Stirring Embers: An urban fantasy action adventure (The Light and the Void Book 1)

by Willem Killian

  Humans, he thought. Free will was their greatest gift and greatest curse.

  He needed them to clothe him. And then to get him to the shopping mall on time. If he had been on foot, he would not have made it across town in the time specified. Jöanth didn't enjoy being cramped in Rosewater's little One Series. It felt like his knees were warming his ears, but the discomfort was short lived. Rosewater pushed the 2.5 liter German engineered engine as much as she could and they made it to the rendezvous point with minutes to spare.

  The girls, however, wouldn't stay in the car. They insisted on walking with him. They weren't happy to just give him directions to the food court. They also wouldn't stay out of sight and hopefully out of harm's way. When they neared the food court, Jöanth wanted them to leave. Instead, the girls decided to loiter around in the background, keeping him in sight.

  Entering the food Court area, Jöanth spotted the not-human immediately. That faint internal throbbing was back, warning him of danger at hand. And yet, as before, the signal wasn't clear. Walther Black was still an enigma to him.

  The not-man waved him over. It even had a smile on its face. It seemed harmless. A man approaching middle age with thinning hair, a rounding middle, increased wrinkles. A harmless, open face. An inviting, friendly demeanor.

  It was the perfect disguise.

  Jöanth approached cautiously, his eyes scanning the people and his surroundings. It might be a public space, but it might very well still be a trap. The duffel bag's straps were swung over his shoulders, and he kept the bag in front of him, pretending that he didn't want to bump into people. His free hand was inside the bag of course, wrapped around the hilt of Drÿmwÿn.

  Apart from a few sidelong glances, Jöanth made it to the four seater table where Walther Black was seated.

  Black extended his hand, but not in greeting, rather to show Jöanth to sit down opposite him.

  “Glad you made it, Jöanth,” it said. “And with two minutes to spare. Love the getup,” he smiled, looking at Jöanth's bulging shirt. “And I see you brought some friends,” it indicated the girls at the edge of the Food court. “It's good to mingle with the locals. Get a better feel of the lay of the land. And it's always nice to have some eye candy by your side, not so?”

  Jöanth didn't care much for the thing's tone, but kept his mouth shut. Keeping one eye on the not-man and scouting with the other, Jöanth noticed an empty table two tables away. He didn't want the girls anywhere near the thing, but at least this way, he would be able to keep an eye on them. He beckoned them over and they sat down before anyone else could occupy it. They would be beyond earshot, which was probably a good thing. Who knew what was going to come out of the thing's mouth?

  “Where is Eleanor?” he asked after everyone had finally settled into their seats.

  It offered a mirthless smile. “In time.” It sat back comfortably in its chair. “First, we need to talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to a murdering coward.”

  “Don't make me bristle,” Black said. “You won’t like it. And neither will these people. How many do you think I would be able to kill before you could stop me?”

  “Zero,” Jöanth said, tightening his grip on the sword laying in the bag across his thighs. “I could chop off your deceitful false head right here and now.”

  The thing shrugged. “You could,” it conceded with a nod. “But imagine all the years of trauma and countless therapy sessions that would cause for these innocents. People have such fragile psyches these days. You will give them nightmares from here to eternity.” It was smiling broadly, clearly enjoying itself. “If you decide to chop off my head then you would never find them again.”

  “Them?”

  “You thought I only had Eleanor? Tsk, tsk.” Walther Black leaned forward, halfway across the table.

  Jöanth didn’t take the bait, but instead, leaned back, away from the Thing without saying a word.

  It smiled at the response and also leaned back, its arms resting on top of the cheap formica counter. “I also have your fellow law man. The sheriff of this here town.” It drawled.

  “Why would I believe a single word you say?”

  “I knew you were going to say that!” Walther Black exclaimed aloud, getting a few people to look his way.

  One or two even smiled when they saw it was the good doctor, nodded their heads in greeting, and returned to their own lives.

  He's right, Jöanth thought. I wouldn’t be able to sever his head here. It would cause too many problems. And simply vanishing would raise too many questions. There were probably security cameras recording everything that went on here. A madman with a sword decapitating someone in front of a hundred witnesses and then disappearing into thin air would cause untold problems. Jöanth eased his death grip on the sword, but didn’t let go.

  There were only a few rules to follow in his line of work.

  Life above all else.

  Find and destroy the monster as soon as possible and then dispose of the body without leaving a trace.

  Do not let the local populace know about your presence unless absolutely necessary.

  Come home safely.

  This creature was blurring the lines. Jöanth had a duty to protect the innocent, to save innocent lives. The smart thing would be to kill it right here and now and be done with it.

  But by doing so, he might be condemning others to their death. It was a difficult choice to make. It was compounded more by the fact that he was sitting across from the Thing, surrounded by dozens of innocent, blissfully unaware humans.

  “I can read you like a book,” it said to him. “So, let me make you aware of your limited options. Kill me right here and now, and you create a panic. Not such a bad option right? People can get over their nightmares. The problem is, you don’t know of my contingency plans. And yes, they are plural.”

  “Enlighten me,” Jöanth said dourly. At the moment, he had no cards to play.

  “Kill me now and the town will drown. I have set timers on bombs at the local dam. They will go off in exactly half-an-hour unless I disarm them. If I walk out of here alive, the town doesn't get flooded and a couple of thousand people will still be alive, thanks to your wise decision.”

  “You're lying,” Jöanth tried, hoping to pick up an inkling of treachery from the thing.

  But there was nothing. The thing didn't bat an eyelid, its heartrate didn't skip a beat, it didn't start sweating. There was no telltale sign that it was lying.

  “Willing to take the chance?” it smiled languidly, like a Cheshire cat.

  Jöanth hated technology. Sure, it improved the lives of those who used it, but it also caused problems. This was the perfect example. A murderous thing could kill thousands with a touch of a button from miles away. How do you fight that with a sword? he wondered.

  “I'm going to assume that decapitation is not an option at present. However, there's another reason why you won't kill me here and now.”

  “Eleanor?” Jöanth ventured a guess.

  “He's smarter than he looks,” the not-man smirked and winked. “Eleanor and,” it held up a forefinger for effect, stressing the words like a game show host. “or, the sheriff. You see, you are going to have to make a decision. One of them will die. You cannot save both. The question is who lives and who dies?”

  Jöanth had to calm his breathing and flex his fingers. He wanted to cut the Thing's head off and be done with it, damn the consequences. The more the Thing talked, the more Jöanth was convinced that it would be better off dead. Yes, there was a chance that people might die, but alive, this Thing could kill even more.

  “Do you want thousands of deaths on your conscience, Jöanth the Tracker, Hero of Dranbuir, Slayer of the Ardhmer? What will they call you after you kill me and this town drowns? The Drowner of Sorrows? The Undertower? Floodgate?”

  It laughed and Jöanth felt his hand tightening its grip again. And then he realized that it was trying to provoke him. It was trying to push his button
s. It was busy testing its opponent. Jöanth smiled, leaned back and took his hand out of the duffel bag, leaving the sword behind.

  “Why am I here?” he asked, a calmness settling over him.

  The not-man stared at him for a second and made a hacking sound as it cleared its throat. It didn't look happy for a second, but then everyone's congenial doctor was back. The mask came to the forefront again.

  It wears the face well, Jöanth thought. People who knew the man seemed to be fooled. It was only Eleanor who had her doubts about Walther Black. She felt that something was off about him. Then again, few humans were as special as Eleanor. Very few had as strong a Gift as she had.

  “I wanted to meet you,” it said, the smile never wavering. “I wanted to see how you would react. What kind of álvur you are.”

  “There is only one kind.”

  “That's where you're wrong, Jöanth! There are many different types of us. Sure, we're all cut from the same cloth and we all have to follow the Code and perform our Duties without question, but we do have our own personalities.”

  “You are not allowed to speak of ‘us’ anymore. You are no longer an álvur,” Jöanth surprised himself by stating this with unexpected calmness.

  Everything about this loathsome creature was an abomination. It went against everything the álvur were and stood for. To have it speak as if it was still one of them almost sounded like blasphemy. It made Jöanth's skin crawl and his belly turn.

  “True,” it conceded, “but I can still remember, Jöanth. I cannot forget what it was like as an álvur.”

  “Remembering doesn't make you one. You are not an álvur anymore. There is no going back for you. You have made your choice, picked your side.”

  “You say it with such conviction.” The smile was temporarily gone as it tried to convey its sincerity. “That is the problem with the álvur. There are no gray areas. No blurred lines. Only black and white. Right or wrong.”

  “There is no middle ground, and you know it. You either stand for the one, or the other. We know which side we serve.”

  “My dear, Jöanth. You think we are so different. Yet, we are more alike than you think.”

  It remained quiet and both álvur and svartálvur took the time to look into each other's eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the other's thoughts. It was a pointless exercise.

  “You think I abandoned our race. Our customs. Our purpose,” it finally said.

  Jöanth took a second. “If you're looking for absolution, maybe even sympathy or pity, then you're not going to get it.”

  It nodded. “I wouldn't expect that from you or any of your kind. It is true, I have turned against all that I once stood for and believed in. I cannot ever change back into an álvur. I wouldn't want to.”

  “Then you understand why you have to die,” Jöanth retorted, deadpan.

  The Thing looked at him for a second and laughed. “Yes, from your point of view I understand why. It's your destiny, is it not? Find the monster, slay it. There's nothing more to it, is there?”

  Jöanth shook his head. “No there isn't.”

  “Ever considered that this is my destiny?” it asked, the smile returning. “Wouldn't it be deliciously ironic if we both served the same side? You can't have good without evil, right? So in the end, does the bad not ultimately serve the good?”

  “Still your tongue, or I will remove it,” Jöanth whispered.

  “Very well,” it shrugged. “Let's return to the matter at hand. Time's a wasting.” It looked at its wristwatch.

  It was a simple Casio analogue watch, the old-fashioned kind with a clock face. It spoke of Walther Black's no-thrills lifestyle. To Jöanth, it somehow seemed out of place on this thing's arm.

  “What is your decision? I will only give you the whereabouts of one,” it said.

  “Eleanor,” Jöanth said immediately.

  “Not the sheriff? Not the devoted husband and loving father of little Jimmy? The man who, like you, took an oath to protect life?”

  “I have no proof that you even have him.”

  “Ah,” the not-man said and opened his phone.

  On his screen, he opened one of the apps that was running in the background. It was a remote video feed. He gave the phone to Jöanth.

  Jöanth saw the sheriff bound to a chair in the middle of what looked like an empty storage warehouse. The man was bound to a strong looking metal chair. His head was resting on his chest, but Jöanth could see the slight rise and fall of the sheriff's chest. He was still alive.

  “Eleanor?” he asked, returning the phone to the cold hand of Walther Black.

  The Thing made a few gestures on the screen and handed it back to Jöanth.

  Eleanor was in a similar place and bound in a similar fashion. Her prison cell looked slightly bigger though.

  “They don't look in any danger. What stops me from chopping your head off?” Jöanth asked, a faint smile playing at his lips. He wanted the Thing to know that he wasn't fazed by the circumstances.

  It smiled back at him. “Watch the screen.” It held the phone aloft and said “Associate, prove that you are there.”

  On cue, as if tipped over by an invisible force, one of the storage racks lined up against the wall behind Eleanor fell to the floor. Eleanor jerked at the sound of it. Unable to get up, she tried her best to look around. Her head swung from one position to the next, trying to scan the entire area behind her. Her eyes were wide with fright.

  Jöanth didn't care for this development. Yes, the Thing might have been able to rig something up that could have been triggered remotely. It could be nothing but a bit of clever engineering that made the shelf fall over, but Jöanth somehow doubted it. The fall of the metal racks had had an organic feel to it, not mechanical. Something had pushed it over. Not a machine, but a living, breathing thing. Something he didn't see on the small screen. And that posed a problem and gave rise to many worrying questions. He would have to look at those at a later stage. Right now, one thing was clear, Walther Black had an accomplice.

  “I see you believe me now?” the Thing said.

  Jöanth nodded.

  “Good,” Walther said with a victorious smile. “If my associate does not hear from me within a few minutes, Eleanor dies.” He looked at Jöanth with intensity: smile and all humor gone from its face. “If I don't walk out of here unharmed, the bombs go off and both Eleanor and the sheriff die. If, however, you choose to save one and let me go unharmed, then only one person dies tonight.”

  “A threatening force. Something monstrous,” Jöanth quoted from Merriam-Webster.

  “What was that?” The svartálvur asked, intrigued.

  “Nothing of consequence. I was merely classifying you.”

  The Thing smiled as if given a compliment.

  “What is your choice, Tracker? Eleanor or the sheriff?”

  Jöanth did not want to choose. He could not be asked to make such a decision, not when his first and foremost directive was Life Above All Else. How do you choose one life over another? Who are you to make that choice? How can you decide someone else's fate?

  There was no point in asking these questions, for Jöanth had no answers.

  A steadily growing rage built within him. He loathed the thing sitting in front of him. He also knew that this was exactly what the Thing intended. It wanted to create doubt, anger, loathing. Looking at it made it worse. It sat there pretending to be an innocent human. A well-respected man of good standing in his community. A physician. A man that devoted his life to the healing and saving of lives. Jöanth knew he was somehow caught up in a cosmic farce.

  “What happened to Walther Black?” Jöanth asked.

  “Tick tock,” Walther Black said. His forefinger extended in the air, doubling as a metronome flicking back and forth in the negative.

  “What happened to Walther Black?” Jöanth repeated, leaning closer.

  The Thing rolled its eyes and sighed. “I consumed him. Completely. Body and mind, quirks and all. If he
had a soul, it didn't taste like much.”

  Jöanth didn't understand what the thing meant, but the implication was clear. Doctor Walther Black was dead.

  “You will pay for his death,” Jöanth whispered.

  The Thing rolled its eyes again. “As no doubt, I will for all the others as well. And those to come.” It smiled. “Tick tock. Or they both die.”

  Jöanth was torn in two. Not because he didn't know who to choose, but because he didn't want to choose. Making a decision like this would have far-reaching consequences for him. He knew the decision would haunt his dreams and thoughts until the day he passed on to the next realm. If he chose one over the other, how would he ever know if he made the right decision? And it went much further than that. His decision would have an impact on those left behind. Not just on family and loved ones. It would impact the community. There was no easy decision. Neither was there a right one.

  Jöanth ran through all the possible scenarios in his head.

  Kill the svartálvur here and now and Eleanor definitely dies. There was also the possibility that several hundred, if not thousands of others would also die. That's if the bomb threat was real. Was there a way to save the life of the sheriff? A man this town needed and depended on.

  Choose the sheriff, and Eleanor dies. His ally. His friend. And close friend to the two girls. She was their guiding light. Their mentor.

  Choose Eleanor and the sheriff dies. That would leave behind a widow and a young son. What would become of them? Would the man replacing the sheriff be a good man too? Would he be able to fill the sheriff's shoes and protect his town just as well?

  Could Jöanth take the svartálvur captive and force him to divulge the whereabouts of his prisoners and how to disarm the bombs? Would there be enough time? Would the Thing divulge any information, even at the threat of its own death?

  Jöanth knew that torture would not work on this creature. It had spent centuries inside the Void. There it would have been subjected to decades of torture and pain and suffering. Any attempt to extract information by force would be seen as laughable. The Thing wouldn't tell him anything, Jöanth was sure of that.