The Fall
Chapter 3: Trickster
They didn't have a yard, like Eri said. It was the uneven grassy space between the stone cottages and little shops, cut through by shallow dirt paths. Not a big area, and the huge looming horse lounging in the middle made it all that much smaller.
Moth stepped outside and instantly the creature was up on all fours, kicking up clouds of dust staring intently at her. The cold in her head grew persistent, constant.
"You! Moth!" She jolted when someone called her name, the sound stretching all the way across the village. Her eyes found another resident, one of the faces she knew but didn't at the same time. Just another random familiar face.
Moth stepped away from her house, out into the searing brightness of day. The sky, though somewhat crowded with the hundreds of white shapes blindly searching for other white shapes, was too brilliant a blue to be real, lit on fire by the sun. The clouds were joining together in places, graying as their weight doubled. It would rain soon.
He knew it, too. The creature was flicking his ears, bristling his fur. Casting fervent glances above. It was like he feared the sky, just as most did. It had been a giant rock from above that destroyed the ancient beasts of their legends and worship. The sky was huge, menacing, omniscient. The sky was fear.
"Yes, sir?" Moth called absently, attention on the giant horse.
"What is that thing? Is it for the tournament? How'd you get it?"
"I, um," Moth said, voice still raised. "He's for the tournament. He, ah, sort of found me, you know?"
"What—" he sputtered, beginning a walking charge across the grassy courtyard. Giving the blue and yellow horse a wide berth, of course. "Listen here! They'll be here by noon with that doom convoy, and if they see this…this thing—"
"It's okay," Moth said as he reached her side. The man was dressed in finely knit cloth, features drawn up in an important glare. Moth looked at him, shrugging. "You know…about the mental link they say the fighters have with their beasts? Because I think—"
"Oh, enough," snapped the man. Moth now knew he was one of the village council sent to document the situation, and he knew her name only because she was a potential-vessel. He was definitely a council type: deathly afraid of anyone from a hundred leagues around the central palace while simultaneously on a mission to make every village resident deathly afraid of him. "That's never been proven. The point is, you're scaring the villagers."
"If it's not real, then why are the fighters always as physically fatigued as the beasts after a fight? Why do they go near insane and die when their beasts are taken away?"
The man was shaking his head. You're scaring the villagers, you're scaring the villagers. Moth looked around. She'd never counted the population of her town—it was hard, the unorganized smattering of buildings and uneven grid roads stretched into the surrounding forests and all across the wide field where they stood—but she estimated it was around four hundred people. A good chunk of them were keeping their distance, standing near the tree-line, afraid to get close, but there were masses of them watching her. The creature was staring at them warily.
"Darkforce," the supervisor rasped. "That's all there is to it. No sort of fantastical brain-link. If there's anything of the sort, it's just there to be torn down in the end. Nothing more."
Moth was quiet. She didn't want to think of the future, the day she lost a match and they carted the yellow horse away. To be killed, skinned, slaughtered, eaten, or whatever they did with the beasts they took, because no one really knew. She was still as the thoughts wormed through her head, an irrational terror sending her mind into chaos.
It came from nowhere. She felt a surge of protective fury for the giant nameless beast, refusing to admit to herself that only one of them could possibly make it through the next years, and that maybe neither would.
A growl erupted from the beast's throat; the coldness intensified. And she saw things.
A different world. Untamed. Untouched. A gray-skinned creature, huge like he was, running over a wide, flat earth. A silvery sky, wide as the universe, thin as the edge of a blade, the gossamer barrier, the only thing between the creature and the space beyond the sky. And she felt things—the rush of wind over bare skin, the weight of herself with every galloping step she took. Her lungs, huge, gulping down air, blowing it out. The exhilaration of flight even though she wasn't flying.
She saw other creatures. Big, small. Reptilian, mammalian, avian.
Then she saw her village. The yellow horse was making direct eye contact with her; it was almost a glare.
She understood. He'd showed her his first life, from birth to death in a mere instant, in which he was different but still the same.
"I don't believe you," Moth breathed to the nervous councilman. "It has to be more than that."
"Perhaps," he muttered back, fixing his eyes on the ground at his feet. "I can't say I know for sure."
Then, the sound of hooves on earth. Voices of men, otherworldly croaks of creatures no one she knew could name.
"Oh, skies," the supervisor growled, ducking his head again after a fast glance up. It was a custom; lower your head after every mention of what was above. Moth dropped her eyes. "It can't be noon yet, can it?"
The doom convoy had arrived. It would be the first and probably the last time Moth would ever see it; it only came every few decades. Anywhere between three and six. She didn't know much about it, only that four or five were deployed on each of the three islands. A horse-drawn carriage, a trail of petrified wood cages pulled behind. Men on horseback riding behind and on either side, throwing lumps of meat or fruit to the monsters not containing themselves in stones, locked behind the bars, prodding them with spears if they got out of line. Moth had heard they got out of line a lot.
The block of six heavyset cart horses pulled out of the forest's gloom, all the same purebred dark brown. Three armored men sat high up on a platform behind them, carrying whips or drawn blades that gleamed like swords of light.
The horses were nervous. Trembling. Lips pulled back to reveal yellowed block teeth, hooves pounding forcefully into the ground with every step. As more of the convoy slowly revealed itself, she understood why.
Cages. Stone cages with multicolored monsters, just as she'd been told. They growled and shrieked, rocked the cart. Sniffed vigorously at the air, and as each cage pulled from the forest, another set of eyes turned to Moth's beast.
The yellow horse slowly rose to his paws, short fur bristling, tail twitching. He lowered his neck and narrowed his eyes. Moth felt the wind blow a little bit faster, a little bit colder. It was sinister.
"Hold!" one of the men outside the cart shouted. "There's a wild one!"
And everything was thrown into chaos. The beasts in the carts threw themselves against their cages, shrieking and clawing in a desperate attempt to escape—for what? To kill her creature? To run from it?
"Moth," the councilman muttered wearily. "This won't end well for you."
Moth shook her head and she started to run towards the doom convoy, and that single action defied everything she'd ever learned about the king and his palace officials—they were murderous. Ruthless. Merciless. She's surely be executed then and there; they'd assume she had sorcery in her blood, and that would be reason enough for her death.
Still she ran. Shouted, "It's okay! He's mine, for the tournament!" She didn't know if her voice had ever been so loud before.
Several of the men surged forward, wielding huge spears. The second the polished steel edges came into view, the yellow horse behind her let out an earsplitting shriek, and she stumbled and skidded to her knees, hands clamped over her ears.
When she looked up, there were blades aimed at her face and her heart. She felt the motion behind her as the yellow horse strode closer, just a bit faster than how the blades were falling towards her. White-hot fear bolted across her heart.
No! she screamed in her head. Stop!
The blades froze. Everything froze.
"Sky-horse," one of the men murmured. "That's what it is."
"How did it get here?" A question, aimed at her. She raised her head, took in the helmet-shaded faces of four spear-wielding men. Their chest plates gleamed silver, strange symbols and patterns welded into the metal—like growling beasts, wailing faces. Silver fire.
She'd never seen palace men up this close before. Maybe she'd never seen them at all.
"G-get here?" Moth rasped, shivering despite the warmth of late spring. "Oh. That, I don't know."
Cold pressed against the back of her neck. She shuddered. "I swear! The, the Sky-horse found me, out in the woods. I can show you where! The trees are broken and everything!"
The air trembled as the Sky-horse growled. More cold spots broke out on her skin where the blades made contact, forcing her lower to the ground, onto her stomach. She pressed her cheek into the sun-warmed earth, teeth grit against the pain she could feel coming, hanging just on the edge of the next few ephemeral moments.
"Moth!" Cain's voice. "Let her go!"
"Name," barked a guard. Deeper one of the cold points pressed. She felt her pulse against the ground.
"Moth," she choked out. "Moth of the Null-king troop. The house next to the dead oak tree."
Then, from the guard to another, "Check this village's assignments. Now!"
One of the cold points drew away from her skin, but the rest dug deeper as if to make up for the absence. "I'm not a sorceress," she hissed against the dirt. "I didn't revive him."
"Moth and Eri of Null-king," a voice boomed above her head, "are to be respectively assigned a Sky-horse and a Flame-flight for the upcoming tournament. Imagine that."
Moth's heart began to pound a little louder, a little faster.
"So you've got a twin. You, search the house and bring him out."
Feet began to pound away. Terror shot her through; Moth tried to scramble to her feet, but sharp-edged points began to bury themselves in her back. "Wait! No! My brother's not home right now—he's, um, he's scavenging in the woods! I can get him—"
The footsteps stopped. "Scavenging? Why would he need to do that?" The sharp pressure was beginning to lessen.
"Well, we don't have that much money," Moth coughed into the dirt. Slowly, she began to turn onto her side so she could look up—and harsh faces could stare her directly in the eyes and hold her there, frozen in place. "He found a fruit tree the other day. Thought he'd find it again and bring some extra food home."
"That so?"
"Yes! I'll find him! Let me up and I'll be back in a couple moments. I swear."
"Swear? What good is the word of poor tournament fodder like you?"
Fury welled up in her throat, in her chest, in her mind in the form of vile words she could never hope to speak. She didn't have the courage. She didn't have the strength to risk her own life. Not yet.
"She's telling the truth. Just let her up."
And then she felt like she weighed nothing, like the world had been pulled out like a tablecloth beneath her. She was floating, she was flying, she was nothing but the relief that washed away all her fear.
He'd made it. Just in time.
Ty, you bastard. I bet you watched this whole thing.
"Who the hell are you?" One of the guards drew a long knife from his belt and aimed it at the short kid standing awkwardly off to the side, arms crossed, head down to let his dark and unkempt hair cover his nervous eyes.
"Eri. Her brother."
Moth had to swallow a grin. Tyko was no one. Tyko was nothing. But for the rest of their lives, he would pretend to be Eri, her now-crippled, broken twin. Eri, as Cain liked to say, was only slightly more than nothing—not that Moth could bring herself to agree or disagree.
All this to save their lives. Not hers, not his—just the others. Cain, Abel, and Eri.
The knife pressed hard against the skin of his throat. "You're twins," the guard muttered suspiciously.
Ty nervously scratched the side of his head, hand buried in his hair. His hair—that was the problem. Hers was red, his was just dark. Physically, they had almost nothing in common minus their height and twiggy frames.
"Non-identical, as you can see," Ty coughed.
"We get that a lot," Moth added, doing her best to shrug while pressed against the earth. "And what did you say his assigned beast was?"
Anything to change the subject. But the guards ignored the question.
"Let her up," one spoke, drawing his knife from Ty's throat and his spear from Moth's back. As one, the rest fell away. Slowly, fluidly, Moth pushed herself from the ground, brushing he dirt from her clothes and her face. She stood next to Ty, and he leaned away from her a bit. Looked down. It would be bad to have their faces so close, so anyone could see how different they were.
Cain approached, a little slower now that he realized the situation had been handled. He cast Moth a hard, meaningful glance—this better work. I hope your trickster friend can pull this off.
Moth looked away as one of the guards strode off, spear raised high as he called for the vessel children of their village, everyone ages ten to twenty, to come forward.
It has to work. Or we're all dead.
"It makes no sense, Moth." She jumped; Ty flinched beneath his shaggy hair. A guard had spoken, voice rising above the growling of creatures kept behind bars, away from the world that was once theirs. "How could your Sky-horse have found its way to you? We weren't even told to bring any Sky-horse stones on our convoy."
Moth stared at him. Her eyes widened a bit more at every passing moment, at every failed attempt to find his gaze beneath his tri-pronged helmet. "I told you I'm not a—"
"Sorceress? Yes. I know. You couldn't have known what your beast for the tournament was meant to be."
"Maybe he escaped the palace, or wherever you keep them. And found me, somehow."
"He." The guard scoffed, walking away, joining the others in loud, harsh cries that swelled to compete with the vengeful shrieks of otherworldly creatures in cages.
Slowly those horrible sounds became too much. There were many other vessel children in her village, and eventually they slunk into sight. The village was large, but the guards knew their cries didn't have to reach beyond the central circle of houses. Their victims had all been waiting there, just beyond the ensconcing shadows, for the doom convoy to arrive.
"I'd ask about your Sky-horse," Ty muttered, half to himself. "But—"
"Yeah, and I'd ask what took you so long to reach me. Just don't bother."
Cain came forwards. He put a hand on each of their shoulders, a gesture that was supposed to be comforting. Ty shrugged it off.
"Hate that thing," Cain muttered, nodding to the doom convoy. "They could just force those creatures in their stones, you know." Long pause. "Well. He could."
Moth struggled to keep at bay the involuntary shudder that passed through her body. "It's intimidation, that's all. The biggest are forced in their stones."
She felt a prick in her temple as Ty's eyes found hers. She looked back.
It was that moment when she felt it. The inevitability of what was to come, the steely clamps that bound her to the path ahead.
There was no way out, not anymore. Maybe, months ago, before the accident, Eri had been right when he—
She killed the thought. Tore at it, ripped it apart, stomped it to nothing.
Again she looked at Tyko, and heard loud and clear the words he didn't have to speak.
No going back, Moth.
She stared ahead, at the hulking blue-yellow silhouette standing rigid as it watched the guards in their clockwork motions across the field.
I know.
I expect you're all still slightly puzzled. That's fine. Let me try to clear some small stuff up.
In this time, they wouldn't call a tyrannosaurs by its scientific name, because those didn't exist. For a t-rex, the name I'd give it would be a Flame-king, and you can probably figure out why. This is what Eri meant when he said the phrase "king-sized" last chapter.
Null-king: allo
Sky-horse: parium
Flame-flight: dimorph
They get the prefix of their type and the suffix of whatever the hell I want.
Troops will be explained in more depth later on, but they're basically just sibling groups because they live together without parents (when the oldest is past a certain age) in this society.
Tyko is currently an enigma, and you'll start to understand who he is more in later chapters. For now, feel free to speculate.
Dinoval—I'm asking for OCs now because I feel like I'd get better characters if readers don't really know what's going on yet, but you can wait if you want. Thanks for reviewing!
CryoKing96—Yeah, I'm having a difficult time deciding how to introduce every little aspect of this society. There are a lot of details. Technically I think I'm starting in the middle, I guess, but that depends on perspective. And yes, the yellow horse is a parium.
-Angel
