by Peri Akman
Sweaty and unhappy, Quinn stared at Kole as she sat across from him.
“Now,” she continued, “I believe you had some questions for me, Quinn?”
“Okay, first question. How many more of these secret tests are you going to do on me? Because I think I just had three consecutive heart attacks!” Quinn snarled slightly, although it mostly sounded like he had something caught in his throat.
Kole giggled, “That was the last one, I swear. From here on out I’ll be straightforward. Granted, it will be my version of straightforward, not yours.”
“Next question, how do you know Asim?” Quinn asked. He wasn’t too convinced about her not trying to trick him after this, but he had nothing to gain by being paranoid. Honestly, he was just glad all that had been fake.
There was a silence. “Are all of the questions going to be about me?” Kole did not seem very pleased.
“I…” Quinn thought for a moment. “Yeah?”
“Why? You have an entire world to explore. Why not ask questions like, when are you going to start your magical training? Will we be going to the badlands to fight monsters? Are we going to engage in territorial warfare? Do you need to know how to use a sword, or another weapon? Or how about the fact that I said you could choose the destination, and yet here we are, going on a five-hour carriage ride, clearly without your input? There is a world of questions that are more immediately relevant, and you go for my social life?” Kole’s eyes narrowed as she talked, her walking stick digging into the carriage floor.
Quinn looked down, sheepish. “Sorry. It’s just that a lot of weird things happened today, and most of them have to do with you.”
Kole gave an exaggerated and dramatic sigh. “Fine, Quinn. You can ask ONE thing about me, and from there, we change the topic. Talk about, I dunno, the city-states we should head to, and what my government parole rules let us do.”
One question? All right, there was the question about Asim, what type of magic she used (maybe something based on imbuing items with magic? Like an amplifier or something?), why she had been arrested, and why she thought that the current world was some sort of evil oppressive regime.
He would see what type of magic she used eventually, and she would undoubtedly love to rant again. The terms of her arrest would have to come up. But the chances of them ever running into Asim of Trell for a long time were incredibly slim.
So that was the question to ask.
But if he asked how they met, he’d probably get some evasive answer, and it wouldn’t explain why they tried to beat the crap out of each other. No… he had to be more specific.
“Why did Asim of Trell attack you?” Quinn asked, almost proud of his logical deductions.
Another exaggerated sigh, “Figured you would ask an annoying question. It’s simple. The last time Wind Walker saw me, I was on the ground, bleeding to death. So he spent the last five years thinking I was dead. However the activity we were participating in was, ah… sketchy. Very sketchy. So leaving me behind for dead meant that when the guards came, I was nursed back to health and arrested. So he assumed, logically, that I had been replaced by a demon of some sort. That thing he tried to whisper to your Head? That my status was KIA. Killed in Action. So, you know, unable to be at a random event. He was rather pissed to find out he was wrong. Probably offended that I didn’t write.”
Well. That answered one question, and raised about five others.
“So… uh… where are we going?” Quinn asked.
Kole’s eyes lit up, as if she were smiling behind the bandages, “Glad you asked. It will take us about another hour to get out of the Haldon farmlands. Once we do that, we can rest for a bit, and you get to decide which road we take. It’s going to be fun.”
Quinn nodded. He settled in to eat his loaf of bread. His stomach was practically roaring with discomfort. His heart had also started to slow down.
In a strange way, he felt more confident in his future now than he ever had before.
Chapter Six
When the carriage stopped, they were at a crossroads. At the center of it was a rather sorry excuse for a safehouse. It was boarded up, completely deserted. Jutting out of the ground, faded by the weather, was a hastily-crafted wooden sign:
MONSTERS HERE
BEWARE MAJEYS
“Beware Majeys”? Quinn had never heard that phrase.
Kole tried to jump off the carriage, but seemed to have forgotten about her leg, and hit the ground hard. After a few angry curses, she forced herself up, grumbling.
She walked towards Quinn, pausing at the sign.
“Great. Thanks for the help, ya bigot…” Kole muttered under her breath as she stomped her walking stick.
From the stick floated out a crinkled old folded piece of paper, faint lines illegible from this distance. She gripped it and practically shoved it at Quinn.
He gingerly unfolded it to discover it was a map. It was very detailed, with annoyingly small words. Quinn had to practically bring it up to his nose to read any of it.
It did not help in the slightest. The map was unwieldy, being folded up several times over, composing of a variety of areas that all looked alike, with crossings and symbols that probably meant something to someone, but certainly not him. He had no idea which part he was supposed to be looking at.
He looked up from the map several times, as if hoping some large monument would match up with the scratch lines on the paper. He gave a helpless glance at Kole, hoping for some support or guidance.
And then, in the distance behind Kole, he saw it.
He had never seen one in person before, but it had always been said he would know one when he saw it. And they had been right about that.
At least three feet tall, two legs on each side, as well as a pair of arms, blue-furred, and with soulless white eyes.
A monster.
Quinn felt his life force leave him. A monster. An actual monster. He was going to die.
“Kole,” he stuttered with the last of his energy, “M-monster!”
Kole slowly turned around to see the frothing monster. Her nonchalant reaction was not what Quinn was expecting, nor hoping for.
“Eh, if you just ignore it, it'll go away. Little bugger’s probably never taken down a warlock in its short life. Probably too skittish to attack us.” Kole shrugged nonchalantly.
Quinn did not believe her. He dropped the map from his face, and began to back up.
“Quinn—don’t, that’ll—” Kole just cut herself off. “Eh, never mind. You’ll learn this now.”
Quinn took a few more steps away as the monster roared, its voice a high-pitched bird-like screech, and charged towards him on all sixes. Quinn kept backing up, wanting to turn and flee, but his legs seemed to be set only to ‘pathetically slow’.
The monster roared, foam spraying everywhere. It completely shot by Kole, as if she wasn’t even there, and made a direct beeline for Quinn.
When it was a foot away, Quinn’s legs roared to life, and he turned to run.
He barely made it a few feet when—
Thwack.
The monster was careening, holding its head with three of its appendages, while Kole retracted her walking stick.
Quinn took such a deep breath of relief that he found himself coughing.
“Kill it or leave it alone, Quinn?” Kole asked.
“What? Why would you—Kill it! Killitkillitkillit!” Quinn sputtered, his adrenaline pulsing through his head.
Kole shrugged. “You sure?”
“YES!”
The stick jabbed into the monster’s head again, and this time pinned it against the ground. Kole’s hand twitched slightly, and the stick skewered into the monster’s skull, crushing it. The monster continued to flail, but with less vigor, until the last of the spasming limbs became limp.
Quinn stared in shock. He had wanted it dead but… he hadn’t expected it to die that violently. For a second, it was hard to breathe, before relief washed over him. “Sorry. Okay, I le
arned, I swear,” he said absently, not taking his eyes off the dead creature, slightly transfixed.
“Three... two... one…” Kole muttered.
There was a shuffling noise in the bushes from afar.
Quinn’s reverie broke upon hearing the sound, and his head snapped up towards the source of the disturbance.
Another monster, similar in nature, maybe a bit smaller.
And then another one followed suit.
And another.
And another.
And another.
“Here’s the best lesson you’ll ever learn about monsters, Quinn,” Kole said, making a beeline for the safehouse. “They don’t work alone.”
One of the monsters made a pointing movement to where the dead monster was. The biggest one—easily five feet—roared, and the horde of monsters charged the area.
“Quinn!” Kole yelled, snapping Quinn out of his once again frozen legs. She motioned him into the safehouse, and he ran.
Once he made it past the door, she slammed it shut and placed her stick against it. The dark and dusty safehouse was unlived-in, with only a rotting skeleton of some large animal with tusks to keep them company.
“YOU SAID NO MORE TESTS!” Quinn shrieked, on the verge of terrified tears. The skeleton was not helping in the slightest.
“This wasn’t exactly planned!” Kole snapped.
“YOU KNEW MORE WOULD COME OUT!” Quinn screamed. “YOU KNEW AND YOU JUST LET ME MAKE THAT DECISION!”
“Okay, in my defense I don’t think you would have believed me no matter how vehemently I told you that we should just let the scrawny warlock killer go. In your defense... I might have drastically underestimated the size of the pack.” Kole spoke brightly. “And relax, we’re not going to die. Common rule of thumb, any monster under five feet is probably too weak to put up much of a fight, so long as you’re trained in how to hit things nice and hard.”
The monsters swarmed the area, banging on the walls, trying to break through the wood. Their piercing shrieks filled the air in an inhuman cacophony. Dust kicked up against the wood, irritating Quinn’s eyes.
“Well, Quinn, whaddya want to do?” Kole asked, as if they were still deciding on what area to pick on the map.
“What I want—? You pick! I’m sick of deciding! This has been terrible! You’re a warlock! Protect me!” Quinn snapped, his anger and desperation rising.
“All right.” She shrugged. “Alternatively, we could go for a stress-induced awakening. Not interested?”
A stress-induced awakening? As in... magic right here, right now?
A loud crashing noise could be heard from the outside.
Nope.
“Not interested.” Quinn said.
“Fine by me. See you in five minutes.” Kole said cheerfully, grabbing her walking stick, stepping out of the door and slamming it shut.
Quinn raced to a window, but it was boarded shut. He couldn’t see a thing. Probably for the best anyway.
Quinn took a deep breath and sat down on a dusty and splinter-filled chair. He made eye contact with the eye holes of the skull of the dead animal. He wondered if this creature had died because of monsters, torn apart and alone.
He had been wrong. Being a hero was overrated. He would be just fine with a laboring job somewhere. Once he figured out what his affinity was.
The sounds of squealing, dying monsters filled the air. The constant noise of onslaught eventually subsided into scattered cries. His heart slightly less pained, Quinn stood up and went towards the door.
He opened it a crack. Nothing in sight.
Quinn took a few steps outside. Dead bodies of monsters surrounded the safehouse. The carriage was overturned, with the homunculus standing straight and at attention a few feet away, motionless.
In the distance Kole was visible, being swarmed by a bunch of smaller monsters, and the one big one.
She didn’t seem to be using anything magical. She just kind of kept hitting them with her stick.
Quinn took a few steps closer, to observe better. His fear was leaving him, slowly but surely. It was pretty cool how she was able to just slam through the monsters like they were nothing.
His nose stung a bit. Too much fur. He sniffed, trying to clear his sinuses.
He was beginning to understand why her emotions seemed to be on one end or the other all the time. At this rate, he was going to end up the same way! Going from terrified out of his mind, to calm, to kind of excited, all within a few minutes.
And then something grabbed his ankle.
Quinn screeched, and from a pile of dead monsters, a very much live one leaped and tackled Quinn to the ground.
Quinn flailed and the monster took this opportunity to roar in his face, spewing its frothing mouth foam all over him. It smelled like rotten eggs and felt like mud—disgusting!
His body froze again, unsure of what to do, unsure of how to fight back against this roaring creature that could easily rip out his throat. He tried to summon the strength to push the monster off of him, but his body refused to move.
He shut his eyes tight, terrified of what was about to come, when suddenly a whoosh followed by a dull thud of wood on fur and bone snapped him out of it.
He opened his eyes to find Kole, scuffed-up and panting, with her stick pressed against the chest of the monster.
“You all right, Quinn?” she asked.
“Y-yeah.”
“You’re a freezer, ain’tcha?” she said, not yet killing the last surviving monster.
“I’m... a what?”
“Fight. Flight. Freeze. We all do some version of them. You freeze up. Shut down. Ever noticed that?” The monster raged and clawed from underneath her, but it was futile. She had angled the pin perfectly.
Some memories of past fears rose into his memory. “Yeah. I guess. Is that bad?” Quinn took a few steps away from the two.
“I mean. Not inherently. It’s a pain when in a pinch though.” She hissed the last few words as the monster almost managed to take a swipe at her. She dug the stick into its chest. “Bad monster! No hitting the lame leg!”
The monster gave a pathetic whine.
“You wanna fight it?” Kole asked. “I could clobber a bit, and you could take a swing at it. You’d be surprised how much that first hit can count when you’re breaking into the world of violence and murder.”
“Do I have to?” Quinn asked, nerves and voice fraying.
“Nope. Plenty of warlocks go their entire lives and never lift a finger offensively. But it is something you’ll probably have to learn if you stick with a bonehead like me. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine.” She shrugged. Her black eyes darted to the monster, and back at Quinn.
He shook his head. “Then no. I don’t want to.”
Kole nodded and brought her stick down for a final, fatal strike.
“That’s fine. It means we should stick with hospitals and community service then, until you manage to figure out your affinity. Although even the most violent of inclinations can be used for... not killing things.” Kole began to walk over to the carriage. “Like explosions! You could be a miner! That’s mostly nonlethal.”
Quinn stared at the dead monster, and then at the dozens upon dozens of monsters surrounding him. It struck him how bizarre it was that so many were willing to die, one after another, without even feeling fear. Did monsters feel fear? Was that a thing they could do?
She picked up the map, which Quinn must have dropped at some point. She handed it to him.
“Pick a destination.”
It was like nothing had happened. His eyes remained transfixed on the carnage. “Are they always like that?”
“Violent and foamy? Usually,” Kole responded with an idle shrug.
“And mindless?” Quinn asked.
“It’s not exactly mindlessness? It’s more of a defensive...swarming… thing…” Kole trailed off, her voice distant as she suddenly became very focused on the overturned carriage.
�
�Why do they do that?” Quinn prodded. He had never heard any sort of explanation for monsters before, so hearing even a vague one piqued his interests.
“Void if I know!” Kole shot back, ending the conversation if only for a moment.
Quinn turned his attention to the map. Kole, meanwhile, went to the top of the carriage and placed her stick underneath it. She tried to push and cursed from the pain. She made a whistling noise and the clay homunculi snapped to attention, and went to mindlessly help her with the heavy lifting.
Quinn,continued to look down at the map, making fake progress along the way. An unreadable mess, as before. He was normally a perfectly fine reader, but he could not make heads or tails of this puzzle.
With a thud, the carriage was put back in place. Kole examined the hands of the driver homunculus. She cursed loudly again.
“Okay, no more wild lessons. These dolls can’t take any more wear and tear. Or we’re walking. And I suck at that. So that’s my promise to you,” she groaned, pointing to the harness, which the homunculi shambled towards.
She moved back to Quinn. “So, where are we going?”
“How about you decide?” Quinn said irritably. “I don’t know anything about the surrounding places.”
“Sure. Our best bet for more business-like skills would be Trell, but we went in the exact opposite direction, so we’ll go to that mega-city another day. Haldon is your farming city, but I’m kind of sick of here, so no. Shorne is in the mountains. The city itself is about a day in. It’s nice and isolated. Lots of monsters in the mountains though. Big monsters. Ten feet minimum. Not good for you.
“Westkill is also along here, it’s pretty peaceful. Minus, of course, the gigantic military base. We’re not going there. Too many guards. They hate me. We could go through Westkill, though, travel a bit farther to Isvale. They have pretty strict rules on magic, though. Might take one look at me and not open the gates. And I mean literal gates. Walled cities are fun. However, they have the lowest demon percentage around, plus their hospitals are stellar. If you end up having a healing affinity, that would be a good place.