by Tim Paulson
“Captain that's unconscionable, not to mention contrary to the law,” his first officer snapped.
“Whilst she's on my vessel, I am the law Dewaal.”
“Captain!” a voice cried from dockward. “Captain! One of the crates has changed... I think someone just did a switch on us!”
“What?!” the captain cried, his fat black goatee waggling like the tail of a dog.
Celia seized the moment and ran, headlong toward the starboard railing. There were two men waiting for her. The first grabbed for her head, the second for her legs. She dived between them, hoping to make it away but one of them caught hold of her cloak. Celia cursed as she unclasped and shirked it, launching herself over the side.
One very cold swim later Celia staggered her way down the back alleys of the docks. She turned a corner, looked around for any observers, and slipped under a fake boarded doorway.
It was dark inside, as usual, and Risha was waiting. The big female ranker, the type of dierlijt who resembled human-shaped hyenas, was flanked by at least four of her clen, males, and females subordinate to her authority. All Celia could see of them in the low light was the glow of their eyes and their white fanged teeth.
“I was wondering if you'd show yourself.”
Celia had to stop herself from sighing in frustration. Last time she did that she'd earned two large scars on her back. It took a long time for things to heal when you didn't get a lot to eat. No, the name of the game here was submission. Celia had never been an enemy of the dierlijt, she quite liked most of them, but there were some she wasn't as fond of, the rankers were foremost on that list. Unfortunately, the clens ran the south of the city and they'd caught her stealing far before the watch ever would.
She lowered her head. “I have, mistress.”
The hyena-like creature stepped forward. The stench of rotting meat emanating from the clen leader's breath was strong. It was a sign of strength for them, a perfume of power, showing how much she'd eaten and how recently. That didn't stop it from being disgusting.
A clawed hand ran along Celia's wet hair as she shivered in silence.
“Do you deny your distraction was inadequate?”
“No mistress.”
“Good... you will receive a tenth of a share.”
Celia opened her mouth to protest. A tenth! That was half what she'd gotten last time. It had only been two days of food and she'd been able to stretch it for a week and a half.
The hand gripped her face, claws digging into her neck and cheeks.
“Is this acceptable to you?” The voice was low and terrifying.
“Yes, mistress...” Celia whispered.
“I've allowed you to associate yourself with my clen out of the goodness of my heart. You would not scorn my kindness... would you?”
“No mistress.”
“Good.”
She was dropped.
* * *
The veil lantern burning outside the tall opulent dwelling cast a pale blue light upon the ornate door knocker shaped like a gargoyle. The bulky stone form that checked the address on the door did not lean forward to knock. It smashed the door in with a single swift jab from its right fist. The front facade of the double doors had been made of oak, stained, treated, and plated with brass fittings but behind that was a plate of veil infused steel studded with stone. Whoever owned the dwelling was well aware of their peril and had taken precautions to slow the entry of attackers using veil blades or powder grenades.
Aaron was not either of those things.
His golem form stepped through the entry hall, passing the twisted remains of the door and went straight for the central staircase.
A maid appeared from around a corner and screamed.
Aaron ignored her. He had to. His orders were very specific.
The staircase creaked and cracked under the weight of his body but he continued his ascent regardless. As he went, turning a corner halfway up the stairs, he caught sight of himself in an old slightly warped mirror that was mounted on the wall next to a painting of the man he'd come to find, though much younger. In the mirror, he saw golden eyes and a face that was not human. It wasn't him.
But it was, wasn't it? He could still think. He could still feel.
Every step echoed in his ears, every scream. He heard it all, felt it all.
A pair of large men appeared at the top of the stairs. One held an axe with a veil blade and the other a blunderbuss which he immediately discharged into the center of Aaron's chest and head. The feeling was like being hit by pebbles, thrown by a weak child. The axe followed, swinging directly at his head. Aaron flicked his left hand out, catching the weapon by the haft and snapping it.
“Leave,” he said. The voice, deep and malevolent, not his own. “You are not my target.”
“Go for his legs Wil, I'll hit him,” said the man to Aaron's right. Both of them came then, their fists up, one going low as he'd been told.
Their efforts were useless.
They couldn't know how many just like them he'd killed. They all had some plan. Push him over, shoot him with more guns, powder grenades, veil blades, drop timbers on him. It had all been tried and failed. Aaron had killed them all. Every single one. With his bare hands.
The man on the left he smashed with his left fist, knocking him to the floor while the man on the right dived at him, trying to bowl Aaron over. Only he had no idea of the incredible difference in their mass. It was foolish, destined for failure. Aaron's right hand gripped the man's skull and crushed it like an egg. Then he tossed the limp body down the stairs and continued his ascent.
Inside the stone soldier the young man would have wept, if it were possible.
He found his target hiding underneath a four-poster bed of carved ebony, lying in a puddle of his own urine. He was an old man, in his seventies, and he shook like a banner in a gale as Aaron tossed his bed aside like it was paper craft.
A stone hand wrapped around the man's neck, lifting him from the floor as he tried to beg for his life. What came out was only gibberish however, the stuttering utterances of the doomed.
Aaron could see his own glowing golden eyes reflected in the old man's spectacles. It made him so angry that he could do nothing but watch... as his own body, his own voice, even his mind, executed Buckley's instructions.
“Wha... h...” the man said as his hands pulled at Aaron's stone fingers.
“Jans Van Kelmijt, Mr. Buckley has instructed me to inform you that he has discovered that your company has stolen the secret of veil powder production,” Aaron's golem voice said.
“N...n...no! It was an accident... My chief technician's niece... she...”
“The penalty for this is death by dismemberment.”
“No, please! No!!”
The sound of the bones cracking was the worst, it always stayed with him. Though Aaron never slept now, when he had no orders and stood at rest in Buckley's office certain sounds would enter his mind and buzz in circles, over and over again. Cracking bones was common.
When he'd finished with the bloody mess that remained of the old man, Aaron retreated into the early morning dark of Valendam, stone hands red to the elbows, dripping blood into the dirty slush of the street.
He returned to Veil via the third and closest secret entrance. A guard was waiting, wearing one of the company's new white and purple uniforms. He showed no emotion at all as he opened the doors for Aaron, letting him inside.
Aaron turned right, stepping onto the grated drain and waited. It was only moments before five other employees appeared, carrying buckets and sponges. They washed the blood, rinsed him, and toweled him off.
“We're done sir,” one of them said, without looking up at Aaron's face.
Aaron didn't blame him. He didn't want to see it either.
Then he left the drain and proceeded down the tunnel until he came to the freight elevator. Four men with cranks raised him to the main level of the facility where Aaron proceeded to another, human-sized, elevator
which brought him to the top of the building. That was where Buckley, in his embroidered crimson finery, goatee oiled and pointed just so, was waiting for him.
“Ah... my lovely golem. I trust Mr. Van Kelmijt received my warmest congratulations on his discovery?”
What kind of man turned the horrific screaming demise of another into a joke? Visions of stone hands around another neck filled his mind.
“He is dead,” Aaron said. He wanted to tell him to go jump out the window. Hell, he wanted to throw the bastard out, but he couldn't. His body simply wouldn't obey.
“Oh, how unfortunate!” Buckley said, smiling. “How terrible!” he added, with a laugh that turned into a bout of guffaws.
Finally, leaning against Aaron as he wiped a tear away from his eye he sighed. “Oh, it's too much. It's too early for this kind of thing... I haven't even had my tea.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Come,” Buckley said, straightening his doublet and turning toward the door.
The door opened and a young woman entered. She wore the uniform of a Veil Company guard. At her waist hung a pistol and a baton.
“Sir, you asked to be notified if that... man did it again,” she said.
“He is? Where?”
“The roof sir, as before.”
“Does he know he's been observed?”
“I don't believe so sir,” the guard replied.
So the great sorcerer was not omniscient. That was useful to know, Aaron thought.
“I'm going to see,” Buckley started toward the door. Then he paused, looking back at Aaron.
“Is there room for the golem in the discrete observation area?” he asked.
The girl looked Aaron's stone body up and down. “I believe so sir.”
Buckley pointed to Aaron. “You'll protect me from him right?”
Aaron nodded. “I am yours. I do as you ask, always.” That did not mean he could protect Buckley from Narael, the sorcerer had made him this way after all, but he would try. He was forced to.
Buckley's nose wrinkled. “I love that... truly... You're coming too, but be quiet as we ascend. I don't want those giant stone feet giving us away. Do you hear me?”
“Yes master,” the words felt like daggers thrust into his soul but his stone mouth formed them none the less. The Tian church's concept of eternal torture was lacking. To think freely but be denied the freedom to act upon one's thoughts, was a far more potent purgatory. To Aaron, bathing in the fires of some molten hell would be infinitely preferable.
Up the hidden stair they went, with Aaron taking as much care as he could to not make noise. Finally, they reached a darkened room where the tiniest rays of light emanated from the outlines of four spying ports.
The guard leaned in toward Buckley. “He was on that side when I last saw,” she whispered.
“Is it morning yet?” Buckley replied, voice low.
“Not quite... nearly. There is some light, enough to make some of what he's doing,” she said.
Buckley nodded and stepped forward, pulling open the spying hole and putting his eyes to it.
“What is he doing?” Buckley asked.
There was a cracking noise like a paving stone dropped on a cobbled street.
“I... I...” the guard's voice cut off. Blood spurted from her mouth and nose.
Aaron's golden eyes looked down, as did Buckley, and both beheld a perfectly smooth shard of rock, obelisk-shaped, jutting from her center.
Buckley's hand reached out but before he could touch the young woman her body vaulted backward, smashing a hole in the wall.
“Come out here,” said Narael.
Buckley's lips curled into a frustrated sneer but he complied, scrambling with some difficulty through the hole created by the body of his employee. Aaron followed as well, smashing the hole to triple its former size.
“Why did you do that? That girl was moderately competent. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find people like that? People who show up and actually do what they're asked?”
Narael did not respond, he simply returned to his work.
“Will you at least tell me what you've been doing here?” Buckley asked, folding his arms as he stepped over the corpse of the guard without even a glance at her broken bleeding form.
Aaron's mind flared with anger. The man only cared what others could do for him, he'd no compassion, no humanity.
“Now that I have an army. I need to discover the whereabouts of the enemy,” Narael replied as he wove magic into frameworks with his hands. Symbols upon symbols he drew, some green, some blue, some white, and some golden.
Aaron was blown away by the intricacy of it, the patterns were regular and logical. It reminded him very much of mathematics. That absolutely meant there was some system behind the magic used by these sorcerers. He'd suspected it in Vex's dark temple... but seeing it all laid out in the act of construction made it plain.
If there was a system to it, it strongly suggested similar rules would govern his stone body. If he could determine how they worked, perhaps he could gain some semblance of control.
“You have an army? You said you would help me achieve my goals here,” Buckley replied.
“I did,” Narael replied.
“The latest reports I've received say the goliath soldiers you made are crushing the Imperial forces in the northern reaches. I need them to remain. They're to march to Magenberg and strike fear into the Holy Ganex Empire. Once his precious walls have fallen, that fat idiot emperor will be begging to give me what I want. When the productive lands of his many states come under the control of my republic... then you may do as you wish.”
Narael finished his intricate spell with a simple touch. A bright golden light flashed, illuminating the roof of the Veil Headquarters. The elements of stone and metal at Narael's feet had fused into a sloping pointed structure, like a pyramid. It rose into the air, emanating a faint golden light, and made a warbling sound as if asking for instructions.
“Eresu usmi azag ikkibu. Alik.” Narael said to it. Despite having no wings it flew off to the east at incredible speed.
The sorcerer turned toward Buckley, the metallic filigree of his mask-like face catching the glint of rose from the morning sun.
“You didn't answer my question,” Buckley said, crossing his arms. “What are those things?”
“They are my eyes. They will find the works of the enemy and return here,” a skeletal hand reached out, pointing one long jointed finger at Buckley's face. “You will have your people watch for them. If I am away you will notify me.”
Aaron saw Buckley's face twist ever so slightly. His golden eyes revealed a great deal in low light, far more than his real ones ever had. It seemed Buckley wasn't disposed to comply with the sorcerer's request.
Narael noticed as well. “By the terms of our bond I cannot kill you. But there are things worse than death.”
Buckley grimaced as if swallowing a mouthful of spoiled milk. “I understand,” he replied.
Chapter 3
“The Malleus School is where we send our boys, to break them, and build them up again as instruments of God, as witch hunters.”
-Marlinist Reverend Samuel Hensley, in a statement to printer Darren McGee, 1603
The corner of the abandoned warehouse where Celia was allowed to sleep and store her things was scarcely larger than a bathing tub but it was large enough for the task at hand: eating every morsel of her portion of the day's spoils. In this case that meant an entire ham, aged and smoked. Likely the meat would have found its way to the table of a rich businessman or lord, instead, it was all hers. Normally ham was not her favorite, Celia had always preferred sweet foods to salty ones, but hunger had a way of broadening one's tastes, and her stomach didn't care.
So she sat cross-legged on a ragged flea-infested blanket, carving slices from the ham with a stolen, and quite dull, kitchen knife. Each mouthful brought her a moment of bliss so sharp, so powerful she hadn't imagined it possible.<
br />
Glowing eyes appeared in the dark, small ones. Slowly they approached.
“Come,” Celia said, patting the blanket next to her. “I see you.”
Gingerly the small form crept into the shafts of morning light that streamed through holes of the warehouse wall. It was a ranker, a young male. Celia had seen him before, like most of the young males he was treated poorly, but this one was particularly small and weak. The scars along his cheeks and ears made plain the others knew it too.
“It's alright. I won't hurt you,” Celia said.
He approached, sniffing his thick black nose in the direction of her ham. Then his yellow eyes drifted from the ham to her and back again.
Celia sighed. “Yes... you can have some.”
The young dierlijt bowed his head in thanks and crept ahead, sitting down beside her and crossing his legs also. This was difficult for him given the doglike shape of his short back legs, but he did so anyway.
“Thank you,” he said as she handed him a slice.
“It's fine,” she replied. “I wasn't sure I could eat the whole thing anyway.” This was a lie. She surely could have.
“This... is very good!” the hyena-like creature said, licking his chops.
Celia nodded, swallowing another large mouthful. “How old are you?”
“I'm ten summers... I know... I'm small. You don't have to say it,” he replied, casting his eyes at the dirt floor.
Celia shrugged. “You're bigger than a keralti I know, and she's sixteen.”
He hissed through his teeth, accepting a second slice of ham hungrily. “That's not saying much.”
“A wise man once told me that we're not all dealt the same hand but what matters is how you play it,” she said, thinking of Marcus Halett. The printers now called him the madman of the north who started a war he couldn't win. She knew it to be a lie. Now his wife on the other hand... that woman was mad.
The boy shook his head. “Not here... not in the clen. Boy is bad. Smallest boy is nothing.”
There was a snarl from the dark as another, much larger pair of eyes approached. The young boy was up and gone in seconds.