The prison was vacant by the time Elmore was called to interrogate the old man, following behind a Wealth Sect tax collector whose fury was palpable, radiating off him with each ground-shattering step.
Apparently the bald man had history with the ginger-haired escapee; a history Elmore heavily suspected to have something to do with the rumours of a scuffle occurring in the Labour District, some time ago. Apparently it was between a Death-Marked, and given the man’s obvious aversion to the unfortunate souls, it wasn’t a long shot that such whisperings may indeed have factual origins.
As Edmar slammed the frail form into the nearest chamber not suffering from a recently imploded wall, Elmore couldn’t help but glower. In his time overseeing Tal’s cell, he’d not once been overly delighted in the position. Tal didn’t make a fuss, sure, and it was a job after all that could garner him some respect amongst his Wild Sect elders and peers alike, but the man reeked of alcohol. Having to stand at-hand with expired beer infesting his nostrils for hours on end was not his ideal concept of a worthwhile shift. And he hid the evidence so well too . . . whenever Elmore was sufficiently bothered by the odour, to the extent that he would complain to the prison’s governors, when they would come searching, nothing could be found. Now that Elmore thought about it, where exactly Tal kept the bottles was not something he was eager to find out.
“Get in, you old git.” Edmar huffed, tossing Tal in without the slightest care.
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit rough with him?” Elmore felt obliged to ask. The look of contempt in Edmar’s eyes was almost scary.
Edmar turned. “Are you siding with this sad excuse for a man? Look at this! Eleven arrests before the scribes got tired of keeping track. Eleven, and counting!”
A sheet of paper was thrown Elmore’s way, and he grasped it. After careful inspection, the man’s words proved true.
“They’re all charges for petty theft. And you say he has a life sentence?”
“He does indeed.”
Elmore scowled. “Don’t you think that’s . . .”
“What? Excessive? No. Not in the slightest. Honestly, look at the bloke. This is the kind of material we’re referring to when we talk about Death-Marked. The low-lives of society. “
His caramel coat flapping as he tied Tal to his seat — who didn’t do so much as struggle, let alone complain — Edmar clapped his hands together at a job well done.
All together, the sight before Elmore was thoroughly more depressing; even more so than the usual prison.
The cell was devoid of anything. No bed, no stool, nor even a waste deposit. At most, perhaps one would feel inclined to address the sole window as something aside from the monochrome walls and ceiling, and yet its glass panes distorted any light passing through to the point of obscuration. So inmates weren’t graced with even a glance of life outside bars. It only then occurred to Elmore that perhaps this extreme minimalism was because the cell wasn’t a cell at all.
It was an interrogation centre.
The lynchpin of the scene was Tal himself. With bedraggled clothing that couldn’t have been cleaned in Durations, and unkempt hair that veiled his face on its path to the floor. Both brought throbs to Elmore’s jaded heart, a sympathy Elmore never thought he would hold for the man. Chronic alcoholic or not, this treatment was terribly undignified.
Edmar, on the other hand, didn’t appear to hold a shred of sympathy. On the contrary, he took two brisk steps towards Tal, and grasped the man’s shoulders with disproportionate strength.
“Now . . .” he said, in the tremulous voice of something teetering on a fall. “Just how did Remus destroy that wall? Outside help?”
Tal screamed in pain, but said nought. If that was because he was purposely withholding information to protect Remus, or if he was too pain-dazed to form words, Elmore wasn’t sure.
“Tell me!” Edmar hissed. When once again met with no reply, his head swerved to his reluctant accomplice of Elmore. “What Sect is he from, or was he disowned?”
“His credentials list him as of the Lightning Clan. Why do you ask?”
The tax-collector ignored him completely, towering over the elderly man. “Listen here bub, every second you don’t talk is another ten Inklings your family will have to pay when I pop over next. And for every subsequent Passing, too.”
Tal’s head shot up, and he stared at Edmar in dismay. “What? No, yo-”
“One.”
A rock seemed to become lodged in Elmore’s throat as he realised an impossibly difficult truth to swallow. Edmar was being serious.
“This isn’t fair! This is a crime!” The man was evidently attempting to spit out as many words as possible. “I’ll report you to-”
“Two and three!”
Elmore felt compelled to take action, his body twitching with each tortuous moment this dragged on. His clan was ruling over an entire city of their own in Hybrid, and were firmly established in Ruling District, so he himself hadn’t faced the consequences of Damosh’s lethal taxes. Foolishly, he’d followed the easy belief that the lower populace were merely exaggerating, that a little inflation was expected in any economy. But this before him — this irrefutable sight; this travesty — was stripping away any preconceived notions his privilege had drilled into him. Tal couldn’t confide in any legal facility, because Damosh, and the people beneath him, were First Rite’s version of that. However self-serving they were, when you really got down to it.
Elmore found himself stepping forward, teeth chomping down with all his bubbling disgust. “Edmar.”
“Forty Inklings!”
Tal sobbed ferociously. “Okay, okay! I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, I say!”
His whimpers descended into a feeble, very nearly inaudible noise. Elmore had never heard an old man weep, and the uncanny sound of it was beyond jarring.
Edmar nodded. “Of course you give in. Now, depending on how quickly, and how much you reveal to us, perhaps I’ll take off a second’s Inklings off that forty.”
“What do you want to know?” Tal raised his head, eyes somehow indicating such a deep-rooted hatred with but a look that Elmore couldn’t fathom how Edmar could stand to bear it.
“Are you becoming hard of hearing in your old age? I said, how did Remus get through that wall?”
Tal’s lips visibly struggled to curve into a lopsided line, that some daring few may interpret as a grin. Mixed with the moisture settling in his eyes, the image seemed to conflict with itself. “With his hands.”
“You lie. No Death-Marked could.”
“Oh? Well, I must concede, that is true. But that doesn’t change the fact that Remus could.”
Edmar grabbed the man by the chin, eliciting a few spittle-flung curses from the prisoner. “Stop beating around the bush! Forty-five Inklings-”
“He advanced to Engorged!” Tal intercepted, bravado fizzling away. “I’m sorry, I . . .”
Edmar stood completely still, as if a perfect-stone replica of him had taken the real Edmar’s place. Hunching down after a moment, he faced Tal with the poise of someone reprimanding a misbehaving child. A dense vacuum stripped the trio of any words, and for a second so tense, Elmore had to focus on the thumping of his own heart beat for something to latch onto, only the circulation of their own blood would sate the shared need for noise.
“Forty-Five.”
“Bas . . .” Tal wisely cut himself off. “It's the truth! What do you think Remus was caught stealing at the Ruling market, hmm? Droplets!”
“And yet he was stopped, was he not, by the Wealth Sect’s own Ola. Are you questioning her abilities? Does the thought of good, honest institutions oppose you?”
Elmore couldn’t stand on the sidelines for any longer. “Not to overstep, Edmar, but the story matches. What if he did steal a Droplet? Suspend your disbelief for a moment, and think as if it is fact. Does it not make sense? Unless you have any other likely theories?”
The sound of Edmar’s sighs was like the heralding of war. “Truthfully, I can’t think of what else he could’ve done. But a reason for a Death-Marked to steal Ichor eludes the mind. It's illogical, like replacing a cup with a hole with a slightly bigger, cracked mug..”
“It's the truth.”
Edmar leered at the old man. “Do not speak unless I call on you. Forty-seven Inklings.”
Tal restrained his outcry to a subtle thumping of the boot.
“Engorged is better than nothing, Edmar, and these people are desperate for any crumb of power they can get their hands on. Gods above, for a Death-Marked, just the power of the first Rank would be a-”
"World of difference.” Tal spoke, bearing his chipped teeth to Edmar before the taxman could speak up. “Go ahead, add as many Inklings as you like. The Lightning Clan isn’t reliant on First Rite. Our profits are from our soldiers fighting honourably at the front-lines, not any stall or business in this damn city. Don’t think we won’t hesitate to leave if you get too cocky.”
In an impressive show of grit, Tal didn’t waver. In fact, he only continued more rapidly. “Remus told me before he left that he got involved in a fight with one of your lot. I’m starting to suspect it was you he stood up to, and if he did, well, I’m starting to like the chap more and more!”
One look at Edmar, and Elmore knew for certain the man had pushed too far. He didn’t lash out, and neither did he show any external change. His face painted a stoic image of a man merely doing his job, but deep underneath, Elmore recognised the hint of oncoming mirth. As if he was about to set into action something monstrous, and still draw endless joy out of it.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
That was when Elmore heard the chinking.
It originated from seemingly everywhere at first, and Elmore suddenly grew alarmed, tapping into his blazing Mark in rigid preparation. Not another minute passed, and there came a knocking at the window. Visitors? Elmore pondered doubtfully. That didn’t seem correct; who would be scaling up to the top floor of the prison when a staircase was readily available?
Then came another hit against the glass, with a circular shadow accompanying it. The inkling of an idea that someone may be throwing rocks from below was quickly dismissed from Elmore’s calculating brain, as a dozen more struck in quick succession. Steadily, with all the tentative intensity of someone constructing a house of cards, a crack began to web across its transparent surface.
“What’s happening?” Tal asked, to no response.
The sound of a thousand keys jingling together — something Elmore had become very accustomed to the minor form of during his guarding position — resounded distantly.
“Answer me!” Tal screeched, frantically looking at the two in between looks at the window. “What’s happening?”
Edmar didn’t input a word. The noise wasn’t so far off now, approaching, advancing closer, before-
The windows shattered in an eruption of glassy shrapnel, and with it, came a torrent of Inklings. Soon, a thousand tiny replicas of Damosh’s engraved face were spiralling around Edmar’s uplifted hands. It was the most bizarre sight of Elmore’s life, and he’d seen literal gods descending from the sky on a yearly basis.
Whilst Elmore wondered where exactly all the cash had come from, Tal spasmed in his chair. “Damn you! This is corrupt, this is-”
Edmar ignored the wailing man’s existence, looking Elmore square in the eye with exaggerated eye bags. “I’ll take over from here Elmore,” he said, as if the Wild Sect prodigy had actually assisted him much in the interrogation. “I believe we’ve drained all the information we can from this man.”
Something about the scene, other than the obvious, superficial moral depravity of a man punching down at his lessers, sent a tide of unease seeping through Elmore’s bones, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
Elmore had to catch his breath. “You're not suggesting what I think you are?”
Their bald head turned to him. “And if I am? What authority are you under to stop me?”
Words failed to escape Elmore, and he could do nought but stall his departure by examining the scene before him. Right here, right now, he could finally understand what all the other sects had been referring to. This was the reality of Elmore’s birth city, the reality of Damosh’s rule, and it brought nothing but uncovered sickness to Elmore’s tight chest. Something set ablaze within him, some deep crevice of his soul begging at himself not to turn out like this. One day, Elmore vowed he would ascend to the top of his clan, fulfilling his childish aspirations by taking Juniper’s status as leader. Then in the turning of the years, when Hybrid’s cycle of leadership landed the Wild Sect a seat on the Silver Throne once more, he would rule Hybrid with grace, eloquence, and compassion.
Traits that must have been foreign concepts to the Wealth Sect’s deafened ears.
Elmore bowed as rigidly as he could, staring at the ground so as not to observe the horrors ahead. “Thank you for assisting Edmar, I must now retire back to my chambers.”
The structure of the words had been uttered a million times before Elmore had even been born, and would be indefinitely after his death, but he was of no mind for creative ingenuity.
As Elmore closed the doors behind him, he could hear nothing.
Nothing, except the screams of a dying man.
----------------------------------------
Outside, it became apparent that the universe wasn’t quite finished with slapping First Rite’s flaws across Elmore’s face.
He had barely taken two hurried steps outside of Ruling District's prison when a pandemonium of roaring noise threatened to rupture his eardrums. Flocks of people had arrived at the brink of Ruling, forming a most inconvenient barrier for anyone merely trying to get through. It grabbed your attention, Elmore would give them that; you couldn’t quite ignore an entire row of protestors blocking your path, holding aloft signs spreading disquiet sentiments of revolution.
They were all from Labour or Leisure District, with the former the most major force making up the bulk of the displeased clansmen. That was obvious by their attires: either working garments or pieces of too lacklustre a quality to be from the top five. With the preventions of Divine Ground making it impossible for a true uprising, the suffering populace — or at least those brave enough to push back against the Wealth Sect — had settled for holding up placards in the most attention-demanding manner possible. They all held the same general message: complaints about the taxes, Damosh’s almost universally detested leadership, and quite a few slanderous comments towards Ruling as a whole, that Elmore felt to be a tad misplaced. Aside from those involving his own District, Elmore did have enough heart to support the campaigner's cause of course, he just thought this entire stunt would be a lot easier to root for if it hadn’t been so irritatingly timed.
A crowd of activists blocking my path . . . exactly what I need after hearing a man being clobbered to death by flying gold.
The procession must have only begun recently, for no watchmen had strolled over to . . . what could they do, exactly? Technically, the protestors weren’t disobeying the non-combat rules of Divine Ground by only standing there, and if they refused to move, and the poor guy commissioned with getting them out the way was a tinge too forceful . . .
A smiting straight from the gods it would be. A flare of pure Infinity, and someone’s entire subcellular form would be erased from existence. For the second time that day, a sensation of wrongness rubbed Elmore the wrong way. Something about that line of thought wasn't right. For several moments, he stood there like an idiot, until it struck him.
Divine Ground. Edmar had killed a man, and had somehow avoided the gods’ wrath. The realisation shook Elmore to his core. If Damosh had found a way to circumvent such foundational rules, the man would have the power to prolong his rule forever. How would one go about usurping an immortal king nearing the power of a god, when your only weapon was unuseable? If Damosh simply never left First Rite’s partitions, he may never have to fear death again.
His psyche trembling at the prospect, Elmore felt compelled to move. He couldn’t bear to watch the innocence struggle pointlessly; if there was anything in the Mortal Realms that had the potential to drive him insane, this would be it.
Instead, he hopped along a few roof tops, the Ichor channelling through his legs tossing him up. And yet, the protestors had thought of that too. As he dashed along the weather-beaten tiles of the lowest reaching buildings of the District, amongst him were both other Ruling residents with similar ideas, and one or two sign-holding civilians glaring at him as if he were the cause of the city’s shortcomings. Reaching the less embellished, but still wonderfully decorated peaks of Leisure, Elmore darted past, the wind in his hair and the all-consuming dread slowly but surely expiring. Replaced by an emotion that could be accurately categorised as the other side of the same coin — excitement.
Up ahead, nestled between the side of the centremost street and and a few nondescript buildings, was a stretch of flattened ground sparse of any protrusions at all, unless you counted the rapidly filling seats rising in rows off to the sides. For once, a smile formed on Elmore’s lips in response to the sight. The muddy pitch of barren land was the fighting ground for the inter-sect tournament, a competition reaching its quarter finals, and Elmore just so happened to be one of the hundred or so left in the running.
Those permitted to join could only be of Foot-Soldier Rank at most, competing either right before heading off to the frontlines, or returning after their mandatory employment was complete. Being Emblazed himself, Elmore knew he was virtually guaranteed to be kicked out this round. It was around this time into the competition that the Foot-Soldiers wiped out the peak of the Emblazed who had managed to worm their way up to the first stage of the finals, with only the truly exceptional of the upcoming generation getting any further. Elmore was upheld as a sort of prodigy in his clan, regardless of his own thoughts on the title, and yet even he doubted his prospects of success. It would be a miracle if he survived the first few minutes into his initial bout, let alone blast his way the full distance.
Optimistic thoughts put aside, Elmore stepped off the edge of a building, flaring the Mark across his back in a luminous neon green, that glowed even through the beige material of his tunic. The branch of a nearby tree promptly expanded, large enough to withstand the force of his landing without snapping in half. Dropping off in one last fall, Elmore brushed his cape to the side in a playful flaunt, admittedly quite impressed with himself for rushing over here so smoothly, without so much as a misstep to impede him.
The walls surrounding the arena casting a shadow over Elmore, he strolled to the entrance, where a woman who appeared as if she’d rather be anywhere else but here twiddled her fingers against a desk. The crest of a quill and ink pot sewn into her gown indicated that the woman was from the Scribe Sect, which explained how she managed to wrap her mind around the hundreds of documents scattered about her.
She only vaguely acknowledged him as he arrived, scouring through a thick pile of notes.
“Name?” She prompted, in a high, scratchy sort of voice.
“Elmore of The Wild Sect.”
“Age and Divine Rank?”
“Seventeen. Emblazed.”
The hunched woman nodded, as if his profile had conveniently materialised before her, and turned to two guards standing to either side of a doorway. “Let him through. Permitted.”
The door’s guardians uncrossed their lofted spears, making way for a drawbridge-like mechanism that revealed a stone interior. Nodding at the two of them in acknowledgement, Elmore entered.
The training room was almost as sparse as the prisons, but given that he would be called for soon, Elmore didn’t mind. The area was divided into separate cubicles, lines upon lines of them stretching the entire length of the pitch. He remembered well how packed these were on the first day, how humid and breathless he felt in the presence of so many overcrowded people. Now, only half of the spaces were filled. Elmore found his room — they were in alphabetical order, so this was simple enough — found his bag he had left there the other day, and took a seat with an earth-shattering sigh of relief.
That feeling of the drudgery of work leaving his body was quickly reversed, when he made the very unwise decision of noticing the child seated ahead of him.
Elmore took one look at the deepsea blue irises of his younger cousin and very nearly threw his tournament clothes at him.
“What are you doing here?” He scoffed.
“Hey? Why the rudeness?” Ash placed a hand to his chest and flinched back, scandalised. “It's not like I wanted to walk all the way here.”
The tremendous task of holding back his tongue took more endurance than any training Elmore had ever undergone. Bad enough that he had to train the little twerp once a Duration under the advisement of Juniper, now he was finding ways to disrupt his life in other ways.
“How’d you get in here?” Elmore huffed, looking around for the nearest Ash-sized window. “You don’t have entry. Besides, didn’t you decide to skirt enrolling, on the basis of ‘if training is this much of a drag, the tournament will be even more of a bore’?”
It was true that, whilst astoundingly young for his age, Ash could technically enter the competition if he wished to. He had just broken into Emblazed at the tender age of fifteen, an obvious oversight by whoever ruled this universe, because the boy put in the same amount of effort as a raisin into any task thrown at him. Particularly those that didn’t involve sitting down, and doing absolutely nothing for prolonged periods of time.
“I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to, but listen. Juniper has a task for you.”
That caught Elmore’s attention. He’d been trying determinedly to garner the God-Graced’s attention for longer than he could recall. If he wanted to take her place as leader one day, it would be in his best interests to first be respected amongst the clan’s higher-ups, and you couldn’t get much higher than the leader herself. Perhaps this, after training vigorously everyday, and taking all the jobs he could get, would be his big break. The only issue that irked him was that Ash had been contacted by Juniper first.
“Wait, she spoke to you?”
Ash nodded, as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Yeah.”
“And she actually said my name specifically? There’s something she only wants me to do?”
“Yes, yes, give or take,” the child moaned, “now, are we going to see her or not?”
“Now? As in, precisely this moment?”
Ash shrugged. “That’s what Juniper said. She says it's urgent or something. But oh yeah, you’ll have to withdraw from the tournament, you’re headed to someplace outside of First Rite. Sounds like you won’t be having any fun for a while.”
And hidden amid Ash’s highly encouraging words, there was the catch at last. Elmore had to properly muse this over for a moment. Leaving the competition in its midst was a sour proposition, but then again, the inter-sect tournament would always be around. Next year, he could simply attend and be very likely to surpass any standing he would reach if he did remain to finish off. But a task from Juniper might never come again, and, as much as he liked to believe that he had a choice in the matter, he was not nearly mad enough to decline a God-Graced’s request.
“Okay, fine. I’ll go.”
Elmore bent to pick up his belongings, walked out of the quaint chamber, and continued along to be discharged when he noticed that his cousin was still tagging along, as he cued to speak with the desk-lady.
“Why are you still here, scurry off, why don’t you?”
“Did I not mention?” Ash said under a mop of unkempt, jet black hair the same shade as Elmore’s. “For some reason, despite my pleas against it, Juniper requested me to join you in the task. No matter what I do, I just can’t seem to dissuade her.”
Stopping in his tracks, Elmore somehow choked on thin air. “What?”
Minutes had transpired, and Elmore was already getting second thoughts. Whatever Juniper had in store for him, it had better be worth it.