acted like a moat around the structure before carrying on in its path toward the main gates at least ten miles from the core of the city.
The Man Without Hands Page 2