by Stephan Knox
Aari stood frozen in her place, trying as she could not to appear too horrified that she might be found out. But stare she did. She felt a sharp blade of anxiety bob in her throat as she swallowed battling the emotional storm that came flooding from her sym. How had they suspected? Had one of Tannin’s friend betrayed him? It didn’t seem possible. She swallowed hard again to maintain her nerves as she stood on the edge of a blade, to hear the woman confirm or deny her identity. Time seemed to stall as he old woman did, despite the marshals drooling anger to be answered. Rage was next to flood through her, more than just Aari’s but her sym’s too, more than she had ever felt come from it. Raging disparity that this seer would dare stand there and tell a blood lord what they wanted to know. As the Lord Marshal puffed his foul words into the woman’s face, Aari knew firsthand the stench of his breath as he barked in the old woman’s face was nothing to what he would do to her once he found out.
“I only saw where she could be found, nothing more. Kill her and find out for yourself,” the old woman, having never flinched under the Lord Marshal’s threatening stance, finally told him. The marshal let out a bellowing shout then shoved the woman to the floor.
The Lord Marshal turned for Aari. “Maybe I’ll just stick my dick in her first, get my thrills for the trouble, just in case you’re nothing but another used up wench.”
“I don’t think so,” Aari hissed as he reached for her. Swiftly she lunged back. She was quick. Quicker then his lumbering size and like lightening, she had the small razor blade of glass from the pocket of skin and when he came after her again, she used it to slice him open. In one downward stroke, Aari brought her glass blade down his face from forehead to jaw across one eye and the bridge of his nose. She jumped back a foot or more, dodging his blinding reach to grab her, and she landed in low crouch, ready to bolt or lunge.
The man roared up at the ceiling, his hand shooting up to the deep cut she’d just put there. He checked the blood that transferred to his hand, then pure rage twisted his face up and she saw her own death in the eyes. Determined to not go down without a fight, Aari bolted across the room to the far wall, climbed up on the gun mount, and hauled it around. Only a split second wasted on thought, praying it was loaded.
She flipped the safety guard, with her foot braced on its mount, she pulled the crank back with both hands until she heard the chamber load. The marshal came charging. Aari met his eyes and pulled the gun release.
The massive cannon surged upward with its belch of firepower that echoed like a concussion bomb trapped inside the room taking the floor with it. The steel flooring buckled and the cannon, with her in its holster, pitched backwards, slamming her into the wall.
The upper floor flooded with the sunlight that advanced through the large hole she’d just created blinding her. Aari shook her head, both from the pain in the back of her head and from the ringing sound still blasting inside her ears. She fought against the fog to get her senses back online, trying to access further damage, and her place in it all. But before she could, a shadow came to tower over her. Two hands closed around her head, locking on with a fierce angry grip. She’d hardly managed to glance up when the scream she intended was cut short with a severe bolt of pain that just as quickly turned pitch black.
The Lord Marshal glared down at the limp body attached to the head in his hands. Its eyes and mouth open in an inanimately muted scream. He let out a low growl that hacked from his throat. His mouth and brows both twisted up in an expression of disgust. Whether the old seer had tricked him or not, now it was useless. He flung the, now lifeless, body of the small framed girl from him, watching with a silent fury as it slid across the floor until slamming into one of the bent support beams— as limp as a rag doll— useless waste.
He snapped his gaze at the old woman. “You’ve wasted my time long enough, old seer.”
“Pity the general wasn’t here to decide for himself if she was worth a try to u—” the last of her words cut off by the Lord Marshal’s blade.
She’d hardly felt his blade. A slight tugging then done. Now, blood gurgled out from the slash in her throat and filled her mouth with its hot copper taste as it flowed freely down her chin. She smiled, feeling the venerable curl in her lips. She hadn’t done so in so many years. She could finally. Grateful for release from her slavery. She would never again have to give over the whereabouts of another Symbiotai again, or of the one.
A CHANGE OF HEART TOO LATE
Tannin hoofed it back to the small colony of huts, finding a number of its residents outside, onlookers who had witnessed the screaming and the MV4 fly-a-bout, others standing on the ready to defend their own if they returned. “Who powers up the Scion MV4s?”
“They were once the Lord Maegrethe’s. But if the news you brought us is to be true, they now belong to the general and lieutenant colonel.”
“And where can they be found?”
“Sometimes you see them in the Dantuey soldiers’ camp. But the petrol fuel is heavily guarded over by the Fortress. There in the center of the City of Maegray.”
“They say the fortress is made from the steel belly of a giant whale. Is that true?” Another called out his curiosities.
Tannin didn’t answer. He knew about the metal whale. A giant it was, but one that carried storage containers of supplies that once served the old-world people, some supply-things few people of today could identify. Now, the ship and the containers had been turned into a city of dwellings. All irrelevant for what concerned him most right now. Aari.
He wasted no time repacking their gear and headed out for Dantuey. From there he hoped the news he had would barter for a ride. It was otherwise a full day’s travel plus part of a night to reach Maegray on foot from the soldier’s camp.
At a full run, a quarter of a night’s travel, Tannin arrived at the camp of Dantuey just as the dawning light was cresting over the mountain range. Morning patrols came out to warn him off. But his offering of news changed their minds and he was led to a large mud and dauber structure in the center of the field camp made up of rows and rows of tent-sized and shaped shelters, littered with just as many lean-tos of whatever material could be found. Behind them, along the line of trees, pole corrals kept horses and mules. A few men, who were just waking up gathering around the morning fires for coffee, turned and watched as they passed.
Tannin waited outside the large tent of their leader, while another went in. He scanned the army then peered out over the horizon, hoping Aari was still alive. His thoughts interrupted when someone from the inside pulled the flap door aside and waved him in.
Inside, there were no formalities, no introductions, the question was plain and clear. “What’s this drenn you’re spouting about?” the general asked.
Tannin kept his confidence, mapping the man out with a breath and a distrusting eye with every exchange of words between them. But as it was, the general had a sense of things of his own and had suspected trouble to eventually come their way as Tannin told him the news of the incoming army of Lord Jazirian in a manner he hadn’t made plans for. The direct way.
“And why should I believe you?”
“I’m a nomadic, we see things long before city and camp dwellers do. But by all means don’t. Your army getting slaughtered will be no loss of love on my part.”
“So why bring me this?”
“To sell.”
“For?”
“I need a ride in. The intel I just gave is worth more, but a ride is all I need.”
“To where?”
“Inside the city. I have a sister who works in the fortress. I planned to get her out before Jazirian sets the city on fire.” Tannin paused a moment then decided it was worth letting the general know just how well he knew Lord Jazirian. “You do know his method of death is a pit of fire, don’t you?”
The general glanced away, a motion of surrender that he knew full well that it was. But as far as the general was concerned, letting Tannin leave with
his life and limbs intact was payment enough. Tannin wasn’t going to waste any more time arguing it. He headed out.
Frustration howled inside him, but at least the side trip had not taken him out of the way. He buried their packs not knowing if their path would ever afford them to come back for them, but he would gain speed without them. Keeping nothing but a water skin, his sword, gun and small knife, Tannin turned his path south-southeast and headed out in a run, hoping to gain time. It was still a full day’s travel just to reach the city. Maegrethe never did like having his army too close to his fortress. And Aari may not have that much time before they discover what she was.
Tannin had stopped at the base of the mountain ridge when he spotted a few puddles of water and knew he had to stop. His skins were getting low, and there were few sources of fresh water between him and Maegray. He pulled the water sacks, getting two filled before turning the puddles into mud, so he sat back and drank his fill a moment waiting for the water to settle so he could fill the last bottle.
He was just finishing up when he had visitors.
The Keepers appeared before him, pain-stricken faces told him they were aware of what they had lost. Yet even such pain didn’t stifle their reasoning for approach.
“There is still the other breeder. She is ready to accept you in union,” the one who spoke seemed similar. But Tannin was uncertain if this was the same one who had accompanied the priests that had approached him on the path to present the new breeder female.
“Aari is the breeder for me,” Tannin growled through clenched teeth. The very suggestion had him seething. He stood flinging the waterskin about his shoulder making it clear he was leaving. Aari was in danger, he did not have time for fucking and mating for their causes.
“She has been lost,” the other then spoke.
This one Tannin did know. He was the one who had been following them. The one who referred to Aari as the child.
Tannin snapped his attention to him. “No. I will bring the place down to free her.”
The air between the two male Keepers stirred and there before them stood a woman. She was tall and some part of her radiated a warm glow, but whatever light meant to be seen was shadowed as though overcast with clouds bent on blocking the sunlight.
The sensation, phantom as it may be, was there but it could not be seen or felt.
She stepped up beside the small puddle of murky water and swept her hand out above it. Its surface rippled as if a breeze had disturbed it. “See for yourself,” she suggested, though the quiver in her voice as she spoke was evident.
Tannin stepped closer, his gut twisting into a painful knot, and Sif fought with him to still his feet. But Tannin had to look. He had to know.
The image he saw flung him to his knees, the ground crashing up to slam him even harder as his eyes fixed down in the reflection of Aari’s face. Dull eyes stared out into nothingness. Not even a spark of sadness or the defiance that had always kept her going. Her mouth gaped open as if to scream. He wondered if she had managed it. The reflected mirage panned out and Tannin saw her lifeless body dumped in a twisted heap next to another; a wrinkled face of an old woman whose throat had been slashed open.
“No!!!!” Tannin swung his fist at the vision, pounding through it, casting the water from the hole so the vision no longer existed. It wasn’t enough, and he continued to pound his fists into the ground around his legs, his raging animalistic cries echoing off the rocky gorge. A cataclysm of wailing howls and feral roars, none of which were human. Roars, so filled with anguish, they shook the ground and a small bit of loose rock began to slide and bounce down the sloping sides, landing around their feet like the tapping sands of broken granite that often warned of landslides. But no one moved.
Words formed like emotions in Tannin’s mind. Hate and Kill. Hate and Kill. Over and over the beasts resounded inside him. His? Sif’s? It didn’t matter. Men were going to die for this. He would see to it. And whatever penance he would have to pay for it, he would gladly accept for having brought Aari into such dangers. She had been right; he should have left her at the base. Even in the lion’s den she had been safer there with them than with him.
Tannin took a deep breath, his head slunk down as he finalized his conviction, and self-induced exile for the crimes he had and would commit.
A hard swallow, a nervous sound preceded the words, making its way into the steaming heat and malevolence in Tannin’s thoughts creating a brutal plan of action, the oddity of someone speaking to him roused him from the blood red haze he saw.
Tannin surged up, his hand flying out faster than eyes could see, catching the Keeper by the throat and clamped tightly around it. An act that should not have been possible, but here he was with a Keeper strung up in his fingers. “What— did— you— just say— to me?” the staccato of words barked out with bitterness.
“Will you— accept the new—breeder as your union?” the younger appearing Keeper forced words passed the vice grip of Tannin’s hand.
Tannin didn’t let go, nor did he slacken his grip. An act that would likely condemn his soul to an eternity of haunting punishment. He still didn’t let go. He pulled the Keeper to him, to leer into his face. It did not matter which Keeper he held in his hands as he contemplated snapping his neck as Aari’s had been. The Keepers were all one, they were not separate as humans were or so said the story tellers of long ago. Tannin pulled the one in his grip closer as he growled the accusations into the Keeper’s face. His nostrils flaring heat and rage down upon the man. “You once told me Aari’s destiny was no longer visible to you. Yet, you look at her now. You saw her all along. You could have prevented this,” Tannin spoke, not caring of consequences for himself. Only of those that had been paid by Aari.
The Keeper remained impassive. “We saw the Seer sacrifice her life. When we looked, we found little Aari had suffered death with her.” But then a tear streamed down the Keeper’s face, a face that transformed, mutating into the elder Tannin had grown familiar with while the other’s presence shifted into the one he had held. A transformation that made no physical difference to Tannin’s hold, but the anthropomorphic switch had taken place all the same. And the elderly Keeper’s eyes filled with the pain of the truth. The one he’d called child was gone from them forever.
“Aari was promised to me and I to her. There will be no other.” Tannin’s arm shot out, shoving the Keeper from him and into the nearby pile of boulders. What control Tannin found he could not say for even his sym demanded blood and it didn’t care whose it had.
By dusk, Tannin traveled to the pit of death and searched. The stench of decay burned his every sense, making it impossible to distinguish Aari’s corpse from any other. Still he kept searching over the pile of bodies. And then, just as the day’s light began to fade, he spotted the old woman, her eyes hidden behind thick cataracts, and her severed throat, laced with the lines of dried blood. Too many hours had passed and amid a swamp of rotten flesh played, one corpse differed only in the extent of decay of numerous days or most recent. But Tannon was certain the old woman he had seen in the puddle’s reflection and this one where in the very same position. Only— Aari’s body was nowhere to be seen. He felt the pain, one he’d never felt before, making his eyes burn and his chest swell with an empty ache. He didn’t bother pinch his shoulders against his sym— this was his. — heartache. She was gone. Gone forever.
His little Aari.
“You should leave this place. Bad omens for Maegray,” an old rickety voice spoke to him like an everyday occurrence.
Tannin spun around, ready to engage in a fight but the urge quickly faded upon the man. Scarcely more than a scarecrow, his thin arms hung about him as loosely as the trousers and burlap coat roped around his waste did. Hair white flopped over his head like wisps of fog and from his chin. It was his eyes that struck Tannin. One damaged and blind. The other as blue as the sky.
“Even the dead don’t want to stay here anymore,” he added a
nd waved his chickens out into the field of dead before dropping down on a large boulder, turning his face upward, and letting the day’s sun warm him.
“The dead are leaving?” Tannin cocked his head curious if this was Aari he spoke of or just some senile old man.
The man, hardly more than leather hung over thin bones, nodded his head and pointed a shaky finger towards one spot then another. Then used his finger to draw a trail up over the bank and away as if doing so painted the image needed to understand. He looked back to Tannin and nodded.
It meant something. A metaphor— a vision that mirrored the living perhaps. “Tell me, old friend. Why do the dead leave?”
This time he shook his head, a slow movement that nearly rocked him right off his perch. “Maegray has killed its melancholy bride, Death comes for us all,” his weathered voice shook under the warning. “But those who died sooner, wish not to witness it. Or perhaps they make room for those to come.
Tannin twisted and pointed to where Aari should have been laying. “There was one dead here. Right about here. Did she leave too?”
“Yes, she was the first. I near drenned upon myself as I sat here frozen. Took me nearly all day to get the courage to get up and go home.”
No one comes here for the dead. Not in the cities. Not here, where there were too many dead for ceremonies of goodbye. Aari’s body had been here and now she was not, which meant only one thing. Aari was alive. She had comeback from the dead once more.
“Do you know which direction the dead travel?”
The frail man nodded once more, twisting his mouth up in an oddity of gestures then his shaky arm floated up and pointed off towards the south, his finger tapping at the air.
“Sif, she’s still alive,” Tannin whispered to the wind in a sorrowful expression. He closed his eyes and everything flooded back at him. Seeing the men drag her away kicking and screaming before vanishing into the MV4 tossing her about like a rag doll had taken ten solar cycles off his life. The threat that she would be killed, and never again would he get to look upon her face, or feel her touch, terrified him.