by J. J. Newman
He shrugged off his contemplation. Tyrier mentioned that they were getting close, and would be there within a few minutes. The close proximity of the boy’s house and the clinic was probably a very large contributing factor to Tsaeris’ survival.
“The boy’s name is Aedrus, and his father is Frank. Their family name is Rangaard,” Tyrier told him.
“Aedrus and Frank, got it,” Tsaeris replied.
The two continued on their way, but stopped suddenly as a group of five men moved to intercept them. They were all armed with swords in worn leather scabbards.
“What’s this? You taking your pet fairy for a walk?” one of the men asked Tyrier.
“Fairy?” Tsaeris asked, insulted. Is that what these idiots called elves?
“You don’t want to say another word. Just keep walking” the Doctor told the man.
“You don’t get to give me orders, fairy lover,” the man said angrily. He pulled his sword and the other men followed suit.
The group as a whole looked middle class, neither poor nor wealthy. Their weapons were plain but functional. They did not appear drunk. Tsaeris figured that they were Purity Union members or sympathizers, out looking to hunt down some non-humans. Elias had told him that the Union had been behind his own attack. These men looked nothing like his attacker, though.
“Are you drawing your weapons on me, pal?” Tyrier asked ominously.
“Aren’t we a brave one?” the man asked with a chuckle. “Tell you what. Just give us the fairy, and you can leave. And be happy we’re offering you that much, race traitor.”
Tyrier removed the mace from his belt. “Why don’t you just come and take him, bigot.”
The man barred his teeth in rage, and he and his men advanced. Tsaeris was happy that he had learned to fight left handed after he had lost his eye, since his right hand was all but useless right now. He drew his own short sword, and entered a crouch.
The men attacked as a group, with three of the five going for Tyrier. He was the larger target, after all. The first of the two men who came for Tsaeris swung his sword wildly, coming at him from his right. Tsaeris easily ducked beneath the blade, and snapped his own sword forward. The other man attacked before Tsaeris’ blade could connect with the first man, and Tsaeris had to abandon his own attack to block the second man’s sword. His hurt ribs were slowing him down, and he barely managed the block before the blade reached him.
He chanced a quick glance at Tyrier, just as the big man’s mace crushed the skull of the man who had done all the talking. Large clumps of bone and brain flew through the air, splattering the other men attacking Tyrier. They paused and Tsaeris saw Tyrier about to press the attack, before he had to return his concentration on his own fight. The men were not quick enough to take advantage of Tsaeris’ one second distraction.
The men attacked Tsaeris quickly and brutally, and Tsaeris could only dodge and parry. With the two men attacking simultaneously, there was no way for him to counter. He knew he couldn’t keep this defensive game up for long. He wasn’t fully recovered yet, and his reflexes were rapidly slowing. He needed to do something fast.
The two men fought with about four feet of space between them, so as not to accidentally wound each other. Knowing that he would probably suffer a hit or two, Tsaeris dropped suddenly to his hands, and rolled a low tight somersault through the gap between the men. Both of the men's swords slashed across his back, but they were surprised by the sudden move, and were unable to bring much of their strength to bear. Tsaeris’ heavy fur cloak absorbed the feeble strikes. Pain exploded in his ribs, and Tsaeris clamped his jaw tight, trying to ignore the pain.
An instant later, he was behind the men. Before they could spin around to face them, Tsaeris slashed one of them on them in the back of the knee, hamstringing him. The man cried out and fell to the ground. He was on his hands and knees now.
The roll and attack had been executed to perfection, and had happened so fast that Tsaeris was on his feet by the time the other man had turned to face him. His ribs groaned in protest, but Tsaeris ignored them. He blocked the man’s sword and leaped forward and to the side, lining himself up with the head of the man on his hands and knees. With one quick slashed, he cut through the back of the downed man’s neck, causing him to fall onto his face, blood pouring from the wound.
Tsaeris smiled at the other man, and the man attacked with a fury. Tsaeris was on the defensive game again, but he wasn’t concerned. He continued to smile at his attacker.
“How many more can you block, boy?” the man asked as he continued to attack.
“Oh, I don’t know. One or two more should do it.” The man looked confused at the answer, and then his head disappeared in an explosion of blood as Tyrier’s mace crushed his skull from behind.
Tsaeris glanced around at all the dead bodies, and then grinned at Tyrier. “For a healer, you sure kill pretty well.”
“Just keep it under your hat,” Tyrier grinned back. “It’s bad for business.”
Tsaeris and Tyrier took a moment to catch their breath, wiped the blood from their weapons, and then continued on to the Rangaard home. They stopped before the large housing structure, and Tyrier walked up to the front door, beckoning Tsaeris to follow. Tsaeris recognized the alley next to the building. Yep, this was definitely the place. Tyrier led him into the building and up a flight of stairs. They stopped before a wooden door.
“You knock,” Tyrier said.
“Seriously?” Tsaeris asked. Tyrier nodded.
Tsaeris sighed and knocked on the door. It swung open as soon as his hand connected. It didn’t seem to have been closed all the way. Tsaeris glanced back at Tyrier, who shrugged. Tsaeris examined the door frame. It was splintered and the middle of the door was cracked. Somebody had broken the door open.
Tsaeris showed Tyrier the damage, and the big man bolted through the door as fast as he could, with Tsaeris following.
When they entered the home Tyrier froze. A body lay face down in the middle of the living room floor. A dagger lay next to it. Tyrier squared his shoulders and approached the broken form, Tsaeris following close behind.
Tyrier turned the body over, and Tsaeris could see that it was a bald man with a red beard. His eyes were open and his death mask was locked in pain and terror. His torso was cut wide open vertically, from crotch to neck, and his insides were splayed on the floor in a messy pile of blood, and red and blue entrails. He had been lying on his gore before Tyrier had turned him over.
“Oh, Frank. No,” Tyrier said sadly, bending down to examine the corpse of his friend.
Tsaeris stood silently, not sure of how to comfort the big man. He waited, and then Tyrier snapped his gaze to Tsaeris.
“Aedrus,” He said.
Tsaeris nodded, and began searching the rooms. He admitted to himself that he was slightly worried about what he might find. The boy had saved his life. He didn’t want to find him dead. Search as he may, however, he found no trace of the boy. Tyrier had begun searching as well, and after a moment Tsaeris heard him call from another room. Tsaeris braced himself for the worst, and entered the room where Tyrier was.
“Did you find him?” Tsaeris asked. They were now in what looked like the boys bedroom.
“No.” Tyrier replied, shaking his head. “He’s not here, thank the light. The window is open, though.”
Tsaeris walked to the open window. He examined it and saw what might have been small finger prints in the snow on the window sill, and what were clearly footprints in the alley below. There were only one set, which bode well for the boy. It seemed that he hadn’t been followed. As it was snowing, and the prints were still visible, they must have been very recent.
Tyrier looked at the prints, and came to the same conclusion. “This must have just happened. He can’t be too far ahead, and it’s dark enough now to be very dangerous for the boy. Let’s go find him.”
Tsaeris was not about to argue with that. He and Tyrier left the house, and began following the tracks i
n the alley. The boy was clearly running hard, and Tsaeris hoped he wasn’t too far ahead. He also hoped they would find him before some of the street monsters did.
After all these years and all of his training, he still thought of them as street monsters. He knew they were only people; rapists, murders, and worse. He also knew that, not including his one sided fight with the lager cloaked man, he was more than a match for most of them. But he had lived as prey to those monsters for so long that he wondered if he would ever shake that image. He wasn’t willing to bet any money on it.
The two men followed what was left of Aedrus’ footprints. Despite the light snow, the footprints were beginning to disappear. Tsaeris knew that they had better find the boy soon, or they would not find him at all.
Luck found them then, as the snow suddenly stopped and the clouds broke apart to reveal a full moon. Despite the night, the moonlight and the snow made everything appear almost as clear as day.
The footprints lead into another alley. Tsaeris cursed. The alleys were where the worst of the city lived. Why did everyone run into them? The footprints were clearer in the alley, as they were mostly protected from the falling snow. A few feet in, Tsaeris and Tyrier found a second set of prints that seemed to be following Aedrus. The two men quickened their pace. Then all of a sudden one set of footprints disappeared. They were the smaller of the two. The larger ones continued on.
Tsaeris and Tyrier looked around confused. How could they have just disappeared? Tsaeris didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. He looked at Tyrier, wondering what they should do.
“What do you think happened?” Tyrier asked Tsaeris, as confused as he was.
“No idea. Maybe the person following Aedrus caught him and carried him off.” Tsaeris hoped that wasn’t the case, but he could think of nothing else.
Suddenly a small amount of snow fell onto Tyrier from above. He and Tsaeris looked up, and caught a glimpse of a small head disappearing beyond the edge of the roof. Tyrier and Tsaeris glanced at each other.
“Aedrus?” Tyrier called out. There was no response. “Aedrus, it’s me. Doctor Sydarin.”
“Doctor Giant?” a small voice called out from above. The voice sounded tired and miserable.
Tyrier breathed a large sigh of relief. “Thank the light you’re safe. Can you get down?”
“I…yeah, I can get down.”
The boy slowly and carefully descended into the alley, using window sills as handholds. The boy seemed really good at climbing, and Tsaeris found himself impressed. Before long, the little red haired boy stood before them. He had a cut on his eyebrow, and his clothes were torn. The boy was lucky it was not a colder night, as he wasn’t dressed for the weather. Aedrus ran into Tyrier’s arms and started to cry.
Tyrier let him weep. Tsaeris stood awkwardly, waiting for the boy to cry himself out. It didn’t take very long, and then Tyrier held him out at arm’s length.
“What were you doing up on the roof, son?” Tyrier asked.
“Somebody started following me. So I climbed up to get away. He didn’t seem to want to bother climbing up to get me. What are you doing out here?”
“Me and Tsaeris just came from your house,” Tyrier replied.
“So you found Dad?” Aedrus asked, and his lip began to quiver.
Tyrier nodded sadly. “What happened back there, Aedrus?”
“A man came into our house. He was big, Doctor. Bigger than you, even. He was trying to get me, but father saved me. He told me to run, and then the big man cut him apart with a knife. I jumped out the window. Cut my forehead, too.”
Tsaeris felt his insides go cold. He walked over to the boy, and put a hand on his shoulder. Aedrus looked up to him, his eyes showing recognition.
“Can you describe him for us, Aedrus?” Tsaeris asked softly.
“He was big, and dressed in black. He didn’t say a single word, even when father asked him what he wanted.”
Tsaeris swallowed hard. He recognized the description. In that moment, Tsaeris knew that everything that happened to the boy and his father had been because of him. Tsaeris felt something that he had not felt in a long time. Tsaeris felt guilty.
Chapter Twenty
The Door
Beneath The City streets there were sewers. Deep below the Sewers there were catacombs. Deep within those catacombs was a sprawling complex full of men and women. And deep within that complex there was a door.
The door was much like other doors. It was wooden and thick, it opened with a push and its hinges were well oiled. It stood at the end of a long, dark hallway, deep within the Third Eye Initiative safe house. A few torches lit the way, but did little to chase away the shadows and less to chase away the sense of foreboding.
There were no other doors in that hallway. It stood alone, a silent portal to a place seen by few. No agents guarded the door. No sentries stood watch over the hallway. Agents knew instinctively that this area of the safe house was forbidden. Few dared to challenge the door.
It had happened, of course. From time to time an agent would ignore the advice of their peers, and would dare the ominous march to the solitary door. It was a mistake that a person made only once. The door was never locked, and those who entered that place uninvited disappeared forever.
The only one who entered the hallway and the door regularly was the Dark Man. The agents knew his name, of course, but secretly referred to him by the nick name. His neatly trimmed black beard and hair were not the reason for the name. It was his demeanor. Quiet, cold. Always dangerous.
The Dark Man seemed to be the only one with a standing invitation to enter the door. The few agents who had been invited to brave the march to the unknown have only done so once. They would never speak of what had occurred, and never returned to the door again. Sometimes a traitor or an agent with a loose tongue would also enter the room, escorted at the end of the Dark Man’s blade. They, like the uninvited, also disappeared.
So what is behind that door? The few who know say nothing. But men and women are people, and people talk and speculate. It’s what they do. Is it a gateway to darkness where demons and wraiths wait to prey on those foolish enough to enter their realm? Is it the lair of Gravelock himself, where he drags unsuspecting children from the city streets to quietly feast on their young flesh? Or is it nothing more than a dark hallway, a door and a few scary stories?
Regardless of the answer, the door remains an ominous and foreboding specter in the hearts of the Third Eye Initiative agents. Another dark mystery that keeps many agents in check. And maybe, just maybe, that is the whole purpose of the door.
Chapter Twenty One
Shards of Glass
“It’s just a bloody door, Jarod. Stop being so dramatic.” Tsaeris sat in the Third Eye Initiative safe house tavern, deep below the earth. He coughed a few times, then lifted his tankard and took a long pull of his ale. It was bitter, but it helped. He found the air down here to be stuffy, and it bothered his throat.
“Maybe. It’s interesting, though. Don’t you think?” Jarod had really grown since his recruitment three years earlier. His arms were massive and heavily muscled, and he was much taller than Tsaeris. He also sported a thick black beard. When Tsaeris discovered that Jarod was Tyrier’s son, he was not even a little bit surprised. Tsaeris learned from Jarod that Tyrier in fact had two sons.
Jarod had an older brother named Wilhem, who was only loosely affiliated with The Third Eye Initiative. Wilhem spent most of his time managing Sydarin Shipyards, and sat as head chair of the Ship Builder’s Guild. Tsaeris had heard of Wilhem Sydarin during his own work at the shipyard, but had yet to meet the man. That Wilhem was Tyrier’s son had never occurred to Tsaeris before.
Tsaeris had been lost in thought for a few moments, and realized suddenly that Jarod was staring at him, waiting for a response.
“It’s a door,” Tsaeris replied dryly.
“Don’t you have any imagination?” Jarod asked,
“See, this is why I
never come down here. Everyone who hangs out down here becomes stupid and superstitious.”
“I may be superstitious, Tsaeris. But I’m not stupid,” Jarod argued.
“You might as well have said ‘I may be stupid, but I’m not stupid’. It would have made the exact same amount of sense.”
“Fine. You think it’s so stupid, why don’t you go see what’s behind the door?” Jarod challenged.
“Not going to happen.” Tsaeris leaned his arms on the table, and stared into his mug of ale. It was almost empty.
“See? You’re not going to go because you’re scared.”
“No. I’m not going to because you’re an idiot asking me to do idiot things to prove that you’re not an idiot. You want to prove me wrong, you go. We grownups have more important things to worry about.”
“What’s your problem? You’re being more of an ass than usual today.” Jarod scratched at his beard, while staring at Tsaeris.
“I just don’t want to play your stupid childish games,” Tsaeris retorted harshly. The big man looked genuinely hurt at the biting response, and Tsaeris sighed.
“Look...I got a kid’s father killed, and almost got him killed too. And now I’m just taking it out on you. I’ll stop.”
The hurt in Jarod’s eyes was replaced by a warm understanding. For reasons Tsaeris couldn’t name, he found that irritating.
“It’s not your fault, Tsaeris. And Aedrus is going to be fine.” Jarod patted Tsaeris on a hand in a gesture of comfort.
“So your father told you about it.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. You didn’t bring that on the boy, Tsaeris. You don’t even know it was the same guy.”
“Yes I do. I know,” Tsaeris said softly. He stuck a finger in his ale and began spinning circles in the amber liquid.
“How can you be so sure?” Jarod asked.
“The description...look, I’ve seen a lot of people in my life. I lived in the streets. I’ve only ever seen one person who fit that description. And he almost killed me outside Aedrus’ house. How could it possibly be any other guy?”