Falias, Finias Chapter Twenty-One
Main Theme- I'm Deranged by David Bowie
Spirit Night shall be the death of Kazdan Kalinkas. He's certain as he drags another barrel through the narrowest door in Perim. Thankfully, there's still enough rat grease to squeeze the barrel through after a few forceful tugs. Once he drags it to the dingy wall with the rest of the barrels, he leans against a free space in the wall and catches his breath. He misses the telltale scritch-scratch and lifts his eyes up to see Kammy's upside down grin.
"I would scream, but as you can see, I'm dying."
"Not fast enough if you can say all that." She unhooks herself from the ceiling and twists her body in time to land on her legs.
"Please tell me we're done."
"How'd you know?"
"Because I kept count of the barrels." He remarks dryly and straightens up. "So are you going to a party like everyone else?"
"No, I'm heading home. I love Rusty, but he can't ward off the spirits by himself!"
"I thought the point of Spirit Night was to party and get drunk."
"If you're a cynic like H'earring and Dairus!" She sticks out her tongue before composing herself. "But if you're truly wise, then you would know that Spirit Night is the only time when the spirits can leave the Spiritlands and feast on our Energy!"
"Does Sunshine act as a holy water against them?"
"Don't know, but I'm not willing to risk my life to find out. Anyways, the spirits are less likely to attack you if you're in a group, so that's one of the reasons for the parties."
"But wouldn't a group offer even more Energy?"
"Not unless you're all in a dwelling. Spirits can't enter houses without permission."
So they operate on vampire rules? If I brought this up, would she even know what a vampire is? Probably not.
"Does garlic ward them off?"
"No! The point is you better be inside a house, or a building, and surrounded by people when it gets dark."
"Well, I'm going to a party at Tartarus Theatre. Will I be safe there?"
"You should be so long as you don't leave." She warns gravely.
"I won't leave then."
He does not keep his word.
Illazar finds the wine in his goblet taste as watery as the Inferno Inn's cheapest wine. He looks up from his maroon water to see Kazdan arriving through the back entrance; the ancient metal door creaks worse than Tomugar shedding his exoskeleton. The human's face is comically powdered like the faces of snobby royals in cheesy plays. His lips are a bright red almost like Chaor's skin, while his gray eyeshadow remind him of charcoal. Illazar waves at the human, and Kazdan comes his way, though briefly stopping to get himself a goblet of wine.
"What are you supposed to be?"
"My dad." Kazdan then takes a drink from his goblet and winces, not liking the sourness.
"Why?"
"It's Halloween on Earth." He pauses for a moment as though he tries to figure how to simplify something complex. "It's a human holiday where kids dress-up and beg for candy."
"Because they're starving?" Illazar guesses. Kazdan shakes his head.
"It's how trick-or-treating works now. When it first started, many solons ago, kids would vandalize property of the rich unless they got treats. And even then, they would go play their tricks."
Humans are such a passive society. Here, those younglings would've been beaten.
"Will you be begging for candy then? I wouldn't try it here if I were you." It'd be even worse for him since he's human, not unless he's quick enough to "port" out as his kind calls it.
"Of course not." He rolls his brown eyes, but then tilts his head to the side, giving the idea another chance. "I could, but I really don't want to deal with the judging looks of my neighbors for going at it alone."
He must not have many friends where he lives. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen him with other humans. I see him with the pale youngling a lot or H'earring when he's bumming off Kazdan for a meal.
"Where's Nivenna?" Kazdan asks as he looks around the room.
"She's at Takinom's palace with the rest of the opera staff."
"Takinom likes theater?" The human blinks slowly in utter disbelief.
"She's a major patron of the fine arts. The opera always receive a generous donation from her around this time."
"I always thought she would be into metal."
"I think she's made small donations to the Metalwork branch of the Artisan Guild."
Kazdan snorts into his cup.
"How's that fun—" His words die out when he sees Cyrenox moving through the crowd and heading in their direction. Illazar has seen Cyrenox perform in many plays, usually as a sinister character or clumsy brute, but he cannot help but have a shiver go down his spine. Recently, he bore witness to the Bringer of Doom's terrifying use of Sorrow. He still wakes up in a lukewarm sweat to the screams of those OverWorlders…
Kazdan just waves at him like one would do with a friend.
"Hey, Cyrenox."
"Hello, Kazdan."
"I heard Nivenna's moved up to the opera."
"She's filling in for the understudy since he's out with the scale flu."
"Ah, I hope it's not severe."
"He makes it worse than it actually is."
"A true diva then."
And such idle talk continues well until the night, even after many goblets of wine.
Kazdan walks down the cobblestone street with nary a Creature in sight. Even the rats that roam in the trash-strewn alleyways have become shy. He whistles and hears it echo back at him. He faintly hears music coming from some of the stone houses, but the music is mostly drowned about by raucous laughter and slurred chatter. He keeps to the middle of the street and concentrates not tripping over his clunky boots. After twenty or so minutes of wandering, he stops by a lamppost, or crystal-stand which he learned from Cyrenox, and looks up to see a few insects swarming around the glowing crystal.
They look like regular bugs on Earth. Large gnats. It's strange how similar Earth and Perim can be. Rats, some insects, holidays, architecture, use of money, and etc. It almost feels like Star Quest where the alien worlds are so like humanity that they just differ in looks and names, but they always speak English.
He chuckles, but then it turns into an embarrassing belch.
I shouldn't have drunk all that wine. It was more sandy water than wine, but still booze. I'm not that buzz though. I wonder if I gain tolerance through my memories of drinking here. Or maybe the wine was way more water down than I'm giving it credit. Better that than a full cup of Kammy's Peach Sunshine.
He resumes his quiet wanderings. He turns right when he should've gone left and finds himself on an unknown street. He should turn back, but curiosity gets the better of him and he heads down this unknown path.
It's not pitch black like the entrance to Lady Etheno's temple or the tunnel to Everrain, so he doesn't even consider using his Scanner's light. Mostly, he sees the cobblestone path and discarded crates. He looks over an opened one and wrinkles his nose.
The crates just have dirtied glass bottles that smell like antiseptic. Is this where doctors dump their medical waste? At least, there aren't any syringes.
He picks up a glass bottle and sees a bat's face in the glass. He drops the glass and tries to get the Scanner in his pocket. He's spun around by sharp claws and comes into contact with Toxic Gust. The attack would bring the average Creature to tears, but Kazdan is human. He chokes on the noxious gases and his own cries until he mercifully passes out.
The fire flickers back and forth in the dark pit; he's conscious of it, more so than himself. His breaths are muffled by coarse gag and his eyes burn far worse being so close to the fire. He tries to move away, but his bindings are far too tight to even allow so much a wiggle. He closes his eyes and buries his face into the dirt. It smells like grave dirt.
I can't get to my Scanner and I don't have super-strength, or even average strength. And I have no idea where I am. I should've never left the party.
"Thopel, I don't think a human has code." Kazdan strains to hear the shrill voice.
"They have code! We've seen them disappear in a swirl of code, but they keep coming back, Cela." The new voice booms like a cheesy herald of doom.
"Gly, has the Mugic dust been purified?" Another voice, this time reminding him of a nasally Batman, pops in.
"Yes, Thopel, but do you think it's wise to use a human? Cela could be right that humans don't really have a code and it's more like an abstraction of one." The herald of doom, or Gly, theorizes.
"It's not like we can capture an OverWorlder and bring it down here unnoticed." Thopel replies dryly.
"But the ritual requires code!" Cela screeches.
"The human has code! When they scan us, they store a copy of our code. Even if the human doesn't have his own code, his little device does."
"Then, why use the human at all?" Gly asks.
"If this fails, then there's one less human in Perim." He says it like he's doing the world a favor.
Kazdan lifts his face from the dirt and screams as best he could. There must be someone, some Creature that can hear him. Even though his mind screams back that no one can hear him.
And even if they did, they wouldn't help a human like you.
He gives up screaming as the dust comes down, white and sharp like ice rain, and hits the fire. The fire shrinks into an ember and then rebounds into a roaring white fire, singing his hair. He smells the burning and sees shapes in the fire. Two circles separated by an aquiline line. Two more lines swirl into a heart. A face.
He screams into the inferno.
The party started at Takinom's, but it would end at Chaor's Castle. For the first two hours of Spirit Night, Iso was free to roam around in his tiny section of the castle and decided to spend most of it near the kitchen. He watched as culinary chaos played out in the kitchen; Dairus was down two hired hands, so she pressganged two guards about to leave for the day. They believed, quite loudly, if they helped her, then she would reward them with some leftovers from the massive feast. And she will if she remembered who they were after the holiday. Iso swore to help them after witnessing the aggressive jabs and malicious criticisms that Dairus rained upon them throughout the ordeal. He couldn't bear witness to the abuse because Dairus hustled him into his room and then locked the door.
He knew that he wouldn't be allowed at the party. He figured that out when Agitos gave him enough homework to last three lessons. It kept him from seething about his purposeful exclusion. And he can't wait to see the shock look on the old narcissist's face when he brought it back all completed.
Hours later, his stomach grumbled loudly for dinner. He didn't know how to unlock the door without the key, and he's fairly certain that he's not strong enough to scratch the door down. Thankfully, the door opens and the smell of sweetmeats and blackened bread fill the stale room.
"Agitos wasn't kidding about his tutoring." Nivenna comments as she sets the tarnished plate on a free space on his desk. She puts the little cup of weak wine right by his wax tablet.
"Thank you." He says before gobbling down his dinner like a half-feral youngling. Only when the gnawing yields to satiation that Iso acknowledges Nivenna's existence.
"Is the party boring you?" He inquires as he sips at the wine. She twirls a long lock of red hair as she sighs.
"It's just a bunch of Creatures getting drunk and being loud." Her disappointment colors her mind in a bitter blue.
"But there's no homework." He points out.
"There's plenty of homework! I have to remember what all those loose lips said, or else Takinom will chew me out later." She grouses and then mutters. "She thinks just because I can memorize lines then I can remember every little thing that someone said. Difference being it's mostly dull stuff, even the infidelities are commonplace."
Often, Nivenna has used him to vent about her complex relationship with Takinom. And some backroom theater drama. Iso has never been inclined to share her feelings with anyone else, let alone Takinom. It just seemed wrong of him to do so. He's fairly certain that his Caretaker taught him that when he was a helpless infant.
"What can she do with that information?"
"Blackmail, I suppose. Or she's trying to piece together another treasonous plot against Chaor. He's certainly not doing that tonight." In her mind, he sees Chaor winning a drinking contest against Rothar by two barrels.
"I can believe that."
"Screamer and Dyrtax were performing before I ducked out. It was a lot of screaming from Screamer and wailing from Dyrtax's customized lyre."
Customized lyre? Did he steal that from Accato? Or did he coincidentally had the same idea of him? It might be a latter since I haven't heard anyone talk about Accato here, except for Caretaker.
"You're more of a classicist."
"Big word for someone not a solon old." She teases.
"Agitos is a taskmaster." He deadpans.
"I can see that. Well, I better leave you to your work, though I wouldn't worry about completing it. Agitos's is always under the mist for a week after Spirit Night." She smirks, and he mirrors it as she leaves with the emptied plate and cup. She does not lock the door, and his bladder is grateful for that in another hour. For now, he heads for his small bed and rests.
The door slams against the wall upon its opening. He rubs his eyes as he sits up for the arrival of Chaor. The Lord of the UnderWorld stomps in like a wound-up guard and scoops him out of bed. He holds him against his massive chest as though Iso were still a baby. Iso smells spiced wine and sweet cake in Chaor's breath.
Is he drunk? No, he wouldn't let himself be that vulnerable—
Chaor's tail collides with the statue by the door and smashes it into the wall. Iso sighs and hopes that it didn't lose another horn; his Caretaker promised he'd fix the horn after Spirit Night, but now he'll have another horn to fix. The streets are an eerie quiet that he's never heard before. Not even the rats are scurrying through the trash. He didn't know where they were going until he noticed his skull carving in the stone below, meaning that they're heading up to Tartarus Theatre. His Caretaker would sometimes take him to the day plays, which were short and occasionally very strange, and it's also where Nivenna spent most of her free time. He doesn't know why Chaor brought him here, but he catches a stray thought.
Her hands were always small but sharp. I had to hold them loosely, or she'd cut me she said, but I didn't want her to slip away. I wanted her to stay.
Iso screws his eyes shut and focuses as hard as he can to not listen. He doesn't want to hear any more about Melinoë. Her memories carry a deep sadness to them that Iso nearly cries. Iso hates crying; it made him feel weak and sick, so he tries to avoid it when he can.
It's only when Chaor stops that Iso opens his eyes again. He sees a little field of copper-colored flowers, red pennies were her favorite, in front of a life-sized statue of her. She's small, the tip of her head reaching Chaor's chest, and white as the stone she was carved from. Her hair is a river of curls that act as a cape for her nude body. It's not a perfect body like the miniatures in Agitos's art room. She's thin like them, but a little too thin with her ribs slightly protruding. Her shoulders are bonier than Caretaker's. Her nose has a crook like it didn't set right. Yet, these physical flaws do not diminish her character. Her heart-shaped lips are twisted in the most mischievous smile that Iso has ever seen, while her large eyes pierce the watcher. Her arms are wide and open as though issuing a challenge.
Chaor finally puts him down. Iso walks up to the statue and sees the golden plaque: Melinoë. He kneels to touch it and then notices a bloodied handprint on it. Human in its shape. His heart seizes in fear of what he's about to find. He walks to the back of the statue.
There, in her long shadow, lays the body of his Caretake. Nearly as white as the stone and far colder. Black dirt cakes his nails while livid red smears his hands and mouth. His thick brows are gone, replaced with angry, pink burns. Iso can't hear anything from his Caretaker. Almost as though he were already dead.
Author's Comments: Here is the link-
Kazdan's Halloween outfit is based upon the blond woman on the left in the picture but without the jacket because the UnderWorld is never autumn cool: a href=" "Link/a
There's not much known about the Pyrogenousists; they're not even mentioned in the cartoon from what I can recall. They only get a mention in Kopond's section of The Ultimate Guide to All Things Chaotic. They are UnderWorld Muges led by Kopond and possibly headquartered near Lava Pond. They wear embroidered orange robes like their leader. They were absent when the M'Arrillians flooded Lava Pond, but they were loyal to Chaor throughout the invasion. I added the bit that the Pyrogenousists have a hierarchy since Kopond strikes me as someone who would want to separate the chaff from the wheat. Also, I'm adding more original Creatures. Thopel is a play on Kenneth Oppel, the author of the Silverwing series. Cela is based upon a harpy's name, while Gly is based on a snake god from an Ancient Roman cult.
In regards to the statue, I think UnderWorlders would find artistic value in nudity, and I've seen a lot of UnderWorlders literally naked like that one purple ape Creature in the Inferno Inn or H'earring not wearing pants like Donald Duck. Since they tend to look more like demons and reptiles compared to OverWorlders and it's also very hot in the UnderWorld, why would they need a lot clothes? I'd imagine the OverWorld is a bit more conservative since I've seen most OverWorlders, including generic citizens, covered up versus UnderWorlders. This was supposed to go up on Halloween, but the Internet was down in my area for a few days.