UnNamed

by Krista Gossett

  “What’s gone?” Sunday pressed, her voice slow and condescending as if politely speaking to a child or a spooked horse.

  “The thrall. I couldn’t use it when I was imprisoned and I can’t find it now either,” he admitted, spreading his hands as if the jig was up and they could go their separate ways.

  Dolly bobbed her head seriously.

  “That would explain why you didn’t just break out on your own,” she murmured.

  “It was the only way we could know for sure what Cherry suspected. You wouldn’t tell us anything,” Sunday accused, even though it was laced with guilt.

  “And what did you suspect?” he asked, turning to face Cherry.

  “That you’re not completely an asshole. You’re welcome,” she said, grunting as she struggled to close a pack that was burgeoning with new supplies.

  They had returned his own overstuffed pack and cloak to him, having even obtained new guards at that. Maybe it paid to only be a partial asshole. Even if you couldn’t dig half a hole.

  “I was really looking forward to learning your name though,” Dolly said with clear disappointment.

  “At least now we know why you’re keeping your distance. Pull another stunt like you did with Reina though and I’ll ruin your pretty face,” Brute teased.

  He winced at the word ‘pretty’ as Brute followed it with one of her patented guffaws.

  Reina’s eyes actually met his for a moment and in lieu of hatred, there was at least resignation. Amber couldn’t meet his eyes, clearly tormented by her own demons.

  He might have thought on it more, but Cherry started retching behind him.

  “Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that rabbit. Way too much grease,” she blubbered, wiping her mouth and watering eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  Silence closed over them once more, but he hesitated to break through it again. Did he need to remind them that he was useless once more? Even so, the compulsion to continue towards whatever the fuck they were after had not lessened at all.

  Instead, he was content to finish a meal fit for a human being and aim for a dreamless sleep that didn’t smell like a bucket of his own shit.

  ‘Amber’ was only a girl when she had first seen the Rathbern Knights parading through the streets. She had never been the sort to ask her parents for ribbons and trinkets like the other girls; her eyes were only for the shiny armor of a Knight. She met their procession that day with wistful sighs.

  “Mommy, where do they get such beautiful armor?” she had asked, not so subtle in her implication of wanting it for herself.

  “It’s special armor, dear; only the Knights wear it,” her mother had said, patting her arm and leaving it at that.

  What was a Knight of Rathbern? When her mother hadn’t taken the hint, she had asked her father to take her to the library with him, gathering any book she could find on the Knights, even the tedious tomes that were little more than a roster of Knights past and present.

  She had memorized the names of every one of them and when her father would open his morning papers, she would scan the pages for any mention of the Knights, begging her father to read it to her. It had become a ritual for them, but her parents humored her, sure that it was yet another phase that would pass.

  Fourteen was the age of enlistment and she had posted a calendar, marking the days to that important birthday. As the days loomed closer, her mother stopped showing the same enthusiasm and a few weeks before that birthday, the calendar had gone missing.

  “Mom, did my calendar get moved?” she asked, already knowing that the truth would not be something she would want to hear.

  “Hmmm?” her mother asked with feigned innocence, her ready smile forced against the charade of ignorance. “Ah, I’m sure it just fell while I was cleaning. We’ll have to get you another.”

  As the days went on, she knew that another calendar would never appear. Her father had stopped reading his papers at the table, keeping them from her. She already had the details tattooed in her heart, marking each day as it passed, but noticing more keenly the wool they had pulled over their eyes.

  No day had been more depressing than the day her birthday finally came.

  Every year, she would wake to a cake and presents, her loving parents making a spectacle of their only child’s big day. This time, there was nothing and her parents moved about mechanically as if were any other day.

  She had stood in the doorway and watched them, clutching a bag of her meager possessions as they pretended she wasn’t there. She cleared her throat and still they hovered about in blissful ignorance.

  “I’m going to the store,” she had murmured.

  It was the last time she ever spoke to them.

  On a day that should’ve been the most glorious of them all, she had wandered along the main street, barely registering anything around her. She moved with tunnel vision towards the towers of the Rathbern Barracks, only blurred by the stubborn resurfacing of unwanted tears.

  She had been able to pass initiation with flying colors, but the days passed without joy, her focus only on her accomplishments and her goals. Months had passed and her diligence had led to her first promotion. Surely her parents would be proud of her after she had worked so hard.

  She had made her way through the streets in full uniform, wanting to preen at the respect and salutes of the passersby, but dread made her steps heavy as she headed back towards her childhood home.

  Outside of the door, she had raised her hand to knock before letting it fall again to her side. She studied the familiar panels of that wooden door, but they became alien to her the longer she looked at them. She rounded the house, cutting through the side yard to look through the kitchen window.

  It was like she never left. Her mother was humming and sweeping at a floor that probably didn’t need it, her father with his nose in the paper. Their happiness only increased her despair as she watched. If either of them had merely looked out of the window, they would have seen her there as plain as day, but she stood there for hours and she had remained invisible.

  She left without ever knowing if they saw her or not.

  She could have succumbed to the despair, but she poured herself into her profession from then on. She had spent countless hours training her body in the courtyard of the barracks and the stolen minutes before sleep poring over histories and regulations and documents. There were no idle times, for those were the times when morning newspapers and her parents’ faces threatened to shatter her resolve.

  Years had passed, promotions piling up, and soon even their faces were forgotten.

  A patrol took her past her parents’ home one day and she had been relieved to see her feet had not weighed heavy as her proximity increased. She had walked up to the door and knocked without hesitation, drawing herself up proudly.

  The minutes had passed and no one answered. Would they have looked out of the window and purposely avoided her? She drew herself up taller, pounding louder this time.

  She heard the creak of the neighbor’s gate and looked over to see the old woman that lived next door alone smiling at her with sympathy.

  “Are my parents not home?” she asked the old woman and the old woman shook her head.

  “Moved. The house has been empty for a year now. They didn’t tell you?” the woman pressed, not knowing how cruel that question was.

  “Where did they move to?” she asked stiffly, not feeling she owed the woman any enlightenment when she had already been deprived.

  The old woman shrugged and started shuffling away.

  “No clue. Maybe the message was lost in the post?” the old woman offered in a voice that said it was unlikely.

  “Maybe…” she said, moving away from the door.

  She had wandered back to the barracks, rationalizing that at the very least, it was better to think they were somewhere else rather than dead. It was small comfort, but it had worked.

  The Triumvirate had requested an audience with her a few days later an
d she had been honored to accept. It would have been stupid not to, in any case. No one refused them and she had no reason to besides.

  She had foregone the armor of a Knight in favor of the ceremonial uniform. The silver embroidery was a mimicry of the etchings on her armor, sewn into the plush red velvet of the tailored jacket. She held the invitation, one that should have thrilled her, but saw the beautiful script with its cruel message.

  ‘And Family’ followed her name on the announcement.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” came the joking male voice behind her. She smiled at the man who would soon be her equal in rank.

  Her ambitions hadn’t left much room for friendship, but he had always taken the time to break through her shell. A faithfully married man, but a flirt and a joker nonetheless.

  Maybe she had seen a ghost. Whatever her family had once been, this man and the other men and women at arms had been the only family she had now.

  “Will you be there?” she asked, holding up the invitation she held.

  He smiled and clapped her shoulder.

  “Wouldn’t miss it. But I’d put your hair up unless you want it crooked. The Triumvirate have been known to bless Knights with terrible haircuts after laying the sword,” he warned, only halfjoking.

  “At least they’re not branding us like cattle then,” she shot back, making him laugh unexpectedly. It wasn’t like her to joke back, but she decided she ought to do so more often.

  He had been the one to escort her to the Hall of Ceremonies that day and for once the procession didn’t feel damning. She had allowed herself to feel proud, accomplished and deserving, smiling at the shouts of congratulations along the way.

  For how noisy it was on the way to the hall, it had been as formal as a library once they had filed into the hall. The doors shut behind them, immediately dampening the noise outside, a lump returning with the formality there.

  About a dozen fully suited Knights stood along either side of the runner leading up to the dais where the Triumvirate sat. She recognized their plastered-on smiles as ones her mother had favored before she had run off to join the Knights. She hadn’t realized she had been gripping her friend’s arm so hard until she felt him subtly pat her hand.

  She tried for a genuine smile but it wavered and failed as she made her way to the end of the crimson carpet, its length a clear indication of where they were to stop. Her friend’s arm unlinked from hers as they bowed and it took all her discipline not to fold her arms over themselves in a comforting hug.

  The man in the middle rose to his feet, the others joining him.

  She could scarcely hear the formalities of her name and title as he announced them when they competed with the hammering of her heart, only speaking up to murmur a thank-you for her new appointment. She had knelt to receive the honor of her knighthood, barely registering the little slice of metal scraping her ear at the clumsy attempt at ceremony.

  Rising to her feet, he had been ready to turn and attempt a casual departure when her body decided it would either lock up or she’d simply break into a run.

  The drawing of swords snapped her senses back into sharp clarity and she barely had time to register as her friend had been suddenly transformed into a grotesque pin cushion of swords. She thought surely she was next and her hands searched uselessly for a sword she hadn’t been permitted to bring.

  Even my Key, my Ashes of Rentosh… and I never go without it.

  The faces of the Guards who had murdered her friend were stony, the Triumvirates’ airy and casual despite the horror she had witnessed.

  Her eyes found one of the Triumvirate who looked at her with a serene smile despite the narrowed searching of his eyes.

  “Problem, dear?” he asked.

  She felt the eyes of the Guards wander over to her as they withdrew their swords from her dead friend with all the aplomb of drawing straws for a menial task.

  Her mouth flapped uselessly until she found one word to latch onto.

  “Why?” she asked, wondering if daring to question would prove fatal.

  The Triumvirate laughed in unison at her naïveté.

  “That one was embezzling to fund his own personal interests, my dear. Why else would it become so necessary to replace him? I hope this is a lesson to uphold the duty of your station with honor,” the one that had been quiet up to that point had added, the last two words dripping with a warning of what would happen if she crossed the line.

  It wasn’t like him. He had a family and he was the most honorable man she knew, but those were words she couldn’t say. Her nod felt like a betrayal, but she was terrified. Maybe she didn’t know everything about her friend, but it had been made very clear that the Triumvirate would not tolerate insolence and they could make any excuse to terminate her as well.

  She wished she could go back to that day when she was fourteen years old and tell her parents she was sorry, that no goal was worth losing them over.

  She felt her mother’s smile creep over her face as she bowed, not daring to collapse into tears until she was safely hidden from view in the space of her small, sterile room. When she had cried her last tears, she stood and ran her hands over the armor. For the first time, the impeccable shine had become dull.

  The acrid smells of sulfur cut through the cloying velvet blackness, Fajja’s favorite opening act.

  Only slightly better than the bucket of shit.

  Fajja stepped from his curtain of flame, holding two heads, the Triumvirate. He almost expected the heads to dance when Fajja let go, but they obeyed gravity and common sense and clattered as they fell.

  “Three heads would have been better, but someone got a little carried away,” Fajja practically purred as he sidled towards him.

  “If you’re going to tell me I’ve outlived my usefulness and my head will do, let’s get it over with.”

  Fajja laughed at his usual brashness and shook his head.

  “No, no, the seed was spent, but the thrall is still there. You’ll remember you couldn’t call it at will before, now could you? Only when the Maidens shifted the Realms for you. Seeds are tricky little things, but this one will last.”

  Before he could protest, another glowing ball, this one green, slammed into his sternum, filling him once more with the overwhelming lust for blood.

  Fajja started to turn away.

  “The thrall is changing me,” he told Fajja.

  Fajja paused, before speaking over his shoulder.

  “The borogs will bother you no more.”

  The sky was the sickly grey of borogs as the lingering smell of the ‘dream’ departed.

  “Liar,” he mumbled, only noticing the weight of Cherry’s head on his shoulder as it lifted to look at him.

  “Good morning to you too,” Cherry teased, knowing those words were not meant for her.

  “Liar,” he repeated, not feeling like any morning was particularly good, even if this was the best in recent memory.

  He sat up quickly as he noticed something in the distance towards Orendon. Cherry smacked his chest as she was violently shoved away in his haste.

  There were lights twisting around each other in the distance.

  “You called the beacon without me?” he accused, turning his narrowed eyes on her.

  She shrugged.

  “Well, yeah. You didn’t have your thrall, so we didn’t want to take chances,” Cherry admitted, her own eyes shifting warily towards the anomaly.

  He studied it for a while before he spoke again.

  “And just what the hell does it mean?” he asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

  “No clue, but none of us like it…” Cherry confirmed.

  “It is possible that they are connected somehow, but more likely, a combined Gate…” Sunday piped up from where she had taken on cooking duties once more.

  “You mean, one of the Maidens could be dead already.”

  He said what the others had already been thinking and they weren’t grateful to
hear the words said aloud.

  She was in Orendon, if so, where they had fucking started. They had been so fixated on the lights coming from Kylrith, they hadn’t even bothered to look where they already started. No, that wasn’t right either. It was possible that the Maiden had traveled there, being drawn there just as mysteriously as he had. Speculation was pretty useless and regret wasn’t in his vocabulary.

  At least that’s what he liked to tell himself.

  Orendon was exactly how they left it only now the sense of danger had increased. It would be folly to just show up altogether so they had split off. Cherry had gone back to the Red Mare with a new bouncer and barmaid in tow. Reina and Sunday had gone off towards the orphanage in Central District while he had stayed with Amber in the Nouveau Quarter.

  Part of him was still back in his time. As he climbed onto a roof that he had once spent a night with Brat on, he noticed there was no drainage here, no rain awning, and it hadn’t ended there.

  He took the binoculars from the front of his pack, ones that Cherry had added, and peered down to see there was no fence around the well, the pump actively irrigating the dry land. No hanging gardens, just the typically ones you might see anywhere.

  From up there, he could see Orendon was nearly desert in this time, a state he couldn’t say for sure he ever remembered it being in.

  “Does it ever rain here?” he asked Amber, who shrugged. “I assume your ‘Cherry’ does not let the dead pass the Gate much and she has been away besides,” Amber told him.

  He could not hide the look of incredulity.

  “You mean to tell me the Rain Maidens are the only reason it rains?”

  It wouldn’t explain why it rained all the fucking time in his future then.

  “Weather patterns are not something the Gods ever troubled themselves with,” Amber explained, her tone dry and scolding. “However, the Rain Maidens do hear the pleas for rain during droughts and can answer them. When the dead violate the Gates and cross back into the Realms of Men, the rain is also a signal of that trespass.”

  “How do you know the difference between them?”

  “We just do. It also doesn’t make much sense that we are in all three Realms at once, but we are.”