There was a small cup of what looked to be salad dressing and I poured it generously over the leaves. I took a bite and melted into my chair. It was so good. So very good. My tongue lit up with an array of flavors of the likes I’d never experienced! I poured a little more dressing on the salad and tried my best not to scarf it down like an animal. Deborah kept her eyes on her plate, thankfully.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, finishing my salad. “Are you not hungry?”
Deborah shrugged. “I should be training. This is valuable time to be getting more familiar with my sword.”
I tapped my mouth with my cloth napkin as I knew was the proper way once seated at a nice table like this. The occupants of the table were a strange mix of people. I could see soldiers wearing some sort of plate armor that looked to have been forged just for nice gatherings such as these. This was a custom I had only heard about and thought it very weird that someone would wear armor to a dinner. However, it is what the King’s guard was always known for. Always at the ready. Apparently, these so-called guards of the Refuge had adopted the same habit.
A few other people were there that I had never seen. They all looked so normal and… happy. As if a young man with horns wasn’t sitting in their vicinity and that they weren’t having a feast in a strange world perpendicular to the real one.
Afraid of looking like a fool, I said no more to Deborah who continued her staring contest with her plate. Gauss noticed me from across the table and raised his glass to me. I picked up my own and did the same. I took a sip and about spit it out. What was this, pure alcohol?
“Can I get you anything else?” came a woman’s voice over my shoulder.
“Yes, could I get some water?” I asked her, my throat dry from nerves.
“Of course, sir,” she said and hurried off. Even the servants here seemed to be oblivious to the fact that I had horns. Had they been warned not to stare before I had arrived?
The woman servant was back within the minute with my water. She reached over me to place it down, her black hair getting into my face and tickling my nose. I leaned over trying to get out of the way and the next thing I knew I was flying across the room.
The sound of the explosion hit my ears sometime after I had crashed onto my back halfway across the gathering hall. Blood was splattered all over the walls mixed with the textures of all sorts of different food. The ground was a combination of the same vile concoction with pieces of broken furniture everywhere. The air was filled with smoke and my ears rang loudly. The room looked like a nutritional battleground.
I sat up and felt intense pain in my leg which was bent in a very odd way. I looked over to my side and saw the shredded-up dismembered arm of the woman who had been serving me. The spheres had rolled out of my pocket which was now torn open revealing a smoldering hole of flesh where a majority of my leg should have been.
For some reason, I found myself staring at the bright colors of the spheres. Blue. Green. White. The other sphere, the one that had been red, was now empty except for the fact that it was still discharging red smoke from a crack in its glass.
I let my head fall back to the ground. Frantically, I whispered random prayers to myself as the smell of food was replaced with the smell of burning flesh, then everything went to black.
13
I came back to consciousness in my own bed. I was wearing clothes made of silk and there was a platter of steaming food to my right. However, I hadn’t woken up by normal terms although I wish I had. Sadly, things never happened the way they were supposed to in this strange world they called Refuge.
My lustful dream from before had come true. Deborah was in bed with me, only she wasn’t in bed with me the way I would have liked. Sure, she was on top of me and sure we were close enough to kiss but I doubted that was why she was here.
In her right hand was a cold dagger which was pressed firmly to my neck. The blade had a sharp curve to it rather than being perfectly straight. It also looked nothing like the weapons that were forged around here. It looked… dirty.
“How did you know?” she snarled, her white canines showing through her rose pink lips.
“How did I know what?” I asked, my voice a bit raspy from lack of talk.
The blade pushed deeper into my skin. Not enough to draw blood yet, but enough that I could feel the sharpness and the potential of the blade.
“Don’t you play with me, Ira. I don’t like you and I don’t trust you. I know you had something to do with this. I just know it. We found this dagger on the servant’s body and now I want answers.”
I pulled my hands out of the sheets and held them out in a very innocent way, “Listen, Deborah, I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. If you could just-—"
“You tried to kill Lord Nagheed. Or at least, you had a part in it. Otherwise, how else would you have known the servant was an assassin? But why go back on your own plan? Why? Was this your idea of trying to gain our trust?!”
This was the first time I had hoped for Gauss or even Judge Samuel to let themselves into my room without permission. I never thought I’d see the day in which I actually wished to see either of those men. Perhaps they could talk some sense into this crazy girl. My dreams of wanting her ever to be in my bed again were tossed right out the window… If I had a window that was.
“I swear by the grace of the Almighty I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Pray,” she demanded.
“What?”
“I said pray!” she yelled. “Pray to the Almighty that you're innocent and maybe I'll believe you.”
Praying didn’t seem like a bad idea at all, not with the circumstance I was in at the moment. Part of me wanted to tell her that bad guys didn’t care about lying through prayer to the Almighty but that would only make my situation worse. And so, I started to pray.
My prayer was genuine. I asked to not be killed, there on my bed by a dirty dagger. I thanked him for the life he had given me. I thanked him for an amazing mother and for sustaining my life up until this point. I asked him for guidance. I asked him for wisdom. And… I asked him for answers.
Slowly, Deborah’s blade was pulled back from my throat. Oddly, I had forgotten about the dagger, losing myself completely in my prayer. I went from my own words to those verses my father had taught me so long ago. I found peace in them. For once, I’d forgotten about the horns. I’d forgotten about the severed body part that had fallen by my face the night before. And I’d forgotten about Gauss and the torture he'd put me through.
“You can stop now,” she said, now standing by the door. She tossed the dagger on top of the bed. “I don’t know how you knew…” Her eyes peered at me through tight lids. “But you saved Nagheed from assassination.”
She slammed the door behind her leaving me as I often felt in this place of Refuge. Confused. Lonely. A bit scared.
A knocking came a few minutes later.
“Oh, Almighty, who is it now!” I yelled.
The door opened and Samuel let himself in. He wasn’t smiling like the way he was the night I’d met him. The first thing I noticed was that one of his white eyebrows had been singed off from the dinner explosion.
“I didn’t do it,” I said, leaning up in bed. “I swear it.”
Samuel shut his eyes and shook his head. “I know you didn’t, boy. Trust me. the Almighty has brought you into the lives of us here at the Refuge for a different reason entirely. Besides, look at you!” he gestured towards me. “Not in the least the assassin type! The horns are a dead giveaway! You couldn’t even hide behind a couch with those monstrosities sticking out!”
The old man slapped his knee, laughing heartily at his own joke. I wasn’t going to laugh, I really wasn’t, but I couldn’t help but chuckle. It’s not that the joke was funny, but I couldn’t help but find the position I was in to be a little humorous. I mean… what the hell? Couldn’t I just go home?
“We have a lot to talk about today, Ira,” Samuel said, wiping a
way a tear. “I know I shouldn’t be laughing but I just can’t help but make light out of a… very bad situation.”
“Bad is an understatement, you realize that right? A human died last night.”
“Oh, I know,” agreed Samuel. “Awful thing, really. But! Look at the bright side.”
“What bright side?” I asked, squinting one eye at him.
Samuel crossed the room, lifting his tattered robe above his knees so he could sit on the bed next to me. I scooted further away.
“Someone was going to die last night. At least it was the soon to be murderer and not our great leader Nagheed,” he said. “If you weren’t the talk of the Refuge before, you are now! These people think you did that on purpose! Like you of all people was able to figure out that the servant was really a hired blade when neither myself nor any of the guards spotted the signs! You’re about as dumb as a box of rocks, boy! Oblivious!”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, sorry, you’re not dumb. Just ignorant. But I’m gonna fix that!”
Samuel brandished a handful of spheres and I crawled away as fast as I could when my eye caught the red one.
“Get that thing away from me! You’ll kill us all!”
“Hush, boy! Stop bein’ a wuss!” He pointed a finger at me. “Now listen here.” He pointed down to the blue orb. How he knew which was the blue orb being as blind as he was, I had no idea. “I know you must be familiar with this one or else you wouldn’t be here at all. See, this one allows you to walk and see through walls! Not all walls, mind you. Any wall that is less than three and a half feet thick will work but anything thicker and you’ll merely break your nose!”
Samuel extended his palm with the blue sphere on top of it, wanting me to pick it up. I hesitated a moment but he was right, I knew this one was harmless. I picked it up and gazed through it.
“Wow,” I said, “It really works…”
“Of course it does! You calling me a liar?”
I ignored him and looked at the dark hallway now tinted with a light watery blue. I could faintly see the wall I was seeing through but it was mostly transparent. I looked to the room behind me. It was a dusty looking space with furniture covered in old raggedy blankets with piles of books laying on the ground.
I moved to look at the bedroom in front of me and-
“Careful now! You don’t want to look over-“
Deborah was there. Her shiny curves were the first thing that caught my eye. So shiny from the bath water that fell from her hair to her shoulders, to her soft looking hips. She pulled her hands back and rung her hair out, her medium sized breasts liftings slightly. She was looking straight at me but didn’t seem to know I was there. Watching.
I gulped as Samuel snatched the orb away from me. He smacked me hard on top of the head.
“What the hell is wrong with you, boy! You’re a priest for Almighty’s sake!”
“Suh… Sorry,” I managed to say. Words weren’t forming properly in my head. Nor were my pants fitting properly any longer.
“Whatever you saw I don’t want to know. Judging from your open mouth I assume it was the wrong idea giving you the blue spheres. I’ll be taking those with me, thank you very much. Now!” he said, snapping his fingers. “For the white sphere.”
Samuel stood up and slammed the sphere into the ground. In a puff of light, white smoke filled the room followed by a translucent orb that formed around him in a wide circle.
“A shield!” he exclaimed, his voice altered in an alien way as it passed through the white barrier. It too, just like the wall, had a watery texture. “These are great for so many situations!”
“Shouldn’t we be doing this outside?” I asked him. “Seems dangerous.”
“Nonsense,” Samuel said, walking out of the shield. “Now, for the green sphere.” He tossed the green ball to me, my demonic hand snatching it easily out of the air. “You can do this one.”
“What do I do with it?” I asked, studying the small sphere in my hand. The dancing smoke inside its glass-like shell was almost hypnotizing.
The white orb melted silently away behind Samuel. “Crush it in your hand!”
“No, I’m alright. You do it.”
“You’re such a baby,” Samuel said, putting his hands on his hips. “Grow a pair and crush the ball. Come on, we don’t have all day. I’m not supposed to be here, you know.”
“You’re not?”
“No… Adino was supposed to speak to you first but I’m really no good at doing what I’m told. Never was! Now that I’m older, I can always blame it on my age! Ha! Now, no more questions. Let’s see this green sphere’s alchemy in action.”
Samuel clasped both hands together and bounced on his knees excitedly. He sure was an eccentric one.
I sighed and popped the green sphere. It took more strength than I’d expected and wondered how much I must have leaned on the red sphere to have popped it.
A green smoke covered my body. It formed small tiny beaks and poked at my body lightly as if it was searching for something.
“What- what is this?” I asked, the green smoke tapping me in the head by one of its hundreds of beaks.
“Why, that’s the healing sphere! The smoke is looking for anything it can repair! This sphere can mean the difference between life or death in a bad situation, although, admittedly, it can’t heal the worst of wounds, but it’s still pretty handy.”
“What can it not heal?” I asked, watching the green smoke dissipate into the air, giving up its search. My leg wound had healed on its own while I slept, courtesy of satan’s blood. At least it was good for something besides ruining my life.
“Oh you know, just what you’d expect. Can’t bring back severed body parts, smashed heads, crushed genitals, you know, stuff like that. But! It can do an amazing job with slash wounds and the common cold!”
A small trail of the smoke floated back to me and entered my head through my nose. A sudden rush of energy filled my body making me feel as though I’d just drank three cups of coffee. I grew goosebumps on my arms.
“That’s nice,” I cooed, shivering a little bit.
“Isn’t it?” asked Samuel dreamily, watching the green smoke drift away.
Again, the door knocked.
Samuel leaped off my bed as fast as possible, losing the top part of his hair in the process. He picked up his white wig and placed it back on his head, his eyes wide with fear.
“Tomorrow, we focus on the power of the red sphere! And remember, I was never here!” he hissed, pulling out a blue orb and rushing towards the opposite wall.
“No, that’s-“ I tried to warn him, but Samuel entered Deborah’s room. A loud scream followed right afterward.
Adino let himself in. He peered at the wall Samuel had just left through, then looked back at me with a puzzled expression.
I shrugged at him. Just another day in the Refuge.
14
Adino crossed the room towards me. He was wearing his entire suit of black armor that consisted of a mixture of chain mail, plate, and some leather. He looked not only awesome but very intimidating. Something about him made me feel a lot safer. Perhaps it was his friendly smile or just the energy that he put out into the world.
He sat down beside me on the bed, his chain mail rattling softly. He looked down and I saw that he noticed the angled dagger laying on the bed. His face scrunched up in a questioning look as he bent down to grab it.
“Deborah brought it,” I said, breaking the silence. “I don’t even want to look at it. It was the dagger hidden in the servant’s clothing.”
Adino sat there, twisting the blade in front of his vision as he examined every nook and cranny of it. Would he be able to gain any information from this dagger on the people who had tried to do this most heinous of crimes? I didn’t care about the political plot itself, but murder was one of the worst sins in the eyes of the Almighty. One that was almost unforgivable, no matter the circumstances.
“It took me so long to ge
t my hands on this dagger,” Adino said, bringing the blade to his nose to smell it.
“Yeah, I don’t know how Deborah got a hold of it,” I said. “She seems the sneaky type. Don’t really think she likes me much.”
“You don’t understand,” Adino replied, dropping the blade to his lap. He looked into my eyes, trying to somehow register information into my brain through our eyes alone.
“What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find poorly crafted weapons in Auracle.”
“Yeah, well, we are known for our steel, I-“ the words stopped in my throat as the puzzle pieces started to form.
Adino wasn’t smiling and he no longer had that warm energy to him that I had felt when he’d first entered the room. What replaced it was cold. Something I would define as dread.
I shut my eyes, drooped my head and shook it. “No… It can’t be… you didn’t….”
“I’m not here to answer your questions, you little shit. You’ve just come into this world. You know nothing! Nothing! Nagheed has no reason to rule. His lack of experience in the field will only bring us down.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I said. “Why not just leave me out of it! I just want to get out of here…”
Adino played with the dagger in his hands, flipping it over but no longer looking at it. His gaze was on the wall, but he wasn’t looking specifically at anything.
“How did you know?” he asked. “How? Does it have to do what that fucking arm of yours? Tell me… how…”
I stood up and Adino grabbed my wrist tightly. My only option was to run for the door but wasn’t that too obvious? This man would get to me and probably kill me within half a second if I even tried. Gauss was scary enough and he looked up to this man! So, how powerful was he?
“How. Did. You. Know?” he asked me again, his eyes still focusing forward.
“I didn’t,” I said. “I’ve told you people a million times, it was an accident.”
“How could it have been an accident? You killed my assassin. You did it all at exactly the perfect timing and the perfect positioning. The only person you killed was the assassin and no one else. No,” Adino said, shaking his head. “This was planned… It was planned!”
Defiant Guardians Anthology Page 37