by S. G. Night
Swallowing, Racath climbed the single flight of stairs at one end of the library. The loft was open, overlooking the shelves of the library. A large, purple-curtained bed and tall cabinet filled with books (Mrak’s personal and universally forbidden collection) occupied one partially walled off section of the space. The rest was home to an oversized study.
Strange relics and assorted instruments trimmed in gold filled the study’s surfaces. An archaic map of Io was spread out atop of the broad desk. Hanging from the wall behind the desk was a massive ebon tapestry, embroidered in black and blue with the crossed-knives-over-compass-rose emblem of the Genshwin. The words Zauvijék Nijem lined in the bottom in bright sapphire thread. And at the desk, in all his half-faced glory, sat Mrak.
The Patriarch turned his single eye on Racath. His stare was like a spear of ice. He set down the book he had been reading and knit his hands together on the desk. “Come in, boy.”
Racath took a few wary steps forward. “It’s done,” he said, hoping to steer Mrak away from the issue of Vale. “I have—”
“That can wait,” Mrak cut him off, dashing his hopes to pieces. “First, I have a bone to pick with you, Thanjel.”
Racath did not say anything, just returned Mrak’s glare in silence. He knew what was coming next.
Mrak gestured a withered hand at the tapestry behind him, indicating at the words embroidered into the fabric. “Zauvijék Nijem, boy. What does it mean?”
Racath felt a flush rising up his neck. He did not answer, just ground his teeth.
“Forever Silent,” Mrak finally answered his own question. “It means discretion, boy. Discretion in all things. That is our way of life. Silence and discretion. It’s what keeps us from extinction. Discretion.”
Racath flinched. He hated that word. It was like a chain, a shackle holding him back. Or, in cases like this, a whip to lash him if he tried to break free. It kindled a slow anger in his gut, slowly burning higher toward his lips.
“And yet, constantly, you seem to forget that!” Mrak was on the verge of shouting. “I have told you before, a thousand times, and yet now I get reports that you attacked a Goblin horde? You killed a Demon? In front of witnesses? Have you no sense?!”
“Someone’s life was in danger,” Racath said through his teeth, straining to keep the fire behind his tongue.
“Someone’s life is always in danger,” Mrak shot back. “That’s the nature of tyranny, boy! Someone is always in trouble! If we went to the aid of every person the Demons ever harmed, we could never maintain our secrecy. We are a secret organization, Thanjel. How can I expect to keep what few Majiski we have safe if you insist on bumbling to the rescue of every downtrodden soul you find? That is not how we work. We do not rush out into the open to save the poor little Humans. We fight the Demons in secret.”
Racath lost control of the fiery anger. “Oh yes,” he snapped sarcastically. “Because that’s worked out great for you so far, hasn’t it? A hundred years of letting Humans die in the open so you can live like a rat in the dark!”
Mrak bristled. “How dare you! We do not owe the Humans anything! Our kin bled and died for them, and for what?! So they could snivel and cower under the Demons’ boots, lick the dust from their roads and build monuments to them. That is the Human legacy. Weakness. It’s beneath us.”
“Then what the hell are we fighting for?!” Racath shouted.
“Survival, boy! That’s what!”
“Survival?” Racath repeated incredulously, his eyebrows knitted in resentment. “Survival is exactly the motive that drives those Humans who ally themselves with the Dominion. Just like that pompous hypocrite you just had me assassinate. Are we not better than him? I don’t know about the rest of the Genshwin, but I’d rather die standing than survive in the dark.”
The two of them glared at each other through a long silence. The ancient, indignant Patriarch, glaring straight into the eyes of the young, enraged assassin.
“Maybe one day I’ll throw you to the Demons and you’ll have your chance,” Mrak finally said in a low, threatening growl. “For now, unfortunately, you are too useful to me. But enough of that for now,” he waved a hand in dismissal, and the cold anger faded from his expression. As though someone had thrown a switch, Mrak was suddenly very calm and businesslike. “Show me what you found in Litoras.”
Most of the tension in the air evaporated. Breathing out a quiet sigh of relief, Racath stepped forward, pulled the letter he had acquired from Unin out of his belt pouch, and dropped it on the desk.
Mrak took it, glaring at Racath for a brief moment before turning his eye down to the paper. There was a long, resonant silence as Mrak read the letter. Eventually, he looked up at Racath.
“Do you know what this is?”
Racath shook his head.
“This,” Mrak said, showing him the letter. “Is a report. Written by a Human — a Dominion Intelligence officer named Felsted — and addressed to the man you killed, Unin Tangaree. A report concerning one of Felsted’s agents, who has recently made contact with an informant. An informant who plans to sell the Genshwin out to the Demons in exchange for protection.”
Racath tensed. He fought the urge to open and close the blades of his Stingers: a nervous habit of his. “What?”
Mrak nodded gravely.
“But…” Racath shook his head in disbelief. “Who could possibly do that?”
Mrak shrugged. “Who knows? A disgruntled asset of ours, a greedy Drifter, maybe just a very observant Arkûl. I am still unsure.”
“What’s to be done?” Racath asked.
“I have already intercepted a copy of Unin’s conveyance of this report to his superiors,” Mrak said. “Some new and interesting opportunities have arisen from that correspondence, but for now I’m going to send you down the Dominion’s chain of command, to the source of the leak. You’re going to Milonok, boy, and you’re going to stop the bleeding before the Demons find out more about us than they already know.”
“This is a loose end,” Racath observed. “Things like this have happened before. But that’s what the Liquidators are for — tying off loose ends. This isn’t a Talon’s job.”
“Normally, you’d be correct,” Mrak conceded. “But this is different. This new informant of Felsted’s is going to give them names, numbers, locations of our Tors — we’ve never seen a threat so compromising as this. Liquidators plug leaks, they don’t rebuild dams. I’m not going to trust some low-level Genshwin to secure the safety of this entire organization — that, is what I have Talons for. So I’m sending you.”
Racath’s mind wandered back to his conversation with the augur, Nelle. She had told him that, soon enough, circumstances and his own decisions would pull him onto a fated path. He began to feel uneasy. A situation like this was unheard of. Sure, there was always the disgruntled informer, or the asset who got a better offer. But those were little things; Human informants were mostly in the dark, so as to minimize the potential risk they posed. Liquidators dealt with things like that all the time.
But Mrak was right, this was different. A breach of such magnitude that it could cripple or destroy the entirety of the Genshwin? They didn’t have breaches of that size. It was ridiculous. Something you might joke about. Something as crazy as an eccentric she-Majiski telling you that you were about to be recruited to lead the mythological Scorpions….
Fearing where this might be headed, he drew a deep breath and held it. “What do you want me to do?”
——
After getting his new assignment from Mrak, Racath went to drop his things off in his room, and then returned the excess money he’d borrowed for his trip to the treasury (a pointless errand, really, since he’d have to take out another sum of coin to pay for the expenses of his Milonok job). After that, Racath made his way through the tunnels of Velik Tor to the armory.
The armory was a large room partitioned off into small, individual areas, each with its own function. Some spaces were occupied by large r
acks of weapons: long knives, quad-bladed vindur’scain, throwing knives and shortswords. Dozens of spare Genshwin Shadows hung from mannequins, complete with the leather gauntlets that hid long Stinger blades. A massive furnace housed a full forge fire, closely neighbored by quenching water, hammer, anvil, and several large storage chests full of raw materials. Nearby, a glass cabinet boasted a multi-colored army of labeled jars full of chemicals and materials. Directly adjacent to that was a large chemical fume hood, and a workbench littered with various tools.
Under the fume hood, a short she-Majiski was bent over a mortar and pestle, grinding up a concoction as she muttered to herself, short black hair obscuring her face.
Racath knocked on the armory’s open door. The short Genshwin looked up from her work, brushing her mess of raven hair behind her ears. Her young but pretty face — soiled around the edges by a mix of soot and sweat — blossomed with a smile when she saw Racath in the doorway, her grass-green eyes igniting. Racath smiled back at her.
“You’re back!”
She dropped whatever she was working on and ran to him, awkwardly navigating though the scattered junk on the floor. Her hug nearly tackled him around the waist.
Racath laughed sincerely and returned her embrace.
He and Alexis had met on his first day in Velik Tor. He had been eleven, she ten. They had bonded almost instantly, and had been like brother and sister ever since. They were, after all, the only family they really had.
Alexis beamed up at him. “Come here,” she said without preamble. “I want to show you this.” She dragged him over to the fume hood and he followed without objection.
“You’ve been busy,” he observed, noting the lines of beakers on the workbench.
“Yep!” Alexis chirped. “A few days ago, I discovered a liquid compound that combusts whenever you shake it up and mix it with oxygen.”
“Very nice,” Racath said.
“Completely useless, actually,” Alexis corrected him, her smile widening enthusiastically. “It’s too volatile to transport, so I’m trying to find some sort of powdery substance that will bind with it and act as a carrier.”
“Explosive powder?”
“Exactly!” Alexis said, tapping Racath’s nose with her finger before setting herself back down at the fume hood, indolently working the mortar and pestle again as she spoke. “I’ve got nothing yet, though. But I’m confident!”
“Well, that’s good,” Racath smiled, ruffling Alexis’s hair.
She swatted at him playfully. “So?” she said, drawing the word out expectantly. “How was your trip? Where’s Sokol?”
“My room,” Racath answered. “Sleeping, as usual.”
“Figures,” Alexis chuckled. “Anyway. Your trip?”
“Ahh…” Racath said uncertainly, rubbing his neck. He wondered whether he should tell her about his encounter with Nelle. If he were to tell anyone, it would be her, but he remembered the Curator’s warning. Alexis couldn’t keep secrets to save her life, and he didn’t want the truth to reach Mrak. He decided to keep it to himself. “It was…interesting.”
“Just interesting?” Alexis probed. Before Racath could reply, she spoke up again, her tone changing. “You’ve been busy a lot since Mrak made you Talon. I don’t like it when you’re gone.” She had the look of a lonely puppy, toying with her pestle while she stuck out her bottom lip in a sad pout.
Racath put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. “I don’t like it either. It gets boring out there without you.”
That made her smile. “Are you staying for a while?” she asked hopefully.
“Just for tonight,” Racath grimaced. “Mrak is sending me to Milonok. A follow-up assignment on my job in the capital.”
“Oh…” Alexis murmured, deflating a little. “Okay, then.”
Racath frowned. It was hard to keep Alexis happy sometimes. He thought for a moment, searching for something to distract her, lift her mood. “So…any other projects you’ve been working on?”
Alexis brightened almost instantly. “Yeah, actually! I just finished a couple of Stinger upgrades, plus I wrapped up one of my bigger projects while you were gone. Want me to show you?”
Success. Racath ruffled her hair again and grinned. “Let’s get some food, first. I walked past the kitchen on the way down here and I think Pots is making bacon again. That’d be tempting even if I weren’t starving.”
Alexis bounded to her feet. “That sounds lovely! I needed an excuse to get out of this room anyway.”
He examined her a little more closely, noticing how her dark hair clung to the sweat on her face. Her cheeks and forehead were decorated with soot and cave dirt. “Why don’t you go wash up and I’ll meet you down there, okay? You smell worse than I do.”
Alexis made a face and gave him a shove. “Ha! Not likely. I always smell like flowers.”
“Burnt flowers, sure.”
“You’re mean,” she accused, showing him her tongue.
Racath laughed again. It felt good to laugh after so long on the road. “Go on,” he prompted. “You bathe and I’ll meet you down there.”
“Fine, but I’m not going to sit there while you take forever to chew your food,” she said, waving a stern finger at him. “You got me all excited now, so hurry! I’ve got things to show you!”
SEVEN
Pure Fauling Magic
Deep within the bowels of Velik Tor were dozens of sundry chambers, opening off the twisting warren of lower tunnels beneath the plaza. A good number of these rooms went, for the most part, unused. Some rooms were older: vast empty spaces like hungry pockets in the earth. Some were sealed off, barred by great immovable doors; a large portion of the eastern wing was blocked by a wall of rubble — the product of a cave-in decades earlier.
A few were private quarters, reserved for higher-ranked Genshwin. When he’d been promoted to Talon, Racath himself had inherited one such chamber from his predecessor Jared, the Talon who had gone missing several months prior. And while Mrak’s quarters were located in the loft above the library, Racath knew that the Patriarch’s Steward, Terrence, slept down here too.
There was, however, one particular room that Racath visited quite often with Alexis: a testing chamber. And that was where Alexis led him after dinner.
The room was larger than most in Velik Tor. Stuffed straw men lined the back wall, pockmarked with the impacts of dozens of assorted projectiles. Wooden practice dummies occupied the corners, splintered and battered by countless strikes of training weapons. A wooden scaffold nested just below the ceiling, its purpose unknown to Racath.
Alexis stood over a table, arranging a collection of items for Racath’s inspection. “There we go! All set.” She took a step back and gestured exaggeratedly at the table. “Ta-da!”
Racath examined the articles: two pairs of Stinger gauntlets (one slightly larger than the other), and a bulky crossbow with a peculiar tube mounted on it. Nothing obviously special.
He looked back to Alexis. “What am I looking at?”
Alexis assumed a pose of mock impatient disapproval: arms folded, foot tapping. “Magic words first,” she prodded.
Racath rolled his eyes. “Would you please demonstrate your wondrous creations for the consideration of this mere mortal, O great one?”
Alexis nodded. “Better. Okay, first,” she picked up the gauntlet. “I’ve made some adjustments to our little handy-dandy all-purpose killing machine—”
“Again.”
“Don’t make fun,” Alexis scolded. “The Stinger’s design was piss before I came along. I turned it into a work of art, and by my good right hand, I plan to keep improving it until the day I die. So, shut up and appreciate me.” She pointed to the gauntlet. “To start, I fixed the problem you brought up about the lack of fine motor skills. The fingertips on the right hand have been removed, so you’ll be less clumsy.”
She place the right gauntlet back on the table and picked up the left-hand one. Slipping it on and closed her eyes for a
second, as though concentrating. The steely Stinger blade sprang out from the leather at the base of her wrist, extending over the dorsal side of her hand. With a finger, she indicated the edge of the blade. “Notice a difference?”
Racath did. A row of jagged teeth lined one side of the blade.
“I serrated the interior edge on the left gauntlet,” she explained. “Makes removing the blade from a target a little…messier. Makes it less likely they’ll live at all.”
“Like that was ever an issue.”
Alexis grinned. “Of course.” She handed him the larger pair of Stinger gauntlets from the table. “These are for you,” she said.
Racath accepted them. “Thanks.”
He slid off his old gauntlets and replaced them with the new pair. He tried to open the blades with the usual mental command, but nothing happened. He frowned.
“Why won’t—”
Alexis swatted him upside the head reproachfully.
“Hey!”
“Come on, silly,” she admonished. “You know why it won’t open. You have to attune the rotendry to your thoughts first. Weren’t you paying attention the last time I gave you a replacement?”
“That was four years ago!” Racath protested, massaging the offended spot on his scalp.
“I talk about these things all the time, you have no excuse. Listen this time.” Alexis spoke exaggeratedly and deliberately, gesturing with her hands like she was trying to teach a stupid child. “The blade sits in a housing between the leather layers. The blade’s base holds a spring coiled tight, and a latch locks it in place. When the latch releases, the spring decompresses and shoots the blade outward. When you close it, the spring redraws and locks back into place.”
“I know how a Stinger—”
“And the entire system is laced with rotendrial runes,” Alexis bulled ahead. “And what runes are those…?”
“How am I supposed to know? You’re the only one that Mrak allowed to read that book he’s got on enchantments!”
“Rotendry,” Alexis enunciated. “Enchantments are something else. And the runes are sealborek, to add kinetic tension to the spring and keep the latch shut, leganek to release the lock, and endek to redraw the spring. All of which are bound to the trigger-rune achurek. And what, might I ask, is achurek bound to?”