Legba

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Bentley took a halting breath, overcome with emotion. “Do— Do you know something about my mother?”

  Legba looked down at the floor, a sad expression on his face. “I am sorry to tell you this, but… No. I apologize, but I do not know anything of value about her, anything that you do not already know. Or, perhaps I should say, I do not know anything beyond what would appear in any half-decent historical account of Dacca Noir’s last thirty years. I simply connected the circumstances surrounding her being taken away with similar incidents that were perpetrated by your employer. That is all.”

  Bentley nodded slowly, a look of sad resignation creeping across her face.

  Legba sighed. “You know, the company that employed you, they were responsible for many… unsavory things, to put it extremely lightly. Things that were horrifying, and deeply unethical, but things that they justified as necessary to keep your planet safe. Things that were necessary to retain Dacca Noir’s status as an unblemished utopia, free of the horrors that the company itself perpetrated under cover of darkness. It would not be much of a stretch to say that they are essentially your planet’s government. They control everything: what gets built, what gets printed, who gets what, who lives, and who dies. However, that was not always the case.”

  Bentley glanced up at him, a look of confusion on her face. Legba gazed into her eyes. “You would have been far too young to remember these events as they were occurring, or to recall the political texture of the times, but shortly after you were born, there was a turning point for your planet. A moment when the company was attempting to take control. During that period, many people were disappeared, most of them under remarkably similar circumstances. Circumstances that match exactly with the disappearance of your own mother. However, I do not actually know any further details about your mother. Again, I am so sorry.”

  Bentley nodded slowly. A look of intense pain spread across her face, and she burst into tears. She raised her hands to her face, wiping the hot tears from her cheeks.

  Legba looked at her, uncomfortable. “I suppose that there is one thing I do know, in relation to your mother: if she was anything like the daughter she raised, then she certainly put up a good fight.”

  Bentley stared up at the ceiling, into the bright lights, clearing away the last of her tears from her eyelashes. Fucking Legba, she thought. This guy is lucky he’s a tech mage and not a grief counselor.

  She returned her gaze to Legba and took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s finish this.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Aboard the Chesed, Dacca Noir, Dracon System, Kaunox Sector

  Legba leaned against the wall, watching the large puddle of blood on the floor get progressively larger. My goodness, he thought to himself, wincing to deal with the intense pain. There’s so much of it. How do these people fit it all inside of themselves? It is truly a wonder that humans do not simply leak a liter of this stuff every day…

  He looked up from the massive red puddle, and he saw Raven Black drop her pistol, her face twisted in concern. The firearm clattered to the floor, and she rushed towards him. “Oh fuck! Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. You startled me, and I thought you were reaching for a weapon, and— Here, let me help.”

  She leaned down, standing over him, pressing her right hand to the wound, attempting to stop or at least slow the tremendous flow of blood. Within a few seconds, her hand was stained an intense shade of red. “I— I can call a medic team. Or maybe there’s a security guard here, who can perform first aid. Or maybe—”

  Legba pushed her hand away, struggling to his feet, pressing his left hand against the wound. He shook his head, clenching his teeth. “No time. Someone will have heard that, and they’ll figure out I’m here. They’ll be coming for me.”

  Raven Black turned her head and glanced towards the elevator bay, which was veiled in darkness. “Coming for you? Who? Why?”

  Legba smiled despite the pain. “The exact same folks who will be coming for you, my dear. As I am sure you already know, that firearm which you so deftly discharged is very much illegal in this district. And even if this entire building’s power is out, due to my recent manipulation of energy, I know for a fact that the building’s security systems – both audio and video detection – are powered remotely. Which means that the very moment you fired your pistol, armed guards who work on your employer’s behalf began streaming from their posts within this building, and from its perimeter, following the electronic sensors’ reports, to this very floor. If the elevators are out, that buys us some time, but I would not advise risking your life on it.”

  Raven Black stared at him, a look of incomprehension on her face. “Risking my life? You— You’re the one with the open bullet wound…”

  Legba nodded. He glanced down to his chest and noticed that although the flow of blood had slowed, it was still trickling down his torso, adding to the volume of the puddle that was beginning to seep through his shoes.

  Legba pushed his hand harder against his wound. “It is true that I am the only one of us who has just had a disagreeable moment with a bullet. But I would wager that your employer is much more dangerous than any bullet I have ever heard of. An unlicensed firearm might not seem like a big deal, and you are an employee, so you might expect a degree of lenience. However, let me assure you, your involvement with government security systems actually makes this situation so much worse for you. In your job, you are privy to innumerable state secrets, and you have dealt with some incredibly sensitive cases. If your employer discovers that you have broken one rule, they will naturally assume that you have broken more. And the moment they make that judgment, they will take you away, just as they took away your mother.”

  Legba watched a look of intense pain splash across Raven Black’s face. “In any case, you can do what you like. Perhaps you believe in the mercy of your employer, or the justness of your courts, and you think that the honest, reasonable thing to do is to remain here, and let others decide your fate. Or perhaps not. Whatever decision you ultimately make, I can assure you, I will not be here when the security guards arrive. I will, however, offer you a choice.”

  Raven Black stared into his eyes. “What is it?”

  Legba stood up as straight as he possibly could, his left hand still pressing against his wound. “You can stay here, and allow your employer to shuffle you out of this utopia, into an isolated cell, or a shallow, unmarked grave...”

  Legba offered her his right hand. “Or you can come with me. You can work with me, and I can help you develop your talents and your abilities, so that you can wield them to make an actual, positive difference in the galaxy. Just as your mother would have wanted.”

  Raven Black looked down at the outstretched hand. She looked into the eyes of this old man, as he stood there, seemingly on the verge of crumpling and falling into a puddle of his own blood. When she looked into his eyes, she saw his pain, but she also saw signs of kindness. She no longer felt fear. She reached out and grasped his hand.

  Legba smiled. “Thank you. I can assure you, you will not regret this decision. However, I should warn you, the next few seconds are going to hurt. Quite a lot.”

  Legba looked at Raven Black and saw a look of confusion spreading across her face. Oh, well, he thought to himself. There really is no way to prepare someone for this experience. I am sure that she will understand. Probably.

  Legba took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After a few moments of deep focus, he felt the familiar stinging sensation that accompanied quantum entanglement teleportation. Huh, he thought to himself. This does not feel quite as bad as I remembered it. Perhaps the pain of having your nerves shattered into fragments and the pain of a gunshot wound actually pair fairly well together. Maybe I should start teleporting after every time I sustain a grievous wound, as a sort of chaser.

  When Legba opened his eyes, he was back on the Chesed, in the main hallway. He was still bleeding from the wound in his chest, but he breathed a sigh of relief. He
turned to Raven Black. “Ah! We made it!”

  Raven Black did not share his enthusiasm. She was sprawled out on the floor, on her hands and knees, twitching in intense pain. She let out a long, blood-curdling scream, allowing her agony to reverberate through the hallway. “Jesus! Fucking! Christ! I— I feel like I, I’m inside out, and also on fire! How… how is that possible?”

  Legba patted her gingerly on her back. “Do not worry yourself. Quantum entanglement teleportation is an entirely safe procedure.” He looked down at the new puddle of blood that was beginning to gather at his feet. “As you will recall, this injury has absolutely nothing to do with our recent teleportation.”

  Raven Black glanced around the hallway, attempting to get her bearings. “Where… where are we? Is this a, a spacecraft? What happened to the office building?”

  Legba looked down at her and smiled. “I can answer all of your questions soon enough. For now, though, I would recommend closing your eyes. Or, I suppose, feel free to keep them open, if you do not mind adding another set of questions to your ever-expanding list.”

  Raven Black gazed up at him, confused. She watched as he closed his eyes and stood perfectly still. He took a deep breath and slowly placed his hands together in front of him, his palms touching, as though he were praying.

  She furrowed her brow. “I think we can do a bit better than prayer to deal with your gunshot wound. If this is a ship, then they probably have a medical bay, or at the very least some sort of first-aid—”

  Legba, his eyes still firmly closed, began to slowly separate his palms. As he did, the empty space a foot in front of him began to quiver. A thin, trembling vertical line about a meter tall appeared before him. The line didn’t look like a floating object with mass or color. Rather it looked like an absence, a tear in the fabric of space-time itself.

  As his hands moved ever farther from each other, the size of the tear increased, until it had the appearance of a wide slash, then a hole. The edges of the hole seemed to flutter lightly, like lace curtains caught by a gentle summer breeze. In the space beyond the tear, Raven Black could see a bright world of color, which emanated complex, beautiful patterns of light. The patterns pulsed and shifted like a dense array of overlapping aurorae.

  Raven Black stared at the tear and the world of color that lay beyond it, awestruck. “What… the… fuck?”

  Legba let his hands fall to his sides, and he approached the tear. He lifted his right hand, and plunged it through the opening.

  Raven Black gasped, reaching for Legba’s free arm. “Wait! What are the fuck you doing?”

  Legba withdrew his right hand from the tear. In his hand, he held a black leather hilt. He walked backwards, moving away from the tear, and as he did, a large object emerged from within the opening. The hilt was connected to a much larger, much longer entity, wrapped in a sheath of crimson cloth, bound with strips of tanned leather. As Legba drew the object out of the tear, he supported it with his left hand, and laid it carefully on the floor of the hallway.

  Legba stood up to his full height and closed his eyes once more. He brought his hands up, holding his palms a distance apart that was roughly the same as the width of the tear. As he slowly brought his palms together, the opening that he had just opened began to close, narrowing at the same pace as the movement of his palms. As soon as his palms clapped together, the tear closed and disappeared into nothing.

  Raven Black gawked at Legba, then at the massive object that lay on the floor, then at Legba again. “How, uh... Did— Did you… Just… What the fuck is going on?”

  Legba smiled. “I warned you that it might be better to close your eyes. An overabundance of questions rarely brings much clarity.” He knelt down beside the object and began to loosen some of the strips of leather. He pulled back the cloth, exposing the large object within.

  Raven Black stared at the enormous entity that Legba had just drawn from within the tear: a huge, beautiful sword. It somehow looked even larger unsheathed, as long as she was tall. Its blade was double edged and immaculately polished.

  She noticed a series of unfamiliar symbols that were etched into the blade. Her brow furrowed in confusion. “I realize that your track record on answering direct questions is abysmal at this point, but… What the fuck is that thing?”

  Legba examined the sword. “If you had been slightly more skillful in your hacking, you might not have needed to ask.” Satisfied with what he saw, Legba wrapped the sword in its sheath, and began to secure the leather straps.

  Raven Black sighed. “You know, that really doesn’t count as an answer.”

  After tightening the last strap, Legba picked up the huge bundle in his arms. “Well, it is a sword. Does that sate your curiosity?”

  Raven Black glared at him, a frown on her face. “What do you think?”

  Legba smiled. “You have been very patient. And now that we’re very far from any members of your office’s security detail, we do actually have a moment to breathe.”

  Raven Black stared at the wound in Legba’s chest, from which blood was again flowing freely, with no hand pressed against it to staunch the bleeding. “Do we have a moment to breathe? Or, more to the point, do you?”

  Legba followed Raven Black’s gaze and peered down at his injury. He shrugged. “I will survive. Or, I might die, but the end result will be roughly the same.”

  Raven Black blinked at him, not following what he was saying. “How about we get you to a medical bay anyway, just to be safe?”

  Legba pressed his left hand against the wound, and he smiled. “If it will make you feel better, then very well. I believe that it is this way.”

  He gestured down the hallway, and walked in that direction, the sword in his arms and Raven Black by his side. “Anyway. This sword that I carry is very important. It is not merely an amalgam of steel and leather, which happens to come with a very attractive sheath. It also happens to be one of the most powerful objects in this galaxy. I know this may well be hard to follow, but as I have mentioned to you, I am a sort of guardian. A gatekeeper, with tremendous powers. And I have imbued this sword will all of the powers that I possess, as—”

  A thought dawned on him, accompanied by a new wave of pain in his chest. Perhaps he did not have the time to be standing around, exchanging pleasantries; Amroth could be close by.

  He forced his left hand back to the wound and gestured down the hallway with his right. “Come! Let us go!” He rushed forward, as quickly as he could manage, and Raven Black followed, keeping in step with him.

  Legba took a deep breath and looked over at Raven Black as they hurried down the hallway. “I must admit, I may have been a tad careless when I was tracking you.”

  Raven Black shook her head. “‘A tad’?”

  Legba grimaced, the pain in his chest becoming more intense the more he exerted himself. “Not all forms of carelessness are created equal. I had no reason to be terribly worried by the night shift of your office’s security detail. I do, however, have greater concerns surrounding one of the most powerful, and one of the most evil beings in the galaxy.”

  Legba winced, another wave of pain washing through his body. He pushed his left hand to his wound with ever more force, almost dropping the sword. He took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm his body, which was beginning to scream out in pain. “Oh… Oh my… It is almost as if running with a gunshot wound is not medically advisable…”

  He stopped rushing forward, dazed. He felt a lightness in his head, and a sudden worry that he might lose his balance. He stepped backwards, through a wide doorway that branched into another hallway. He rested his back against the wall and let himself slide to the floor.

  Raven Black approached him. She knelt down to him and put out her hands, near the sword that remained cradled in Legba’s arms. “Here. Let me take that. You definitely shouldn’t be exerting yourself this much in your condition. I’m guessing that this thing isn’t made out of foam, or paper, or any of those other light-weight materials t
hat swordsmiths tend not to favor.”

  Legba looked down at the bundle in his arms, then up at Raven Black. He looked into her eyes, seeing her eagerness to help in any way that she could. You wanted her to trust you, he thought to himself. The least you could do in return is trust her.

  With his left hand still pressed to his wound, he angled the sword towards Raven Black with his right hand, offering it to her. She clutched the hilt and took it gingerly into her arms.

  Raven Black felt the sword’s weight in her arms. She stood up to her full height and she took a deep breath. “Okay. We’ll get you to that medical bay. I promise. But can you please, please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  Legba shuffled up the wall, the pain in his chest becoming more intense. He staggered towards the large doorway that he had just passed through. He stared into Raven Black’s eyes. “I’ll tell you everything if you come with me now. We haven’t a moment to spare.”

  Raven Black bit her lip, repositioning the weight of the sword, and nodded. She threw Legba’s right arm over her shoulder, and with the massive sword in her arms, half-carried him down the hallway. They made their way towards the medical bay, Legba trailing a long river of blood.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Aboard the Scythe, Edge of Leviathon-Q Sector

  Ivor strode towards a monolithic, dark rectangle, the largest screen on the helm of the Scythe. The helm was bustling with crew members, who attended to their wide variety of navigational duties on the ship. Most of these crew members had never seen their leader in person, as he was a very infrequent presence at the helm. Intimidated by his alien presence, and unsure of the proper protocol, each crew member kept their eyes down in an attempt to project deference. Not a single one of them ever glanced higher than Ivor’s belt buckle.