Authors: Robert
Khevalis could make out the shape of hands and feet. He wasn’t even sure where the thing's eyes were, but its ears stuck out from the sides of its squashed-looking head in a manner that suggested that they could be aimed. A faint trickle of blood still leaked from the creature’s fresh injuries, but even if he concentrated, the rikari couldn’t hear a heartbeat or breathing.
“What is it?” Khevalis stepped closer. The thing twitched.
“One of Styx’s kharai,” Vhaes said.
Khevalis nodded. They knew almost nothing about the kharai yet; the previous few Vhaes had deliberately allowed the city’s spy network to fall apart, and the damage had not yet been fully repaired. They knew that kharai could be made to fly, or given great strength. Apparently they could be given other abilities as well.
“Quite interesting,” Vhaes continued. “He was made to hunt
us
.”
Something clicked into place in Khevalis’s mind. “Does he have poisonous claws?”
His master nodded. “He’s quite nimble, as well. Kharai like this might even be good for a decent challenge. It really is too bad.”
“Sir?”
“This one was a remarkable man. I had to pull the secrets out of him,” he said. “I know who he was, but what's left of him still refuses to speak. I know he feels pain, but he will not cry out. I could break his will, but not without shattering everything that makes him admirable. Under other circumstances, this man might have made a worthy rival, but he saw too much here. I can’t let him report back, and captivity would be pointless; he will never turn. I'm not even sure that he would survive a time as a Shining One.”
Vhaes held out his left hand, not looking away from the prisoner. Khevalis quickly grabbed a cloth and set it in his master’s hand.
“No, this man dies now. Speak, though. Do you wish to be buried or cremated?”
Khevalis didn’t even see a mouth open, but he heard the creature speak. “B…bugger…off.”
Vhaes nodded, slashed the creature across the neck with a backhanded blow from his gauntlet, and toweled the weapon clean with the cloth. The kharai’s blood smelled wrong, but it still wouldn’t do to parade it through the City Below. “Have a coffin prepared and send him back home. It’s the least he deserves. And alert the Nhori. I need to have a word with them about guard duty; there’s going to be more like him and I’d rather they don’t pick off all of the fledglings.”
Khevalis nodded and took real notes this time. He gave the laboratory a cursory glance; he needed to make sure it was ready for Vhaes tomorrow as well. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the hulking
thing
standing in the corner. It was a massive biped, nearly two and a half meters tall. Its naked, leathery flesh was a sickening grey-green. A rune stood out on its forehead.
“Master…” Khevalis approached it cautiously. “Is that what I think it is?”
The creature lifted its face and Khevalis could finally see that its eyes were open. A tiny spark of life looked out at him, and all doubt vanished. This was indeed a creature of legend.
Vhaes hardly looked up. “Yes, very probably.”
“This is…amazing. How long has it been since you’ve made one? Millennia?”
Vhaes shrugged. “I was just revisiting an old hobby. I presume, though, you have a reason for coming early that goes beyond gawking?”
Khevalis snapped back to the task at hand. “Yes, sir. A man claiming to be under your employ says he has caught some conspirators within Talestri. His name is Martin Rostok, and he’s arrested a trio of laborers—Donner, Charmichael and Fritzer. He claims they’re conspiring with a rikari they know, named Adelen, and plan to assassinate you. They’re being held in the keeper’s cells, waiting for you.”
Vhaes flicked an ear. “You disturbed me for this?”
“I thought you might find it entertaining.”
“You were correct.”
They hurried through the warrens. The warrens were the living and operating quarters of the elite of Talestri, the City Below. It was their law by which the commonfolk lived above their heads, and those who broke those laws above often disappeared below. They rarely returned unchanged.
The last vent before the Shining Ones rose up directly behind a bakery, and Khevalis habitually paused for a moment to savor the smell of fresh bread and melted butter. Vhaes did not slow, though, so Khevalis had to cut the moment short. His master would not wait for him, and if he didn’t hurry Vhaes would lose him in the labyrinth outside of the prisons.
Vhaes led the way through, never hesitating or looking twice in any direction. The supplicants sometimes raced in the maze as part of their perpetual competitions; no matter the configuration of the walls, Khevalis had never seen any take less than five times Vhaes’s slowest time.
Khevalis was watching for it, but he still failed to notice at what point they were joined by a pair of Nhori, or from which direction they had come. Try as he might, he still couldn’t tell how the Nhori knew when the master wanted them. They floated a few feet behind Vhaes on either side. Khevalis didn’t look too closely; he’d seen through a gap in one’s robe once, and never wished to again.
Three floors down, the maze’s walls terminated in the massive door of the lower levels; the only one through which exit was possible. Normally it required three keys and two people pulling to open it; instead, the locks clicked and the door swung open smoothly as Vhaes approached.
Pale guards snapped to attention as they passed. Their lord did not slow, but spared them a wave as he passed. They were in no danger, and Vhaes never needed assistance.
Rostok was leaning against the door of the cells. His tanned skin marked him as foreign to the city as clearly as his dark hair indicated that he did not number among the elite. He bowed as they approached.
Vhaes stopped short of him. “Martin Rostok. I did not employ you to come into my city.”
“I sought only to serve you, lord.”
“You serve me by dealing as honestly with me as I do with you. Why did you come here? I wanted you as a contact.”
“Oh, well, sir, it was going quite well. I was pokin’ around and actually managed to get into the study of Cloudshadow hisself. Himself, I mean. Anyway, I read what I could, until it looked like I’d get caught, and got outta there. I had to get this news to you; I couldn’t take any of it or he’da got suspicious. As it was, I’m pretty sure he was on to me.”
Vhaes’ expression stayed neutral. “Intriguing. What was this…phenomenal secret?”
“He had contact with a group of saboteurs. Four people, one of them a rikari, planning to smuggle in weapons and poisons.”
“Infiltrating across the Blight...curious. And you caught them?”
“All but that rikari, and he won’t stay a mystery for long!” He gestured towards the cell. “Let’s see what we can learn.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
The door clicked and swung open by itself, and Vhaes pushed past the human into the cell. The smell of fresh blood hit Khevalis and he swallowed hard to keep from drooling, then focused on taking deep breaths. He tried to ignore the smell. The master knew of his unusually powerful sense of smell, usually paying it no mind, but he would be disappointed if Khevalis lost control.
The prisoners were bound to chairs, blindfolded and gagged. Blood stained two of the chairs and pooled on the floor beneath.
Vhaes proceeded to the unstained chair. The prisoner cringed at the sound of his voice.. “This one. What can you tell me of him?”
“That’s Donner. He’s the first one I caught. When he knew the game was up, he threw himself at my mercy and confessed everything. He’s been a little gold mine of information.”
“What does he do?”
“Huh?” The question had caught the human off guard.
“He lives in my city. What service does he provide? It may mitigate his sentence if he is…useful.”
“But he’s a traitor!”
“Indeed he is. It does not mean that I shall kill him if he learns the error of his ways.”
“But—okay. I don’t know what he does.”
“Pity. And the next?” He pointed.
“Fritzer. He needed some persuasion, but he confirmed the names of the other three.”
“And this would be Charmichael then?” The human nodded his confirmation. “What have you learned from him?”
“He’s been stubborn. Don’t worry. He’ll crack.”
“It looks like you’ve done well. What reward do you ask for?”
“Take me as one of your servants, lord!”
“Hmm.” Vhaes stroked the human’s cheek with the sides of his gauntlet’s spikes. “You wish to skip the supplicant phase entirely, to pass the Favored and the Adepts and join those who walk in the darkness?”
“Yes, lord. I would serve you this way!”
“And this…Adelen? What do you know of him?”
“He’s one of your rikari. I don’t know anything else about him. I could take his place, lord!”
“Do you play chess?”
“What?”
“Chess. The little game with the pieces and the board and the kings. Do you play it?”
“No, lord.”
“Then you’d hardly replace him.” Vhaes stepped over to Charmichael and deftly sliced open the gag. “What do you do with Adelen?”
The human spat out the gag and wheezed. “Play chess…twice a week…”
Rostok glowered. “He’s lying.”
Vhaes shook his head. “No, he’s not. I can always detect a lie. Surely you were warned of this.” The master turned his gaze on the human.
“I—my lord—of course I knew that! Everyone does!”
“You just disregarded it. Thought it wouldn’t happen to you. How…
human
of you.”
“My lord?”
“Nothing you’ve told me was true except that you learned names from poor Gary Donner, the weaver. You abandoned the post my agents paid you to hold, came here, collared someone you thought could be threatened and tortured his friends to try to get them to agree. Then you would have had me execute one of my rikari so you could take his place among the immortals.”
“No, lord! I beg you, believe me! Adelen is truly plotting against you!”
“That is unlikely. Before I came to power, I did not have the right to be called Vhaes. Adelen was my name then, and is the name these men know me by. You’ve captured, tortured and interrogated my
chess team
.
“You weren’t trustworthy enough to keep as a spy. You weren’t smart enough to study your targets to the point that your lies would be convincing, and you’re not a good enough liar that a suspicious man would believe even the plausible things you lie about. Your audacity might have gained you lenience but your incompetence has shown you unworthy. You’re not even fit to be a supplicant.”
The human threw himself forward; whether to beg or to assault his lord, Khevalis did not care; it was already far too late for the man, and allowing him to attempt to fight the master would only annoy Vhaes. Instead, Khevalis intercepted him with a stiff-arm jab to the chest, then hooked his claws into the flesh at the man’s shoulders and used the leverage to fling him to the ground. Rostok’s head bounced heavily off the bedrock floor; he twitched once and was still. Khevalis glanced back at his master; Vhaes was smiling.
“Nicely done. He’s probably still alive, but he's probably outlived his entertainment value.” The master nodded to the Nhori. “He's yours.”
Khevalis nodded and stepped back as the unconscious man began to float. The rikari had seen many horrible things, but he had no wish to learn what Nhori did to those unfortunate enough to fall into their clutches.
Vhaes removed the blindfolds from the prisoners. Fritzer and Charmichael glared at Donner, but none of them dared to speak.
Vhaes spoke. “So the question now arises. What do I do with you three? I am not perturbed that you know that I am Vhaes. That was never truly a secret. What matters more is your conduct in this affair.
“Gerald Donner. You were threatened with torture and sold out your friends to save yourself. You have two hours to leave the City, and three days to clear the edge of the Blight before it eats you.”
He gestured to the next prisoner; the bonds around him snapped in a series of pops.
“Terence Fritzer, you talked, but not under threat; you were tortured before you implicated your friends. You may take the next week off to recover; I will see to it that you are cared for. After that, go back to your life as a cooper. Do not expect to be trusted with greater responsibilities.
“Eliot Charmichael, you refused to lie, even under torture. You, I may have use for…Favored.”
***
Thursday, October 27, 3481.
Time: Midday.
Location: Wilderness, claimed by Overarchy. South of Worldsedge.
The wind was just cool enough to be comfortable in the shade of the trees, full of the smells of early autumn. The leaves had not yet begun to fall, but every tree bore a splash of color. Mycah was almost enjoying things when she first sensed orcs in the distance. With the advance warning, they were able to evade detection, but Mycah remained on edge for most of the day and stuck to a rapid pace. It was well past noon when they first stopped for rest.