Eye of the Equifade

by J A Stone

  Warfell looked up to see British standing over Noa’s body, blood streaming down her side. She screamed at the corpse.

  “Why’d you go and DO THAT! Not fair—IT’S NOT FAIR!” she kicked the torso and spit. “Never again I swear. Warfell, sack that bitch before I do it.”

  Danica pulled the trigger and shoved Neo away from her without taking her eyes from her partner.

  “You okay?” she asked British.

  “It’s only a flesh wound,” the diminutive girl responded.

  “There’s another kind?”

  They both grinned and simultaneously winced in pain. British sat down as Danica pulled the hunting knife from her own leg with a hiss through clenched teeth.

  “How’d you know?” British asked.

  “Never seen a Dwarf with a suntan before—you?”

  British shook her head no, raising her eyebrows, a tear falling down her cheek.

  “I didn’t.”

  *

  If there were no love in the world today

  Tomorrow would find our lives, a helpless

  Means, becoming a fragile and careless

  Existence all but dying away

  If love were lost to woman and man

  Night and day would blend into one

  As worlds collide; an ending begun

  With despair we could never understand

  If love were to suddenly disappear

  The realms of Serenity would die in the dreams

  As divine and sublime devolve into fear

  Nothing we feel would be as it seems

  And all the sweet treasures we once held so dear

  Would pale and tremble with supple screams

  British Fey

  The Man with an Abusive Father Figure

  “MY PAPA—HE made me this way—beat me half-dead so many times, pulled my ears so hard the skin came from the side of my head. He killed my Brother, wouldn’t stop wailing on him. GODDAMMIT! He did this to me.”

  “I did it—I killed them all—the kids, the two women, and the cops, I did it. I beat them all to death with my hands. The cops wanna hurt me, the two women were asking for it and the kids just would not shut up. I’m sorry, please, I killed them all. Can I go home now?”

  Warfell and Fey stood motionless as the Aequitas Caelum swirled in and around the body and mind of Jim Bigby, known locally as the Mangler of Moor for his hideously disfigured victims—brutally ripped apart bare handed in broad daylight.

  He got clumsy, started clumsy, it was an easy catch.

  “What happened to your Father, Bigby?” British asked the mentally tortured young man.

  “Left when my Momma died ten years ago. Wish he was here—he’d rip that pretty face off of your skull and shove it right back in your mouth…” Bigby’s eyes suddenly shot wide and the seven-foot tall beast-man collapsed to the ground, dead.

  He is done; the reign of terror is over. Thanks to the Swordsman my Daughter. Pay her well, escort her home and rest.

  “Yes Father,” they bowed as the Ghost of Caelum Fey dematerialized and Constables ran in from the surrounding streets, shouting and blowing whistles.

  ***

  Danica Warfell kept a modest home despite the incredible influx of wealth since joining the Father Daughter team. She cantered Rarity down the clay road next to the crashing shoreline and stopped before a small beach house on twenty-foot pillars. Danica sighed deep and smiled wide. To the retired Captain, living on the sand next to the waves was paradise and she loved it.

  “Home,” Warfell whispered to the salt air as she dismounted. Next to her, British leaped gratefully down from Bob 19, a big clumsy, difficult to ride Chestnut Drafthorse they picked up for free—owner said the stallion was just too mean, make a good bucking bronco and little else.

  “Stay and swim,” Danica offered. “I need to fetch some meat and I’ll cook a huge meal.”

  “Sure!” British was starving. “Can I go?” The market was almost in sight just down the street. “Let me take Rarity?”

  How could Warfell say no?

  “Sure sweetie, they got just about anything you want down the road. I’ll fire up the hearth and find something for you to swim in,” Warfell grinned like a big Sister as British leaped atop the beautiful Painted Appaloosa. She walked to the stairwell and turned back. “MEAT!” she yelled. British simply raised a thumb up as she cantered and then galloped Rarity down the red clay road cutting through the crystal white sands and dunes towards the beach market.

  Warfell watched her go. She tethered Bob19 at the railing, climbed the steps and then searched her pockets—there, she removed her key and set to the lock.

  Just then…

  “WARFELL STOP!” British bolted back and slid to a halt. “You got beers?”

  Still facing the door, Danica shouted back “Get some!” she turned her eyes to see British racing away again, pushing Rarity hard to see what the stallion can do. She shook her head side to side and opened her door wide.

  A hand the size of that head reached out like the jaws of a shark, snatching Warfell by the sword-strap and leather shirt, yanking her forward, releasing her into the opposing wall face-first with an “Ughh!”

  “Come after MY BOY? Come to KILL HIM?”

  This is what she heard. What she saw and felt was the sharp flash of light as her head struck the hardwood wall and the crush of an incredible impact, ripping the wind from her lungs completely.

  A massive form filled Danica’s sight as an eight-foot monster of a man loomed closer. Warfell fought the shockwaves down and rose to face him.

  “Your boy—was a very sick man,” she yanked her Thronesword free with one hand and a dagger with the other. The monster charged, swinging arms the size of legs wildly at Warfell. The dagger found meat and muscle, as did the Sword—both were swatted away like wooden sticks.

  “Shit!” she exclaimed with a squeak as five grappling-hook fingers wrapped around her slender neck and Warfell was airborne in her home again.

  She struck back first against the east wall bookcase, right next to her sliding glass doors. Again, she sprang to her feet, pulling and reversing her last dagger giving her arm a thin shield and her fist a steel pommel.

  He raged at her, swinging three times, each incredible blow absorbed by Warfell’s forearms, snapping the dagger on the second recoil and breaking her left arm on the third contact. A fourth granite fist struck her face with another flash of light, deafness, the tug of two huge hands grabbing her, thrusting her through the glass doors, over the balcony, twenty feet down to the soft sand.

  All she could hear was the pounding surf. Warfell opened her eyes to see the Sun blotted out, eclipsed by an incredible mass of lunatic plummeting towards her from above, both arms hoisting a jagged Executioner’s Axe high.

  She rolled and felt the vibration as nine-hundred pounds of raw muscle and bone struck the sand next to her with a scream from the beast. Warfell rolled and leaped with every ounce of energy she had left, slinging her good arm around the brute’s tree-trunk neck.

  “RAAAA!” she howled, pulling back with her bloody face to the sky.

  He reached behind with both hands, slinging Warfell over and forward like a sledgehammer, back to the sand with a thump—last breath in her body gone.

  He stood over her, a mountain next to the sea. He raised the cruel axe high into the air.

  ‘BOOM!’ Warfell saw the red dots appearing on the beast’s side. Ten paces away, British shucked Danica’s long barreled shotgun and fired again, ‘BOOM!’

  At that very second, Warfell heard a horse screaming, she moved her eyes from British as Bob 19 charged in, fore-hooves flailing, striking the man several times in the face and shoulder.

  With a sweeping arc, the man brought the huge axe about—fast and wide, taking the Chestnut’s head clean beneath the cheeks.

  British closed the distance and unloaded the last round of scatter-shot into the brute’s face, point blank.

  “YES!” she yelle
d.

  “NOOOO!” The eight footer screamed right back facing her with a bright red mass of shredded skin, muscle, and exposed bone, one eye missing—teeth just…gone!

  Next to the giant and the pixie, the headless body of the Drafthorse miraculously remained standing, autonomic nerves on fire, flailing the tube of its neck back and forth, slinging hot red blood in three-foot pulses. Warfell looked down on deck to see Bob 19’s eyeball rotating around, searching the sky, still alive inside the severed skull that had fallen next to her—she threw up on the red painted sand.

  She heard them fighting—heard the boots scuffling in the sand. After what seemed an eternity of darkness, Danica Warfell forced her eyes open to see British scampering up the giant’s leg as though he were a tree, driving the Westbury Scimitar deep in his belly, unsheathing the Blunderbuss and rendering the final shot that found the huge pumping heart with a handful of diamonds, bringing the behemoth down.

  Darkness again…

  Warfell felt her near, heard her panting. She cracked a swollen eye and tried to smile. Tiny little British was shaking her head and standing there, with her hands on her hips.

  “Are we cool here? Yoooooo you never said you had a roommate.”

  *

  THE DREAMER

  I am the Dreamer.

  Reality falls beneath me, for

  Upon the breadth and hollow of ancient

  Cataclysms I forge a path—the venture

  Of ten thousand twisted lifetimes

  My Cumulo-cousins officiate, as

  Mentors for the blind-eye sleep

  And open a causeway within the void

  Above, they watch and wait and witness, the

  Soul reach through my tethered Dreams

  Sleep-reach the death and the breath beneath

  I am the Dreamer.

  Broach the wind of starshine flowers

  See the Cloud Warriors asleep on the sand

  And realize their destinies

  Talented eyes for giving

  But not this eve, this manic eve, for

  Beneath a mountain, the river tides

  And I fly above the cavern waters

  Meet me there, forgiver

  Search the safehold, I am there

  Sleep reach the death and the breath beneath

  I am the Forgiver.

  The Dreamer flies, tis I tonight, through

  The magellanic clouds

  Ursa Major becalms my torpor, and

  Redemption visits for a time

  Give rise, the waking hand of flight

  The vista door becomes the quest

  For the price of ten thousand twisted lifetimes

  Utilize this gift of the mind

  And bring to birth our Dreamers’ fortune

  British Fey

  The Man and the Already Dead

  DANICA WARFELL AND British Fey entered the city of Tibor, racing Snowflake and Rarity up the paved bridge to the True Towers above. They were recognized and waived through at the gates to the magnificent city within a city, the Royal Guardsmen aware of the urgency—war was upon them.

  Tower of Atria

  “Thank you for answering my call, I am deeply honored,” the Good King lowered his head and closed his bright green eyes. “Your Father has appeared to me several times, assisting in the hunt for Thaddeus.”

  “Yes my Lord he has told me—and you have found him.” British queried.

  “We have beautiful British.”

  “Tell me where he is,” Fey’s response was anger, her eyes feral. Atria smiled ear to ear and spoke as a Father.

  “You are like a wolverine. Once your calm has been disturbed, no man or beast can stop you. I absolutely love you Miss Fey.”

  “We would like to be a part of the force sent for Thaddeus Sir,” Warfell asked formally. Atria nodded his approval and replied.

  “Indeed—I ask you to lead that team, penetrate his hold and kill Thaddeus.”

  “My Lord, I love you too—may I?” British calmly approached the Throne, her Blunderbuss and Coralo Machete falling to the marble, straps and all. The King rose to his full seven feet and awkwardly opened his arms, and then kneeled, allowing British to come forward and hug him tight. She whispered in his ear.

  “I shall avenge your Daughter and the Master Knight. I swear it.”

  “I know you will, but you must know some things first, before you accept this charge,” Atria looked severely into British’s deep brown eyes and sighed deeply.

  “He has gathered more than a hundred men and women, all professional soldiers, all with him one hundred percent. They have sacked my Brother’s castle, the Platinum Palace.” He paused to meet eyes with Warfell as well. “The Platinum Palace is lavish and opulent, but it is also extremely well fortified and huge. A well trained battalion of one hundred or more could stave off an army indefinitely.”

  “How so?” British.

  “The castle has a full hydroponics facility and livestock. The platinum tiles on the structures are solar cells, powering everything. They are tapped into more than a dozen artisians and wells, and a live magma floe at negative two hundred feet. It is a self-contained luxury fortress with more room below ground than above—and there’s more, Gunther?”

  Warfell and her partner remembered the clumsy Gunther. He approached the Crown and spoke.

  “Because of, uh, racial uprisings and political discord, the Crown cannot officially go in and retake the small citadel. This will need to be done covertly, a tight squad of killers—and I have just your boys and girls.”

  “You are a detective, not a military man Sir,” Warfell interceded.

  “I didn’t say soldiers, I said killers Captain Warfell.”

  Danica raised an eyebrow at being addressed by her former rank in the Throne of Steel. “Come with me,” Gunther bowed low to his King and turned just as the doors swung wide.

  “Danica! British!”

  Emili Swift, now Captain herself, ran into the chamber and embraced both girls in turn, her shiny armor making it difficult.

  “Look at you. Just in time to shop for murderers,” Warfell led Emili by the plated shoulder, following Gunther.

  “What?” the young Knight was clueless.

  “Business, we’re on the clock, c’mon,” British confirmed over her shoulder.

  Two city blocks west of the Tower of Atria, stood the Tower of Justice, home to Tibor’s military command and law enforcement administration. Gunther escorted Warfell, Fey and Swift to a cage enshrouded lift. He pulled the bars back and the four of them entered. The girls looked up out of habit, the lift moved down…

  And it continued down until Warfell knew they were beneath the surface of the natural soil. She unconsciously gripped a steel bar and breathed deeply.

  “It’s only a quarter mile,” Gunther said as the air became noticeably warmer. Warfell could smell the recycled turbine atmosphere. She kept her calm and smiled too wide at Gunther.

  “Eat me blondie,” she commented rudely.

  “Bout time,” Danica mumbled moments later as the lift finally came to a groaning stop. Gunther slung back the cage and walked down a well-lit hallway. Through a set of double doors, the underground complex came to life with Constables and Detectives attending business.

  “Through here please,” he motioned to the girls. Before them was a hall with a glass wall on one side. As they walked, Warfell noticed prison cells behind the glass.

  “It is a one way mirror,” British said as they approached the first occupied cell.

  “Correct Miss Fey. Our first possible team member. We know her by Alorica but that is probably not her name.” They stopped. “Approximately thirty years old, from Oceanport. Sentenced to death for killing a client, an escort client.”

  She was a beauty with long blond hair. Gunther continued.

  “The facts of the case were ironclad self-defense, but the ‘client’ was a Druid Elder under immunity here in True Towers. She refuses to reveal her true name
and identity, we suspect her to be a spy.”

  “Interesting, she’s in,” British said without hesitation. They moved to the next holding cell.

  “Erza Brooke, thirty-five, from Tibor. Brooke is a deposed Knight of the Northern Realm, sentenced to death for acts of atrocity in the field. She killed ten men in a bar fight while on leave.” Brooke was a tall woman with mid-length blond locks.

  “She’s good.” Warfell. Gunther gave the Swordsman a second look and then moved on to the next human cage. It was a man with the telltale Pureblood hair and eyes.

  “Tholoso Garrett, twenty-seven, deposed Knight. On the morning Garrett’s wife left him he killed three sparring partners in the Citadel, said he lost it.

  Warfell gave a thumb’s up—she’d been there before.

  “Next we have Fenton, twenty-five, our last deposed Knight. He is sentenced to death for killing three men while independently investigating the murder of his Daughter, a Raven—you guys it was Von Tobruk.”

  “Yes!” Warfell and Fey said at the same time and then pointed to each other like kids.

  “Okay…next is Tai. That’s all we know for certain. He speaks a language we can’t decipher but is humble and cooperative, almost like an incommunicative, happy child.”

  “Or a Monk?” British asked.

  “He could be. Regardless, he killed a man in the market over an orange,” Gunther paused.

  “Okay, why him?” Warfell asked.

  “Well, because he killed the six Knights who tried to arrest him—with his bare hands. He surrendered later to a woman in the square.

  “Yeah—he’s a keeper,” Emili spoke, mostly because the strange man with black hair and black eyes was cute. Warfell and Fey each stared humorously at the teenage Captain for maybe a second too long. Gunther cleared his throat and moved on.