by Stone Thomas
Option B was, “I’m an orphan, with children of my own on the way.” The man with his kneecap digging into my spine didn’t seem like the type to be swayed by that sentiment.
I could go with Option C, name-dropping, and say, “I’m a friend of Blade.”
Or, Option D. The confuse option. “I’m the pickle of death, here to conquer the sandwich of your soul. Bow to my crisp nature or I will sog your descendants for eternity with my runny green juices!”
When in doubt, go with C. “I’m a friend of Blade.” He wasn’t just a big mean rogue. Last time I was in town, Blade consolidated Valleyvale’s criminals into a single outfit by slitting his rival’s throat. It was a safe bet that these guys either worked for Blade or feared him. Both, if they were smart, but that was a big if.
Still, it was a lie. Blade and I weren’t friends. Not even frenemies.
“The boss sent you?” the man on my back asked. The second man lowered a torch toward the ground, casting warm light across my face and giving me a hard stare. “Where is he?”
Where is he? Was Blade missing?
“You don’t need to know that,” I said. “Now get off my back and let me do my job.”
The man on my back got to his feet and helped me up. “I’m Bas—”
“I didn’t ask,” I said. The last thing I needed was a conversation that might lead to me screwing up my story. We walked in silence through the cool stone underground, sloping sharply downward. We were under the city now, beneath rows of houses or shops, descending deeper than their basements and potato cellars would reach.
“I remember you,” the man with the torch whispered, leaning close. His teeth weren’t exactly yellow. They were exactly brown. “You visited Blade here before, and you had that voluptuous green lady with you.”
“I still do,” I said. “She’s outside the main gates, along with a few other girls I… travel with.”
“Can you teach me how you do it?” he asked, leaning close and breathing some of his putrid breath too close to my nose. “You’re kind of scrawny and average-looking to land a beauty like her. What’s your secret?”
“I’ve brushed my teeth before,” I said. “I think that helped.”
The man nodded thoughtfully.
Bas-something led the way, stopping at a ladder bolted into a stone wall. He climbed it and I followed, emerging through a small square hole after he popped open a wooden latch.
Nola, I said in my mind. I’m inside.
She didn’t respond. In the past, she had a hard time reaching telepathically into the underground areas of Halcyon, but the sage stone she received after her mother’s death improved her psychic projection enough to overcome that, at least inside Halcyon. I’d have to try again on the surface.
“How much further?” I asked.
“This is it,” Bas said. “Grippersnout basement level 2.”
The room was small, but a wooden door promised escape. I walked toward it with as much confidence as I could muster.
“You’re just in time,” Bas said. “As soon as we get rid of this bitch we can go.”
I opened the door and ducked. The body of a muscle-dense man flew across the room, arcing over my head and slamming high against the wall. Three fallen men lay groaning and bloody. A handful of other thugs stood with crude weapons while one brave, stupid guy stepped toward the woman that had done this damage.
He raised a bullwhip into the air, but she dropped to the ground and swung a leg out, tripping him before he could lash out at her. She rolled toward him, grabbed the tip of the whip’s long cord and wrapped it around her knuckles. The man pulled back, but the woman yanked the weapon from him, then smacked him across the face with its handle. The entire whip glowed with sapphire light in her hands.
“Telara Frist,” I said, half in surprise, and half in fear. She was a more dangerous fighter than I gave her credit for, holding off a room full of ruthless brawlers.
“Arden,” she said, then scanned the men along the room’s edge. Just a glance sent them a step back from the half of the room she commanded. “Come to finish the job the Great Mother set out for you?”
“You said Blade sent you,” Bas said, snatching the collar of my vest.
“I’d like to change my answer to D,” I said. “I’m just a pickle. Don’t mind me.”
“Anyone lays a hand on him,” Telara said, “and I’ll tear it off, shove it up your ass, and rip your spine out with it.”
“She calls that Fristing,” I said. “It’s a once in a lifetime experience.”
Bas released his grip and slid his hands around the seat of his pants.
“What are you doing in the Grippersnout?” I asked.
“I had to find my own way into the city,” she said. “It didn’t take long to spot bandits using the chaos to their advantage. I followed them here to recruit them against Kāya with an offer of gold, but this Blade person won’t let them take payoffs from the empire.”
“The empire’s gold is worthless here!” Bas yelled. The men cheered Bas and heckled Telara from the safety of the room’s perimeter. “We steal imperial gold, we don’t work for it. Blade caught wind of imperial loot, buried in the mountains. He said he’d come back for us once he found it. That’s our payday, not your meager sack of coin.”
Imperial loot. In the mountains. That’s exactly what we sent Halcyon’s junior adventurers to find. I didn’t have time to worry about Jessip and Megra now though. They had good instincts. They’d keep their distance from someone like him.
“If you all want to live to see your boss again,” Telara said, “we have the same goal. If you’re done attacking yourselves with my fists and boots, I’ll teach you to fight like I do. Better than the average thug, better than the city’s guards, better than Blade himself.”
The men got quiet. They still stood ready to fight, but now they were listening.
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “You can’t make these men more dangerous.”
“Someone has to or we’ll never stop Kāya,” she said. “This lot fights like back-alley drunks with onions for brains.”
“Ouch,” I said. “It’s no wonder they refused to follow you.”
“You’re even worse,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“The way you wave that spear around,” she said, “it’s like you’re swatting at flies, not fighting for your life.”
“Bats,” I said. “I cut my teeth swatting at bats. I think I even chipped one that way. Maybe my spear-fighting moves aren’t the best, but what I lack in technique I make up for in skills and stats.”
“There’s no making up for it,” she said. “If you want to win this war, you’ll need both. I’m a harmacist by class, but I’ve also trained with the best fighters in the empire to learn technique. Technique I’m willing to teach.”
Telara still held a defensive stance as she spoke, apprising the crowd of villains waiting to take her down. They seemed to relax when she offered to train them though. All of a sudden, they were considering her offer. The web of allegiances in the room wasn’t complicated, but it was shifting. Blade’s hatred of the empire receded as the promise of new power took its place.
“You’re really going to train these thieves and rogues?” I asked. “With weapons? Sharp pointy ones?”
“They’re a means to an end,” she said. “Most won’t survive the fight, but having more bodies gets us closer to slaying her. I have a job to do.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then I move onto the next assignment.”
“Even if that assignment is killing off another god?”
“If it’s a god like Kāya,” she said, “I hope so. The empire has maintained peace for a long time because people like me follow orders. I won’t be the reason that peace falters.”
I looked at the crowd of thugs. “I can do better. The city is short on guards, and this is a chance to turn things around for yourselves. Prove you care about more than just gold. I�
�ll skillmeister you all for free if you’ll pledge fealty to the goddess Nola, defend Valleyvale, and help me destroy what Kāya’s building here.”
“That eerie light at the top of the tower?” one man asked. He punched the man next to him in the arm. “See, Nocker, I told you the temple was going bad!”
“I meant the metal structure in the center of town,” I said. “What’s going on with the temple?”
“Take a look for yourself,” he said. “The people that go into the temple ain’t come back out, but Kāya keeps flying up to the bell tower and filling it with purple light.”
“Skillmeistering is worthless to you,” Telara said, “without the moves to back it up and the XP to spend on new skills — XP you’ll have in spades if you’re the one to take Kāya down. A god is worth more experience points than you’ve earned in your entire lives so far. Kill Kāya, and you’ll never have to fear Blade again.”
“Let’s kill us a god!” one man yelled. The others joined in. The room filled with the hearty, grunty voices of thieves with murder and XP in their eyes.
“Telara,” I said, “you have to call them off. Kāya isn’t the only god here.”
“You’re worried about Akrin,” she said.
“What?” I asked. “No. I mean, yes, sure, if he’s here, but mostly Nola.”
Telara raised a hand as if to punch me, but struck the wall instead. “You idiot. You brought Nola to Kāya’s doorstep? If Kāya absorbs the gift of premonition—”
“She won’t,” I said.
“Silence!” Telara yelled, though the men didn’t cut down their excited chatter. “Kāya is the target here. Leave the golden goddess alone. We need her alive.”
“Kill the gods!” another man yelled. “Kill them all!”
“You can’t control them,” I shouted over the cheers that echoed off the underground room’s stone walls. “You’re in over your head.” I took a step toward the stairs.
“Wait,” Telara said, catching my arm. “I haven’t been to a skillmeister in months. I’ll need more Constitution and Resolve to get close enough to Kāya to do this.”
“It’s against the empire’s laws to skill you for free.”
“I’ll pay,” she said. “I had enough gold to bribe a thieves’ den, I think I can afford your rates.”
“These thugs aren’t the only ones that don’t want your money,” I said. I pushed past Telara and headed for the Grippersnout’s exit.
“I’m doing you a favor here,” she said. “If you aren’t willing to kill Kāya yourself, you should thank me for doing it for you!”
I climbed a set of narrow wooden stairs, leaving Telara to the basement full of outlaws she claimed as her own. The next basement level up was a drafty storage room with dark glass bottles and large wooden barrels. A few brooms sat against the wall by the corner, next to a coat rack with a small canvas bag hanging from it.
Savange’s feminine shape materialized against the wall and strutted toward that bag. She pointed a long finger toward it, her fingernail scraping the bag’s shadow.
“I think you’ll put this scrap of cloth to a better purpose than this drafty storeroom will,” she said.
“It’s not mine,” I said, ignoring the bag and heading toward the next set of stairs.
“So return it when you’re finished,” she said. “It’s no corruption to borrow an empty bag when the life of your goddess is at stake.”
I walked toward it. My pockets were already bulging with lilac energems, my map and compass, and the seed pod I had from Grucio. Somewhere in this city were the other energems Brion had stolen, and a bag would come in handy.
I took the bag from the rack. I peeked inside. A bloodstained cloth pouch sat in the bag’s bottom, so I peered into that next. A pair of rubies sat side by side.
“Did you know these were in here?” I asked. “These are valuable. Their owner would come looking for me.”
Savange’s shadow shrugged. I left the bag where it hung and took the next set of stairs up, to the bar’s main level. I was starting to regret giving Savange shelter in my shadows.
Upstairs, a rat sat on a wooden table finishing off the scraps of a meal left half-finished from the night before. No one had cleaned the bar after closing time, though I suspected their idea of “cleaning” was to lower the lights until the darkness rendered the grime and cockroaches invisible. The whole place smelled of warm beer and stale sweat.
I imagined how a restaurant reviewer would treat this place. The Grippersnout. Zero stars. Ambience: Filthy, edgy, divey. Good for: Aperitifs, late night eats, and pickpockets. Reservations: I have many.
I pushed open the front door, shielding my eyes from the late morning sun as a chorus of male voices rang out behind me: “Kill the gods! Get XP! Kill the gods! Get XP!”
+20
I stepped through the bar’s front door and into the narrow streets of Valleyvale’s shadiest neighborhood. The darkened houses and shuttered shops along these back alleys had metal bars on the windows and multiple locks on the doors, but no signs of life.
After a few cautious turns down twisting streets, I rounded a bend that led to a pair of lumentors standing in the small patch of late morning shadow cast by a two-story building. They caught sight of me instantly, but didn’t give chase. They eyed the sun-soaked cobblestones like they were hot magma. I walked backward, prepared to launch into a full sprint if those decrepit souls decided the burning sun was worth the risk of taking over a head priest’s body.
No sooner did I duck down another street than someone crashed their shoulder into me as they ran past. Pursuing them at top speed was an armless silver-colored man with a spherical featureless face. Four feet tall, he chased the first man until he got close, then leapt high in the air. When his feet crashed to the street, his knees bent and a wave of silver magic burst out from where he stood.
I was outside the blast radius, but the man trying to escape froze in place. He didn’t ice over the way victims of Lily’s skills would, he just simply stopped, mid-stride, as if someone had hit a pause button.
That’s because, essentially, someone had. This shiny silver pawn was the familiar of Akrin, the god of passing time, and this man wasn’t under attack. He was under recruitment.
Akrin himself floated over the row of low buildings toward us. He hovered there, a dozen feet above the ground with his hands on his hips and a broad smile on his face. His skin was a mirrored sheen, reflecting the sun’s rays in flashes of silver. Two tendrils extended from the heel of each foot, wafting and curling with minds of their own, keeping Akrin afloat in a way I’d never comprehend.
“I could let you stay here, amid the explosions and the curses,” he said, focused on the enchanted man, “but wouldn’t you rather come to lovely Roseknob? I could use a soul like yours, twitching around inside that strong young body. And you could use a home that’s not under attack. What do you say? Join my team!”
The man just stood there, running in no-motion. Only his eyes seemed able to move.
“Right,” Akrin said. “We’ll have to be clever about this. Blink once for ‘yes’ and all you’ll have to do is make your way to Roseknob on foot. It’s a nice long walk, but I’ll take all the time out of it. You’ll settle into your new home before lunch.”
The man blinked once, and Akrin tossed a ball of silver energy from his palm, timelining the man out of the city. It was Akrin’s favorite way to meddle with the time stream — sending people further ahead or further back along the paths of their own travels.
“Arden!” Akrin said next. “The offer stands for you too, if you’re looking for a change of scenery.”
“And leave Nola to fend for herself?” I asked. “No. She’s outside the city’s gates trying to break in. I’m sure she’d appreciate a hand.”
“Why would I waste a head start like that?” he asked. “I’ve seen how you work. You’ll lure these fine people to Halcyon and I’ll lose the chance to grow my population. Don’t get me wrong, I enjo
y the competition and I’m glad for the challenge, but I play to win.”
Akrin whistled at his pawn and pointed toward me. “Watch this one,” he said. “Don’t let him steal any residents until we’ve made our pitch.”
With that, Nola’s father shot into the air while his pawn stayed behind. The city was nothing but live chess to him, where the people were pieces waiting to be taken off the board.
I moved along the city streets, but now I wasn’t alone. Akrin’s silver-skinned pawn trailed behind me everywhere I went. One scratch with my Vile Lance would likely end the low-level familiar, but picking a fight with Akrin wasn’t at the top of my to-do list.
The large metal spire in the city’s center was like a beacon, and I followed it through the mazelike streets. The sound of construction grew louder. The grunts of workers pushed to their limits intensified. Then something caught my eye and drowned all of that out.
A small shop sat dark and idle with a rusting metal placard next to its door. “Hinnabee’s Meat Shoppe.” A sign in the window read “Nobody Beats My Meat!” next to a menu of options that offered kabobs for two, steaks for four, and sausage parties for six or more.
My heart raced at the implication of it. Hinnabee’s was the shop I ran past in Nola’s premonition, but something was off about this place. I wiped the window pane clean with my arm. There were tables and chairs set up for dining and a glass case at the shop’s rear with a small cash box. The Hinnabee’s I saw sold sweets, and its interior was empty and abandoned. It was surrounded by smoke, with constant explosions in the background.
I strained to remember whether the smoke was lilac like Kāya’s anibombs, but the memory was already foggy. Still, there were too many inconsistencies. I had my Vile Lance and a dry pair of pants. Nola’s premonition had gotten it wrong. It had gotten me wrong. I took this as proof that death was not coming for me.