Enigma: Awakening

by Damien Taylor

  The bodies in Lucreris were piling beyond belief, and the count climbed as Pohlod the farmer watched the women struggle to haul the dead. This war that had been no more than nervous hearsay had finally spilled into central Memoria. There was no warning. Moans and cries of mourning came toward him as he stood before his fellow countrymen with words of encouragement.

  “They have all gone to Ezilum, free of pain and fear,” he reminded them for the twentieth time. The words had seemed to have lost their virtue, but he believed that somewhere deep in his own grieving heart they were serving some greater purpose. He’d lost a daughter and a son of his own, barely ten years old. His eyes welled with tears.

  “The Superiors are watching over them now. They are free from anguish, free from the perils of this world.” Commoners filled his yard to its capacity. Many of the king’s Guard trotted about on their horses, bringing aid to the nobles but harbored no condolence for the poor, as usual. Pohlod scowled fiercely as they passed his farm. Not even death could bring the kingdom together. A woman and old man came to him with a younger woman stretched out on a cart. “Her family never came back for her. It’s been several weeks. What should we do?”

  Pohlod eyed her. It was a dark-haired young woman in a fair robe, two broad bloodless gashes crossways on her upper body. “She’s that Fox’s mother—has a daughter as well.”

  He couldn’t think of her name. “Bodies are still rolling in, we can’t wait,” he said sorrowfully. They carried her off to do as they would with the rest of the abandoned ones. She was so young.

  Pohlod helped those he could. There was almost no more room in the yard, not even for the grass and dirt, and he’d had the largest yard amongst the commoners. As he moved along, he spotted one girl who was like a niece to him: Isadora Rose, crying and hugging her mother-in-law over the body of her husband, Kato. Bane, the merchant who was his father, was sobbing and shaking. “He fought so bravely,” Pohlod heard Kato’s mother say.

  “He did,” Isadora cried. “He protected us.” She rubbed her round belly, comforting her and Kato’s child within her as she held the hand of their first. Pohlod mustered the strength to approach them. He knew Kato and his family well. The merchant’s son had worked for him one summer as a late teenager. The farmer went and mourned with them, embracing each of them firmly.

  “Please take all of the time you need.”

  Young men were piling bodies to burned them near the center of the yard. “We’re next, you know?” said one of them. Pohlod stopped when he heard it.

  “What do you mean?” said another one.

  “I meant just what I said—we’re next. You think that’s the last of the Abyssians? No way. Not a chance. I’ve got a brother who joined up with the Militia years ago. He’s been writing letters home, saying that the war would be heading this way soon. None of the kingdoms have been sending the Militia aid, and now look what’s happened.”

  “We should warn the others then.”

  “Why? Memoria’s done for. If they’ve reached Lucreris, then Arkhades—the one and only kingdom on this sweltering sandbox that can help us—is finished as well. We’re goners unless we leave Memoria now and join up with Foxes.” The angered young man tossed a body hardheartedly into the pile. Fury struck the farmer’s bones, and he fixed himself to go and reprimand the disrespectful ingrate, but he stopped abruptly when he saw, many miles in the northern distance, a moving black line running down the slope of the Valtec Mountains. He squinted and then shuddered with a hard gulp. Abyssians—heading for Lucreris. The young man was right.

  Pohlod fixed his robe about him, and instead of going to the young man in anger, he set a peaceful hand on his shoulder. “Please respect the dead,” he told him. “For we will have to meet them soon.” The young man grunted, his gaze fixed curiously. Pohlod never took his eyes away from the boundless black line on the mountain, not even to warn the others—not even to pray. There was no salvation for them.

  Rats and Rumors

  Leviathans could teleport from one large body of water to another. This became apparent when we had gone from Lake Ievengrind to the Surklen River—two separate waters a thousand miles apart. We were dry after going several leagues down the murky river’s meandering path, trees of the swamp at our flanks.

  “So those were the pages you were talking about?” asked Sergio.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “I saw them as well—the ones floating above the pillar of stone. What did they speak?” Irvina questioned. I recited them word for word, by the power of the Amethyst.

  “Their arrangement was the same as the first three I found—instances from three separate events,” I said.

  Sergio scratched his goatee and smoothed the hairs between his fingers. “So, the Abyssians came from a powerful entity, eh? War of the Gaping Black—sounds like the shindig of the century,” he mocked. “At least we know they’re the lost pages now.”

  “Of what?” Irvina chimed in. “Surely not Doctrine. That revelation was completed long ago.” Sergio waved his hands. His bottom lip stretched the width of his face and popping veins broadened his neck. “All right... Not from Doctrine then—sheesh!”

  Something didn’t sit well with me, though. “It said the Abyssians were born from something strong enough to defeat the Arkangels. We’ve been at war with these beasts for a hundred years and, since then, there hasn’t been a distinct leader among them. They don’t seem to answer to anything. They only yield to their more evolved forms.” There was a moment of silent contemplation.

  “Yeah,” Sergio agreed. “Vail would be gone for sure if there was something strong enough, in this age, to defeat the Arkangel, Airius. He was the most powerful one of them all. His death sounds connected to the vision you had of him and the Arkangel, Reva, at the Amethyst’s Shrine. She must’ve seen him die.”

  “I think so too,” I said.

  “The last page I don’t get at all—not enough there to decipher. One thing’s for sure, when we leave Memoria and come across more shrines there’ll be more pages waiting on us too,” said Sergio lastly on the subject. Irvina hadn’t said anything but listened quietly and attentively. A corner of her mouth lifted and scrunched, eyes narrow and intensely forward in meditation as if she was trying to piece together the events in secret.

  Leviathan drifted the southeastern bend of Surklen, coming to a halt at the Terabonna Wetlands a quarter mile from Ortiz. We left the Colossus there.

  “Do take care, young naiad. It would break my heart again if anything were to happen to you,” said Sergio for the colossal serpent, never forgetting my livid request. When he and I dismounted, the leviathan and Irvina spoke quietly for several minutes before it bowed, and she rubbed its snout. It sailed along until light engulfed it, and it was gone. She stalked toward us with her shoulders sinking, freeing a sigh, her eyes downcast after a long blink. She shook and nodded.

  “Shall we go?”

  The air was dark and cloudy as we trekked through islands of tall grass, avoiding ponds as best we could. We neared a forest line, but the sound of a struggle was close by. Nine men of the Shadow Legion had been only yards away. We hid beneath the grass and snuck closer. In the gloved clutches of a Legion disciple was a boy dangling by his shirt.

  He was dark haired, young, and skinny. The men bantered amongst themselves.

  “Let... go of me, you muck-mouthed... frog-tongued oaf!”

  His captor growled angrily and brought the boy’s face to his.

  “A fiery tongue this one has—one of those nothing orphans of the slums.” The others laughed. “We could off him right now, and not a soul would know it or care even if they did.”

  It was then, that the three of us came from our hiding places. Instantly, the Legion goon flipped the boy into a nasty swamp before spotting us and pointing, warning his comrades. The men drew their swords and moved into formation. The boy ran for the trees.

  “No need to get feisty,” said Sergio.

  “Don’t k
ill them,” I said.

  The throng charged, and we advanced only slightly. A disciple swung his sword to behead Sergio, but the halfling ducked and drove his fist into the disciple's stomach as he rose. The Emerald flickered. Then he bashed him across the jaw with his hand that had morphed into Mordric’s grotesque gauntlet, knocking him out cold. “Wooh! Too easy!” He blew a breath over his metallic knuckles.

  The Legion divided their formation: three to an Orbed One.

  As Irvina jogged to her opponent, ice formed beneath her feet. She slid, keeping her balance as she crashed her palm into the throat of the Legion disciple that came first. From the impact, he bounced and staggered. When the man raised his sword, she caught it by the blade in a cold hand that was white with rime. The Aquamarine shined, and the goon’s sword froze from the cross-guard to its tip. Irvina snapped it and sent the man soaring through the air with a forward kick to his chest.

  Her second attacker was just as unlucky. She shattered the ice sword fragment over his head. Drawing her chakram, she moved to the third enemy—a woman.

  A fist struck my jaw. More disciples surrounded me as I staggered. After the first blow, I found myself evading swords and axes. Anytime now, Rahginor. As an ax dove upon me, my orbed hand lifted on impulse and the Amethyst lit. The man’s attack stopped midair, and he shook in resistance. A moment later, at missing speed, he flew yards backward into Irvina’s adversary.

  Curses and shouts expelled the air. But, the Amethyst’s thaumaturgy hadn’t discouraged the other two from engaging. I evaded, fending off the attackers with my bare hands. Fists and feet attacked from all sides. I endured a flurry of diverse blows, but the edge of a blade came nowhere near me. Irritation flooded me as a goon shoved me.

  Rahginor, where are you?

  I felt a man rushing from behind. I whirled fast, throwing an arm in defense, misplacing a hand on his leather-covered chest. He stiffened, his mouth dropped, letting out a gasp. Then he stumbled back. Rahginor revealed itself. The elongated blade came into existence impaled through the man’s thorax. Quickly it tore itself free of its victim and whizzed toward me. I whipped my hand just in time to catch it. It dripped with blood. Blast! I didn’t want to kill him. He flailed wildly until Irvina took him down. He wheezed until death claimed him.

  Together we subdued my third adversary, me attacking from the front and Irvina from behind. He fought well, but Irvina brought him down with a sweeping foot at the first minor mistake. I leaped over him with Rahginor’s tip pressing his ribcage and the Amethyst launching his weapon in the wind. His face became ghostly white.

  Sergio’s fist drove into the stomach of another man, both hands formed into Mordric’s gauntlets. He lifted his crippled foe and then head-butt him to the ground. The dazed goon rose, stumbling, and fled. Sergio defeated the final two with dazzling concussions each, his strength overwhelming them with ease.

  The battle was over. Seven Legionnaires lay scattered and unconscious. But something else took my attention. The man beneath me smacked Rahginor aside, got up, and bolted across the marsh. Irvina planted her feet ready to let a chakram fly into his back. “No!” I barked. “Let him go.” She relaxed, twirling it with a finger. Sergio doused his monstrously endowed hands and wiped his brow.

  “If it were any easier it wouldn’t be any fun. I never get tired of clobbering those boneheaded traitors.”

  Rahginor’s blade shattered and disappeared. Its hilt vanished in a flash. I went and knelt before the man I'd kill and shut his eyes.

  “You must learn to control the powers,” said the Amethyst. “See Rahginor manifest the way you want it to.”

  Shut up. Not now.

  The boy ran toward us, panting with exhaustion. He was surely a poor youngling by the unkempt rags he wore: a tunic and a ragged cloth for bottoms. He was dirty, and his eyes hid within dark bangs. “You all right, kid?” said Sergio as he glanced around the marsh for enemies.

  The boy brushed the dirt from his knees. “I am now, thanks to you folks. I’ve never seen anyone stand up to them the way you just did. Everyone in town’s deathly afraid of them.”

  “Spineless traitors, those ones,” Sergio scoffed. “You should fear them only because you’re still a shrimp.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Sphinx,” he said, as he looked dumbfounded at the laying men around him.

  “Any particular reason you’re out here by yourself?”

  “I left town to get away from those pig-heads—just too many, I suppose. These lowlifes are going around robbing the poor. They don’t have anything of their own loot,” he said passionately. “I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “What of your parents? Surely they worry of you?” said Irvina.

  Sphinx blushed and gawked at her. “I’m an orphan, lady. I got no parents. Most of us kids don’t. There’re more orphanages than homes in the slums of Ortiz.”

  Geronimo did say the Legion was in Arkhades too, I thought. “What’s the Legion’s business here?”

  “I told you, stealing from us poor folk. They’ve taken control of the inner city too. There’s gossip going around that some dangerous stranger dethroned the steward. They call him Blitzkrieg. There’s no way into the city walls now unless you bear the imprint of Legion property. And there’s no way out once you’re in, lest they toss you out themselves.”

  I clicked my teeth. “This is going to be harder than we thought.”

  “What is?” Sphinx nudged.

  “We’re trying to get into a not-so-nice place, kid,” Sergio explained.

  “The dungeon?” the boy presumed with ease. “And why on Vail would ya’ wanna’ go there?”

  “We’re looking for someone,” I added.

  “Wouldn’t be that girl they brought from Lucreris, would it? We get a lot of strange visitors when prisoners come from other kingdoms,” said Sphinx pryingly. I winced. Sphinx smirked. “Ah, I see! Rescue mission, eh? This part of town’s known for that, naturally. She must be someone important for you to have ventured into Ortiz territory. You all got guts... Or you’re all nuts.”

  “How do you know about her?”

  “The orphans hear everything. They don’t call us town rats just to be insulting.”

  “What else do you know?” Sergio questioned him.

  “Tons! They’re keeping her in one of the solitary towers, away from the other dungeons. What I don’t know is what she did to get herself into the predicament. Like I said, it’s difficult to get inside the wall. But us orphans know ways.”

  Fate had been merciful for once, it seemed. “Look at that, Winn, just our luck. We’ve got our snitch before we’ve even set foot into the wretched place,” said Sergio.

  Sphinx huffed. “Snitch? And why should I help you?”

  “I can pay you,” I told him. The boy crossed his arms, pouted his lips, and rubbed his chin.

  “Money’s all right. Food’s better. I don’t know—I can’t think of anything right now. You can keep listing things, and I’ll let you know when something sounds appealing enough.”

  I didn’t have anything else to bargain with. “The girl’s my sister,” I pled. “For what she’s done in Lucreris, I’m afraid they’ll put her to death soon.”

  Sphinx’s brow lifted, and he looked with compassion. “She’s been around too long for that. If they had planned to execute her, they would’ve done it already. She’s been here for half a month. But you said she’s your sister? Now I’ve gotta help you,” he insisted. “I may not have any parents, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know a thing or two about family. Us orphans stick together tough. We take care of our own—make sure we’re all accounted for, ya’ know? Come on, chaps. If prison’s where you wanna go, then prison’s where I’m gonna get ya’.”

  We followed Sphinx south through sparse woods. We came upon a dirt path that looped west to Ortiz’s slums. Tendrils of Black Salt as far east as the eye could see filled the sky. The Horde. The day grew redder, and Sphinx blabb
ered on as we strode. “Why don’t you just burst through the front gate, whip a couple of guards and Legion bozos, take your sister, and then be on your merry way?”

  Sergio leaped with excitement and pulled at his hair. “Didn’t I say that was a clever idea?”

  No. I suggested it.

  “The way you guys swept those thieves back there, I’m sure a few more won’t be a problem.” He spoke about the magic of the orbs in wonder, battering us with questions that Irvina and Sergio looked to me to answer. I abbreviated my answers, omitting many details. The boy sank and sucked the corner of his mouth into a cheek. His unsatisfied expression told me he would finally desist with his prying. “We need more courageous types like you all. That old buzzard Sergei wouldn’t do anything, not even to save the life of his unborn daughter—afraid of conflict, always has been. Thinks that if he just does what the Legion says for a while, they’ll leave him alone.”

  “They won’t,” I said.

  Sphinx agreed. “I wouldn’t either, especially if Sergei handed me the place on a silver platter. The word around the town is, they’ve been all around Memoria conquering townships.”

  It’s what they do. “Irvina and I encountered a few in Gemmin. Chief Geronimo was there, and he told me the same thing,” I said to Sergio.

  “Chief? That ol’ duke. I miss his cooking! What’s he been doing with his life since retirement?”

  “Running into the Legion, apparently.”

  We arrived at the slum village. It was quiet, grim, and disorderly. The grounds were of grime and garbage. Makeshift homes were shacks built of stacked scrap wood. We trekked down yet another road and turned up a dark alley. Another turn took us to the road where at the end was the orphanage: a pyramid of haphazard cracked and rotted wood. It had four tiers with ladders on each level of rooftops, alongside hollow windows tall enough to walk through. Before we went through the door-less entryway, shouting echoed up the street.

  “Hey, Sphinx, you little rodent.”

  When Sphinx noticed who it was, his eyes veered into the dirt, and his head shook. “Here we go.” Three teenage boys sauntered toward us.