by Travis Bughi
Sir Mark gave a heavy sigh and dropped his quill. With two ashen hands, he reached up and rubbed his eyelids before leaning back in his chair. When he looked at her again, she could have sworn she saw moisture welling in his gaze.
“Emily Stout,” he said. “It’s truly you. By Ephron, we’re saved.”
Chapter 25
Of all the things Emily had expected to hear when she confronted Sir Mark, ‘we’re saved’ had not been one of them.
She had expected anger and annoyance, flavored with despising stares and menacing scowls. Sir Mark had never been kind to her, always distrusting and viewing her as a blight on the world. She’d despised him long before Takeo told her the knight had taken part in the angels’ assassination, but now she knew, and yet still she was not prepared for what he’d said.
She was not prepared to see Mark grateful for her return.
“I didn’t think help would come.” Mark looked up to the ceiling, blinking. “I didn’t believe him, and yet here you are. I don’t even know what you’ve brought, but you had to bring something. Please tell me you’ve brought something?”
Emily was at loss for words, gaping. Steam poured out from her mouth in the icy chill created by his presence.
“Ah, I’m sorry.” Sir Mark rose suddenly from his chair, making Emily tense. “Where are my manners? Please, sit.”
He gestured toward one of the two chairs opposite his desk, but Emily’s confusion did not lessen. She hesitated. Her fingers touched her knife handle for comfort before she reluctantly strode forward to take a seat. Mentally, she touched the colossus again. It was close by, and she drew strength from that knowledge.
“Here, you may want this.” Sir Mark’s hands disappeared behind his desk and then returned holding a blanket. “I apologize for the air. It’s not something I can control, and I’m sure it doesn’t conjure pleasant memories for you. I find this helps.”
He extended the blanket to her. She looked at it suspiciously and did not take it. Some of the warmth from his features faded.
“Well,” he coughed. “I’ll just leave it on the table then.”
He set the blanket down and took his seat. His arms folded across each other over the desk, resting atop whatever he’d been writing on a few moments ago. Emily noticed his eyes were blue now, like Count Drowin’s had been, and she wondered how she could have missed that until now.
As the silence crept on between them, Mark sighed heavily and said, “I forget how difficult you can be. Please, Emily, I find it hard to believe you came all this way to hear me talk. I’m not even prepared, but I’m assuming you are. You’ve come a long way. What do you have to say to me?”
“Actually, it sounds like you were expecting me,” she said, keeping her voice level. “And how would you know that? How would you know how far I’ve come?”
“You’re not a very secretive woman, Emily.” Mark narrowed his eyes. “You left Lucifan to seek Juatwa, following Ichiro Katsu’s wife. Word has reached me. I know that she is dead and he is not. I’m not sure how you missed the actual threat, but I suppose you’ve always had a knack for slipping things up.”
There’s the Mark I remember, she thought, almost smiling. That didn’t take very long.
“Insults?” she said. “How strange? You seemed so happy to see me just a few moments ago.”
“You? No, no, dear Emily. I am not happy to see you. I was just happy to see . . . well . . . something. Indeed, I was expecting something, yes, but your tone makes me think I’ve mistaken you with the something I wanted—no, needed—to see. You’ll have to forgive me for being eager. I’m under a great deal of stress right now.”
“Stress that requires the colossi to be killed?”
She rushed those words, which took away from the strength they might have had. Truthfully, she hadn’t meant to bring them up so soon, but her mind was having difficulty stalling. She’d traveled too far to draw things out now. That wasn’t her way. Sir Mark was her enemy, and he deserved as swift of a death as she’d dealt to all the others who’d shared that title.
“Is that why you’re here?” he snorted. “For some broken statues? To judge my authority? And what would you know about ruling Lucifan? What an absolute waste of my time. I can’t believe I expected to see anything in you. Be gone, little girl. I have enough troubles. My judgment and punishment has already been procured.”
“Wrong.” Emily leaned forward and slammed a fist on the desk. “I’m your punishment!”
Sir Mark did not jump at Emily’s anger. He stared at her like he always did, as a parent managing a temperamental child. The difference now was that he was a vampire, an immortal, with a strength and speed beyond anything humanly possible. His cold eyes bore the comfort of that knowledge, that feeling of superiority that must surely come when time becomes the slave instead of the master.
Emily did not balk, though, nor shrink or cower. She met his gaze and watched as the spark of a memory set off in Sir Mark’s sharp mind.
“Was that a threat?” he said slowly. “That was, wasn’t it? Just like you gave Count Drowin. You’ve come here to kill me, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Emily replied. “And I will, too. There’s no way out of it.”
“How?” Sir Mark looked her over, squinting in curiosity. “There’s no sunlight in this room, or windows for that matter. Do you have basilisk poison? You can’t have traveled to Themiscyra and back so quickly, or did your amazon friends bring it? That must be it. They brought it for you, and you timed your arrival with theirs. Is it your knife that’s coated in the stuff? Must be, judging by how quickly you grabbed it when you came in.”
“That’s not it at all, but don’t concern yourself with the details. As I told you before, your punishment has come. I know about the angels.”
Sir Mark’s demeanor changed so swiftly it was as if Emily had fired a gun. His scowl and grimace melted into shock, his narrowed eyes lifted, and his hunched shoulders slackened. A look of regret and dismay washed over him, and he leaned back into his chair, mouth hinging open.
“What?” he stuttered. “What do you know about the angels?”
“I know you betrayed them,” she said, “and helped plot their assassination. I know that Ephron escaped and fled, but you told everyone that he and his siblings abandoned the city. You are responsible for their deaths, and I’m here to kill you for it.”
Emily summoned the colossus in her mind, reaching out to touch its hallowed consciousness before Mark could reach her. She expected him to charge, perhaps flipping over the desk in the process, so she had been about to command the colossus to rise from the ocean and charge when Mark’s next action gave her pause.
He showed no anger or malice. His look of regret and dismay worsened to anguish. He froze, leaning back in his chair, his neck slumped, so forlorn that Emily thought he might die of depression. It was enough to make her falter. She hadn’t expected regret.
“Yet another learns the truth,” Mark whispered. “I won’t deny it. Your accusations are right. I did all those things. I’m not sure how you found out—by Gavin, I’m assuming—but you are right. When you said you came here to kill me, I should have known you’d discovered my sins. I should have known they’d come about eventually. I won’t stop you, of course. I rather agree with your desires and, not too long ago, I would have begged for whatever ending you have in mind. I would have fallen to my knees, gasping in tears, pleading for you to end my torment. Now though? Now, instead, I can only warn you: if I die, Lucifan will die with me.”
And then it was Emily’s turn to be shocked. She could feel the colossus poised beneath the bay, awaiting her command to come forth, but she gave no order. She released it slowly, slipping back to reality, and leaned back in her own chair.
“You know.” She blinked. “You know Jabbar is coming.”
“Who?”
“Ichiro Katsu,” Emily said. “You know Ichiro Katsu is coming.”
“Of course I know he’s coming!”
Mark sighed. “Only a bumbling fool would think otherwise, which seems to be the entire world except for me, and apparently you. Even Ephron knows, and yet he will not help. As I’ve told you before, my judgment and punishment has already been procured, and Lucifan will die alongside me for my sins.”
Emily’s mind was reeling. She could almost feel the sky falling on her as every plan she’d had for this conversation came crashing down.
“Ephron knows?” Emily eyed Mark. “How would you know what he knows?”
“I told him, or more specifically, I wrote to him.”
Her breathing became strained, and her fingers went a touch numb. She and Mark shared unblinking stares as Emily realized she was far too much in the dark to kill this man now.
Everything has to be a fight.
“You’re going to start from the beginning,” Emily ordered, “and tell me everything I want to know.”
“And why would I do that?” he asked.
“Because Quartus gave me the last colossus, and it’s waiting for you and Katsu beneath Lucifan’s bay.”
Mark’s pale, icy face shifted ever so slightly. Emily had just made a grand boast, and had it been anyone else, he likely would have laughed. Emily did not make a habit of telling lies, though, and for once, Sir Mark understood that.
“As I said before, I am here to judge,” Emily added. “Start with Ephron, and why you betrayed the angels.”
Mark took in a long breath and released it, sending no mist into the room. Eyes, cold and blue, broke away from hers to peer around the darkened room. Mark pushed the blanket toward Emily, and she accepted it this time, tossing it over her chilled, exposed legs, but leaving her knife handle exposed.
“Count Drowin was a persuasive man,” he started, “but I will not be so cowardly as to say I was under the influence of his spell. I’ve always distrusted nonhumans, the angels included. It disturbed me how my emotions could be swayed under their influence. I sometimes disagreed with their leadership—often, actually—believing they were not truly fit to rule Lucifan. I think that, perhaps, my opposition to them is what made them promote me. They wanted someone at their side who wouldn’t worship them, one who could do the necessary things. Little do others know that the Knights’ Order has always—for as long as it has existed—served the punishments to those who infringed upon the law. The angels, you see, are incapable of leveling punishments beyond temporary imprisonment and forced fees. This made them seem weak to me, and Count Drowin encouraged that belief. He led me to believe Lucifan would be better off if I ruled, and that he could help make it so.”
“And you believed him?” Emily snorted.
“I won’t trouble you with those details, but suffice it to say, his reasons were compelling at the time. But it did not happen overnight; my opinion changed slowly over a long career spent fighting against what seemed a tide of corruption that the angels’ mercy was incapable of stamping out. In my mind, it was only a matter of time before the angels failed and the city plunged into chaos, and then the unthinkable happened. Quartus died, sacrificing himself for you. The other angels revealed that to me in secret, though I never learned how they knew it as their oldest brother never spoke. But somehow they did, and they told me, perhaps as consolation to themselves for his loss, but all I saw was what I had suspected all along. The angels were weak, and their demise inevitable. Upon Quartus’ death, I made my final choice. I went along with Drowin’s plan and betrayed the angels, thinking it a necessary evil to save Lucifan from its creators. The plan went awry when Ephron escaped. I panicked at first, fearing he’d rally people around him with the truth of what happened, but he disappeared.”
“I saw him before he left the city,” Emily interjected. “It was his intention never to be found, but you did. How’d you find him? And why? Did you reach out for him to confess your sins?”
“Your voice may be dripping with sarcasm,” Mark said, “but my answer is sincere. Yes, I did.”
Emily’s brows bounced in genuine surprise, and she folded her arms across her chest and gave Mark a nod to continue.
“I told you before. I never trusted anything not human,” he said. “On some level, I even hated them. They were nothing but monsters, every one of them. And then . . . then . . . Drowin made me one. With a single bite, he took away my humanity and doomed me to a life as some filthy creature. I can’t see the sun, my skin is so cold that I freeze the air around me, and I’ve become allergic to garlic, among other things. My teeth are troublesome, affecting my speech, and then there is the matter of immortality.
“Once again, I’ll spare you the details—I don’t wish to revisit them anymore than you do, I’m sure. I slipped into a bout of severe depression and struggled to overcome a slip into temporary insanity. I never hated myself more than I did at that time, and in desperation, I began abusing my powers to find out where Ephron had gone. I wanted to find him, to tell him what I’d done, in the hopes that he would seek me out and kill me, thus ending my misery and avenging the angels I’d betrayed. Around this time, the colossus left Lucifan, sending the city into an uproar.
“I’ll tell you that it was not an immediate decision of mine to destroy the other two. There was much debate, but you must see it as most others did. This colossus stood up without any warning and charged off into the sea. We had thought them dormant, but now this one showed they weren’t. No one had any idea where it was going, what it was going to do, or what would happen. Many believed the colossus had gained a mind of its own, and that fear dominated all talk. Angry mobs gathered in front of the Tower. Some citizens tried to take matters into their own hands and marched on the remaining colossi with hammers. I had to assign knights to guard the statues, spreading my forces thinner. In the end, it was decided there was no reason to keep the remaining colossi intact, except as a memorial to the angels, so I ordered them dismantled, enraging some, but bringing relief to many, many more. One of those I angered was Sir Gavin Shaw, and he’s the missing link in all of this.
“I had been seeking the angels as quietly as I could, but with no success, when that young knight came bursting into my office, drunk and belligerent. My first thought was that this was only an act, considering that Duncan had recently passed away—”
Mark froze and blinked at Emily, but she waved and nodded, saying, “I’ve heard. Go on.”
“Yes.” Mark cleared his throat. “That was a tragedy, so I thought Gavin was losing his grip on reality, not unlike me. However, my thoughts changed when Gavin told me that Ephron would see me dead for what I’d done.”
Damn you, Gavin, Emily swore. First Duncan and now Ephron? What else was he going to lie to her about? That stupid ex-knight knew full well it was Ephron who had healed him all those years ago, and yet he’d never said a word to Emily. What else was he hiding?
“Long story short,” Mark continued, “Gavin revealed to me he knew Ephron was alive, and he even had an idea of where the angel had gone. I asked him how he knew this, and he told me about your last meeting with the angel. Honestly, I should have been able to piece that together myself after seeing the allies you used to storm Count Drowin. Anyway, Gavin told me this and then added that he was resigning as a knight, leaving Lucifan on a quest to find the angel and bring him back.”
“Let me guess,” Emily mused. “He meant it as a threat, but you took it as a sign.”
“One straight from the heavens above.” Mark nodded. “I surprised Gavin first by agreeing with him and then by telling him that, when he found Ephron, he was to tell the angel that it was me who had betrayed them all. I think had I not been immortal, Gavin would have killed me on the spot. Now Emily, you seem to be catching on quickly. Do you feel so inclined as to guess what happened next?”
With the evidence so plainly written, Emily had no need to guess. However, that did nothing to stop her from denying it. She shook her head and bit her lip, and her hands tightened into balls as anger boiled in her blood, beating back the cold that pricked her skin. She s
poke to the floor.
“Gavin found Ephron,” she said, “and Ephron forgave you.”
“He did,” Mark confirmed, voice as equally dismayed as Emily’s. “Neither Gavin nor I took it well, but unlike him, I recovered. I realized the angels, or at least the last surviving one, were far stronger than I would ever be. If he could find it in his heart to forgive a murderer like me, then I could find the strength to rule the city I had stolen from him.”
“By hiring ogres?” Emily sneered. “Interesting way to honor their legacy.”
“That decision was made for two good reasons, the first being that the ogres deserve better. Everyone thinks them monsters, myself included until I was turned into a monster myself. Now I see the error of my ways. I don’t expect you to understand, but have you ever considered that the ogres are monsters because we expect them to be?”
Emily instantly regretted her previous words. She shut her eyes and pictured Madam Sweeney shaking her little gnomish finger. Emily saw Krunk in her mind, remembered his smile, and then clenched her teeth.
“I have considered that, actually,” Emily answered.
“Then you are a cut above the rest of this city,” Mark said. “Most can’t put it together—that because the ogres grow up so fast, they are nothing but children trapped in incredibly large and strong bodies. They babble like children while looking like adults, only learning to speak clearly when they’re halfway through with their life. Precious few ever progress enough to refer to themselves in the first person. Violence is their life, and most of the violence in Lucifan burns bright from their involvement. By inducting them in large numbers into the Knights’ Order, I hope to break this cycle. They’ll have food, shelter, and pay. In time, they may even have honor. My knights tell me they are already growing more patient.”