by John Corwin
"Hopefully someone way up the chain." I caught a pair of bystanders gawking at me and wondered if it was due to the fake blood on my shirt, or just my clothes in general. I felt like the one guy dressed in street clothes at a science fiction convention. Civilian attire seemed to consist of dark skin-tight uniforms with very moderate variation in colors. "Why does everyone look so grim?"
Nightliss looked at the gathering crowd of citizens. "I imagine centuries of oppression forged this society. If Brightlings truly control much of Seraphina, the Darkling nation is but a speck in the grand scheme of things."
I leaned on her as if I needed her support to continue the fiction of my wound. "I'd bet every person here learns to fight from birth."
She nodded. "It would stand to reason."
The squad leader barked a command. The soldiers pushed us forward.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Nightliss repeated my question in Cyrinthian. The leader replied. Nightliss gave me a troubled look. "We're going to the Intelligence Ministry."
I didn't like the sound of that. "The Darkling version of the CIA?"
She gave me a confused look. "I'm not familiar with that term."
I clarified. "A spy agency."
"It would appear so."
A finger of mist from a cloudbank above touched a grassy patch of land between two of the towering buildings. The soldiers corralled us into the alcove. The leader sent a charge of Murk into the mist. Clouds billowed beneath our feet and shot us into the sky so quickly I hollered with alarm. The soldiers looked at me as if I was an idiot. One of them motioned at me as he spoke to Nightliss.
She gave me an apologetic look. "He said you looked as if you'd never used a skyway before."
"Tell them it hurt my injury." I didn't want them knowing this was only my second time riding a skyway.
Nightliss relayed the message.
The skyway carried us just high enough to skim the tops of the buildings. I spotted dozens of patrols in the streets below, though, soldiers perhaps, or maybe ordinary citizens. The clothing was hard to tell apart from this distance. A building of massive proportions in the center of the city seemed to be our destination. It looked as if someone had taken a cylinder, slightly flattened it, and twisted it into a spiral. Crystalline spikes protruded along the edges. Arcs of ultraviolet electricity ran up the spikes like something from a mad scientist's lab.
My apprehension grew stronger and stronger as we neared the building. What if they locked us away and I never had a chance to speak with a real decision maker? We might end up thrown into a dungeon and forgotten about while Elyssa died and Daelissa rampaged across Eden with her new troops.
Overpowering the soldiers and making a run for it seemed like a better idea every passing second. Unfortunately, I didn't know if we could commandeer the skyway to take us elsewhere or if it would deliver us to our destination first.
We passed over a wall of skyscrapers to an area clear of all other buildings except for the ministry building and, to my disbelief, giant pyramids resembling something straight out of Egypt. Eyes engraved on all sides of the top third of each pyramid stood sentinel, their outlines blazing with ultraviolet light as the top section rotated like the lamp in a lighthouse. I had no idea what they did, but knew for certain I didn't want to find out the hard way.
Platoons of soldiers marched along wide pathways between the pyramids. Some of the groups fragmented into smaller squads and walked through a flowing sheet of mist that outlined the large square plaza around the ministry building.
Our cloudbank broke from the skyway and abruptly descended at an alarming rate. I managed to hide my fear with a grimace and pressed my hands over the fake injury. We reached the ground just in front of the flowing sheet of mist.
One soldier led Nightliss through to the other side. Another took my arm and walked me through. There was a tingling sensation. The mist faded to light gray and a basso note ruptured the air. I hardly had time to be surprised before every soldier in the platoon was on top of me.
I caught a look of horror from Nightliss. "Justin, they said the mist identified you as a Brightling!"
Judging from the looks on my captors' faces, they were about to make my fake injury very real indeed.
Chapter 5
The soldiers whisked me and Nightliss toward the ministry building. As we neared the structure, I realized it also had a sheet of mist guarding the doorless entrance. The minute I passed through it, a stain of white spread across the mist as if someone had thrown a can of paint on it. A high-pitched alarm wailed briefly before a guard near the entrance sent a burst of Murk into a nearby gem and silenced it.
"I'm not your enemy!" I struggled in the grip of my captors. "I swear I love puppies and kittens."
They didn't even glance at me.
The hallways had a slight curve to them probably due to the odd shape of the building. We reached an intersecting corridor. The group of soldiers guarding me took a left while the ones with Nightliss took a right.
"Justin!" she called out before vanishing down the corridor.
I had a feeling things would only get worse from here. After all, they thought I was a Brightling. They thought I was an enemy spy attempting to infiltrate their city. It was time to get out of this mess.
The cord of Murk around my wrists was a problem. Thankfully, Elyssa had taught me a few ninja tactics to get out of certain situations. I flattened the palms of my hands against each other to brace my arms and tucked my elbows to my sides. The guards at my sides snuggled up to me as I'd hoped. I thrust my elbows hard into their sides. Before they could react, I delivered a crushing roundhouse to the first, turned to the other and head-butted him hard enough to send him crashing against the guard behind him.
I ducked beneath a punch from another guard. Bracing my hands against the floor, I swept my leg beneath his. His back slammed to the floor. I lifted my foot and brought it down hard on his head. He grunted and went still.
Three guards remained. Each one drew black steel, or whatever their swords were made of. A tall seraph held his sword high and brought it down as if to slice my skull in half. I took a gamble and thrust my arms up so the Murk binding my wrists met the blade. Ultraviolet sparks exploded from the impact. The aether rope arrested the swing of the sword just before snapping and vanishing in a puff.
Wrists free, I slapped the sword aside. I blurred forward and gripped the sword hilt. Before the surprised guard could react, I planted a foot in his abdomen and pushed him away. I spun and threw up my newly acquired sword in time to intercept a sword strike from the female guard. Her male companion circled me in a flanking maneuver. Before he completed the move, I charged him.
He threw up his sword. I batted it aside and slammed the flat of my blade on his wrist. His scream of pain echoed in my ears as he dropped his weapon. I rushed forward, buried my shoulder in his chest. He slammed into the wall. A crack ran up the material. I backed away and let him topple forward onto the floor.
The woman—the sera—said something in a frightened but determined tone of voice. I looked at her, bared my teeth, and said, "Take me to your friggin leader, lady."
She, of course, didn't understand me any better than I understood her and directed a flurry of attacks at me. She was supernaturally fast, but I was hyped up on human soul essence, the equivalent of angel steroids, and easily blocked her strikes. I disarmed her with a quick flick of my wrist. Fear shone in her eyes. I put the point of my sword to her neck and resisted the desire to say something witty. Anything I said would be lost on her thanks to my awful Cyrinthian.
A light bulb pinged on in my head. I took out Nookli and turned on the Cyrinthian translator app while my prisoner looked at it with a mix of curiosity and dread. I flicked through the settings and activated a feature that sent sound directly to the user's ear. I didn't see an option to send it to everyone and hoped a voice command would do the trick. "Nookli, transmit all audio directly to the ears of those nearby." I exp
ected my phone to reply with at least one reference to an Indian restaurant, but apparently, it knew I was all business right now.
"Translated audio will be broadcast to the auditory sensors of nearby entities," Nookli said. Whoever had programmed that app had obviously earned a degree in nerdology.
I put the phone back into my pocket and spoke. "Where did they take my friend?"
After a brief pause, a startled look entered the sera's eyes. She spoke in Cyrinthian. A split second later, a slightly robotic voice sounded in my ear. "Your friend in the holding cell is. Taken grass not far away."
I cringed at the awful translation, but it was better than nothing. Keeping my words as plain as possible, I said, "I am not a Brightling."
The sera narrowed her eyes at me and replied. "Security gracious nuts barrier otherwise says."
I blinked a couple times and wondered what mistranslated words equaled gracious nuts. "Lead me to my friend." I pointed the sword down the hallway.
Her lip peeled back in a sneer. "A song of justice to be mishandled I am not, beggar of destruction."
By now, I was ignoring the Cyrinthian she spoke and focusing on the translation instead. She'd obviously used an idiom because it didn't make a lick of sense to me. Instead of talking, I simply gripped her by her uniform and shoved her down the hall. "Lead the way, song of justice."
She muttered something and moved forward. By the time we reached the intersection where they'd split off with Nightliss, I realized the sera's help wasn't really necessary to find the holding cell in question, namely due to the contingent of guards standing near a doorway a few feet into the hall.
My prisoner cried out. I sighed and clunked her on the head. She dropped to the floor as six guards came my way. They held their swords in a similar fashion to Brightling soldiers, arms extended, blade diagonal to the floor. The stance was a median between aggressive and defensive. I visualized the quickest way to take them all down.
They stood two abreast. The corridor was wide enough for three bodies if swinging swords weren't involved. That meant I had a slight bottleneck to work with. Unless these guards were significantly better with steel than their unconscious compatriots, putting them out of commission shouldn't be too difficult.
Even so, I tried a little diplomacy first. "Your comrades are unconscious. Free my friend and we will leave peacefully."
Looks of shock passed over their faces as my phone transmitted the translation to their ears. The first two guards looked at each other with confusion.
The one on the left spoke. "A Brightling claims a Darkling as friend?"
I nodded. "She is one of my dearest friends."
"Used her to gain entrance you did," he shot back.
"Free her now, please." I put on a fierce scowl. "I won't ask again."
"There is no
Unfortunately, the time for translating was over. The guards charged. The first one made a chopping motion with his sword. I intercepted his wrist. Bent it back with a quick flick and heard bones crunch. He cried out and dropped the weapon. I spun him around and used him as a meat shield. His companions held back, unwilling to risk his life. I shoved him forward into the second guard, sending them crashing into a heap. Before they could recover, I thwacked them both in the head with the hilt of my sword and sent them to dreamland.
The last four guards sheathed their swords. At first, I thought they'd given up. Instead, they gripped each other's forearms. A sphere of Murk formed in the palm of the seraph on the end. He extended his arm and a bubble of Murk shot toward me. I threw up an ultraviolet shield. The two forces collided so hard, the impact sent cracks racing up the walls, across the floor and ceiling.
The Seraphim looked absolutely astonished as my shield began to slowly push theirs back.
My opponents had linked themselves to make a single channeler more powerful. I didn't know if that gave him power equal to four Seraphim or simply amped him to some lesser degree. Either way, I could tell it wasn't nearly enough to beat me.
One of them shouted something. "How are you channeling Murk?"
"I'm not a Brightling!" I decided to take a risk and threw in a postscript to my declaration. "I can channel both sides." To back up that claim, I speared a beam of Brilliance into their Murk bubble. Sweat broke out on their foreheads. One of them stumbled as my attack drove their efforts straight back at them. The seraph channeling collapsed to the floor.
I immediately stopped my attack, keeping a sphere of creation and destruction flickering in either hand. "Free my friend and take me to your leader."
Before they could answer, a tall Seraphim stepped into the hallway. His inky black hair was combed straight down Roman style. He wore a black cape embroidered with what looked like glowing strands of Murk. The seraph held up his hands as if to ward off further attacks.
"I am Cephus." He offered me a confident but friendly smile. "You may deal with me."
I regarded him suspiciously, but relinquished the hold on the aether coursing through my body. The energy vanished from my palms. "I am not your enemy. I am here on a mission of mercy."
He looked me up and down. "We can discuss that if you will follow me." He gestured down the perpendicular hallway.
"Not until you free my friend." I pointed to the door.
He nodded and spoke to the guards. One bearing a badge with wings, similar to the one I'd noticed on the leader of the soldiers who'd originally captured us, sent a charge of Murk into a gem next to the door. The door dissolved into a cloud of mist. Nightliss emerged a moment later, eyes uncertain.
I motioned her to me. She came and stood by my side without uttering a word.
"Do not try to trick me," I said.
Nightliss started to translate, but flinched as the translation reached her ears. She looked at me with a puzzled expression. "What magic is this? Why is the translation so bad?"
"I don't think my language dictionary is geared for speaking." I shrugged. "At least I can understand what's going on."
Confusion flashed across Cephus's face. My phone was still broadcasting to everyone present.
I approached the seraph carefully where he stood at the intersection of halls. Aside from the defeated guards nearby, he didn't seem to have reinforcements. I knew better than to take that for granted. "Are you alone?"
He shook his head. "Never alone. Thirty more soldiers there are waiting in the atrium." He pointed back toward the entrance. "Take you prisoner, we could but"—he looked from side to side at the unconscious and defeated guards—"the bloodshed worth it might not be."
Even though I knew he was right, I put on my best poker face. "I'll beat them like rented mules if they try anything."
His forehead wrinkled with confusion. I could only imagine how my idiom translated to Cyrinthian.
"I don't think they could take me," I said to clarify my statement. "Are you truly the one in command?"
"A member of the Trivectus I am." He gave me a meaningful look.
"I know of the Trivectus that used to rule the Brightlings thousands of years ago," I said. "Do you use the same form of government?"
His eyes flared with astonishment at my statement. "How do you know of this?" He held up a hand. "Wait. Improve our communication, I must. Will you allow me to call in a specialist?"
"Nightliss can translate," I said.
His eyes grew even larger at this statement. He quickly regained his composure. "I have a better method in cranium."
I gave him a suspicious look but nodded.
He motioned me toward hallway. "Come. We will go to a better meeting place."
"Where?" I wasn't about to walk into a trap.
He pointed up. "The minister's office at the top." He held out his hands, palms up, as if to show they were empty. "I promise trickery befall you will not."
I really hoped he had a better way to translate because the random word o
rder was really starting to get on my nerves. I couldn't imagine listening to someone talk like this all the time. I looked at Nightliss. "What do you think?"
"It is our best hope," she said. "Perhaps our last hope."
I snorted. "No need to get melodramatic."
She offered a wan smile. "I am female, Justin. This is the perfect opportunity to be dramatic."
A laugh burst from me. "Fine." I offered my hand to Cephus. "My name is Justin Slade." He gave it a confused look but eventually extended his own. I gripped and shook it. "Let's do this."
Cephus looked at his hand after I released it, as if looking for some sign that I'd cursed him. He recovered, smiled reassuringly, and led us down the hall.
We took a right and headed toward a glowing shaft of light in an alcove. Cephus stepped inside. Nightliss and I joined him. Our host charged a gem on the wall and we zipped upward on an invisible platform, other floors blurring past until we neared the ceiling at the top of the shaft. When our momentum ceased, Cephus simply stepped forward and into a room.
I looked down at the long drop and quickly followed him.
We entered a wide, empty room with no furniture or walls aside from the curving windows along the exterior of the building. The shiny black floor rippled like water beneath our feet as we walked across it, giving me an uneasy feeling. I wondered if we could sink into this material, or if it was some sort of special effect. Cephus charged a gem inset in the floor. A holographic image sprang from the floor displaying an organically curved piece of furniture that only slightly resembled a desk. Cephus flicked past it and several other interesting designs until settling on a plain circular table with tufts of cloud floating around it.
He charged the gem again, and ultraviolet mist rose from the floor in front of us, slowly forming into the image we'd just seen. Within seconds, a floating table with cute little clouds as chairs hovered before us. The color of the table changed to a deep mahogany while the clouds turned white.
It was a nice change from the homogenous color of Murk. I mean, I liked purple as much as the next guy but had begun to wonder if these people lacked appreciation for any other hues of the rainbow.