Tears welled in Wren’s eyes. “It’s been like this for a very long time, and it’s not going to change. You know that...”
“It’s not right.”
“I know...” Worry ghosted over Wren’s face; she kept glancing at the copper doors. “But please don’t go saying things like that to people. If Argis overheard you... She’s been saying things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Since she healed you several months ago, she’s been claiming that she had visions upon laying hands on you. She thinks you’re evil.”
“Do you remember what I said about my theory on the Shar?”
Wren nodded. “I remember.”
“Maybe they’re the evil ones.” He gestured in the direction of the Elders’ Quarter. “Maybe they’re the Shar.”
He was about to leave, about to flee into the city, to run as far as his legs and his muscles would allow, crawl into the deepest, darkest cavern, and let his war cry fill a space where none would be able to hear it.
Wren grabbed his wrist and pulled him close, hugging him as tight as she could.
“Isn’t physical contact forbidden between us?” Sage whispered.
She squeezed tighter; her warmth calmed him, made some of the anger ebb. “To hell with taboos.”
Sage pulled away from her. “Thank you.”
There was a strange look on her face. “You better run now.”
He nodded. It was odd how much that had helped. “Thank you.”
Wren nodded. He wasn’t sure what that look meant, but as he sank into the dark, the question left his mind.
He returned home. The fatigue hung heavy on his eyes. His body would force him to rest soon, whether he liked it or not.
Crawling into bed, he hoped that his nightmares would give him a reprieve for once.
3
The eye of the storm burns with a heat that evaporates the rain above him. The thunderheads churn and steam around it.
The ground, once pristine white, is covered in vines of blackened filth, an inky substance that reflects the eye of the storm’s crimson glow and spreads out like a web. And he’s at the center of it.
Sage feels compelled to look up.
He cannot stop staring at it. The more he stares at the crimson light that burns at the center of the storm, the more he can see. There appears to be a multi-segmented pupil inside the eye of the storm, and when he realizes this, he feels a presence. A presence that seems to be filled with a familiar, burning rage.
It feels good to embrace it, to let its warmth fill him and spread through his body, giving his tired limbs new life. It makes everything else seem petty and small.
Insignificant.
They are all insignificant!
4
Sage’s eyes shot open.
His bare feet were caked with snow. He was standing, staring into the face of Aula’kar, bathed in red light and surrounded by snowcapped peaks and a blanket of stars. A harsh wind embraced his body, but he did not cower from it.
How the hell did I get up here? His eyes darted to and fro, looking for Kiel, for Geidra or Dirkus, anyone who might have dragged him off to the peaks in his sleep; but there was no one.
He was alone.
And in his right hand was Suleniar.
At first, he’d thought that the blade was merely reflecting the crimson light of Aula’kar’s full disk, but soon he realized that it was glowing. And as it glowed, he could see sigils lighting up along the blade. Symbols he couldn’t read.
Sage could feel a strength in him that he had never felt before. It burned and swelled inside. It was his own Sulen. Raw and untapped. And the sword...he’d never expected it to amplify his power like this. The stories Wren had told didn’t give the feeling justice.
It was intoxicating. And as he held it in his grasp, his questions melted away like dead leaves carried away in that frigid wind.
He smiled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TANNER
The days came and went. On each of the days when Sage would normally come down from the mountains to teach him his language, Tanner waited for hours by the tree... But the boy never showed. He was more than a little disappointed; he’d grown to enjoy their little language arts sessions.
Over the course of several months, he never lost hope that the boy would show up again. Even as the sun set behind Hades and the long night returned.
Now he sat alone, feeling the wind in his hair while drawing Sage’s symbols in the dirt under candlelight.
He couldn’t help but reflect on what Mayor Greok had said. Could Sage really have been a devil? The boy’s skin was odd, that was for sure—as if a blacksmith had accidentally poured molten metal all over him. But, besides his skin and his hair and his strange language, he seemed a lot like other boys...
Maybe Sage somehow knew that he’d told on him? Maybe he was mad at him now?
It was said that devils could spy on you from afar.
Or maybe he’d gotten in trouble with his own parents?
The second moon was rising to meet the face of Hades.
Maybe tonight would be different? Maybe the boy would turn up, and he was just late?
Tanner decided to wait for him one last time.
2
Tanner lost count of the hours, making letters and symbols beneath the false Jupiter; it was often hard to tell how much time had passed without a timepiece, and his father never let his out of his sight. Such machines were expensive.
There was a nagging fear deep inside him. That if he wasn’t careful, his father would realize that he was gone from his bed and come searching for him. If that happened... He didn’t want to think about what kind of punishment he’d be in for.
He found himself lying on his back, watching the clouds go by. He remembered his mother telling him, one restless night, about how the first human settlers came to this land confused and disoriented, as if they’d fallen through the cracks in the old world to another place. Mother had said, “They rode strange creatures, not unlike daison beasts, and wielded great thundering, miniature cannons, which they held in their hands. Your great-grandfather told my mother that his father was tasked with making contact with the natives of a strange new land. Only, when he got to the place where the natives were supposed to be, their settlement was completely empty. They tried to turn back, but found that the land was strange, that none of their maps worked.
“Slowly, the land and the sky changed. The sun didn’t change much in the sky, and there was a great big red disk high above. They found that their hand cannons didn’t work in this new place, and their horses were picked off by larger predators. Many of them died, but not our line. Do you want to know why, Tanner?”
He had asked her why.
“Because we are survivors, my son. No matter where we go. No matter how many suns shine in the sky, no matter what devils ail us.”
She went on to tell him about how the lost settlers tried to use things called sundials to tell time, but only found confusion, for the sun merely tracked across the horizon, rose or dipped, and night only came when the sun went behind Hades. When he asked his mother why their ancestors came here, she’d shrugged, and said that none of them had a choice. “There are things in life that no one can explain,” she had said. “But fate catches everybody.”
He wondered if Sage had fallen through a crack in his world, like his ancestors.
Tanner clutched at the thing he’d hoped to show to Sage today, the telescope that his mother had given to him after his eighth birthday. He’d used it many nights to look at the craters on the moons, and the complex cloud structures on the surface of the red Jupiter that his people called Hades. The sphere was so large in the sky, they’d be able to see so much detail with it!
His mother said that four generations ago, her great-grandparents had been astronomers who had mapped the course of the old world, and when they came to this new one, they tried to do the same thing. It was more difficult, of course. This
new earth was strange, with its long days and long nights, and the giant Jupiter that loomed huge in the sky at all hours of the day. She had said that nearest they could figure, was that the world always faced the same direction; otherwise there would be times where Hades wouldn’t be visible, but it always was.
Tanner had always wondered what that old world had been like, what it would be like to experience short days and short nights.
His butt had gone numb from sitting, and it was finally starting to get dark outside. The sun was setting behind Hades, casting bands of red and orange and purple across the clouds in the distance. He decided that Sage wasn’t coming, so he headed back to town. Maybe Mayor Greok had been right after all.
The stars began to blanket the sky, and Hades glowed bright and red, casting an ominous red glow on the ground he walked.
The streets were empty by the time he got back into town. He walked alone with Hades’ red light casting his shadow forward. That red light gave the wooden buildings that made up his small town a wicked look. Fences looked like pikes meant for the heads of Northerners, houses looked like creatures with glowing square eyes, and the mayor’s mansion looked like a towering monstrosity, like the ones adventurers in thestories he liked to read would have to conquer. He was just about to round the corner that would lead him home, when he saw something unusual
The mayor’s mansion was lit up from the inside, the blinds drawn, but he could have sworn he saw something horned and spiky cast a shadow against one of the windows.
Against his better judgment, Tanner crept past the mayor’s picket fence and through his bushes, taking special care not to knock over his lawn ornaments.
I’ll just take a peek, he thought.
He got close, trying his best to remain quiet. He could hear voices, but couldn’t make out the words spoken.
Goosebumps covered his skin, and ice coated his heart, but he maneuvered himself around to another window, where the blinds were drawn slightly askew. He could see part of the mayor’s den. The fire was roaring in the fireplace. The sounds he heard seemed almost not to be coming from inside, but echoed, as if in a dream.
Then he saw it, and it paralyzed him.
He felt his pants grow wet around his leg and his shoes get soggy with the moisture. It had the shape of a large, muscular naked man, but wasn’t a man at all. It had three fingers that ended in terrible claws. Where there should be skin was black and blue scales, glistening as if wet with slime or sheen of sweat.
Its face was horrific and twisted, like a lizard’s, eyes glowing dim and orange, horns stretching back on its head and repeating down neck and back in a spiral pattern that would almost look elegant if it weren’t so grotesque. Its mouth was the worst part. It had no lips, only yellow and black fangs that looked like they could tear through flesh like a knife through butter.
The creature was watching something in the den, and he saw another silhouette cast its shadow on the blinds; this one had two horns that shot off at opposite sides of its head, and, from the shadow, looked like it was wearing robes. The voices were abrasive; he couldn’t understand them.
Yet, somehow, even in his paralysis, he felt they were familiar.
Something about them—he couldn’t put his finger on it—made him feel small, insignificant. He could feel his pulse thundering in his ears, his heartbeat so loud that he was sure it would give him away to the devils inside.
Then he heard something that he could only interpret as a name.
“Norady.”
And he screamed, and began to run. His face flush, his breathing erratic, his temples burning as though someone had placed hot coals inside his skull. He could no longer control his legs; they carried him beyond the town’s gates and onto the main road. He ran and ran and ran. Past trees and rocks and boulders, through the grass, down the road, and into the forest. The branches and leaves vibrated with the wind, threatening to reach out to grab him and hold him for the devils.
His foot caught on a rock, and he tripped, scuffing his knees.
Shadows danced in the woods, and Hades’ red light bathed him in blood. He heard a sickening laughter echo around him.
Was he alone? Would the devils find him? He looked all around himself and saw nothing.
He was just about to breathe a sigh of relief, to run home and hide under his blankets and never come out again, when—
“Little Masku.” Its voice was deep and menacing, like an evil god. “You will tell us where the Sulekiel runt went.”
Tanner backed up, looking this way and that. The voice felt like it was coming from everywhere. There was a strange scent permeating through the air now, like how his dad smelled after a long day of work. He wanted to run, he wanted to run so badly, but all he could do was cower in the dirt, under the trees and the glaring face of Hades, and utter a shadow of a prayer.
“Atreus, god of mercy!” Tanner’s voice was weak and wavering. “Please save me from the devils!”
“Idiot Masku, my brother is not here,” the devil said, his voice filling him, drowning out everything else like a terrible rumbling trumpet. “We will eat you alive and slaughter your kin if you do not tell us! There’s your mercy, boy!”
“B-brother?” Tanner said, cowering on the ground, covering his head so he wouldn’t have to see those terrible devils.
“Norady, stop,” the other one said. “The boy does not know where their city is. But, I—”
“Silence, Shar!”
He closed his eyes tight, praying to Nel’rion and Atreus to free him from these terrible devils.
His prayers were ignored.
Tanner felt two three-clawed hands, the nails thick and terrible, wrap about his shoulders and begin to dig deep into his flesh. He felt himself being lifted into the air, and he could feel the gaze of the devil even with his eyes squeezed shut.
“Open your eyes, slave!”
Tanner did as he was commanded and stared into the terrible eyes of the monster he had seen through the window. Its scaly, slimy skin looked red and terrible in the light of Hades, and its eyes glowed brighter in this darkness. It seemed to regard him with a contempt and indifference that he couldn’t comprehend. He could feel sharp pains stab in his chest, worse even than the monster’s claws that were slowly slicing into his flesh. The pain crept up his left arm, and he started to convulse.
It was okay, though...soon the devils would go away. Soon the nightmare would end.
“I told you already, he doesn’t know anything, just that the Sulekiel always ventured toward the mountains.”
“Then he is useless to me!”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”
Tanner felt the wind rush through his hair as the creature hurled him at a tree. There was a loud crack and a sharp pain that stabbed up his spine like a lightning bolt that nestled at the base of his skull.
His vision was blurry; he saw the two devils bickering in the dark.
“If you do not find that city, I will do more than kill this drone of yours, Shar.” The big one towered over the smaller one.“You remember your predecessor, no doubt?”
The smaller devil cowered. “I’ve been trying to tell you...”
The big one lifted the smaller one into the air. “Tell me what?”
“I-I think—I know where it is!” the smaller one said.
“Why did you not bring this up before?” Its eyes burned violently.
“I have been trying, then the boy intervened, and...”
“Where is it?”
“Akas memories from the mountains. There was a spike of Sulen near one of Mount Paronis’s peaks. They must be dwelling within the mountains!”
The bigger one was smiling. “You should have reported this immediately. Atreus will not be pleased.”
“I had to be sure I was right! Akas memories are so unreliable! Forgive me!”
The big devil set the little one down. “I will spare this drone for now.”
“You are most gracious, mas
ter.”
The devils began to move away, but the bigger one turned back to Tanner, its eyes burning with murder. “Tell no one of us, or we will burn your town to ashes.”
The monsters vanished.
He couldn’t feel his legs, and his blood pooled out black against the red light of Hades.
Soon he would die, and be free of the devils.
All of them.
Darkness gripped at him as he heard Eldulor’s bells toll, and the sounds of townspeople scurrying about him, cursing and crying and praying, came soon after.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CORY
He would never get used to the crosswalk. The cars and the horns, the putrid smell that seemed to hang in the air and strangle his senses, and the business of it all. The buildings—skyscrapers, they called them—were everywhere. When he’d first come to this Manhattan, it had been like arriving at the mayor’s district in Seretoll again, though these buildings were far less impressive than the ones he’d seen there.
This world in all its unfeeling structure was so alien to him, and yet, part of it was familiar. The need to build higher, to reach for the sky and the stars, was something that their two species had in common.
He watched Masku of all shapes and sizes cross the street, each of them paying attention to something different, buried in their strange devices, but never focused on each other. It was a wonder how they’d became the dominant species on this world. He followed them, mimicked their obvious disinterest with anything that didn’t involve themselves, and reached the end of the crosswalk.
One Masku in a suit and tie walked right into him, then proceeded to look him up and down with a scowl etched into his face. “What the fuck are you lookin’ at, fatass?”
Kurt ignored him. Best not to make a scene out in public. The store he was seeking was close by, if Cory’s cellular device was telling him the truth. The Masku who had addressed him tossed him an obscene gesture and walked on.
In Kurt’s limited experience, New York was a cesspool for such arrogant filth.
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