Quertra hung above The Wyrm. His Constant was bound by thick heavy chains that were wrapped through windows. She was like a statue, in both her placid face and rippling physique. In that context, her lack of a left arm strangely fitting. Her expression was icy, wild red hair coming down on all sides.
She closed her eyes, breathed slowly, then opened them again. “I am ready.”
The Wyrm wasn’t. His time with this body since getting total control could still be measured in hours, he wanted to savor this newfound mental independence, not waste it on this sort of makeshift therapy session.
“Interesting choice.” He eyed the chains, fit to dock ships. “Who tied you up?”
”Daaz and Johann, who else? They seemed to enjoy it.” She wiggled in her restraints, her face deadly serious. “The other times we couldn’t predict when the old man would take you over, so I had to make due with a simple rope and tie.” She smiled, The Wyrm hadn’t seen her smile before. “Now that I know you won’t be leaving us, I can finally give this the care it deserves.”
It wasn’t necessary. The Wyrm would have preferred a non fatal duel between him and her. That would at least amount to a social visit. This ritual he did for Quertra bordered on masochistic.
But he owed her for existing. It wasn’t much trouble for him, even if human memories always had an aftertaste he had never gotten used to.
He summoned his Remark. The tip scraped the wall some nine feet to his right. Its name was Angel’s Spawn, though it resembled an angel's wing if anything, bleach white and with metallic drips that some saw as feathers.
With a sigh, he struck.
In his mind, a new memory.
He was small and could barely walk. Above the gnarled metal of the living room, three men were arguing about something that was driving them to hysterics. He half crawled, half stumbled to an oval window, and below on streets in colors strange he saw the city patrol pounding on the door with a battering ram.
His vision was jolted away when one of the men grabbed him and placed a ticket of some sort in his grubby hands. He kept mouthing the same words over and over again in desperation, but the Wyrm couldn’t understand him. At that moment the door was blown off its hinges and the memory ended.
”What did you get? Mine was digging through endless dirt.”
That was all of his mother’s memories, all of them sacred. It should have come to no surprise to Quertra at this point.
“A confusing one. I think I was you as a child, there were men in a small room, the city outside was unfamiliar. A door blew up then the dream ended.”
Quertra wrinkled her nose. A moment ago she would have been able to answer him, but now the memory was gone, and she was as clueless as him. “I don’t think I was born in Gutworth, it could be connected.” She squirmed in her chains, “My Wyrmship, if you’d be so kind, strike me again.”
The Wyrm, if he was honest, wasn’t interested in her life. Over the years he had amassed quite the collection of Quertra’s experiences, but it was like being mailed a puzzle one piece at a time. He didn’t have the patience to put them together. He struck again. This memory was wet and soaked his ears.
He was standing in an open chest cavity, surrounding him were people with signs asking for better wages and better hours. Electronic tickers pulsed and weaved through the stucco walls, all with the same message, “SELL SELL SELL”
Instead of doing that, they all stared silently at him. Hand over mouth was a common expression. Less common but still present were those openly retching.
He looked down, he was wearing his host’s armor, but his form was far taller and feminine. Very gingerly, he stepped out of the small pond that was the man's carved stomach and addressed the strikers in a voice that was not his own. “Your strike will be paid in bodies, one for every hour this continues.” From a platform above them, a door suddenly blew off its hinges. Then the memory ended.
“You in our early days, putting down a strike.” He decided not to mention that this one also ended with a door being blown open. “She wasn’t there.”
”Unfortunate.” She looked down, he had never seen her look uncertain. “Lets try one more time.”
He struck again. The memory squeezed in and he let himself be crushed.
The smell of fried squish snakes in the late green evening, the sound of celebrants as they struck matches together, while others got the festival’s pyre in working order with grunts and curses. A hand was gripping his, a girl wearing a bright red dress was smiling at him. The sensations around them rose to a crescendo as she stood on her tippy toes for a kiss, and then a free standing door blew up.
He came to with a gasp. It was potent, that one.
“The girl you hate, you and her were at a festival of some sort.”
She offered a half smile. “That’s good, we’re getting closer. I think next time we’ll finally get it.” She looked down at her chains as if seeing them for the first time, “don’t need these anymore.”
With a groan, she summoned her Remark, an armored right arm in the brightest red, and pulled the chains off of her as if they were a blanket.
Underneath she was dressed in business casual street wear, already ready for the meeting. She walked straight through the door and down the spiral staircase.
“Incidentally,” he said, following, “there was something odd with the doors.”
…
The Wyrm the city knew as Morgan Lemure was out and about for the first time in years. The tableau he had seen daily from unfinished tower walls was disorienting to see from below. How many more were up there, watching him in the way he had watched thousands of others.
“And as you can see work has already started on your latest project!” Daaz said, excitedly running laps around the much slower Lemure. They had passed a small building that once served as a lodge for the fishers. Now it was a boot camp. Johann was testing those who had survived the failed battle royale that float rat Montanna had tried to run.
A tired looking man with a two pronged Remark laughed silently as he gouged out the eyes of his sparring partner. Johann came reluctantly to the injured one's aid as the winner backed off with a smug self satisfaction.
The Wyrm glanced away to Quertra. She was walking behind him, straight as a pole with hands clasped and hidden from view.
“Do make sure some survive. What’s the point in these tryouts if they all kill each other?”
Quertra stifled a laugh. He wanted to ask what was so funny, but he knew from experience he wouldn’t get the joke.
”I’ll handle it boss!” Daaz said, and ran off to talk some sense into Johann. If nothing else, that one was a go-getter.
Knowing this would take a bit (not due to Daaz’s slowness, but the inability for everyone else to go as fast as she desired) The Wyrm continued walking, not interested in seeing how that confrontation played out. She’d catch up eventually.
Quertra motioned towards the opening of a large tube, their destination was inside.
The ground grew spongy under the Wyrm’s feet. This tube was an enormous pipe that snaked across the city right into the ocean. Its innards, a crystal substance that melted when exposed to air, had long ago been scooped out, and now the larger parts of it served as a spot for more illicit affairs. A black market for a town where everyone dealt in contraband.
“I want to apologize for leaving you trapped in him for so long,” she ducked under the pipe, her eyes flashed for a second and her Remark hand produced a purple flame. Stands lined the tube like parasites, few were occupied. Most empty save the remains of merchandise and former sellers. “Johann was always available, we could have gone to him at any time.”
“Well…” A pause, the Wyrm cherished the silence in his head. “Why was it you waited?”
“In truth… we appreciated the freedom it gave us. To have a leader at our command.”
He didn’t offer a response, but he held no ill will. He handpicked them for their lack of fanaticism. The idea of having true worshippers, not fair weather power mongers, disgusted him.
A man wearing a veritable shop on his back clammered by, his sales pitch going quiet when he saw the two of them. The Wyrm snatched a dangling bell off the salesman’s leg as he ran past. “Do you fear that freedom won’t last?”
He held the bell out to her and moved it around in a circular motion. Inside was a gray liquid that sloshed around, but in the opposite direction to his motion.
Gently, she took the bell from his hand and placed it in a breast pocket. “Somewhat, but I know you well. You don’t need for much outside of a warm place to sleep and food in your belly.”
He smiled, those words were nostalgic for him. It reminded him of being back in his mother, and how beautiful it was.
A man wearing a dress of leather straps stored confidently into view. He stopped at the brick wall opposite them and knocked twice. He waited, and then knocked again. Hands crossed behind him, he waited far longer than was appropriate for someone to wait, before leaving with his head stooped when passersby’s started to heckle.
”How about him?” She pointed at the man, now leaving, “I could kill him for you. Cook him up and make you a nice human stew. Belts attached of course.”
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”I find your assumption of me rather distasteful.” He got up with a heavy grunt, and walked over to where the man had been standing. “I’m a few centuries away from needing to eat flesh.”
He balled his hand into a fist, and knocked twice on the wall. He was positioned four feet from where the man with the belts had knocked. A second pass.
Then a small crack expanded into an opening, and the two of them slid through into darkness. “Wait, wait!” Daaz’s voice was rough and coarse as she shoved her way into the room. He had almost forgotten about her.
A single light bulb dangled over a table fit only for playing cards. Two figures stood around it. One had black hair done in a bob and an equally severe expression. She was staring at them expectantly, arms folded. The other was slumped on the table, strawberry blonde hair that looked like a wet mop. They both wore armored suits. Business suits with dress and tie padded lightly but noticeably.
”Evie Terror.” The one slumped on the table said as a greeting, her head came up slowly. She crawled over the table like a abberation, her body bent at odd angles. “And the one I owe ten orbits to is Tantrum Coda.”
”Just Coda.” Coda said, looking down and tucking in her suit. “Suffice to say I’m enthused you made it.”
”And I!” From the table, Evie threw a small bag of currency to Coda, who caught it without looking. “Am debt free.”
”By the end of this conversation, we hope you’ll be too.” Coda focused a disproportionate amount of her energy on Daaz, staring at her as if she was in charge. Daaz thrived on attention, and seemed to welcome it, shooting Coda very suggestive expressions whenever the Luminescians eyes lingered.
”Fine then.” Morgan said. This was all rather demeaning, they probably expected him to grovel. “Lets make this quick.”
Quertra opened up her coat to reveal nine bags of Blood dust, each the size of an over sized float rat, and writhing like one too.
”What we have is three times the monthly Tithe.”
”That's not all you owe, you owe us six months.”
”I am aware of that.” HIs voice scraped the chambers low wall, he gripped his Mothers carapace as if it was his own skin. “What we are willing to offer is three times the normal rate monthly for the next three months.”
The two said nothing, just looked at him as if he was a stain on the wall they had only just noticed.
He decided to treat them like idiots, for he was starting to feel like one. “You will get a full year of tithes, as an appreciation of our partnership, and apology for the last six months.”
”What happened exactly?” Evie cracked her bones in quick succession, twisting her torso to right her head while keeping her limbs rooted to the table. “All we know is the chaos that cult has brought to our gates, and the headache that is the refugees from your Legacy.”
”Not that there's any difference.” Mumbled Coda, seeming to think her words were beneath The Wyrm’s notice. They were not.
“The chaos is familiar to us, and we apologize if our location had anything to do with them entering your town.” It couldn’t be helped, Devon was the true danger. The cult, which he had learned about by paying attention, was the name of Montanna’s group, and would have been wiped out easily if it wasn’t for Devon’s refusal to die.
“They set your houses on fire then went screaming to us for more kindling.” Coda said. Her face friendly, she illustrated her anger with movement, walking around the table in large aggressive circles, marking each rotation with a stroke of Evie’s chin. Their chemistry was commendable. “Do you know that some of our men are even starting to-“
Evie put a hand on Coda’s mouth, and took over. She moved off the table and pushed her partner down. Coda was on her knees, coming up to Evie’s own as the girl rose.
“Some of my men are getting impatient.” Evie said, unconvincingly. Not “our”, mine.
Daaz and Quertra shared a look. The Wyrm cracked his fingers.
“It seems I’ve been looking at this situation all wrong,” he splayed out his hands, revealing nothing but his deathly pale palms. “Please, tell me your demands.”
Coda answered quickly. “We want GutWorth.”
“Beg pardon?,” the Wyrm said, cupping a hand to his slit of a left ear.
“We have been friendly to you because you’re beneath our notice and have done well in keeping riff raff out. Thats no longer the case.” She snapped her finger. Her Remark appeared as a halo above her, made out of shadow. “If you cannot deliver the tithe and what you owe us in back tributes, we have orders from the top to take over immediately.”
It was then that the Wyrm noticed the pair's clothing was wet, like they had swam all the way from Luminescia to the dock. Coda scratched her hand. The Wyrm saw the edges of a very dark stain on her wrist.
Fascinating” He looked the two up and down, chancing a smile that came too easily. “I suppose if I kill you that will be a declaration of war.”
“Who said we came alone?” Said Coda. She put her foot on the chair in a strangely seductive fashion. Despite the bluff, her partners worried glance told a very different story.
“You will all be killed” Evie stared directly at The Wyrm, her words couldn’t hide her clear worry. “The bones of your city will break. We will replace them with ligaments whose strength you cannot fathom.”
He was impressed. The original Lemure, a slave to aesthetics, would have been convinced and surrendered on the spot. But The Wyrm saw the way Evie’s mouth quivered, he could tell her mind was still racing from Coda’s false brag, that she had unwittingly made it clear that the opposite was true. Within Evie’s boast was a modicum of truth. Luminescia had those resources, these two did not.
They were expecting to deal with a senile old man, not the new young thing that had bloomed from his corpse.
He put two and two together easily, their nervousness combined with the fact that they swam here told a very simple story. There was a civil war in Luminescia, the madness they spoke of already taken hold. These two were refugees pretending to be big shots.
He pointed at Coda.
“Daaz, Quertra, kill the other one.”
Coda got her Remark out, a steel pipe of pink fire, as the two Constants swarmed her.
A bolt of light erupted from the Remark and singed Quetra’s jacket. Her own Remark burst from her nub like a crimson avalanche and plowed through Coda’s chair.
Coda flopped to the ground in a mad rush but Daaz was prepared. Grasping her shoulders she kneed her once, then twice, then after that keeping count was pointless.
The Lumenescian runaway fired blindly in return, but it was clear who would be leaving here alive. As Quetra whispered the words that preceded death, The Wyrm made sure to block Evie’s view. Unfortunately, there was no way to block the sound.
”When only one returns, it’s not as bad of a message, is it?” The Wyrm said, as something very wet hit the ground behind him. “Tell them that we will need another month for the tithe.”
“I will tell them that you were dead when we arrived.” Suddenly her shadowy halo broke from the wall and came at him. A touch of emptiness slipped through when it collided. That familiar feeling of helplessness returned. For a second everything but his hands was a thousand miles away.
“Morgan!” Daaz was on the girl like a cry wolf, all claws and teeth. Evie seemed defenseless, shielding her face and shutting her eyes tight. The emptiness was gone as suddenly as it had come. The Wyrm watched the shadow move towards Daaz as he righted himself.
”Daaz, make yourself scarce.” Annoyed but obedient Daaz practically tossed herself off Evie and into the shadows, the girl's strange Remark followed. Evie looked up in time to see him bring Angel's Spawn down on her arm.
She flinched. She expected a kill shot, for sure.
Only one hit would be necessary.
She stared at the small cut, hand shaking. Her pupils dilated, he could see his Mother in her eyes..
The Wyrm had a new memory.
He was walking down a city foreign to him, the neon lights in a single alley more stimulating than the entire downtown district of Gutworth. Noticeably, no door exploded this time.
A high pitched scream from the darkness. Evie’s Remark must have found Daaz.
”It would benefit you to release my friend.” He said calmly, “If not I will have to do that again.”
Evie stared at him with a vacant look, like her mind was empty. She looked at the ground. Then at her hand. Ground. Hand. Ground. Hand. She faceplanted and started fiendishly working at one of the small rocks that made up the floor. She was trying to access the enriching nutritious dirt that lay beneath. He didn’t have to guess, he knew.
”What… What did you do to me?” She said, seeming oblivious to the way her hands were bleeding from her efforts.
“A simple exchange.” He enjoyed explaining it. “One of your memories.” The stroll through Luminescia “For one of my mother’s.” One of thousands of her digging endlessly through tunnels, eating dirt by the river full.
She would now crave the stuff in the same way all Wyrms did.
Quertra, now covered in blood, walked over to where Evie was digging and sampled the dirt with a finger.
She smiled, he was sure it tasted oh so sweet.
”Please reverse it.” Evie begged, her whole body quivering, “you can do that, right?”
”No I can’t, but I can stop it from getting worse”
She agreed with a sharp nod of her head. He ruffled her hair like a prized show pet.
“You are saved.” He said, and that was not true, but she would have to believe it.
…
Another cut, another memory.
He was Quertra once again, this time with both arms. He was facing off against the woman in red in a duel. The woman Quertra hated.
He remembered her name now. Joyce.
Both of their Remarks were rudimentary and undeveloped. This must be tryouts, he thought, judging by the men in Death Wyrm masks who watched from behind iron bars, and the deranged faces of other hopefuls yelling for blood. A younger version of his host was watching from above. He couldn’t tell which of them was in control.
What sluggish movements from Quertra. What lack of any decent form. She was trying to kill, but she didn’t know how.
Joyce refused to fight back. She held her Remark up defensively, but never did she swing.
“You’re mocking me,” he said in Quertra’s voice, “you’re mocking me”
He didn’t know if she could hear the words over the din. He didn’t know if it was true.
Suddenly, he unsummoned his Remark and went straight for Joyce’s throat. The crowd held their breath as one. Joyce tried to move her Remark out of the way, or maybe at the last second she had finally decided to attack.
The intent didn’t matter. What happened next was that Joyce cut through his arm like butter.
The crowd went wild. As they should have, it was a shockingly efficient move for someone who had spent the match whimpering.
Free of any pain, the Wyrm could appreciate how clean of a cut it was. Staring down at Quertra’s now severed arm (it was still difficult not to view it as his own) he let out a dull groan. How sickly it looked, how unlike the red weapon that had replaced it. From the shock, or potentially from blood loss, he fell down.
From the ground he remembered Joyce screaming. From the ground he saw the crowd shake the bars and demand his execution. Joyce held out her Remark, and for a second, it could have gone either way.
Joyce chose to die. Amidst a chorus of boos Joyce’s body hit the ground, and he heard his own voice announce him as winner.
”I’ll make it up to you,” he said in Quertra’s voice, “I promise, I’ll do anything I can.”
He spoke not to Joyce, but to Morgan.
…
”I feel lighter,” Quertra said as he came to, “I can’t remember the weight, but I think it’s been lifted.”
The Wyrm thought about the way Joyce smiled before she cut her own throat. There was no difference between that smile and the one at the festival. Or when they had first met, or their first date, or the day they had signed up to be part of the Legacy.
“Thats good Quertra,” he said, “we’ve done it, I am certain.”
In a hundred years, he would be underground. He would be feasting on dirt, he would be tunneling towards the Visionary, ready to bite down on infinity.
At the moment, he was a larvae puppeteering a man named Morgan, with memories he did not need.
“Would you mind leaving,” the Wyrm asked her, as gently as he could, “I would like to be alone now.”