by John Hook
“Do we have any means of communication?” I asked Roland.
“If I walk out alone and unarmed on the bridge, then they will send out someone to talk to me. However, they are usually not interested in listening to anything I have to say.”
“Let’s see if they are interested in what I have to say.” I looked at Roland.
“How often do your enemies show interest in what you are saying?” Roland’s tone betrayed irony.
“You were my enemy once.”
“If I recall, I didn’t listen to you either.”
“But I kept pestering you.”
“So you are proposing bugging them until they listen to you?”
Izzy chuckled. “I believe that is one of his favorite plans.”
“Seems to work much of the time,” Blaise added.
“And exactly what would be your lead-in?” Roland asked guardedly.
“I’d ask to be taken to see Gerod, of course.”
“Of course.” Roland put his face in his hands.
“If I recall, he was a big fan.” Blaise winked.
“You don’t think he wants to see me?” I feigned hurt.
“Somebody wants to see you, judging by the group that met us on the way here,” Izzy mused.
“So, let’s see what they do.”
“And once they have you over there, they’ll just make you a prisoner too.”
“Maybe.”
“He might be too annoying.” Blaise seemed to have closed his eyes a moment.
“No doubt,” Roland conceded.
“You going to try and stop me?” I asked Roland.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He spread his hands resignedly.
I decided to wait until the middle of the night. I woke up, disoriented, from my usual nighttime drift. I had lost track of time and wasn’t sure if I had waited too long. I also had an odd feeling, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Like something had tugged me out of my reverie and was still tugging on me now. Izzy and Anika were in the next room, but there was no one stirring in there. We were camped out in an apartment house that had been abandoned, outside of the walled city so I wouldn’t have to get the gate opened to get to the bridge. In other apartments, a small unit of the Rockvale fighters were camped out in case I needed them. Izzy and Kyo had insisted.
I didn’t need them.
I tucked my short sword into my pants just behind my hip. In its scabbard, it looked like a small club. Most people who hadn’t seen it in action tended to ignore it as being merely a club and not much of a threat. Kyo had forged it for me. For some reason, metal was hard to come by here. Kyo had found a way to make it in small amounts and had handcrafted, with Taka’s help, a few swords. She carried a long sword. I wasn’t a great swordsman, so I stuck with the short one.
I stepped out of the apartment quietly. Izzy had wanted me to wake him so he and Anika could accompany me. I was not going to do that. I had no idea what I was doing. It might have been suicide, if you could actually die in this place. With the blue alien thing cohabiting my body, I had no idea what would happen to me if I was damaged enough to become a proto. I was hoping I wouldn’t find out this time.
I stepped out onto the dark, deserted street, paved with old, worn cobble-like stones. I took a deep breath and started walking at a fast but steady pace for the bridge.
That’s when I saw her again. Rox was standing at the mouth of an alley motioning to me excitedly. Then she ran into the alley. I immediately launched into a fast jog. It occurred to me that this could be a dream that I had actually not emerged from. That’s why maybe I was feeling so strange. Even this run seemed sluggish compared to what I was capable of.
I was pretty sure that what I was following was not Rox, which made me feel deeply sad. The question was, if this wasn’t a dream, was it a message from her? She had been working with Saripha. Maybe Saripha had taught her to project her thoughts in some way. Of course, it could also be an illusion created by someone else to lead me into a trap.
Like a Shade, maybe.
Didn’t matter. I couldn’t take a chance of missing it if it was a message from Rox. Also, I was trying to make something happen. A trap would be a something.
I emerged from the alley. It turned out to be a shortcut to the entrance to the bridge. Rox was running across the bridge. There were no soldiers on the other side. I looked up at the Zaccoran forces deployed to watch on the nearby rooftops of deserted buildings. One of them waved to me in acknowledgment. However, there were no signs any of them were tracking the woman running across the bridge. Most of them didn’t know Rox, so she would have been a startling sight, especially running back over to what had become the enemy side of town. And a woman, no less.
So this was either a dream, an illusion or a projection meant only for me.
I looked back across the bridge. Rox was waving at me to follow her. Then she turned again and disappeared into another alley on the other side of the bridge, swallowed up in the darkness.
I looked back at the other end of the bridge. No sign of any of the Dark Men anywhere. Sure, they might be hidden. But why?
That’s when I noticed Rooni, sitting at the halfway point of the bridge, preening herself.
Now I knew it was a dream.
7.
I stepped out on the bridge and began walking across. If there was anyone waiting in the shadows on the other side to come out and meet me in the middle, there was no sign of them. Why would they leave the bridge unguarded? Then I had a thought that started me laughing. In the quiet that enveloped the city and the bridge, it was startling.
They had sent Rooni out to greet me.
I walked up to the cat, who indeed sat very close to the halfway point. She stopped preening herself and looked at me with that wide-eyed, glassy stare that cats have that allows you to interpret it in any way you want. Disdain? Curiosity? Smugness? Or maybe just a cat watching the world.
Except I was pretty sure Rooni was not “just a cat.”
“Well, girl, here we are.”
Rooni just continued to stare. She rose up on all fours, letting her back slink a bit and made a “mrrrrup” sound that was part meow and part purr. She rubbed against my leg.
“Do you have anything to tell me before I go over there?”
I reached down and scritched the top of her flat head. She pushed against my hand, purring. I let my hand slide down to scratch her back. My mistake. In an instant, Rooni had twisted her body around and bit into the heel of my hand while she held my arm with her claws and kicked against the arm with both hind feet. The pain was sharp, but I didn’t have time to notice. I found myself caught in a metallic web while a shadow fell across me. A feeling of panic set in. Then, as quickly, it was over. Rooni leapt away and scampered over the bridge. There was no web, no shadow. There was just pain.
“Hey Rooni, I think you found the perfect world,” I shouted with some crossness. The panic had subsided. I wasn’t sure what I had just experienced, but I remembered Saripha talking about Rooni’s unorthodox means of communication. It was obviously a reference to Knightshade.
“Do you have anything to tell me before I go over there?” I had said.
Was that it? Knightshade was waiting over there for me. It seemed too simple.
I didn’t care who. And I was still thinking this could be a dream. I shook my arm to reduce the pain. Dream or not, I didn’t care. I just wanted someone to give me some answers.
I reached the end of the bridge. I looked around. There was still no one stirring in the shadows. I looked at the alley that “Rox” had run down. If this was a dream it was certainly more lucid than any dream I had ever experienced. It could be delusion, I supposed, from missing her combined with feelings of having failed her. Or, again, it could be a trap. I put my money on the latter.
I set off down the alley. It was dark and nondescript. The walls of the buildings were a whitewashed adobe-like substance that gave some light and definition to the scene. I came
out the other end onto a backstreet that branched in three different directions around a small central island. It looked like it was supposed to be a garden, but like most gardens in Hell, it was mostly growing twisted, woody, thorny scrub that looked like it had been given too little water.
I looked down the three branches. Two were streets, another was either a narrower street between close-set buildings or a wider alley. There was a shadow of a large, spider-like web on the wall. I immediately straightened and my chest pulled tight. My eyes scanned up high, looking for the source of the shadow, and I realized it was a lacy scrub bush sitting on the roof with the light of one of the moons shining through.
“Quentin.”
The voice was familiar, but it was deep and flat, with little emotional inflection. Startled, I looked into the shadows of this wider alley. Out stepped a large, imposing figure dressed in a very dark suit with a brown shirt underneath. He carried no club. He didn’t need to. His girth was impressive, and probably all of it was muscle.
“Gerod.”
“I was out for a walk, to think. It is most fortunate to find you.”
“You don’t strike me as the ‘out for a walk’ kind of guy. I don’t think luck had anything to do with my finding you.”
Gerod studied me without saying anything.
“Rox. That your doing?”
“I had heard she was taken by the Angel.”
“I bet you had.” My anger was beginning to rise in my voice.
“That was not my doing.”
“You’d better hope I don’t find out otherwise.”
Gerod studied me again. It bothered me when he did that. I thought I detected a slight smirk at one corner of his mouth.
“I will forgive your rudeness and hubris, under the circumstances. Your energy and fighting prowess are wasted on the rebels in Zaccora.”
“You are the one who is holding prisoners.” I took a step forward, an unconscious act of aggression. Gerod didn’t seem to react. He probably thought I was too sensible to try to confront him physically. As I recall, there was a demon king who thought the same thing.
“Come.” He motioned as he headed the other direction through the alley. “I want to show you something.”
We emerged into a large plaza I had never seen before. At each of the streets that came into the plaza like spokes were stationed squads of Dark Men, clubs in hand. There were archers as well, a technology Izzy had refined for them. There was probably a battalion in all. At first I stiffened, but I sensed no moves to contain me. Apparently this was for show.
In the center of the plaza was a large open pit surrounded by a low wall. Gerod walked me over to it. Down below it would have been dark, but a ribbon of lava cut through the space in a sweeping “S” shape that gave everything a red-orange glow. In that glow I saw another battalion-sized group of gray demons in disciplined columns, armed with clubs and spears.
“Wow. You have your own little Mordor. So what’s up with all this?”
“I’m trying to suggest you are misguided and wasting your time.”
“Your concern for me is touching.”
“You’ve placed yourself and the citizens of Rockvale in the middle of a fight that isn’t yours. This is our city and we have the forces and the will to retake it. I’m sure it is flattering to be made their king, but you are simply a king of fools.”
“That’s it? That’s your pitch?”
“Our local politics are trivial.”
“I don’t consider enslavement and sexual abuse of humans trivial. I think we’ve had this conversation before. Why did you think this would do you any good this time?”
“Because we have a common enemy we should both be fighting.”
“And that would be…?”
“The Knight.”
“The night? It is night now and the only danger is I might toss you over the wall of this pit before your troops can react.” I clicked my eyes around quickly. I doubted I could actually succeed in hefting Gerod over unless I was lucky, but I was surprised to see his troops weren’t particularly paying attention to us.
Gerod scowled impatiently. “No, Knightshade!”
“Oh, him. Last I saw he had his tail between his legs.” Of course, that had been due to the fiery monkey demons and not me, but I wasn’t about to share that detail.
Anger flashed over Gerod’s face, dark and red, but then he seemed to get it under control.
“Why are you so worked up about this?”
“Because you are not taking this seriously.” His voice was starting to rise. I noticed the troops starting to pay attention to us. Then Gerod seemed to get himself under control. His voice became quiet and deep. “Forgive me, but he is powerful and he threatens all of us. He is the one who knows where Rox is.”
That got my attention. Gerod saw that and a smile curled at the edge of his lips again.
“He’s a threat to you how?”
“The Manitor that Kanarchan slew considered me to be in charge of this sector. I am blamed for everything you unleashed.”
“That’s why you’re digging in.”
“Self-preservation is the only imperative in this place.”
“You know my position. Not at any price.”
We both already knew the arguments on both sides. He didn’t pursue it, so I continued.
“Who’s his controller? Who’s the new Manitor?”
“That’s just it. He is both. Shade and Manitor. He is controlled from much higher up—and that is the one who decides Rox’s fate.”
“And who’s higher up?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone as disruptive as you knows so little about this place.”
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
“Manitors control territories. They are members of the Council and, until you came along, the Council was allowed a certain autonomy from higher up in the hierarchy of this world.”
“What happened to the Council?”
“There was already a split in the Council. Kanarchan and a few other troublemakers were not very cooperative. The Council has now been dissolved and the troublemakers are either dead or in hiding.”
“I’m guessing you don’t actually know which.”
His expression told me what I wanted to know. My comment caught him off guard.
“So who is controlling Knightshade—sheesh, Knightshade, Baron Steel, is there a stupid name generator sold in some of the glamour shops here?”
Gerod almost let his anger flare up again. Apparently, he found my sarcasm annoying. Most people did.
“The one who knows the fate of Rox, the one who is behind every effort to crush you, including the annihilation of Rockvale, is the Magister.”
“And where is this Magister?”
“Across the mountains, there is a great city called Antanaria.”
I studied Gerod without saying anything, letting various competing thoughts resolve themselves in the back of my mind.
“And sending me on a wild goose chase through the mountains would nicely eliminate a thorn in your side.”
“You are one tiny man,” Gerod spat. “Have you not seen any of what I have shown you? I will easily take back Zaccora no matter what you do. However, I am willing to propose a deal that would benefit us both.”
“Why do I get the feeling that it might be more benefit for you than for me?”
“That is irrelevant as long as it is beneficial for you.”
“All right, I’ll bite. Let’s hear it.”
“I have no idea how you could take on a Magister, but I have no idea how you have accomplished anything you have. If you wish to seek the Magister, I will give you time and hold off my attack. If you can get the Magister to call off Knightshade, I will no longer have reason to attack.”
“And how long would you hold off?”
“Until I knew you could no longer succeed.”
“And how would you know that?”
“The Grays a
re comfortable in the mountains. They will observe your progress… from a distance. They will send a runner back to me periodically.”
“Tell them to not get too close.”
“Then you agree.”
“Yes. At least until I figure out what your real angle is.”
“Oh, something you should know. Magisters are giants.”
I tried to get Gerod to tell me more about either the Magister or the city of Antanaria, but clearly my audience was over. His face became blank and he strode confidently away like a muscular Alfred Hitchcock doing a cameo in his own movie, disappearing down yet another alley. His troops glared at me either sullenly or like they would like some excuse to do something, but none of them made a move towards me. I took one last look at the demons amassed in the pit. One turned his face up to me and opened his mouth, revealing the several rows of razor teeth as his eyes picked up the orange glow of the lava. I blew him a kiss and headed back the way we had come. The alley back to the bridge was the only intersection not crowded with Dark Men.
As I walked down the alley, I caught Rooni running along the rooftops. Keeping an eye on me. Why? What was Rooni really? I was hoping maybe Saripha was monitoring too, but I hadn’t felt her in my head since we left Ohnipoor. I didn’t know if that was a reason for worry or not.
I hadn’t noticed that it had become dawn when I was with Gerod and, by the time I had crossed the bridge it was fully morning with the sun rising in the sky. I saluted to the Zaccoran guards on the rooftops and made my way back to the building where Izzy and I had spent the night.
I went upstairs and knocked on the door. I was startled when it was answered by a youthful man with short spiky red hair and intense eyes. He was lean, but quite muscular. I was confused and disoriented at first. Although I hadn’t seen him before, there was something oddly familiar in the youthful face. The lines of his cheeks were strong, but there was also a softness in the features, an androgynous ambiguity. A look of amusement came on his features as he watched my confusion and a light appeared in the eyes. In an instant, recognition came over me.
“Anika?”
He winked. “Izzy will be out in a moment.”