The Veil

by Stuart Meczes

  A wave of relief rushed over me and I could feel tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. “She’s alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the others?”

  “All of those we took are alive and well.” There was a pause and then another sickening chuckle. “Okay not well, but they are alive at least. However, they have joined me in a very dangerous place. How long they survive here… well, that is up to them.”

  “I am going to find them,” I hissed down the Biomote receiver.

  “That is exactly what I want, Alexander Eden. I want you to come and find them. I want you to come and find me.”

  “If you’ve heard of me, then you know what will happen when I do,” I spat through gritted teeth. “You’re going to beg for a quick death.”

  The Scorched Knight gave a bored sigh. “I must say I was hoping for more than such childish petulance. After I watched you dive right off the edge of the Luminar city, I saw a glimmer of the legend. And that excited me.” She gave a nauseating moan, as if she were aroused. “But this…this is all very pathetic. I will concede that anyone in this world beyond a single celled organism now knows of the Sorrowslayer and his deeds against The Sorrow and Highwarden Yeth.” She gave a slow series of deliberate claps. “I will commend you for the former – The Sorrow was a force that unnerved even me. However, the latter does not impress me one iota. Yeth always had a reputation for his hotheadedness and willingness to take big risks, probably something genetic in his nasty Skinshifter blood. The dance he did with you was a dangerous one that was never going to end on a good note.” She made a tutting noise. “I never quite understood why Hades felt the need to employ such an uncontrollable beast as one of his Highguards.”

  “As opposed to some freak in a burning suit of armour?”

  There was a long pause. That hit a nerve.

  “I would be careful with the words you choose to speak to me boy. My cordiality only stretches so far. Remember, I hold the lives of your friends and loved one in my hands. It would pay to remember that.” Beyond her voice, I could hear the muffled sound of some kind of distant chanting.

  “If it’s me you want then let the others go and I will meet you wherever you want, whenever you want. Just you and me.”

  Another laugh. “Now why would I do that? That is too simple, too kind. You have been a giant thorn in the side of my king for far too long. You have angered Hades, so he desires to make you suffer in return. If there is one thing I know well, it is suffering. So Sorrowslayer, you will scour this world looking for your people. And know that every moment you waste searching the wrong place will be a moment that they move closer to their inevitable demise. And then, when your spirit is broken, I will dismantle you bone by bone. Finally when you are screaming for the mercy of death, I will hand you to Hades and he will deliver the final blow.”

  “Now who’s delivering petulant threats?”

  Her mouth came close to the receiver, dry and rasping. “That, Sorrowslayer, is not a threat. It is a promise.”

  Another voice came through the Biomote, speaking in hushed whispers “Highguard, I am sorry to disturb you, but the crowds are growing restless. We need to begin soon.” The knight made a sound of agreement.

  It was at that exact moment that I knew what I was going to do next, what I was going to say to make things okay with Aegis. “I have an alternative idea. Are you listening, you crazy bitch?” I spat into the receiver.

  “Oh, I’m listening.”

  “I am going to rescue my friends and rip your spine out of your fucking body. Then I am going to serve your carcass to your cowardly master before I do the same to him. How does that sound?”

  Another laugh. “Well then it seems that the challenge has been set. Good luck Alexander Eden. You have one Earth week to find them. Once your deadline is up, if they are still alive and you are not standing face to face with me, they will die by my hand. And that is not something you want to happen…trust me.”

  “You won’t get the chance.”

  “I look forward to seeing you soon.”

  The Biomote gave another burst of static and then the link went dead.

  20

  Alex

  I barely had time to think my plan through before I was already carrying it out. I hoisted my holdall over my shoulder and walked out onto the sun-beamed walkway, straight over to the Lightwarden who had Crimson holstered on his back. I gestured out my hand as though I was offering to shake his. “I just want to say there are no hard feelings. I know you’re all just doing your job.”

  The warden glanced down at my extended palm and then reached out to shake it. The moment his eyes were off mine I used my other hand to cuff him across the jaw and pivoted around his back, sliding my blade free and pressing the razor edge against his throat in one quick movement. The Lightwardens let out a collective gasp of shock and then trained their gunpikes on me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Scarlett and Mikey being escorted by four other Lightwardens from their nearby homesteads. Mikey’s mouth fell open as he noticed me. “Bro, what the hell are you doing?”

  I didn’t reply. Instead I glared at the other wardens, as the one in my grip tried to control his panicked breathing. “Listen to me,” I said. “I don’t want to harm anyone. All I want you to do is bring Highwarden Caria here.”

  “And have you try and kill him too? I don’t think so,” growled one of the other Lightwardens, stepping forward, one eye narrowed as he prepared to fire.

  “I don’t want to kill him. I just need him to hear me out. This is important, he’s going to want to hear what I have to say…trust me.”

  The Lightwardens didn’t move.

  “When he gets here, you can have my sword, I promise. If he decides afterwards that he wants to throw me in the White Keep for terrorism he can, I won’t put up a fight.” I pressed the blade tighter to the warden’s throat. “Either that or I can fight my way through you and find him myself, which you all know I am capable of. What happens next is up to you.”

  The Lightwardens glanced at each other and then the one who had spoken lowered his weapon and raised his communication bracelet instead. “Highwarden Caria, this is Lightwarden Garrat. We have a situation here. Guardian Eden has taken a Lightwarden hostage and is refusing to let him go unless you agree to speak with him in person.” The Lightwarden paused. “He says that you will want to hear what he has to say.”

  There was a long silence and then the Lightwarden nodded. He glanced back up at me. “Highwarden Caria is on his way now.”

  I let out an internal sigh. “Thank you.”

  The rest of Orion gathered nearby, inside a ring of gunpikes pointing at their heads. I knew I was rolling a dangerous set of dice. If Aegis didn’t go for what I said, then I was putting the rest of my team in jeopardy, not to mention sacrificing valuable time that I could have been using to search for Gabriella and the others. But what choice do I have?

  “Alex? What’s going on?”

  I turned around – shuffling the sweating Lightwarden with me – and saw Iralia being escorted towards the cluster, her wrists shackled in adamantine cuffs.

  “Iralia,” I said. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you in any way?”

  Iralia frowned. “Hurt me? Heavens no. In fact apart from a touch of speciesism from a few ignorant ones, most of the Lightwardens were very pleasant.” She held up her shackled hands. “I mean I didn’t have the greatest amount of freedom, and it was boring being locked up in a small room with no outside windows and not a great deal to do. But by the looks of the city, I think I got the better end of the deal.” She nodded at the blade and gave a wry smile. “I must add dearie, you’ll probably need a really good reason to be doing that.”

  “I’ve got one.” I gestured a hand at her cuffs and then glanced at the Lightwarden escorting her. “Take those off her, she’s no threat to anyone.”

  “Well now that’s just selling me short,” she said with a smile, but held out her hands regardless. The
wardens escorting her looked to Lightwarden Garrat, who was clearly in a higher position than them.

  “Take them off,” he agreed.

  One of the wardens unshackled Iralia’s cuffs with a key attached to his belt. She rubbed at her wrists and then went to join Danny and Hollie, who were standing near my left side and staring down the business end of a dozen gunpikes. “I do hope you know what you’re doing,” she said resting on her back foot and folding her arms across her chest as a few pikes were aimed in her direction.

  So do I.

  For a while there was nothing but the tense stillness of a stalemate. I kept my blade pressed against the throat of the Lightwarden – who had settled into a resigned acceptance of his situation – and the dozen other Lightwardens kept their weapons trained on my fellow Guardians. Soren and Capis had fallen behind a thick sheath of cloud and a light pattering of rainfall started up, providing a bassline to the situation as it pattered against the wooden walkways and the lake water below. About ten minutes later I saw a set of figures walk from beyond the walled passage, evolving into Aegis and four more Lightwardens as they drew nearer.

  “Chaos and insubordination seem to be a part of your genetic makeup Guardian Eden. It is of little surprise that your own organization has left you to fend for yourselves regardless of your status,” he barked, as he passed through the ring of Lightwardens. He gave a shrug. “I am here now. Do as you promised or this will turn bad very quickly.”

  I pulled Crimson away from the Lightwarden’s throat and offered it out to him. He snatched the sword out of my hand with a glare.

  “Seize them,” ordered Highwarden Caria.

  The wardens set upon us immediately, twisting out arms behind our backs. I was gifted a thundering punch to my stomach by the warden I’d held captive, which had enough fury behind it that it knocked most the air out of my lungs. “You said you would listen!” I shouted as they started to cart us away. “You need to hear me out!”

  Aegis stared at me for a moment and then held up a hand. His men stopped moving. “You have one minute. Talk.”

  “Tell your men to get their hands off me so I can talk properly.”

  Aegis nodded and they let me go. I rubbed a hand across my stomach, which was already fading into a dull ache.

  “I just received a Biomote vocal-link from someone who calls herself the Scorched Knight.”

  Aegis’s blank face faltered. “The Scorched Knight spoke to you?”

  “Yes. She was here last night – I think she was in charge of the whole attack. She was the one who took my friends and the one who ordered all your men to be killed. I was chasing her when I jumped from the city’s edge.”

  Aegis’s expression became one of pure shock. Clearly he hadn’t realised that the Scorched Knight had been the one leading the charge on his city. “No one has seen her for many cycles. We all thought…hoped she had perished in one of the battles.” He rubbed a hand across his head. “Dear Elementals, if she is commanding the Quiet Ones again then the end is truly near. That would explain why the attack was so ferocious. What did she say to you?”

  “She said that she has Gabriella, Troy and Grey. That she wants me to come and find them, so that she can serve me to Hades to be killed. She gave me one week.”

  “And what was your response?”

  “I said that I would rescue them all and kill her instead.”

  Aegis nodded slowly. “If you were anyone else I would laugh in your face. The Scorched Knight is a truly deranged creature who strikes fear into the hearts of all Luminar. However, regardless of my personal feelings about you, you are still the Sorrowslayer and if anyone would stand a chance against her it would be you. Regardless, Pandemonia is a large and dangerous world. Unless she gave you an idea of where they are being held, your chances of finding them are grim at best.”

  “No. She said she wanted me to search, to lose hope.”

  The Highwarden narrowed his eyes. “The Scorched Knight is a torturer…she enjoys playing games. And people are her game of choice. If she has chosen to play a game against you then she would have given you some type of clue…I am sure of it.”

  I shook my head. “She didn’t say anything that said where she was.” I paused for a moment. “But I did hear a roaring sound – it was deep and powerful. And someone said something about needing to begin, as a crowd was growing restless.”

  Something registered immediately on Aegis’ face. “As I said, she did give you a clue…quite a large one in fact. She has taken your friends to one of the colosseums. The sounds you heard were the roaring of the crowds before a show. She let you hear all that on purpose.”

  With his words I cast my mind back and thought about what I’d heard again. It fit. “Holy crap, you’re right.”

  He nodded. “The Scorched Knight was probably ordered to leave you to wander around this world desperate and confused. But that is no real fun for her – you would certainly lose. Instead she gave you a chance to find your friends, a chance to win. The Scorched Knight is a highly skilled warrior. It is probably her hope that she can defeat you in battle herself and claim the glory.” Aegis was silent for a while longer. “What I want to know is why you caused this scene just to speak with me? Many people from Pandemonia could have worked that out. Between you all, you would have worked it out too given time.” He gestured around him. “You did this for a reason.”

  I stepped forward, which made the gunpikes click. “You’re right. Look Highwarden, I know that you dislike us. You think that we came to Pandemonia and judged how you run this city and the things you do without taking the time to understand what life is like in this world.”

  “You are not wrong.”

  I chose my next words carefully, making sure I didn’t admit that I now knew that the attack was designed purely to get to us. I know that won’t be well received.

  “I also imagine that even though you have real doubt over whether we were directly responsible for the attack on your city – otherwise we would all be in the White Keep right now – you still think that we are in some way to blame. Perhaps we are…you’re right that it seems a bit too much of a coincidence that the Umbra attacked right after we arrived in Fenodara. The truth is that I can’t explain how that happened…yet. Trust me though, that is something I will find out. But for now, I need you to understand what we said earlier…that you weren’t the only one who lost something yesterday. Important people I care about were taken from me, and I need your help to get them back.”

  Aegis gave an incredulous laugh. “Still you make this arrogant demand! Why in the name of the Elementals would I help you? I would sooner cast you from this city and never have to lay eyes on any of you ever again.”

  “Because I think that regardless of what you have been forced to do to protect this city, you are a good man.”

  “Appealing to my better nature will not help you here I am afraid.”

  “I know that. But we both have a common interest. You have said yourself many times that you are losing to the Umbra – you said only an hour ago that this is the endgame of the Ageless War,” I pointed out. “You said that right now the forces of Hades are marching towards all the remaining Luminar strongholds, including this one. You know that it is no longer a matter of months or years, but weeks at most before Hades reaches these places, and every species and subspecies of your class is expunged from the face of Pandemonia.”

  Aegis stiffened at my words. “We will not be caught unprepared again. They will not enter my city.”

  “Yes they will, Aegis. You are still reeling from the last attack and you haven’t had any time to properly secure the archives we opened. How quickly could the Umbra take them from you and find new ways hidden in those books to raze this city to the ground? You can’t survive this.”

  Aegis grit his teeth together. “Make your damn point.”

  I leaned forward. “My point is that the Scorched Knight’s forces killed thousands of your men and citizens and destroyed half of
your city. You want revenge. But she also took my friends and is planning to kill them as well. I want revenge too. Therefore we have a common enemy.”

  “The Scorched Knight.”

  “No. Sure it was her who carried out the attacks, but we all know it was under the order of Hades, and that most the Umbra species serve him because they are scared of what will happen if they disobey. I also know that Earth isn’t safe until Hades is gone.”

  “Are we going to listen to this boy speak all day long?” interrupted Warden Garrat. “Highwarden, let’s take them to the White Keep.”

  “Silence!” barked Aegis. He turned back to me, his expression intense. “What do you propose, Guardian?”

  “Give me and my team the support we need. Help us the best you can to reach those colosseums, rescue our friends and search for my father.”

  “And if I agree to help, what do we get in return?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “I will kill Hades.”

  21

  Gabriella

  Pain. So much pain.

  I tried to move, but it was as if the connection between my body and mind had been severed. All I knew was absolute, unceasing agony. It tore through every part of me - every muscle fiber, every bone, every patch of skin, throbbing and screaming in protest as my immune system fought against the deadly toxin that had worked its way into my system.

  I couldn’t even scream.

  My eyes managed to part slightly and through blurred vision all I could see was the high stone arches of a dimly lit corridor that was thick with dust and grime. It swept past me at a steady speed and it took me a moment to understand that I was being moved on something. The incessant squeaking of a rusted wheel revealed that I was lying on some kind of mobile stretcher.

  Voices around me. Gruff…unfamiliar. I tried to see who they belonged to, but my head wouldn’t move. My tenuous grip on consciousness slipped away.