by J. J. Newman
“Is this all I have to do?” Tsaeris whispered. “Just keep my arms around you and walk in slow circles?”
“Pretty much,” Cyra replied.
“I can do that.”
Tsaeris and Cyra danced, and Tsaeris admitted that he liked the feel of her so close. It felt right somehow, and he smiled at her. She returned the smile. His eye locked on hers. They were so big, and so beautiful. He was really taken with her, he realized. He never thought that was possible, but here he was. He leaned over and kissed her softly. She returned the kiss.
Tsaeris lost himself in that kiss. He heard a firework go off, but Cyra didn’t even break the kiss to watch it. She was as lost in him as he was in her.
A second fire work went off. Strange. They usually only set off one at a time, as they were pretty expensive. Another. Something was wrong. People were screaming. The music stopped suddenly, and Tsaeris and Cyra broke away from each other.
“What the hell...?” he asked. He heard another explosion and saw a plume of fire rise into the air. It came from the other end of the market square. The people around him were staring around in confusion. He looked at Raina and Jarod. They shrugged, confused.
People were talking in hush tones around him, everyone trying to hear what was happening, nobody yet sure of what to make of the explosions. Were fireworks malfunctioning? Tsaeris strained his senses, but he heard no more explosions. People were still yelling in the distance.
Tsaeris frowned as he began aware of a new sound. It sounded like several clinking thuds, as if something metal was bouncing and rolling. He realized too late what that meant.
An explosion ripped through the crowd of people around him. Screams of fear and agony pierced the night. Three more explosions went off in quick succession. The blast of one was so close that Tsaeris was sent sprawling to the ground. Cyra fell away from him and Jarod caught her. The two tripped over a burned and bloody body, and fell to the ground. Raina was several yards to their left, and was also on the ground. Tsaeris scanned his friends quickly. Everyone was fine. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Get up! We have to get out of here!” Tsaeris screamed as another explosion sounded nearby. He heard something else. It sounded like chant. He listened to it closely as he struggled to his feet. His eye went wide in shock and rage as he finally made sense of the chant.
“We will have Purity!” the voices chanted, over and over again.
The Purity Union was bombing the Dwarven Arms Fair.
Tsaeris and his friends were all on their feet now, and tried to push their way through the crowd to get clear of the market square. Each new explosion sent the bodies of men, woman and children soaring through the air to lay broken on the ground.
When they finally broke free of the crowd, they were met with utter chaos. The dead were everywhere, dwarves, humans and elves alike. The game and merchant tents were all on fire. A large group of men were converging on the people at the fair. They wielded swords, spears and wooden clubs. They were chanting. Occasionally a few bombs would fly out from within the mob. They were blocking the only exit from the square. This was going to be a massacre.
Tsaeris was at a loss of what to do. No matter where they went, they would be trapped. They had to get out of the open. The crowd of people who had been enjoying the fair only moments before were retreating to the back of the square to try and put as much distance as they could between themselves and the mob of Purity Union members and sympathizers. It was a useless plan, Tsaeris knew. But he couldn’t think of any better idea.
Somebody from within the Union mob must have noticed them, because a bomb was suddenly flying in their direction.
“Move!” Tsaeris yelled to his friends. They ran and narrowly avoided the blast.
“What are we going to do?!” Cyra screamed, her voice filled with terror.
“Just keep moving,” Raina ordered.
It was too late. Another bomb exploded behind the four, and they were knocked from their feet. Raina was on her feet first, and came to help Tsaeris up. Jarod was also on his feet and moved to help Cyra. Tsaeris took Raina’s hand and she hauled him to his feet.
What happened next would forever be etched in Tsaeris memory. The events seemed to play out in slow motion. Jarod had Cyra on her feet and placed a large comforting arm around her shoulder. As they turned to face Tsaeris and Raina, a small metal ball landed on the ground and began to bounce and roll. It stopped right at Jarod’s feet. Jarod gave Tsaeris a look of sorrow and regret. Cyra just stared in horror at the bomb. Then it exploded.
The blast and the shrapnel tore into Cyra and Jarod. Blood and gore filled the air. Tsaeris watched in horror as pieces of Cyra and Jarod rained all around him. Blood and burnt flesh stained his clothes and hair. The charred and dismembered torsos of his friends slammed into the ground with an audible thud.
Tsaeris fell to his knees. He stared at their bodies, his ears ringing from the blast. Raina was shaking him and screaming something. He had no idea what she was saying, and he didn’t care. As he stared at what remained of Cyra, he felt something happen inside him. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it almost felt like a door closing. His expression was emotionless.
“We have to go. Now!” Raina was yelling at him desperately.
Tsaeris looked up at her, and she froze in mid-sentence. Her words caught in her throat. He returned his gaze back to the bodies of his friends.
“You’re just going to sit here and die, aren’t you?” Raina asked. The mob was close now. “Damn it Tsaeris, don’t do this!” Raina screamed. Tsaeris ignored her.
“You son of a bitch. I’m not leaving you, do you hear me? If you die, I die. Is that what you want?”
He heard Raina’s sword clear its scabbard. He knew he should tell her to leave, but he couldn’t force himself to speak. It was the first time that his ultimate goal of survival failed to motivate him. If he and Raina died at that moment, he honestly didn’t care.
“By the light....” he heard Raina gasp in shock.
Suddenly he heard screams of rage all around him. The voices belonged to the dwarves. It seemed as if hundreds of them were running past him, armored and with weapons in hand. They were not alone. A large crowd of the people who had come to the fair were following right behind the dwarves. It seemed the dwarves had provided them with weapons from their stock and had inspired the people to fight back.
He heard the clash of metal and the Purity Union’s chant quickly turned into screams of pain. The Purity Union had gone too far this time. Attacking the Dwarven Arms Fair had made them more enemies than they could handle.
“They’re tearing those Union bastards apart,” Raina said.
The battle was taking place behind Tsaeris, but he couldn’t be bothered to turn and watch. None of it matter to him.
All that he could see was the burning husk that had once been the only person that Tsaeris had ever really cared about.
***
The outrage at the attack on the Arms Fair had been a unifying force for the people of Market. Dwarf, Human and Turindiel fought side by side against the Union men. Captain Isaac and The City Watch attacked the mob from the rear. They were not there to take prisoners.
The Union mob was shattered, and a larger mob of outraged citizens took its place. They left not a single member of the Union attackers alive. But that had not been enough to quell their outrage.
A wave of people marched to the Union compound. They showed them no mercy. Any Union members on the yard were swiftly and brutally killed. Those in the buildings were locked inside while they were burned to the ground. The Purity Union had brought ruin upon itself and all of its members. When they finally moved on the house of Councilman Dormic, who everyone knew was the leader of the Union, they found him dead in his living room. He had decided that poison would be a more dignified death. Lighting his house on fire, they left his body to burn among the wreckage.
Yet despite the destruction of the Union, they succeeded in one thing and
one thing only. That was the end of the Dwarven Arms Fair. Never again would the stout folk come to herald the spring. The cost of merchandise and life was too much for the bearded folk to accept, and they announced the discontinuation of the annual festival with heavy hearts. The loss of the great fair reinforced a feeling of hopelessness that many people in The City had always felt.
History would call it The Bombing of the Dwarven Arms fair. The end of an age old tradition and the end of The Purity Union.
The City had lost yet another ray of light to the overwhelming shadow that the people themselves had cast on the city.
Part Three
Agent
Life is a cycle of love gained and love lost. For most people the pain never goes away, but we find love in others. We eventually accept that loss and move on.
The problem with Tsaeris was that this cycle never existed for him. He never had a family whom he loved. He had lived alone for so long that love was never a factor. There was nobody around him to love.
We underestimate the power of that cycle of loss and gain. From childhood to adulthood, we are trained to accept loss by the people who care for us. But Tsaeris was already a man before he let himself actually feel for another person. There was no reference, and nobody to guide him on how to cope.
When I was old enough to ask questions and really wonder about the nature of people, I was always curious about how it had happened. What had caused a man to become like him? How could one be so cold and so ruthless?
In my search for answers, I asked those closest to him. Those who had known him longer than I. They told me that it was a gradual development. It happened so slowly that nobody was really aware that it was happening at all until it was too late.
Looking back, however, they all agreed on one point. That it had all began on the night of The Bombing of the Dwarven Arms Fair. The night that Cyra had died.
--Excerpt from “The Sydarin Chronicles” by James Sydarin
Chapter Twenty Nine
The Navigator
Tsaeris sat in the alley, his back to the wall as night settled on The City. His breath clouded before his eye in the cold autumn air. Some of the denizens of the night had lit a fire deeper in the alley in an attempt to keep warm, and Tsaeris could see them silhouetted against the orange flames. One of them called out that Tsaeris was welcome to join them at the fire, but he ignored them. They didn’t speak to him again.
At twenty years old, Tsaeris looked more like a man in his thirties. His face was lined and a dark bag under his eye was a permanent feature upon his once youthful face. Dark stubble splashed across his cheeks, above his upper lip and down his chin to his neck. When he had reached an age where we was capable of growing facial hair, Tsaeris was surprised to discover that it was not white, but closer to the darker hair color of the other Sydarin men.
Tsaeris took a long pull from a flask he kept in his coat. The liquor had a warming effect on him. It was a potent dwarven whiskey, and it burned the whole way down. The dwarves called it ‘Camp Fire” as it was made for an occasional gulp to keep the chill away, and not for steady drinking. Rightly so, as those who braved more than a single gulp every hour or so found their mouths numb and their stomachs burning. Blorick had introduced Tsaeris to the drink. He had not seen the dwarf in years, since Blorick had left to pursue a career as a sell sword. Tsaeris liked to think that his speech to the dwarf years before had inspired him to move on with his life, and to stop wasting away in a mug of ale. Tsaeris replaced the flask inside his coat.
Tsaeris had graduated from novice to agent two years before, and Initiative work took up most of his time. The work was still mysterious to Tsaeris, and he still didn’t fully understand the purpose. At this point in his career, he wasn’t entirely convinced anyone, other than perhaps Elias, truly knew what it was all about. He had a sense of it, of course. All the agents did. The purpose, as it was taught to him by the more experienced agents, was balance and control. Corruption could not be destroyed, but the Initiative believed it could be controlled, and The City kept in balance. Tsaeris knew that the real purpose was more complicated than that, but he was content with what he knew.
Tsaeris had learned that there were three levels to The Third Eye Initiative. Lowest were The Informants, who made up the bulk of the network, and were paid to listen and share information. Most informants didn’t know about each other, or who they worked for. They were just tavern keepers, homeless people, servants and more, all in it for the coin.
Second were The Operatives. They were trained by The Third Eye Initiative, though nowhere near as intensively as the agents, and the operatives were the spies and infiltrators. They would gather intelligence for The Initiative, less general and more specific than the intelligence gathered through the network of informants, and were considered a part of the order.
Third and most important were The Agents. The Agents were the sword of The Third Eye Initiative. When an imbalance was detected by the informants or operatives, it was The Agents who corrected it, usually through violence. The Agents also served as the bruisers of The Initiative, and were used to extort and threaten business’ and crime lords.
Yes, Tsaeris enjoyed his work with as an agent. He also made quite a bit of gold. Despite that, he lived in the basement of Elias’ house instead of buying his own. Elias had offered him the room, probably because he felt guilty, and Tsaeris had accepted. Elias never came down to his part of the house, and he rarely entered Elias’. They were private men, and the arrangement worked out fine for both of them.
Tsaeris spent quite a bit of time experimenting with explosive devices and deadly chemicals. He found that engineering suited him well, and kept him busy when he wasn’t working on a mission. He still wore the coat Cyra had given him years ago, and had altered it by adding secret pockets and pouches containing a variety of small explosives and poisons. Despite a few daggers hidden on various parts of his body, they were the only weapons he carried. He had never had a knack for using a sword, and had long since discarded it in favor of his self-made weapons and his daggers.
His unorthodox approach to weaponry and fighting had saved his life many times over. Enemies always expected to face a traditional weapon, such as a sword or axe. They never expected to have a vial of acid splashed into their eyes, or an explosion ripping apart their legs. He even coated his daggers in a deadly substance before every mission. The tiniest nick of the flesh was enough to kill pretty much anyone.
Tsaeris stood up and headed to the street, looking up to determine the position of the moon in the sky. It was time. He walked down the street at a brisk pace, wanting to reach his destination as quickly as possible. He made sure to leave with plenty of extra time, but he was anxious to get started.
It always amazed him how empty the streets were at night. The City, Market district in particular, had so many citizens that sometimes it was all you could do to make your way down a street. When the sun came up and people headed to their various jobs the crowds become two long serpents crawling in opposite directions, everyone moving in unison. Night was so different. The street was empty of all but the sordid folk, and was dangerous to everyone. There were two kinds of people on the streets at night, the dangerous and the stupid. The stupid did not often see the sun rise.
The alleys offered some refuge for the homeless if they stayed in groups, as most of them did. Street kids would either sleep in these small homeless communities, or find themselves a hole to sleep in. Those holes were often abandoned buildings. Tsaeris had preferred sleeping indoors when he had been a street kid. The groups of homeless people could be dangerous as well for a young boy or girl. Almost everything was.
After a half hour, Tsaeris reached his destination, the Port. Several ships, large and medium sized were anchored in the harbor. Large landings were built out over the water with buildings resting on top. The port was huge, as it had to accommodate all sea traffic that came to The City; and there was a lot. Taverns and inns lined the port, as well
as merchant stalls. From his vantage point on the upper walkway Tsaeris could see movement on the decks of several of the ships. He made his way to one of the taverns. A sign was hanging above the door identifying the tavern as ‘The Sailors Haven’. Tsaeris knew that there were at least two other taverns at the port with the same unoriginal name.
Tsaeris pushed through the door. The tavern was packed with sailors and probably pirates, all drinking and yelling and gambling noisily. Sailors spent so little time on land that they didn’t waste much of it sleeping. From the smell of the place, Tsaeris guessed they didn’t waste much of it bathing either.
He walked to the bar and ordered a glass of whiskey. He sipped it, and made a face. The owner must have decided that the clientele would be too drunk to notice at this point, and had switched to the watered down booze. Tsaeris wasn’t sure if it was the water or the glass, but the drink tasted almost dirty. Not a particularly picky drinker, Tsaeris drank it anyway and ordered a second round.
He stood at the bar waiting. He was hungry, but if the drink was of any indication, he decided not to risk the food. He was on his third round of watered down whiskey when a man approached him. The man wore a dirty red coat, and a hat that looked so much like a typical pirate hat that Tsaeris thought he must have purchased it in a costume shop. Adding to his cliché appearance was a black leather eye patch, and a gold tooth. Tsaeris wondered silently where the man kept his parrot.
“What’s yer name?” the sailor asked.
“Byron,” Tsaeris replied.
“Ah, bout time ye showed up. I’m Captain Halbert,” the man introduced, reaching out a hand. Tsaeris shook it. It was sticky.
“Ah, Captain. Glad to meet you,” Tsaeris replied, wiping his hand on his coat.
“Aye. Come have a seat with me and me first mate. Talk some business.” Halbert walked away without waiting for a response. Tsaeris followed.