As he approached the small gardened square outside of the building, he caught flashes of indigo out of the corner of his eye and froze, melting into the gap between one wall and another. If he had to guess the cause of the commotion he was confident he would get it right first time. But he couldn’t see Rook or Viktor amongst the swarm of soldiers. Even as he waited, watching the flow of various men and women in uniform, some entering the building whilst others marched away, back towards the centre of the city. He couldn’t see where the current commanding officer was from his current vantage point, which meant he was going to have to risk his cover to investigate.
Janus crept closer, winding through the back alleys with the stench of dank water and rotting garbage piled high in bins against the far wall. Voices carried over the cool breeze, snippets reaching his ears of ‘spirits’, ‘imposters’ and names he did not recognise. Sandson would, most likely; would understand their implications. He made a note to remember them and pressed on, inching closer to the building on the other side.
“How could you just let them walk in? I told you to keep your eye on the girl, did I not?” The voice rose higher in pitch as she spoke. “Nevi will have my head if she finds out she’s gone. It’s almost like you don’t even care? Should I tell her you’re a traitor? Hm, should I throw you in a cell with the rest of them?”
A beat of silence and then a pained grunt. “Do what you like,” said a familiar voice. “Shoot me now, for all I care.”
The other voice swore. “You’re a waste of good air, do you know that? Get out of my sight before I do just that.”
“I’ll talk to him, Major,” said a voice, another he recognised.
Footsteps sounded closer and closer until a flash of colour passed Janus’ hiding spot and he lashed out, grabbing hold and tugging his victim into the alley with him, a hand slapped across his mouth to muffle his yell.
“Ivor.”
The man whirled in his grasp but was too slow with his injured arm cradled to his side. His eyes flashed when he recognised Janus. “You. What do you want?”
“The Southerner and the boy with her. What happened to them?”
Ivor narrowed his eyes. “What are you involved in now? You never did know how to just lie low did you?”
“Nothing important. Just tell me what happened to them.”
“So you can do what? Are you going to break them out of a Sonlin facility just because your little puppet master wants you to?”
“Got my reasons,” he said, fingers twitching for his pocket, lungs already anticipating smoke. He needed to settle his nerves.
“You always do.” Ivor leant back, slumping against the wall like he no longer had the strength to hold himself up. Blood dripped from his arm, spotting the stone ground below.
“Might want to get that tended.”
A green eye cracked open. “Might want to get your sanity tended.”
A smile found his lips. “Too late for that now.”
Ivor barked a laugh, the sound turning into a cough. “I never understood you, you know. You got away. You should have just left and never come back.”
“Why don’t you?”
Ivor tried to shrug but he hissed in pain, clutching his wounded arm tighter. “Where would I go? They’d hunt me down and take pleasure in putting me down like a dog. Maybe I should just do it myself. Get it over with.”
Janus didn’t really know what to say to that so he remained quiet, eyes flickering between the wounded soldier and the street beyond. Voices disturbed what would have been a heavy silence, orders barked from one to the next, angry shouts to those who had not done their duty. It was always the same. Someone had to be blamed when things went wrong. Usually it was those at the bottom of the ladder, passed down each rung to load on the person holding it stable at the bottom. Janus remembered it well.
Ivor scoffed. “I’m too much of a coward, it would seem. What’s your excuse, Lakazar?”
Coward. He had been called that word more than a few times; enough now that it was merely another moniker to add to his collection. It did not faze him any longer but somewhere deep down, a chord was struck. The man of his youth had not liked to think of himself like that. But it had been a term used to tie the rope around his neck and yank. Cutting it off had been the best thing he ever did, cowardice be damned.
“Those demons were taken to the Research Institute off the Onyx Plaza. You can do what you like. Just leave me out of it.”
“What’s this? A secret rendezvous?”
Ivor started, flicking his gaze to the soldier standing in the mouth of their nook an alley with his arms folded and a smirk on his face. “Ranth,” he grunted. “Are none of you going to just leave me alone?”
“You’re lucky you’re not getting charged for insubordination. It’s just as well I was the one to find you. Who knows what would have happened if it had been one of the others.”
“Who knows?” echoed Ivor dryly.
“Janus,” Ranth nodded as he herded Ivor out.
Janus nodded back, wishing he could talk to Ivor on his own. Something about the lingering glances from Ranth unsettled him. He had the kind of look about him of someone who knew a secret and Janus didn’t like not knowing secrets. Whatever the Sonlin forces were planning here, it couldn’t be anything good.
Janus let them go, watching Ivor struggle awkwardly with one arm nestled into his side. A trail of blood followed in his wake, staining the ground red. Janus pulled out his bag of tobacco, rolled a pinch in some paper and lit it. Only once he had completed the ritual, blowing smoke out into the sky, did he finally feel like he could breathe. His fingers trembled but they would settle, in time. He squeezed his eyes shut as if he could squeeze the memories from his head with enough force.
But he was going to have to deal with the memories if he wanted to get his companions back. He had failed before and paid the price. Rook and Viktor he could still save. Janus could still make things right. And where there was even the slimmest chance of winning, he had to roll the dice.
Grinding the last embers of his cigarette under his heel, Janus got to work.
*
“I feel like this is starting to become a habit,” said Rook, glancing at Viktor. He was hunched into a ball, his arms wrapped around his shins with his chin resting on his knees. She stretched out her own legs and rolled her neck. “Probably not one we want to indulge in.”
Viktor ignored her. He knew she was only trying to cheer him up but the stress had taken so much out of him he barely had the awareness to hear what she was saying. They had been dragged through the city like a tourist’s exhibit, exposed to the gawking of the ordinary citizens of the city, until they had found themselves hoisted into a smaller white building a few streets from the central plaza, its cobalt domed roof flecked with strips of gold. The building itself had been innocuous, bland corridors and rooms that lacked character and colour, but many rows of windows washed the inside with so much sunlight it still felt hospitable at the very least.
Below, however, was cast off from the light, chilly and dank, with the incessant sound of dripping somewhere to his left, threatening to trigger his temper again. Back in the headquarters of the Order it had felt like nothing could touch him, like burying himself deep in its depths had been the only solution. Now, when faced with the stark reality, behind bars in a cage beneath the ground, he feared his anger. It consumed him, threatened to change all that he was. It was the door for that strange beast to come through. And it left less and less of Viktor behind each time it was opened.
“Kilai’s not going to be happy with us, you know. We couldn’t even manage a whole day without getting arrested.”
“That was more your fault than mine! If you hadn’t insisted on going there we would have been fine.”
“I did that to help you, remember? Besides,” she said, sniffing, “I didn’t know there would be no one left.” Her voice sounded hollow, muffled from her face pressed into her shoulder. “I don’t know what
that means, Viktor. If they aren’t there to protect the rifts, to keep doing research… We might be the only ones to stop them from breaking open completely.”
“Not for much longer,” he said drily.
She grimaced and shook her head. “No. Don’t think like that. I’m sure that Kilai and Janus –”
“Can’t and won’t do anything. I wouldn’t even bother thinking it.”
“The mayor seemed pretty interested in you.”
“Enough to risk his position just to get me out of here?” Viktor snorted. “Hardly likely. There’s no way they’ll let me go after what happened. Honestly, after the Phoenix Night, I probably deserve it.”
She looked at him then, her face fuzzy in the lack of light. He could make out the roundness of her eyes, the twist of her lips, as she said, “That’s not true. It’s not and you know it. Yes, what happened was – was something that cannot be undone. But you weren’t in control when that happened. You and I will pay for that for the rest of our lives. But how can we possibly hope to atone if we have no opportunity to do so?”
“Maybe that’s our redemption.”
“You don’t believe that.”
Viktor sighed, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. It’s hard to know what I believe anymore.”
“We can’t just give up.” She sat up and her chains rattled. “There’s always something.”
“Like what? Are you going to break us out of another prison?” He waved his hand irritably. “There’s always another to be thrown in. I’m going to be hunted my whole life. I can’t live like that, Rook. Always looking behind me. Scared of my own shadow.” He shook his head. “I’ve lived most of my life too afraid to break out of the stupid rules set by those crooks in Nirket. I won’t do it again.”
She fell quiet, a soft hum picking up from her corner of the cell. It was not a tune he recognised but it felt nostalgic all the same, like perhaps he had heard it once, long ago. He found his feet tapping along in time, fingers drumming against his knee.
“We used to sing it on the last days of the low season, when the darkest of nights finally gave way to lighter evenings and the first buds of the new year. It promises rebirth; a new life born from the remains of the ravages of frost and snow. But I can’t remember the lyrics,” she confessed. “It always felt so hopeful to me as a child, when it felt like the snow would never stop falling. The first flowers in the blooming season were always the most exciting. It was a sign that things were finally growing again. That you had survived.”
Viktor listened, nodding along as she spoke. He couldn’t imagine a land so cold – he had never even felt the snow before – but he closed his eyes and pictured the ragged mountains, capped with white. “How did you become – what you are?”
She scratched her head. “It’s a custom. The rift in Rökkum is one of the largest known to the Riftkeepers and it means we have lived amongst riftspawn all our lives. When a child finally reaches adulthood, if they are to become a true warrior then they travel to the rift and invite forth a riftspawn to share the bond. For a time they are invited to take over our bodies – grant us greater strength and abilities – and in turn they can traverse the mortal plane.”
He considered, remembering the way the Gorgei had drained its victims into husks. There was a lot he still did not understand. “You seem to be in control.”
Her chin fell downwards so that he could see the slope of her nose, hair falling in clumps around her face. “Not quite. I feel I’ve quite oversold myself to you,” she said with a short laugh. “The truth is it doesn’t always go well. It’s something that’s supposed to be part of the challenge, as if we have any control over what happens. The stories about beserkers losing control and killing anything in their path? They’re not wrong. I think I was at risk of becoming them, once.”
“But you joined the Order, didn’t you?”
“Mm. Well, when I first met The Rook I had been excited. My father is the leader of our tribe and succession goes by strength rather than birth, but he had certain expectations for me all the same. I wanted to meet them – exceed them, I suppose – and the spirit that had chosen me was one of repute. I thought it was destiny. Of course I would succeed him and become leader. It was less something I desired and more, just the natural course of things?”
It probably spoke badly of his character that he felt a pang of jealousy at her words. To be assumed for leadership, he could only have dreamed of such a thing as a child. He’d had to scrap and claw for every single bit of respect he could rake in. Not that he could imagine inviting one of these creatures to share his body. That seemed beyond witless.
“One night I struggled to fight the pull of The Rook and I went on a rampage, trying to fight anyone who would battle me. Even those who had no desire to. It was custom to fight for dominance, you see, and I thirsted for blood, in a way I can’t even describe to you now.” She finally looked up, chin still pointed to the floor. “In my rage I killed one of my opponents that night. He had been a childhood friend. We used to play in the creek in the high season and build houses out of snow when the colder weather came.” Her voice grew hoarser as she spoke, heavier with emotion.
“The worst of it was that I was praised for my prowess, as if I hadn’t just lost control and killed a boy that had been my friend. As if anything that had happened was okay.” She shook her head, hair tumbling over her face. “From time to time we would see rift wardens but we largely ignored them. I didn’t really understand what they did.”
“But something changed in me after that. For the first time I spoke to him and it was then I began to understand that what we did wasn’t right. That I couldn’t be that way anymore. He convinced me to leave and go to the outpost for the Order in Lyrshok. There I trained to find some control over myself and began to study to become like him, a warden that managed the rifts.”
Viktor took this in, listening to the distant creaking noise from somewhere above. “At least you decided to do something about it. I’ve been coasting my whole life, hoping something better would come along.”
“Sorry, you got me instead.”
Viktor snorted. “Could have been worse, I suppose.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, lifting her bound hands, chains clinking, “in what way?”
“I don’t really like being the optimist out of the two of us.”
Rook leant back against the wall and yawned. “I’m all out of steam, I’m afraid. I’m passing the mantle. Wear it well.”
Viktor ran his finger along the tatty hem of his shirt and sighed. It seemed the perfect symbol of his situation, worn down and broken, ragged from all the running and the fear of the creature that plagued him. Was it really too much to ask to die presentably? He didn’t want his last days to be in rags, with worn soles flapping when they inevitably hanged him. Unfurling his fist, he saw the deep crescent moon of his nails embedded into the flesh and he rubbed at it with a wince.
Rook began to hum again, filling the cell with the gentle swell of the song. It was supposed to be a hopeful song but shivering in the dark corner of a basement made it less so, and the slow, raspy way she hummed turned the tune melancholic, resonating deep inside him. Eyes closing, he pictured gentle snowfall against the backdrop of magnificent mountains. What would it feel like against his skin? Soft? Cold? Now that he was about to be robbed of the opportunity he found he longed to know. Left to his imagination he could only picture the many experiences he had left to live. If he lived to even see the next full moon, that was.
Sometime during the waning hours he must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew he was startled awake to the rattling of the door outside and then the jangle of keys. His mind felt foggy and he needed to relieve himself. Blinking into darkness, Viktor looked up at the soldier cursing at his key fob, raking through several before he seemed to find the one he was looking for. Glancing at Rook, he saw she was equally alert, scrambling into an upright position next to him
as the door swung open.
“You, boy,” he said, jerking finger. “Come with me.”
Fear sank into his gut, turning his limbs to ice. What were they going to do to him? His mind ran through myriad scenarios, each increasingly worse than the last, until the guard grew impatient and rattled the bars. “Don’t force me to make someone fetch you. Come on, now.”
“Where are you taking him?” said Rook.
The man’s mouth twisted. “Seems one of you has friends in high places. Are you coming or not? Because I can leave you down here to rot, if you wish.”
At Rook’s prodding Viktor got to his feet, looking back at her with confusion. If the soldier was referring to Sandson, why was he only setting Viktor free and not Rook? Perhaps he only thought Viktor necessary, as he was the one Sandson had been interested in all along. It made sense, and if so, then everything could be fixed. Relief swept over him in a wave, punctured tension seeping from his aching muscles.
“I’ll talk to him. I’ll get you out,” he said as he stepped towards the doorway.
She smiled up at him and guilt rippled through him. “Tell him he owes me a bath and a five course meal by now.”
He smiled back despite himself, unable to look away as the soldier grabbed his arm, fingers digging into the meat of his bicep. “As sweet as this is, I have places to be so if you don’t mind.”
Viktor kept his eyes on her, a lump huddled in the corner of the cell, as he was marched past the row of cells and up the stairs into the hall beyond. Bright light flooded through from rows of circular windows, airy and light in contrast to the gloomy dank depths of the basement below. Breathing in, he took a moment to adjust to the light, nearly stumbling into a pair of officials who strode past him and glared. Viktor scowled back at them. He wasn’t the one throwing innocent people in prison, so they could fall flat on their faces for all that he cared.
The Reaping Season Page 18