by Joseph Bonis
“Well, it worked,” nodded Tracy. “What next?”
“I think I'll piss him off,” Jacob replied with a reckless grin and a glint in his eye. He stepped forward through the wall of mist and raised his voice. “Oye! Craig! Your plans suck!”
Craig's silhouette inside the flames lifted its head, and a pair of brighter flames marked his eyes.
“I mean, first off, you think if you attack me when I'm with a newbie, you can use more tokens fairly - but you don't bother to think that the newbie might fight back, too! Congratulations, you outnumbered yourself! Second, you figure you'll neutralize me with the noon sun, but you don't even research to make sure that'll actually work? What a moron!”
“Shut up, Jacob! I don't have to take this from you anymore!” Craig snarled, his voice almost lost in the roaring flames.
“How are you going to stop me?” Jacob asked. “It's not like you can hit either of us with your little fireballs! Too bad you wasted a token on that mind wall! If you had actually used your brains, we'd be in an arena where you could psiblast us!”
“Jacob,” Tracy murmured, “Do we really need to give him ideas?”
Craig lifted to his knees, still clutching at his side with one hand. “If I crush your mind quickly,” he snarled, “I can just go ahead and put the wall back up!”
Fear flashed through Tracy's mind. She could defend against punches. She could even defend against fireballs, apparently. But how could she defend against an attack that didn't have any sort of physical nature at all? She felt a roaring silence, like a strong wind against her back, pushing her towards Craig. There was a moment's respite, then Craig looked up towards them with a fierce glare. She felt a pressure in her temples, like a sudden stress headache, and her vision swam before her. “No!” she cried, trying to compose herself, a wild thought running through her head that perhaps her meditations would protect her from the attack.
With a cry of intense pain, Craig fell back to the pavement, clutching his head as the flames protecting him died. Jacob didn't miss the opportunity - he darted forward, fist pulling back, and delivered a powerful blow with the iron knuckles of his knife right into Craig's face. Craig toppled back and fell limply to the ground, eyes rolled up in his head with his nose a bloody mess across his face.
Jacob squatted down, resting his elbow on his knee, and plucked one charm from the three on Craig's glove. “Thanks for the mind token!” he chirped merrily.
“Wha … what just happened?” asked Tracy, rubbing her temples at the memory of the pain that had just started to bloom there.
“Psiblasts aren't easy,” Jacob replied, walking back to her as he hung his new token on a chain that was suddenly dangling from the base of his knife. “I'd never try one, myself - and I practiced with a mind token for two months. As far as I know, a mind wall's about the only thing Craig learned to do with a mind token. He's barely ever touched them. But he always thinks that anything he doesn't know how to do is easy.”
Jacob looked at the crumpled figure with disgust. “He just got hit with the mother of all migraines.”
Tracy narrowed her eyes, looking at Jacob more carefully. “And exactly how do you know so much about him? What's between you two?”
Jacob shrugged uncomfortably. “That's a long story,” he replied, “And I've got to do something quick.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, flipping it open. A series of rapid beeps sounded as he cycled through his contacts, then he raised it to his ear. Tracy could softly hear the ringing - Jacob had the volume turned up.
Someone answered. “Yes, m'lord,” replied Jacob, to the unheard greeting. He paused, listening, then said, “I didn't get around to taking it off my list yet.” He listened for a bit longer, then replied, “I thought you'd like to know that Craig's violated one of the prime laws. He dropped a mind wall in the middle of a public battle.”
Jacob's shadow bulged and a man stepped out of it, the same sort of move that Jacob had used against Craig, earlier. The man was dressed simply in black slacks and a black silk dress shirt, his tie a bright blue spot in the dark outfit. His clothes were fine, crisp, straight-lined. The rest of him, though, was nothing but metal. His short hair, his skin, even his eyes, were gleaming steel. A sword lay across his back without any sort of strap or sheath to keep it there, simple in design save for the hundreds of tiny runes decorating its blade, which seemed to shift and ripple. Tracy looked closer as those runes moved and realigned themselves. She recognized the water, earth, and air marks that decorated her own charms, and realized that those runes were all the hundreds of charms he had won from hundreds of others.
The man raised his hand, and Tracy felt a brief pressure against her mind that swiftly passed, that feeling of a silent rushing wind, like when Craig had taken down the mind wall. Jacob instantly turned towards the man and dropped to one knee in the middle of the street, his head bowed. “Lord Brin,” he said, simply.
Lord Brin ignored Jacob for the moment, walking around him to look Tracy up and down. Tracy felt herself straighten slightly under the examination, bristling just a little. He stood there silently, as if waiting for something.
“I won't kneel,” she said, coolly.
His face stayed impassive, but Tracy imagined a twitch to the side of his mouth, as if he wanted to smile. His eyes seemed more amused than the rest of his face. Lord Brin stared at her for a few seconds more. “Newbie?” he asked simply.
Jacob didn't look up as he answered. “Yes, m'lord. As of last night. I was going to bring her to sign up this afternoon.”
“You weren't going to tell me?” Lord Brin asked, a mild reproach to his voice, still staring at Tracy. She kept her back straight, though his metallic gaze seemed more bemused than penetrating.
She saw Jacob out of the corner of her eye as he lifted his head and glared at Lord Brin. “I'm not your hunter anymore. I served my year,” he said.
Lord Brin nodded, finally turning from Tracy and back towards Jacob. Tracy let out her breath and sagged, feeling released from that steady metallic stare. “And you didn't want her to have to spend a year as well, hrm?”
Jacob paused, obviously thinking about his response. “I thought it might be nice if her life wasn't completely disrupted,” he finally said.
Lord Brin looked down at Jacob with an appraising look in his eye, waiting for a few seconds more. “Oh, get up,” he finally said, a note of exasperation in his voice. “You're not someone I need to impose order upon.”
Brushing off his knee as he got up, Jacob replied, “I never know with you, m'lord.”
A bark of laughter was his response, Lord Brin's amusement finally reaching past his eyes. “Well, I suppose that's one of the reasons I trust you. You're careful. So, what do we have here?” Lord Brin finally looked at Craig's limp body, who was starting to groan and stir.
Jacob quickly related the order of events, staying fairly factual about the whole affair. Lord Brin stopped the story a few times, asking after some background detail or another - mostly details about Tracy. He seemed very interested about the fight between Craig and Tracy, but Jacob hadn't had a good view for most of that fight, so Tracy ended up filling the details there.
It was strange, talking about catching and deflecting thrown flames. This was superhero stuff, cartoon stuff, not something that happened in real life. That little normal part of her that still wanted to deny this was happening made a token little protest in her brain as she shared the events of the battle.
His gentle questions led one to the next, and Tracy found herself telling about her Tai Chi, her Aikido classes, and the story of what had happened the previous night.
Lord Brin laughed heartily as he heard about her defeating Jacob by accident. “Sir Nightfox!” he teased, “Perhaps I've been overestimating you! Defeated with a single attack?”
Jacob gave a slight smile, the first softening of his face that Tracy had seen since Lord Brin had arrived. She wasn't sure why Jacob was so nervous around him – Lo
rd Brin was obviously powerful, but he seemed all right.
Then Lord Brin's face changed sharply, growing hard. His metallic skin - which Tracy had begun to forget about - suddenly seemed very appropriate, as he looked coldly down at Craig once more. His hand lifted, and water poured out of the air to touch at Craig's side, to cover Craig's face. Tracy watched as the blood disappeared – not washed away, but flowing back into the wounds. The water glowed faintly as the cut along Craig's side closed up swiftly. When the water receded, Craig was as healthy as before - save that his nose had healed crooked. Lord Brin obviously hadn't bothered to set it properly.
Craig groaned and stirred, sitting up as the water receded and disappeared. He looked a bit confused for a moment, then his gaze wandered up along Lord Brin's body to his face. He let out a strangled noise and scrambled up to his knees, moving to try to match Jacob's respectful pose of earlier. “M'lord, I-”
Lord Brin didn't wait for him to finish, his foot moving almost faster than Tracy could see to lift up and kick Craig in the chest, hard enough to lift him into the air and drop him onto his back several feet away. Lord Brin stepped forward and planted his foot on Craig's chest, pinning him to the ground, leaning over to stare down coldly into his face. Tracy felt a chill run up her spine at his casual show of violence and dominance.
“You call me lord, after what you did?” Lord Brin stated more than asked. “You violated one of the prime laws. You spit in my face.”
Craig shook his head. “No, m'lord! No! I'm inno-”
Lord Brin leaned one forearm on the knee of his lifted leg, leaning over further to place his fingertips on Craig's forehead. Craig's eyes widened in sudden fear. “Wait, I'll-” he started to say, then his back tried to arch and his eyes rolled back in his head until Tracy could only see the whites. She should have been able to hear that scream clearly, but it seemed muffled and distant, as if it were heard through a thick wall. The foot planted on his chest kept Craig firmly in place, Lord Brin unmoved by the thrashing or the fists beating against leg and arm.
Tracy looked in shock over at Jacob, who was looking away, his whole body tense, his fists clenched. He looked like he was going to be sick. She didn't feel much better.
“Lord Pax?” Lord Brin asked, calmly. “I've been making sure he doesn't get more than his original mind rune. He lent you his prime rune?” Craig's head was caught, his neck straining as he tried to toss his head left or right. His scream cut off in a strangled noise as he ran out of air. He raggedly gasped in some air and let out a strangled noise, not able to suck in much with Lord Brin's weight on his chest. “What were you holding over his head? … Oh, that's interesting. Such ambitions you had, Craig, hiding newbies from me, blackmailing lords … Well, now all your blackmail is mine.”
Straightening up, Lord Brin looked down at Craig with a resigned expression, brushing his fingertips off on his hip as if he had just touched something filthy. Craig himself lay there limply, sobbing, a few tears touching his cheeks, barely able to breath between the sobs.
Tracy turned around and took a couple steps before throwing up. She pictured tendrils of thought reaching into Craig's brain, ripping out pieces of it, the pain and humiliation and helplessness. She flinched at a touch to her shoulder, but she saw fingers of flesh, not metal, moving to hold her hair back - Jacob, not Lord Brin.
Her stomach emptied itself and she just stayed on her knees trying to recover, the sharp, vile scent of the vomit encouraging her to throw up again, as the violation she had just witnessed kept playing through her mind. A brief wave of water flowed across the street, washing away the foul smelling vomit, then a metallic hand entered her field of vision to set down a crafted metal goblet before her, filled with clean, clear water.
Lord Brin stepped away, giving her space. “I'm sorry,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I forget, sometimes, how that looks to people who aren't used to it.”
Jacob softly growled, low enough that Tracy could barely hear him, “Not much different for people who are used to it.”
The friendly Lord Brin was back, looking concerned as Tracy glared up at him, angry and scared both. Craig's sobs behind her were a creepy background counterpoint, reminding her that something else lurked behind that friendly expression. She considered refusing the goblet, to make a statement, but she really did want to get rid of the taste in her mouth. She picked it up and took a mouthful, spitting it to the side, then swallowed a good deal of the crisp, cool water.
“I'll grant you leeway, Jacob, because you have done me service,” Lord Brin stated in a magnanimous manner. “And you, Tracy, benefit from this as well. It wouldn't be fair for you to have brought me in on a matter like this, and for me to take advantage of that. I'll grant you time to register.”
Tracy's confusion must have shown on her face, because Lord Brin explained, “Those newbies who are not brought in to register on their own, or who do not show proper respect for the laws, I take all their runes. To regain their prime rune, I require a year of service to me.”
“Oh,” murmured Tracy, glancing over at Jacob. Some of the things the others had been talking about made a lot more sense, now. “And what did you do for him, Jacob?”
“I was a hunter,” Jacob responded. “Along with Craig, yes. Our job was to go around the city trying to sense out newbies, and report them back to Lord Brin.”
Tracy was silent. Perhaps it was the fear of the situation, the revulsion at what Lord Brin had just done to Craig, or just the oddness, but she bristled at this revelation. Jacob had sold others out for his own gain, hadn't he?
But he obviously wasn't happy about it. He looked guilty and angry both. And he had been working to try to help her, when he easily could have tried to fight her again and get those tokens once more. And … at least it meant newbies wouldn't be stumbling through it on their own, right? Even with the fights and fear, she couldn't imagine how much worse it would have been if she'd had no one at all to ask about what was going on.
“Will you take me to go register, Jacob?” she asked, softly.
Jacob looked up at her and gave a nervous little smile. “Yes,” he said, his voice relieved. “Of course.”
Chapter 5: Register
Lord Brin watched the two of them silently, appraising the small but meaningful drama playing out. Tracy bristled lightly, that he should be sitting there, judging them, when he's the one who created the problem in the first place.
A noise sounded behind them and they turned, quickly, to see Craig getting to his knees, then to his feet, his eyes flashing as he glared with hatred at them. A moment later, his fists were burning with fires as fierce as his gaze.
Tracy lifted her own hands, her mind racing, desperately trying to remember what mindset she had possessed just minutes before when she was fighting him, the mindset that let her draw on the power of the charms. Jacob's hand stretched before her, blocking her, and she glanced to the side at his face. He shook his head in warning, a somber look on his face.
“Craig,” said Lord Brin, taking a step towards him, the steel back in his voice. “You know what will happen if you attack me.”
Craig quivered with anger, his eyes glistening. A strangled noise pulled from his throat, and his cheek twitched from the fierceness of his scowl. His hands shook, his fingers opening and closing, and the street was silent and unmoving except for Craig's furious indecision, and the quiet crackle of his flames.
With an anguished cry, as if the action physically hurt him, Craig threw his hands down and let the fire go out.
“Smart,” said Lord Brin, stepping forward again. “You know how this works. Craig Bergmann, you are guilty of breaking one of the rules of secrecy, not to mention acts of treason.” Craig flinched as if the words had been a physical blow. “You have two choices of punishment. Either relinquish all your runes to me and accept exile,” Lord Brin paused there, and when he spoke again his words were even colder, “Or receive the death sentence in the manner of your choosing.”
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Craig stood there, silently, shaking with furious rage. Sparks flashed around his fingers, tiny flames igniting and extinguishing as his emotions ran wild. His face writhed with a mixture of fury and fear that Tracy had never seen before. Finally, he grabbed the two charms from the wrist of his glove and flung them at Lord Brin's chest.
Lord Brin's metal-skinned arm twitched briefly and the two small items disappeared from mid-air. Slower and with a feeling of ritual, he reached over his shoulder to place the charms against the pommel of his sword, and Tracy saw the charms disappear, replaced with two glowing red fire runes that slid along the grip and past the hilt, joining the hundreds of others on the blade of the sword.
“You have twenty-four hours to leave my range, and never return,” sentenced Lord Brin. Craig turned on his heel and stalked away. The three of them stood there and silently watched until Craig turned a corner and was gone.
Lord Brin let out a regretful sigh, his shoulders drooping for a moment, his head dropping. It was just a moment of weakness, though, a half a second only, and he immediately straightened up, posture full of noble self-assurance again.
The metal-skinned noble turned back towards Jacob and Tracy, took a deep breath to say something, then paused.
Tracy didn't want to know what he was going to say. He had just been ready to sentence someone to death with a cold surety - and his threat had been faced with a raw fear that said plainer than any words that he had done so before and would do so again. The exile - was that a mercy? Was it mercy to save someone's life if you were the one about to take it? She didn't want his cold metal eyes looking at her, didn't want to sit there wondering what rules she might have broken. What mercy he might consider flinging at her feet. And what had Jacob said about that itch in your mind for the rest of your life? That feeling of missing a piece of yourself? How much mercy was this?