“You’re familiar.” The voice was rather unpleasant. It sounded like two pieces of metal scraping against one another.
A second voice was dry as a desert wind, and just as warm. “No, she only feels familiar.”
“Compatible… What are you? Are you a living organism? You cannot be. Are you a compatible machine?” Third voice sounded just as unnatural as the first two did. She doubted that a human mouth could make that sound. It sent chills down her spine.
Spine? Where is my spine? Who am I? Where am I?
“Who are you?” Three voices asked Auria at the same time. They repeated the question, again and again, speaking at the same time. “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?”
Her heart was pounding madly, her head was spinning. She flew through pitch black darkness, with bright stars shining all around her, yet they were too dim and too far away to produce any significant illumination.
“Who are you?”
She ran through a bright corridor. The walls were made of polished metal, and she could see her reflection in them, as if she ran through a mirror maze.
“Who are you?”
She flew above the ocean and she saw the Citadel fleet in all its glory, standing still, clustered around a strange island. Few of the ships were burning…
“Who are you?”
A golden-clad army marched through the gates of the city unknown to her, carrying white and gold banners fluttering in the wind.
“Who are you?”
A four armed humanoid bashed madly with a large, blacksmith’s hammer into a white hot bar of metal. A vivid intelligence of his three, blood-red eyes was hidden underneath the hood that hid his inhuman features.
“Who are you?”
Thin creatures she knew as Whispers were gliding above the ground like paper sheets carried by the wind, tens, hundreds of them hurrying somewhere, hidden by the snow, hidden by their color-changing bodies, hidden like their deadly, scythelike claws.
“Who are you?”
Giant wall, marvelous, grandiose, spanning from horizon to horizon. Atop of the wall, lethal things she knew were fire-throwers watched silently, waiting to unleash their burning death towards any uninvited guests. Behind the wall, a wasteland that was once a glorious home to a long dead civilization. Last of them, as twisted as their former home, hiding in the tunnels beneath the wall…
“Who are you?”
She stopped.”I am Auria. Who are you?”
The voices in her head began to thrash around like mindless beasts.
“She spoke to us?”
“She can hear us?”
“Can she hear others?”
“Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you heAR ME? cAn yOU HEar ME?”
More and more voices joined in the cacophony of screams she heard inside her mind. “YES!” She screamed. “I can hear you all! Who are you?”
“We…”
“Are…”
“The…”
“Dead.”
***
“Wake up, Auria.” Naira shook her shoulder and Auria woke up, startled. She looked around, trying to remember where she was when she fell asleep.
“Why are you here?” Naira asked her with a cold voice. Auria sighed, but instead of answering her, she started to cry. A memory of a dead historian rushed into her head, along with all that happened in the short moments of his demise. “Something bad happened, Naira.” she whimpered softly. “The historian is dead.”
“What? How?” Harian cried out. “What happened, medic?”
Auria looked at him. A loud tearing of fabric could be heard, and a projector rose from her back, aimed directly at the soldier. “Me. That’s what happened.” she muttered weakly.
***
She told them all that happened in the surgical suite, but nothing more. It felt wrong to talk about the projector as if it was a living thing, or to even think that way.
They didn’t speak. They sat on the ground, quietly thinking, their faces blank, stunned and unable to respond in any way. After a while, Naira disappeared underground without a word, leaving the soldier and Auria alone.
“First time?” He tried not to look at the torn fabric of her clothes or the pale uncovered skin beneath them. Thankfully, the projector was resting, curled on her back.
She looked at him with uncertainty. “First time for what?”
“Killing someone.”
“Ah, that. No, not at all. I’ve seen my share of blood.”
“Really? So young?”
She nodded. “When the cities crumble beneath the weight of spreading plague or famine, looters, pillagers and inhuman swines thrive. I’ve seen it in Antigan, Kryota…”
“Kryota? They sent you there? To do what, fight against the famed whispers? I don’t recall any other event in Kryota…”
“I healed.” She stopped him. “And I dissected. And yes, when a Kryotan soldier controlled by a Whisper walked into our tent, I fought them. And I killed them.”
“Fascinating! I always wondered what exactly Whispers are…”
She laughed bitterly. “That’s what you find fascinating? They are parasites. They latch onto you, enveloping you in their thin, sheet-like body, like a warm blanket… Their scythe-like claws are hollow and when they rip into you, they inject you with a substance that butchers your nervous system. At the same time, it allows them to control you like a puppet.”
Harian exhaled. “Fuck me. How did you kill it?”
She shrugged and grabbed a glass vial filled with oily, black substance out of her pouch. “We use this to sterilize our tools. It eats away the flesh and blood rather quickly and violently, but it doesn’t touch the metal parts of our tools. I threw the vial at it.”
He chuckled. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, medic.”
“You’re safe, soldier. What did you bring from the repository?”
“I… don’t really know. Things that seemed similar to what’s sticking out of your body. Naira thought that it might help her understand it, or how to remove it, or control it.”
“It feels like a new limb. I feel what it touches, I move it however I want but… It’s almost like it has a mind of its own. Before you came, I fell asleep for a while and I think that it tried to talk to me. Your friend, the historian, also mentioned that it talked to him. It said to him that it’s called a projector.”
Harian nodded. “Does it… Hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not even slightly.”
“Did you… use it? Did you burn something?”
“I tried to. You know, to find out how to use it, how to control it. But it doesn’t want to burn. I feel like it wants to spread instead.”
He raised his eyebrows. “It … It wants to spread? Like, from you to other people?”
She shook her head again. “No, more like… it wants to spread something.”
***
Gon was wheezing and coughing. He felt his life drain away from his body, along with his bodily fluids and loads of thick, blackish phlegm and pus that was constantly coming from his mouth and nose. He was shaking in violent fever, his body moving in involuntary, violent spasms. His teeth fell out, one by one, crumbling like pieces of old, dry bread. His nails followed them soon after, along with all the hair and large flakes of skin. He felt millions of tiny worms eating away on his body from the inside, their bodies curling around his tendons, gnawing on them with their tiny teeth...
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
The last thing he saw in his life was the shiny, long blade of a silver dagger that Larais pushed against his skull. The death was a sweet relief for him.
Larais turned to other medics. “Burn his body and all traces of it wherever you can find them. And let’s just hope that whatever killed him is not as infectious as it is lethal. Did anybody touch him? Sterilize yourselves, and take a double dose of prevention medications. First sign you’re not alright, isolate yourselves. And close down this alley. No one enters.”
“Yes, grand medic.”
“Lady Larais, we need to hurry.”
Larais turned her head towards the Triarch’s assistant. “Oh, do we? Well then, we are very lucky that I’ve ended his misery so quickly. Imagine, if I tried to treat him, oh, he might’ve lived, but at what cost… we would be late, and we are in a hurry.”
The assistant left her mouth gaping. “You… you killed him because we’re in a hurry?”
“How can someone so mind numbingly stupid as you be an assistant to a Triarch. What, you lick Ceryna clean under the table every now and then? Move your dumb little feet. Run you hussy, I know the way.”
***
“You didn’t burn down my workshop, or us. You’re not in pain, you’re not violent. It doesn’t seem to control you. It doesn’t seem to drain life out of you, as it did with… What was his name again?” Naira turned her head towards Harian.
“Lakar.”
“Him. I’ve had these gloves on for the past hour. They did nothing to me.” She scratched her head in thought. “It seems safe. But it's not, as we’ve seen.”
Auria took the word. “If I may… When it spoke to me, it said something about me being compatible… mechanism?”
Harian was shocked that the projector spoke to Auria, but Naira took it in as a normal thing and just nodded slowly. “If the projector… if it communicates, as you’ve said… It might think of you as just another machine, the one it’s been integrated with. What astounds me, however, ist that it entered your body right through the scars on your back. Auria, have you ever seen this device before? In your dreams?”
“No I… No. But I admit, it seems familiar. With the projector, I feel… complete. The void in my mind is gone, and for now, the constant headaches I felt are… gone.”
“Perhaps by chance, you’ve uncovered a piece of your past. And I might have another clue for you.” Naira handed over a small, U-shaped metallic object to Auria. “What’s this?”
“Doesn’t matter. See the markings on it? See the symbol?”
Auria looked closer. Hardly visible on the black background, there was a worn symbol of a bird’s head beneath three stars etched into the metallic object. “Raven?”
Naira looked at them both. “Did any of you bother to study the history of our world?”
Auria shook her head. Naira rolled her eyes. “The same symbol is reported to be painted above the red gate.”
Auria did not understand. “The red gate, as in…”
“As in the wall of Bashen, yes. You must have heard of the wall.”
Auria nodded slowly. I might have even seen the wall… she thought to herself. “So that’s where these things come from? The long dead civilization of Bashen?”
Harian interjected. “These artifacts were found beneath the Citadel, weren’t they?
Naira exhaled slowly. “The tunnels beneath the Citadel are vast. Most of them are collapsed, or closed by impenetrable gates of metal. Who knows how far those tunnels reach.”
Harian chuckled. “Surely they’re not running through half of the continent.” His mirth faded when he saw Naira’s thoughtful face. “You think they might?”
Naira nodded. “I think they might.” Naira raised her hands, looking thoughtfully at the gauntlets. “I know they might.”
“Do they speak to you?” Auria whispered. Naira narrowed her eyes. “No. At least, not yet.” She sighed, and started to pull the gauntlets off of her. They did not move an inch. She felt like pulling her own skin and not the hard surface of metallic carapace that covered the knuckles of her fingers. “Oh. Oh, fuck.”
Panic crept into her and Auria’s faces. The tense atmosphere around them broke down with the sound of Harian’s loud laughter.
“What is so funny, soldier?” Auria growled.
“You two… you should be smart. Well studied, well accomplished mechanic and medic, coming from the smartest place in the known world. Yet both of you ended up with foreign, unknown and potentially lethal devices attached to your bodies. A metal arm that speaks to you.” He pointed towards Auria. “And a pair of fucking gloves that you can’t pull off.” He laughed loudly and heartily. “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”
Auria heard something strange in the sound of his laughter. A faint sound that reminded her of a lung-burn victim, or the gargling of a dying man that was choking on his own blood. It was faint, but it was there.
Worse, she felt it. Not in her lungs or throat, she felt it in the projector, as if there was a direct connection between her new limb and the sickness inside the soldier. She shivered.
“I think we need to go to Bashen. We need to remove these… things from our bodies.” she said with a shaky voice.
“And what help would the long dead land of Bashen be to us?” Naira snorted.
Auria shrugged. “Someone might live there.”
“No one lives there.” Harian put his hand on Auria’s shoulder. “It’s a dead land.”
An anger fuelled by her fear lashed out of her. “Were you there? Was anybody you know there? Ever? The fire-spitting machines atop the wall still work, don’t they? And even I know that every machine needs maintenance. That means, someone has to maintain them! Someone must be alive there, and that person might help us.”
“How do you know about fire spitting machines, Auria?” Naira asked. Auria turned her gaze away. “That doesn’t matter.”
***
“A war.” Larais said clearly, without a hint of fear or doubt in her voice. “Glaeria, Malorea and Antigan against the Citadel. And you want me to coordinate the logistics, field hospitals, rationing of food, water and medicine, ammunition. To distribute the workload, to designate…”
Argyl cut her short. ”Yes, Larais. I want you to act as a Triarch in the upcoming months.”
She looked him directly in his eyes. “Wars can last years.”
“Or days, if you refuse, and Jerlan remains the acting Triarch.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Jerlan still is the Triarch.”
Argyl leaned closer to her, returning her piercing gaze. “Accept it, and he will suddenly become ill, unable to perform his duties. As an act of emergency, you will be officially named acting Triarch, until the proper elections can be held. Until this whole trade embargo and heresy blaming is dealt with.”
Her lips twisted in disgust. “You would poison him?”
“I would send him to a farm somewhere away where he can live his last years peacefully. For fucks sake, Larais, he doesn’t know who Ceryna is, or who I am! And all his work is being done by his assistants.” He straightened his back, never letting his sight off of Larais. “We need control. We need you. And if poisoning him would mean that you would accept, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be a Triarch.”
Argyl laughed. “I don’t want it either. You know who wanted to rule his people? Fat fuck by the name of Victon Pios. You know who didn’t want to rule his people? High Lord Heers of Malorea. One of them is probably dead for doing the right thing. The other one started this war.”
Larais sighed. “Your point being?”
“I don't need you to want to become a Triarch. I need you to become a Triarch.”
She walked a few steps away from him to lean against the window sill. She looked across the city, marveling in the beauty of thousands of red roofs, wide, paved streets, all interspersed by vibrant green trees. She looked at the wide river running through the city, encircling the hill atop which the Scarlet Citadel - the fortress, the university, the bastion of hope that gave the City of Citadel its name - stood tall.
“This is bullshit. You want to prepare for war that was actually declared officially. There is only one reason why that fat golden bastard would declare a war.”
“What are you thinking, Larais?”
“They plan something… Something they can blame on us. So that they will be seen as victims in the eyes of people from Rooskuria, Kryota, Ladrurg… Common people don’t want war. Common people love us.”
Argyl raised an eyebrow. “They do?”
“When a medic from Citadel comes to a village, a huge feast is usually prepared. The medic is seen as a miracle, as a cure to all the ailments of the village - which, of course, he usually is. Same with mechanics that repair everything, or our builders, traders, teachers, performers… People love us, Argyl.”
Argyl closed his eyes and leaned his aching head against the cold wall. “I see your point. They need to turn the common folk against us, so that not just their armies, but entire towns and villages will howl for our blood.”
Larais nodded. “Yes. I expect reports to come soon, of some heinous crimes from Glaeria, Malorea and Antigan, and I expect these crimes to be somehow attributed to us.”
***
He woke up lying among the rotting corpses. The stench was overpowering and had he had the slightest sliver of strength left in him, he would vomit his insides out.
Keeping his eyes open required all his willpower. Breathing was painful, but he could breathe - not what he expected after being poisoned by that son of a rotten cunt Victon. And Xanwryn… the betrayal of his closest friend hurt more than his own poisoned body.
Heers tried to turn around, but he had no control over his body. He tried to make a sound, to alarm somebody, anybody close by, but instead of a cry for help, only a muffled “Hnnng” left his mouth.
Although he couldn’t move, he felt everything. He felt worms, bugs and flies crawl over his body, he felt the fuzzy bodies of rats squeezing themselves through the narrow breeches he wore, clawing and biting their way through the fabric along his thighs, occasionally piercing his skin with a misplaced tooth or claw. Just then and there he realized that he was actually dead, that even if he survived the poison, the small scratches and bites from corpse-eating rats would surely bring him the cruelest of plagues…
“High lord’s clothes among the rags of beggars… You look like a lump of gold buried in a pile of cow’s shit, don’t you think?” The voice of Antigan queen Anaid was not the one he expected to hear last before he died.
“I hope that you will live, Heers. I’ve tried to dilute the poison with as much wine as I could, but your friend Xanwryn could not stop eye-fucking me at every possible occasion. If you hear and understand me, blink. Or move your eyes. Do something.”
He blinked slowly, and Anaid exhaled softly. “Good. Now listen. Well, not that you could do much more, right?”
Two pairs of strong hands grabbed his body and lifted it up from the corpse pile. He was being carried somewhere by a pair of men with bodies and faces covered in torn, filthy rags. Anaid turnt his head sideways so that he could at least see her. Just as the pair of men, she wore the clothes of a beggar, torn and dirty rags that the lowest of the low would not even consider to put on.
“Heers is dead. Your name is Marias. You are from Antigan, one of my servants’ servants. You became gravely ill and you need to rest. Speak to no one before we meet again. Blink if you understand.”
Blink.
“Antigan did not betray the pacts we have with Citadel. Victon needs to think that we did, or else we would be crushed by the brass-clad legions. That’s all you need to know about me now - I did not betray. However, I know why your friend betrayed you.”
Heers felt his heart beat faster. He wanted to ask why, but instead of a word, a muffled wheeze came out of his mouth again.
“Your daughter. You refused him, and sent her to Citadel. That way you took the only chance he would ever have on the Malorean throne away from him. Therefore, he helped Victon to poison you. A courier with a letter will arrive to your daughter, explaining to her that the agents of Citadel have killed you, and that the courier is supposed to help her escape her wardens… silently. Your daughter will fall to Xanwryn’s knees, ready to suck his cock all day long so that he will avenge you in the war against your murderers… The common folk will flock behind him - after all, they loved you. And so ends the Heers dynasty.”
The pair of men loaded his paralyzed body on the wooden carriage. “We will meet again, Marias. Rest. Heal. And do not speak to anyone. Now, I am going to play dumb, spoiled whore of a queen for Victon’s and Xanwryn’s pleasure. Until we meet again, Marias.”