Chapter 4 – The Wandering Monk
When I finally succeeded in gathering up all of my tools, I returned to our campsite only to discover that Sam was gone. I had to believe he'd betrayed his promise and probably knew that I was a demon. Still, I was dead tired and I needed as much sleep as I could get, particularly if I was about to start fleeing for my life. I made sure that Godchaser was meticulously sewn back inside of my cloak and quickly packed away my tools, conceding to use the mark on my brow for light.
I slept surprisingly well. The first thing I saw when I woke was a pair of young soldiers dressed in the colors of the Ravenous Winds. My heart skipped a beat and I stared up at them in horror. I thought they were about to kill me.
"You all right?' The first soldier wondered. She was short and squarely built with sandy blond hair and a nose that would have been oversized and unattractive even on a boy. Her weapon of choice appeared to be a very fine northern war ax, as meticulously cared for as the blue lamellar armor she wore, a single silver pins fastened to the stark white collar of her gambeson. She was just barely an officer, quite an accomplishment for a mere mortal... and obviously very proud of her new station.
"You didn't put your campfire out all of the way." The young man beside her had the look of an Earth Aspect Dragonblood. He was also an officer, just slightly outranking his companion and he carried a pair of swords that I did not doubt were family heirlooms. A Dragonblood outranking a mortal was to be expected... although he did stand slightly behind the girl, as if he were inclined to let her have her own way. "We thought someone might have beat you up and left you for dead." He admitted.
"Oh no, I'm fine. I was just sleeping. You startled me, that's all." I lied.
Clearly, they didn't know who I was... which meant that they hadn't been sent by Sam. I could only hope that he hadn't told anyone what he'd witnessed yet.
"Well, I'm Fanglord Natsume Cheng and this is Wara Isha, my first officer." The Dragonblood gestured to his companion. "We serve Mnemon Rai Jin."
"Old Thunderstormer calls us "Hack" an' "Slash". I'm "Hack". Cheng's "Slash"." Isha explained. "I suppose you've seen a lot of us Winds on the road these past few days, eh?" She hazarded a guess.
"A few." I admitted.
"Well, you ought to see a lot more. We've all been called up!" Isha proclaimed.
"Is there trouble?" I asked nervously.
"Is there ever!" Isha laughed. "Y'see, Cathak Lo..."
"Isha, that's enough!" Cheng scolded, cutting her off. "You can't tell everyone we meet about our orders!"
"That's fine, it's really none of my business." I paused, trying to disentangle myself from our conversation. "Thank you for seeing if I was hurt. But I should start walking." I admitted. I did notice that Isha had very nearly told me about the same officer that Sam had also sung the praises of, Cathak Loren. Whoever he was, his contingent of loyal followers that very nearly bordered on a cult.
I picked up my things and kicked a bit more dirt on the remains of my campfire. The wood had burned out and the ground was wet enough that I didn't anticipate any trouble with sparks.
"Are you going to Chio?" Isha pressed. "We're going to Chio."
I didn't have time to work out a lie. Cheng observed the expression on my face effortlessly. He laughed. "We're not trying to give you trouble. It's just that you obviously don't belong out here alone. What's your trade?" He gestured to my toolbox.
"I'm just a tinker." I replied. "And while I appreciate your concern, I don't need your help."
"It isn't safe to travel alone." Isha observed. "Not on these roads. We may still be on the Blessed Isle, but we're really out in the sticks. Snow Owls, Smoke Clan, bandit monks... you name it. You ought to come with us before someone really does rob an' kill you. You can ride on the back of one of our supply wagons!" She volunteered.
"I can't impose." I protested.
"It's not an imposition." Cheng replied. "Us Winds don't like to leave a trail of dead travelers in our wake while we're marching. Old Thunderstormer won't stand for it." It was obvious that whatever I might have said fell upon deaf ears and before I could change my destination, I was back on the road accompanied by Isha and Cheng as well as a twenty other young soldiers, all members of Cheng's Fang. They said nothing all day about any Anathema and an awful lot about Cathak Loren, whom I gathered was Isha's favorite person outside of Cheng. I wasn't able to sort out exactly what sort of relationship the young Fanglord and his first officer actually had until after dark.
The Winds insisted that I camp with them for safety, even going so far as to pitch me a little tent. I found out very quickly that I was not liable to get any sleep, however... not with all of the noise that my "rescuers" were making in the bushes nearby. I waited until all of the camp was asleep, with the exception of one drowsy sentry, and then decided to make a break for it.
Fleeing along the road would only get me caught again, so I made my way out into the rice fields that ran along the river, knowing that the river itself ran all the way to Chio. After about two hours of walking, I suspected that my escape had succeeded.
"I don't know if I can keep up with this outrageous amount of running. And who knew that the Blessed Isle was so damned big?" I sighed heavily. "At this rate I'll be in the best shape of my life by the time we get to Nexus!" There was no response. I immediately checked Godchaser's hearthstone. She seemed to be in working order, but she gave no sign that she heard me, despite the fact that no one else was present to overhear us.
That was when I remembered the last conversation that we'd had.
"Godchaser, I'm sorry." I paused, waiting for her to respond. She had definitely heard me, but she seemed to hesitate.
"I'm sorry too." Godchaser sighed. "I don't want you to get hurt, Maker. But it makes me so sad that you think you're like they say. You're not a demon!" She protested.
"I wish I could believe that. But you don't know what the world is like now, Godchaser. You've been asleep for 1,500 years! Everything is different now." I told her.
"Not everything! You're still my..." She didn't finish her sentence but I could guess what she''d been about to say. One of my forbidden words for certain.
I looked out over the rice paddies. Several of them were not faring as well as they should have been. Though I didn't know anything about farming, I suspected there was something wrong with the irrigation system. Sure enough, the water level was much lower in the paddies that were starting to turn brown.
"These rice paddies are drying out. They're not getting water for some reason." I mused. I'd meant to talk with Godchaser, but the condition of the rice paddies was distracting. "There must be a problem somewhere around here."
"So find it and fix it!" Godchaser sighed.
"It's too dark, I can't see anything." I replied.
"Then fix the dark!" Godchaser sighed.
"Fix the dark?" I smiled slightly. "Godchaser, how do I "fix" the dark?"
"Ugh! Maker, I can't say what I want to say, because the words I need are on your stupid list!"
"Excuse me?" I demanded, smiling slightly despite myself.
"Stupid list!" Godchaser repeated.
"Well, I'll take a quick look." I paused, feeling around in my pockets to see if I was still carrying anything potentially useful. I had a flat file handy, which meant that I wouldn't have to dig through my currently disorganized toolbox... or risk losing anything in the rice paddy.
Ignoring Godchaser's cheerful humming, I removed a few of the boards beneath our feet with my file and peered into the irrigation ditch... using my brand to "fix the dark" just long enough to pinpoint the source of the problem. It took me only a few moments to remove the moldly old rice sack that had been blocking the flow of the water. I closed everything back up as if I'd never touched it at all and smiled slightly as the water began to run again.
That was when I discovered that I had an audience. I heard a cough behind me. I turned slowly and at first didn't see anyone... but then my eyes came to rest on a tiny little farmer with an inordinately large, potato-shaped head carrying a bag of rice twice the size of his body. His eyes reflected the light of the moon and looked a bit like a pair of undercooked eggs. I knew what he was instantly, although I'd never actually seen a little God before.
It was no secret that there were many thousands of Gods in Creation, but precious few of them were ever seen on The Blessed Isle. In an attempt to root out dangerous peasant cults that ran the gambit from dancing for rain spirits to making blood sacrifices for demons and fair folk, the Immaculate Order enforced a state of religious uniformity called the Perfected Hierarchy. In the Hierarchy the Immaculate Dragons occupied the supreme position and all of the little Gods were below them, each one accorded a certain feast day but prevented from gaining too much power.
Little Gods were capricious, and it was dangerous to let them believe that they deserved too much. I was suddenly very glad for the snippets of Old Realm that I'd learned from Godchaser, because the The God of the Rice Paddy seemed very intent on speaking to me, and Old Realm was the language that he spoke. He was obviously convinced that I could understand him, and I felt oddly embarrassed that I didn't.
"Godchaser, what is he saying?" I asked.
"I can't tell you!" She protested.
"Oh, I know you can! He's speaking Old Realm! Tell me what he's he saying!"
"No, I can't tell you! Because of your stupid list!" She argued.
"Forget my list! I've never met a God before! I want to know what he's saying to me! Tell him to start at the beginning, and go slower!" I ordered.
As Godchaser translated my words, I committed what she had said to memory. Now that I had seen firsthand that Old Realm truly was the language of the Gods, I was much more eager to learn it. And of course, the first thing any student of a language learns is how to say "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" and "Would you please slow down?"
Godchaser sighed. "All right, this is what he says. But you're not going to like it." She paused.
"His says his name is Mochi and he is the God of the Rice Paddies on the South Bank of The Silver River. He greets you. Specifically he says "Thank you, Oh Lord of Creation." Then he says that he knew that a great Twilight Caste had Exalted not far from here, but that he did not expect a mighty Solar such as yourself to take such interest in his humble fields. He apologizes that he did not recognize you until he saw your Caste Mark. If he had known you were coming, he would have greeted you earlier, and summoned all of his friends. Also, he is sorry to see that you have mud on you, Sun-Chosen, because one such as yourself should not be covered in the humble dirt of his insignificant rice paddy. He thanks The Unconquered Sun, the greatest of the all Gods for sending you to aid him in his time of distress. He wishes for you to always have plenty of rice on your table. And..."
"And?" I pressed.
"There are two more places where the water is not flowing. He'd be most grateful if you would have a look at them." Godchaser finished.
"He wants me to fix something else?" I wondered.
"That's pretty much the gist of it." Godchaser sighed. She sounded annoyed, but I was intrigued. As much as I didn't like hearing so many grandiose words of praise heaped upon me, I was too intrigued by the little God to simply return to bed.
"That's great! Tell him to show me where!" I replied.
I ended up working most of the night for the God of the Rice Paddy as he came up with project after project for me. I wondered what the poor farmers would think when they found my handwork and suspected that poor little Mochi would probably get a few more heartfelt prayers than usual. I caught a few hours sleep just before dawn and awoke to discover two tiny rice cakes wrapped in white linen lying beside my tool chest. It was a small gesture in light of all the work I'd done, but considering the size of the God who had left them, I didn't think it was right to complain. In any case, they were the best breakfast I could have wished for.
Travelling along the river was slower than taking the road but the weather was certainly preferable and I saw only a few soldiers which was a tremendous relief. When the river port of Chio came within sight I ducked into the bushes just long enough to ensure that Godchaser was well-hidden. After no one stopped me passing through the city gates, I mentally congratulated myself for outwitting Cathak Chiron and escaping the entire Abbey of Mela, the Snow Owls and whoever else had been assembled to bring back my branded head on a pike.
While I still wasn't entirely reconciled with the idea of being Anathema, I'd had a remarkable success in orchestrating my escape so far. Even Sam who'd caught me red-handed working on Godchaser didn't seem to think that I was a demon. Perhaps I would make it to Nexus after all! And in a far-off city with a good alias, I could start a new life for myself
Of course, that was when I heard the sound of a horse trotting up behind me.
"Hey, Copper! Copper Spider!" Sam exclaimed.
The moment I heard him speak that outrageous sobriquet, my rosy little vision of the future was shattered irreparably.
I glanced up slowly, squinting at his silhouette. The sun was directly behind Sam's head, making his face impossible to see but his smile was unmistakable. The other two young Winds that I had met, Cheng and Isha followed him. They seemed surprised to see me, and Cheng looked a little nervous. Sam was obviously bubbling over about something, and I gathered from the expression on his face that he was about to tell me what. I hadn't seen my suspicious travelling companion since the night he'd discovered Godchaser and I frankly hadn't expected to see him again at all.
"You came from the north, right?" Sam pressed eagerly. It was as if nothing had changed between us at all.
"North-ish." I replied, saying nothing.
"Did you hear about the Anathema that they found?" He asked.
"Anathema?" As apprehensive as I was becoming, I hoped I still sounded surprised and not nervous.
"Oh, yeah! Everybody in Chio is talking about it! Apparently it's one of the worst Unclean ever! A real legendary monster!"
I'd been Anathema for two weeks and I was already legendary? I tried not to appear shocked.
"Y'see, Dragonlord Cathak Chiron and his Scarlets found the mummy of an ancient Anathema near Lookshy like forty years ago. It was dead and they burned its bones and said prayers to all the Dragons for protection but somehow it came back to life!" Sam explained. "Not as a ghost I mean, that wouldn't be anything special... but the Anathema actually came back from the dead! Like it had never been killed it at all!"
"Impossible!" I protested. That wasn't the story that Dragonlord Chiron had told me at all!
"I've heard that it's completely unstoppable! It flies and its eyes incinerate anything that it looks at!" Isha proclaimed. Like any young soldier, she loved the sound of a good fight. I felt bad hearing that, knowing that her endearing enthusiasm would probably land her on the front lines of some horrible battle in the near future. I was no expert on military matters, but I'd heard something from Abbot Manu once that had stuck with me. There was no such thing as a zealous old soldier.
"You don't really believe that kind of nonsense do you?" I demanded, trying to downplay the story that was already spreading like wildfire through the throngs of travelers waiting to enter Chio.
"Believe it? My cousin is a monk! He saw it!" Sam explained. "He's the one who brought the message to Chio! He saw the Anathema fly out a window and cast a spell in midair! It's so powerful that it was able go inside of an Immaculate monastery without bursting into flames! Although my brother did say something about it being on fire after it blew the whole roof off the Abbey of Mela! He also said it has a spider for a head!"
I laughed despite myself. Everyone might have stared at me... but Isha also laughed at Sam's dramatic claim and her voice carried much better than mine did.
Sam's story had begun to make me very nervous, at least until he'd added that last ridiculous bit. If half of the Realm's soldiers were looking for a demon with a spider for a head, perhaps I was safer than I thought, particularly since Godchaser was now disguised as a simple gray cloak.
It did bother me that Sam didn't seem to think that there was any connection between the story he'd heard in Chio and my own strange secret, however. Then again, even when he'd seen Godchaser glowing, she'd still looked very much like a piece of clothing with a face. I imagined if he'd actually seen all of her tendrils flailing that things would have been very different. I'd be very dead at any rate, with Mnemon Rai and all the Ravenous Winds coming after me. As if it wasn't bad enough that I already had the entire Abbey of Mela and Dragonlord Chiron on my trail!
Of course, there was also the possibility that Sam was hiding something himself, which would certainly explain why he hadn't told any of the Winds about Godchaser.
"You think that's funny? Anathema are serious business!" Cheng protested. He was looking at his second officer, not me.
Isha giggled. "I know, Cheng! I'm sorry, but I just can't imagine someone with a spider for a head! It's too ridiculous!"
"No, demons are weird like that!" Sam laughed. "Anyway, my cousin is probably waiting for us at The Winking Lizard right now. He's not a very good monk and he likes to drink a bit when he comes to town. You should come hear the whole story from the beginning!" He proclaimed.
"I'm actually meeting someone in Chio and I'm afraid I don't have the time." I lied. "Good luck on your mission, Winds. Thank you for helping me. Stay alive!" I added. Though I should have considered the young soldiers my enemies, I couldn't help but like them... and I was certain that whatever they'd been called up to face was probably very dangerous.
Cheng nodded and Isha smiled slightly. Sam was grinning from ear to ear, as pleased to meet me as he had been upon our first encounter, as if he remembered nothing of what he'd seen only two nights ago. Not for the first time, I found myself hypnotized by his peculiar yellow eyes. "You too, Spider!" Sam replied, slapping me soundly on the back, missing one of Godchaser's tendrils by less than an inch. "I hope you find wherever it is that you're looking for. And don't forget to have some fun along the way!" He advised.
"I'll try." I promised, waving goodbye to Sam as Cheng shoved him roughly into the bar.
I kept walking until I'd nearly left Chio out of the southern gate of the city. While I still planned to earn my own passage to Nexus by working on board a ship, I suspected that I would not convince anyone that I was a skilled professional without some better clothes and a small amount of coin to grease a few palms. I stopped at the sorriest looking teahouse I could find and volunteered my services in exchange for something to drink.
The owner of the teahouse immediately put me to work fixing a stubborn window in her kitchen. Satisfied with my efforts, she fed me a substantial supper and then sent me across the road to her neighbor's inn, recommending that I ask him for more work and a place to sleep.
Although I knew that I needed to get out of Chio as quickly as possible, doing repairs in various businesses during day gave me money and kept me off of the street where I might be recognized. It also provided me with different accommodations every night, and whenever my employer did not already know my name, I used a different alias. Of course, I still slipped up quite a few times and introduced myself as "Recluse".
After I had been in Chio for several days, rumors were beginning to spread about a "tinkering spider" who could fix anything and only charged a nominal fee for his services. Despite my low prices, I'd been productive enough that I'd already made a fair amount of coin, enough to pay for passage to Nexus outright. I'd also purchased myself new clothes and enough supplies that I could survive in the wilderness for a week if I needed to.
Godchaser had been remarkably quiet since our arrival in Chio, partly because her hearthstone was still failing. Whenever I worked somewhere without supervision, I would seize the opportunity to give her a little Essence but she still spent most of her time "dozing off" or "not paying attention". Sometimes I had to say her name aloud several times before she would respond. When I succeeded in repairing her "hover" function, she replied simply that she was "too tired" to test it. While I knew I could probably sustain her indefinitely with my Essence, I knew that I needed to sort out the problem with her hearthstone immediately.
I should have set out as soon as I was able to purchase a decent pair of shoes, but I was enjoying my work a bit too much and decided to take on one more job when I heard about a bad boiler at an inn called The Lady Sailor.
"Yah, the boiler's worthless!" The barkeep told me with a groan. He had a peculiar accent that made me suspect he might be from the West and a glass eye that didn't focus on anything besides the ceiling. Everything about him seemed to suggest that he was a disreputable character but I ignored my own instincts. Whatever kind of scoundrel he might be, he was still human... and that was more than I could say for myself.
"I can't pay you, but get it running and it will earn you a bed for the night and a meal." The bartender continued. I tossed my pack near the bar and followed him down the steps, past rows of kegs containing both ale and wine. Though the inn was not very large, the cellar was fairly sumptuous and a flight of stairs on the opposite side of the room suggested that it was shared with a second building.
"What's in there?" I asked out of curiosity.
"Nothing." He said that in a manner which convinced me that there was most definitely something behind that door, but it wasn't mechanical and I wasn't going to pry. I stared instead at the enormous boiler, so ancient I couldn't guess its age. It looked like it belonged in a bathhouse, it reeked like rust and mold and was far warmer than it should have been to the touch.
"Can you fix it?" He asked.
"What's it doing?" I inquired.
"More a question of what it's not doing." He replied. "It's not doing anything,"
"I see. I can fix it." I replied.
The bartender snorted, not believing my brave claim for one instant.
I waited until he was gone and the door was closed behind him. "Godchaser?" I whispered.
My companion did not respond or give any sign that she had heard me. I sighed heavily and set to work, moving my lamp a few inches to the left and opening my toolbox to set up one of my little mirrors. When I still could not see far enough under the boiler to pinpoint the source of the problem, I sighed heavily in defeat and made my own light. Truthfully, doing so was beginning to feel very natural to me... but that was not something I wanted to admit to Godchaser. I knew she'd only say something outrageously smug in response.
The less Godchaser spoke to me, the more time I had to worry over my own condition. Though I'd grown to appreciate how a sufficient application of Essence might solve any problem, the ease with which I accomplished even difficult tasks left me feeling like more of an outsider than ever before. Even when I'd been the darling of Dynastic social circles, I had not noticed so many eyes upon me, watching everything I did in bewilderment and wonder. At what point had I stopped being an artisan and become a sorcerer?
The thought of working true magic still did not sit well with me. I remembered what had happened in my tower workroom as if it were a dream. Everything but the expression on Dragonlord Chiron's face and Godchaser's first glorious manifestation seemed fuzzy in my memory. I particularly struggled with the recollection that I had most definitely cast some sort of spell as I leapt out the window. Part of me wondered if I could do such a thing again.
Then I remembered the corona of light that had blossomed all around me, how brilliant and unmistakable it had been, clearly something that had no place in Creation. Why was I so tempted to test my limits? Shouldn't I have been praying for deliverance instead? Why couldn't I stop myself from putting my filthy, cursed hands on everything that I could?
Upon closer inspection, I realized that the boiler I was working on suffered from a fundamental design flaw, a crack that expanded and spit steam in all directions every time the water within was heated. The whole monstrous thing would have to be drained before it could be fixed properly... at least by any mundane craftsman.
Eager as I was to be gone from Chio, I put all of my tools away, laid my right hand upon the boiler and simply told it that it was fixed. Fine strands of golden Essence flowed from my fingertips and filled the almost invisible cracks in the metal, the light departing from them as I pulled away from the device. No one would be able to tell what I had done unless they looked very closely, and even then, the quality of the weld would surely baffle them. I knew that Dragonblooded had Charms that aided them in crafting artifacts but I had never heard of anything like the ability that I possessed. In all likelihood, the small section of the boiler that I had fixed would remain long after the rest of the long-suffering boiler rusted into oblivion.
Godchaser giggled.
"You're awake?" I smiled slightly despite myself as my companion rose up from where I had left her. She looked a bit like a ghost as she drifted towards me, obviously pleased to be able to move under her own power again. Her motion was not at all graceful... it was uneven, up and down and faltering intermittently, but once I sorted out whatever was causing the trouble with her hearthstone I suspected the problem would be easily solved. My own skills in that regard were improving at an alarming pace.
"Ah. I see your hover function works." I observed.
Obviously very pleased with my efforts, she twirled in a little circle. When Godchaser hovered, she looked even more like a person than she normally did, and having some semblance of a body obviously pleased her. She still occasionally commented that she would like to have hands of her own, and though I toyed with the idea of building something so wonderfully complex, I knew that I couldn't do such a thing without access to magical materials and special tools.
"There's still something wrong with it. But if I had arms, I would hug you!" She proclaimed.
"I'm not building you arms." I replied.
"I would hug you!" She repeated.
"Tempting, but no." I heard a sniffling sound nearby and for a moment I thought that Godchaser was making a nuisance of herself. "And don't cry, you ridiculous machine!"
"I'm not crying!" Godchaser replied flatly. "Someone else is."
That was when I heard it again, the sound of a faint muffled sob. I got down on my knees and put my ear on the wall. The sound was still faint, but the wall was most definitely wood and not stone. Taking one of my files, I pried it l open and peered into almost pitch-black darkness.
Godchaser gives a low whistle. "Maker, you should see this." Without a warning or a word of explanation she hovered over to me and settles over my shoulders with a dramatic sigh.
"Are we alone?" I asked her.
"Yes." She replied. "I think."
My work lamp was too far away, but as Godchaser so often commented, I was never truly trapped by the dark. Steeling myself for whatever I was about to see, I called up my mark. The usual color of the light was actually rather nice, but even bathing that room in a rosy golden glow did not make it look anything less like a butcher's shop sharing space with a Sijanese mortuary. The tables were littered with books, candles, packages of foul-smelling herbs and bones, some of which looked awfully human. There were the fresh bloodstains on the walls.
"This is bad." I whispered.
"We should get out of here. Now." Godchaser agreed.
"Not so fast! We both heard someone crying!" I argued.
"We should get out of here." Godchaser repeated.
"We will! Just let me look first!" I sighed.
Listening closely, I found the source of the sound I had heard. It was a box with a lock on it underneath one of the work tables in the center of the room. I might have called it a coffin if it had been longer, but not even a very small person could have been laid out straight inside of it. When I put my ear to the lid, I could hear breathing inside.
"Hello?" I whispered in Low Realm.
There was a muffled sob in response. It sounded like a child.
"There's someone inside this box!" I gasped.
"We should get out of here." Godchaser argued, as if she could say nothing else.
"Stop saying that! We can't leave anyone like this, it's inhumane! I'm getting my tools!" I argued. I tried for a few minutes to convince the lock to budge, and when that didn't work I simply closed my fist around it and ordered it to shatter. Then I lit a candle and quelled the light radiating from me so that the first thing that the girl inside would see would not be some predatory Anathema looking down on her. I couldn't imagine what she'd already been through.
I opened the lid. Inside the box, almost completely naked and streaked with blood and grime was a very petite young girl, probably no more than fifteen years old. Her head had been shaved and her pale skin was covered in fine, cruel scars. Someone had been torturing her for an unthinkably long time, long enough for her wounds to heal completely and then be opened again. She had a few fresh marks too, all made by that same ruthless knife. One of them looked badly infected.
Though she was bound hand and foot, she thrashed her neck like a wild horse when she saw me.
I put a finger to my lips. "Quiet." I warned.
"Get me out of here!" She begged, the moment I cut the strip of cloth that she'd been gagged with. "Please!"
"I am getting you out of here." I replied, cutting the bonds on her wrists and ankles. "What's your name, girl?"
"Dove." She replied, nervously watching me as I worked.
"Well, you can call me Recluse. Like the spider. Can you stand up?"
She nodded and I helped her to her feet. Immediately, she tried to run for the door. I caught her as she stumbled and fell.
"No, no! Wait until you can feel your legs! And put some clothes on!" I took off my shirt. I'd traded my old clothes and a few hour's work for something else to wear on my second day in Chio and although I liked having a dozen more pockets, Dove was practically naked. Small and frail as she was, my shirt almost looked like a dress on her.
"Now where's your family?"
I immediately regretted asking that question. The expression on Dove's face was awful. What had her family done to her?
"Port Calin." She replied.
"Heh. I thought that was a Rivertongue accent you have. Well, you're a long way from home. I was born in Nexus myself." I paused. I switched to Rivertongue, knowing I was about to ask another question that the poor girl wouldn't want to answer. "Dove, how did you end up in that box? "
She said nothing.
"I need to know. If there are bad people coming..." I began.
"Recluse, there are horrible people coming! We need to go now! I don't care where! I don't have any family, I don't have anything at all! I'm a slave! My father sold me to pay his debts! The man who bought me wanted me for his bed and when his wife found out, she was so angry that she gave me to Ragara Sephora!"
Ragara was a Dynast's surname. "That's who put you in there?"
Dove nodded. "She's a monster! She's going to kill me tonight, I heard her say it! We have to go!" Dove tugged on my arm.
"Dragons, this is unbelievable!" A string of curse words escaped me, about half of them in Rivertongue and to my surprise, the rest in Old Realm.
"Maker! Now!" Godchaser hissed. Dove looked very confused, wondering where the voice was coming from. Godchaser dropped to the floor just as Dove would have caught sight of her, pretending to be an inanimate object. That was when I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
I quickly closed up my toolbox and offered Dove my hand. She didn't hesitate to take it, although she definitely stared at my "cloak".
"Was your cloak talking?" She wondered uneasily.
"Yes, and she might start doing it again. I promise I'll explain later. Now get behind me!"
Hearing the creak of a nearby door, I shoved Dove in the direction of the boiler, covering her mouth with my hand as I crouched down beside her in the shadows. The two of us waited there like a pair of trapped rabbits. I only hoped we wouldn't be seen before we could make a break for the stairs.
Two very large men who looked like bodyguards came into the room, followed very closely by a richly dressed woman with long red hair and a very distinctive hooked nose. She was obviously a Fire-Aspect and looked like one of good breeding, probably a genuine Dynast. The sorceress blinked in surprise at the candle that I'd forgotten to extinguish.
"Search the room!" She ordered. I cursed under my breath.
"The candle!" Dove gasped.
"Oh, Maker! You never should have lit that candle! You should have just used your..." Godchaser began. She never actually said "Caste Mark". That was when Dove, unable to take the strain of waiting for a moment longer made the mistake of bolting for the door.
"Dove, no!" I shouted, leaping to my feet.
But it was too late. Dove shrieked and kicked as one of the bodyguards seized her and lifted her off the ground, his arms wrapped around her neck.
"What's this? How did you escape you little whore?" The sorceress demanded... and then caught sight of me. "Who the hell are you?"
"I was fixing the boiler." I replied, not answering her question. "That is, at least until I heard the sounds of someone being tortured through the wall. What you've done here is reprehensible! You may think you're immune because you're wealthy and Dragonblooded, but no one gets away with sacrificing people! I'm reporting you to the authorities!"
"Report me?" The sorceress laughed. Her tone convinced me immediately that I'd missed something very important. "To whom? Fool, I own this town!" She snarled. Fire blossomed up all around her.
The Dragonblooded sorceress must have expected that I would immediately drop to my knees and apologize for insulting her when she flared her anima. The glare she gave me would have been enough to make me beg for my life... if I hadn't seen what I'd already seen.
I didn't care if Ragara Sephora was the Scarlet Empress herself! That didn't give her the right to sacrifice anyone, not even a slave girl with no surname, sold by her own parents and apparently sharing her master's bed. I wouldn't fool myself into thinking that Dove was completely innocent of any wrongdoing... but nothing she could have done would have made her deserving of the fate that Ragara Sephora obviously had planned for her. And nothing that sorceress wanted or needed could possibly be worth a human life!
"Now what do you have to say for yourself, you meddlesome tinker?" She demanded. "Well?"
"Let the girl go." I replied. "Now."
"You presume to give me an order? How dare you!" Ragara Sephora tried to slap me.
I caught her wrist. As she pulled free of my grasp, she called up her anima again, searing the palm of my hand. I'd been kicked around by Dragonblooded at the monastery more than once, but I'd never actually been burned by a Fire Aspect's Essence before.
"Ow!" I grimaced.
Sephora narrowed her eyes. She obviously didn't like the fact that I still wasn't cowering before her. "On your knees, mortal... and I may leave you the use of your legs!" She ordered.
"No." I replied without hesitation.
"What?" She hissed.
"You heard me. No! I am not going obey you! You can't make me!" Speaking those words felt wonderful and I realized belatedly that I had just behaved exactly like a legendary Anathema would, spitting on the Perfected Hierarchy and telling a Dynast to go to Malfeas.
I saw Sephora move long before she must have expected that I would and easily blocked her attack. She countered with a Fire Dragon Style move that I knew very well. Though I'd never been able to block the attack before, a sufficient cushion of Essence kept it from actually hurting me. The fact that I was still relatively unscathed prompted the sorceress to redouble her efforts and I continued to fend her off at every turn without striking her outright. The two bodyguards held Dove and stayed well back, looking suitably impressed by their mistress who was burning brighter and brighter. I was a little singed myself but not about to back down. Our fight worked its way out of the sorceress's workroom and we came to standstill three feet apart between two rows of wine casks.
"Last chance, mortal! Yield and live!" Sephora warned.
"I'm not going without the girl." I replied.
"This is not a negotiation!" She snarled.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" I shot back. Even though Sephora was a Dragonblood, it had become obvious to me that martial arts were not really her forte. I realized that I could probably beat her if our fight wore on much longer, which was undoubtedly why she had given me so many opportunities to surrender. But I did not have to cower before her or anyone,not anymore! Of course, I already knew that I held a distinct advantage over those who could not use Essence, but I hadn't actually expected to be faster and stronger than a Fire-Aspect!
An all-too familiar feeling came over me as I considered drawing more on my own Essence. As many times as I had needed to call up my mark as I traveled, I'd gotten used to what it felt like when it was visible, much different than when no one could see it. If I fueled any more Essence into my Snake Style, my mark was going to start burning whether I willed it to or not!
I had to end the fight as fast as possible, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a solution. I threw a wild, sloppy roundhouse kick at Sephora's head and as she swiftly dodged my incoming leg, I switched my target, landing a strong jumping back kick on the central support of the rack that held up the wine casks. As the rack groaned and swayed, the casks fell off one by one. Some broke on the floor and the rest rolled over the sorceress and her bodyguards. While they were distracted, I grabbed Dove and raced for the stairs.
"How did you do that?" Dove gasped.
"Mathematics!' I replied, seizing my toolbox.
As we barreled out into the bar, I saw my pack where I'd left it next to the counter. "Grab that bag!" I ordered, and weak as she was, Dove still managed to catch hold of it. "What's in here?" She demanded.
"Food and clothes. You're going to need both." I informed her. "And anything you can't use, you can sell."
"It's too heavy! We're going to die! We don't need anything!" She protested right as we reached the street.
"Please, trust me! We're not going to die!" I shouted back. Of course, that was when Ragara Sephora exploded out of the tavern's basement. Flames roared all around her and her wine-soaked, badly bruised bodyguards followed just a few steps behind, their bare swords glittering in the light of her anima.
Dove managed to keep pace with me as I lead her towards the river. We couldn't run from the Dragonblood indefinitely and I couldn't afford to use any more Essence, not if I didn't want to be revealed.
Preoccupied as I was with my own impending death, I almost didn't notice Dove tugging on my sleeve. Much more forcefully, she grabbed hold of Godchaser who yelped in protest and shoved the both of us into a blacksmith's shed. Seizing a piece of bent iron from the workbench, the girl quickly barred the door. I wasn't sure which one of us was actually breathing heavier.
"This isn't going to work!" Dove whispered fearfully. "They're going to be here any second, and that bar won't stop them!"
She was right about that. It would take a divine act to get us out of the mess we were in... and if the Gods or the Dragons weren't going to have mercy on us, then I had no choice. I'd have to build us a miracle.
"Throw bricks, light a fire, something! Buy us time!" I ordered, taking off Godchaser. I opened my tool chest and took out my best pliers.
"Maker?" Godchaser wondered innocently. I didn't respond, tearing a hole in the fabric that concealed her chest plate. "What are you doing?"
I could hear a large crowd forming outside, following a safe distance behind Ragara Sephora and her men, who'd definitely found us. The bodyguards set to hacking at the door immediately. Sephora was doing something else, something that looked very familiar to me.
She was working sorcery!
"They're getting in!" Dove cried. As I'd asked her to, she was pitching bricks out the window with impressive strength for her tiny frame. The cursing I heard from Ragara Sephora's bodyguards suggested that her aim was also commendable.
I glanced briefly over my shoulder and grimaced, catching sight of the sorceress starting her spell. Fire whipped all around her. I had only one plan, and in order to accomplish it, I'd have to work fast. First I opened Godchaser's hover circuit and carefully attached my last fragment of orichalcum wire to it.
"Do something!" Dove cried as the blade of a sword tore partway through the door. "I'm running out of bricks!"
"I am doing something!" I shot back. Taking a deep breath, I carefully lifted the tiny panel of strange silver metal that protected Godchaser's most sensitive component, the one which controlled her ability to teleport. It was a dizzying blur of little gears that moved and changed shape as I tried to catch hold of them. I had to feed the wire through the right one or what I was attempting to do would never work. It took me three tries and then I closed the panel. As I picked Godchaser up, a two foot section of fabric fell from her back, a piece I'd torn a little too zealously. I'd need to find myself another cloak.
"What... what is that inside of your cloak?" Dove blinked in disbelief. Dove's first reaction to seeing Godchaser was not any different than Sam's or my own had been. She was certainly an impressive device, even just from a physical standpoint.
"Ready to fly, dear?" I asked.
"Ooh!" Godchaser exclaimed, suddenly noticing what I had done to her hover circuit. "That's new!"
"You think it'll work?" I asked.
"I think so, but... I'm going to need lots of Essence!" Godchaser decided.
"It's alive!" Dove gasped.
Dove stared at me. I knew my mark was visible, but she didn't seem to know what to make off it. I decided not to give her the opportunity to sort things out. I stood, wrapped Godchaser back around my shoulders and pulled Dove in close to me, making sure she was somewhat protected by the folds of my cloak. The fabric wasn't much, but it was better than what she was wearing, especially considering what I was about to attempt. Of course, the moment I started pouring large amounts of Essence into Godchaser, her tendrils came alive like a dozen angry snakes, making my cloak appear to billow around me even though there was no wind.
Dove tried to look up at me, but with how I held her, she could only really my neck and maybe my chin. "What... what are you?" She whispered fearfully.
"Right now? A big damn hero!" I replied.
Gritting my teeth, I gave Godchaser as much Essence as I could and shielded Dove's head. For a moment it didn't seem to be enough, but just as Sephora's men succeeded in busting the door down, we shot up through the roof of the shed and into the sky.
The force of our take off was terrifying, and I'd severely underestimated how high and far my temporary linking of Godchaser's "teleport" and "hover" functions would send us flying. To make matters worse, Dove was screaming her lungs out in terror the entire time and Godchaser was cheering like a lunatic.
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" She cried, as we reached the high point in our trajectory and started falling at a speed I knew I couldn't hope to control.
As best as I was able, I tried to control our landing so that most of the force would be split between Godchaser and myself. I saw a large hay pile and aimed for it as well as I could, wrapping my arms tighter around Dove and straightening out my body. The impact hurt, but after my head stopped spinning, I realized that I wasn't injured at all. I should have been, but I'd somehow used my own Essence to protect myself as I hit the ground.
And considering that both Godchaser and Dove had would up landing on top of me along with our food and my toolbox... I figured that everything had gone reasonably well. I sat up slowly and realized in shock that I recognized where we were. We'd landed in Windfall, the same small village where I'd met Sam nearly two weeks ago! We'd flown more than sixty miles in a matter of minutes! That was faster than being shot out from a cannon! Or... had we actually teleported? I wasn't sure.
Dove didn't say anything at first. She only clung to the pack that contained all of my food, my other supplies and the two pairs of socks I'd bought to keep my own feet warm. I told her to keep everything but she didn't even say thank you. She just stared at me as if she expected I would suddenly turn on her like a rabid dog. And she wasn't the only one.
Though it was after dark, more than a few villagers who'd been loitering around the Crossroads Inn had witnessed our dramatic fall from the heavens. They hid when I turned in their direction. Not that I blamed them. Since my escape from the monastery, I hadn't done anything so undeniably Anathema-like. And as if being a demon wasn't bad enough... I'd apparently also been cursed with an aura of ostentatiousness.
A golden flare of Essence was damning in its own right, but I'd discovered that the more Essence I burned, the more color poured out from me. After fueling Godchaser with everything she needed to attempt her maiden flight, I looked like an exploding fireworks factory. When I looked up, I realized that there was literally a pillar of light surrounding me more than a hundred feet high that blazed with red, orange, blue, and gold. I felt tired and strained as I'd expected, but at the same time, I also felt the strangest sense of liberation.
When I raised my head, it was as if I could see straight up into heaven, as if a hole had been cut in the black night sky and the sun had been poured down through it. Tendrils of radiant Essence all around me shifted and assumed familiar shapes which reminded me of the inner workings of a very complex pocket watch. I touched one gold spark that looked like a small gear and it set to spinning, just as if it were a solid thing. It was definitely my Essence, and yet I could make it behave like a physical object! I immediately thought of tools. I'd lost some of my best wrenches rescuing Dove and they'd be extremely expensive to replace. But what if I could simply make them out of Essence when I needed them? It was an inspired idea!
That's when I remembered where I was standing, in front of a dozen nervous peasants, the twitchy innkeeper whose business I'd saved weeks ago... and of course, Dove.
She obviously didn't know what to do. I decided to give her a suggestion. "Do you see that road?" I pointed into the mountains. "If you follow that road north almost all the way into Snow Owl territory you'll reach a little village. The headman there is called Sun Yu. He and his wife are poor folks, but they're good people." Dove didn't pull away from me, but she did squint. I released belatedly that the light around me was so bright that it hurt her eyes... and so I took a few steps back, not that it was liable to do any good. "If Yu asks who sent you to him, you can tell him it was Recluse. That's the alias he knows me by. But don't... please, don't tell him that I'm Anathema."
Then I turned to walk away.
"Wait!" Dove called out. "Recluse!" When I looked at her, she covered her eyes and turned her face away from me. I guessed that from her perspective I looked even brighter than I did to myself. "What's your real name?" She asked.
"Veritas Ilumio." I replied, not having the heart to lie to her.
"Truth Illuminates?" Dove blinked in surprise, translating my name literally from Rivertongue into Low Realm. "You're the one they're looking for, aren't you?"
"And they're definitely going to find me if I don't get out of here now." I sighed heavily.
"Did you really used to be an Immaculate monk?" Dove wondered.
"Yes." I sighed heavily, taking off my cap. "As you can see, I'm still recovering from the obligatory haircut."
"But you're Anathema!" She protested.
"I wasn't always. It's nothing like they say. I wasn't spawned out of Malfeas! I didn't make a deal with any yozi! It just happened to me one day and I don't even know why! I'm really just an ordinary man."
"I find that very hard to believe." Dove smiled slightly. "You were flying a minute ago!"
"It was fun!" Godchaser giggled.
"And now your cloak is talking again." She observed.
"She never shuts up. Look, go on, you don't have to believe me! Just get out of here! It's only a matter of time before they figure out where we went! And if they catch you, they'll hand you right back to Ragara Sephora!" I warned her.
Still, Dove hesitated. "But I don't understand! Why did you save me? If you'd done nothing at all, they would have never known that you were..."
"Anathema?" I supplied.
"I..." Dove bit her lip. She hadn't wanted to say the word, that much was obvious.
"If I have to pick between saving someone who's done nothing wrong and saving myself, I'll save the innocent every time. I don't want to die, but I'm not stupid enough to think that I don't deserve to. It was the right thing to do." I finished.
Witnessing my conversation with Dove, some of the locals of Windfall were getting up the courage to step out of their houses. More than a few of them had weapons in their hands. It didn't look like they were coming after me for sure... more like they were just being careful and wanting to better understand what was going on.
"The right thing to do?" Dove echoed.
"I'm a demon, aren't I? I need all of the redemption I can get." I replied.
Dove wrapped herself tightly in the blanket I had given her and started trudging up the road. If she walked all night, she'd make it to the home of a farmer whose wagon I'd fixed before morning. And if she kept going for a few more days, she'd be in Sun Yu's village, probably safe. I could only assume that Ragara Sephora had intended to sacrifice her in order to summon a demon... and would likely find herself another more docile slave before giving up on her plans.
That thought troubled me. If I was a demon myself, as everything I'd ever believed told me I was... why did the thought of what the sorceress had planned to do to Dove make me so furious? And not only furious, but also sick to my stomach.
Had I made a mistake in running away from my own reckoning? Had I saved Dove now only to cause the death of another innocent girl like her when I became a monster?
I stopped short. I'd been repeating those words over and over and over again as I considered the future and hadn't even considered how illogical they sounded.
What would I do when I became a monster?
I was already a monster! From an Immaculate Perspective, I'd been damned the first time I'd defied the Perfected Hierarchy and refused to accept my natural place within it. All of the suffering I'd endured was of my own making. The Dragonblooded were the rightful Lords of the Earth. They were Chosen, to protect and guide those less fortunate so that everyone might one day reach Enlightenment.
But if that was true... then why was it that everywhere I looked, I found Dragonbloods involved in more despicable business?
Political backstabbing. Wars! Human sacrifice!
I considered something that Godchaser had said, a strange little quip that had stuck in my mind.
People were broken. They needed fixing.
But how could broken people be "fixed" when it was the world that they lived in which made them the way that they were? The whole of society would have to be torn down and rebuilt! And even as powerful as I was becoming, I still wasn't capable of simply swooping in like an Immaculate Dragon and fixing everything that was wrong with Creation!
Was I?
The combination of fear and awe in the eyes of Windfall's villagers as I slowly passed through their town left me feeling more conflicted than ever before. I turned to the sign at the crossroads and considered it for a moment. It was obvious there was no way I'd survive going back to Chio. That left me only one choice.
I'd have to find passage in the Imperial City.