Bladeborn

by Clayton Schonberger

  In a crevice between the walls of a place near the undercity tombs, he found a group of sad folks he had only heard of in rumor. These people ate from the corpses of the recently dead. Bladeborn was shocked; he would have nothing to do with those who had sunk so low.

  Still, Bladeborn realized that finding more secret corridors could become a great boon, providing a few locations that the gangs, Guards, and Shaft Police couldn’t track him. The Shaft Police Wizards had already begun to use special magic to try to get at Bladeborn. This meant he needed to make regular, costly trips to Thustral the Damned. Each trip took him down past Jerzee’s place, which was now dangerous.

  On one occasion, Bladeborn wanted a hex removed, and Thustral said, “I grow weary removing curses from you. You must learn to do it yourself!”

  “Teach me!” Bladeborn stated. “I want to know!”

  “It is not that simple!” Thustral countered. “The fires and frosts of magic can kill those who are weak or drive them mad with power! And magical Essence is absent in normal people like you.”

  “I am strong enough,” Bladeborn claimed. “I have no fear of magic, and I already have the ability to access Essence!”

  “I find that difficult to believe,” Thustral said looking down his long nose at Bladeborn. “To learn, you must follow my commands and do exactly as I say!”

  “I shall not bow to you, Thustral,” Bladeborn said. “Your help is not worth that price.”

  Thustral looked Bladeborn up and down thoughtfully and said, “Bowing is not what I demand. I wish to see you prove your value!”

  Bladeborn showed Thustral the spark burst he could call forth at his fingertips.

  “That is a simple priest’s trick, originating in the light of Saint Morth,” Thustral harrumphed. “There is a certain amount of Essence in it; to be sure, but before I consent to teaching you, you must do better! Show me something special. Pull a lepidoptera from the ether, if you can!”

  “What is a lepidoptera?” Bladeborn asked.

  Folding his arms and looking down his nose, Thustral said, “That is part of the test…”

  Bladeborn raised an eyebrow and tried to think what the fallen Wizard meant. Onar had told Bladeborn several times he had powers within that were, “…asleep…” Focusing his mind, Bladeborn opened a doorway into “the room that was not a room,” from which he materialized the pottery shiv that killed the tentaslime three years ago. Now, from that “place” he withdrew a giant, colorful butterfly.

  The magic surprised Bladeborn as much as the fallen Wizard.

  They watched the colorful, otherworldly insect fly around Thustral’s laboratory, and then alight on his desk.

  Thustral exclaimed “Remarkable! That was no sleight of hand. I would certainly know the difference!” Taking out a magnifying glass, Thustral examined the butterfly as it dried its wings where it had landed. “I have never seen a life-form such as this anywhere within the City. Indeed, it is a spectacular example of a lepidoptera.”

  Bladeborn had no idea how he had done it, but he bluffed as though it was something he could do at will, “This proof is enough.”

  Thustral took a large jar and captured the butterfly. Placing a lid on the jar, he looked at Bladeborn, seemingly in a new light, “They call you Bladeborn the Brute, and in some ways, the title fits you. Your outrageous actions have angered almost all the controlling powers in Fortress City. But there appears to be more to you than that. I will study you, young warrior, and find out if you are no mere gladiator or robber! Let me get a better look at the faded tattoo you wear.”

  Bladeborn removed the shirt he wore, and then removed the coat of laced-together pottery pieces that protected his chest as makeshift armor.

  Thustral recoiled from Bladeborn a bit and clenched his teeth, “The mark of Zipzorag! Where did you get this design?”

  “What do YOU know of it?” Bladeborn said, once again donning his shirt.

  “I know that you are not one of Zipzorag’s loathsome followers.”

  “Tell me what you can of this ‘Zipzorag,’” Bladeborn asked.

  “Zipzorag, Demon Lord of Nightmares. I shudder to say his name. This creature has insinuated a terrible presence into our City,” Thustral began. “Like all his kind, he corrupts everything he touches. It is my belief that the Demon gained the favor of the Royal family by granting them longer lifespans than the rest of us…yet the price he demands for this boon is blood.”

  Bladeborn was slightly awe-struck by Thustral’s explanation, wondering if all Angres had said was true.

  Bladeborn said, “The gladiator Angres said he rescued me from members of a cult. He said they were going to take my life in the name of a creature from beneath the City. After my rescue, Agatha, leader of the Enclave…”

  “I know all this,” Thustral said impatiently. “I know you better than you realize! I even know you claim to have escaped the dungeons. But such lies as that make me want to withhold my knowledge!”

  “I did escape the from the dungeons!” Bladeborn insisted.

  “That is not my understanding of the situation,” Thustral claimed. "Everyone knows it is impossible. Your dishonesty reflects badly on you…”

  “If you have a moment, I shall explain…” Bladeborn told the fallen Wizard about the priest who had been his cellmate. He explained that Onar had been a teacher and had helped Bladeborn escape the dungeons. It seemed to make an impression, yet Thustral asked more about the mark on Bladeborn’s chest, as if he didn’t trust the young man fully.

  “That marking—I need to know how it got there, warrior,” Thustral said. “How you have survived so long with it upon you…”

  “I cannot answer that, Thustral. No one has ever challenged me about it, since I try to keep it hidden.”

  Thustral paced back and forth a bit, then turned suddenly and said, “I need to have the books that tell the details. Perhaps with them we can hope to turn the City from its self-destructive course. Get me the books that speak of the power you were meant to die for. Only with the books will I teach you what you ask of me.”

  Bladeborn backed away and said angrily, “So you can summon even more Demons? I don’t think so!”

  “By Saint Morth, no!” Thustral exclaimed. “Bladeborn, you don’t realize it but I am called the Damned because I am a GOOD man…These are strange, backward times we live in. As I said, the corruption of the Demon extends to the highest floors.”

  Thustral leaned in at this point and whispered in Bladeborn’s ear, “King Koss and his brother, the High Wizard Dimtreanos, are disciples of this Demonic power! Good folk are oppressed, everywhere!”

  “I am very much aware of how the City is on hard times, Thustral. One does not have to look far to see it is so.”

  “…Well, I am one who will not be oppressed!” Thustral stood back again and ceremoniously dusted himself off. “I am not one of THEM!”

  Bladeborn thought for a moment and decided he believed the middle-aged Wizard. Thustral had always dealt fairly with him, and had never been threatening in the least. “I will search for these books, and perhaps they will bring light to who my parents were. But I am not going to do everything ‘exactly’ as you say, Thustral. I am my own man.”

  “It may be too late to be your own man,” Thustral warned. “Every action you take moves the pendulum. Think about that before you study any magic.”

  Bladeborn, in contribution to his Wizardly training, was carrying two large books he had brought from a store on the high levels of the City. After he had read them, he planned to bring them down to Thustral. As he passed through the lower city market, one of his beggar friends called to him from the shadows. He took a step into the alley where the voice had come from, when suddenly, out of a dark doorway, an old man-killer jumped him. The assassin was a hair too slow, as Bladeborn dodged back. Still, the man-killer’s shiv scratched Bladeborn’s shoulder.

  Dropping the heavy tomes, he stabbed the assassin in the stomach with his brick knife. The old
assassin gurgled and dropped over.

  Bladeborn ran, regretfully without the books, while what could only be the strongest poison in the City lit his limbs on fire. It had to be Rat-bug toxin—the wound was a mere scratch, but the reaction he had to it was severe. He staggered to a safe corner in airshaft 287 where he suffered through the effects the poison inflicted. It was an endless night of prickly, fevered pain and a long day of alternating hot and cold sweats.

  He drank the small canteen of water he had stored, as the poison ran its course and the wound bled out. After a full day he was extremely thirsty and not yet over the poisoned weapon’s effects. He took a chance, leaving his hiding place and staggering through the streets to the Fountain of the Nameless Hero in the center of the Lower Market Square. Bladeborn soaked the open wound in buckets of water.

  Some gang members walked past him, and one said, “It’s Bladeborn the Brute!”

  Another said, “Looks like he’s almost dead.” They were going to beat the life out of him, but the Constables were already pushing their way toward the scene.

  Bladeborn somehow found the strength to flee back to one of his hideouts, barely escaping the two gang members and Constables in pursuit. The danger was getting too close and his profile too familiar.

  So, with a small glow-globe as the only light, he began to travel deep into the abandoned depths of Fortress City where the Shaft Police and those who sought the reward for his head would never find him. He made long journeys into the darkness, shoulders slumped in isolation...

  Forlorn, he wandered among ancient crypts and tombs, in places that would have driven a normal man insane with fear. He stole nothing from the tombs, instead respecting the dead—and some of the dead did not rest easily.

  Fleetingly, he would catch glimpses of the spirits of the dead. They acted as though they were frightened by him, always walking the other way or disappearing behind a corner. Bladeborn involuntarily reacted with slight shivers or rapid eye-blinking when one of them was near.

  He would return to the surface for food, eating cast-off, rotten vegetables and moldy, worm-ridden refuse. Because gang members or Guards might recognize him, it was dangerous to visit the fountains, and so he found water wherever he could. He had become such an anathema That even those who once called him friend would not defend him in public.

  Then, a rumor circulated among the beggars that Bladeborn ate the dead. Bladeborn overheard two of them whispering while he slept under a heavy cloak in a dark alley.

  “You hear about Ten-To-One Bladeborn,” the first beggar said.

  “Yes,” the second beggar whispered. “He has joined with those who live between the walls of the crypts and eat the dead. It’s how he survives.”

  “Aye,” the first beggar said. “Once a strong man he was, brought low by the City. He should have stayed under Merkee’s roof.”

  “Everyone knows that,” The second beggar whispered. In Fortress City, the streets are square.”

  Bladeborn felt as though he had hit the very bottom of a long airshaft…all had abandoned him and he was alone. Finally, he took a chance and visited Thustral, hoping that the old Wizard could still be counted as a friend.

  Bladeborn appeared in the middle-aged Wizard’s study as Thustral hunched over his worktable.

  “Thustral?” Bladeborn asked tentatively.

  “Bladeborn!” Thustral exclaimed. “By the Horns of the Dragon God, young man, you must have lost twenty pounds since I last saw you!”

  Bladeborn leaned over Thustral’s worktable hopelessly and hung his head low, “I am at the end, Thustral, and I am so desperately hungry!”

  “I have a little I can share with you,” the Wizard said, reaching into a cabinet above him. He got giant dried mushrooms, cavern carrots, grotto gourds paste, and more. He even gave Bladeborn some wine.

  “Do not despair,” Thustral said as Bladeborn voraciously ate. “Slowly, slowly. You have travelled far into the undercity, and you know things which only a few men know. It has changed you, young man, and it is reflected in your face.”

  With a mouthful of food, Bladeborn said, “I am surprised you will help me.”

  “Although you are hunted and you cannot linger here, I will aid you,” Thustral resolved.

  “Why do this?” Bladeborn demanded, desperately. “Why not let me die?”

  “The tale of your victory in the arena has been told and retold,” Thustral said to Bladeborn. “You are a man whose name means something. You helped many, before your escapades made you the most hunted man in the undercity.”

  “I should not have come here,” Bladeborn said, full of regret. “If word got out that you helped me, it would be disastrous for you. I am sorry, Thustral, but hunger guided my steps. Some think I eat the dead. I do not, but I know the rumor. The cannibals of the deep levels are people I have always avoided, yet they claim that I have shared meals of flesh with them. They do this out of spite, I am sure.”

  “Aye,” Thustral said, “there are many who believe you have sunk very low. They revel in such knowledge. They think you lost your way and you ceased to hope, yet we know there is still a spark within you. Although your belly is empty, YOU are a seeker.”

  “I am as you say, Thustral, but no one supports me, so I am starving. If I am recognized in a public area, the City Watch is instantly summoned; or worse, I’m seen and caught by people from a gang. I used to count many beggars as friends, but now they watch for me. Their eyes are sharp, and some have revealed me when I try to move with stealth among those in the lower city. I can find no peace, anywhere.”

  “That’s because people fear you so,” Thustral replied. “Without being fully aware of it, a legend has grown about you. Everyone in the lower City has an opinion about you, and although right now your fate seems bleak, you must hold out. YOU have a FUTURE. There is little more to say. Go back to the lower floors…Survive… Wait for the day when a man such as you can take his own place…”

  Chapter 10: Brother Grumrig

  With these cryptic words, Thustral sent Bladeborn on his way. Thustral’s words were little solace inasmuch as Bladeborn was hungry, hunted, and betrayed by those whom he once helped. Despite the risks Bladeborn could not simply hide away somewhere, because, as Thustral had said, Bladeborn was “a seeker.”

  On one of Bladeborn’s explorations of the empty parts of the city, he found a back way into the red-curtained corridor across from where the original Enclave lair had been. The secret passage he followed had led him to the old morgue. Bladeborn could not know that it was the very place where his father Kandar, and his mother, Elissa, had first dealt with the cult of Zipzorag. He simply saw it as a new place to explore and acquire learning—exploration also serving to take his mind off his miseries. He entered the place where the lower City people had been sent to die during the last plague, with the white bones stacked high against the walls. In the center of the room he was surprised to see a young Priest holding a scroll.

  “Yes,” the young priest said melodically. “Come in, come in, there's nothing to fear here. Bless the dead with me.”

  Yet Bladeborn felt the situation wasn’t right. In all his deep travels within Fortress City he had never seen a Priest in a Crypt who was simply there to “bless the dead.”

  When Bladeborn took out his short wooden club from under his shirt, the entire skull of the young priest opened up into a toothy, fleshless maw. It was some sort of fearless undead creature Bladeborn had never before encountered. It hissed at him with a magically powerful gust of air straight out of a sepulcher.

  Bladeborn dropped his glow globe to the ground and stood ready for the frightful apparition’s attack. Beneath the tattered priest’s frock were white bones, held together by unholy force and a webbing of dried skin.

  It was amazing that the skeleton had been able to hide its appearance with magic. Bladeborn noted that its skeletal feet were floating just off the ground, which was highly unnerving.

  Still, Bladeborn chose not to run.
Reaching over its shoulder, the apparition drew a saber from a hidden scabbard. It slashed at him with the long, tarnished weapon.

  Bladeborn tried to parry with his soft wood club, which was chopped nearly in two. With his weapon useless now, he had to resort to sheer muscle.

  Throwing his weight into the body of the skeletal thing, Bladeborn tackled it with every fiber of his body, driving it back toward a wall. Although merely thin bone, the apparition was a lot stronger than Bladeborn had guessed. In driving it back he encountered incredible buoyancy and resistance.

  Bladeborn held the apparition’s arms so it was unable to stab or cut him with the saber’s edge. It only managed to strike Bladeborn’s head with the saber’s pommel. The pommel was sharp and it made deep, bloody gashes on Bladeborn’s forehead.

  They wrestled furiously. Pinned against the wall, the creature continued poking at Bladeborn’s head with the saber-hilt, trying to blind him. Suddenly, the skeletal thing spun Bladeborn around, a spin that brought his hands closer to the hands and body of the thing. With that small opening, lightning fast, Bladeborn grabbed its boney wrist so it couldn’t cut him anymore with the saber. Bladeborn locked his grip on the undead’s spine at the neck with his other hand and pulled, ripping the skull from the rest of its frame.

  Whatever had animated it seemed to be gone, and Bladeborn threw the undead thing’s skull and spine to a far corner of the large room. The skull skidded to the ground and rolled to its side, facing Bladeborn.

  “EEHAHH!” it hissed, still able to make a bone-chilling sound.

  Exhausted from the struggle, Bladeborn yet held the thing’s skinless arm. At his feet was the rest of the creature’s shattered and separated bones. In anger and frustration, he walked over to the laughing skull, ripped it from the spinal column, and threw it down the hall all the way to the back of the morgue. It landed somewhere well past the stacked bones of those who had died during the last plague.