Later that evening Zell sat at the small desk in his room with a short stack of blank parchment, and an enchanted quill from The Sand Dragon mage shop. It was a wonderful invention that left clean black marks without the use of ink, which was perfect for Zell who typically ended a letter with more ink on his skin than the parchment. Unfortunately no enchanted crow’s feather could save him now. He had asked Rin for help but she couldn’t escape her own duties. A wave of despair struck Zell. After all he had gone through, would he really be defeated by a blank sheet of parchment?
A knock on his door proved to be his salvation. It was Cora, holding her stuffed bear.
“Let’s go buy the leftover cinnamon buns.” She greeted. This had become an odd trend ever since the sleepover. Cora had never had much of a sweet tooth but now she was snacking constantly.
“Cora!” Zell cried, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. “I need help writing a two thousand word report or I’m going to lose my day off. Please save me!” Zell dropped to his knees and looked up at her pleading.
“Oh yeah, I heard you fell asleep in Mr. Grendol’s class again.” She put her chin in her palm and thought for a moment. “I want another stuffed animal for Vira.” She said holding out her stuffed bear.
“You named it after the girl that possessed you...?” Zell’s face screwed up as he asked.
“Oh you didn’t see this yet!” Cora said excitedly. She placed the bear on the ground and traced an elaborate rune while chanting several words with such speed that Zell couldn’t even make out the syllables.
Zell nearly fainted a moment later when the bear named Vira stood up and turned to look up at him. It’s button eyes shone with the same green light as the skeletal dragon’s and the small arm waved at him. Zell couldn’t speak right away but his face was asking many questions.
“Vira can animate anything with the likeness of a living creature and we can both see through its eyes. With Vira’s skill, we can even cast alot of spells from the location of the animated object. It’s really amazing.”
“Is that really okay?” Zell asked finally, poking the teddy bear’s belly as he crouched in front of it. “Is that dangerous?”
“Oh relax stupid boy! By the way you are literally poking a bear.” The unfamiliar high pitched voice came from the stuffed bear and Zell jumped back and tripped over something. He recovered and looked down to see Goggles shifting out of his pile of clothes camouflage. The spider was unbothered but seemed curious about the bear. The bear on the other hand suddenly flew into a wild frenzy.
“DOPPELGANGER SPIDER!” The Vira-bear squealed in delight. It moved its tiny stuffed legs furiously to get close to Goggles. “She’s still pretty much a baby! She’ll have S tier innate illusion magic and intelligence high enough to learn common when she grows up!” It was such an alien scene that Zell could do nothing but smile awkwardly as the animated bear climbed all over Goggles, inspecting every part of the giant spider, even touching the meat hook sized fangs. “I’ve never heard of one accepting a human as a master! Dullard boy, how was this done with your feeble brain and embarrassing magical ineptitude?” The bear turned and pointed at Zell with a fuzzy arm as it demanded to know.
“Reword that using my name and without insult and I’ll tell you.” Zell said, crossing his arms until something about the Vira-bear’s rant caught up to him. “Did you say ‘She’?”
“You don’t even know that much? You really are a monument to ignorance!” Being insulted by a cute stuffed animal was beginning to wear on Zell’s nerves but he was curious now. “Males are yellow and brown, females are purple and blue! Now spill it. How did you subjugate such a beast?”
“Ugh he...err SHE is my friend not my subject. I saved her from a devil’s vase and talked to her with Beast Communication and she joined me on her own.” Zell had to correct himself when he replied. “Anyways there I’ve answered you. Now can you two help me somehow?”
A touch on Zell’s shoulder made him spin in panic. There was a copy of Cora, holding a stack of parchment filled with precise writing.
“We already did. This report on the Vinia Delta harpies will fool Grendol into thinking you wrote it. We’re only bailing you out this one time so you had better not mess up anymore!” The real Cora said sternly as the copy vanished in a puff of greenish mist.
“Make it a cute bunny rabbit this time, like the elf servants have!” The Vira-bear commanded as Cora scooped it back up and the green glow faded from the button eyes.
Zell breathed a deep sigh when the door closed and he was left alone with Goggles once again.
“You could have told me you were a girl spider.” He chuckled as he gently ran his fingers through the blue fur. “Come to think of it I don’t know much anything beyond the fact that we’re friends. Maybe that mean little bear was right, I am a bit of a dullard.” Zell resolved then to pay better attention in class, and research more about monsters on his own.
Some time later, Zell woke with a start. Judging by the moonlight coming through his curtains, it was nearly midnight. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and was on top of his blanket with his clothes on. Something he couldn’t recall had woken him, a noise or perhaps just a feeling. Regardless of what it was, Zell’s instincts were being triggered. He tuned his senses outward without moving. The house was silent, but the feeling didn’t diminish. Zell whispered the Beast Communication command and instructed Goggles to be on alert. He then reached out mentally to Tarithiel. The axe was propped next to his dresser.
“Where have you been? I was so bored and lonely!” Tarithiel immediately wailed in Zell’s mind.
“I’m sorry, school has been very difficult for me. I need your help, I think there may be danger nearby.” Zell answered.
“There isn’t.” Tarithiel huffed. “Unless you’re really scared of half starved children. Now you better promise to not neglect me so much or I won’t answer when you actually need me.” Tarithiel warned sternly before going silent.
“Children?” Zell echoed in confusion. He quickly and quietly left his room and padded down the stairs. Sure enough he could now hear two sets of light footsteps on the gravel path outside, approaching the mansion.
He opened the door and saw three individuals as they approached the doorway. One was was clearly his father which explained why he couldn’t detect a third person. The other two were small, barely the size of human five year olds and wearing mud stained cloaks that were too big for them. Zell was confused but trusted that all would be explained. He held the door open for them, but the tiny visitors paused at the entryway, hesitant to enter.
“It’s alright.” Arlim said gently. “You are safe here.”
The children reached out for one another, and they walked hand in hand into the Balfonse home. They were shivering in a combination of exhaustion, trepidation, and cold as they huddled close together in the entryway.
“Who are they, dad?” Zell asked as he looked at the road worn pair of tiny cloaked kids. In the light of the entry hall, Zell could make out a few more details even under the cloaks. Most pointedly that one child’s hands were covered in short orange fur with dirty bandages covering each fingertip.
“I’ll explain everything but for right now could you please rouse the maids?” Arlim answered as he led the children to the study which could be warmed the fastest with a fire.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Zell nodded and walked quickly to comply. He knocked gently on each door, and made sure there was a response before moving on.
Soon after, three sleepy eyed elf sisters followed Zell curiously toward the study. Sira led the way with Turya and Elin following side by side.
“Master Zell, what is this..?” Sira’s voice trailed off as she entered the study. Her eyes flooded with tears and she collapsed to her knees.
Zell also reacted, but with surprise and awe. Arlim had taken the children’s muddy cloaks and they stood side by side still holding hands with their backs to the fire. One child was a half elf with crudely cut short hair the same reddish blonde color as the elf sisters’. His large eyes were turquoise in color with dark circles beneath them. He was malnourished with the haunted expression that only the terribly abused could wear. The other would have been more startling if Zell hadn’t so recently met the merchant Frauge.
She was a leonid, but her features were much more feline. Her body was covered in the fur of a tiger, orange with dark stripes bordered in white. Her long mane of mostly white hair was matted and unkempt. Her green eyes were bright and searching. Unlike the broken looking elf she had a resolute expression that challenged the world to do its worst which it undoubtedly had.
Sira couldn’t force any words past the emotion in her body. She knelt in place with a face contorted in agony at the sight of her abused child and relief that he had made it back to her.
Valin, the liberated child slave took a few moments to fight through the fog of despair and confusion and his mother’s long lost face came into focus. Almost miraculously, life suddenly returned to the haunted face and he silently ran to her. They held each other tightly, and the only sound in the room for a long while was Sira’s broken sobbing.
“Who might this be?” Zell asked Arlim, looking at the tense, tiger striped leonid girl.
“She hasn’t spoken, the team I sent simply said that young Valin refused to leave her behind. She is very protective of him. Her name on the registry is Leonid 212 so we don’t even know her name. There isn’t much information otherwise. She was going to be arena fodder due to her tendency to attack her owners. She has been docile but alert as long as she was allowed to stay with Valin.”
Zell had a sudden thought after hearing his father’s explanation and looking at her.
“Nectera.” He said gently to her as he traced the rune of Beast Communication.
He recoiled as a flood of horrific images assaulted his mind. A village of tiger striped leonids being slaughtered or captured, attacking a man with her sharp claws after he hit Valin, those same claws being cut out by the root one by one, a dark filthy cell, maggots in her open wounds, Valin clutching her arm, riding in a strange wagon with cloaked men, Arlim’s kind face...
Angry tears welled in Zell’s eyes. He did his best to send soothing and compassionate thoughts through the spell’s channel, and the girl’s posture did seem to soften slightly.
“She’s in so much pain.” Zell said to Arlim. “They tore out her claws after she defended Valin, she has broken ribs, and infected cuts under her rags. She needs potions and better treatment immediately.” Zell finished urgently, practically running out of the room to collect the healing potions from the chest in his room, he needed one nearly every morning after Misazel’s attacks.
Moments later he passed the still hugging group of elves and knelt down before the courageous leonid. She looked dubiously at the bright red vial Zell was holding out to her. After she had touched his mind, she did trust him somewhat for a human. She took the vial and winced as agony shot up her mutilated fingertips. She smelled the vial and wrinkled her sensitive nose. It smelled bitter. With a mental leap of faith she drank the whole potion.
The effects were immediate and horribly painful. She hissed and growled softly as bones knit back together and her fingers healed. A few moments later the chronic pain that had been driving her to near madness was simply gone, vanished like a bad dream.
She blinked and touched her fingertips together, there was no pain but... She struggled to unravel the crusty bandages and sighed in sadness when she uncovered one finger. In place of her beautiful and life saving claw was a grotesque scar.
“I’m so sorry.” Zell looked at his feet in despair as he said in a voice as sad as the girl felt. “Too much time passed since they took your claws.”
Seeing the human that had healed her and showed rage and empathy at the torture she had suffered stirred an unfamiliar sensation in the leonid child. She walked closer to him and spoke the first words she had spoken to anyone other than the mute Valin since her capture.
“Thank you.” Her accented voice was tiny but clear and carried well. She put a small scarred hand on Zell’s shoulder and marveled at the strength she could feel beneath the baggy night shirt.
“You spoke!” Zell exclaimed. “What’s your name?”
The leonid smiled at the sudden shift in his mood. “Nilah.” She spoke the name that had somehow become unfamiliar and awkward to say.
“That’s a beautiful name.” Zell replied. “I’m Zell, this is my dad Arlim. He’s the one that arranged your escape from Axis.”
Nilah turned to Arlim and bowed deeply. “Thank you, I don’t know how I can ever repay such a miracle.”
“We feel the same, child.” It was Turya. “This family performs miracles as easily as we breathe.”
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The gathering of eleven nobles from across the kingdom was subdued. There was an air of defeat and hopelessness hanging over the normally proud assembly. They had been thwarted and humiliated at every turn, and now their great Faceless General seemed to have turned against their usual interests. That was the main topic of the emergency meeting that had been called in secret from the Faceless General.
“What’s to be done, then?” The speaker was the lord of the Bleating Meadow Hurb Shepard, whom had volunteered to host the gathering at his estate far from the prying eyes and ears of the Faceless General’s many minions. “With the disappearance of that disgusting Ring, and Index’s refusal to put more pressure on Pinky’s thieves we are actually losing gold just keeping the city guard in our pocket.”
“What if we simply create a new organization and dissolve the little hand altogether? We have enough power to do that much. Do we not?” The woman that answered was a newcomer to the circle named Fray Restmonger. She had replaced her late husband, the ancient lord Arkon Restmonger whom regulated the tax structure for inns and related services within Vinia. She was young, beautiful, and shrewd. She was one of the few that didn’t fully hide her appearance at these meetings. It was widely believed that Arkon’s death by ‘natural causes’ was anything but.
“You can’t even be serious.” A sharp voice from another cloaked lord cut across the room. “The Faceless General is where our real power comes from. The muscle of the underworld, and the legal authority of the capital both answer to him alone.”
“Not to mention that he personally is a one man army even in his advanced age.” Another voice chimed.
The order of the room dissolved as each arrogant attendee raised their voice over one another. This was typically where the Faceless General would intervene with a calm solution, but no such voice of reason was present this day. No firm command stopped the squabbling, but still they suddenly all fell quiet. A feeling had descended upon the room, a menacing sensation that made throats dry up and hearts lurch.
As one they turned to the door that was being guarded by two level three hunters, each as powerful as a score of regular soldiers. The door suddenly burst open and both guards fumbled over themselves as they entered.
“Milords! Announcing the honored high chancellor, Andres Solasterian!” The shaken guard barely managed to say without a stutter as he stood aside.
The gathered nobles scrambled to their feet as the kingdom’s second most powerful political figure entered the meeting room. His polished black boots clicked loudly on the stone floor with each measured step. His clothes were appropriate to his station, a matching suit of fine black silk with deep purple lapels and cuffs. He was taller than average but not by much with a slim build and pale complexion. He wore his glossy straight black hair pulled back in a ponytail, and his handsome if a bit sharp angled face had the faint shadow of a beard that no amount of shaving would remove. His eyes were such a dark brown that they simply appeared black in the dim light of the room.
“High chancellor! To what do I owe the honor of your visit?” Hurb Shepard asked, bowing over the table and upsetting the wine glass in front of him.
The other nobles merely stayed frozen, looking to one another in confusion. An unannounced visit from someone so high up was unprecedented. In fact this man was known as a shut in, passing orders ‘from the king’ to a small circle of chancellors beneath him which eventually filtered down to the nobles and lords of this very meeting.
“Be at ease esteemed lords of Vinia.” His voice was gentle and calm. “I came to thank you after all. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect scenario really.” Andres walked up to the long table and poured wine from one of the two bottles into a long stemmed glass that seemed to materialize in his hand from nothing. “You intentionally gathered in a secluded place without the only man in the kingdom that might have protected you. This saves me weeks of tedium. I am truly grateful.” Andres took a sip of the wine and grimaced slightly. “Wine looks so inviting but always disappoints.”
“With respect dear high chancellor, what is the meaning of this?” The widow Fray asked, going so far as to return to her seat and pick up her own glass. The other nobles were aghast at her insolence, but a thin icy laugh from Andres brought their attention back to him.
“The Black Widow lady Fray, you were already fairly high on my interest rankings. I might just leave your mind somewhat intact.” Andres looked around the room at each lord before he continued. “I’m inviting each of you into my family, there is a bit of a process to that however. To start with, you’ll need to die just a bit.”
The sound of steel being drawn behind Andres erupted at the same time as the nobles all gasped and began shouting. The two hunters attacked Andres, suddenly sensing his murderous intent.
“Lords and lady! Stand back, this is no human! We’ll han-” The senior of the two hunters’ voice was suddenly cut off as his head left his body. Andres had never moved. The other hunter looked on in horror at his own sword dripping with the blood of his comrade.
“Such fragile things. Cut off your own head.” Andres commanded the remaining hunter with a dismissive gesture, and to the horror of the onlooking nobles the man’s sword sheared cleanly through his own neck a moment later.
The amount of blood spraying from the decapitated hunters was horrifying. Beyond that, every drop of blood was coalescing into a spinning and floating sphere a few feet off of the ground. The bodies of the hunters deflated into desiccated husks as every drop of fluid was pulled from their bodies.
“Now, for my lovely new children.” Andres gestured and the orb of blood floated through the air to hover just above the table, dark but glinting in the brazier’s light. Before any of them could react, crimson tendrils shot out from the orb, plunging like daggers into the chests of each of the eleven nobles. They stood frozen with faces contorted in pain but apparently unable to move as blood was siphoned rapidly from their bodies and the orb swelled in diameter.
Andres pulled off the black velvet glove from one hand, revealing black fingernails and brought his thumb to his own mouth. A tiny bite drew forth a drop of his own black blood which he squeezed onto the blood orb. In response the orb began to glow a deep shade of purple and pulse with power.
The now mummified bodies of the nobles looked as though a breeze would make them fall apart like sand. Andres reversed the flow of blood then, sending the blood infused with his own essence back into the nobles, bringing them back to life with strangely vacant expressions.
“Happy birthday, my children. I know you’ll make me proud.” Andres Solasterian said to the silent room.
Andres, or rather the one using his form left the manor then, smiling happily in the cold moonlit pastures of the Bleating Meadow. The new members of his household would awaken soon with new powers and an all consuming desire to serve him. They were the first new thralls he had created since the king himself and the other chancellors; it took a great deal of power after all. In spite of that, the meal of the somewhat strong hunters had left a spring in his step.
Abitath, seventh child of Belithel delighted in the progress toward his ultimate goal. The conduits would be pleased, and that meant his father would be pleased. The thought made the vampire devil giddy. After all, Maiphon wasn’t an easy father to impress!