Chapter Thirty-One: Departures and Arrivals

+++++Ezra+++++

Kidnapping the lobotomized Lord Chancellor's Minister for Magical Research was a pretty big deal, at least gauging by the response. They had Ezra's picture all over the city – well, a grainy pictograph of Wuhel from perhaps a year ago. That was the boy whose body Ezra currently inhabited, tragically brained in an accident and then sold to Fenrik when his parents could no longer afford the medical cost of keeping a comatose boy alive on cutting-edge life support. Ezra looked a bit different – certainly, even without his eyes ablaze, his gaze had an intensity that the cheerful, smooth-cheeked boy lacked. But he looked similar enough that he had to lay low.

Rill laid low, too. There weren't as many pictures of her and the reward was only twelve stacks. Ezra now had a thirty stack price on his head, which was essentially an invitation to vigilantism. Therefore, they holed up in one of Teak's several safe houses and waited for the whole thing to blow over. The best part, by a substantial margin, was that Rill was with him the whole time. Well... most of the time.

Rill got cabin fever even more easily than Ezra did, pacing the floor and voicing her annoyance, and eventually she started to slip out for a few hours at a time despite Ezra's warning and Zigna's admonition. She'd been trapped underground for weeks and wasn't about to be trapped again, even if her current confinement was to keep her from going right back into those clutches.

"If you get yourself caught don't think I'm rushing out to save your ass," the infernic borrenkin said. Zigna was about the most secure infernic in the whole city since it was common knowledge that borrenkin couldn't even be infernic on account of their plant half. But, quite obviously, some of them could.

Rill would slip out for a bit at a time, but she always came back with clothes or sweets and tales of the city beyond. She told Ezra that he had to join her on her excursions, which was nice. Despite all of their time together those two weeks after her rescue, she still cherished his company. And the two of them had no shortage of things to do together. She enjoyed the way Ezra's appraisal of her body bordered on worship without quite broaching that territory, and he couldn't get enough of her delighted sighs or the way her fingers ran through his hair when he planted himself between her legs and drove her to new elevations of rutting bliss. After she came, she would cross her ankles behind his head and draw him close, her fiery eyes peering down from over the globes of her breasts, her silvery voice purring out all of the things that he made her feel... usually things pertaining to fire, but that was Rill's basis for comparison for almost everything.

"You are the fire in my heart, the pulsing inferno in my core. Never have I felt such a kindling of fulfillment..." those were the sorts of thing she said, and she appeared to mean it. And her libido was at least as active as Ezra's, which was very active, since his body had only just turned seventeen.

They were very busy in their little bed. Ezra openly wondered whether infernics could get pregnant, or whether fertility in Medias was somehow rooted in the body's soul. Nothing that he'd read on the subject suggested anything one way or the other. And, when Rill asked him to clarify his musings, it was quite clear that she knew next to nothing about how reproduction in humans actually worked. She'd just assumed sex was an enjoyable bonding activity and became utterly fascinated when Ezra explained the biology of reproduction to her. And she quite candidly told him that she'd been pregnant twice already, past tense.

"From... us?" Ezra gestured between the two of them.

"Who else could it be?" Rill replied. And she explained how she'd sensed a new life taking root inside of her, something tiny and vaguely parasitic, and she'd simply burned it out of her body – which was something that she could apparently do. "I hope you're not angry..."

That was how Rill usually ended sentences pertaining to human mores, which she still struggled to comprehend despite being utterly brilliant in most ways. And, frankly, Ezra often found himself growing more distant to those mores, too, since it was clear that the society he now lived in viewed him as a monster. And it couldn't be denied that he and his fellow infernics often had perplexing abilities - for instance, Rill could decide in an instant whether or not her womb bore fruit, and that was a pretty damn convenient trick. The alternative was bringing a new life into Medias, a questionable proposition at best, and who knew what the offspring of Ezra and Rill would be like? He'd have been very surprised if a garden variety human sprang forth from their union. For the time being, Ezra Jr. was best left to the realm of the theoretical.

"But if you ever change your mind, let me know," he said. If she wanted it, he would find a way to make it work.

Their week in the safe house stretched into two weeks, during which the city remained on the precipice of chaos. There were still protests and rioting, and a few bits of violence had even spread to the more prosperous areas of the city, but they remained mostly restricted to Chartham, the Old City, and Portside – the poor north of St. Arbalest, where the unwanted, teeming masses were crowded up close to the sea, as if they could be driven right off of the land if the Lord Chancellor wished.

Things didn't get worse, at least, until a group of disaffected dortheks decided to down an airship right on top of parliament. They didn't even manage to hit the big, domed Manse of Governance, but the airship struck nearby, damaging the High Arbalest Bank and a row of expensive city houses. Shortly after that, the secret police began to show up at random times in random places to search the premises for illegal persons or property – lists that grew by the day but invariably included Ezra up near the top of both. Three days after the airship attack, Zigna arrived at the safe house and informed Ezra and Rill that they were being moved out of the city, at least until the current crisis was past, which might take a while.

"Leave for where?" Ezra asked.

"Deepshire Pass, up the coast and fifty miles inland," Zigna said. "Come on, the ship leaves in an hour and Teak's placed enough bribes that it's certain not to get searched."

They didn't have time to pack, but they hardly had anything to pack anyway. Ezra took all of his money and a few changes of clothes, Rill did likewise, and then Zigna ushered them out to a horse-drawn carriage. The constables were less likely to search those, apparently, because of the chore of stopping the horses. Or so the theory went – they got flagged over three blocks out from the safe house in eastern Portside, and Zigna deigned to comply rather than make a go of fleeing.

A constable and a pair of prymen waited nearby as their colleague approached the carriage, speaking with Zigna (who was acting as the coach driver) before ambling to the carriage and peering into the window. Rill squeezed Ezra's hand, reflexively pulsing heat into his skin, and Ezra had to remind himself that there was no lasting damage so he didn't wince – he could winnow any sensation down to a trickle. Rill's hair was dyed and they both had their contacts in... but Ezra's picture was on a signpost not ten meters behind the constable.

"Sir, Miss... is this your carriage?"

"A rental." Ezra gestured toward Zigna sitting atop.

The constable squinited, his big kao-alta eyes peering over sunglasses to take them in – his vision was surely good enough to see them inside the dim cabin. "I recognize you from somewhere..."

He almost bolted then and there, but the man's breathing hadn't picked up - he wasn't alarmed. Ezra recalled that most patrol constables worked in the same city districts they lived in... this man was a constable and a kao-alta. Not rich, but at least of decent means. "I used to go to Kilwa Public Academy," Ezra said – that was the only school in the district he knew of.

"Ah, that's probably it. Were you on the scramble-ball team?"

"And I was pretty good..."

The constable chuckled. "Yeah, well I was Revvik Grace School... we beat your sorry arses four years running when I was a student."

"I never said my team was any good," Ezra said.

"True... okay, I've got to have a quick chat with your driver and then we'll have you on your way."

An identification plate. The constables had pulled them over because a bit of siding had curled over the identification plate, making it unreadable. The constable noted the plate number, checked it against his booklet of major infractions, and then accepted a two-brownback bribe to not write the incident up in his log book.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"You folks stay safe. It's a dangerous city these days." The constable smiled and waved them off.

"Well... that went well," Rill said.

Lusha Dryad was already at the port when they arrived, directing the unloading of a dozen large boxes with ventilation holes and Live Chickens stamped on the sides. Boxes about two meters long by a meter wide. There wasn’t much mystery what was in those boxes. And he was unloading them in broad daylight. No wonder he'd bribed the port authorities to skip the inspection.

"Two to board," Ezra said.

Lusha waved them up, mumbling to his assistant to take over supervisory duties.

"What's in the boxes?" Rill asked.

"Chickens," Lusha said.

"Criminal chickens?"

"Formerly," the dryad allowed. "But I figure we can find them new homes and reform them in time. I've got some official papers for the two of you, Mister and Missus Drake."

"Drake?" Ezra asked. He accepted a small bag of identification papers and assorted records.

Lusha nodded, his green eyes glinting in the sunlight. "Same last name. You can be husband and wife, brother and sister, cousins... it's up to you. And, once you're all settled in Deepshire Pass, Mr. Teak has plenty of work that two enterprising, young, perfectly-normal humans can help with."

Ezra shook his hand. "Thanks, Lusha."

"We've got big plans, and you're going to be part of them. But for now, enjoy the trip – we'll be in touch."

Lusha Dryad wasn't one to leave things to chance – as soon as the ship was fueled, he told the captain to make for sea and ambled down the gangplank, waving back to Ezra and winking at Rill. St. Arbalest slowly retreated from view, the stink of the city gradually receding with it, until it was just the two of them. Well... two of them and a cargo ship manned by fifty very discreet sailors. Ezra reached for Rill's hand, and the two of them watched the waves, calm in the cool afternoon air. For the first time in a very long time, they were together and nobody was after them. If Ezra had any say in the matter, things were going to stay that way.

+++++Berhu+++++

Berhu had only been to the forest once during her time in Medias, and it would be a long time before she would return. Plenakton had speculated that the trip might be therapeutic, and she'd hoped the same thing at the time. In fact, it had been the exact opposite.

Even the greatest of trees there were anemic, pathetic things, with frail little leaves, and they did not sing. When she compared them to the Arborsong of her homeworld, it was like comparing mudwater guppies to a great groaning whale. Her life in the beforetime was a green dream.

Insubstantial, she would flit through the great glade with her brothers and sisters, and the world was a green song. When she melted into one of the life trees, their essences became indistinguishable and the whole world became one blurred moment of light and breeze and cool soil until some tiny mote of identity split off and took to the humid air again. Bliss. That had been ripped from her when she was summoned here, and she still woke up some nights howling and sobbing and wondering why she was in this dead and lightless place where the air didn't vibrate with the hymn of life. Some day, she would see this world devoured in humming vegetation. Until that day, she would help Plenakton free her sisters and brothers.

"Weren't you happier before?" she asked him once.

"Immeasurably," he said. "But I was a child then. I am unhappy now for the same reason you are: not because we have been summoned to this rigid world, but because the mortals who lord over us have imposed their pathetic rigidity, as if the convenient compartments of their minds could extend into the universe beyond."

"I... I don't understand..." she gathered, though, that Plenakton's homeworld had been as different from hers as hers was from here.

"Were you a philosopher in your previous life? A poet? An inventor?"

"We didn't have any of those things," Berhu admitted.

"Mine either. There is no shame in learning from one's captor, Berhu. But this world is ours, too, now, and we shall shape it in our image."

Berhu knew it couldn't be true - not entirely. But she hated the people who'd deprived her from the song enough that it hardly mattered. If Plenakton was going to drive terror into their souls, she would help him and then worry about how to devour the world in singing greenery afterward. She owed Plenakton that much - he'd freed her, after all.

After Ezra managed to free the eighteen infernics (not counting Rill and himself), Berhu had her work cut out for her. Eighteen freed sisters and brothers! She'd led them back to their hidden stronghold in the Old City, and she hadn't lost a single one. It had been a good night.

At first, she hadn't liked Ezra much - his homeworld was too much like Medias and he was best friends with an human girl. But the boy grew on her. He was as stubborn as she was and a bastard in all the right ways. More importantly, he hated all the right people. You couldn't trust people to stick to their morals, but hate? That you could trust.

"Mister Plenakton's got another one to spring," Wyreth said.

Formerly, they'd just disseminated their information through the Nates and waited for the slow trickle of infernics who managed to free themselves through determination or sheet luck. If they found an infernic in the open, they'd sometimes make an overture and snap them up, but that had been rare. Those ways just didn't cut it anymore, though. Not when the authorities were cracking down on infernics left and right, hauling her sisters and brothers off to secret underground facilities.

"Are you coming with?" Berhu asked.

"You bet."

Berhu didn't think too highly of Wyreth. Allegedly, his body was actually the biological cousin of Berhu's through a strange series of circumstances, the two infernic kao-alta lieutenants of the 3Z leader sharing maternal grandparents. He was an aerojin - ironic, given his stocky build - whereas she was a mosswraith. They were both intensely loyal in their own way, but Berhu did not appreciate Wyreth's no-questions-asked, usually-violent way of doing things. Sometimes, the most loyal thing to do was to question the boss when he needed questioning and curb his worse instincts. She liked to think Plenakton appreciated that about her.

"Where did we get the information from?" she asked.

"Rhizit... you know the little dorthek nereit? She pumped the housemaid for information... claims her master summoned an infernic, but the procedure somehow went awry and they ended up with a glowing-eyed infernic who wouldn't stop screaming. Mister Plenakton seemed to think she was worth getting."

"Let's see if he's right."

Wyreth chuckled. "I expected you of all people to give me pushback on this."

"It must be your birthday," Berhu said.

It was a dangerous operation, but that didn't mean it wasn't worth doing. Ezra and Rill had somehow killed an 8th elevation High Sorcerer, and now the city's mage community was reeling. Good. Now it was time to punch them while they were down, make them realize how vulnerable they were, and maybe do some good in the process. From what she could tell, the slavemaster was a 6th elevation Magister, which was awfully green to be summoning a powerful infernic, which meant he'd gotten lucky and didn't know what he was doing. 6th elevation was nothing to sneeze at... the girl, Anise, was only 5th elevation and Berhu had witnessed her tossing large borrenkin about like ragdolls. But you could fight a 6th elevation with something beyond a wing and a prayer, whereas whatever Rill and Ezra had done was very much wing-and-prayer territory.

"He's borrenkin," Wyreth said.

"I know." If he hadn't been, Berhu might have offered more pushback. If it came to a fight, she suddenly had options.

They walked arm in arm down the promenade like a couple enjoying a nighttime stroll. Dressed in their hoity-toity costumery, the constabulary was unlikely to stop them. Berhu spotted spattered blood on the walkway from where the police had dispersed an urmal protest the day before. She was glad somebody was making the bastards in parliament (or at least their slightly less rich friends) witness the fruits of their wickedness. Now it was time to run up the score.

They snuck around to the side entrance of one of the imperious gray city houses and tapped on the door so softly it was a wonder anybody heard them at all. But the housemaid, a petite kao-etema woman, scampered over and saw them in, her little beady eyes instinctively avoiding the gaze of two well-dressed kao-altas. Berhu wanted to scream at the woman for such servility, but was of mixed opinion on that. Perhaps non-infernics should serve in an ideal society? Things to ponder.

"Is the master asleep?" she asked.

"He and the missus both. I skipped a little evening sauce into their brandy to give them a good night."

That was disappointing in a way. Part of Berhu was itching for a fight, but fighting any mage was inherently risky. They had no information on the wife, and if she was a fellow mage, an even fight was suddenly very imbalanced.

"We should cut them in their sleep... the only good mage is a dead mage," Wyreth whispered.

"Let's get the girl. Then we can consider it," Berhu said.

The housemaid gasped, only now realizing that her twenty brownback bribe was perhaps inadequate, considering the sort of person she'd just let into her employer's home. These weren't sneak thieves looking to make off with a glittery necklace or antique bust.

"Where's the girl with the glowing eyes?" Berhu said.

"Please don't kill anybody..." the maid whispered.

"Where. Is. She." Wyreth's hand strayed toward his knife.

"Please..." keys jangled at her side. With a trembling gait and teary eyes, the maid led them through the house, guiding through a little aviary with twenty or more birds in little gilded cages, their beady black eyes following them in the dark. Some were familiars, but freeing those from captivity was a much lower priority, since those were barely more aware than the animals they co-opted. They proceeded to a little cellar door at the end of the hallway, descended the stairs to a dank, cool basement, and finally reached a pair of iron-barred jail cells, only one of which was occupied.

The girl inside was a kao-alta with lavender skin and a ruff of pure silver, consigned to a dingy pallet, motionless and curled into the fetal position. When the housemaid's shaky hand fumbled at the lock, Berhu snatched the keys from her and unlocked the cell herself. The caged girl didn't budge and, as Berhu approached, it became clear why: she'd been fitted with blinders and ear covers. She was completely insensate. Something raged within Berhu... if Wyreth insisted on killing the mage couple, she just might help him.

With gentle hands, she removed the ear covers, clunky black ear mufflers meant to block all sound, and slipped one of Ezra's old plugs into each ear. The girl jerked awake and flailed about, her hands shooting to her ears and only gradually realizing that her senses weren't being bombarded with thunderous noise.

"H... hello?" she said. Her Unilog was heavily accented.

Berhu stroked her fingers through the girl's soft ruff. "What's your name, my sweet?"

"Anna," the girl said. "Anna Glass."

End of Book I