For a kick off, my robe was covered in mud, wet and slimy from months in the ground – thankfully it’d been well-made by Madame Sailor, having suffered only minor damage, a little fraying in a few patches and on one of the sleeve-cuffs. It was my robe, damn it, and it was a million percent better than an inmate’s rags, even covered in stains. However, the mask Xas had buried was obviously my spare one: it had a slightly more-daunting twist to its grinning expression, and a certain quality of the curving horns made them not decorative but blade-like, their points far more pronounced than my usual mask.
I had stowed it in my newly-stolen satchel. I had no idea whether it might prove useful at some future juncture, but for now it only made me more recognisable. The robe, once I was all ghostly, could’ve been any sorcerer’s really – the mask far less-so. Even if I’d only used it rarely, there was no need to take the risk; it did look an awful lot like my favourite one. Perhaps it was only to me that it looked much different.
Once I’d bade Morsus farewell, I floated over my parents’ graves, and just stayed there for a minute, collecting myself mentally, coming up with a plan. The first thing I did was go and have a shave. Losing the whiskers was almost as good as regaining my powers. Then I went ahead and stocked up on the essentials for our journey – probably far more important than the champion’s costume, thinking about it. Books – I didn’t dare go near the Maginox library, but there were plenty of contemporary books I still hadn’t read, on both sorcery and magic in general, books which had caught my eye over the past months but which my chosen profession had afforded me little time to read. Bedding, warm clothing – I couldn’t stay in wraith-form twenty-four-seven or I’d start to fade away into the shadowland. I’d have to have something comfy to wear when I was sleeping at least, and the same went for the twins, obviously. We weren’t heading for sunny climes.
And then there was food – I had ways to get meat in the wild, ways beyond the ken (or tastes) of most men, but there was no harm taking some nuts and salted beef, pickled vegetables, anything that would keep. After my diet in Zyger, the moment I saw a jar of gherkins I tore the lid off it in such a rush my satyr-strength shattered the thing. It mattered little to me – there was a whole shelf of the bad boys. By the time I got to the third jar, I’d calmed down enough to actually open it without peppering its contents with glass-shards.
There was too much stuff to carry, but that was what imps were for – I sat Zab on top of the chest full of goodies, my winged demonoids hefted it between them, and, with a dash of gremlin illusion, the chest sauntered along after me, equally invisible.
Yes, I stole it all, from the very-poshest shops I could safely enter with my considerable skill-set. Yes, I filled my pockets with cash wherever I could. Yes, I got terrible wind from the gherkins. I didn’t care about any of it. I owed it to myself. The city owed it to me. I gave Mund my life, and it repaid me by starving me, entrapping me, maiming me.
No more.
Once I had ninety percent of my preparations finished and my guts had stopped jabbering on in their dismal chorus, I finally plucked up the courage to go and do it.
Go home.
Mud Lane was a place out of my dreams, its wooden spans and rope-bridges tearing at my heart more than the lofty golden arches of Hightown – even the newest ones I didn’t recognise. I was descending past its windows and balconies for the last time. I was coming home to leave it forever, Rathal’s opinions notwithstanding.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
It was strange, coming back – getting to see Jaid and Jaroan had been the driving force in my life for so long that I could hardly remember their faces; the specifics of their appearance had been wholly subsumed by the idea of their existence, the symbol of my freedom – yet after hearing Duskdown’s portentous words regarding my brother, I was bound-over in apprehension.
Knife-men? I asked myself for what had to have been the fiftieth time. How? How dare he?
And then – before my mind’s eye – looming large and blinding, a burning tongue of hell-flame – Shadowcrafter falling, his blood arcing up –
I had no room to judge Jaroan.
Then I was there – floating through my apartment – Orstrum, the dear old man snoring on his mattress – Xan and Xastur, the boy seeming almost to blink as he slumbered deep in dreams – and, finally, my brother and sister.
I tried to do it as gently as possible, knowing how fragile they might be.
“Jaid? Jar?”
They were sleeping in separate beds, now, obviously; it was Jaid that’d taken mine. She was hugging her pillow, and I almost cracked and started weeping, right then and there, looking down at her – but I drew a ragged breath and forced myself to swallow down my emotions. By the Five, I didn’t even want to wake her – but I had to.
“Guys? Please.”
I lit a candle and ensured I was in a position where my face was visible, that I was talking slowly and surely as they started to awaken.
“I’m here. Jaid? Will you wake up? Jaroan? I didn’t bring you any bread this time, but I think I could rustle up a blackberry pastry… if Pinktongue’s not scoffed them all.”
“Kas? What?” Jaid sounded annoyed more than anything, her sleep-voice loud and brusque. “I’m tryin’ – tryin’ to go back to – Kas…”
She came awake and stared at me for a full five seconds before whirling out of bed faster than an arch-diviner, sucking in her breath to squeal –
“Shh!” I made my eyes wide, telling her without words how dangerous the next few seconds could be for me.
I crouched to receive her and there was only a moment of hesitation before she ran to me, squeezed me harder than an arch-druid. I only had to crouch a bit. They were growing. You didn’t notice it, until you weren’t there every day, and suddenly in a couple of months she’d shot up like a reed.
Tears fell down my cheeks, but I was smiling in joy.
Over Jaid’s shoulder, I saw that Jaroan was just starting to push himself into an upright position. The battle within him flared in his eyes.
This time it was Jaroan who wouldn’t speak. This time it was Jaroan who cried, not out of happiness but out of grief, grief for these lost months, the course he’d chosen. I could see the contest of emotions playing itself out across his features.
Jaid was trying not to squeal, burying her face in my shoulder. I took them both into my arms, and, whatever else was wrong with the world, I knew this little piece of it would be okay. It might take time, it might be hard, but we would get through it together.
I told them the plan, showed them the note for Xantaire. Jaid went for it instantly, and, while Jaroan raised no word of complaint, he laughed scornfully a few times; at himself, at me, the plan… I had no idea, but he packed a bag all the same. That was all that mattered.
Sure, they probably knew it was all a lie. They knew it wasn’t going to be some big adventure. We were running from Mund, running from excitement into safety, from the end of the world as we knew it into obscurity. The untravelled lands beyond the Realm’s borders were probably untravelled for a very good reason, but we’d get chance to find out.
If the death of the world caught us there, at least we’d be some of the last to enjoy our time on the plane before we were made dragon-fodder. And who knew for certain? We could go so far that even Ulu Kalar reborn couldn’t find us. Keep going to the very ends of Materium.
The sun rose behind us, but we cast no shadows. We flew higher, until we were wisps of cloud drifting across the sky towards the distant mountains.
I’d had plenty-enough trouble getting free the first time. I wasn’t about to be caught again.
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