The Last Smile in Sunder City
Page 15
The old man was starting things up in the kitchen and I could smell the fat on the fryers beginning to burn. The bed was still out from the wall and I collapsed on to it like a statue torn down in a city square.
In the last moment before sleep, I heard Pete’s words in my ears and saw Edmund Rye’s hollow face.
Sometimes the monsters look like monsters.
For the first time in a long time, I was eager for tomorrow.
The third mark was made by my people…
After six months of training, I was an apprentice Shepherd. After two years in the field, I’d seen both sides of the continent, broken bread with almost every race, lived in thousand-year-old castles, thrown up on boats, fainted in deserts and slept under infinite skies. My body had been beaten into shape and my head was full of ancient history. Compared to the boy that fled Weatherly or the naïve young man that mopped floors in Sunder, I was quite capable. Compared to every other member of the Opus, I was just Hendricks’ pet Human. An annoying experiment. A joke.
I was waiting for the moment when I would be given my chance to prove myself; when Hendricks would send me out on some mission, away from his ever-watchful, guiding eye. In all my time with the Opus, I had never left his side.
We were in Lopari, an Elvish Kingdom close to the north-western coast that took pride in adhering to the old Elven ways. Lopari had been Hendricks’ home for fifty years, during the Elven equivalent of his teens. He made a point of waking up early and getting all his work done so the celebrations could flow by late afternoon. Each night, Hendricks and his old friends would sit in the banquet hall or out on the parapets, swapping stories and laughter like we’d always done at The Ditch.
One night, Hendricks, three Elven Rooks and an Ogre ambassador brought their chairs up on the western wall to watch the sunset. Hendricks was in an especially good mood because the Ogre ambassador was willing to join him in a drink. The other Elves, like most of their kind, abstained from alcohol and Hendricks preferred not to drink alone.
The other guards and I were positioned around them in formation. The idea was that, as a unit, we were ready to protect the group from outside forces. As individuals, we were also ready to protect our lords from the other guests. Of course, it was impossible that these old friends would suddenly try to assassinate each other but we were well-trained soldiers and we had learned to always follow procedure.
The Ogre ambassador had spent some time in Sunder City so, as he and Hendricks swapped stories about their favorite places to eat or drink, I was occasionally brought into the discussion.
When I was pulled from my position as bodyguard to weigh in on the conversation between the superiors, I could feel the judgment from the other Shepherds. The Half-Ogre who had come to guard the ambassador smothered a smile whenever it happened. But it wasn’t an uncommon routine for Hendricks and me. I had learned how to keep the rigid appearance of my position while also giving Hendricks the support he needed to launch into his next story.
Hendricks’ greatest weapon was his charisma. A well-told fable or heartwarming anecdote could be the final score in securing an alliance. So, we were a double act. I knew his stories well enough to throw him a pertinent question or set him up for a punchline and I took pride in the fact that I was more than just a piece of muscle. Despite my shortcomings, I could do that one specific part of my job better than anyone else.
But then, Hendricks took it a step too far and the whole charade broke down.
Maybe he just got carried away, or maybe there was something in the conversation that spiked his nostalgia for our days at The Ditch. But as he prepared the next round, he poured an extra cocktail and held it out to me.
“Here you go, boy.”
It was all very natural and nobody else seemed to mind. For Hendricks, it was just an old habit. But for me, it was like I’d been slapped.
“I… I’m on duty, sir.”
The old Elves laughed like I was making a crack. The Ogres, too. Even Hendricks smiled. Then he said, “Come on.”
Not in his loud, gregarious, encouraging way, like he would when I was so drunk I couldn’t see my own shoes but he wasn’t yet ready to go home. It wasn’t cheeky. It was quiet and strangely serious. To me, it felt like he was saying, “Who do you think you’re kidding?”
Maybe he didn’t mean it that way. Maybe he just missed having me as a drinking buddy instead of a bodyguard. However he meant it, that was how I heard it, and before I knew how to respond, there was water in my eyes.
It’s stupid. Of course it is. But if you understood the rules of the Opus, their practices and traditions, you’d know that it was like being stripped of everything I’d worked for since leaving Sunder City. Every pull-up. Every night spent reading tomes by candlelight. Every time I was laughed at or openly criticized by the other members. I had done it all because I thought it meant something. Because I thought that I was becoming something more.
But then it was gone. In that offer, it was clear that even Hendricks, who had dragged me through every day of my service, never took me seriously.
I stood there, naked, trying to work out how this joke had gone on so long and why I’d never seen it before.
Hendricks saw the change in my face and pulled back the glass, trying to make it look like it was his idea.
“Sorry. How silly of me. Good man.” He clapped me on the shoulder and turned back to the group. “One more for me then! Ha ha!”
I nodded, trying to slide back into my training and the safety of routine and discipline but it was already broken. I turned out towards the setting sun as if I was scanning the horizon for enemies, but I just didn’t want anyone to see my face.
When the night winds blew too strong and too cold, the party moved inside and the Shepherds were dismissed. I was on my way to the barracks for a shower when I passed the Half-Ogre bodyguard coming the other way.
“Evening,” I said quietly, expecting him to pass by and ignore me like all the others. But a thick pink hand pressed against me.
“I’m Shepherd Kites.” He grabbed my hand and shook it, then looked both ways to see if anyone was listening. “I hope I’m not overstepping any boundaries here, but… I was watching you today and I feel like something hasn’t been explained to you and I don’t think that’s fair. Do you mind if I yammer at you for a moment?”
“Uh… sure.”
“Right. Now, we’re in peace time, yeah? The Centaurs and Satyrs are kicking off up north, and there’s the odd skirmish every now and again, but compared to life before the Opus, we’re doing pretty good. A lot of that has to do with your man Hendricks. He’s smart. Smart enough to know that the next war won’t be between us magic folk. Nope.” He gently pressed a finger into my chest. “Your kind aren’t part of the Opus, and for all their declarations and deals with us, we know there’s something bubbling under the surface. Things have been close to blowing up more times than you can imagine and the most important political issue in the world right now is making sure your kind, and ours, don’t bring their battle out of the shadows and on to the streets. That’s why you’re here.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You’re a symbol. To show that the Opus isn’t overlooking Humans just because you ain’t magic. A sign to the Human Army, and Weatherly, and all your lot, that we can come together.”
I thought about the last two years and how it had felt like I was getting special treatment. I’d always put it down to my friendship with Hendricks or, hell, sometimes even thought I’d earned it.
“So don’t worry about trying to… look tough or match yourself up to the others,” Kites continued, thinking that what he was saying was supposed to make me feel better. “All you’ve gotta do is be you. Have a drink! Have a laugh! Be the Human who looks happy to be in bed with us. And mate,” he put both big hands on my shoulders and shook me, like he was congratulating me on some big achievement, “you might even be the one who keeps us all safe for another hundred years.”
I stood at the end of my bed, in my towel, and looked down at the navy-blue coat that was supposed to mean that I was a trained warrior of the Opus but suddenly looked too big and too heavy to fit me at all.
My skin went dry while I tried to convince myself that, despite it all, I had still earned that jacket and my title and my place in the Opus. I was still waiting right there when the door opened.
It was Hendricks, and it was one of the rare nights when his drunkenness actually showed. It took a lot of liquor to crack
his well-trained constitution but he was swaying on his feet and his eyes were red from whiskey.
“Evening, Fetch,” he said. “I uh… I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right. It’s been quite a… well, quite a year I suppose. Two, even.”
He closed the door behind him. I nodded, feeling awkward to be half undressed and already emotional.
“I just…” he said, uncharacteristically lost for words. “I wonder if maybe I haven’t done right by you, through all this. You’ve worked so hard. You have proven yourself. Truly, you have. It’s been very admirable and…”
“It’s okay,” I said, feeling some certainty come back into myself. Perhaps it was watching my mentor, the great High Chancellor Eliah Hendricks, stumbling over his feet and his words that knocked a bit of confidence back into me. It suddenly all seemed so ridiculous. Of course I wasn’t going to be a warrior that could match up to Dragons and Werewolves and other monsters. It had been silly of me to imagine that I could. But I’d still been chosen to play my part and perhaps it would be even more important than I’d imagined.
“I get it now,” I said. “I think I was just a bit overwhelmed by it all. I didn’t want to let you down. Or embarrass you. I guess I just wanted to make you proud, and—”
“Oh, my boy.” He came forward and put his arms around me and I wrapped mine around him. Tears were running down my face before I knew what was happening, soaking into his robes. I felt two and a half years of tension breaking through, and then…
… then there was something about the way he was holding me. It was subtle and, looking back, it probably had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the fact that I hadn’t dressed myself since coming out of the shower. But his fingers on my back… my skin…
Hendricks and I talked about everything, so I was aware that his romantic interests held few limitations. Inside Weatherly, relationships were strictly between the opposite sex and, of course, the same species. Outside the walls, the combinations were boundless. I had spent enough time in this world to get rid of my judgment. Or, at least, I’d tried. And besides, in that moment it wasn’t anything to do with him being a man or a Magum or anything like that. I know it might seem like it was but I have searched my heart and my actions for perhaps every night since. I know, now, what it was.
It was the fear that I hadn’t earned my place in the Opus at all. Not with my ambition or my dedication or the fact that I had learned so much in such a short amount of time. Not that I was daring enough to put myself alongside these Giants, knowing that I would never match them but still wanting to make a difference.
It was the fear that I was there for another reason. One that had nothing to do with how hard I worked or the risks I’d taken but had everything to do with being a naïve, impressionable young man who didn’t know any better.
Honestly, now, I still don’t know what was true. Hendricks was my friend. But, in that moment, I could only look back at the last two and a half years, standing at his side, trying to look tough and useful and sometimes even proud, wondering if the laughter wasn’t just at my species but also at the reason they all assumed I was there.
Hendricks’ pet Human.
I pushed him off me. Too rough. Shame turned to anger. I couldn’t look at him, just down at my feet. My whole body was tense and it probably looked like I was going to hit him. Maybe I was. Fuck. He just wobbled on his feet in front of me.
He stood there for a long time, probably wondering what had happened. What had changed. Neither of us said a word. Eventually, he just stumbled his way back out the door.
In the morning, at breakfast, he sat opposite me, sipping at tomato juice and rubbing his temples. I wondered if maybe he’d forgotten the whole thing.
“You know, most Shepherds take a break after their apprenticeship,” he said. “I understand why you wanted to jump straight into your deployment but it’s been so long since you’ve had a proper holiday. How do you feel about taking some leave?”
He said it so casually it almost sounded like I had a choice.
“That sounds like a great idea. Thank you.”
“Good, good. Three weeks. Starting tomorrow. It’s enough time to go back to Sunder, if you wish. But we’re so close to the western coast. You’ve never been to Vera, have you?”
Come on. Like you don’t know every place I’ve ever been in my life.
“No. Not yet.”
“Oh, you must. It’s lovely this time of year.”
“Sure.”
“Perfect. I’ll organize you a carriage in the morning.”
Like most of the villages on the central-western coast, Vera had been built up on a hillside, over a thousand years ago. It was a tangled web of small, winding streets too narrow for a carriage. The houses were exclusively built from rough, white stone and all the doors and windowsills were the same shade of silvery-gray.
It was a beautiful old city to look at. Trying to make sense of it was another story, especially as I didn’t speak the language. Hendricks had been teaching me Dwarven and Gnomish but the citizens of Vera were a race of Elves with their own dialect.
I booked myself the cheapest room in the biggest hotel in town. There was no view, other than a little window at street level where I could watch the occasional pair of shoes pass by.
I sent word for Amari. I waited. And she came, for a night and a day. In that brief time, there were sweet things that a better, smarter, perhaps older man would have been able to hold onto, but I couldn’t see them. I could only focus on the fact that she would leave. Which she did. And I took it to mean that, just like everyone believed, I was unworthy of walking in their world for more than a moment. My time with the Opus had given me a coat and a couple of new skills but I was still the same little boy playing at life.
On the day that she left, I was sour when I should have been thankful. I started drinking and I didn’t stop. For two days, I wandered around the city getting lost in side streets and eating alone, when I ate at all.
One evening at the hotel bar, I was drunk again. As I struggled to order another drink, a man built like a suit of armor sat down beside me and repeated my order in perfect Veran.
“It’s tough, isn’t it? Traveling to areas where they haven’t learned the common tongue. Still, some say it’s worth it for the view.”
I drank my whiskey and the stranger had a beer. His name was Taryn and he was a General in the Humanitarian Army.
When the Opus was first founded, only magical races were invited to join. The Humans, who had been more prone to infighting that any other species, knew they must form their own union or risk being conquered by this new Magum organization. So, the Humanitarian Army was created to protect Human life across Archetellos. Human cities were mostly self-governed, but they all shared the power of this single military force.
The Human Army and Opus would sometimes work alongside each other, so I’d met a few soldiers from the other side. We’d joined forces to bring aid to cities in unreachable areas and put out minor scuffles in the multicultural towns. But, like Shepherd Kites had said, the surface looked very different to what was lying underneath.
I’d never seen this giant General. He had short-cropped blond hair, a thin mustache and no beard. He asked how I was enjoying the Opus and I told him of my pride of position and, surprising myself, also sp
oke honestly about my struggles.
“Well, it’s the same on both ends,” he said, nodding. “Nobody wants to hear about the strength of the other side. The Magum don’t want to believe that Humans can match them in strength and many Humans want to pretend the magical creatures don’t even exist. I never agreed with the way you Weatherly folks block your ears and cover your eyes to the real world.”
“How do you know I came from Weatherly?”
He gave me a smile that wasn’t as condescending as it could have been.
“I know more about where you came from than you do. Where you really came from. If you want to catch-up, there’s a file waiting for you in that shoebox you call a room.”
He finished his drink and wished me good luck on my adventures. The moment he’d gone around the corner, I shot out of my seat and went downstairs.
There was an envelope waiting for me. It hadn’t been slid under the door, but carefully placed on the bedside table. There was nothing on the cover, so I ripped it open and pulled out a collection of papers.
The pages were an excerpt of classified correspondence, twenty-five years old. A conversation between several departments of the Opus and the Humanitarian Army.
To our partners in the Opus,
We have received your dossier on the Chimera creature that you have classified as being endangered at a critical level. We want to make clear to the Opus and its associates that we respect the regulation and protection of all magical creatures.
However, the Humanitarian Army is committed first and foremost to the protection of its own people. With that in mind, we are eager to work with the Opus to find a solution to the Chimera problem that favors all parties. We are prepared to begin work on this project as soon as possible and hope to hear from you promptly.
General Taryn HA
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