As night fell, many soldiers manned the White Walls, preparing for what was to come. Their white uniforms seem stark in contrast to the black night, the black Makini tents in the distance.

Two lords, the two greatest in Asan Paril, walked amongst their soldiers. One was nervous, and the other seemed to be feigning calm.

“They killed him!” Hiro said. “I can’t believe they killed him!”

“Calm, brother,” said Savel. His pace was steady, his fingers interlocked at his chest. “The flag bearer was not clear. Perhaps our former lord is not dead.”

“Of course he’s dead,” said Hiro. “What else could have happened to him?”

The two lords were drawing stares from their loyal troops as they passed them by, but Hiro was past caring. He had to make his brother see his folly.

“I do not know,” said Savel. “Leave me. I need to think. I need to inspect the troops, and I cannot do that with you pestering me.” He stared, not at his brother, but instead straight ahead.

“You would not need to inspect the troops if you but listened to me,” said Hiro. “Why not just surrender?”

Savel now looked at him, angrily. “Do not even speak that word.”

“Why?” asked Hiro. “I’ve been loyal; I am still loyal. I think I deserve to know the cause of this madness. If you surrender the city and the girl, you can keep you post of Lord of the First Paril under the Makini. Nothing will change.”

“The loss of the girl is not nothing,” said Savel, beginning to regain his composure. “She is worth fortunes to Emperor Ehajdon.”

“And she is worth nothing to you if we are all dead! The port is blockaded now. There is no way out of this city, but through the Makini.”

“Patience,” said Savel. “I do not care what the odds are, and I refuse to be intimidated by the massive Makini host. Do you forget that Asan Paril has never fallen? The twenty thousand Makini beyond these walls do not have history on their side. We do. We will wait out the siege, and then, deliver Maiako to Ehajdon, and become rich beyond what a single city can offer.”

“I bow before your wisdom,” said Hiro, slightly inclining his head. His faith in his brother was restored.

Then, suddenly, there was a flash of red in the darkness, and it seemed as if a flaming meteor was hurtling down on them.

Before Hiro, Savel, or the nearby Paril soldiers could do more than turn their heads, the flaming rock slammed into the wall just below them.

The resulting impact knocked everyone nearby off their feet.

Hiro slammed against the ground, hard.

Before he had recovered, his brother had already gotten back up, and offered him a hand. Hiro gratefully took it.

He stood up again, and looked around.

From his vantage point, he could see shadowy catapults around the Makini line. There were a dozen of them, maybe more. And from those devices, the fireballs kept coming, slamming against the White Walls, maring them, breaking them down bit by bit.

“What…are they?” asked Hiro, his eyes watching a fireball arc at a distant part of the wall. Upon impact, the fireball burned itself out, and the charred rock fell to the ground, having had made a significant chip in the wall.

Savel looked at him, as all around them, soldiers scrambled to get to better vantage points. “With enough spellweavers, one can do anything,” he said dismissively. “The damage looks to be mostly cosmetic. This is a terrorist tactic, not one intended to demolish our defenses. It’s not as if the White Walls can burn.”

Two more heavy impacts shook the walkway.

Hiro looked up into the star-filled sky. God-Kings preserve us. Perhaps the walls can burn.

Red stars made their leap to the heavens, only to fail, and come crashing down.

***

Broken walked through the streets of Asan Paril. The night was cold, and the people of the city had crowded outside staring up at the distant bursts of red in the sky, and the successive not-so-distant rumbles.

Broken was not among their number. He saw no reason to gawk.

And he had things to do.

That night, as he entered the Stone Quarter, things were not as dark and foreboding. Perhaps this was because of the red illuminating the sky, or because, on this night, the citizens of Asan Paril were united in horror, instead of preying on one another. But, in the scheme of things, the truth of that didn’t matter much.

Broken made his way to the witch Felixi’s den.

She, as Broken had expected, was to be found inside. Instead of being hidden when he came in, tonight she was rustling around in the main room, leaning up to look on her shelves for one ingredient or another. She had moved a cauldron to be displayed prominently, right next to the crystal orb, and was throwing different ingredients into the water that bubbled within it.

However, as soon as Broken entered, Felixi turned to him.

“Back?” she cackled. “I thought I’d seen the last of you.”

“You were wrong,” said Broken.

“Where is the owl?”

“Elsewhere.”

Felixi gazed at Broken. “What do you want?”

“Holy objects.”

“You ask a witch for that?” asked Felixi. “I am unholy. Why would I keep relics of good?”

“Because,” said Broken, “relics of good tend to be helpful when dealing with dark things that get out of hand, so much so that they are quite often useful even for other dark things.”

He placed one of his own on a severed and cauterized hand sitting on one of the shelves. The hand tried to scuttle away, but Broken caught it, and examined it as it squirmed.

His actions seemed to be making Felixi nervous. “I do have some things,” she said. “What do you need?”

“The largest Symbol in your possession,” said Broken, “along with a Book of Aden, and as much holy sand as you have.”

The witch sighed. “Come with me, Broken One.”

She walked to the door at the back of the room, opened it, and crossed the threshold. Broken tossed the severed hand to the ground, and did the same.

The back area was quite large, considering. Felixi turned down a hallway, and came to a door locked with black chains. She put her hand to them, and muttered a few words, and the chains fell away. Then she opened the door.

Within was a room the size of a closet. Relics of good were stuffed in every corner, from Symbols, to golden goblets, to holy books, to whole glass jugs of holy sand.

Hovering over the whole closet, though, was darkness.

“You keep what you need well,” Broken remarked to the witch. “Your spell here would seem to counter out most of the aura.”

“Only in the closet,” Felixi was quick to add. “Outside of the closet, everything within should work as normal.”

“Good,” said Broken. He reached in for the largest Symbol, and placed it around his neck. It was pure gold. He grasped a Book of Aden, flipped through it to make sure it was the real thing, and put it in a pocket. Then, he grabbed the jugs of holy sand, and, one after another, loaded them onto his left arm. There were six, and he was able to stack them as perfect pyramid, so that the last one just reached under his chin.

As Broken turned away from the closet, Felixi shrunk back from his newly acquired holy aura.

“What do you need all that for?” she asked. “I don’t know of a demon that needs that much to exorcise.”

“The truth of the matter is for me to know,” said Broken. He took out five gold coins from his right hand, and dropped them into Felixi’s open palm.

Then he turned, and left the building.

From the Stone Quarter, to his villa, he walked. At the door, his servant, Gan, greeted him. Gan was a tall, thin man, the epitome of a butler.

“What is all this sir?” he asked, eyeing the jugs and Symbol Broken prominently carried and wore.

“What is necessary,” Broken responded. “Go and get Cat and Hamm,” he said, naming his two other servants.

“They’re out, sir,” said Gan. “I know they’re not supposed to be, but the sky, and all that. I’m frightened too.” He paused. “I just know my duties.”

Broken walked into his entrance room. It was quite large, and sparsely filled with furniture. A circular carpet filled most of the center.

“All right, then,” said Broken. “You’ll do. Pull the carpet out of the room.”

As Gan did so, Broken set down his burdens besides one of the walls, just underneath a painting of the first God-King, clad in his raiment of gold.

Gan returned, just as Broken pulled one of the stoppers from one of the jugs. “Unless I say so,” said Broken to his butler, “no one should use the front door but me. Receive all who come through the back.”

“As you wish, sir,” said Gan.

As the butler watched on, Broken began to pour out the sand in a large, thick circle on the hardwood floor, using every bit of the space that had been provided. It took two jugs to complete the design.

Broken then took another jug, and began pouring another layer of sand in a careful pattern, forming different signs at various parts around the circle. As he continued his intricate work, Broken said without looking up, “Needless to say, if so much as one grain get moved by you or anyone else, Gan, I will be quite furious.”

“I would never dream of disturbing your work, master,” said Gan. “But what is it?”

“The answer to that is very complicated,” said Broken. “And I believe you would not want to know.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“Gan?” asked Broken, as he finished pouring out the last grains of sand from the jug.

“Yes, master?”

“Are you afraid?”

“Of what, master? The Makini outside the walls raining hellfire upon us, or what appears to me to be your current bout of insanity?”

Broken forced himself to wear a thin smile, for his butler’s sake. “The former, Gan.”

“Of course I am, master,” said Gan. “Aren’t you?”

“What does it really matter if the Makini invade?” Broken asked. “If Asan Paril falls, all it means is that there will be new rulers. I am far more worried about the one I am sworn to protect.”

“The Princess, master?” asked Gan. “With all due respect, I am sure the High Lord Varad Savel can take good care of her.”

“He intends to kill her, Gan.”

The butler was silent.

“If Savel gets his way,” said Broken, “Maiako as Arathou del Tachen will be dead.”

He was now working with his fourth jug of holy sand, putting on final touches to his work.

“I do not think I can believe that, sir. High Lord Varad would never-”

“If only we lived in a perfect world,” said Broken, pouring sand in the outline of the very last sigil. It was a sort of hook cross.

He finished, with the fourth jug emptied, and set it down.

Broken stood to his full height, and looked at the butler. “The sad truth is, we do not live in a perfect world, Gan,” he said. “What you see here, this circle, with all of the sigils inscribed around it, is my small attempt at making the world a better place.”

“I do not know how that can be, sir.”

“Does this circle look to be twenty feet in diameter?” Broken asked.

“I think so, sir,” said Gan, looking at the inscribed circle of sand on the floor. “But, why would you ask me, when I lack the slightest clue as to what it is you are doing?”

“Because sometimes, those who think they know nothing actually have the knowledge,” said Broken. “Leave me, now. I have much to do.” As Gan beat a hasty retreat, Broken picked up his Book of Aden and sat with it, cross-legged, in the very center of the circle.

Then, Broken began to read, and his very words hummed with power.