He was ready, and patiently waiting for the Idiot. All it would take now was some time, and some minimal effort on Two’s part, and he would sort out the knotted problems the Idiot had begun to make for him. Unknowingly, the Idiot making problems for Two meant problems for the rest of Two’s former Pride, and that could not be allowed.
Two was ready for The Idiot to enter the barracks. He had figured out how to navigate all of the difficult parts of life, and the worst of those problems had just been taken care of for him. The road to a perfect life had never been clear to him until a few months ago, when all the members of his Pride had decided to run. The road had then simply revealed itself, and quickly become as smooth as One’s bottom. He took a moment to think about One. And her bottom. She had been lovely; sometimes overwhelmingly so.
Two sat on the stool by the opening to the tent, in the shadows. The Idiot would be here soon. Hopefully? He had seen the fool amble off to join other mid level officers in drinking their troubles away after a long day of yelling at lower level officers, Dirt Eaters, and the Horva.
Two slowed his breathing, and then slowed his heart. He must be calm for what was to come. He divided his mind. Sitting in the twilight of the tent, he let the nightly rhythms of the camp wash over him, keeping a very small part,a mere spark, of his conscious mind aware of his surroundings, while letting the rest of his mind calmly drift in thoughts and dreams.
When he had not yet been quite ten years old, a tragic accident had happened at his father’s worksite. His mother had set him the task of running a note, and a small wrapped piece of pie to his father. Several tons of marble facing had been unceremoniously dropped on him and his father, and several of his father’s employees. It shattered to dust as it struck him; but being a span shorter than those poor men standing around him at the time, they had all died very (blessedly) quick deaths before the miracle of the marble fracturing, and crumbling around him as it reached him. There was a hush in the courtyard that lasted too long as men ran to see what good they might do in the face of this disaster, with a small boy, covered in stone dust red ichor and crying soundlessly, as the compacted bodies of 9 men.
Later, he sat in his mother’s arms, silently crying as she wailed.
Later, the Royal Guards escort a pair of very old people into his home, wearing the purple and gold robes of the Wizards who served the Kingdom, the Kuljat Amulajat.
He is led from his home, and his mother, the old woman from the Kuljat has placed her hand on the back of his head, and is murmuring what he later learned had been a spell to both calm him, and to steal many of his most basic memories. To Fissal it feels like a pleasant buzzing, a bumble bee beating its wings on his forehead, in his ears, down his spine.
Still later, is on the edge of falling asleep upon a well stuffed mattress in a room with six other children, all roughly his age. None of the other children reacted to Fissal’s soft crying, they all acted without evident emotion. Most lay upon their own beds and simply stare into the night, unmoving and unmoved, waiting for sleep.
A year passed.
Fissal was called Seven, and a member of a Pride of Apprentices in the Golden Halls of the Kuljat Amulajat.
He trained to be a wizard, a Prince of the Kingdom and one of its fiercest defenders. Like all members of the various Prides in the training halls, he was taught reading, math, alchemy, and, above all, magic; but unlike his fellows, he had yet to be able to cast even a single spell.
Three more years, A new Pride. He is now Four. When a student fails, their memories of themselves are again erased, and they are placed in a new Pride.
Another two years, Fissal meets One. She has just failed to pass from her old Pride to a Wizards’ Circle. Fissal is also a failure, and casts not even a single spell, much to the consternation of the Masters. He sees One escorted by the Elder Masters to the Black Room, they will remove her memories, and he thinks at the time, she may be a better person for it afterward.
At regular intervals, one Master or another yells at him in frustration. One Master even hurls enough fire at Fissal, that everything in the room that is not stone, is rendered to ash; and some of the stone warps. The Master preserves himself with a suite of spells, and glows a light blue in the hellish blaze, cackling and screaming his fury at a now nude Fissal. He stands in the center of the training room as the Master tries to kill him. His hair burns away just after his clothing. He later learns his eyebrows and body hair are also gone. Interesting...he thought. It itches as it grows back. After two days of the constant itch, he wills it to grow back in all at once. It feels indecently pleasant to grow his hair back at this accelerated rate.
They tell him they can FEEL his deep well of power, his absolute wealth of magic, but while he has learned the spells, the procedures, the processes to perfection, any spell that requires magic to manifest outside of his own body is stymied. The closest he has ever come is to produce the spell effects upon his own skin.
Another year, and he is now Two, and a newly wiped One is the newest head of his Pride. She has not become any more pleasant, though he finds her even lovelier than she had been before. She is a vision of youthful beauty, confidence and poise. One is tall for a woman, curvy as a mountain road, with gold tinged eyes lighter than the honey, skin just a shade darker than polished cherry wood, and has the classical features every patrician family in the Kingdom hopes for their own daughters to have.
She is also more toxic than the worst poisons the maddest of alchemists has ever produced. She may also be mad, Two cannot tell anymore. When the child Apprentice, Five, quickly proves to be the smartest and most sane of the Pride, and all look to him for direction, Two thought his days would be numbered. But, One accepts this, solely because Five demonstrated to her that she can take all the credit for the Pride’s achievements, while doing none of the actual work. She has ability, but beyond wanting to live in wealth and luxury, and have influence, she couldn't care less about what it takes to graduate to a Wizards’ Circle.
One regularly throws temper tantrums about her status as an Apprentice. She has “Private Lessons” with at least three of the Masters. She gains what privileges she thinks she deserves, except elevation to a Circle.
Three, the Blue child, is an adept and obedient apprentice. He is rarely punished, and if he is beaten by the Masters for anything, it is an even bet that his silent nature unnerved a Master, and they took a petty revenge on him by having one of the newly ascended Wizards punish him. Three’s silence is his only defense from this life. He hoards his words, keeping everything he can from those who would take everything he has left. He is handsome, quiet, and eerily calm. Two has never been quite certain what Three strives for, but he knows Three is competent, and Three will stand up even when common sense says he should sit down if he feels slighted.
Four is as talented in spellweaving as Five; may be as smart as him, too. She watches the world around her, and uses every detail to win. Each scrap, down to the last crumb of the observable world, she will catch it and funnel it into what strategies she has at hand. Two has watched her grow from a timid girl into a ferocious Wizard. Four has been kindly, if secretly, protecting Three, One, and Five for years now. Smiling one moment, and stoically contracting the air in a vise to crush a man who tried to harm one of them in a training match the next moment. She would be a Maestra within a year of gaining a Circle.
She is not as pretty as One by Kingdom standards, her nose too long, her eyes too dark, and her hair too curly. Her family may have Blues somewhere in the recent past because she is pale. but her slender, gamine frame, swaying down the corridors of the training halls as though she was walking the decks of some ship upon the oceans far away has caught the attention of many young students. Two knew of a few Masters who would have crushed her for refusing their advances, had not several of the Maestras pointed out the needs of the Kingdom during war time. And possibly threatened them, too; Two wasn’t sure but would not have doubted it.
Six is a nightmarish demon, inspiring pants shitting cold sweats in his opponents in both the dueling pits, and in the training rooms, but is as clueless, kind, and naive as a lamb in the rest of his daily life.
The Masters directing him to fight is akin to tossing a Hardfire globe. Outwardly, a simple, unassuming, ceramic shell. Almost pretty in its plain simplicity. Once thrown, once committed to a course of action, horrifying destruction is the only outcome. An avid student, and attentive Apprentice, Six would learn whatever lessons were put before him, though he would, on occasion, need Five’s help. Six was eager to please the Masters of Kuljat Almulajat. Six believed in his role as protector of the Kingdom. SIx was the Apprentice the Masters all wanted to claim to have trained.
Had Two not known about Six’s bent for loyalty towards the small family unit their Pride had become, he wouldn’t have been certain of Six’s agreeing to leave this life behind. Six, Two would have bet, was invested in his role here. Six had wanted this life. Or so Two had thought before Five upset the entire cabbage cart.
Healthy, more than handsome, his ruddy hair and earthen toned skin would fit in anywhere in the three Southern Kingdoms. Several female members of other Prides had often said Six would grow into a very handsome man someday, which Two had read as “He’s not much now, but may improve. If given time.” Two would allow that this was certainly a possibility. Though he was a bit chubby, and his ears jutted out like the handles on beer mugs, in Two’s opinion.
Hamuria never thought of itself as “One of the Southern KIngdoms,” but it was the western most of that interconnected cultural and trading triad. Just as Six never thought of himself as “A deadly, nightmarish fate that happened to people,” everyone just happened to know it was a fact.
The Velspe army knows what Six looks like, roughly, and they have been known to retreat from the field if they catch sight of Six on the battleground. It was probably the sight of Six’s uniform, and his coloration… they wouldn't want to get too close, to find out. Two had seen Master Vrialle stride forward in battle, leading his Circle, and the Velpse wizards and soldiers came on. Another day, Master Vrialle had boldly strode forth, with Six acting as his support, and the Velpse turned and fled the field. Master Vrialle had begun to bring Six with him regularly, and it had become the easiest, safest rotation for Master Vrialle in the recent days of this war. If the Velpse saw Six, they fled; otherwise, Vrialle would stand back and allow Six to take to the van, and he would then marvel as Six destroyed wizards and cavalry, archers, infantry, and even local geography on really bad days. Sometimes it was the entire Pride, other times, it was just… Six. The Demon. The Catastrophe that Walks.
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He knew Six as a kind hearted, straightforward young man, who was interested in maps, and illumination work. He had a fair hand at art, as well. In another life, Six may have made for a celebrated scrivener and illuminator. In this life, however, Six was an errant spark in a bakery.
Two had first heard a heavy cavalry captain once talk about captured Velpeen soldiers singing a song of having survived their brush with “il Kazkamortale.” Likewise, some of the Hamurian soldiers had recently even begun referencing “the Kazka” in hushed, reverent tones.
Two lately had heard the song, himself; it was a rousing story of a young, valorous, handsome Velpeen soldier escaping with his life from the “Walking Evil Cascade of Death” while thousands died horribly around him, and will his love still be waiting for him when he returns from this war? Would she still want him now, knowing that he had been marked for death? Would she think him a coward for having survived? Knowing that il Kazkamortale was probably coming for him? Would there be anywhere they could run to? Anywhere to hide? And would there be dinner? It was a long song. And most of the Velpeen captive soldiers sung the song in their pens now. It could go on for quite a long time every evening.
Two didn’t think Six knew about the song. Nor about the title the Velpse had given him; Two did know that Six had earned it, though. On the battlefield, Six was as implacable as an Earthquake, a Flood, and a Forest Fire, all at once. If there were any spells Six knew and could use that were more subtle, or less deadly, than the wholesale destruction that Six regularly wove across the warfront, Two would have been very surprised.
Two more years pass, and the war has begun. All of the advanced Prides are being moved to the front. The majority of training now involves magic as it applies to battle. To killing. More experienced Prides are sent into battle to act as backup to the Circles. Sometimes they are sent out with smaller forces to achieve smaller goals. Some prides are cut down in battle.
It is war.
Years of war. Years of killing. Two acts as a personal guard to his Pride. He cannot cast spells outside of himself, but he can run faster than a horse, is stronger than a bull, swords and arrows don't bother him. He can wreath himself in flames, or lightning, and stand in front of his Pride, defending them from attack as they in their turn, lash out at the enemies of the Kingdom with magical ability beyond his grasp.
All throughout his years of fruitless training, the Masters of the Kuljat Amulajat had regularly compared Two to the Horva. Early days, when he had been younger, Two was horrified by the idea. The Mindless slaves turned into magical engines of destruction. Hamuria does not make Horva, though the Kuljat Amulajat did teach the theory of how to do it to generation after generation of Apprentices. The Kingdom of Hamuria doesn’t make Horva… but, since the war began, the Kingdom certainly buys them. The Army buys all the HOrva they can, and then throws them, those living weapons, directly into the teeth of the Velpse army.
These last few months he had lived amongst the Horva in the camps. In their filthy pens. There are mere traces of the people they used to be just under the surface, behind their eyes. In the smallest hesitations they attempt before succumbing to their compulsion to follow orders. Two saw a female Horva, her femininity stripped away by the magics placed upon her by the slavers, crying. She did not hesitate to do as commanded, and her expression never changed, but there was a steady line of tears running from her eyes as she ran, sword and shield in her hands, towards the opposing army. As their detachment crossed the muddied field, running in lockstep with one another, she cried. He doesn't know if they live, whole, inside their minds, or if small fragments are all that remain to the poor slaves.
He doesn't care. He can protect his family by staying with the army. Unraveling the greater evils in this world is not a job Two thinks he could ever do, and until this last year, he wasn't sure he had ever even consciously acknowledged those evils were present. But, this was not his goal. Saving his family.
Being unnoticed, he can keep the Pride safe from what the Kingdom and the Masters of the Golden Spires, the Kuljat Amulajat, had planned for them all. And he will.
Fissal has spent so many years not being called Fissal, he no longer cares about nor for the name. Some days he wonders about his mother. He wonders if his uncle has taken over the family business. If one of his cousins, surely now an adult themselves, is in charge of the building crews.
Most days, however, he is Two. And his family is Three, Four, Five, Six, and, to some sad extent, One. He missed each and every one of them now.
They were all now his younger siblings (Even One). Fissal wanted them to escape, once he knew that was the plan. Two wanted that even more than “Fissal.”
When the others had fled to the Four Winds, he had stayed; but he had hidden himself away amongst the Horva. Two had never been able to manifest any magical effect outside of his own skin, and so his plan had been to enhance himself with magic, like a Horva slave, even marking his forehead with the glowing runic tattoos that would complete the visual transformation. He had learned long ago that few if any of the Quartermasters ever learned to distinguish amongst the Horva tags. Unlike the Horva, the runes on his forehead would not make him an obedient, unthinking, weapon of war. His markings were merely cosmetic.
Closer now; Two could hear the slow, and clumsy footsteps of The Idiot.
The tag system the slavers of Salmet used incorporated three lines of runes overlapped one upon the other. Spells for “Strength,” “Speed,” and “Health” were the most common, but far from the only tag components used. Some tags used more subtle spells, like “Grace,” or “Stealth,” or brutal spells, like “Force” and “Unbreakable.” All written in luminous pain, in an ancient language, carved deeply across the brows of the now mindless husks. Rarely more than three, because the body of the average slave would break down with too much energy moving through it, much like a mage overextending themselves.
Dying of asalogee was horrifying to the gifted, and the killing off of the slaver’s stock by asalogee was horrifying to the slavers who created and sold them. The art, if one could call making magical slaves an art, was to balance the vast power you put into the slave with the frailty of the human form. A well made Horva, themself, was even proof against most magic cast at them; it would take a spell more powerful than the spells used to create them to break through and damage them. Another terrifying reason Horva were such effective weapons in war.
Twenty spans away, in the darkness of the camp, he could hear The Idiot stop at the edge of another tent. Why is he stopped now? The low grunt of a drunk man, followed by a stream of liquid hitting the side of a canvas wall. Oh...Ew…
The Idiot was a member of the Quartermasters in the Royal Army, and he was afforded a tent of his own, due to rank and station. It was a small, two span by two span tent, tall enough to fully stand up in, with a cot, a small chest for belongings and clothes by the end of the cot, a brazure, and a small stool, on which Two now sat in the shadows by the tent’s door, that had rested beneath an obviously never used small writing desk that could double for a table. This was all this military functionary owned. This was all he could have to look forward to, as the man wasn't a member of any royal line, his current rank of Sergeant was as high as a grocery and logistics man could ever rise, not even an actual officer rank.
When he had read Two’s tag this afternoon, The Idiot had laughingly proclaimed that he would be rich from this day onward! Two had continued to play the mindless slave, and stoically stood as The Idiot had danced around him. After a short time, he had ordered Two to “Stay in this room! STAY!”
Then he had run off to tell whomever he thought would pay him some reward for noticing the ancient runes spelled terms on Two’s forehead. The Idiot even giggled to himself as he walked.
The tag that for the last several months had been on his forehead designated Two as “STRENGTH-SPEED-FORCE-HEALTH-COOKIES.”
He knew he shouldn't have done something so obvious, but Two had gotten cocky, and he had to admit, silly. He thought nobody would look closely enough to bother translating his tag. Whether anyone did or not, Two shouldn't have. And now he had to clean up his mess. He had already changed the tag to a more conventional Strength/Force/Health, but he still had to ensure his safety. Two couldn't assume The Idiot wouldn't tell anyone up the command chain what he had seen. He couldn’t assume The Idiot wouldn’t remember his face, even though most people would only see the tag, not the person beneath.
So, he waited. And let his mind wander as he listened now for his prey to finish his drunken peeing, and return to his tent to sleep off his evening of overindulgence.
One had been his age, unlike the rest of their Pride, who were all much younger,and as angry with her lot in life as he himself had been. She and he… they were the oldest members of their Pride. He thought they might bond over the various similarities they shared; in his daydreams, Two had spent too many hours imagining a future world where he and One would be… together. Not necessarily married, Two didn’t think Wizards of the Kingdom actually got married. But, together. Until he had actually gotten to know her. Within the first two years of his apprenticeship, Two had become infatuated, longed for her to notice all he had done for her, then horrified that such a beautiful shell could enclose such a cold, vapid, selfish creature.
One was like the pies the soldiers were given once a month. Rare, and sought after, but once the wrapper was off, you could see the ugly truth that lay beneath. A cracked yet soggy crust, and no actual blueberries, just a purple, runny slurry. Who would love that mess? NO ONE!
Okay...Two admitted, that was a bad metaphor. Two knew it, but he hadn’t been the member of his Pride known for scholarship. Nor general polish, and manners. Or even real intelligence. He had been The Failure. The failure of the Pride, the Masters, and of his own dreams.
There hadn't been a moment in his life these last eighteen years when he had excelled at anything beyond using magic to alter his own body. Tougher, Stronger, Faster, all the things Horva was, but free thinking. He could even make his body do things the slavers had never succeeded in achieving with the Horva. He could, at will, wreath his body in flame, lightning, or even a killing fog. He had once even just emitted light from every inch of his form for a week. The Masters had been shocked and scandalized.
In a soldier, what he could do would have been the dream of any commander; but for a mage of any kind, his shortcomings with magic were disastrous.
...FINALLY!...
The Idiot entered his tent, clumsily walking past Two, as he sat in the shadows by the open door flaps. He stumbled toward his cot, and stood in front of it, exhaling heavily as he wavered on his feet. Two stood, and calmly walked up behind the man. With a heavy exhale of his own, he said the words that in any other wizard would send a small bolt of lightning from his hand to its target. Two reached out, with the fingers of his right hand covered in the minute, coruscating flashes of the contained spell dancing from knuckles to fingernails, and seized The Idiot by the scruff of his neck.
The Idiot gurgled, and spasmed as his teeth repeatedly crunched, and clacked together for a span of three heartbeats before he was allowed to crumple forward onto his bunk.
Two had an idea, something he wanted to try.