‘Quetz we need to save that one–’
‘Way ahead of you.’ Said the serpent, slithering into the gorgon’s blood stained shirt.
Scales slid across scales, as the divine serpent communed with the grand-daughter of medusa. Liam had no idea how they were actually talking, Quetz said nothing, nor did the gorgon, but ideas were conveyed more swiftly than words.
‘She is of Medusa’s ilk and asks for our aid. Will you honour the treaty your past self made with Phaedra?’ Asked Quetz, referring to the thousand-year-old woman who acted as de facto queen of the Greenwood gorgons.
‘I want to, but–’ Began Liam, his thoughts freezing as Quetz overheard the magistrate talking to a ducal guard.
“--The duke intends to hold me liable for every burglary, malcontent, bruised knee, and assault that occurred during his absence, and if I go down, so will you Hakim! You will execute the prisoners, or join them in the noose!”
“Surely the duke will have mercy! We’ve served him loyally—”
“Cut the shit! He’s about a hundred coins away from being a pauper. There isn’t room in the treasury for mercy. Start executing the prisoners, murderers first, then the whoring grain thief–”
“Sir Magistrate, that action seems rather rash– ahem, rather decisive.”
“A wise correction captain.” The magistrate growled, steel clattering against a bronze brazier. Likely a branding rod or whatever hot poker they used to put out eyeballs. “If I receive the lash for a whore then you will be next. No more stakings, clean hangings for all of them except the snake. It’s too heavy for a noose.”
Liam’s heart stopped, execute the grain thief? What are the chances that another grain thief had been caught on the same night Sirin went missing. He had to go. Had to risk discovery. If Quetz intervened then Sirin would be labeled a collaborator of the gorgons. It had to be Liam.
‘Sirin comes first. Try and help the gorgon if possible. I don’t want her to die, but we take care of Mom first! Be sneaky Quetz. I’d rather not have to announce my status as a lightning Lord. These cookoos might start saying i’m the son of Taloc–’
‘You are the son of Taloc.’ Interrupted Quetz.
‘Cut the sarcasm or I’ll make ramen out of your danger noodling self! I’m only three years old and who knows what the Fulminonimbus’ bishops will cook up when they hear about a young and impressionable Lightning Toddler!’ Liam gagged at the notion of a dozen priests kissing his ass. Or asking for his ‘guidance’. ‘I’d have to go to war! Such an uproar could cause another schism in the clergy. Bah! Bishops in my backside are the last thing I need right now! Why do these problems always happen to me? I’ve never even left the house!’ Asked Liam, thinking through alternatives and finding none. He needed to join the search for Sirin, or spectate the gallows, make sure she wasn’t there.
Captain Hakim issued quick orders, and the next four prisoners were dragged out of the tent, all were bone thin felinid men, who for some reason weren’t wearing clothes. Two of their stomachs were distended. An indication of the last stage of starvation as their body failed to replicate mucosal linings and stomach acid ate through theorgans, creating gas inside the peritoneal cavity. Killing this man would be a mercy. For even healing magic and a king’s banquet would be unable to recover him.
Liam mentally flipped a coin, Quetz hadn’t seen her, but if Sirin had been caught, she would be dead in minutes. The coin landed on heads, it was time to go. He bit the bottom of his lip, knowing a lone three year old wasn’t safe on the streets. In no small part due to the snippets of the duke’s emblem on his home-stitched smock. He activated his least used skill, [split mind] and began moving as time slowed to a crawl. Execution awaited him behind a dozen doors, with only three avenues to safety.
1. He killed someone with Lightning. This would announce him as a Lightning Lord and make him immune to the King’s law. But it would force him into the world of nobles at the ripe old age of three.
Without any allies.
Circumstances would then be far beyond his control. Getting forced into a patronage or becoming someone’s pawn. Someone like Viscount Blackwood who sought to elevate themselves above their abilities. They would save Sirin, and then use her as leverage.
1. Sirin was still hiding and would spank him for leaving the house when she returned safe and sound. So he should stay home.
2. Sirin was already dead. So he should really stay home.
Risk a spanking to save mom? Thought Liam, making up his mind.
Time to stop an execution.
He pulled on his only shirt, tucking the emblem into his shorts to cover the duke’s embroidered crest. Still, his mind raced, spurred by his rare talent. There was the crowd to consider, sure he could strike ten men dead with lightning, but that wouldn’t help him move through a crowd of women and children, nor would it clear the press of people. In fact, it was likely to get him trampled by a panicked crowd.
Quetz’s voice interrupted, de-railing one train of thoughts.
‘Sssisssyphusssy would not ask a toddler to die for her, Lightning Lord or not. She came here knowing the risks, and is prepared. She’s already gone beyond what mortals can heal, a staking would be painful, but no worse than she has already experienced.’ Said Quetz, sounding oddly stoic. ‘Boss, we can help her out?’ Asked Quetz, referring to the gorgon.
Staked…? Grain thief? Thought Liam, recalling one of Baron Green’s memories. It was back in his academy days, the college of wizards was teaching a lesson on capital punishment and demonstrated the process to the class. A grim-faced Rhendal guided them, his actions swift, brutal, and precise. In hindsight Rhendal’s decisiveness probably spared the felinid slave a great deal of suffering, but that did not make the process any less brutal.
The slave woman had wooden stakes driven through her arms, legs, shoulders, and hips. While the instructor lectured the class. They used a gag of wood to muffle her screams, demonstrating how the staking process involved pinning the victim to the ground with as many stakes as possible. A sort of macabre game to play with prisoners of war or other conquered criminals. Generally reserved for sieges where your enemy had violated the rules of war and required a visible threat of how poorly such conduct could go. Or when bored nobles decided they needed a betting game.
Liam shook the memory out of his head, understanding that he needed to act soon. But no matter how shitty Sirin was, he couldn’t abandon his mother so easily.
He needed to go outside. One way or another, the solutions to his problems lay in the town he had often surveyed from above, but never walked.
I can do this, it’s natural for a baby to remain indoors. My immune system might be a little unprepared, but I’ve got healing magic to boost any immune response. It’ll be fine. Thought Liam, hoping he wasn’t about to catch dysentery or one of the dozen ‘shit-yerself-to-death’ diseases that permeated this world’s population.
In case Sirin returned while he was away, Liam prepared a safety note, finding a dirt clod in the cellar and using it to write a message on the table.
‘Went to find Mom
Back before night
-Liam
-Tufan’
Without thinking, Liam had used his real name instead of his given name, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He ran, dashing down the adobe steps into the cellar, through the hand hewn crevice that a pregnant Sirin had carved, and into the neighbors’s backyard. Running with all the might of a –quite jacked– three year old. Barefoot, and with the clothes mom had stitched for him, he found his way onto the street.
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Men, women, and children came and went, always in groups. Never alone. Introducing a lone toddler was a nuisance that no one wanted to deal with. So they avoided him like the plague, even a beggar, stumbling from one begging roost to another crossed the street to avoid Liam.
Damn, that is ice cold, I get that I probably smell bad, but the beggar can’t have bathed more recently than me! Thought Liam, sparing a half second to sniff his armpits. There was a hint of body odor, but nothing that should have been detectable by passersby.
Weird. Oh well, I’ve got more important things to do!
He ran, dashing down the dirt street with all the grace and swiftness of an obese gazelle, or an overly coordinated toddler. People made way for him, staring as he passed by them. Like he was breaking some local taboo.
Men dragged women out of Liam’s path, somehow clearing a path for him to enter Khereshetal’s markets. Guided by Quetz’s memories and his own understanding of the town, the trip was barely ten minutes of waddle running. He’d hated peering over this marketplace, since each peeping portal showed him the presence of new slaves. But with the army’s return this zone had become a hive of activity. Apprentices hawked weapons and armor, food stalls sold questionable kebabs, and Liam had no time. The gallows were being cleared of their victims, preparing to devour the next batch of condemned souls. He pushed through the press of bodies.
“Move! Get out of my way!”
Soldiers and citizens alike found themselves stepping off the beaten path to accommodate the toddler. Six magi in flowing desert robes pushed through the crowd to Liam’s right. Heads angled upwards towards the flying noodle with gold feathers. Of course the magi wanted to pet his snake! They were always sticking their noses where they were least wanted. Their leader was wearing a garish yellow outfit, flowing sashays of yellow and a red turban, complete with red stitching on the edges. Easily the loudest fire mage and probably a recently knighted mage-noble, hungry for accolades as he rose from commoner status. Though his pursuit of the flying serpent led him into a coincidental pursuit of Liam. As Quetz had circled back and was now floating twenty feet above Liam’s head, descending closer yet remaining out of grabbing range. For he had no desire to be converted into a shishkebab, at least, not for a second time.
Or worse,
to be praised by mammals!
“Make way!” Shouted the magi, their cry echoed by multiple roving bands.
“Paladins coming through, we’ll deal with the cursed child!” Came from in front of Liam.
“Move your filthy peasant asses!” Came from behind Liam’s back.
Cries echoed through the crowd as three separate squadrons began to converge. Shields reverberated as spears clattered against them, and the stomping feet of heavily armored infantry pounded closer to Liam.
Why are Fulminonimbus paladins here!? How did a bishop have time to raise the church’s knights and deploy them to Kheresh? Oh wait, I called for a crusade… Then died. They’ve been busy mustering while I’ve been growing up for at least three years–
Liam’s [split mind] talent crunched to a halt, burned out by the inherent time limitation on all mental skills. Now he would have to succeed on his unaided wits.
‘Quetz, I need you to double back, get the magi to chase you in front of whomever is behind me. I’ll try and dodge the paladins. Ah! Why are they even chasing me? I’m not a “cursed child” whatever that is!’ Thought Liam, using his short stature to jog between two soldier’s legs, passing through them like an overfamiliar cat.
Profanity followed his antics, with men gasping in shock and leaping away from him. As if he was a porcupine who rolled through a graveyard and was now wearing their dead grandma like a fedora. Odd tassels hit his ears, pulling on them in a way that made Liam wonder if they were still attached to his skull.
‘Why is everyone treating me like I’m the bubonic plague incarnate?’ Thought Liam, receiving a mental shrug from the danger noodle without shoulders.
‘You all look the same to me.’ Answered Quetz, summoning a current of air to rise into the sky, just as the magi bumbled into a rich palanquin.
Twelve felinid slaves carried the palanquin, with a squad of twenty ducal guards, men who served inside the Duke’s standing army. Acting as peacekeepers and police for the Dukedom of Kheresh.
“Make way!” Shouted the ducal guards.
“Do you not see the serpent! Tis a spy of our enemies! Move!” Shouted the lead magi.
Neither man was moved by the other’s call, and continued shouting at them, as if the louder voice would somehow have the moral standing. A dick measuring contest that caused them both to lose their targets, when they should have been allies and easily trapped both.
Ha, walk around like the biggest dick in town, and you’ll get screwed by a mirror. Chuckled Liam.
Unguided by Quetz’s vision, Liam pushed between people, ducked under legs, stalls, and carts in a clumsy dash towards the stage. He slipped past a particularly stocky man and his oddly thin wife, struggling to pass with their stranger proportions. Beyond them stood a beautiful display of the Fulminonimbus’ power. Four armored paladins, knights in the full plate armor common to the late renaissance period, thin waisted, barrel chested, with a couch in their right armpits for securing lances—
—and runes.
Magical wards that were enchanted spells, serving as conduits for magic or as storage for spells. Green had known of these wards, and avoided them like the plague, since they reminded him of his failure as a man and a mage. Of his worthlessness.
Every one of the four men bore a shield with a noble crest. Icons of the houses they served or hailed from. Which was the last thing Liam caught sight of before two of the paladins rushed forward, trying to catch Liam. Gauntleted hands grasping at his neck.
He shoved off the stocky man, trying to escape back the way he had come, but the slender woman provided no obstacle to the paladins, who swept her aside, half tossing, half guiding her away. Another step and the nearest paladin —a thinner woman with red accents on her armor— would catch his shirt. Liam hopped backwards, only to be thwarted by his juvenile legs. He twisted, spinning around. Nose faceplanting directly into a steel greave. Stars burst into his vision, and rolled him backwards, blinded by the tears leaking out of his face.
The two pursuing paladins pinned him before he knew what was happening. Their guantletted hands pressing each of his arms into the burning sand of Khereshetal. He was helpless, caught. Paladins were often the second sons of nobles who possessed no magic or first generation magicians who possessed no standing. Effectively they were burgoises, those who should have had success, but choked on barriers beyond their control or wrestled with insurmountable inner confusion.
But these were fully armored paladins. Men and women who earned each part of their runed armor via accomplishments. These two knights were those rare first sons who had proven their worth and held standing within the church of the Holy Fulminonimbus. Drawn into the clergy by their devotion. A church that Liam would need on his side once he announced his status as a Lightning Lord.
He was mystically capable of slaying armored knights, but that would risk his future alliances, endangering his trip home. Somehow, he had fallen into the hands of the only people he couldn’t kill!
“Let me go!” Shouted Liam.
They released him. To say he was shocked, was to say sand was grainy.
“It talks!” Said one of the two Paladins, an older man with gray hairs poking out of his helmet.
“Hold still master elf, we don’t mean you any harm.” Said the third paladin, the one whose armored leg had kneed Liam in the face.
“Master elf?” Repeated Liam, utterly confounded, vision still blurry from the accidental knee.
A steel helmet with golden wings landed in the sand at Liam’s side, kicking up a small poof of dust. Mana flowed from the third paladin’s jousting shield towards Liam, his [mana manipulation] skill telling him how the energy entered his face and rejiggered his nose and skull, undoing the mild concussion.
“Sir–” began one of the two paladins behind Liam, only to be cut off by a hand from the third, no, by the paladin captain.
“There you are, feel better now?” Asked the third paladin.
“Uh, yes…” Muttered Liam, his volume unusually low due to his life of nocturnal whispers.
“Excellent! My name is Sir Judas Thaddeus Stormcaller, First Paladin of the Kheresh Fulminonimbus. But you can call me Thaddeus. What may I call you?” Asked Thaddeus.
Liam’s mind raced, the first paladin was technically a captain, in the same way that the sergeant major of the army was technically a non-commissioned officer. In truth, Generals were less important than the paladin in front of Liam. Since he represented the will of every captain in the duchy, and was likely to retire into a pre-eminent position amongst the church, possibly becoming a noble himself.
“Stop the execution!” Pleaded Liam.
“Oh my, that’s an odd name. Shall I call you stop?” Said Thaddeus, his smile never faltering. Though his eyes flicked towards the gallows in an involuntary spasm. A second later they returned to Liam, pupils narrowing.
“If mom dies I’ll kill everyone involved.” Warned Liam, curling his middle finger against the underside of his thumb and flicking at the paladin.
Thaddeus chuckled, confused by the toddler’s odd shape and odder demands. The gesture was meaningless, but the bubble of fire that flew from Liam’s finger and impacted Thaddeus’s chest armor was not. Sure, the ball instantly popped, but oh boy did it cause a heatwave! Strong enough to bathe all three paladins in dragon’s breath.
“Magic? From a toddler! What in Taloc’s name are you?” Cried Thaddeus.
Around Liam a dozen armored paladins closed ranks, forming a cordon of dusty steel around him.
“I’m not an elf.” Snapped Liam, reaching up to flap both ears forward and mock the foolish human.
Fingers ran up his ears, thumb stopping at the ear lobe while his fingers tip tipped higher, across the oval conch, and up.
And up.
And up.
Until his fingers found the extended ‘helix’ of the ear and rested on its points.
I’m an elf?
When did that happen?
Wait… Then who the hell is my dad?!