Three Acts of Penance [01] Attrition: The First Act of Penance Read online

  “Where the faul did that come from?!” the Demon growled.

  The answer came in the form of a black blur that fell from above, like a destroying angel from above, and landed in their midst — a Majiski in a Genshwin Shadow.

  “What—!”

  A pitch-black stiletto in each hand, the second assassin stabbed a pair of guards through their exposed throats.

  Chaos erupted. The remaining guards fumbled and tripped over their spears, desperately trying to recover from the surprise attack and corner the newcomer. But the assassin ducked and weaved gracefully through the forest for thrashing spearheads, fluidly guiding the ivory weapons into flesh and armor.

  Down the alleyway, the first assassin fired bolt after bolt of electric magic, cutting down any target that stepped into his line of sight.

  The Demon reacted, drawing his wicked blade as the final Arkûl fell. It swung a vicious strike at the assassin with the stilettos. The Genshwin sidestepped. The blade impacted the street, shattering the cobbles.

  Before the Demon could recover, the assassin pinned the sword’s tip to the street with a boot, then ran up the length of it like a ramp. Planting a foot on the monster’s forehead, the assassin flipped end-for-end into the air.

  Like a practiced acrobat, the assassin landed on the Demon’s shoulders; one stiletto sank deep into the ram-like fiend’s jugular, and the other found a home deep in its eye socket. The Demon’s death-cry was choked by the prong of the black weapon in its neck. Blood staining its teeth, the Demon toppled forward, gracelessly it collapsing into the puddles of rainwater and blood.

  The Genshwin shrugged off the hood. Fine hair fell around her in a light brown frame, the rain clinging to it like crystal beads woven into a chestnut curtain. It was a woman: a she-Majiski. Her mouth was pressed into a white line of satisfied predatory efficiency. The creases in her brow spoke of a scowl that visited frequently. Her eyes were silver and cunning.

  She sheathed her stilettos into the leather loops on her forearms. Crouching over the Demon’s corpse, she unbuckled the satchel it had been carrying and retrieved the letter held within.

  “Rachel.”

  The word was a whisper, fluting and placid. The woman, Rachel, looked up to find her companion standing at the entrance to the alley.

  He also had removed his hood, allowing a cloud of shiny black hair to gravitate around his ears. His lightning-colored eyes — large and ovular, like a cat’s — were calm and still, peaceful despite the recent violence. His slate-grey skin was wet with the rain; Rachel couldn’t help but notice how the droplets dangled from the tips of his gently pointed ears.

  Rachel held up the satchel. “Got it. Help me get rid of the mess.”

  The two of them began to drag the bodies into an abandoned building down the alleyway. They had prepared the place earlier that day, prying up a section of floorboards to reveal a deep hole beneath the floor. They dumped the bodies into the hole and replaced the floorboards.

  After the last plank was nailed back into place, the male Genshwin leaned against a crumbling wall, brushing the water out of his hair. When he spoke, his voice was flat, impassive, as though he were reciting a long mathematical formula.

  “Oron said the dead-drop would be in the clock-tower off of Market Street, correct?”

  Rachel gave Notak a hard look. He was — as far as she knew — the last Elf left in Io. The rest of his people had long since disappeared into the Spikes. That had made his life complicated, to say the least. His interaction with other people had been limited to a select group of the Genshwin with high enough clearance to know of the existence of the Scorpions — Rachel could count on one hand the number of people with whom Notak could be himself.

  With everyone else, he had to keep himself at a distance. Whenever they visited Velik Tor, or walked in the streets among the Humans, he had to stay to the shadows or cover his grey Elven skin with illusions. This, Rachel believed, more than anything was the reason for Notak’s complete emotional vacuum.

  “We’re early,” Rachel told him. “He’s not supposed to Slip it there until six.”

  Notak shrugged. “Oron’s perception of time is never exact. We should go now.”

  Rachel nodded indifferently.

  The Scorpions left the house and climbed up the alley wall onto the roof. Side by side, the pair of them ran, leaping over gaps between buildings and grasping at ledges as they tumbled, flipped, and sprinted across Oblakgrad’s sprawling sea of rain-slicked rooftops.

  Rachel had to slow herself slightly; while Notak was faster and stronger than any Human, no Elf could hope to keep full pace with a Majiski. The torrential rain whipped at their faces as if attempting to slow them down. A vain effort. The storm inadvertently invigorated them. High above the city, the Demons’ clouds were frowning in chagrin.

  Before long, they arrived at the ancient clock tower that protruded from Oblakgrad’s largest indoor market. They scaled the tower. Like a pair of black spiders, they scuttled up its face, finding — or making — any handholds necessary.

  Notak pulled himself into the dingy belfry. Finding it vacant (except for a small colony of bats roosting in the rafters), he supplied Rachel with a helping hand.

  She grunted an obligatory acknowledgement.

  “You are welcome,” Notak said dryly.

  Without pause, the Scorpions performed an efficient inspection of the belfry. Notak examined the corners for wards and magical traps. Rachel searched in and around the rusting iron bells, looking for the parcel that awaited them.

  “Nothing,” Rachel reported from the bell’s interior. “Just like I said. We’re early.”

  As if on cue, a sharp crackling came from one of the windowsills. The air around above the sill rippled like a heat wave, and the belfry’s atmosphere began to fill with a tingling electric buzz.

  A strident snap split the air, accompanied by a burst of green light. A small leather bag materialized in mid-air and plopped onto the windowsill. A single black feather followed close behind it, floating blithely down to rest atop the bag. The haze of fraying planar fabric smoothed over and the electric tingle faded away.

  Rachel extracted herself from the bell. “Here we are,” she murmured to herself, snatching the bag off the sill. The ebon feather tumbled away and fluttered out the window. Notak watched as it was carried away into the rain.

  Rachel opened the bag and produced a small brass sphere, as well as a note scrawled haphazardly on a scrap of parchment. She looked over the note, her brows furrowing. After a moment, she snarled and thrust the paper at Notak.

  “Translate this for me, would you? I can’t read Oron’s handwriting worth a damn.”

  He took the note. “I did not know you could read at all.”

  Notak’s voice was utterly empty of inflection, but Rachel knew the Elf well enough to recognize his special brand of repartee. Few things were as funny to her as Notak’s attempts at humor; she let her scowl drop for a brief moment as she laughed.

  “Faul you!” she retorted good-naturedly, swatting at him.

  “Now now, mind your language,” he replied.

  Rachel showed him her tongue, but she was smiling. “Read.”

  Notak chuckled once. It was a rare, marvelous sound, like music and honeybees burbling. But it lasted only a moment. Rachel cherished it.

  Notak looked down at the parchment. In a monotone he read:

  “Scorpions,

  I assume that you have found success. My congratulations. Now, to business: the satchel you intercepted contains a letter of vital importance to the anonymity and organization of the Genshwin. Nelle is with me here, and her visions of late foretell of a rather troubling conflict brewing for Velik Tor.

  However, she believes that an invaluable opportunity might accompany it.

  Rather than send the contents of the satchel directly to me for analysis, I unfortunately must ask an unpleasant favor of you: Rachel, I need you to take the letter to Velik Tor and show it to Mrak. I
am very aware that you would rather (if I may quote you directly) “hang yourself by your thumbnails” — but I believe Mrak will be able to tell you more of it than I can. He may be able to direct you to your next assignment that will earn us some further advantage with this new situation. You know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.

  Notak: you will need to stay behind. As always, I apologize for the necessity. But it’s not worth the risk. Sorry, my boy. I suggest you spend your time reevaluating the principles laid out by Primus’ work refuting the benefits of sorcerous Magicks.

  My regards as ever,

  — Oron”

  Notak smirked inwardly at Oron’s joke, a reference to a recent incident when he’d attempted to explore conjuring Magicks — a mishap which resulted in a mild case of summoning sickness and a rather peeved specter.

  “Oh, God in heaven, kill me now…” Rachel groaned. “I hate going to see Mrak. I always feel awkward going back to Velik Tor. After being a Scorpion for so long, after everything Oron’s told us about Mrak’s past…” she shook her head darkly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist the temptation to perforate his bowels.”

  Notak looked back down at the letter. “Post script,” he read aloud. “Rachel, please leave Mrak alive and unharmed. We still need him, unfortunately, no matter how tempting it is to perforate his bowels.”

  “You made that up, he did not say that!”

  Notak handed her the letter, pointing. “Right there at the bottom.”

  Rachel squinted at the writing. “Faul.”

  “He knows you too well,” Notak commented. “Sorry, Rachel. I wish you luck.”

  She grunted. “Well, there goes what was left of my good mood. With my luck, the letter will turn out to be a waste of time and I’ll get to listen to Mrak drone at me for an hour or two. Fun.”

  “Nelle foresaw value in it,” Notak said. “I doubt this will be a waste of time.”

  Rachel snorted derisively. “You don’t seriously buy into all her prophetess hocus-pocus, do you?”

  “I do, actually,” Notak said, frowning. “She is the augur, Rachel.”

  “She’s exasperating!”

  “She is eccentric,” Notak corrected. “And you would be too if you had lived the life she had.”

  “She’s a whore!” Rachel spat, ignoring him.

  Notak looked at her, plainly puzzled. “I am fairly certain that she is a virgin, actually.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean whore as in whore, I meant whore as in I cannot stand her.” She enunciated the last part with particular venom.

  “Ah,” Notak said, understanding now. “I see. Regardless, your argument remains deeply rooted in fallacious reasoning and is therefore invalid. Neither her oddness nor your personal distaste for her can rebut the inscrutable evidence to support the validity of her visions.”

  Too many words, goddamn him. Notak had always been able to out-reason her. Suddenly, all the arguments that had made sense in her head seemed stupid and silly.

  “Also,” Notak added softly. “Nelle is my friend. I understand that you have your own opinion of her, but please respect mine.”

  Rachel flushed and looked at the floor. “It’s not like she has any particular love for me, either…” she grumbled. She hated how childish it sounded.

  “True,” Notak agreed. “However, while I am no expert with people, I would guess that she would respect you more if you were not so openly unkind to her.”

  “As if…” the she-Majiski muttered. She put the brass sphere back into the leather bag and tied it to her Shadow’s belt. “I’m off to see Mrak. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I shan’t,” Notak answered, sitting back against the wall. “Have fun.”

  Irked as she was, Rachel did not acknowledge him. She mounted the windowsill and leapt out into the rain, soaring a full twenty feet outward before landing on a lower roof adjacent to the market. She tucked seamlessly into a roll and came up running, a streak of black in the storm.

  Notak watched her go until she faded into the fog. A heavy frown pressed down on his face and he leaned his head back to rest against the stone wall. Rachel was, indeed, his friend — one of his only friends — but she was often difficult to deal with.

  They had been almost inseparable since the day Mrak sent Rachel to train under Oron as a Scorpion. Almost four years ago, now. They had learned to work with each other, play off each other’s strengths and fortify each other’s weaknesses. They had become like brother and sister, training side-by-side, day and night.

  And, about a year and a half later, Oron had decided that they were ready to be Scorpions (after Rachel had unlocked her nature as a Kinetomancer and Notak had found his own corobna dosdom in lightning). Now, they were the Genshwin’s finest. The elite.

  He knew that Oron and Mrak had paired them specifically because of their diametrically opposed personalities — an attempt to bring out the best in each other…but often their polarized traits clashed.

  Notak sighed, bored. Flippantly, he began to entertain himself by holding his arm out the belfry’s window and running charges of magical energy down to his fingers. Eventually, the storm above responded with an arc of lightning that leapt from the clouds down into his hand. Energy rushed into his veins, filling him. He sighed again, more contentedly this time. Being an Electromancer had its perks.

  The peel of thunder above was like church bells to him. Solace. He allowed himself to relax.

  ——

  About a mile away, Rachel climbed atop the roof a small, cubic building secluded in a dark corner of the city. The structure had no doors or windows, nor any other form of entrance that was immediately obvious. Its wall was sheer, and tall enough that only a Majiski could possibly reach the roof without a ladder. It looked rather like a grey, drab block the size of a small house. There was, however, a black trap door, flush with the roof.

  Rachel lifted the hatch, peering through the opening. The room within had no floor. It dropped down into the bowels of the earth, fading into perfect dark.

  She leaned forward, falling head first into the pit, slamming the trap door behind her as she did so. She fell through midnight, the moist breath of the earth whipping at her ears and sending her hair awry. After a full few seconds of freefall, she somersaulted and landed hard on the sandy floor. Dust puffed up around her as she bent her knees to absorb the impact.

  Standing back up, Rachel looked ahead to find a familiar hallway. The passage was marble, carved deep into the bedrock beneath Oblakgrad, illuminated by a legion of torches on the high walls. The place rang with the deep, echoing purr of subterranean spaces.

  A decades-old skeleton lay tangled in mess of broken limbs at Rachel’s feet. The corpse — known affectionately as “Fool” by the Genshwin — was the only example of what happened when a curious Arkûl guard stumbled upon the entrance to Velik Tor, and attempted to brave the drop. The fall from the trapdoor had been specifically designed to kill anyone who did not possess the strength and durability of a Majiski, as demonstrated by Fool’s mangled and shattered bones.

  Rachel stepped carelessly over the skeleton. Her Shadow billowed in her wake, trailing rainwater across the mirror-smooth surface. Around her, white-dappled-grey pillars of marble rose to the ceiling, and beneath their arches were candlelit alcoves. Those alcoves housed a dozen stone statues, tall carvings of cloaked figures, standing watch over the entrance to Velik Tor.

  They did not impress her. She tramped between the statues, toward the massive pair of doors at the end of the corridor. The gates were solid brass and iron, barred with gargantuan metal bolts inlaid with ascetic trims. A half-spherical crenellation was embossed between the top and bottom pairs of locks.

  In her hand, Rachel held the brass sphere that Oron had sent. Placing herself before the enormous doors, she breathed in a breath of the dank, familiar air. Once upon a time, that smell had reminded her of home, but now…now it just smelled like Mrak.

  She inserte
d the sphere into the waiting crenellation. The sphere mated perfectly with the slot and machinery within pulled the key deep into the door. A mechanical boom reverberated down the hallway, resounding in Rachel’s chest and ears.

  A deep, ghostly voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once thundered:

  Thy name….

  It was not a question. It was a demand. Rachel winced: she had forgotten how much that voice chilled her.

  “Rachel Vaveran.”

  The walls rumbled as hidden gears within began to turn. The first bolt, the Lock of Names, retracted. The voice came again.

  Thy allegiance….

  “The Genshwin,” Rachel answered, growing impatient. She had also forgotten how idiotically slow this process was. With another rumble, the second bolt, the Lock of Allegiance, slid away, and the voice again inquired:

  Thy lineage…

  “I’m a Majiski, dammit!” Rachel snapped at the door. “Come on, ghost, can we get this over with?”

  The Lock of Heritage came free, leaving only the final bolt. The answer for the Lock of Riddles changed with the Curator’s whimsy, so she would have to wait for the voice to get all the way through its next question.

  Name the creature that light, in all its haste, peruses but can never catch….Thy answer…?

  Rachel frowned. She hated this lock. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she thought back to what Oron had taught her concerning the research done at the university in Litoras before the Demons came, including the behaviors of light. Light traveled faster than anything, so what could possibly elude it? Well, she mused, it couldn’t catch a Genshwin.

  And there was her answer. “The night.”

  The Lock of Riddles released.

  Before Rachel’s eyes, a figure materialized from thin air. Taller than she, the ethereal man had no bones or flesh. Instead, his form consisted of strange energies that shifted and writhed like quicksilver in a glass body. His eye sockets were hollow but full of a strange and omniscient glow. Silver flames adorned his mercurial head, like a crown of raw power.