Chapter 3 – The Granhorns

Linton left the interrogation room before the wildkin woman had a chance to wake up.

He walked down the long, straight corridors of the Arcanex’s Internment Level, every wall lined with metal doors. Guards patrolled, sometimes bringing prisoners in or out. Attendees with carts distributed what could only generously be considered food to the prisoners.

Faint screams echoed through the halls, ever present. The Screamer; aptly named. No truther had ever seen his face. He was kept in one of the back rooms, locked tight. No one was sent to clean or feed him, and yet the screams went on.

Many a man had lost sleep over the Screamer. Some thought him a ghost, the remnant of a prisoner from years ago who came back to haunt his captors. Linton knew there had to be a more mundane explanation. He had long since learned to block out the wailing.

Linton got into an elevator and punched in 42 on the hardlight screen. The metal box hurtled up and away, and Linton leaned against the back wall.

What had started out as a boring, routine day had become interesting after all.

Maybe this Crown of the Moon-King could prove useful.

I’ll have to see for myself.

Floors 40 through 43 of the Arcanex were devoted to Handling of Anomalous Items and Materials. The Crown had been brought there immediately after he and Storm had arrived back.

Handling was significantly calmer than most of the Arcanex, which was a blessing to Linton. Stillness cleared his mind.

Scientists working for the Department of Special Intelligence toiled over desks on the open floors with benign items, while locked and reinforced testing chambers were kept for those of a deadlier character. Once thoroughly tested, items would either be safely disposed of or handed over to the Ministry of Affluence for long-term containment.

Linton consulted a scientist about their new arrivals and found out where they had placed the Crown. He proceeded to Testing Chamber A-6.

Storm stood outside the chamber, looking through a small, round window of blast-resistant glass thick as a man’s fist.

“Sir,” Linton said, sidling up next to the gruff executor.

The man still hadn’t wiped the blood off his coat. He reeked of sweat and iron.

“Inquisitor Granhorn,” Storm said with a sidelong glance. “I believe I assigned you to interrogate our latest detainee. Don’t tell me you got lost along the way.”

If there was anything good Linton could say about Storm, it would be that he was certainly a man of action. He didn’t trust others to do his work for him unless explicitly necessary, and he was tireless in his devotion to the government. Largely, Linton suspected, because they allowed him to satisfy his basest violent urges.

Given a reason, Linton suspected the man would barge into the interrogation room with tongs and start collecting fingernails and forced confessions.

“Not lost,” Linton said, peering inside the chamber.

The simple, brass Crown had been placed upon a stand. A scientist put a hammer and chisel to the top while another recorded with an auto-eye that hovered over his shoulder.

“I interrogated the wildkin.”

“And?” Storm asked impatiently. The stiffness in his posture denoted that he was nervous. His aura flared in random spikes.

This Crown even had Storm worried.

But why?

“I haven’t gotten much out of her yet,” Linton said. The lie came easily. “Only that her group came from Anderland and that they were looking to bring this Crown back. It holds religious significance, apparently.”

The scientist tapped the chisel with the hammer. There was a crack like thunder. He was sent flying across the room, hitting the opposite wall.

The man was dead on impact.

Cleanup was messy.

Even through the thick metal walls, Linton sensed the energy emanating from the thing inside. He had learned to develop a keen sense for magic during his years of training. This was… different. Like comparing a candle to a wildfire.

They got another man in to replace the first scientist, significantly jumpier once he saw the rubbed-out bloodstains of his predecessor.

“Did you perform a deep dive?” Storm asked.

“I did, sir,” Linton said with a nod. “I gleaned some information from that, but the dive placed too much stress on her mind. I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Storm pursed cracked lips, clenching and unclenching his big, scarred fists. “See to it that you do. We need conclusive results on this whole situation, and fast.”

Storm really was spooked. As an executor, he was only subordinated to the archons and the minister himself.

“How high does this go?” Linton asked.

“All the way to the top,” Storm grumbled.

“Couldess?”

Storm nodded. “He’s given me forty-eight hours. Which means, by extension, that you have forty-eight hours.”

Linton cursed. That was an impossible schedule to keep if he wanted to get any reliable information out of the wildkin. Interrogation required time above all. A rushed timeline would only yield botched results.

A pair of guards brought a low-level detainee into the Testing Chamber. He was situated in a chair at the far end of the room and secured to it with leather straps, the man’s pleas ignored. The two scientists picked up the Crown between them using long, hooked poles and brought it over to the detainee, gingerly placing it on his head.

There was a brief moment of complete silence.

Then a flash, followed by a deafening boom.

The walls of the testing chamber buckled, and Linton and Storm were thrown back. Linton slid across the floor on his hands and knees, skidding to a stop. He got up and found the window caked in blood and gore.

Suppose they weren’t worthy, huh?

The same strange energy radiated from the room, leaking out of every crack in the metal, resonating in a way that almost set Linton’s knees knocking.

The lights for the entire floor were flickering.

“By the Codes,” Storm growled. “What were those terrorists planning with power like this?”

Linton hid a smile behind his sleeve.

What, indeed?

I can’t pass up an opportunity like this.

He brushed the dust off his coat.

Doesn’t look like just anyone can use it, though.

If only I had a Chosen One...

***

Linton drove home in a hurry.

There was no time to waste.

Their timeline had just been pushed up.

His rumbler—a streamlined, black four-seater—was borrowed from the MOW. Held aloft on four metal bearings trapped in stasis fields and propelled by a humming combustion engine, it was fed a steady stream of refined anima through the fuel cells. He zig-zagged through traffic, heading from the Kingswatch district to the neighboring Rathome.

Linton had chosen his residence with care. Not for aesthetics or neighborly spirit, but because Rathome, as the oldest district in Northmark, had not yet been extensively fitted with the same surveillance apparatuses as the rest of the city. In certain parts of the district, the power grid itself was nearly a century old.

As he passed over the edge of Kingswatch into Rathome, tall, mighty structures gave way to squat old houses made from aged wood or crumbling mortar, leaning precariously this way or the other. Street lights flickered, small groups of thugs crowded the alleys, and even with the rumbler’s filters Linton caught the smell of untended garbage and sour excrement.

Another benefit of living in Rathome was that rent was comparatively low. Northmark was not a cheap city to live in. On his officer’s salary, he could certainly have afforded better, but he chose to sink most of his funds into other ventures.

Linton reached the one-story house where he lived, parking in the street with two tires on the pavement. The house had been built almost fifty years ago, with a flaking, yellow paint job and a tilting chimney. It wasn’t pretty, but Linton had paid good money to have the doors and windows reinforced against robbers. He had even set up some protective spells himself.

The house was neighbored on one side by an apartment building and a bodega on the other, with a gravel lawn out front and a fence with a gate that hung on one hinge.

Linton stepped out of his rumbler and jogged up the tile walkway. A pair of oily-green, dog-sized lizards—krits—fought over trash in a dumpster to the right of his house.

A few of his neighbors watched him intently from a balcony—lubbards with bluish-purple skin and huge, black eyes. He greeted them with a nod and a wave.

They looked away.

He reached the domed, red-painted door, made from sturdy oak with solid hinges. He unlocked it and stepped inside, closing it swiftly behind him.

The hall was narrow, a coat rack on his left-hand side choked with coats and hats and scarves—none his own. The walls were bare apart from a painting of a fluffy white dog that had come with the house.

“Cat!” he shouted as he kicked his blue sneakers off. “Sis, you home? We need to get the gang together! I’ve got—”

He walked into the living room, catching the scent of smoke before he saw her. Cat stood in a yellow summer dress with low shoes, puffing aggressively at a cigarette while arranging a pot of red flowers on the coffee table. She had her back turned to him.

“What are you doing all dressed up?” Linton asked, frowning.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Cat said without turning.

“Uhh…” Linton scratched his head. He couldn’t remember what he might have forgotten.

“Dinner with Mom and Dad,” Cat said helpfully. She turned to face him, handing over the flowerpot. “From you. What a considerate son you are.”

“Oh,” Linton said. “Oh. I—”

“Completely forgot? Yeah. Figured.”

Cat was Linton’s polar opposite. Pale skin, a wild, red mane of hair, intense blue eyes and sharp features. Her stance radiated easy confidence. She reached back without looking and tapped some ash off her cigarette into a tray.

“Bad habit, you know,” Linton said, nodding at the cigarette. “It’ll kill you.”

Cat snorted. “Not while we have Doc.”

Linton was about to call a rain check on the dinner, but realized it was probably a good idea after all. Since he would have to make his move soon, it was as good a time as any to get his family out of the firing line.

“Okay, let me just tidy up a little before we go,” Linton said, walking towards his room. “Oh, and I’ll need to pick up some tickets on the way.”

“Tickets?” Cat asked. She fell back on the couch, draping her skinny legs over the armrest and knocking over a pair of empty takeaway boxes in the process. “What kinda tickets?”

“For someplace nice,” Linton muttered as he opened the door to his bedroom. “Not too exotic, though. You know how Sed has that fear of traveling.”

He entered his room. It was taken up by a thin single bed and a nightstand, a heavy desk laden with tomes and magic treatises, as well as a bookcase stuffed to the brim with books, several dozen stacked on the floor around it.

The window set into the back wall was covered by black curtains, and only the desktop lamp provided the room with any light. The floor was coated in papers and old clothes. He stomped over it all, removing his long, black coat and throwing it over the edge of the bed.

“Hurry it up in there!” Cat called from the living room, strumming lazily on her guitar. “We’re already forty minutes late!”

Linton stuffed his white button-up inside his pants and sniffed his armpits. He wrinkled his nose at the sour smell of sweat. He unstrapped his leg holster and placed the pistol on the bed.

Linton walked back into the living room. “Got any deodorant?” he asked.

Cat was still draped over the couch, arms wrapped around her weathered guitar, lips pinching a new cigarette. Her eyes were fixed on the scryer—a circular, black concave which projected overlapping, rapidly moving images into the air in a flurry of colors. The pinnacle of entertainment in the Concord.

“Sure,” Cat said without looking up. “In my room.”

Linton nodded and went through to his sister’s room. The walls were plastered with a clutter of anti-establishment posters, on which she had spray-painted various slogans and profanity. A poster of her favorite band, ‘Undead Nightmare’, occupied much of the back wall. It advertised their latest album, ‘God of Whore’.

She could at least try to keep a low profile, Linton thought.

Her desk consisted of a couple of cardboard boxes stacked next to each other, a wide board laid on top. It was dominated by makeup and hairspray, haphazardly strewn into unorganized piles.

She had a double bed with a pillowy, springy mattress and down covers. How she’d gotten ahold of the thing on her budget of scraps, he had no idea. Probably not through legal means.

Linton rooted around among Cat’s makeup and eventually found a can of deodorant that he sprayed under his armpits.

“Okay, ready!” Linton announced, rushing into the hall. “Let’s go!”

***

Linton stepped out of the rumbler and Cat leapt out of the passenger side, twirling on the cracked sidewalk.

Linton leaned inside to retrieve the red flowers, which Cat had decorated with a small bow, before closing and locking the rumbler.

“If I’m handing them this, what are you going to give them?” he asked.

“The pleasure of my company,” Cat said with a self-satisfied grin. “You’re the good one, after all. I have a reputation to maintain.”

Linton snorted, shrugged his shoulders, and followed Cat up to the house.

Their family lived in the lower apartment of a two-story duplex with graffitied walls and a low, yellow-brick fence surrounding it. They had lived in the same place for the past twenty years, and they weren’t moving anytime soon.

As soon as Cat yanked open the door, Grandma Mavin had them both in a bear-like embrace. She didn’t let them go before giving them a few kisses each, ignoring Linton’s desperate attempts to pull away.

Mavin was short and stout, with curly white hair and a face that, while wrinkled, had lost none of its youthfulness. She wore a ghastly, slime-green dress with a stained apron on top.

She started prattling on about how they were both too skinny, grabbing at their stomachs, and Linton handed her the flowers to placate her. She immediately switched tracks, saying that she would have to find a place for them so the Wanderbys could see them and be jealous as she waddled off.

“Phew,” Cat said. “Nice save.”

“All about timing, dear sister,” Linton said with a wink.

Grandpa Sed remained in the hall, arms folded. He regarded them with a stern squint. The old man wore a white tank top neatly tucked into a pair of slacks, every fold immaculate as if this was fifty years ago and he was about to run off to fight the Elandrans on the beaches like a good soldier.

Sed gave Linton a stiff handshake. He tried to do the same with Cat, but she slapped his hand away and went in for a hug, which he endured with all the grace of a plank of wood.

“You’re late,” Sed remarked once he was free of her.

“Yeah, well,” Linton said, getting his boots off, “traffic was killer.”

“Mhm. Could’ve taken the route through Paegle Street. Would’ve been faster.”

Linton shrugged. “I’ll remember that next time.”

Despite time’s best effort to beat him down, Sed had never lost that drill sergeant streak. Linton suspected he’d be lecturing everyone on his deathbed, and with his dying breath he’d be complaining about the way the sheets were folded.

Linton and Cat went into the kitchen. A pot bubbling on the stove at the far end of the room filled it with a savory scent.

Tesman and Liza were sitting at the round kitchen table in the middle of the room. Both of them rose when they saw Linton and Cat.

“Hey, guys!” Liza exclaimed in her usual, bubbly tone. She came up and gathered both Linton and Cat in a big hug. Tesman lingered behind her, one hand on Liza’s shoulder and the other holding a can of beer. He had a gun and a badge strapped to the belt around his waist. He’d been a lawkeeper since before Linton was born, and he was proud of his profession, too. One of the good ones.

Not many of those left.

“Hi, Mom,” Cat said, putting her head against her mother’s chest. “You smell nice. New perfume?”

Cat and Liza were peas in a pod, both with pale skin and red hair, except Liza kept hers in a messy bun. They were about the same height, up to Linton’s chest, and had the same thin frame, but Liza had rounder cheeks and a fuller figure.

“Hi, Dad, Liza,” Linton said.

Tesman nodded. Liza smiled, but there was sadness behind her eyes.

Linton looked away.

Sorry. I can’t call you Mom.

He exchanged a hug with Tesman. Linton’s father was squat and stout, with buzzed-short hair and a thinning hairline. He had strong arms, a broad chest, and a firm grip. He was unmistakably Sed’s son.

Linton was the odd one out.

Once everyone had been greeted, they sat around the table as Mavin brought out the food—white rice and a thick, brown stew that made Linton’s mouth water—especially after all the half-cold takeaways he had been forced to endure lately.

“Bardoch pup stew,” Mavin said, taking a seat and folding a napkin in her lap.

“I know a monster hunter up in Beria,” Sed said. “Took it down, stripped the carcass, sent us half. We’ve got the freeze box full of meat if you want any.”

Linton didn’t participate much in the conversation that followed unless he was asked a direct question. The sound of their voices was an added annoyance atop the buzz of information already coursing through his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to eat with so much mental noise.

His family would have to leave. Their presence in the city was a disadvantage he simply couldn’t work around.

Once most of them had finished eating, he reached into his back pocket.

“I have a small gift for all of you,” he said.

He pulled out the skycarrier tickets and tossed them onto the table.

“What are those?” Liza asked.

Sed snapped his fingers at Mavin. She handed him one of the tickets so he could squint uselessly at it.

“I figured you could use a holiday,” Linton said, “so I got you tickets for Linvala. Three weeks, all expenses paid.”

“That’s a wonderful gift!” Liza said. “Who will be going?”

“The four of you,” Linton said.

“Just the four of us? You and Cat won’t be coming?”

“No. Sadly, we have business in the city. You’re leaving tomorrow.”

Tesman choked on his beer. He coughed and spluttered. “Tomorrow? Linton, have you gone insane? Your mother and I have jobs, you know. We can’t just take three weeks off whenever we want!”

Linton wiped his mouth with a napkin, folded it, and placed it on the edge of his plate.

“I need some fresh air,” he said. “Dad, you should come with me. I have something I’d like to discuss.” He rose from his chair. “The rest of you, mull over the trip. It’d mean a lot if you could all make it.”

Tesman reluctantly stood, following Linton into the hall while watching him with a puzzled expression.

Cat put her feet up on Linton’s chair and stretched out, heaping herself another serving of stew.

“So…” she purred. “Charades, anyone? Game of cards?”

Linton stepped out the front into the cool evening air. He made some space for his father on the steps, who lit a cigarette and pinched it between his lips.

“What’s gotten into you, Linton?” Tesman asked. “One day, really? You couldn’t have arranged things differently?”

Linton dropped the polite pretense, along with any trace of mirth.

“It’s time, Dad,” he said, looking up at a night sky muddied by magelight.

Tesman’s cigarette flipped onto the concrete steps and rolled down onto the wet pavement. His mouth was slightly agape. He stared intently at Linton as if looking for some sign that this was all a big joke.

“You mean… you’re actually going through with it?”

“Yes. Could be tomorrow. Could be after. I don’t know. But when it does go down, none of you can be here. You would only be used against me.”

A stiff mask fell over Tesman’s face. He drew in a deep breath. “And you’re sure this is what you want? That this is right?”

“Yup. I’ve had a long time to think it over.”

A shadow of a smile played over his father’s lips. “I see. You are your mother’s son.”

Linton stiffened. “I don’t think I’m much like her at all.”

“You haven’t seen her since you were little.”

“No, but I’ve heard the stories.”

Tesman placed a rough hand on Linton’s shoulder. “For better or worse, she’s not what the stories would have you believe.” He nodded towards the door. “Let’s head back inside, okay? I’ll make sure everyone is packed and ready by tomorrow. I’ll find some way for Liza and I to take the time off.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Linton said.

They went inside.