Ancient Evil (The First Genocide Book 1)

by Griffiths, Brent J.

  Fifteen second-year Academics were sandwiched between Hael and Ilba. Hael cleared the way through the crowds and Ilba made sure that none of their charges strayed.

  Ilba had made it into the Ten when Caleb had been cursed. With Caleb gone the friction between Hael and Ilba had eased. Ilba had changed during his five years in the Academy, they all had. Gone was the insecure bully boy who had tried to stone Clea and Caleb; he had been replaced by a more thoughtful, cautious young man. Hael and he were not friends, but they were friendly towards each other. It also helped that Ilba looked up to Hael, as most of the boys in the Academy did. He also felt that he owed Hael something for being indirectly responsible for him becoming one of the Ten.

  As they walked through the City, Hael lectured the second year.

  “Who can tell me about the Rebellion?” Hael shouted over his shoulder.

  “You, Ala, tell us what you know,” said Ilba. Hael and Ilba had done this before. Hael would ask the questions and evaluate the answers while Ilba would select who would speak, as he could see who was raising their hand.

  “The uprising happened about seven thousand years ago,” Ala started.

  “About? Come on, Ala, this is history we are talking about, be precise.”

  “Sorry, One, the uprising happened six thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago, when the Ferals decided to overthrow the Emperor.” As Hael was currently ranked as “One” in his year, they referred to him by his rank.

  “Why did they decide to do such a thing?”

  “The Ferals were given too much leeway; they are savage by nature and they perceived the benevolence of Emperor Enki II as weakness and tried to take the City for themselves.”

  “Okay, good, Ala. Now, someone else, how were they thwarted?”

  Ilba said, “Ori, your turn.”

  “Umm.”

  “Wrong answer, Ori. Come on, think.”

  “Sorry, One. The Feral had the Palace surrounded and all looked lost when our Glorious Emperor Enki II and the One Hundred Companions opened the Palace gates and drove the Ferals from the City.”

  “How did one hundred and one Host manage to drive thousands of Feral from the City?”

  “Well, each of the One Hundred is a full Adept and they and the Emperor were wearing their Dread aspects, causing all but the strongest of Ferals to doubt their chances of success. Additionally, the Emperor’s first blow incapacitated the Feral Chieftain, Uruk. Uruk had been the focal point of the Feral resistance to the Dread presence of the Emperor, so when he was knocked senseless, the Feral shamans linked to him collapsed as well, leaving the Feral rabble completely exposed to the Emperor’s influence. The Feral broke and ran for the countryside.”

  Hael held up his hand to stop his procession. Ori trailed off; he would continue if Hael asked him to.

  The way ahead was blocked by two ornate palanquins carried by Ferals that were at loggerheads at a constricted part of the street. Part of the roadway was taken up by a food stall, making it necessary for one of the palanquins to hold back and let the other pass. The one going in the same direction as Hael and his charges was blue and gold with the symbol of a roof tile on the door. It was more blue than gold. The blue indicated that the occupant was aligned the with one of the Orthodox branches of the civil service, while the roof tile symbol further specified that he worked for the Ministry of Hospitality. The lack of gilt indicated that its owner was of middling rank, possibly an undersecretary or assistant to a junior minister.

  The other palanquin, apparently trying to move towards Hael and his crew, was red and gold; red indicated military affiliation with the Enlightened Party. The amount of gilt indicated that the owner was a lower-ranking officer, possibly a Captain. The door was blank, indicating that its occupant did not want to disclose his specific alignment.

  The two palanquins had a similar amount of gilt, hence the holdup.

  The rank of a palanquin owner determined right of way, lesser rank giving way to the superior. The City’s citizens were skilled at determining relative rakings based on the amount of gold paint, number and type of gems barnacled to the exterior of the vehicle, the type and number of bearers and other, more subtle, cues. In this case it was a tossup on which palanquin contained the more important passenger. If they were of similar factions, one would have undoubtedly waved the other through as a matter of goodwill. But red and blue were a different story. A common saying in the city was when red and blue mixed you got a bruise.

  The lead slaves of each palanquin were explaining to their counterpart the reason why their master had precedence, each mentally projecting their deeds and responsibilities.

  Hael thought that there was a little more gilt on the blue palanquin going in the same direction as he was, but it was subtle and so could be argued. He knew that he was in for a wait while precedence was established.

  He was considering backtracking and looking for another route forward when a heavily jeweled hand reached through the red palanquin’s side curtains and waved someone forward.

  Hael looked back at Ilba and raised his eyebrows. This was quite unusual. The hand had been virtually dripping with gold and jewels, which suggested that the occupant of the red palanquin was much more senior than his vehicle would indicate. It looked like the rider in the red palanquin was slumming.

  As Hael turned back to view the spectacle, he saw a shadow-sheathed figure detach itself from an alleyway behind the red palanquin and glide towards the two debating lead slaves. As the figure entered the full glare of the sunlight, the shadow burned off like morning fog and a figure wearing the voluminous black cloak and cowl of a Nightfeeder was revealed. This confrontation had tipped over the precipice of interesting and into fascinating. Only the most elite of the Host had a Nightfeeder at their beck and call.

  Nightfeeders were usually only attached to legions on active battle duty in the field. In very rare instances they were granted to one of the Emperor’s favorites, as they were almost perfect assassins and bodyguards. In the politics of the City, assassination was a legitimate form of advancement, as long as it was subtle. This meant that only one who was truly untouchable was ever provided a Nightfeeder for their personal use. The Nightfeeder removed the risk of assassination and also provided a valuable tool for dealing with ambitious underlings.

  Providing a Nightfeeder to a more junior member of the government or military would accelerate their rate of advancement, as their competitors and superiors would undoubtedly meet with fatal accidents, clearing their way to the top.

  Hael grinned back at Ilba; it would be amusing to see the blue palanquin scramble out of the way.

  Frost formed on the cobbles in the Nightfeeder’s wake. Hael felt a cool breeze. The Nightfeeder pulled in the ambient heat, as the cloaked figure glided up to the head slave of the blue palanquin, who had not noticed the approaching figure. The loose folds of the robe filled out, and the figure was gaining bulk and height as it used the heat to fuel its transformation.

  Two large brilliant white hands tipped with smoking black talons shot out of the sleeves of the robe and grasped the arms of the blue slave’s upper arms a second and then heaved. The slave’s arms ripped off his torso with a slurp and a crackle. He fell to the ground as blood jetted from his empty shoulder sockets. The guttural scream of the Feral slave rang out and waves of agony emanated from him. Both sound and broadcast quickly faded as he bled out on the street. The cloaked figure stood over the body, drinking in the pain, two arms dangling from its clawed hands.

  The creature briefly looked in Hael’s direction, revealing the pale oval of the thing’s face and a flash of golden hair inside the dark cowl. It turned away, its bone white hands disappearing back into the folds of the cloak. The frost ring centered on the Nightfeeder quickly melted as it started to dump its excess mass as heat. It was a process that would take several hours; if it dumped the energy too quickly, it risked creating a mini firestorm from the heat, which could be dangerous to it and any others nea
r it.

  The remaining slaves standing with the blue palanquin hurriedly lifted the chair, so quickly, in fact, that they tipped it to one side so the chair’s occupant, a young member of the Host, fell out. He scrambled to his feet and ran down the road away from the Nightfeeder, his slaves and palanquin trailing. At another time this would have elicited laughter and jeers from the crowd in the street, but today there was just shocked silence.

  The Nightfeeder walked forward. Although the street had seemed crowded earlier, everyone seemed to find space to move into to get out of its way, leaving an open pathway through the crowd for the Nightfeeder and its master to follow.

  Hael felt like vomiting. Not due to the blood or the violence; he had been trained in blood and violence.

  It was the Nightfeeder’s hands.

  The Nightfeeder’s hands were white.

  Its skin was white.

  Hael had seen Nightfeeders before, and they were all pale as they stayed in the shadows, but not that pale. Their skin became a pale greyish-brown color over time, not bone white. Host and the Feral were never made into Nightfeeders; that curse was reserved for the Guest and the Guest were all brown of skin and hair. All except one.

  Clea.

  Donta pounded on the heavy wooden door.

  He focused and struck the door with his mind and his fist at the same time. The door shook in the doorway and the temperature of the hallway dropped a few degrees. A few more “knocks” like that and the door would not need to be opened. He heard a scrabbling from the other side of the door and waited.

  The door opened a crack, and he could see a grey eye peeking out at him. He hit the door again and it sprung open. The Feral slave who had been examining him was flung across the room to crash into the middle of the floor. A door in the opposite wall opened and Mi Zabab entered, tying a cord around his waist to secure the robe he had just put on. The tented front of the robe indicated that Donta had interrupted him at a most inopportune time.

  As the Feral slave climbed to his feet, Zabab broadcast his thoughts in the declarative mode.

  Zabab: Leave us.

  The Feral bowed and circled Donta on his on his way to the door. He closed the door behind him. Donta took the liberty of warding the room, energizing the glyphs carved into the floor. They would not be interrupted. Very few Guest could breach a ward energized by Donta. Truthfully, many of the Host would not be able to breach it either —not unless they had a Lens to enhance his or her abilities. Donta’s mental strength was one of the reasons he had been made a Marshal.

  “Tell me that it was not you. Please, it couldn’t have been you, could it? You aren’t that completely bat shit insane, are you?”

  Zabab switched to the personal mode of mindspeech, so that only Donta, or a snooping Adept of the twelfth order, could hear him.

  Zabab –> Donta: My dear Donta, you are lucky that I like you. Very lucky. I have gelded better men than you for less. This interruption really is quite unacceptable.

  “Answer me, Zabab. Did you go out with your pet Nightfeeder and have her rip a fucking man’s arms off in the middle of the fucking street in front of two hundred fucking witnesses?” Donta’s voice was calm.

  Zabab –> Donta: You dare speak to me that way?

  The front of the robe was now flat. It appeared that Donta now had Zabab’s undivided attention.

  “Yes, I fucking dare. I knew it was a mistake letting you keep her. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

  A guilty look flashed across Zabab’s face. He casually walked away from the door through which he had entered the room, too casually.

  Donta looked at the door and then back to Zabab.

  “Really, Zabab.” He shook his head. “Did seeing her rip a man apart get your juices flowing?”

  Zabab –> Donta: You have no right to speak to me in this way. I admit it to a small lapse of judgment. But these things happen. There have not been many other incidents in the year that I have had her.

  “Not many incidents. You mean there have been other incidents?” Donta’s voice was no longer calm.

  Zabab –> Donta: Well, what’s the point of having her if I can’t use her once in a while. Believe me, I have been discreet.

  “Discreet? She tore a man in two, in the middle of a crowded street. Some of our students were witnesses.”

  Zabab –> Donta: It was more like three pieces, not two.

  Zabab nodded his head a few times, the Host version of a chuckle.

  Zabab –> Donta: And it was a slave.

  Zabab raised his eyebrows and showed his open hands to Donta, as if to say that made it all okay.

  “Listen to me. Listen to me carefully.” Donta spoke slowly to control his anger. “We need to stay focused on our goal. We cannot be distracted by pettiness and selfishness that our opponents exhibit. If we stay disciplined we will prevail while they tear each other apart. We just need to wait for the right time to strike, and the time will be soon.

  Zabab –> Donta: Come now, it was only a little fun, a jape. Answer me this, Donta, what will be the point of prevailing if we create a world of tedium? And soon? Tell me, when is this soon? It seems that you have been promising soon for quite a number of years.

  “Don’t play games, Zabab, I am guessing that you have been waiting an opportunity like this for millennia, you just hadn’t been able to find someone with the cunning, drive and vision to make it a reality, not before I came along. If we succeed we will usher in the new Golden Age, an age of growth and advancement to replace this age of stagnation and decay.”

  Donta gathered himself and continued.

  “We have twelve more years to mold him, to make him ready. Twelve years from now the world will be a very different place. The Exile’s return will be upon us and the New Temple will be complete. Depending on what happens between now and then, the Emperor may decide to side with the Orthodox and end the whole Guest experiment, or he may decide push forward with our Progressive agenda. The New Temple will remove the need for the annual Renewal and we will be able to shape my people more rapidly. We both know that if the Orthodox wins both our bodies will be strapped to the altars. If our candidate can do what I hope he can do, before the Orthodox achieve preeminence, we will gain everything. In the meantime you need to restrain yourself.”

  Zabab –> Donta: Fine, twelve years. I will be discreet, but I will not be a eunuch. And I grant that you are most useful to our cause. But a word of warning: make sure you continue to be useful or you may find yourself spending time with our old friend, the Architect.

  Donta stormed out of Zabab’s chambers, not even bothering to slam the door.

  Chapter 6

  Edinburgh, Scotland, 2015

  When he returned home following his “adventure” at the Festival, he had made himself a panini with trembling hands. He tried not to think about how futile his death at the hands of a couple of ignorant thugs would have been as he sliced some old sharp cheddar. Usually he would leave the kitchen pristine after preparing food, but today he left his plate on the table and the panini press open on the counter, glistening with a sheen of melted butter, and slightly crusted with brown cheese crisps that had oozed from the bread before solidifying.

  He was eager to start work. More than eager, he was driven.

  He sat down and started to sketch his new design, hands now steady and confident as he lost himself as he designed his “crown of thorns.”

  Eighteen hours, three more panini, four Guinness and a two-hour nap later he had his prototype ready. It was ugly, bulky and heavy, but he thought it would work. If it did he would work to refine the design and make it beautiful. His finished products were always beautiful. This, his crowning achievement, would be magnificent.

  The torus of stainless steel had a diameter of about a foot and was welded to pole attached to the back of a chair. The smooth outer circle was marred by a heavy set of cabling that snaked across the room to a cobbled-together control unit that looked like a laptop
and a generator had mated and produced an ugly hybrid offspring.

  The inner ring of the torus was a few inches wider than his head. Protruding from the inner surface was a series of needles similar to acupuncture needles. The wire-thin spikes were not distributed evenly but formed symmetrical bunches. If you could imagine someone sitting in the chair with their head in the torus you would see that the needles were mostly concentrated at the front and back of the skull. There were a few needles on the support pole that would align with top of the spine of our imaginary sitter.

  He walked over to the control unit and turned it on. The needles vibrated so quickly that they became hard to see and then extended forward by a few inches, far enough to penetrate the skull of a person had they been sitting in the chair.

  He was desperate to see if it would work. He wanted to try it himself, but he knew that would be foolhardy. He needed to test it. He needed to calibrate it. Without calibration he would risk brain damage.

  Luckily, he had the perfect test subject, where brain damage was not a concern.

  Charlie surfaced from unconsciousness. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she was not in the cage and was more or less intact.

  She was chained into a sitting position in a chair with a thick metal hoop around her head. Her head was secured to a post at the back of the chair by a separate steel band, ensuring she could not move in her weakened state. “This is new,” she thought to herself.

  She had arms and legs again; however, her feet had been grafted to her wrists in place of her hands. Her remarkable healing ability had linked up the nerves so that her feet felt like clumsy hands. She scrunched her toes, which felt much longer than usual. She assumed that her hands had taken the place of her feet. She knew that in time with a bit of effort she would realign the structure of the feet on her wrists to look like hands and the same with her hands on her ankles. Perhaps that was why her captor had mutilated her this way. He always seemed to be testing the limits of her ability to heal. Needless to say, even for an evil old monster such as herself, it was very disturbing to be at the mercy of someone who was sick enough to be making these types of alterations to her without her consent.