Dross (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 2)

by Caleb Wachter

  “Well done,” she nodded. “The Nation’s resources, while potent, are extremely limited. The only possible path to victory for our people is one where we retain maximum agility—both militarily and politically—while miring our foes in their trenches. We cannot hope to win an all-out war against the Federation, but if we cultivate enough alliances with the other nation states of this world then victory will indeed be ours.”

  “That thing…back at Three Rivers,” Randall said under his breath as they reached the top of the stairs and made their way to the conch-shaped Palace of Kings, “what was it?”

  “The Sea of Tears?” she asked casually. “It is a relic of a bygone era—one which, thanks to the diligence of our ancestors, never fully departed this realm as it was intended to do.” She stopped in her tracks and cocked her head before fixing her wide, doll-like eyes on Randall. “Was it terrifying to behold?”

  Randall’s brow rose in surprise, “That’s probably a fair descriptor for the experience.”

  “Good,” she nodded as a rare look of satisfaction flashed across her features. She then resumed her trek toward the palace, “I received belated reports of the destruction it wrought—along with some disconcerting information about a particular star child narrowly escaping the Sea’s wrath. It would have been a pity to lose you after investing so much in your future.”

  “Forgive me for not being moved to tears at hearing your concern,” Randall quipped.

  Good for you, Randall, Dani said in as supportive a tone as he had ever heard her use.

  “There is insufficient time for me to bring you up to speed on this particular conflict,” Phinjo said with a dismissive wave. “Thankfully, we do not require much of you. What we do require, however,” she said pointedly as the main doors to the Palace swung open, driven by a handful of grunting, armored guardsmen, “you should feel obligated to provide—especially in light of the great favor we did on your friends’ behalf.”

  “I know I owe you,” Randall said through gritted teeth as they made straight for the open doors of the Main Hall. “I’ll do what’s needed to balance the scales.”

  “Good boy,” Phinjo said with only the barest trace of approval in her otherwise condescending tone. And with that, they moved into the Main Hall—where Jarl Balgruf and the Federation Ambassador appeared to be engaged in a hushed-but-heated discussion. “Ambassador,” Phinjo greeted officiously, drawing herself up for a perfectly-executed half-curtsy at the base of the steps leading up to the Jarl’s throne-like chair, “I must beg forgiveness for my lack of punctuality. Please do not regard these unfortunately unavoidable delays as a sign of disrespect from the Ghaevlian Nation to the Federation.”

  The Ambassador was a consummate professional, judging from the merest hint of tension at the corners of his mouth as he smiled perfunctorily, “I am certain I clearly understand the nature of these so-called ‘unavoidable’ delays. Truly,” the Ambassador stepped aside—and slightly behind the Jarl’s chair—as he continued smoothly, “I regret the transaction of any business to which you may have been party, but were unfortunately unable to attend due to those unfortunate—and wholly uncharacteristic—delays. In the interests of expediency, I am certain we can forgive this particular departure from your usual punctuality and observance of protocol.”

  “Your magnanimity knows no bounds,” Phinjo perfectly reproduced her half-curtsy, while Randall stood off to the side and watched the game unfold.

  He had little desire to be within sight of this particular ‘conversation,’ let alone in the same room where it took place, but Phinjo had been right: he did owe her for putting him in position to help his friends escape Three Rivers. Had she not done so, he knew there was a very real chance that some—or all—of them would no longer draw breath.

  “And in the interests of advancing what is clearly a mutual desire for expediency,” Phinjo continued, tossing a fractional look toward Randall—a look which told him as clearly as any words could do that she wished him to ascend the steps beside her, “I suggest we resolve whatever grievance or dispute you may have so that we may move forward in the truest spirit of friendship which the Ghaevlian Nation is prepared to extend.”

  The Ambassador’s mouth drew into a tight line, and Randall spared a glance toward Jarl Balgruf—who looked no happier about this particular meeting than Randall was—while the Ambassador said, “I was just discussing the new treaty’s finer points with Jarl Balgruf.”

  “Truly?” Phinjo arched an eyebrow, though her eyes never wavered from the Ambassador’s as she clasped her hands before her narrow waist and she cocked her head. “In our profession, the commencement of a new treaty is cause for celebration; where are the courtiers and merrymakers?” she asked with a dramatic look around the nearly-empty Main Hall.

  “Indeed,” the Ambassador flashed his pearly-white teeth, which contrasted beautifully against the near-black skin of his face. As the Ambassador continued, Randall was reminded of the not-too-distant past when he would often wish he, too, had such marvelous skin, “However, in light of the Jarl’s prior…engagements, and in the spirit of friendship you yourself just referenced, I thought it best to reveal the more salient points to you—in person—before the celebrations might commence. I dearly hope you approve,” he gave a half-bow, which was the perfect opposite of Phinjo’s previous curtsies.

  “Naturally,” Phinjo inclined her head fractionally, “you do your benefactors in the Federation Senate much credit by displaying such restraint and temperance—restraint which some might consider ‘superhuman’.”

  The Ambassador ground his teeth behind a false smile before he turned to Jarl Balgruf and declared, “The Jarl has, by delving deep into the same vein of wisdom which his forebears displayed for the whole world to see just a few short decades ago, agreed to an enduring peace treaty with the Federation.”

  Balgruf’s countenance was one which Randall would best compare to an enraged bull whose head was caught in a slaughter chute. It was truly something to behold the giant of a man—who completely filled the oversized chair in which Randall would appear no larger than a child—as he sat while the other two casually discussed what sounded to Randall’s ears like a full-blown surrender of Greystone to the Federation.

  “It would seem congratulations are in order,” Phinjo mused neutrally as she turned to face Jarl Balgruf. “On behalf of the Ghaevlian Nation, I offer my sincerest wishes for Greystone’s enduring prosperity and the eternal harmony she so richly deserves with her new allies.”

  Balgruf seemed genuinely surprised by that as he shifted in his chair and fixed Phinjo with a cold—some might say murderous—look. The Ambassador, on the other hand, was clearly reveling in what seemed to be nothing short of a coup for the Federation’s interests in the north.

  With Greystone under Federation control, as it seemed it would soon be, the Federation armies would be in position to simultaneously sweep up from the Blue Sands Desert and down from the Binding Chain mountain range. Any kind of guerilla warfare of the type which Randall had come to assume the Ghaevlian Nation would engage in was, under such a two-pronged attack, nothing short of suicidal.

  With nowhere to fall back to, the Ghaevlian forces—which Phinjo herself had described as potent, but ultimately lacking in number—would be caught between two massive armies. In such a scenario, it was only a matter of time until the Ghaevlians would be forced to make a final, desperate, and ultimately futile stand somewhere between the two great forces. And once the Federation’s main army, coming north from the Blue Sands, met with the Greystone forces as those forces moved south from the Binding Chain, Randall doubted that even the ‘Sea of Tears’ would be able to defend against their combined assault.

  “Of course, the Federation seeks to promote harmony and peace throughout the world,” the Ambassador said, clearly relishing the victory he seemed only too eager to celebrate. “And in the aforementioned spirit of friendship, I am happy to extend amnesty to any and all members of the Ghaevlian N
ation who lay down their arms, renounce their prior insurrectionist agenda, and embrace Federation rule.” He took a pair of steps toward Phinjo and folded his robed arms before himself triumphantly, “After all, it is only ever a matter of time before the past gives way to the future. The elves deserve their place in the annals of history—but, as with all flesh, that is where the elvish civilization now belongs: in history books. So I now beseech you: embrace the future,” he said, splaying his arms wide as his eyes took on a nearly orgasmic delight.

  Phinjo’s expression never faltered, but Balgruf’s was becoming increasingly anxious as he stood from his throne-like chair and gave her a questioning—almost panicked—look. She stood there like a statue with her resplendent red, curly wig perfectly framing her doll-like features, and what must have been a minute passed without her making any kind of reply or gesture to acknowledge she had even heard his words.

  Then her lips quirked into a mischievous grin, and Randall felt every hair on his body stand as his scalp began to tingle. “As I said,” Phinjo casually reached up and removed her wig—which Randall took to be a direct insult to the Ambassador, since the Federation often imposed the mandatory wearing of wigs by those with Ghaevlian blood, “your magnanimity knows no bounds. Unfortunately, I fear you are in error.”

  “Oh?” the Ambassador asked, cocking an eyebrow challengingly.

  “You must understand,” Phinjo looked down at the wig for a moment before tossing it aside, “and I say this with every grain of respect you deserve, that while you were surprisingly capable—for a human,” she laced the last word with a degree of venom that made Randall’s blood go cold—it was the same type of hatred he had heard in the voices of the Federation soldiers who had abused his neighbors in Three Rivers’ Native District. “But in any final analysis, you were simply overmatched. It is not your fault,” she said with mock sympathy, and for a moment Randall thought he could feel the stone beneath his feet begin to vibrate ever so slightly, “humans lack the perspective necessary to play this game at the highest levels.”

  “What is happening?” Balgruf demanded as he, too, seemed to sense the vibrations in the palace’s hewn stone floor.

  But the Ambassador seemed to understand better than either Randall or Balgruf that, whatever was happening, it meant that blood was soon to be spilled. “You would threaten a Master of the Second Tier?”

  “Threaten?” Phinjo cocked her head, and if Randall had been disquieted by the tone of her voice previously he was well-and-truly terrified by the absolutely inhuman expression on her face as she seemed to regard the Ambassador with no more empathy than a human might regard a fish. “No, Ambassador Graendal,” she said as the vibrations in the floor grew in strength, “I would finish this little game of ours in the only way that such games can be properly concluded. You deserve that much.”

  Then the most intense experience of Randall’s life occurred, and at first he was so overwhelmed by it that he could barely recognize what was happening.

  The world seemed to be instantly bathed in blue, though it seemed to Randall that now there were two worlds: the regular-colored one, and the one that was blue.

  In the ‘regular world,’ nothing seemed to happen at first. Balgruf, Phinjo, and Ambassador Graendal all stood perfectly still in the same places they had stood when the ‘blue world’ had appeared in his senses.

  But in the ‘blue world,’ Ambassador Graendal slammed his hands together and the peal of thunder tore through Randall’s head as a shockwave lifted him from his feet and flung him down the stairs.

  Phinjo’s hands never moved from before her waist as the Ambassador lunged toward her. Balgruf, too, seemed to have been knocked from his feet by the force of the Ambassador’s spell—which left the diminutive Phinjo one-on-one against the much larger Graendal.

  The Federation Ambassador’s hands—which were glowing with a pinkish aura that danced up and down his skin like ripples across a pond—reached out and grasped Phinjo by the throat even before Randall got to his feet in the blue world. It was only after he had regained his footing that he realized in the ‘real world’ he had not moved an inch—but he was also acutely aware of the fact that he was breathing in both worlds.

  Vertigo nearly overpowered his senses as his mind was torn at from ‘either side’ by the two seemingly incompatible realities. He caught a glimpse of Phinjo—this time in the real world—moving slowly and deliberately toward the Ambassador while, in the blue world, the Ambassador now straddled her body and was choking the life out of her.

  “Your time is past, elf,” he hissed in the blue world. “Have the grace to die with dignity!”

  A blast of pinkish energy poured from his hands into Phinjo’s blue world body, while in the real world she drew a delicate, curved and improbably slender—and decidedly grey—blade from beneath her bodice. The ‘real world Ambassador’ did not move an inch, merely staring ahead while the relatively tiny Phinjo moved in front of him and stood on her tip-toes like a child trying to reach candy sequestered on a high shelf. Then—with all the apparent emotional involvement that one might display while trimming his fingernails—she drew the blade across the Ambassador’s throat.

  The blue world began to flicker instantly and the ‘blue’ Graendal looked up in alarm. “What is happening?!” he screamed, while his real world counterpart merely stood motionless as his lifeblood poured out from the wound in his neck. “What is…” he screamed, but in the instant before the next word would have escaped his throat the ‘two worlds’ collided with such a jarring effect on Randall’s senses that, for a moment, he was robbed of all of them save his hearing.

  “Poor Graendal,” Phinjo said piteously over the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor, “under what stars could you—a mere human—possibly outplay us in a game we invented?”

  Randall’s vision and other senses slowly returned—and, when they did, he realized his stomach was now totally empty. He slowly stood and blinked his eyes to focus on the grizzly scene which was, somewhat surprisingly, precisely as he had expected it to be.

  Phinjo stood beside the fallen Ambassador’s silently twitching body while his deep, red blood cascaded down the steps which led up to the Jarl’s throne. Randall was fairly certain he saw the exact moment that the life finally left Graendal’s body, and after it was clear he was dead Randall gave Balgruf a wary look.

  The Jarl’s brow was lowered thunderously as he looked down at the Ambassador’s corpse. His gaze remained fixed on Graendal for a long moment before he turned his smoldering visage to Phinjo, “You lied to me.”

  “I did nothing of the sort,” Phinjo said coolly as she knelt and wiped the slender blade on the Ambassador’s robe before returning it to its former hiding place within her bodice.

  “You said I could kill him,” Balgruf roared.

  “And you said,” Phinjo countered icily as the ground continued to vibrate beneath their feet, “that you would delay proceedings until I saw fit to engage with him. You had one job to do, Balgruf, and you failed. You should be grateful we are willing to overlook this particular…lapse on your part.”

  “His armies are less than a day from here!” Balgruf snapped, and Randall finally realized why Phinjo had waited until he had returned to Greystone before meeting with Ambassador Graendal.

  I despise being manipulated, Dan’Moread hissed.

  “So do I,” Randall growled as he drew Dani and moved beside Phinjo.

  “That you were unnerved by that fact is of little interest to me—nor does it surprise me,” Phinjo said dismissively. “Moreover, it would seem appropriate that you thank me for simplifying your options for you.”

  “This was not what we agreed,” Balgruf growled. “This is not how allies treat each other.”

  “It is not what we agreed,” Phinjo allowed, “but this is precisely how allies treat each other—especially when they mistrust each other so greatly as to agree to their mutual enemy’s terms without even consulting one another first
. It was not we who were untruthful, Jarl Balgruf,” she chided, prompting the hulking Jarl to take a menacing step forward—which, in turn, prompted Dan’Moread to assume control over Randall’s body and adopt a defensive stance with her tip aimed at the massive human’s eyes. Phinjo, meanwhile, did not so much as flinch as the Jarl looked down on Randall with unmasked rage.

  “You may have condemned us all to death,” Balgruf snarled after tearing his gaze from Randall and returning his focus to Phinjo. He then relaxed fractionally and gritted his teeth, “In your absence, I needed to look to my own peoples’ interests. Surely you understand that?”

  “I do,” Phinjo nodded graciously as the vibrations beneath their feet suddenly ceased, “which is why you still draw breath, Jarl Balgruf. Understand,” she said, pushing past Randall and Dani to stand mere inches from the towering Balgruf, “I have spent centuries planning this war.” The sight of her looking up at the Jarl, who stood well over half-again her height, without a trace of fear in her visage was yet another image that Randall knew would be seared into his mind for all time. “It would be unreasonable to expect even such a capable and intelligent Jarl as yourself to understand the true depths of what it means to plot revenge for longer than entire human civilizations have lasted.”

  An alarm went up from the palace’s main gate, and the sound of armored boots clattering through the palace’s halls soon filled Randall’s ears as the Jarl’s shoulders slumped in resignation. In a meeker voice than Randall had ever expected to hear issue from Balgruf’s throat, the Jarl turned his eyes to the floor and asked, “Will you forgive my weakness?”

  Phinjo cocked her head and blinked her doll-like eyes twice. “Why, my dear Jarl, of course I forgive you your moment of weakness.”

  With that, she turned and made her way down the steps—leaving her wig of curly, red hair in a puddle of the Ambassador’s blood. Randall met the Jarl’s gaze and, where a moment earlier he had seen humility—or possibly humiliation—he now saw a burning anger that Randall knew he would not survive if he did not follow Phinjo with all haste. Thankfully, Dani recognized the value of a tactical withdrawal as well as he did and she soon guided them down the steps after the Ghaevlian.