Quest SMASH

by Joseph Lallo

  The image of the two hands, the live one and the blue one, faded for a scene of chaos. Huge birds with tan-coloured wings, white heads and yellow beaks swooped down on the village, carrying Eagle Knights in their traditional red tunics and short-hair cloaks, the swords on their belts clearly visible. They landed their birds in front of the guesthouse, jumped in the snow and ran to the houses, banged on doors, dragged out occupants. Adults, children.

  “What, Ruko? What happened?” All those children Tandor had saved. He thought Bordertown was a safe haven, no longer frequented by merchants, no longer of interest to the Eagle Knights.

  Images flowed through Tandor’s mind. Snow under his feet as Ruko ran from the village, screams from women, shouts from men. Trees flashing past. Crossbow bolts thunking into wood. And later, the main square, empty, except for deep tracks in the snow and a single child’s mitten.

  Ruko’s shoulders slumped. There was a brief glimpse of the red-cheeked face of a girl, smiling. Shame. And grief.

  Tandor pushed Ruko’s chin up. “No, Ruko, it’s not your fault.”

  If anything, it was Tandor’s. He had left the boy alone; he couldn’t have done otherwise. He had needed to travel to Chevakia, and Ruko couldn’t leave the southern land. Across the border, where there was no icefire, Ruko would simply cease to exist.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Ruko batted Tandor’s hand away.

  “Being angry with me doesn’t help. What can I do about it?”

  Ruko’s fury burned inside him. His screams for his girl dragged away by a Knight. His pounding on the Knight’s back with insubstantial fists. Without the presence of the master, a servitor was little more than a ghost.

  Ruko reached for Tandor’s belt for the dagger and the Chevakian powder gun.

  “No—you’re not to kill anyone. Stay here. I’m going into town to see how many children they took.” There had better be some left, or his plan was in tatters.

  Tandor swung himself back in the saddle. “Behave yourself.” In case the order wasn’t enough, he let icefire crackle from his clawed hand. Golden strands snaked around Ruko’s legs and then into the snow.

  Ruko glowered at him.

  “Behave, and you will get your revenge, I promise.”

  He flicked the reins and the camel turned towards the town.

  The southern plain spread before him, white, flat, the horizon bleeding into the grey sky. A gathering of low buildings lay in the snow like scattered fire-bricks.

  Smoke curled from the chimneys. Light radiated from the windows, golden rectangles that were the only spots of colour in the grey dusk, occasionally interrupted by the silhouette of a head: someone checking out this late visitor.

  There was no sound except the squeak of the saddle and the croaking of the camel’s footsteps in the freshly-fallen snow. The soft blanket had long since erased the signs of the events Ruko had witnessed in the town streets. How long ago had that been? A few days, he guessed, no more.

  If only I’d come back earlier. Stupid Chevakian trains, stupid Chevakian bureaucrats not allowing the camel on the train.

  At a house with a deep front yard which held a shed, Tandor tapped the camel’s shoulder. The beast sank stiffly to its knees, uttering a protesting howl.

  Tandor slid from the saddle and led the beast through a creaky gate, through the yard to the shed which stood slightly apart from the house. He pushed aside the bar across the doors, dislodging clumps of snow which rained over his glove and golden claw, and went inside.

  The plainsman had kept his part of the bargain. The box in the corner contained straw and a bale of hay, albeit a very dusty one.

  He tied up the camel and left it to attack the hay, and ploughed through knee-deep snow to the house, a sturdy construction of rough stone. The top floor was dark, but warm light peeped around the frayed edges of a curtain in a ground floor window.

  He knocked. Locks rattled; the door creaked open. It was the plainsman Ontane himself who stood there, unshaven, dressed in a loose woollen robe. For a moment, he squinted into the dusk, but then he shrank back into the hall, pushing the door half-shut. “No, no. She isn’t here.”

  Tandor stopped him slamming the door with his golden arm, the points of his pincer-claw cutting gouges in the wood. “Where is your daughter?”

  “Inside, but you can’t see—”

  “I can’t see her? Is that what you’re saying? Fifteen years ago, I saved your daughter’s life, but I can’t see her?”

  “The man said—”

  “The man? Most likely, he came from the City of Glass, didn’t he? Most likely, he rode an eagle, didn’t he? And most likely he told you to give up all your citizens with . . . defects.” With each sentence, he thrust his golden claw closer to Ontane’s chest. “Imperfects. Like me. Huh? Is that what he said?”

  Ontane licked his lips and straightened his back. “He said we be punished if the Knights found people like them. They got us all to come out of our houses and ransacked the place if they thought we’s hiding something. Then they lined up the children and took them all away.”

  “To the City of Glass?” Please, let this not be true.

  Ontane shrugged. “How do I know?”

  “All of them?” Tandor clenched his good hand into a fist.

  “Yes, except . . .”

  “Except what?” Tandor almost screamed.

  Ontane tried to retreat further, but already stood with his back against the wall. “No, no. I can’t tell you.”

  “Except the one who was born since the others left, is that what you were going to say? Except your daughter and her child?” All those children he had saved over the last fifteen years. All gone?

  “Not born. Not yet. They said they wasn’t going to take my daughter in the condition she’s in.”

  “Let me see her.”

  “No!” Ontane planted his hands at his sides.

  “Why not? Would I pay for your daughter’s food if I wanted to harm her child?”

  “You’ll do to the child what you did to that poor boy.” Ruko.

  “That poor boy lived with an abusive family from which I saved him. That poor boy is only poor because you turned your backs on him.”

  Ontane muttered, “Not a surprise, that is. He crackles with icefire, and the cold of him would freeze the kindest heart. Stupid as we be in your eyes, the villagers are not letting such in their houses as they do not understand. You know you can see through him? Here?” He put his hand on the position of his heart.

  Of course you could. Ruko was a servitor. He had given his heart in exchange for his missing foot, and in exchange for never having to eat or never to be cold again. Tandor took a deep breath to calm himself.

  “Have you spoken to him since?”

  Ontane gave Tandor a what-do-you-take-me-for look.

  “I have told you many times: he won’t harm you.”

  “So you say, so you say. But many of us can’t even see him, and to the rest of us he looks like a spirit.”

  Unbelievable. The Imperfect children had lived here for as long as fifteen years; the villagers should be used to them. “I’ll be taking Ruko. There is no point in leaving him here any longer. I want my sled to be ready tomorrow morning with a bear and supplies.”

  A look of business came to Ontane’s eyes. “Usual fee?”

  Tandor nodded. “The usual fee.” He let a silence lapse and added, “Can I see your daughter?”

  Ontane opened his mouth, but Tandor said, “No look, no business.”

  A silence, shifty eye movements, before Ontane said, “Jus’ a look then.” Still eyeing Tandor suspiciously, he moved into the house. Tandor followed him through the hall, where a flapping candle cast long shadows over unpainted walls and a threadbare carpet.

  They entered a dimly-lit room with a blazing fire in the hearth.

  In the chair against the far wall sat a girl, barely fifteen, propped up on pillows. Her face wa
s pale and delicate, her hair dark but fine and straight. Her cheeks were red from the cold. A plain woollen dress stretched tightly over her extended belly.

  Tandor breathed in deeply. The tingling of icefire snaked out from the child inside its mother’s womb: golden strands only he could see. Wild, untamed power. It called out to him, sang to him, like the voices of the mythical sirens said to be luring sailors on the iced sea.

  He was sure: the child would be Imperfect. His life’s work had finally brought success.

  The girl’s eyes widened. “Da, what’s he doing here? Take him away!”

  Her father pulled at Tandor’s cloak. “Now leave, you sorcerer. You’ve seen her.”

  With regret, Tandor let go of that tingling and retreated into the hall. He forced his breath to calm. “See? I mean her no harm.”

  Ontane said nothing; the suspicious look didn’t vanish from his face.

  Tandor forced a smile. “I’ll let the child grow up with her, don’t worry.” After all, it was only in adulthood that the child would be of use to him.

  Ontane snorted. “Well, let’s just say I believe that when I see it.”

  He accompanied Tandor through the hall back to the door. When he opened it, an icy breeze blew in a flurry of snowflakes. Tandor stepped into the cold.

  With his good hand, he dug in his pocket and flicked Ontane a silvergull. The coin caught the light as it span through the air, before Ontane closed his fist around it.

  The language of money convinces you easily enough. “My sled, with a strong bear. Provisions for six days.”

  Ontane nodded once and shut the door.

  In total silence, Tandor strode through the village, trying to ignore heads vanishing behind curtains.

  All you shallow greedyguts. Took my money while it was available, but cared nothing for the lives of the children who lived with you?

  In all these fifteen years, nothing had changed. In fact, nothing had changed since his mother had fled the City of Glass. Well, things were going to have to change now.

  * * *

  The front desk of the inn was unmanned, but Tandor’s ring of the bell brought the matron hustling from a back room.

  “Oh.” She hesitated in the doorway, her eyes wide. For a moment, it looked like she was going to comment on Tandor’s long absence, but she didn’t. Clever woman, had a nose for business. “Usual room?”

  Tandor nodded.

  He followed her up the stairs where she opened the door to a musty room and bustled in the fireplace to light the fire.

  He asked her to fill the bath with hot water.

  “My maids have gone home, but I will do it myself. I always be glad to give the best to our best customer.” She winked at Tandor.

  Once, he might have responded, but the villagers’ shallow bids to please him made him feel sick. The woman was about his age. Her face no longer held curves of beauty, but the lines of long, hard work. She cared nothing for him, or for the children. She only wanted his money.

  “You be going after the children?” she asked when he failed to react.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Oh, it’s such a disaster. My poor daughter lost her little boy as well. He was only four, like a child he were to her. Every day poor Poony has been asking about her brother. Tell me, what do you think they will have done with the children?” Her eyes glittered by the lamplight.

  Tandor shrugged. He truly had no idea. Most Knights were from the Pirosian clan who couldn’t even see icefire. They had been on a fifty-year mission to eradicate all remnants of the Thillei clan, but they wouldn’t have bundled the children onto sleds if they wanted to kill them.

  “And then that mean bastard Ontane gets to keep his Myra. Y’know what I think? I think he’s paid the Knights so he could keep her. He’s willing enough to bargain with money. I think he—”

  Tandor held up his hand.

  “Yes, yes. The bath. I know. I’m going.”

  Soaking in the tub not much later, Tandor transformed himself. First, he rubbed dirt from his skin. He washed dust from his hair until it was once again golden. Then he ran his golden claw through his locks until the colour leaked from it like honey, leaving his hair deep, glossy black.

  Standing in front of the mirror, he blinked his eyes, let icefire crackle from his fingertips onto his face, and blinked a few more times. With each blink his eyes faded from brown, to grey, to green to a brilliant dark blue. The colour of his birth.

  Then the hardest part. He called up a ball of icefire and shaped it into two symmetrical curls floating in the air. The curls descended towards Tandor’s cheeks, one on each side. He closed his eyes and braced himself. Searing pain. The smell of burned flesh. His mouth opened in a scream of pain, of punishment, of lust or satisfaction.

  Panting, he opened his eyes, staring at his sweaty face in the mirror, where symmetrical curls of golden paint marked his cheeks, like the tattoos noble men in the City of Glass received when they became adults.

  The Knights might have dealt him a blow, but he wasn’t defeated. The children were in custody, but they were most likely in the palace, exactly where he wanted them.

  He needed to know if he had enough Imperfects to freeze the guards for long enough to get into the palace.

  By the light of the fire in the hearth, he dug in his luggage and brought a heavy book on his knees. Let’s see, the guard level on the palace gates would be at a minimum because of the Newlight festival. He guessed there would be ten Knights. That meant he needed . . .

  His pen scratched over the paper as he added up the numbers as he had learned from his grandfather’s diary. Body weight by strength. Himself, Ruko, the boy in the city . . . that was not enough. He did have one other Imperfect: Ontane’s daughter Myra. He crossed out the numbers and re-calculated. Yes, that would give him enough power to take out ten guards, and once he was in the palace, he could draw on the fifty Imperfect children.

  Yes, he could do it.

  Chapter 2

  ONTANE CROSSED his arms over his chest. He leaned back against the shed door, which he had just closed after dragging the sled out into the yard. “I told you, she’s not for sale. Here in Bordertown we don’t do the women’s things like they do in the City of Glass.”

  “How much do you want then?” Tandor asked, while casually dumping his travel chest on the luggage rack of the sled. The white bear in the harness gave an annoyed snort. Ruko leaned forward over the driver’s seat and patted the animal’s furry rump while giving Tandor an impatient glance. Yes, Ruko wanted to get going. He had been waiting outside the inn at daybreak. That in itself was worrying enough. Ruko should not have been able to break those bonds Tandor had put on him yesterday.

  “You don’ give up, do you?” Ontane growled.

  “No. A hundred silvergulls?”

  “My daughter is not for sale!”

  “I don’t want to buy her. I want her to come with me to the City of Glass. I’ll take her there, and I’ll bring her back. Two hundred silvergulls?”

  Ontane shrugged. He cast a shifty-eyed look at the shed doors, as if wondering if his wife or daughter were listening. “The Knights thought it be too risky to take her a few days ago, why should you take her now? She’ll be needing another mother to be with her when she . . .” He spread his hands.

  “My lady friend is one of the best midwives in the City of Glass. She has delivered hundreds of children and birthed nine of her own. Do you want a more experienced woman?” Or do you want me to take your wife off your hands as well? “Two hundred and fifty silvergulls?”

  Ontane tightened his arms over his chest. “It’s not up to me to agree on something like this. Dara’s gonna kill me if I do anything to the girl.”

  Tandor had only met the girl’s mother once, a dumpy, unattractive woman with a permanent scowl on her face.

  “Your wife will be glad you have the money to buy her a new carpet.”

  “There
be nothing wrong with my carpet!” A blush rose to Ontane’s cheeks. He snorted and looked down. “Although it’s not exactly new . . .”

  “Precisely. Women notice these things, take it from me.”

  “Hmph. What do you know about women?”

  “Enough to know that I’m right.”

  Ontane sniffed and raked hair away from his face. “I don’ like it. Why do you want her to come anyway? I thought you were hiding her with us here.”

  “I was, but your stupidity of bringing the Knights down on Bordertown has changed everything—”

  “How many times do I need to tell you: it weren’t my fault.”

  “Whoever’s fault it was, I need to go into the City of Glass to get the children back. Including, I presume, your grandson’s father. Don’t tell me none of the other families in Bordertown question why you got to keep your daughter.”

  Ontane’s face went red. “I told you: the Knights din’ want to take her like this.”

  “I’ve not known the Knights to show such compassion. Maybe there was a bribe involved?”

  “Hmph.” Ontane scuffed his feet in the snow. “I want three hundred silvergulls.”

  “That’s robbery!” But Tandor knew that now Ontane started negotiating, he’d won.

  “It may be, but I’m the one that’s happy with my daughter being where she is.”

  “And with an old carpet on your floor. Two hundred and sixty.”

  “What do you think I am? I want two-ninety.”

  “A man with a nose for business. I could just walk away from this deal and you’d get nothing. In fact, I’m in a hurry, so I best get going.” Tandor picked up another of his packs and set it on top of the chest, then went about lashing both items to the luggage rack.

  Ruko was jiggling his leg and fiddling with the reins.

  “No, no. It’s not as easy as that, mister. Two-eighty.”

  “Da, what’s going on?” The shed door had opened and the girl poked her head out.

  “Go back inside, Myra,” Ontane said.

  “You’re talking about me.”

  “We weren’t.”

  “You can’t fool me, Da. I heard you. What’s it about?”