Chapter 17 - Perpetual Flux

Sondra sat in the dark, her weight upon the bed barely evident. For three days and three nights she had watched over Callo. Today was Sunday and she was exhausted. Whatever had happened on Thursday had caused her lover so much pain that she was no longer herself, but getting sense out of Inquisitor Merlose was impossible. She was in the throes of madness itself; three times Sondra had found Callo trying to kill herself. Her own arms were covered in scabs where the knife had nicked her skin while trying to wrest the blade from Merlose. No, The new Callo Merlose no longer wished to live. Was it the humane thing to stop her from committing suicide? Sondra wasn't so sure...

She found herself being drawn ever closer to sleep but she wouldn't allow that to happen. No, she loved Callo and would do anything to stop her from killing herself. She had fallen asleep on the Thursday night and she nearly paid dearly for that. Luckily it had been a light sleep; she had awoken when Callo had dropped the knife; the numb fingers releasing the blade as blood pumped from her wrists. Sondra had bound them tightly with wool, the fabric quickly stained red as Callo tried to die, but the Pretender refused her this.

Sondra was at her wits end; she knew she wouldn't last much longer and then it would all be over. No, she had to find some way around this; she couldn't do it alone, but whom could she take Callo to? Dejamir was dead by her own hands and Agent Riot had disappeared... there was no one to turn to except...


Grand Stewart Le Sait was sat at his desk as usual. So much paperwork and so little time, this was how it always seemed to go. Oh, how he longed for some action once more... back in his youth, he had been a Riskbreaker himself. Admittedly, the VKP didn't carry the word of honour like it did today, but it was nonetheless fulfilling to him. Back then, he had lived a life of action. Blood, gore and women... who could ask for more? Riskbreakers these days didn't know what they were missing out on, not at all.

He laid the quill to rest upon the desk and leant back in his chair, a large sigh escaping his lips. Today was to be just as any other day it seemed. Maybe he'd call Margaret in again... but then, maybe he wouldn't; she didn't seem to help him much these days. Maybe he should find someone new to fill her position? She'd be serving the Grand Stewart of the Valendian Knights of Peace; what higher honour could there be? No woman would refuse him...

The Grand Stewart shook his head; such flights of fancy would take him nowhere fast. Women, as ridiculous as it was to believe, for the most part actually held that they could refuse him sexual favours. In Margaret he had found someone different, someone special. She was willing to sell herself to him wholesale; she truly believed that she was merely helping a great person to relax... but that was actually true, wasn't it? Le Sait was indeed a great person and he was soon to become the greatest person ever. Admittedly, things hadn't worked out exactly as he had planned, but they were still most definitely in his favour; Cardinal Batiste was dead in the fire of Valein's Cathedral, the entire Bardorba line had been eradicated, Ashley Riot was nowhere to be found and Callo Merlose... well, she was about to drop into his lap.

He was shaken from his thoughts by a brisk knock upon his door. "Yes?"

The door opened to his office and there stood Margaret. "There are... uhm... two women to see you."

"Please, show them through Margaret." He watched her blush as he addressed her by her first name; this pleased him. And in walked Sondra Felsham, helping the forlorn figure of Callo Merlose through the door...

He stood from his desk and rushed towards the pain, mock horror upon his face. "What happened here?"

"It's a long story sir," began Pretender Felsham. And so it began...


His eyes flickered open and the world that met them was not quite what he had expected. He saw a ceiling; thickly clotted plaster marked the stucco print that made the texture that coated it. He had thought that when his eyes finally opened again, he'd see a sky covered in deepest red, the screams of the tortured quickly filling his ears... but this was not to be the case, not at all. In fact, it was nearly... quiet.

Regnak tried to sit up, but pain flooded his head, forcing him back to the refuge of the plain sheets that adorned the bed he lay upon. He was in a bedroom... but how did he get here? It was obviously owned by someone who didn't have a lot of money; the décor was incredibly tacky, what there was of it. No, this couldn't be one of the four properties he owned inside Valein. But something else was nagging at him... there was no way he had crawled from the Cathedral to here... someone had helped him.

And then a noise reached his ears, the first noise for over half a day. A door opening. In popped a figure he recognised yet he couldn't quite put a name to.

"Ashley?"

A sigh came from the visitor's lips before they finally spoke. "No, it's not Ashley." A face appeared in Regnak's vision. A small face; eyes dominated by the pitch-black pupils which were themselves shrouded in the rolls of fat that came from their face. No hair; this... man shaved regularly... or maybe it just refused to grow?

"It's me, Adren."

Slowly memories filtered back to the ex-Riskbreaker, Regnak Drummond. Fire burning as he coughed up blood. Weight upon his chest, pushing ever downwards upon it. A lack of air reaching his lungs... finding it hard to breathe. Then, the pressure was lifted... nay, hurled from his body. Something gripped him and slung him over it's back. He remembered it being an odd feeling, not like the last time someone had carried him across heir back... not since Ashley had done so in the Graylands...

"You... you saved me?" he rasped; his throat still feeling harsh from the ash he had inhaled as the Cathedral had burned down to the ground around him. "W... Why?"

"For now, that is not important. Just be well Assassin. Be well indeed..."