Days Go By
38th day of Ope in the third month of Snow’s Fall
4633 A.G.G. (Present Day)
Castle Įcħor-Nåbįlå, North of the Yavan Mountains
The Continent of Kazakoto
6:10 P.S.R. (Pre Suns’ Rising)
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Aoleon
“So, how did the other bounty hunters who didn’t just ‘fall into’ the field feel about you three steamrolling in and snatching up all of their work?” Aoleon asked her father.
The king shrugged nonchalantly. “Didn’t really matter to us. We didn’t pay much heed to dirty looks or mumbled insults. The simple fact of the matter was that we were accustomed to hunting much more illusive and deadlier prey. So we naturally overshadowed them quite frequently. Not to mention how we made local law feel. A fact that led us to piss off more than our fair share of people.”
“No doubt.”
“Neither bounty men nor lawmen had much love for people of our profession. But we were a necessary evil that couldn’t be undervalued. I think that they tended to be a little jealous of those who fell under the I.A.M.H. flag; envious of the status and authority that being a member of the International Association of Munificence Huntsmen lent us. And seeing us assert ourselves outside of our established roles didn’t indenture us to many. It became common practice for other skip tracers to withhold as much information from us as possible to keep us out of their business and away from their coin. And lawmen did the same to keep us from undermining their authority.”
“So you stepped on a few toes.”
“More than a few. Sometimes we had to. Little choice was left to us.”
“I’m sure.”
“The point is that eventually our reputation outgrew us as hunters of both beasts and men. And that repute outgrew people’s dislike of us. As it did, their mutual corporation became less and less necessary. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It was always nice when we could get information from the local law, but our combined investigative prowess and the web of contacts that we’d developed over the years as a team allowed us to work over and around them when we needed to.
“Before long, most criminals were absolutely petrified to move about anywhere in Kazakoto south of the snow caps. In addition, the unfortunate incidents of people running afoul of fiends such as impundulus or feral adzæs in that same area of the country, which at one time were quite numerous, were at record lows because of how intently we dedicated ourselves to our work. It was our home territory after all.
“I’d imagine that the Tribunal moniker started to surface within the latter portion of the eight or so years that I spent working with J and Ray. Maybe some group of dirt bag people that we were hunting with collective IQ’s in the upper double digits used the word in reference to us at some point. It could have somehow stuck from there I suppose.
“Regardless of how it came about, it wasn’t too long before we began to hear the name circulating in our circles. And I must admit…I liked it from the moment I heard it. But we’re getting too far ahead of ourselves.
“I was around ten years past two centuries of age at the time of the-” Samahdemn paused and sighed heavily. “The uh…The Grand Spire incident.”
Aoleon reached to place an isilivere hand on his shoulder and smile at him.
“Yes. Well…after the…incident, as I said, I spent the better part of eight years walking Mundus as a munificence huntsmen with these men who would one day be your godfathers. Waimund had already been ‘traveling’ as it’s sometimes known, for about a decade. Jeruian had been traveling for just over five years more than that. So as you can imagine, they both knew their jobs very well.
“From what they told me, they once worked independently of each other. As most huntsmen do. It tends to be a rather solitary profession. They first met when they both accepted a contract to deal with a mbwiri in a backwater town in central Zachary. It was working its way through the town’s population and they weren’t the first to accept contracts to deal with the thing. It had already killed five other travelers by the time they’d started to do their ground work.”
“I’m not familiar with…mbwiris, you said?”
“Hmm. A possessor dæmön. Usually nothing that your basic run-of-the-mill exorcism can’t cure. But this particular mbwiris was a crafty one. I was pretty sure that we had one or two books here in the lower library on them. But I suppose not if you’re not familiar. I may need to pull out all of my old logs and research for you. Your godfathers’ too, so that you can brush up. You learn a lot that you can’t find in most other places when you make a profession out of something.”
She nodded in acceptance of the offer. “I think I’d appreciate that.”
“Good. But, anyway, it seemed that Ray and J meshed well and together they were able to complete that particularly nasty contract to everyone’s satisfaction. The long and short of it past that is that they continued to willingly search each other out periodically for the more difficult contracts they’d each accept. And after about a year of periodic alley-oops, they decided upon a more permanent arrangement; forming a small hunting company together based out of Nortpost.”
“Nortpost? I’m unfamiliar.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Samahdemn said as he shifted his position on the couch, stretched out comfortably and breathed in another pull from his pipe.
The sounds of the bubbling liquid in the water pipe in concert with the sounds of the fireplace were strangely soothing to Aoleon. Once again, just for an instant, it flashed through her head how much she loved this place.
“Nortpost used to be a small town between Far Post and Far Post Landing near the northern tip of Zachary.” Samahdemn explained. “Another of those small towns that you’d be hard pressed to find on any major map. However it doesn’t exist anymore as a lone township. I think it was swallowed up by Far Port some years ago. Or maybe it was abandoned for one reason or another?” He motioned to his head with his hand and then flung said hand away as if to say that the knowledge had flown from his mind.
“Either way, it’s of little consequence.” he continued. “The point is that their skillsets allowed them both to pick up one another’s slack without the need to involve third-party contractors nearly as much as others in the business. And Nortpost ended up being little more than a springboard for them.
“Jeruian was a born tracker. Information gathering and research were second nature to him. I swear that he could sniff out and track down a fiend as if he were part hound. And that ended up translating to him being no slouch on the humanesque side of the house either once we started receiving bounties. Locating missing persons; records cross referencing; reading lies in people’s mannerisms and speech; it was like breathing to him.
“Physically, he was a little powerhouse. Although you couldn’t tell it to look at him. Once we took up skip tracing, most of our quarry would take his quiet nature and lean build to mean that he was a pushover. Those who did and wished to test their luck were rarely conscious long enough to regret the error of their supposed wisdom.
“And Waimund was one of the best long gunmen in the country; a premier shooter and instructor before he became a huntsman. The walls of his flat were practically plastered with marksmanship medals, newspaper articles and trophies he kept on display from his exploits. If Jeruian needed overwatch, Waimund was the man. A useful skill when dealing both with fiends and people.
“He was also an expert trapper. Offensive, defensive, it didn’t matter.
They started off receiving no more payment than what was offered for each individual contract by the contractor. Which in this business meant that they were making just enough to cover hunting materials, traps and building overhead while making a minuscule amount in profits.”
“Par the course for the way the majority of huntsmen and hunting women live.”
“True. Ours was a near thankless job. However, unlike the majority of our hunting brothers and sisters, J and Ray bounced off of one another so well and got to be so good at the job that before they left the small town to pursue the idea of expanding their footprint, they were supposedly negotiating their own fees; upwards of one and a half times the average for similar jobs.”
“That’s pretty good.”
Sam nodded. “More than just pretty good. Success found them both swiftly. And they had to undergo expansion in order to keep up; opening a second office near Lake Tranquil to the south on the border of The Great Rainforest.
“Now, by this point, Ray was pretty comfortable with where the business was.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” the alabaster princess asked.
“Exactly. So, as you can imagine, it took a bit of planning, quite a bit of elbow grease, and more than a bit of J convincing Ray of the higher volume of work on offer with higher pay, but under his advice, they eventually ended up jumping The Open Ocean and opening Two Talons together in Kazakoto, under a special dispensation charter granted by the I.A.M.H. in the cultural melting pot of Hisra.”
“Really? Just on the other side of the mountains? Our mountain?” Aoleon commented. “So close?”
“Very close. Of course, I didn’t have a home here at that time. Not exactly. So it’s not the grand coincidence it may at first seem.
“Anyway, after a scant few years their business increased nearly threefold. So much so that they started taking on volunteer talent. Excellent huntsmen and hunting women by all accounts. And eventually, as a result, the business grew to be too large for the operation they were running, again. And they were faced with a need to expand, again. So they separated and Jeruian opened up another office some three thousand miles away, as the crow flies, in the snowy shadow of the Tuska Mountains in Est Dome.”
“Ah…near a very familiar locale, I see.”
“Everything falls into place, doesn’t it?”
“I understand how you three came across that contract that led you into the mountains now. Jeruian was too close for the Iÿäloja of Koso not to send him a request for aid and offer that contract.”
“Another link in the chain that binds the events of all our lives together. We’ll actually be grazing the aftermath of that contract shortly.” the king placated.
“By the time I made my appearance, the duo had grown into friendly competitors despite the fact that they ran their businesses under the same umbrella; each one constantly trying to top the other one’s numbers or display the largest hunting trophy in their foyer. But they were always as fast as brothers, no mistake. And honourable; taking their promise to Brigid to protect me regardless of my prior transgressions as seriously as anyone could.
“My first two years or so away from The Link were spent in Jeruian’s care. It didn’t take me long to figure out why his skill set was useful to Lady Brigid’s underground movement. He was very intelligent. And few could track better than he. A skill set that, when broken down, lent itself well to being a munificence. Scent catching, following barely perceptible trails, observing an environment for minute indicators of fiends’ dens, etcetera. And once we started shifting from hunting monsters to hunting people, his fields of study transitioned with remarkable swiftness to things like tracking accounts, researching last-known-residences and acquaintances, intercepting telegraphs…
“It was all dreadfully dull.”
“The field work was better though?”
“No. Well, sometimes. It depended on the job. The leg work and the tracking weren’t much to write home about in either case. But the actual hunt, taking the blade to the fiends proper…that was almost always interesting. If nothing else, Lady Brigid was right when she said that being a huntsman would mesh well with my violent nature. It was a release. Fighting with people? Not so much. But still…that could be interesting too.
“Anyway,” he said after taking a beat to apparently remember where he’d left off before his ruminations, “the tragedy in Bastion stayed heavy on everyone’s mind in the years that followed, and it was no small feat for me to keep out of sight of the Powers-That-Be. Hesijuan authorities had involved every manner of investigative organization that you can imagine to scour what could be reached of the Undercity. Not the least of which was M.I.”
“Hmm.” Aoleon said with piqued curiosity. “Interesting. I’ve never heard that.”
“It was kept quiet. Most of M.I.’s larger…projects were; some of which the Order would even be tasked to assist with on occasion. There’s a lot that goes on with that organization that you’d never know about without access to their archives. They’re a secretive bunch.”
“All conspiracies aren’t always conspiracies I suppose.” the high princess stated, not even attempting to mask the bewilderment in her tone, but being willing to take her father at face value. “In hind sight, I guess it makes sense. Since your old brotherhood apparently had close ties with them, and with the incident happening in the very home of the Order with so many Knights falling victim, it’s not surprising that Sovereign would request of The Link to send people from the Ministry of Inquiry to work it.”
“The Deep Cities needed them. There was no getting around it. And ruling out the involvement of malicious Magi in violent incidents like the Spire’s was usually number one on the Magisterium’s list of priorities. Saving face.
“But there was nothing to save here. In this instance, as you already know, the Magisterium’s worst fears were confirmed. They unfortunately couldn’t rule out one of their own. The changes I affected upon the Flow were probably so noticeable that even a child could have picked up on the wrongness of it. And just as I and Brigid had feared it would, that news drew a lot of negative attention to the Link. Magi were already greeted with suspicion and thinly veiled hostility by many, but in the years following Bastion-”
Aoleon wanted to offer her sympathies as yet another cloud of melancholy started to descend upon Samahdemn as he spoke about the devastation wrought by the actions of his youth. But she decided against it.
“-So, here we were with the masses crying for blood.” the king continued. “Nearly every race across the continent had been affected in some way and everyone wanted justice. But luckily for me, Brigid was right in thinking that no one would knowingly be looking in our direction. The sheer weight of the weave that I’d imposed on the world, coupled with the fact that I was presumed to be among the buried, destroyed any thought of pursuing any of us in relation to the disaster.
“Not that my Swalii heritage wouldn’t have nearly done the same had they known I was actually alive.
“And it wasn’t believed by M.I. that the destruction could’ve been caused by any singular individual anyway. They were investigating the idea of a possible circle of three, maybe four craft users.”
“You’d almost think that Åmbrosįå was looking out for you from the beginning.” Aoleon ventured to say.
“Possibly.” Samahdemn replied thoughtfully. “Or Zakenthos had been busy behind the scenes.”
“You say tomato, I say tomahto.” Aoleon replied.
Samahdemn shrugged and sipped his green intoxicant. “The point is that between these developments, Lady Brigid’s removal of my shard and my new vocation keeping me out of the public eye, I was so far out of mind that I was all but the ghost of a dead man who never existed.
“As a munificence I bided my time, at first, by taking on contracts mostly second hand through J and Ray. Centered mostly in out of the way places, forgotten villages and small towns. And the more time passed, well, the more things became very easy going.”
“It was just that simple?” Aoleon asked.
“Nothing’s ever ‘just that simple’. Consequences are always something you have to contend with one way or another, in one form or another. But eventually, things mostly leveled out. And once we were all sure that it was safe enough, I began to ply my trade openly. I took on my own hunting jobs; meeting face-to-face with clients. In time, I was able to leave the frozen north and move south to Hisra; completely free of the past.”
“Nearly free.”
“True. ‘Nearly’ free. At what point would anyone stop hunting for someone guilty of murder by twenty and five score? No matter how inadvertent.
“Regardless, once I moved south to the business they used to share together in Hisra, I spent three further years with Waimund. And picked up quite a few tricks from him for rifle-play along the way.”
“Really? Hard to imagine an ordained Knight getting pointers on gunplay from a lowly huntsman.”
“No doubt.” He responded with a smile. “And useful lessons at that. But long guns have never really been of a heavy focus for the Order. We Knights are by-and-large pistoleers, not riflemen.”
“Strange times for you, I suppose.”
“‘Strange times’ indeed. But all said and done, I rather enjoyed the years I shared between the two of them.”
“Seems funny to me that you three transitioned so heavily into hunting bounties from beasts. Unnecessarily risky. A lot of exposure.”
“Well, we never really fully transitioned. Hunting people wasn’t our true purpose, you know? And like you said, the risk of overexposure was a real threat when it came to working so closely with people outside of our circle.
“Even besides that, there was always quite a bit of self imposed danger that came along with it as well. I was always tempted to give into the urge to bloody our bounties once we caught them. In those days, once my blood was up, it was hard to bring it back down. Fortunately, most of the time, bounties would rarely stand their ground and they’d give up all aggression when cornered, so I didn’t have to deal with those feelings for too long.
"The boys, on the flip side of that coin, seemed to prefer it despite the risks. We didn’t use nearly as much coin on materials and equipment to hunt bounties as opposed to fiends. And the risk of death wasn’t as high. So they considered it quick, easy money.”
“And when bounties did stand their ground?” she asked.
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“When they did? Then I had to work hard not to kill the fools. It became my job to…curb myself on their behalf.”
“Never went too far with them?”
Samahdemn shook his head. “No. Not really. Fortunately, I can say that I rarely fought any thinking man or woman during those years who could offer me anything in the way of a real challenge. After all, how many street felons can earnestly say that they’re a match for a classically trained and anointed Knight of the Order, with a history of violence, a gift for heka, an Amalgamate and several years’ experience hunting literal monsters?”
“Not many I’d imagine.”
“And you’d be imagining correctly. Not once did I ever have the need to delve into the physical tools of my old trade. I never saw the need to utilize the new glaive I’d pieced together in my spare time over those years, even if it had been proven safe for me to do so. I was usually able to dispatch most problems confidently with little more than a few quick movements. A simple twist of the arm or leg at the joints, a strike to the kidneys or the spleen, a shattered knee and it was over.”
“Sounds dull. For you.”
Samahdemn shrugged. “Mostly. But there were exceptions.” He glanced at the papers, thumbed a bit, then looked over to one of the holographic screens. “If you open that chapter there,” he stated with an upward nod of acknowledgement and a pointed finger, “you’ll be able to read about one of the more interesting hunts we undertook. A very important one in fact, where we three tracked down an Askew. That was an…interesting chain of events, that drastically changed the course of my life. They’re a trouble I don’t believe you’ve ever had the displeasure of having to deal with. Askew tend to share a very unique and singular ‘agility’ within heka.”
Samahdemn flung air quotations about at the word agility.
“How’s that?” Aoleon asked.
“Well, whereas we Magi universally use focuses to act as a natural enhancement to, and channel for our gifts, and to protect us from the degenerative effects of utilizing such forces, Askew instead use what are commonly referred to as tethers. Instead of acting as a buffer for their talents, it links them directly to the energies that spur their abilities. This forceful and unnatural bond lends them the ability to instantaneously craft as they see fit.”
“So, heka doesn’t work the same way for all Magisters?”
“No. Absolutely not. Only in færię tales and works of fiction. In reality, a mortal harnessing the power of the Goddess to impose their will upon the physical world is quite taxing. A fact that we’ve kept out of the public ear and eye for good reason.
“If people knew how easy it is to overwhelm and kill Magi because of the vast amounts of time and prep it takes to weave-”
“Yeah. I can see.”
“I hope so. It’s why it’s likely that some of what I’ve written here about the nature of casting won’t actually be in the final product and will likely never see the light of day. There are things I’ve written that, I simply needed you and your siblings to know. Only for the eyes of family. But are potentially too damaging to the Link and the Magi way of life to let out.
“The fear inspiring mystique that’s shrouded the nature of heka weaving is one of the few things that’s held the hatred of the bigoted masses of the world at bay for so long. You know the history of the founding of the Link better than I Aoleon. You know why the Magisterium rose The Great Wall from the depths of the seas. Could you imagine how the Dįvonësë War would have ended if the Link had not had the power to intervene? Or even worse, been long destroyed before the war started because of the folly of man?”
There was little doubt as to the truth of that. The sheer magnitude of Magi deaths recorded during the Burning Times was appalling. A truly dark period in history indeed. Stake burnings, drownings, lynchings and worse; all carried out by the fear fueled zealotry of the masses. And all the while the government turned a deaf ear and blind eye to the mass killings. Yet it was only fear of serious retaliation in the form of a promise of swift principal recompense from the combined efforts of organized Magi that caused the turning of the genocide that finally stopped the hate fueled slaughter.
Without ever-present fear of immediate retribution, what would keep the non-Magi under control?
What would the world be like without heka? Aoleon wondered.
“That’s why to see any writings on the nature of heka weaving outside of the libraries of the Link is a true rarity.” the king added. “We’ve made sure of it.
“Suffice it to say, Askew are not like the rest of us. While a tether could be used for a great deal of things, Askews’ field of study within heka by-and-large focuses on the manipulation of the paths of propelled objects. Specifically bullets. Because of this, it’s widely believed that they’re generally mathematical prodigies; possessing of a talent for numbers that rivals even most Swalii with our augmentations. Their shots literally defy the laws of physics and can hit you from nearly any angle with great accuracy. Most times, lethally so.”
“Then why don’t all Magi train to use tethers as opposed to focuses if they’re so much more effective? Why don’t you work towards a point where you’re not so worn down using them?”
Samahdemn’s face soured slightly at the question. “At its most fundamental level, it’s a sacrilege. No self-respecting Magi would ever do it. You have to remember that heka is as much a religion as a physical practice.”
“Even to those like you dad? At the time, you didn’t believe in deity. Yet you still studied.”
“Even to nonbelievers Aoleon. You don’t need to believe in Åmbrosįå for Her power to exist. It’s knowledge that’s hammered into nearly all Magi in their youth. And to…” Samahdemn searched desperately for the right words to impart understanding. “…take heka in that way, without proper prayer or reverence…without the Goddess’ permission, is tantamount to stealing from the very essence of Her. You’re effectively, in a very real way, raping Her.”
“…Wow.” Aoleon gasped. People always knew that, after finding religion, Samahdemn became a very spiritual man. But, the way he said that; “raping Her”. The look of disgust that crossed his face and contorted his features; the way his smoky eye solidified into a solid glowing orb of the darkest black highlighted by the most vibrant purple which harkened back to the appearance of the eyes of the Drågon who gave him his gifts; it was almost frightening.
Fortunately, it wasn’t like when they were beyond the red room. It lasted only for the briefest of moments and his features quickly quieted back down into their more natural state; his eye vaporous again. So quickly had it happened that if Aoleon hadn’t been paying attention it would’ve been as if it never happened at all.
“On a more practical level,” Samahdemn continued, “the word is a literal one; tether. And it’s important to ask yourself what is being teathered to what. Ethereal distance is the cornerstone of heka in mortals. You can never stand next to the Goddess as an equal. You can never directly touch Her power. And to bridge that gap unnaturally is…” Samahdemn was at a loss for words.
“Yes?”
“There’s no word for it. It’s simply wrong. And fatal. Our forms…our bodies were not made to know Her power like that. Tapping into the Flow is a meticulous thing and it must be done with care. There’s no physical level to work towards where one can negate the effects of tethering. Distance is something that Magi spend a great deal of time studying and measuring with care. For those like me as I am now, a Drågoon, the ethereal distance between us and the Goddess is naturally shorter. We’re spiritually closer to Her than others. So we can navigate the Flow faster, with less effort and concentration. Basically an Askew’s tether ties the strings of their soul to the Flow directly. By ignoring ritual and not ‘warming up’ or preparing one’s self to act as a conduit for that power, and without using a proper focus as a buffer, it ‘shocks’ both the body and soul every time a gift is called upon.”
“So, you’re saying that Askew are slowly killing themselves?”
“More than you might realize. It’s theorized that a Askew’s overall life expectancy is shortened by an hour or two with every heka infused pull of the trigger. Possibly more. Crippling migraines, radical blood pressures, attacks of the heart, strokes; all side effects of such practices.”
“So how’d you survive if Askew are so deadly?”
“If you’d asked me then, I’d have said skill mixed with a touch of luck. But now? I don’t really know. I know I should’ve died that day. That much is certain. I was shot three times; in my arm, the chest, and…”
Samahdemn, lifted and twisted his left palm about for his daughter to pay attention to. She never thought it suitable to ask about the gunshot wound that had torn through his ebony coloured hand. Now she was hearing of it in detail. Another piece of the puzzle which was her father.
Directing Aoleon’s attention back to the screen, Samahdemn motioned for her to move on to open the chapter he’d guided her towards earlier.
“The pistol this particular Askew used that left us bleeding on the ground that day is on display behind me on the wall now; the one with the green slide. It’s wielder long sense separated from the land of the living of course.”
Looking up and behind the couch, Aoleon quickly scanned the immediate area on the display shelves and spied a small gun that looked as though it would have belonged to a young, conservative woman. Size wasn’t everything after all. Especially to an Askew if what her father said was true.
It was a common-looking, though illegal, two toned pistol of Hesijuan make; made of composite materials sitting between an equally illegal and rusted high capacity assault rifle and a basic longsword. Black with a green-ish gold slide. Compact. Its bolt was exposed and its clip empty. In opposition to its relative cleanliness, a broken length of chain hung from the bottom of its grip, rusted to the point that it looked as though it would turn to dust if touched.
“The little nine millimeter with the rusty chain?”
“Yep. That’s the one.”
“An unassuming weapon for the most part.” Aoleon stated. “Pretty, but it looks absolutely ordinary.”
“They always are, until they’re in the hands of an experienced Askew who’s taken the necessary time to commit to the cleansing, blessing and tethering rituals. Our run in with Katelyn changed everything. I’d imagine that many people would probably agree that her hunt was the one defining moment that started my assent to where I am now.”
“So, what was it about this conflict that was so pivotal for you? Other than…you know, getting shot? You were a munificence. Getting maimed at work should have been nearly commonplace.”
“That’s the truth if I ever heard it. But it’s wasn’t about me getting shot. It’s about what surrounded it. The confrontation itself forced a very important meeting for us. Several very important meetings actually. Between many important people. More notably, it led to our being awakened to the true nature of the world and the powers that drove it.
“Something that, if you asked me now, I’d say we were all criminally ignorant of up until then. Even to include Waimund, as devout as he tried to be. Not to mention that, as I said, it was yet another instance where there was no reason I should’ve lived. Death was constantly stalking me, yet it never seemed to catch me.”
“It wasn’t your time.”
“Obviously not.” he agreed quietly as his voice quietly veered off in a melancholy-ish sort of way. “It never seems to be.”
“What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Hmm? Nothing. I was just thinking aloud. Anyway, Katelyn was a dangerous sort. That much was stressed in the warrants that came across my desk along with the contract. After I caught wind that it was believed that she may have been an Askew, I realized why her trail had been so difficult for others to follow, and also why her bounty was so high.
“After the Spire, tensions between Magisters and the general populace had been steadily increasing. Formal protests; marches; increased sanctions; even hate related violence and killings. Brigid had been spot on when she said that the public would try to eat the Magisterium alive after the findings from The Spire had been revealed. Magi were starting to retreat into obscurity more and more every year and the chaos made tracking Claire’s movements all the more difficult.
“Which is why, I decided that it would be prudent to employ the help of your godfathers.”
“And the bounty justified the danger involved, did it?”
“Let’s just say that the contract was so lucrative that, even split three ways, it persuaded Waimund to hastily pass two other contracts on to another group of huntsmen closer to home, even after Katelyn’s trail led us far over the land-bridges from Kazakoto to Alphava. He crossed the Bay of Dreams to join me and J on my manhunt a quarter of a continent away for that coin; combing trading towns near The Great Desert. And let me tell you, he hates the heat.
“Claire was a woman who was wanted for a whole litany of things by a whole litany of countries. And, come to find out too late, the group that employed her was of…a singular and deadly reputation, which had its hands dipped into all manner of organized crime from north to south.
“But we’ll get to them later.
“Now, Katelyn was a person who was very well versed in eluding the law. She had extensive financial backing and had apparently become so proficient at covering her tracks that even Jeruian was having trouble keeping her trail. We didn’t even really know what she looked like. But never let it be said that Jeruian wasn’t tenacious. He worked himself ragged as Waimund and I ‘beat the streets’ trying to sniff her out.
“As we started closing the loop on her, we found ourselves focusing in on, and spending a lot of time in, the city of Erune in southwest Alphava. A meager hundred and fifty miles as the crow flies from The Open Sea. And you’d swear that nary a cool breeze passes over it.
“We spent, or wasted depending on how you look at it, months tracking Katelyn Claire’s barely perceptible trail all over the city before she skipped town on us and headed east. We eventually tracked her to Euuil, and after about three weeks of tedious searching, found ourselves on a direct path to finally collide with our quarry.
“And I wasn’t ready. Or, at least, not as ready as I should’ve been.
“Skillsets such as those possessed by the Order are very singular and unique. They’re also excessively technical and quite perishable. Constant practice is needed to keep the body and mind sharp for their use. Practice which I had unfortunately fallen out of. Despite my profession, after so many years, I was too rusty for the situation we found ourselves in. After all, how many bullets does one need to dodge when hunting wraiths or constructs?
“And that lack of preparedness very nearly cost me more than I was willing to pay.
“The day it happened, I’d awoken in a state of ease and comfort. Of warmth. Only to have a near immediate cloud of sadness and dissatisfaction descend on me when I realized I was rousing in the company of a little country ginger girl; lovely for all intents and purposes. But a far cry from the woman who’s arms I thought I was in while I slept.
“I’d dreamt of a relationship far too short, sparked in Koso. Deep in the Tuska Mountains. I’d dreamt of loving a woman long since lost to me. And it saddened me that she’d vanished into the mist of memory with the morning suns.
“I could still smell her scent. Feel her shape. And Jannett, though sweet, simply was not her. She wasn’t even a moderate facsimile. She was a placeholder. Not unlike every other woman in who’s company I found myself any other time since then. But as I moved about and settled more into myself, all of that unease ended up dissolving away. And I was able to once again find some comfort in the present with this woman who’d been giving herself over to me and my bed for the past moon.
“The slow rise and fall of her chest from her relaxed breathing.
“The way the golden light coming in through the windows of my room at the inn poured over her body and danced about the burnt-orange hair that lay on her head and in between her legs.
“The way that the dark freckles rained over her face and body at such a volume that she seemed to almost be swimming in them.
“She was a comfort to me in those early days. A comfort to the man I was.”
Aoleon thought upon this scenario for a moment. This ginger woman he spoke of obviously wasn’t her mother, which made her feel a certain way. But it nonetheless made her feel good to know that at least someone was there for him during his rougher times before he met her. She only hoped that this mystery woman was more than just some random slave girl.
“At least you had someone to talk to.” Aoleon probed.
“Who? Jannett?! No. Although lovely in her own way despite the scars left on her body from her ‘indentured life’, she was…not a serious affair. At least, for me. Definitely not serious enough for that kind of sharing. More like a…friend with the benefit of physical relief. Or, as much of a friend as someone in her position could be to someone in mine. This was a while before I settled down, you understand. Besides, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that what we were sharing wasn’t what I really wanted. Or at least, she wasn’t who I wanted anyway. Not before I met Zåkÿntħos, with my mind constantly fixated on my time with Ñä’, and definitely not after as I found myself swimming in memories of Ëszërį.
“A great many thing became confusing after that meeting, let me tell you.
“Jannett and I met in the early stages of Claire’s hunt. A rather brave soul. Much bolder than most of her kind. Rare is the person who’s raised a slave, especially a former bed warmer, yet has little fear of the master races. When I first met her, she’d even dare to look me in the eye occasionally. Her demeanor was strong; she stood straight backed, head held up. I fret to think how often she’d been slapped around for that type of insolence.
“Honestly, it was a wonder she was alive at all. A state of being we shared.
“I think it’s fair to say that I liked her from the start. And as we continued to hang around each other, well, the physical side to our relationship just sort of…happened. Her willfulness reminded me a lot of…well…like I said, she wasn’t really who I wished she could have been.”
The high princess breathed a sigh of relief. So she wasn’t with him at a slave’s capacity. “I get it.” Aoleon insisted. Not needing him to explain the whys of the arrangement much deeper. “And how exactly did you say you two met again?”
“I didn’t. And it’s not important.”
“She was a rat feeding you information on your bounty wasn’t she?”
“You really are bad at focusing on the important things.” He deflected.
“So she was a sneak.”
“The point is that we enjoyed the time we spent together, regardless of how we spent it or what the basis of our relationship was. No real strings attached, not that there could’ve been anyway. Neither one of us was the type at the time I thought. Especially me. I wasn’t in the right headspace for it. In fact, normally she’d leave before I woke when we slept together. She didn’t often sleep in; byproduct of being an ex-slave.
“All-and-all, she was a nice change of pace for a time.”
“I’ve heard more than once that you had a habit of sleeping around in the old days. Too many women. Too much drink. Too much smoke. All things that could get you killed. And all hearsay until now.”
“Especially the women.” Samahdemn admitted. “I never said I was perfect. Everyone has their imperfections.”
“No matter how embedded in personal trauma they may be.”
“No shortage of that in our family, Love.
“Regardless,” the king stated as he continued with the story. “I groggily dragged myself out of the bed and to the lavatory. Doing my best to be careful not to step on Jannett’s near worn through steel-toe boots, heavy jeans and work shirt that were sprawled about on the floor near the room’s intrusive iron radiator. She’d thrown them down to dry after coming in from the snow which was falling outside when she arrived.
“I showered, frowned at the fact that I had no more cacao or hoba oils to message into my beard to ward off the otherwise inevitable razor bumps that would no doubt start plaguing my face on the morrow, and I examined my ravaged body as I did out of habit every morning.
“I looked over the burns where my chain mail had melted into my skin in the midst of The Spire’s fires and glanced over the still-visible scars on my head around which hair still refused to grow. But I took comfort in small blessings. I was thankful that my burns weren’t all that visible when I was clothed and that my locs had grown out considerably over the years; the thick rope-like strands now long enough to drape over and conceal my head wounds as they touched my shoulders.
“Not that I was vein about my looks mind you. Scars had been a part of my life long before the Spire. And even more so since taking up the mantle of a huntsman. Gun shots, stab wounds, chunks of myself that had been ripped away when I was too slow to avoid a fiend; all that pain and ugliness comes part and parcel with the life of a Knight. Or that of a munificence. I simply found myself wondering daily how much more punishment I would put myself through before my body finally gave up on me.
“By Brŭmal, I sometimes wonder if I would have cared regardless.
“Being the creature of habit that I was, I concluded my morning ritual by putting in the scleral contact lens which I wore every day that mostly masked the unnatural nature of my ocular implant from the masses. I kissed my meditation beads the customary three times in pensive prayer to ensure that their link to me, and by extension, my link to The Flow, remained strong as I wrapped them about my arm. I slowly imbibed my morning cream liquor coffee, allowing it to unravel the remainder of the tight knots in my muscles that the hot shower missed, and I sat another steaming mug of the brew on the nightstand next to Jannett as I left.
“After inspecting the chains on my tires once I arrived on the street, I climbed into my vehicle, stuck my old break action sidearm under the seat and inserted the armrest’s umbilicals into my arm ports; mentally accessing the vehicle’s subsystems. I forced the windshield and all the surrounding glass to polarize via thought, masking the inside of my conveyance from the prying eyes outside as the horseless carriage’s holo displays flickered into being.
“The auto-mobile jostled angrily as its monstrously long engine roared to life. It grumbled with the rhythm of a heartbeat as crude fuel pumped its way through its carburetors. And with my heavy depression of the pedal, her six fat wheels spun eagerly as they found grip and propelled me towards the outskirts of Euuil Village; to the archives where one of my comrades had been diligently working through the night.”
“I still can’t believe that you really asked Brigid to keep that thing.” Aoleon commented. “If there’s any one thing that could’ve singled you out more than a glaive, it’s a Knight’s arm. And here you were, openly carrying one as if it were the right thing to do. Even after Brigid had warned you about it.”
“Not untrue.” King Samahdemn conceded. “I was a bit too sentimental in those days. And a bit too stupid. I’d carried that old break-action for a long time and didn’t have the heart to retire it. It was the only real tie to my former life in the days when that was still important to me. Besides, she’d always fired true and rarely let me down. I tend to stick with what works. What’s familiar.
“Anyway, stopping by the local pastry shop, I picked up a few sugary necessities and popular lattes for the group before meeting up with Waimund at his hotel.
“He was heavily clothed against the elements with his revolver holstered under his coat. Ready for the long ride into town. And without much conversation after the morning niceties other than exchanging a few words about the reoccurring dream that was affecting my mood, he made a bee-line for, and climbed onto, his gargantuan bike. Which, unlike my horseless carriage, was of the steam powered variety as opposed to being driven by a rudimentary combustion engine. And once she’d warmed up, he double checked her saddle boxes for additional coal and ensured that her internal steam pressure was acceptable; taking off confidently with the intention of meeting me at the location we’d all predesignated for our latest meeting.
“I’d offered to drive us both as I always did, but as he always did in turn, Waimund declined. He never liked the idea of traveling in my auto-mobile with me. Too much tech in her. But it always-”
“-Felt rude not to offer.”
“Exactly. Normally, I’d have followed him. But this day I took a separate, more scenic route. Despite the dry cold, which did little to bother my people much in the first place, I was happy for the fresh air and the time to think. Back roads had the distinct advantage of having fewer patrolling lawmen. So I was able to drop my conveyance’s roof and roll down my darkened windows once I left the well-used stone highways; exposing her illegal black-market holographic displays, keypads and numerous toggle switches to the world. And I did my best to allow the cool breeze to help me shake the final remnants of the previous night’s dreams which still clung to my mind.
“After about ten or fifteen minutes of leisurely cruising along snow covered roads that alternated between cobblestone and packed dirt, I arrived at the outlying area where we believed Katelyn had temporarily set down roots and had developed a small network of support for whatever her endeavors were.
“I’d just raised my top as I slowed to a halt and parked my machine near the sleepy township’s quaint downtown area; its streets empty and the majority of its businesses still closed. That’s when I observed Jeruian coming out of what was almost jokingly referred to by the town’s folk as Euuil’s ‘library’.”