Chapter 8: The Dame

We took our time getting back to the Silver Fawn. The streets were flooded with bored and interested people, and by the time we were three blocks further swarms of helpers and onlookers were rushing towards the fire. All-in-all it proved to be a great calamity, as even as we came into the Bazaar, some half hour later, whispers of a bombing or arson were being spread amongst the chattel.

We slipped into the tavern through the front door, and met Efrain behind the bar. He offered to bring us tea and some assortment of bread as we entered the back hall and descended to the basement space. Santiago’s room was guarded by a tall wooden door and some brooding fellow perched on a stool.

I didn’t recognise him, but he seemed to know us, as whilst opening the door he gave us a nod, and spoke in a whisper, “He’s doing alright.”

Santiago was laying in a king-size bed at the back-centre of the room. It was otherwise sparsely decorated with a desk, bookshelves, a lounge, and some tables. Next to those unoccupied tables lie a bag of medical equipment and a barrel of bloody rags that reeked of rotting something.

“Oh, Jack…” He muttered mekely, and lifted his right hand to usher us towards him. We took opposite sides, but Santiago addressed me first,

“Jack, please.” He requested of me, offering his hand to mine. I softly grasped at each side of his palm, and pressed my thumbs into it. The nails on my thumbs grew long and fine, forming sharp points that carved easily into his flesh. Before, however, he could begin to bleed, I began to syphon myself into him.

Blood trickled out of the tips of my thumbs, and rode the claws like slides into his body. Wispy trails of grey and miniscule white and black dots whirled around the wisps, and melded themselves through his flesh. Slowly, over the course of minutes, Santiago’s pale complexion began to grow flush with life.

This lasted for ten minutes before I withdrew my thumbs, and fell back onto my ass. Vidal rushed over, hurriedly and worriedly, but I waved him away with a smile, speaking, “Don’t fret, Vidal. This is the gift of vita. Just look at him.”

Santiago was beaming and straining in joy and ecstasy against his own vessel; overwhelmed, he held himself firmly against the bed with eyes clamped shut. “Jack… oh… thank you…” His utterances barely escaped his lock-jaw.

“Think nothing of it, Santiago. You know it’s… it’s…” Frowning, I caught sight of some surprise. I could remember, on what few past occasions I had to aid my brothers like so, that the healing was rapid, like the blessing of a Cleric. But, Santiago’s healing was not so–only better, not renewed.

“Santiago?” I spoke up, Vidal helping me to stand. Leaning over him now, I saw that, although now more lively than before, his head wound was still very much present, and his vitality, lost with the injury, returned only as a fraction. I could sense it, his essence remained frail.

“Why aren’t you healing?”

“Let’s talk…” He cleared his throat, eyeing Vidal who returned obvious concern, “…in private, Jack. Vidal, would you, please?” He pointed towards the door with his left hand.

Vidal looked to me, as if asking ‘Why?’ or for permission, and I only shrugged, whispering to him, “Just go. I don’t know what’s going on, but wait for me and I’ll fill you in.”

Santiago insisted on ten painstaking seconds following Vidal’s leaving the room, and the door latched again, for an explanation to come, “Jack, let me start… start by saying that I’m sorry.” I cringed. What does that even mean? ‘I’m sorry.’

“I should’ve been upfront with you from the start, I should’ve… I just couldn’t bare to show you how terrible I really was.” Imagine being honest with your friends. I grew angrier and angrier as he started to explain what I couldn’t help but imagine was about to be a terrible confession.

“Yhov… I…” He sighed, “…I did wrong by the Mother and… well… greedily… Jack I…” He seemed to be flustered and afraid, moving his head from side to side with half-closed eyes and a tight, uncomfortable complexion. He seemed to be struggling to find the right words to admit something in a misleading way. In a way that would make him look better than he knew he would be looking.

“Just fucking say it, San.” I’d had enough. His eyes shot open, in surprise, at my curt retort, and he went on,

“I’m sorry San–” I interrupted him, “Stop apologising.” And he responded, “–okay, okay. She spoke to me in a dream after you’d returned home to watch over her mecca. She asked me to negotiate with the mountain tribes, those Ascended who we, in the long term, planned to subjugate.”

He’d closed his eyes again partyway through the real reveal, finding comfort speaking to an abyss rather than his years-long friend,

“This would’ve been a peace deal, Jack. She asked me to make amends with them and their independence from the locus of our authority in Juhasz. A stunt to my authority and my ability to manage trade on the outside roads.”

“Santiago, are you telling me you ignored her command?”

“I’m telling you I tried to subjugate them anyway. She stripped me, Jack! Stripped me of my influence and my power.”

“Insofar as you are still in command, San. I don’t know what I can do for you or our project in Veha.” I threw up my arms and spat out an exasperated sigh. What a waste of my time, my energy, and my resources, “I cannot even begin to explain why you should’ve told me this from the start, I just have to take your word for knowing it as being what was right.”

“Just… Jack I, I can’t… I…” His tone took a downturn and he began to grow sombre, his complexion darkening akin to those shadows that wrapped floor and walls, “I can’t let this go, it’s mine!”

“Nothing’s yours anymore, San. Nothing. You own nothing but an image–a fabrication you generated so as to, by God, sleep at night.”

Tears left his clamped eyes and trailed down his cheeks, onto his shoulders and the sheets. I didn’t care, going on with articulations given ballistically,

“As I am now here and so bound as to help you correct this nightmare, I am going to continue to help you, but no longer under our joint conditions. No, San. I am going to help you under my conditions.”

“What does that mean?” He questioned and rolled his eyes, having opened them, throwing his hand-backs against the bed in some show of frustration.

“It means you have been dethroned. Whether you like it or not, and I surely do not, Vidal has to be groomed to replace you forthwith.”

“Why not you, Jack? Why not you… just… ask Her if you can remain with me, ask Her if you can help me rebuild our legacy–” Again, I cut him off,

“Stop it and accept it. San, God forbid you just now start acting like a child, unable to comprehend the concreteness of this situation. There is no alternative, for were there a way for us to maintain what we had I’d have taken it. I know no alternative, because Yhov doesn’t give one.”

“You’re so blessed, Jack. So blessed… where does it come from?”

“Come from, San?”

“How?”

I leaned into the back bedpost on my left, and spoke, “By realising that the Mother is, in fact, a physical and mental part of me. By realising that by neglecting Yhov I was, in fact, neglecting myself. Why would I do that?”

He had no answer, so I hollered for Vidal who rejoined us in agita, flaked by a rather sober Efrain to gift us with promised victuals before returning again to the bar, leaving our trio in privacy.

“Well? What’s going on Jack?” Vidal asked me, hurriedly, adopting some macho-stance with arms crossed, chest puffed, and shoulders back. One look at him gleaned unto me the feeling that he was nearing, once again, a sickness about the complexity of his circumstances, and towards my patience and reservation.

“San, it’s better coming from you.” I said, leaning in to put a hand lightly upon Santiago’s shoulder. He passed me a thankful look before regarding Vidal and speaking, softly,

“Vidal, although you may not immediately understand, I beg of you to suffer Jack’s knowledge, and wait it out. You may not trust him, but please trust in my trust of him. You know me, Vidal. Please. So, please understand that I am stepping back, and capitulating leadership to you.”

In a fluster, Vidal rolled his head with such frustration as to impart upon us both the weight of his ill feeling–a shockwave of aura uncontrolled, “Vidal, Vidal, realise what you’re now doing.” I said to him, and in breaking his attention to emotion, the pain I shared with Santiago stopped instantly.

He seemed too, to realise what he had done, and thus spoke, “I’m sorry Jack, I don’t know what that was.”

“Don’t fret about it, Vidal. I fully expected you to be upset, and to cause such unfamiliarities is as well expected in your newness.” I waved it off, and further flourished for him to continue.

“I mean, I…” He ran his hands aggressively through his hair, “…this is, if anything, ridiculous, Jack. You can’t possibly think I’m ready?”

“I don’t possibly think you’re ready, Vidal. You’re not. But neither are a great many new Kings or Dukes, or Owners or such and such throughout the peerage and the mercantile spheres. This is no different, Vidal. I will be here to teach you, and take on some of the weight until you are adept.

“Santiago has chosen to surrender his post for the benefit of our work.” I spoke ‘our’ with an accompanying tightening of my fingers on Santiago’s shoulder, prompting him to glance at me, “It is in the best interest of our sustaining this realm for you to be so educated and elevated, Vidal. So it has been decreed, let’s move onto more pressing matters–our blow to late-Rodrigo, and this discontent with the men.”

“Efrain told me what I’d missed.” Santiago explained, and then I proceeded to elaborate, “Vidal and I found their Haven in the West, with the warehouses. They’d fastened a poorly disguised entrance to a basement club. Now, it’s ash… and for that matter too probably…” As I held on the tail of probably, Vidal finished my statement,

“Half the district, with charring on everything around it, and the streets, and the walls, and some corpses to draw it all together.”

“Precisely.” I said, continuing, “What remains in our execution of late-Rodrigo’s snake is to return, and attempt to discern how many of his faction remain alive. We’ll go from there, tomorrow. Let them recuperate so we can get an eye for the lingering clique.”

#

The following day, Vidal and I set out from the Silver Fawn to return again to the west. I left the men to Vidal and Santiago, and retired to plan as they determined the best course of action. As it turns out, Vidal brought the eldest two to Santiago, and they spoke of some things. Apparently, the matter is settled, so I let it be without details.

Vidal and I were met with a ramshackle blockade at that intersection into the district. Two lazily attentioned guardsmen posted on either end with a wall of boxes, barrels, crates, and assembled wood in between them.

In the low light of what was yet, really, still the night, we swept up the side of an adjacent building to then descend back down onto the street, beyond the sentinels. A fantastic opportunity to quash Vidal’s fears.

“Just climb the wall, Vidal.” I insisted, and in doing so showed him my method… hands upon wood, feet nestled between the ground and the wood, and then upwards propulsion using the legs to get started. “Sticky hands.” I said, showing him my own, glazed over with a sort of adhesive exuded by way of our power.

Four tries and a bruised forehead did the trick, getting Vidal to the roof in something of a fury that finally overrode his attempts at rationalising what was possible only as a matter of intentionless action.

We repeated our previous cloak-and-dagger slithering ‘till we arrived at the edge of the smouldering carnage. Four full structures were levelled, and each around that block was heavily damaged and tarnished.

Crews had yet to set out plans for repairs, or even really to begin cleaning. It seems rather that the guards, in wait, sectioned it all off and had the masses scatter to new hovels.

Vidal and I trekked through rubble and blackness until we spied a little quad, standing in the midst of what was once their Haven. Three sorry looking men loomed dreadfully around… that same proud woman!

Vidal pointed it out to me first, stopping my advance with a firm hand against my chest, “God, Jack. Look who it is!”

Even with feet planted in the remains of her former safety, she was as still and focused as ever. One hand rested beneath a wrapping cloak, likely on some blade, while the other pointed about as she made assertions.

“We are in an advantageous spot, Vidal.” I gently lifted his hand from my chest, prompting him to allow it to drop. Then, I made my own gestures, drawing his attention to the fact that, despite us and them, this block had been abandoned.

So, we approached them quite obviously. Upon taking notice, her three soldiers quickly drew their swords and took up a spread-out stance around her, protectively, barking commands to “Fuck off!” and the like.

We ignored them, of course. From this distance I could finally catch the scent, that stink of chattel–the stink of mud and repressed crises. This hubris of ours, I reckon, spoke to the woman, who barked back at her men to lower their swords.

In greeting she stepped in front of the middle man, and presented herself in a stance of confidence, that with hands-on-hips and and a forward, tilted-upright look, as if she, despite being approximately our height, saw herself as looking down upon us.

“What the fuck do you two want?” She said as we stopped some ten feet in front of her. It was obvious, of course, at least to me, that she knew we were Ascended and I, her.

“Were you all with Rodrigo?” I asked plainly, and in spite of recognising her from the night before. Vidal responded by nudging me with his shoulder, but I ignored him, staring the woman down intently.

“Oh, we were with that visionary, yes.” She replied, taking her hands off her hips to brush aside her cloak, revealing a previously obfuscated sword that she drew, keeping the tip of the blade towards the ground.

Unperturbed, I took a single step forward and brought up my hands in a passive gesture, speaking, “Yes that was somewhat forward, I see that. Call me Jack, please. And you are?”

“Lorena. Rodrigo’s replacement.” She insisted, lifting the sword as I stepped forward so that it now pointed towards my neck. Her free arm braced her back as her stanced changed to one preparatory for a lunging strike.

“Lorena. The pleasure is all mine.” I replied, speaking yet in a tone and with a pace so as to try and come across as inferior.

“If you weren’t with us, this isn’t an audience for application, Jack. What do you want?”

“It seems… apparent… Lorena, that you find yourself in disarray. Why conclude that confusion with a fight? Obviously, whatever loyalties you once had have escaped you.”

“I don’t know either of you. So, tell me why you did it.”

“To restore order–” Promptly discontented, Lorena lunged. Had I not been watching, she’d have jammed that damn poker right into my chest. Rather, I should say that, if not for my years and my attention, I might’ve died if not suffered a damning wound. She was quick and good.

“Fuck–” I caught my vulgarity between clenched teeth, holding out a hand to plead with Vidal to hold still. He jumped back and flared his fangs at her, growling lowly.

“Stop this! Stop now!” I spoke up in a demanding way, projecting myself above the flurry of dirt and ashes kicked up by her attempted assault. Now between us, Lorena moved further forward and turned, facing me but with Vidal in her periphery.

Before speaking again, Lorena’s eyes darted between me, her men, and the lot where once stood that Haven. Her countenance, angry and tired, came to relax after two rounds of this looking that again ended on me.

“Fine Jack. Answer me this: how old are you?”

In reply, I made a slow draw from my chest to the air on my right, bending my arm at the elbow, forming a straight line that drew an etching of a deep, crimson red. This line lingered on the air for a moment before dissipating.

From her perspective, in opposition to my own, this line formed a timeline that Vidal too, likely, saw. A timeline from my origination to this day–403 years.

“Right.” Was all she gave me, immediately sheathing the sword, “Speak your peace, then, Elder. Sue for it, whatever pleases you.”

“You can withhold and save again, for another day, the honorifics and such nonsense as that that the pompous in Yhortor demand.” My prompt disregard for tradition seemed to help in her relaxation. As calmness began to return to this meeting, Vidal made a slow walking arc round her men to join me. They’d kept their silence and stillness, likely under her influence so as to preserve our dignity in light of their Human emotionality.

“This is everything that’s left, correct?”

She nodded.

“Why was late-Rodrigo’s army so small for a faction that controls Veha?”

“Who told you we controlled Veha?” She asked, my surprise was enough for her to simply go on, “Whoever said that is misinformed, Jack. We only controlled this smuggling route and some of the nearby businesses that we extorted.”

Immediate understanding washed away my silent questioning of the incredible ease with which we both dispatched of Rodrigo, and destroyed his Haven. Santiago was wrong.

“You were merely a gang.”

She nodded, again.

“Let’s find somewhere to talk. Do you have a townhouse?”

“Round that corner, there.” She pointed to my right, down an alley that culminated in a hexagonal space with three doors off to flats.