Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1)

by Caleb Wachter

  “Tempting,” Tavleros scoffed as a smirk spread across his lips, “but I have a better idea.”

  Without further ado, Tavleros released the power he had summoned to his mind into a wave of pure, unrelenting, invisible energy which blasted forward like the breath of the old gods themselves.

  The two dagger-wielding guardsmen were nearly thrown from their feet by the incredible shockwave, which tore a wide, shallow gash in the dirt between them and Tavleros as it hurled mud and dirt into the air. But their reflexes were good, and they knelt in unison to avoid being hurled into the nearby buildings by Tavleros’ kinetic blast.

  The leader had been more prepared than the others. His armor flashed with a dazzling, golden light as he ran with inhuman speed toward Tavleros, seemingly unaffected by the attack which had nearly cost the other two their footing.

  Having expected such an outcome, Tavleros unleashed his second attack. This one was more complex in nature but to one as versed in the ancient arts as himself, it was little more than an act of reflex to form an invisible tendril of energy in the air before him which lashed out at the onrushing guardsman, like a coiled serpent striking its prey.

  Even with the guardsman’s powerfully enchanted armor to help his doubtless impressive—for a human—magical abilities, he was too late in responding to the attack and the tendril wrapped itself around first one leg, and then the other. Tavleros tightened his invisible grip on the man’s legs with such force that it would have broken a healthy ox in half.

  This time, the guardsman’s armor saved him from what would have otherwise been certain death, and Tavleros nearly lost himself to battle lust and ended the soldier’s life then and there before remembering he had a score to settle with the guardsman’s fellow first.

  “You,” he growled under his breath as he saw the object of his anger begin to charge toward him. “You should learn your place!”

  His blood burning like it had on only a handful of occasions during his entire life, Tavleros knew he had but one or two more manifestations of the power which coursed through his veins before he would be consumed by its awful energy. His skin steamed from the incredible heat generated by his harnessing of the old magics, but he kept his focus through the mounting pain caused by that heat.

  Tavleros could likely kill the leader while the man was incapacitated, but then he could not be assured of finishing the one on whom he would take revenge, so he turned his attention fully to the one who had abused the young bartender earlier in the day.

  Summoning every bit of psychic energy he could muster, he extended his hand calmly—almost lazily—and a mere instant before the charging guardsman came within striking distance, Tavleros snapped his fingers.

  The air was filled with a deafening, cracking sound which was not unlike a peal of thunder and the guardsman was instantly, unceremoniously annihilated in an explosion which seemed to vaporize every bit of his body and armor. For a fleeting moment there was a cloud of glittering, pink material hanging in the air where he had been. Then the moment passed, and the cloud collapsed into itself and seemed to disappear entirely.

  Turning his attention to the still-incapacitated leader of the elite Federation agents, Tavleros barely even noticed the flash of white steel from the corner of his eye before his side exploded in pain and he felt the air involuntarily rush out of his lungs. He looked down and saw that the third guardsman—the other to have nearly lost his footing—had slid his deceptively simple-looking blade between the ribs of his right side, and Tavleros knew that he was finished.

  The blades the three carried were known as ‘Equalizers,’ and they were much-heralded by the Federation and its citizens. Simply touching the blade—which had been forged using a secret technique known only to a handful of Federation citizens—was enough to disrupt even the most disciplined mind during the gathering of the energies which coursed through a star child’s veins. A wound such as the one Tavleros had just received was invariably fatal—and a horrifyingly painful way to die, as he was certain he could shortly attest.

  “We should have wiped your kind from the face of the world when we had the chance,” the guardsman sneered, and Tavleros saw the leader of the former trio stand after the powerful force which had bound him disappeared.

  Gritting his teeth as he felt the guardsman’s enchanted blade drain his life’s energy, Tavleros spat defiantly into the man’s stylized, winged helmet. He was about to say something vitriolic, but the guardsman twisted the blade and all that Tavleros could manage was a muffled scream as he sank to his knees in excruciating pain.

  “Where is it, half-elf?” the leader of the guardsman demanded as he loomed over the swaying Tavleros. He had lost all sensation below the waist, and his vision was already blacking out in several spots. “Tell us and I’ll make your end…less unpleasant.”

  Tavleros had always known his end would be painful but he was more than a little surprised to find that in these, his final moments, he retained far more composure than he would have ever believed possible for a man facing certain death. He stuck his chin out defiantly and growled, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Tavleros barely even noticed the thick, black blood dribbling down his chin as he spoke.

  The leader of the guardsmen grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up as easily as if he weighed no more than a newborn baby. “I can make this last until the next Darkening, half-breed,” he promised in his heavily distorted voice, which Tavleros knew was the product of the powerfully enchanted armor he wore. “Give me what I came for and you can go to whatever cesspool your kind calls an afterlife.”

  The pain in his side disappeared briefly, and Tavleros was unable to stop himself from taking a sigh of relief. But that relief was short-lived when the pain quickly returned much worse—and this time he was unable to prevent a scream from passing his lips.

  Tavleros knew the guardsman spoke truly; if he wished it, the Federation agent could sustain his life throughout months—or perhaps even years—of sustained torture. And while he opposed the current plans of what he had come to think of as ‘his people’ with his very life, Tavleros took more than a little comfort in knowing that they would turn the tables on the oppressive Federation soon enough. He felt his eyes roll around in his head as his body threatened to abandon consciousness in the face of such all-consuming agony.

  The lead guardsman drew Tavleros nearer until his nose literally touched the unnaturally cold metal of the man’s impenetrable helmet. “I will break you,” the guardsman said in a low, threatening voice, “and you will come to regret your reticence.”

  “Regret?” Tavleros gasped as his senses snapped back into focus just long enough for him to bite down on the crooked, unnatural, poison-laden tooth in the back of his mouth. It cracked immediately and a warm, numbing sensation spread throughout his mouth and he knew he had only seconds of life left to him. “Your kind knows nothing of regret…but you will,” he said in a creaky, dry voice as he actually felt a pang of sorrow at what he knew was to come. “I would weep for you all if I could…”

  The pain in his side suddenly vanished and his vision went black. He heard the guardsmen’s heavily distorted voices as though they were at a great distance, but he no longer cared. He had taken his own life in an attempt to save the only person he knew in the entire world who truly deserved it, and his final thoughts were of pure, unmitigated despair at how badly he had failed the only true friend he had ever known.

  The Turning of the Grey

  There was a time ‘tween gods and men; Of friendship’s loins, and duty’s ken

  was made a pact ‘twixt Land and Sky; That good might live, and evil die.

  The First was born, a bitter thing; The Mother’s heart did feel the sting.

  She laid it rest beneath the rock; Its body wrapped in chain and lock.

  The Second and Third shared sorrow’s womb; Came forth to heal their Mother’s wound.

  But flawed and weak, they were unfit; By Father’s hammer they wer
e split.

  The Second lost, so long ago; The Third was broken, and remade so:

  Came Seven Sons, made all of White; With Father’s charge: to bring the Light.

  To the Sisters Seven, Grey of hair; Their Mother’s word: be Wise and Fair.

  For seven Nights and seven Days; Fourteen, united, showed the way.

  Until their Mother’s light gone out; Makes Sisters seethe and Brothers shout.

  The Family broken ends an age; Now Sisters plot and Brothers rage.

  Blindly carrying Father’s will; the Brothers seek for blood to spill.

  The Sisters’ counsel is silent kept; Their Mother’s word is deemed inept.

  So now the tale of those who would; have guided men and with them stood,

  against the darkness and brought the Light; foretells the birth of an Endless Night.

  Without their guidance, strong and just; we stand alone…but stand we must.

  Unattributed

  Chapter I: Seeking Release

  Nightfall, 24-11-5-659 (Nightfall on the 24th Day of the 11th Wanderer’s Passage, under the 5th Judgment during the 659th Illumination)

  The Last Coin was bustling with activity when night fell, as usual. The patrons of the establishment were engaged in the various acts of pleasure and leisure enjoyed by those who frequent such disreputable locales, and the noise caused by their indulgences threatened to overwhelm the senses as soon as one opened the door.

  But Randall was used to the din of the nightlife. In fact, it was the one place he felt as though he belonged, and its raucous cacophony was somehow comforting. Ever since the Federation had come to town—and by ‘come to town,’ one needs to understand that they had fully conquered the small port city of Three Rivers and its surrounding lands in less than three months’ siege, some five years earlier—business at the inn had been good. So good in fact that the bar’s owner (and Randall’s de facto foster mother), Lorie Thimbleshield, had made several extensive renovations to the once-dilapidated building. Those improvements included an additional bar which, when completed, would exclusively service Federation citizens—the only customers who had the buying power to keep The Last Coin’s doors open.

  “Boy,” called a large, well-armored Federation soldier at a nearby table, “fetch us some more of this swill before we die of thirst!” The soldier was holding an upturned pitcher pointedly, and Randall rushed to the table to retrieve the empty container.

  “Sorry, citizen,” Randall gushed as he took the pitcher—the fourth of which he now juggled in the crooks of his arms—and turned to make his way back to the stockroom.

  He heard a clinking sound near his feet and saw a copper coin on the wooden floor, and he looked back to the table where the soldier sat.

  “It’s yours if you can get it without bending at the waist,” the soldier said, and his companions looked on with interest as Randall looked back and forth between the coin and the soldier who had tossed it.

  Randall knew this game well enough, having dealt with the Federation types for years—and this particular soldier once earlier that week. He feigned anxiety as he bit his lip and he juggled the empty pitchers in his cradled arms.

  The soldier tossed another coin—this one made of tin—and it landed near the first. “Both are yours if you can do it before I count three,” he urged, and Randall could see his companions were clearly enjoying his taunts.

  But Randall took a deep breath and slipped his foot from his work sandals as he juggled the pitchers precariously. His feet were especially sensitive to the harsh, jagged grain of the rough floorboards, which Randall knew was part of the game—but it was a game he had played and won too many times to count.

  “One,” the soldier began, and his companions joined in the chant.

  Randall’s foot slid along the floorboard until he felt the warm, copper coin beneath his toes. He deftly slipped the coin between his two large toes as his foot slid toward the tin coin.

  “Two,” the soldiers called in unison, and Randall felt the second coin beneath his smallest toe. When he had plucked it from the floor and placed it between his smallest and next-smallest toes, he heard the group of soldiers inhale for their final count.

  With a grace he had inherited from his mother—and a practiced motion he had used hundreds of times before—he kicked his foot easily behind himself and sent the coins into the air above his head. Without even looking, he turned his body just in time for the coins to land inside the pitcher stacked atop the others in his arms, and the two coins rattled loudly inside the earthenware pitchers.

  The soldiers applauded, and he bent his knee slightly by way of reply as he resumed his trip to the stockroom.

  “Incredibly flexible, aren’t they?” he heard the first soldier say to his companions.

  There was a round of laughter from the others. “What do you expect?” asked one of them rhetorically. “Just a few generations ago they were swinging through the trees; wouldn’t live long up there without good reflexes. That, my friends, is natural selection at work!”

  The soldiers burst out in approving laughter and Randall rolled his eyes as he kicked open the swinging door to the stockroom. Lorie was inside, filling pitchers from the barrels of local mead.

  “Busy night, eh Randy?” she said without looking up from her task.

  “Yep,” he replied dryly as he deftly placed the empty pitchers next to the ones she had just filled. “I can’t wait for the second bar to finish, either,” he added more than a little bitterly.

  Lorie clucked her tongue as she switched her now-full pitcher for an empty one. “You know where our money comes from as well as I,” she said in a lightly reprimanding tone.

  “I know, I know,” he grumbled, “but did you know they rounded up Ellie and Yordan last night?”

  The proprietor of The Last Coin kept her eyes on the task at hand as Randall continued to arrange the pitchers neatly in a row. “Those two ought’ve known better than to wander down near the docks after dark,” she said evenly.

  Randall had expected as much from his boss, but he still could not help continuing, “Do you know the charges they were threatened with?”

  Lorie reached up to stopper the keg in mid-stream and let her hand linger there for a long, silent moment. “Were those charges actually brought against them?” she asked in a quiet, hard voice.

  Randall felt his blood beginning to boil at this, the latest continuation of their conversations which inevitably went in the same direction. “That’s not the point, and you know it!” he snapped as he angrily picked up a pair of pitchers. “They were rounded up because of their blood!”

  Lorie held his gaze for a long moment before shaking her head in exasperation. “This is a Federation city now, Randy,” she said quietly. “Those of us who can do so must learn to adapt to life under their rule. Remember,” she said in a warning tone, “you’re not the only one who’s felt their boot on your neck.”

  Randall waved his free hand dismissively. “Easy for you to say now; the blood of your children isn’t still ‘tainted’ like yours or mine is, so the Feds treat you with more respect than the rest of us. What about us?” he demanded. “What about those of us who they still consider sub-human, or those of us who can’t ‘learn to adapt’?” he blurted unthinkingly.

  Lorie Thimbleshield shrugged her shoulders lightly. “You’re twenty years old, Randall,” she said, and he was momentarily taken aback at her use of his full name rather than the nick. “When your mother died I did my best to shelter you, but I am not,” she stressed the last word, “nor was I ever interested in becoming, your mother. You would do well to remember that.”

  Randall swiped up another trio of pitchers in his free hand and rolled his eyes as he turned back to the bustling common room. “I remember it perfectly well,” he muttered as he kicked the door open with a gently push of his toes and went out to serve the half dozen pitchers.

  Randall’s father had disappeared when he was a small child, and his mother h
ad died shortly after Randall’s thirteenth birthday. Lorie had been a friend to his mother, so she had graciously taken him under her wing and made sure he kept out of too much trouble.

  But things had changed when the Federation had taken over. They had rolled into town essentially unchallenged, with the only resistance coming from the Kheifs—the traditional rulers of Three Rivers—who had barricaded themselves in the Old Palace. Without even offering terms, the mages and war machines which had accompanied the Federation army had reduced the three hundred year old palace to a pile of rubble in a matter of hours. That pile of ruined stone had still not been cleared away five years later, to serve as a reminder to the residents of Three Rivers of what happens to those who resist through force of arms. Signs and markers had then been erected throughout the city which explained the Federation’s basic laws, and there had been no adjustment period for the populace of the city—it was as Lorie had put it moments earlier: either one learned to adapt, or there was no place for them within the city.

  To Randall, it seemed as if one day the Kheifs of the palace were running Three Rivers with a relatively benevolent hand. The next day the Federation had annihilated the entire ruling class in one, fell swoop and implemented their own coda of laws and regulations—laws which were far more extensive and restrictive than the old system under the Kheifs.

  Still, it wasn’t all bad. Business inside the city tripled overnight, and Lorie Thimbleshield wasn’t the only resident of Three Rivers who had benefited economically. An entirely new class of people—the Free Merchants, as they called themselves—seemingly sprang up out of nowhere when the port opened and a ravenous horde of Federation traders descended on the city bearing all manner of mineral wealth, which formed the backbone of the Federation’s economy, in exchange for the region’s plentiful foodstuffs to help feed their seemingly endless campaigns of war on the neighboring regions.