The Dark Season Saga- the Final Harvest

by Yehya H Safwat

  "What mockery of security measures did you take?” Yelled Maloch. For a moment I was confused but then I understood the charade Maloch was performing.

  Ginto's whiskers twitched with embarrassment and the stutter common to nervous Iktrits came on to him ruining the professional persona he tried to mimic. "Prop... proper compensa...sa...sation will be giv...given." The Genn just froze in their place like misplaced shadows.

  "I doubt that you can afford it."

  Maloch slammed the door in Ginto's face. The ratman muttered something in Iktrit and turned to his Neligans, screaming at them to rid the damn place of the animal corpse.

  In the carriage, Maloch took his seat on the couch. In front of him, the other couch was shrouded in unnatural darkness. He stretched his hands to the curtain but stopped halfway when he heard: "Don't."

  "He speaks," exclaimed the old soldier, "or rather, it speaks.”

  I made a hissing sound like that of a tiny flame quenched in cold water. "No need to get offended. What I said has a very logical explanation."

  "And that would be...?"

  "If you are a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ then you must practice free will. You dream and aspire. You make mistakes and act according to your whims and inner logic. And if you are an ‘it’, then you do not. But based on what I have seen today I rule that you are definitely a ‘he.’"

  He knocked on the wooden wall separating the carriage and the driver, and we started moving.

  "I thank you for —"

  “Oh my,” he said. “You are definitely a peculiar Genn."

  "Am I?" I pulled out one of my daggers and rested it on his shoulder.

  "I was referring to your gratitude. Another thing uncommon to your kin.” The moment he felt the edge of my dagger lift from his neck, he started to relax. “You won't kill me. Not after what you did today. My, what I would give to understand how your mind works. You saved that girl, didn’t you? It is you they are searching for now, right? Why did you save her?"

  I sat across him and sheathed my dagger. "I am learning.”

  “We mortals have something that every immortal or quasi-immortal envy us for, even your kind. We have the power to build civilizations and to destroy them. We can feed a stray animal or butcher an entire colony. We can believe and doubt. We can love and hate.” Maloch paused for a moment to reckon the effect of his words on me. “We can choose.”

  “It is dangerous.” I agreed.

  “Now you have it.” He added, “Now you have a purpose. Instead of being nothing, you chose to—”

  The carriage jolted to a halt. Maloch parted the curtains with his hand and peered outside.

  “My lord,” Called a voice. “Kindly step outside.”

  Maloch turned to me. “You need to get going.”

  “My lord.” The voice sounded as though it was right outside the door.

  “What are planning to do?” Both of us knew that I was concerned for his safety, but we didn’t utter this.

  “I plan to remedy a mistake.” Standing up, he removed the cloak, revealing the Sidnian uniform below. “My plan is working as it should. Your rescue was just a bonus.”

  The door of the carriage opened and Maloch quickly moved him body in front of the opening, blocking it. “What is it?”

  “It seems we have an issue, my lord. You say that the ogithon slain back there is yours?” asked the Neligan officer. I could see that we were almost at the barricade. A dozen or so Neligans accompanied the officer.

  “Perhaps. I think it is,” replied Maloch.

  “Is it yours or not?”

  “What difference does it make? It is some poor nobleman’s dear beast... a heinous crime that should be punished.” Answered Maloch loudly.

  “Wait ... what is this uniform?” Asked the officer.

  Attention outside was completely on Maloch, so I took the opportunity and went to the door on the other side. I carefully opened it and slipped through. I lingered for a moment in the shadow of the carriage looking, around for a way out. Then I saw a familiar face –a large humanoid figure coming along the street and crossing the Neligans’ barricade. From his metallic forehead, I realized that it was Tinbone the Brute. He spoke briefly to Ginto back at the spot where the ogithon was killed. He was clearly trying to keep his eyes open and his body erect.

  I heard the Neligan officer on the other side of the carriage order Maloch to step out of the vehicle and go with them. As I walked away, I saw that the Neligans jumped the old soldier and pinned him to the ground. Maloch issued some insane laughs which I wondered if they were just part of the act. They seemed pretty real to me.

  “Well, let us leave this spot shall we?” I turned to whisper to Sherako, but I couldn’t find him in my shadow. With no time to spare, I turned back to Tinbone. At that moment I remembered that I didn’t blow my gnome’s disguise yet. Still blessed by the carriage’s shadow, I quickly disguised myself in his form. I hastily scanned the place and found a table with a tray full of bottles of wine. I strode over, grabbed the tray, and headed for the Brute.

  “Your wine, my lord.”

  He turned around abruptly and nearly crashed into the tray.

  “Ha? What?” he said to the thin air above me.

  “Down here,” I said drawing his attention to my tiny self.

  “Ah yesh,” he replied and went for a bottle.

  I pulled the tray away from him. “This is not the proper spot for you sir to enjoy such a tasteful wine,” I said trying to lure him out of the tight spot.

  “Hmmm, where then?” he asked and approached menacingly. Ginto’s attention was drawn to us, as I’d hoped. He gave me that look of his, full of contempt.

  “What are you doing here? Get lost!” he yelled. I bowed and turned to leave. Shady, hooded faces observed the scene but lost interest instantly. Maloch’s scene still had their full attention as the Neligans put Maloch in chains and dragged him away.

  “Where do think you are going?” Tinbone asked as he reached for the bottles. “Give me those.” I increased my pace until I passed the Neligans’ barricade. I stopped just before we reached the main square, where the stage stood.

  ***

  As Tinbone poured the content of the bottles into his bottomless belly, I looked for Sherako again but couldn’t find him anywhere. The hollow of my shadow was empty and silent.

  Then I noticed the silvery fumes of my kin under their hoods, spreading from the scene of the Shagwig. I needed to focus.

  Then it was Tinbone’s turn to surprise me.

  “Bohla,” he said and then snatched the tray I held and put it in front of his face.

  “Bohla zagazeeg Tinbone,” he added, as he hid his face behind the tray. I moved to look at his face but he moved with me, keeping the tray between us and covering his face with it. I didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Then it struck me as I deciphered his bizarre action. He’d convinced himself, somehow, that he had succeeded in stealth and was unseen behind the tray. The wine must have kicked in really hard.

  “Now Tinbone goes to a secret meeting,” he said. Eyes almost shut, he whipped around trying to see where he should go.

  I watched him walk beside the half-pavilion, going south, stumbling clumsily. Anyone watching wouldn’t even know that he was attempting to sneak around. Whenever anyone’s eyes met his, he just froze in place, shutting his eyes for a moment and putting the tray in front of his face until the confused observer turned away.

  The Council of Steel was a bunch of fools, I thought, choosing the Brutes to be part of their army. The formidable army of the Council was called the Cardia Ferra, or Men With Iron Hearts, beings half men, half iron. Originally hailing from Stegia, the Men With Iron Hearts weighed nearly a ton of muscles and iron each, juggernauts of destruction. The Brutes were more like their lesser substitutes.

  I followed the bungling Brute, who was still convinced that no one noticed his rampaging. When we left the busy square, he froze for a second and closed his eyes, putting the tray in
front of his face to avoid being seen by the Neligan patrol. They casually passed by him, paying him no real interest.

  I lurked beside him as he emptied the last bottle of wine into his bottomless belly. A hooded Genn passed right behind us, and I could hear the whispers of his somatic incantations trying to locate me, praises to the Silver Shadow. Luckily, since conjuring a spell from one of the Seven Powers starts with a word, Tinbone’s loud presence disrupted all the Genn’s delicate spells.

  After passing a couple of corners with similar hilarious stealth attempts, he stopped by a crossroad surrounded by two to three-story buildings. He lingered there for a moment and then started flapping his arms. He stamped with his feet and kept sneaking glances at the other corner of the crossroads.

  In that other corner, several feet away, another Brute stood, replicating Tinbone’s the flapping and stamping. I could only guess that they were signaling each other.

  They continued with this until I was about to shout at them to get on with it. Then another Brute came along from another street, one who had metal shoulder plates. He watched them for a couple of seconds, trying to understand what they were doing. He tumbled to the ground, hiding behind a barrel, which barely hid his legs, and with terror, he scanned the air for some imaginary diving threat.

  After seeing that there was no danger, he attempted to draw their attention. He whistled, hummed, barked, and made just about every animal sound he could imitate. Then breathless, he looked around him for something to throw.

  He grabbed a rock from a nearby pile and threw it at Tinbone but missed by whole three yards, which Tinbone himself didn't notice as it crashed into a window of a seller, of course. He went closer until he was less than five feet away and grabbed a long wooden shaft. He stretched his arms, trying to reach Tinbone with the shaft. That went on for another couple of minutes until a window opened just beside Tinbone on the first floor of one of the buildings in the crossroads.

  A fourth Brute, with mechanical mouth and iron teeth, came out and froze for a second, trying to decipher the messy scene with a stupid stare. He uttered some brutish grunts, waving for them to come in with his metallic hand. I pulled my hood over my face and followed them inside in the crudest disguise I could come up with. It was risky but with their level of drunkenness they wouldn’t even recognize their own faces in a mirror. After they made several failed attempts to find the door, I led them to it, accepting some really ugly smiles of gratitude, and other Brutes trickled in after us.

  The drunken Brutes struggled to find their way to the meeting room in the two-story-high building. They made enough sound with their metallic body parts to alert the entire city block to their presence. Although they walked like a herd of cows gone amok, they finally managed to reach a long room in the cellar.

  The narrow window near the ceiling showed that it was almost midnight. I had to speed things up a bit if I wanted to know what the meeting was about before the end of the year. So when they started greeting each other and trying in vain to get two similar headcounts of their number, I had to interfere, especially when I saw ale barrels being dragged to the table. Still disguised as the gnome under a simple hood, I stood up on my chair so that I could nearly match their height saying, “We should hurry before Edwin notices your absence, Chief Tinbone.”

  Silence followed, and my heart pounded. They stared at me for a second, seemingly with a monumental effort to identify me.

  "He ish right," said a drunk Brute in the crude tongue of Husk. "We need to work on our ordersh. Ish it the lasht day of the contesht already… hic?"

  Again silence reigned for a moment.

  “It ish the shecond day, shtill two daysh to go” replied one of them.

  “No it ish the shird day, I know it ish” commented another.

  "It doesn't matter which day it is, we need to act," I said, aiding their witless brains.

  "Then we move forward," Tinbone said, standing up after two failed attempts. "Who has it?"

  “Who has what?”

  I tried to think of any trick that might speed things up. But I found the drunken gathering turning to one of them who was looking through his things. He grabbed a leather sack the size of his head and put it on the table. Slowly and with great reverence, barely managing to open his eyes, he pulled the sack’s drawstrings and removed an artifact resembling Trudivar, the Gray Hammer. It was one foot long, made of gray metallic rock of peculiar texture like that of wet sea rocks. Even the longer sides of the hammer and its top had the same three engravings known to exist on the real Trudivar. Whispers of admiration issued from the hulks.

  This divine symbol of their faith was put in the center of the table, and it was then that they started the meeting.

  What I concluded from their near-meaningless discussion was that they were waiting for someone. Most of what they discussed was absolute nonsense, a babbling mix of political cluelessness and religious disputes. Then after the passing of three hours, the door of the cellars was opened. I heard a voice I knew.

  “I see that you already started.”

  We all turned to see the visitor. I cowered in my spot as soon as I saw that creepy gnome I’d met at Edwin’s house. He entered and walked among them, unshaken by their hulking size. Each one of them had an arm bigger than his entire form. He reached the other end of the long table opposite to Tinbone and sat on the huge chair.

  “So why did you call for me, Tinbone?” he asked the Brute Chieftain. “I think I made myself clear. No more meetings.”

  Tinbone checked his comrades and then looked at the table in front of him, trying to focus. “We heard Edwin speak,” he said. “I was not sleeping when he talked to the officer. We do not appretiash… apptertiate… appsheriate… baah… we do not like that he gets all credit.”

  “Who said he will?” the gnome replied calmly. “Like I said to Ginto, and as you very well know, each will have a part in this. The beast is massive this time, and in order to bring him down, we need all of you to strike the killing blow together. And together all will get the credit.”

  Tinbone’s mouth was wide open and drooling. “Bu...” he slurped his own drool back. “But we do not see benefit from this event. Why do it here, like this? If there is a deal, why all the trouble? Just put it on their table and be on with it.”

  “This is why your kind is not in the lead, Brute. I have explained to you before, my drunken friend. The event is not just for the sake of a simple bargain. When the final blow is landed and the last move is made, everyone must see it. It will crush any hope still struggling in their chests. We wanted witnesses, and this brought the world to us.” He looked in my direction.

  “A document will be put on the Sea Door this year. The winning song will be written on a very powerful parchment and join Talor’s Plea. The parchment is a gift from my people”

  “What people?” asked one of the Brutes.

  Yes, what people? Who are you really gnome? He sat there grinning.

  Everyone exchanged looks. “Did he answer?” one of them asked around with his eyes closed. “I cannot hear it. Who closed my eyes?”

  “And the dwarf?” asked Tinbone with a sudden gleam of comprehension in his eyes.

  Which dwarf are they referring to? I wondered.

  “The dwarf is yours,” the gnome replied as he turned his attention to Tinbone.

  Tinbone reached for the priceless Hammer and held it in his clutch admiringly. “Edwin Borgman and the damn slavers scheme and plot. Each wants to be the one sitting among the Chain Lords.”

  Grunts filled the room, and the gnome’s smile broadened.

  “You say that wars can be won somewhere other than on the battlefield. Even the Chain of Cas thinks that words can win them. Their spokesman is here and he brought with him a piece of paper that he thinks will change everything… a piece of PAPER!”

  More approving grunts.

  “We do not accept that!” yelled Tinbone in resolve. “On the Night of the Chanting Willow, we will bri
ng back the Iron Will of Stegius. It is not with a piece of paper that wars are won. It is with steel and flame.” He thundered, “WE WILL HONOR FADOMATH, THE HAND OF STEGIUS. WE BRUTES WILL GIFT HIM A SEAT ON THE SEARING SUMMIT!”

  Everyone cheered and then one asked, “What will we do exactly? What are our orders?”

  Tinbone paused for a second, scratching the metallic plate guarding his forehead and then turned to the gnome. The gnome stood up, saying, “The box will be delivered tomorrow night. I cannot tell you what do. You are masters of your own destiny.”

  They all cheered once more, all but me, and that damn gnome noticed. He nearly turned to me again but then casually moved along. Another thing had slipped through my mind: the Night of the Chanting Willow was a couple of weeks ahead. Lorken’s calendar was different than Eredia’s. That year would witness an unprecedented event, the concurrency of two important days: Ardul’s Seal and the Night of the Chanting Willow. Each year, both nations celebrated their own holiday but in that year of 2222 SC, both would happen on the same day.

  I wished to stay longer to learn more but I saw, on the window, a tiny shadow of something crawling from outside and sneaking in: a tiny Thittle Hide lizard companion.

  The Verda Luka was closing in.

  Fading into the shadows near the walls of the room, I snuck out of the building wondering what the gnome’s plan was. As I moved away from the crossroads, I found myself squeezing my daggers.

  In the streets, the creamy dawn was yawning, and rain started to pour. I decided that if I was trapped in that city, I would not sit waiting for them to get to me.

  The Un-Dealt Card

  I sat on the roof of a four-story-high old mansion which served as a luxury hotel watching the pale sunrise. The chilly wind's roar was blasting across the soaking streets of the unsleeping city, yet I seemed to be the only one irritated by the weather. It was then that I noticed something even more disturbing than the weather; the animal life in Borg had gone quiet. Within the angry weather and roaring celebration, no birds were seen flying in the gray sky or lurking on building ledges. I turned to the Arcatur Mountain, searching for the Cantry Gulls, but they were gone. I saw no dogs or cats wandering in alleys, not even critters crawling on the cobbled streets. There was nothing other than the rapturous existence of the Borgians and their guests.