Knite

Her soul. Was she Captain Jule? A twin? Recognizing me and my guards said she had to be. But how had her soul changed so much? How had the tar of evil faded so quickly? Only decades of sinless living could wash a soul that well.

“You freed yourself from Lira’s clutches?” she asked. She showed no signs of concern, only curiosity. I didn’t much like being treated as anything less than a threat.

“Don’t be rude,” I said.

She placed the reports she was reading on her table and gestured to a crudely built wardrobe nestled in the corner of the room. “Brifal, dear, would you be so kind as to bring me my robe.” The godling obeyed. Jule put on a white, loose, silken garment and tied it about her waist. “Better?”

“Not what I meant,” I said.

“If it was not my nakedness that insulted your sense of decorum, then…?” There was an eloquence to her speech few Easterners could match. She’d been here and among godlings long enough to speak like a native.

“Not to sound callow, but my question was asked first,” I said.

“Ah, you mean about my namat.” She smiled. “I remember. Well, it’s one thing telling lies to someone you think consigned to a life of slavery, it is quite another to tell secrets to an enemy.”

“You’re no enemy of mine.”

She peered intently at me. “I sold you into slavery—or at least played a part in it. I am your enemy. And seeing as Brifel has brought you here, you are mine.”

I darted forward, leaped over the table, and barreled into her, driving her to the floor. With her pinned beneath me, arms trapped under my knees, my swords crossed against her throat, both edges drawing blood. “If you wish to be my enemy, I must say, you are going about it the right way.”

There were sounds of a scuffle behind me. I trusted Roche to stop Brifel. I trusted Sil to stop him.

I stared down at Jule. And then kept staring. She seemed unperturbed, as if her life wasn’t in danger, as if her rescue was imminent. She had, as I had, sensed the four goldings who’d entered. If they were who she relied on, her trust was misplaced. My eyes stayed fixed on hers, watching for the moment realization dawned.

The conflict behind me continued. I heard the hiss of flames, the faint sounds of blood splatter, then the stirrings of a familiar chuckle. After a time, silence descended, and soon the light of understanding flashed in her eyes. I could taste the fear now, delicious as it was, but it was a distant thing, somehow faint. Only her eyes exhibited its true extent.

“Retract your insult or die,” I said. “I. Do. Not. Lie.”

Her emotions shifted. No. It was more like they left their hiding place. “I-I was…wrong. Please, I have too much to do to die here and now.”

I rose, stepped back, and sheathed my swords. A quick look behind me saw Brifel pressed to the floor face first, Sanas’ knee planted in her back. Stood beside her was Roche, grinning even as he sulked. Four limp godlings, the petite Fillo amongst them, lay slumped near the door, injured but alive.

I walked around Jule’s busy desk so the window was to my right and the door to my left. “I take it your namat is to be praised for freeing the slaves you’ve gathered here.”

Jule was slow to get up and even slower to compose herself. When she did, her fear slithered away, returning to its sanctum. In its place was the familiar ink of a murderous slave trader. “I wasn’t lying when I said it was a useful sort.”

“What exactly does it do?”

She sighed, thinking silence would cost her death and an answer would pay off the debt. “It allows me to rearrange souls.”

My eyes narrowed. “Is it common in your lands?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. Only our…I guess you would call them godlings, have the talent.”

“How does it work?”

Jule pointed at her chair. “May I?” she asked. I nodded. She sat down and rubbed the blood off the shallow cuts on her neck. “My namat allows me to briefly rearrange a soul. Warp the right parts the right amount, and slave bonds can be broken. It’s horribly painful, but I doubt any of those I’ve freed would complain.”

“And you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You’re wearing what looks to be a mask.” As sophisticated and imperceptible as my Merkus, I thought.

She smirked. “I suppose it is, but how do you know I’m wearing the mask? It could be I’d taken it off and this is the real me.”

“It is the liberator who needs the mask of a slave-trader, not the other way around.”

She shrugged. The difficulty of reading her emotions put the idea of killing her in mind, but no matter how deserving her façade may have seemed, I knew her true soul was too innocent for me freely detach it from its worldly anchor.

“So, why have you come?” she asked.

“To help.”

“Of course,” she said. “But who and with what?”

“You and ending Halor’s slave trade, of course.”

She raised an eyebrow. “To what end?”

“Several.” Five to be exact, I thought, and I will end them in the most literal sense.

“Very well. I’ll take your word for it.” She pointed to Sanas and Brifal, the former still pressed atop the latter. “Now that we’ve established we aren't enemies, is there a need?”

I gestured to Sanas. She climbed off Brifal, releasing her. The Lorail godling grunted and rolled over, panting. Sanas must’ve put enough weight on her back to stifle her breathing.

I turned back to the Easterner. “Seeing as your network seems too small and ill-equipped to rescue more than a handful at a time—likely none once the godlings eventually enact whatever countermeasures they can think up—my guards will bring the poor souls to your door. All you have to do is break their bonds and hide them. Can you?”

Jule fell into thought. “Depends.”

“On?” I asked.

“How many and how quickly.”

“Best you tell me what you can handle.”

She hesitated. “It’s difficult to say. I would have to juggle emancipating slaves with strengthening the barrier that hides our camp, not to mention maintaining my slave-trader persona.”

“To the best of your ability, estimate.”

She paused, thinking. “I—”

“And for vigilance sake,” I interrupted, “lower your estimate enough to not fear it.”

After another spell of contemplation, she said, “Six. Per week. Two on each of the first three days.”

I furrowed my brow. “Is that all?”

“Before now, we’ve only managed two every fortnight or so.”

“If I’m not mistaken, there’s around three-hundred in this shamble of a town.”

She sighed. “It took me almost two decades to amass that many.”

Disappointed, I shook my head. “Not enough.”

“It is the best I can do.”

“Fine. Then I’ll free them myself. How many can you conceal.” On this, I had no choice. Weak as my paintings were, a competent Fiora could easily see through any attempt I made to hide the camp.

“Twelve.”

I sighed. “Very well.”

Unobstructed by the plodding pace of Brifel, Fillo, and their charges, it took us a day to return to Halor. We found them on our way, markedly nearer the city than the camp. It was a minor diversion—the only reason I entertained Roche’s verbose pleas. The gnarled bones we found were enough for at least two. Wild animals had found their corpses, stripped them of flesh, and scattered them in, around, and beyond a small chestnut grove. Evidence showed the rest were likely dead or recaptured. As I’d predicted, Roche’s efforts to rescue them were in vain, hence his foul mood when we entered our house in the capital.

“Sanas,” I called from the small foyer. She came out of the hall, primped as ever. “Prepare to leave. You’ll not be back here for some time and your destination isn't congenial to your preference for cleanliness. Pack accordingly.”

She kissed her teeth in annoyance. “And where am I going?”

“To join the rebels.”

Roche slinked passed me, gave Sanas a half-hearted kiss on her cheek, and trudged into the hall.

“You found them?” Sanas asked. She wasn’t talking about the rebels.

I nodded. “The resistance is but three-hundred scrawny men and a handful of godlings hiding in a shoddy village to the west.”

“I wasn’t asking after them,” she said.

I blinked. Slowly.

“Um, I mean, what happened to the bonded Roche spirited away, Lord?”

“Did I not nod before I spoke? Dead or captured as far as I could tell.”

She sighed and looked back towards the hall for a long while, the urge to console him almost driving her to leave me standing there alone. After a time, she turned back. “And what am I to do once I join them?”

“You are to keep an eye on their leader. She’s made me promises. You will make sure she keeps them.” I shook my head at her smile. “Banish the thought. She’s got a rather irritating ability that would shine doubt on anything she soul swore on.”

Her smile faltered, then fell. “She?”

“An Easterner. Now go, the longer you take to get there, the more time she has to take actions I wouldn’t approve of.”

Sanas offered a curt bow and raced upstairs.

I stepped into the common room. Roche’s slack body was draped over a chair, eyes closed and frowning.

“No,” I said.

He lifted his head and looked my way. “No, Lord?”

“Not yet,” I said, making my way to sit across him. “Resist. We have work to do and a clear head will make you better qualified to do it.”

He looked away, ashamed of his thoughts and that I’d read them. “Will this work spill Halorian blood?”

I smiled. His bloodthirst was one of his more winning qualities. “You wouldn’t want to have spilled less because you weren't sober enough, would you?”

He sat up, outdoing my smile, his thick lips stretched thin against bright teeth. “What is it you wish me to do, Lord.”

“Return to Haloryerey.” I waved his concerns away before he finished his sigh. “Inform Lira that you will be attacking her slave transports.”

Roche’s joy wavered. “And where am I to take these slaves?”

“You’ll bring them to me.”

“Here? To Halor?”

I nodded.

His glee was all but gone when he asked, “And then?”

“You go back to slaughter another batch of Halorians.”

Cheerful once more, his delight, childlike and pure despite its morbid cause, was almost infectious. “Wonderful!” He jumped to his feet, eager to commence his duties. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave.”

“Go, prepare. There’ll be a letter waiting for you. Do not leave without it. Tell Sanas the same.”

He danced out of the room, a spring in his step.

I found blank parchments stowed away in a desk drawer. There was a pot of ink and a pen there too, but I didn’t need them. With a matrix, I wrote my instructions in sensus, binding the words so they would only be visible when the correct soul signature was imbued. Done, I folded the letters and left them on the desk.

Halor was more tolerable in the dark; all the bright colors were muted and my eyes didn’t have to suffer their visual hollers as loudly. So too was it quiet—it is a rare woman who is willing and able to match the nightly clamor and belligerence of a drunken Bark man. It made my task simpler.

Unlike the other capitals, Halor didn’t have a Leaves, Branches, Bark, Roots, and Muds district. Instead, it was built as though the districts were cities within a city, numerous swaths of land built around affluent centers, concentric strips of ever smaller buildings spreading outward until it approached another center and began to once again rise. This too eased my current task, for the undulations of stone vastly narrowed my search.

I walked the streets until I found a particularly tall building. Sensus wrought, the smooth walls were a bother to climb. No matter. I lightened my weight with a Pondus matrix, strengthened my legs with a Duros, and further enhanced my vertical leap with Vapor. Perched on the building's pointed summit, I scanned the city, my dark cloak billowing behind me.

She made it too easy. The only other landmark I recognized besides the outer walls had also stood since the birth of Halor, occupying the very epicenter of the city. The lofty, white, blue-veined tower stretched to the sky, lording over all others much like its owner. My target wouldn’t be there. Not even she dared claim the place as her home. What made her easy to find was her underhanded attempt to compete with her mother. Lura’s home was on the eastern edge of the city, half as tall, twice as thick, and not nearly as colorful.

It took me half an hour to reach her estate. Arrogant as she was, there were no guards in sight. The locked outer gate did little to hinder my intrusion. As did the Paintings. I might’ve been a less-than-stellar Painter, but none could escape my souleyes.

I climbed over the gate and made my way to the rear entrance. It was unlocked.

The inside was well lit. Matrix lanterns hung from the hallway walls every two strides. Otherwise, it was a rather barren place. The cold stone floor had no carpet and nothing masked the rough stone walls. I would've thought the place abandoned if not for the souls I sensed. The first was behind a closed door. A young girl in deep slumber. I went on. The second was older, but not by much. Her door was open. It showed a room more akin to a cell than a godling’s bedroom. A half-filled chamberpot in the corner explained why she left the door open—the room had no windows. I went on. The next three were much like the second: a spartan room with an open door, a bucket of piss in the corner, and a young girl sleeping on a cot. I kept moving. The tunnel came to an end. A double door led to a hallway perpendicular to the one I’d exited. Passed it, the change was night and day. The carpet and art and furniture I’d expected in Lira’s home lined the walls. On both ends were stairs, one leading down, the other up. I tried the double doors across the hallway first. Finding a splendent entrance hall, I turned back and turned towards the stairs leading up.

The pattern was clear. More than that, it was predictable. The higher the floor, the more important the godlings. Too bad I couldn’t confirm—sensus-wrought walls can somewhat curtail even my souleyes.

I kept to the stairs.

The fourth floor saw my first conscious godling. She was a petite thing, bookish and modest for one from her House. I let her see me. She almost didn't, absorbed in the tome she was reading. When she did, it took her a long, frozen moment to register my presence.

“Another?” she asked in a way that made it clear wasn’t for me to answer. “Lorail strike you down, Aminy!”

“Aminy?” I asked. “She’s still alive?” I barked a laugh. “I should’ve known.”

The godling's eyes went wide, her mouth agape. She’d thought me a man of Halor.

“Mind telling me where I can find her?” I asked, genuinely excited. I’d missed the mad woman, the only godling I’d ever called a friend besides…

Her shock turned to outrage. “The audacity! You think—"

One hand clamped down on her mouth, the other grabbing her arm and twisting as I rounded her. The motion popped one of the arms out from her shoulder, the sounds of her scream vibrating against the hand that muffled them. I’d erected a wind barrier as soon as I’d seen her; though I am a fan of my victim's screams, I’m not a fan of hearing them.

She reached back with the only arm that would listen, fingers searching blindly. It was already too late. The arm fell limp before it could find an eye to poke or skin to scratch.

The godling crumpled when I was done. Her fear was tinged with anguish—a special combination that comes from being violated in the most intrusive of ways. Too bad I didn’t have the time to enjoy it for long.

I took the godling to where I’d seen the children sleep, dumping her soulless body in one of the empty rooms. An Ignis matrix melted the hinges, effectively locking the door.

This time, I took the stairs down. It didn’t take long. One pair ended the staircase, leaving me standing before a line of matrix-shaped metal bars that blocked my way forward. It took hours. Disarming that many matrixes—numerous in both type and tally—was difficult. Lira had done all she could to tighten the security around my friend.

I came upon her a dozen or so strides past the now broken and inert bars.

Besides the barred exit and the seamless, windowless walls, Aminy’s prison didn’t much look like a prison. She sat in the far end of the cavernous room, sitting crosslegged atop a large bed.

“Oh, a visitor?” She was smiling, the glint of madness clear in her eyes. “How delightful. It is a pleasure to welcome you to my humble home.”

I approached. “The pleasure is mine.”

“A man and polite and without fear. Truly a delight.”

I reached the end of her bed and came to a stand. “Seeing as you’ve been trapped here for so many cycles…”

She shrugged. “True. Anyone but that wretched sister of mine and we would’ve been happy. You know, we haven't seen another soul for so very, very long.”

I shook my head, amused. “Then how exactly have you sown so much mischief to have the godlings curse your name?”

Empty expressions of surprise and indignation crossed her face. “Us? Never.”

I ran my gaze around the place she was forced to call home. Wide and tall, it looked far emptier than it was. “Has Lira tired of your torture? I find you are more comfortable than I expected.”

She shook her head, still smiling, a touch of sadness joining the glint of madness. “Our sister knows well the art of torture. Pain is far more potent when it is offset by bouts of comfortable relief.”

“I’m glad you remain unbroken.”

With a tilt of her head, she asked, “Do we know you? I don’t think we do, but you seem to think you know us.”

“And here I thought we knew each other quite well.”

She jumped to her feet, quick as can be. Leaning forward, she stared into my eyes. “I’m usually good with souls. I’ve never forgotten any I’ve had the chance to meet. You, my dear boy, I’ve never met.”

I leaned in closer and let the darkness of my divinity turn my brown eyes to black. “And now?”

She answered with a hug so tight and a laugh so loud I was forced to use Duros arts to strengthen my ribs and Zephyr arts to protect my hearing. It was then that I knew my task would be delayed.