TIME AWASH WITH BLOOD-- Chapter Five

Therazine banged a wet fist on the door. She was hunched over, clutching her roiling stomach. A mix of hail and rain fell in sheets. Her hair clung to her skin and stuck in her eyes, in her mouth. Six hours ago she’d exited the off-world station, and already she was hating being back on Celedin. Stepping through the aperture between Lormian and this wretched place had stricken her like a fever, as she’d anticipated. She dry heaved, fell to her knees on the stoop, and then banged the door again.

“Vexxer,” she shouted over the pounding rain. Every inch of her body was trembling and cold. A nauseous, burning feeling swam through her nerves, up her spine, and into her brain. She wanted to tear her flesh from its bones and escape this torment. Death would be significantly preferable to this. Oh, to find comfort in oblivion…

“Vexxer Roz,” she screamed.

The door swung open, and a shirtless man stepped out into the rain and put a gun to her head. With titanic effort she turned her head up, and saw she was staring up the barrel of a Darnull .45 lever pistol. Beyond that was a rotund bronze belly, topped by a square head with a fiery orange beard. The man’s ice-like eyes widened.

“Thera?” he said in a deep whisper.

Therazine scowled. “Get that gun out of my—” She doubled over. She heard the gun clatter to the stoop, felt his meaty hands grab her by the shoulders and pull her up. Beyond that everything was a maelstrom of sound, colors, and pain.

#

Eons of agony later she found herself laying on a bed. She sat up, her head pounding. The sickness had died down; more akin to a bad hangover than a raging blood fever. The room was dim, with a fire burning in a stone fireplace. The frame of the bed was stone, and covered in carvings, a style common to the people of Javadoa. She recognized it as the bed of Vexxer Roz, the very man she had been seeking when she was in the throws of her sickness. She sat still, quiet.

She smelled white ash wood on the fire. Outside she heard the patter of rain. From the other room she thought she heard water boiling. As her eyes began to adjust to the dimness of the room, she saw more Javadoan art: brutal-looking melee weapons hung above the fireplace, woodcuts showing wide-shouldered warriors fighting hordes of soldiers along the walls, gemstones on shelves still embedded with fragments of the crude rock they were pulled from. Very little of it was actually from Javadoa, she knew. Vexxer had brought few things from home when he relocated to Celedin. Most of this he had created himself.

With her fever subsiding she questioned the wisdom of seeking out Vexxer Roz. They were once colleagues, both working for the Bloodletter Society. She’d severed all ties with them. They would not be too anxious to see her again. But if there was any person that she could possibly trust in all of Celedin, she knew it was Vexxer.

The door to the room—painstakingly sculpted from a single, grand piece of oak—opened quietly. Vexxer Roz poked his bald, red-bearded head in. She looked at him without words. He opened the door further and stepped into the room. He was wearing a brown shirt now, and carrying a teapot in his left hand. He shut the door sat down on a stool beside her. They stared at each other, saying nothing. After a moment Vexxer picked up a mug from the bedside table and filled it with piping hot liquid, then handed it to her.

She took it from him. His head shined slightly in the firelight. Freshly polished? She noticed the faintest trace of red hair on the lapel of his shirt, and then realized that he’d trimmed up his beard. Dammit. He smelled of lavender as well.

She sipped the kiln tea. Terrible. Just like he’d always made. Vexxer watched her drink it, his hands clasped over his knees. She met his eyes.

“Been ages, Thera” Vexxer Roz said.

“Please don’t call me that,” Therazine said.

Vexxer nodded. “Course. Sorry.”

They were quiet again. She sipped from the mug.

“What brings you by?” said Vexxer.

“Business,” Therazine said, and then immediately regretted it.

“Business?” Vexxer said, leaning forward slightly. “Am I hearing you say that right? Do you mean business business?”

“It’s none of yours. I’m only here because I’ve just come from… from off-world. Need to recuperate. You know how it gets to me.”

“That I do. Hits you something fierce, if I recall.” Vexxer chuckled. “Do you… do you remember that one contract we had, on that feller on Koken? We got a room at the inn, what was it called, the Proletariat? We got a room and planned on sleeping off your sickness, only that bastard was right at the aperture when we stepped out from Celedin! Practically handed to us on a silver platter, only you were reeling and tossing about like a fish out of water. I never seen such gunplay as I did that day. Probably the only time I ever actually seen you miss a shot—”

“Vexxer,” Therazine said. “Are you still involved with the Society?”

“Aye,” Vexxer said. “You need to see someone?”

“No. The opposite. I don’t want them to know I’m even on Celedin. You have to understand the risk I took in coming to you. You cannot tell them that I’m in the world again.”

“They don’t got a mark on you. What are you afraid for?”

“You can’t tell them. Because I’m not here. I can’t be. I’m still off-world. I’m still gone.”

Vexxer frowned. “Okay. I won’t say a thing to the rest of them. But, I mean, Thera—they’re going to know if you get back into the business freelancing. You’re the great Therazine. You got a very particular style of killing, and they’ll recognize it. They call you the Stiletto in legends, you know.”

Therazine scoffed. The Stiletto? She’d never once used such a frail weapon to kill anyone. Any blade she wielded had a heavy head, and had to be buckled to a sash. Hell, she’d be ashamed if she used a gun that shot bullets as thin as a stiletto.

“I don’t recall being worthy of such an effeminate name,” she said.

“Well, you were the first woman to ever become Archblade. That sticks with folks in the underworld.”

“They should remember me for my deeds, not for what’s between my legs.”

Vexxer shrugged. “Folks will remember what they will remember.”

“People are asinine,” she said. “And you called me Thera again. Don’t do that.”

“Right,” Vexxer said. “That’s what he—Sorry. Won’t happen again.” He looked down at his shoes. The firelight danced off his bronze scalp. “So how’s… how’s he, by the way? You two still married?”

Therazine nodded.

Vexxer laced his fingers together absently. “Any kids?”

Therazine’s lips almost spoke the word two. She shut her eyes and held her breath.

“No,” she said quietly.

“That’s too bad,” Vexxer said. “Seemed like the type of man who’d want children.”

Therazine said nothing.

“But look at you,” Vexxer said. “Here you are. After a lifetime. Just, surprise— Back into my… back to Celadin again. After a lifetime. I don’t even know what to say. Enjoying your kiln tea?”

“You know I hate this stuff.”

“I know you hate that stuff,” Vexxer said, grimacing. “Right.”

For a while neither of them said anything. Then Vexxer clapped his hands on his knees, said something in Javadoan that Therazine did not recognize, and left the room. He paused at the door, almost imperceptibly, as if waiting for Therazine to speak. She turned to face the wall and he left Vexxer won’t say anything to the Society, she told herself. He won’t. His loyalties were clear.

But were they? It had been ten years since she’d seen him. She’d certainly changed in that time. How was she to be certain that Vexxer hadn’t as well? She looked around his room, at the war art that covered it, and realized she recognized every single piece. This room was exactly the same as when she last saw it over a decade ago. It was like a painting of a memory. The stagnancy concerned her, and she considered for a moment that Vexxer might have straightened up this room and changed it to look like it did all those years ago while she was passed out. That certainly seemed like a Vexxer thing to do, if she knew him as well as she thought she did. The Javadoans were paragons of holding on to the past.

Since the incident at her farm she’d been just moving, moving, moving. The rush to the city of Nalak, the negotiating with Madame Senzal, the chaos of the Aperture, the sickened walk through Celedin’s alien streets… She closed her eyes and let herself think for the first time in two days.

She thought of Kohl and Leshe. Her son had understood why she needed to leave Lormian so quickly. He was rational and pragmatic. He definitely took after his mother, she thought. But Kohl was not so agreeable. At first he’d begged her to stay with them, to hide with them on the streets of Nalak and figure out their uncertain future together. She’d explained to him why that was impossible, that the MonDozers and their fellow cartel families were everywhere, and looking for her. They had no money with which to pay off either the families or the authorities, no allies with which to fight back, no land with which to run to. Then he’d gotten angry with her, saying that he needed her after Bren’s death, that she was abandoning him to loneliness and mourning. She was running away to her old life. How could she do this to him?

She almost laughed. How angry Kohl would be to discover that she was now in the bed of none other than Vexxer Roz himself. How like a child he could be, driven by his emotions and sense of justice.

Kohl.

Leshe.

Bren… Oh no, Bren…

She felt a tremor in her throat, and she swallowed tears. She hadn’t cried since her first night with the Society. There was no point in doing it now. Crying had never helped anyone with anything. How many screaming, watery-eyed faces had she put a bullet through? How many—memories came rushing back to her, magnified by being in the city where she had committed so many of her atrocities. So many crying eyes. So many families, ripped apart and left bleeding. She began to shake. The sickness was gone, and her mind was free to remember and condemn.

She stood abruptly. The action caused her to instinctively reach for Vexxer’s bedside table to grab her gun (gotta go to work Thera there’s people need killin). Memories. She recoiled and left the non-existant firearm there.

The door to Vexxer’s room was unlocked, and she stepped through it.

It was, as she’d expected, different. Much of the art she remembered was gone, new furniture occupied spots that once were empty. He’d made up the bedroom for her, made it to look like it used to, to look like the past. It made sense, didn’t it? His memories of her were from long ago, and here she was: in a place where she told him he would never return to again.

Here she was. Back in Celedin looking to take on a job.

Jobs. Contract killings. Murders, is what they were. Nothing more. So many times she’d left this place to go kill, so many times she’d stumbled back after killing. And here she was, walking out again… to take a job. A nursery rhyme popped into her head.

Old ways, old ways,

Falling back on old things

Gone back, gone back,

Old birds still like to sing.

Vexxer looked up from the chair he was sitting in. A creeping, poisonous feeling ran across her skin, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. It was what he would always say to her in the mornings.

“Rising like gunsmoke, lassie,” he said with a smile.

She fled. Out through his front door and into the streets, Vexxer Roz calling her name until she disappeared into the crowds.

#

“The Raven and the Cobbler” was emblazoned in glowing gas. The two raven statues that flanked the glass letters were rounded and misshapen, cawing with pitted beaks into the acid rain that washed away their features. Therazine thought of the factories that produced the noxious black clouds that hung above Celedin. She might have taken the driving rain as a bad omen if she didn’t grow up here and know that this was the norm for this world.

She walked inside, expecting the tavern to be filled with people—she was, after all, in the Wharf District, where the dregs of society congregated in such great numbers. But there were only a handful of people sitting quietly in the large, low-ceilinged establishment. The lights were dim, glowing blue from the gas bulbs that traced the walls. She caught the pungent odor of pipe smoke. A quick scan of the room showed her that none of the patrons were her contact.

“Close the door,” the bartender said. She let go of it, and the rainy street behind her went silent. Cut off from the noise of outside, she held her breath and listened: the wheezing of a patron at the bar, the light scuff of feet somewhere in the back of the room, the hum of the blue gas lights. No music of any kind. Large and open. Difficult to hide anywhere, should she need to.

She was immediately and astutely aware of how wet she was. She was dressed in the attire of a Lormian farmer. Leathers and breathable cloth, sewn from animal skins and plant fibers. Nothing like the water-resistant synthetic cloaks that everyone else on the streets was wearing outside. Every inch of her clothing was sopping and cold. She walked with squishy boots to the bartender.

“What can I do you for?” the man said in a hushed voice. He gave her his full attention, even as he cleaned the spigot of a tap behind the bar.

“Quiet night,” Therazine said.

“It’s one in the afternoon on a Songday.”

Therazine blinked. It was Thornsday when she left Lormian, and early evening at that. It had been so long since she’d traveled between worlds that she forgot they didn’t all operate on the same clock. She tried to recall the time difference between Lormian and Celedin, knowing it was something like 60 hours with a variable margin of 10. Or was it 15?

“Of course,” she said.

“Not from around here?” the bartender said.

“I’m looking for someone. Tall. Dresses very erudite.”

“Dresses what?”

“Dresses well,” Therazine said. “Has a turned-up mustache and long hair.”

“You’re describing a lot of people. Did this fellow give you a name? Maybe I’ll recognize it.”

Therazine looked into the bartender’s eyes. Was he a stand-in for her contact? Was she meant to meet with him? The bartender didn’t come off like an intermediary, but shed been cut down in the past for underestimating even the most seemingly innocuous people. It could be that he wasn’t even the actual bartender for this tavern. The Society could have discovered her presence in Celedin and replaced this man with one of their own. They could’ve even cleared out the bar just to get her exposed, leaving a few planted customers inside to throw off her suspicions.

“Must be the wrong bar,” she said, and she turned to leave.

“You’ve the right establishment, Ms. Therazine,” came a voice from behind her. She turned sharply, her hand going to her hip where no gun or knife sat. At a table near the middle of the tavern sat a man dressed in a fine hatch mark suit with its collar and cuffs extended. His black hair was slicked back, his mustache pointing upward along his cheeks. He motioned for her to sit down.

How had she not noticed him there before? She didn’t move, and kept one foot pointed towards the door. “Alyxandir Orgad?” she said.

“Close, but not quite,” Alyxandir Arkide said. “And if I were someone impersonating myself in order to trap you, I might have fallen for that and said yes.” He motioned again. “Please, Ms. Therazine. You look very tired and uncomfortable. Take your jacket off and have a seat.”

She stepped closer, keeping her hand on her weaponless hip. He gave her a thin smile and she sat down. She took off her coat slowly and threw it onto another chair at the table, all the while keeping her eyes on him.

“Terrance,” Arkide said, looking over his shoulder. “I’ll take a veneltian grain, with a rhine of orange. Neat. My friend here will have…” he glanced at her.

“Nothing,” Therazine said.

“It’s impolite to turn away a free drink,” Arkide said.

“I never take anything that I haven’t earned.”

“Ah, but you have earned it, my dear. By merely being who you are, you’ve earned it. Please, I insist.”

“I’ll do without.”

Arkide sighed. “Alright, then. Down to brass tacks. I am delighted to see that you’ve come, Ms. Therazine—”

“Mrs. Morlo.”

“Of course. My apologies. Mrs. Morlo, it makes me happy that you’ve decided to take my employer up on his offer.” Arkide stared at her expectantly. “You have decided to take the job, yes?”

“I might.”

“Splendid. That was such a quick turnaround. It wasn’t even three days ago that you chased me off your property with a gun. Now…” The bartender dropped off his drink, and Arkide thanked him with a palmful of glit. He waited until the bartender had moved away from the table before continuing. “Delicious stuff,” he said, swirling the drinking in his hand. “Hard to find. Only truly veneltian if it’s aged in Javadoan oak casks. Bottles sell for 200 glit, on average.” He paused. “This job I am offering you. I need to know that you can get it done. Are you still in top form?”

Therazine didn’t respond.

Arkidewaited a moment, and then took a sip of his dark drink. He pursed his lips. “I know this game you’re playing, Mrs. Morlo. You can’t hide your desperation from me. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need my money.”

“How much?”

“Seven-hundred and fifty million,” Arkide said. “Deposited into the account of your choosing on the world of your choosing.”

Therazine held in an alarmed expression. When he said nine figures, she was sure he had been exaggerating. Seven-hundred and fifty million was more than she had made in her entire career. It was more than she’d heard of anyone ever making in her old line of work. It was an absurd sum, but Arkide presented it to her completely straight faced. She was confident he had the money. She was confident in her skills to do whatever this job was.

Therazine hadn’t killed a person for money in over a decade. She hadn’t had the urge to since then, and she didn’t know. That hideous person that she used to be was gone. She should never come back. What did it mean if Therazine took this job, then? Regression? Could she even do it anymore? Did she still have the stomach for taking a life?

She thought of putting a bullet through Wallace MonDozer’s neck. It felt—not good, but not reprehensible either. But there were other circumstances surrounding that kill.

She thought of Bren.

She thought of her family.

She didn’t have a choice.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

Arkide cocked his head. “You haven’t even heard what the job is.”

“If you were going to tell me before I signed on, you would have done so already. Whatever it is, it’s sensitive and you don’t want me knowing about it until I’ve agreed to your cause. So, yes. I’ll do it. You have me.”

“You don’t care who my employer is?” Arkide asked.

“No.”

Arkide smiled, thin and viper-like. “Copacetic.”

Therazine was losing patience with this man. An inward anger burned through her. “Who do you want me to kill?”

Arkide downed his drink and flipped the glass upside down. He set it gently on the table and leaned in close.

“The Holy Emperor,” he said.

TIME AWASH WITH BLOOD-- Chapter Four

A gunshot. The tolling of an alarm bell. The bark of a dog. The slam of a door. Another gunshot. A foghorn. The call of a rot crow. The pattering of rain. The scream of a woman.

Rambolt Eells heard all these things over the course of a single hour. The city was loud tonight. Reeling and stumbling over itself, desperate for someone or something to notice its torment. The wretched filled its streets like a virus, gorging themselves on debauchery and madness. They prowled through the darkness, drinking and killing and fucking until their bellies were so full of sin that they got stuck in the gutters. There they waited until dawn, when they crawled themselves out and masqueraded as civilization. But when night fell their depraved appetites once again overcame them. Few realized the irreparable damage they were doing to their very souls. None fathomed that they were dragging the wailing city into damnation along with them.

Rambolt Eells alone heard the city’s tortured cry. All others were deaf. For years he had tried to uncover their ears, but none of them cared. The disease would not listen to the body’s protestations. From his open window high above the infected streets, he listened to Celadin’s death rattle.

He heard the heavy wooden door behind him open with a creak. He turned, and saw a man in a dark blue robe enter his room cautiously.

“Brother Rambolt?” the man said in a whisper.

Rambolt Eells did not respond. He turned back to the window and felt the rain splash across his naked chest.

He heard feet shuffling nervously behind him.

“Brother Rambolt,” the man said. “The Council, they wish to…”

“Brother Thomas,” Eells said, tasting the rain on his tongue. He motioned behind him. “Come. Tell me what you hear.”

After a hesitant moment, Brother Thomas joined him up on the broad sill of the window. Eells glanced at the bald man beside him. Thomas lifted a hand to his face to block the rain. Eells gently placed a hand on his lower back, and he felt the monk tremble.

“Brother Rambolt, what is—”

“Shhh… Listen, Brother. Listen, and tell me what you hear.”

Thomas was quiet. He wiped the rainwater from his face, leaned forward slightly, then leaned back and wiped his face again.

“I can’t hear—what am I listening for? The rain?”

“Shhh.”

Thomas shook beneath Eells’ hand. Eells remained quiet, and waited.

Thomas looked up nervously. “Brother Rambolt, I don’t know what this is, but the Council—”

Eells gripped the back of Thomas’ robe and thrust him out into the night, suspending him in midair.

“Listen to her,” Eells said over Thomas’ screams. “Listen to your city, Brother. Hear that mournful sound she makes? That horrendous shrieking? She is in pain, Brother. A demon lashes her with its whip. Do you know this demon’s name?”

Thomas only screamed.

“The demon is man, Brother. He fills her veins with his madness and his evil, and he feels no remorse. He stabs her with hooks, lashes her down with chains. But do you hear what accompanies that pain, Brother? The underlying tone to her scream?” He pulled Thomas back in slightly, so that his head was resting over Thomas’ ear. “It is a moan of pleasure. It is lust. Because she is beginning to enjoy it. Man is not content with simply destroying her, Brother. He intends to pull those chains and drag her into the Aether along with him.”

Eells yanked Thomas back into the room. Thomas sprawled across the floor, soaking wet and gasping. Eells stepped down from the sill, leaving the window open. He crossed the room and grabbed his own blue robe, draping it over his sleek shoulders and fastening the buttons across his chest. He threw on his brown leather boots and tied the red sash across his waist.

“Soon it will be too late, Brother Thomas. The city will be completely consumed by the disease that runs rampant through her veins. There will be nothing that any of us can do. She will die.”

Thomas sat up, running a hand over his face again. He looked at Rambolt Eells, his skin completely white. “The… The Council… They wanted to—”

“I’m aware, Brother Thomas,” Eells said, securing his rapier at his side. “I wish to see them myself. There’s been a Schism.”

“A Schism?” Thomas said. “That—Are you certain?”

“I have felt it. For the first time in ten years. The Council will want to speak with me. And you, Brother Thomas, you will go again to that window and listen. When the cries of ecstasy and death finally reach your ears, you may leave.”

Rambolt Eells strode from the room, leaving Brother Thomas in a puddle on the floor.

#

Not a single noise reverberated through the Council chamber. Rambolt Eells paid careful attention to his breathing, so as not to let a stray ragged gust defile the sanctity of the place. Thousands of years of tradition created the Ritual of Silence that was constantly observed within the alabaster walls of the Council chamber. It was claimed throughout the history of Prevalistic literature that the Aether uses human voices to scratch down the walls between worlds, but Eells wasn’t so sure. The Aether manifested itself in other, more sinister ways.

He stood on a white circle that was illuminated by radioactive gas, a property that Eells had heard was termed ‘neon.’ It seemed to him like magic, torn from the dark realm of the Aether. He didn’t understand so much of science, but magic he knew plenty of. He knew it could shed light on many things beyond simple patches of floor. Burning gas didn’t seem sustainable enough to provide he constant, even light beneath his feet. But if the white light was power by magic, he could understand that. He consciously recognized that it wasn’t, of course. It couldn’t be. The Aether hadn’t bled into the Real in a decade.

Until that morning, that is. That was why the Council had summoned him, why he had awoken in the night and listened at the window.

Seventeen electric lights ignited in a circle around him, casting pillars of illumination over seventeen robed figures standing behind tall podiums. Eells resisted the impulse to blink as the lights came on; the slight brushing of his eyelids might be seen as a desecration of the Ritual of Silence.

The seventeen figures were each wearing silver masks. Completely opaque and featureless, these were the masks of the Ascetic Council, the highest authority within the Order of Prevelistics. The masks kept their identities unknown from those that they preached to. None knew who they were outside of the chamber and without the masks. From this tower they opined and judged, as they were the only beings deemed holy enough to speak during the Ritual of Silence.

Eells stood perfectly still and held his breath.

“Brother Rambolt Eells,” one of the figures said. The sensation of noise shook him to his bones. He was not sure which figure had even spoken; none moved, and the voice seemed to come from everywhere. He held his stance and did not speak.

“Early this morning the Council became aware of a significant distortion within the Real. This event, which we reluctantly refer to as a Schism, is now considered alarming, and worthy of our attention. You have felt this, have you not?”

Eells said nothing.

“We grant upon you the temporary gift of palaver,” the Council said.

Eells looked around at the Council members. Had he heard them correctly? They were allowing him speech during the Ritual? He licked his lips, and let out a noisy breath. None reacted. Nothing happened, and he realized that for the first time in his life he was being allowed to converse with the Ascetic Council.

He cleared his throat. “My Council,” he said, an address that very few had ever given, “you are correct. I felt the Schism myself. It woke me from my sleep.” His words echoed loudly, returning to his ears unclean. It made his skin crawl.

“Then it is true,” the Council said.

“If he is too be believed, “ the Council said.

“We are to believe him. He is trusted by his abbey; he has always been a devout servant,” the Council said.

Eells tried to follow the conversing voices, but could not.

“His senses are finely attuned, yes, but his past shows his overzealous nature.”

“That was merely piety.”

“The events at Gorga Sak Dromas were piety?”

“Of the utmost kind.”

“It was madness.”

“It was duty.”

“He is violent. He takes immeasurable risks. He endangers everything around him to follow his narrow-minded goals. You would trust him with such a task as we have?”

“You would trust any other?”

The Council fell silent.

“Brother Rambolt Eells,” the Council said. “Why do you believe that it was you who felt the Schism, and not another?”

Eells swallowed, his voice still not ready for the idea of talking to the Council themselves. “Because I felt the last one,” he said. “The last Schism. Ten years ago. I felt it, and I followed it. I lost its trail, a failure that haunts me to this day, but now that Schism has returned.”

“You are certain it is the same affect that caused this Schism? The same leak between the Aether and the Real?”

“I am certain, My Council.”

“Where would you fathom that this Schism occurred?”

“At the same place as the last.”

“And where is that?” the Council asked.

Eells felt a spike of impatience. The Council knew exactly where the Schism had occurred. They were testing him, because some among them didn’t believe him.

“The Lormian-Celedin Aperture,” Eells said.

“You see?” the Council said. “He knows. He can sense the Schisms.”

“It was mere guesswork. Extrapolating from the last Schism ten years ago.”

“You truly think this?”

“What else could it be? There isn’t a single soul attuned enough to sense the exact location of the disruptions…”

“And yet he did last time.”

“There are myriad factors that could have influenced his last conclusion. As you said, that was ten years ago. And as he himself said, that venture ended in failure. It could be that he was simply incorrect about the location of the Schism.”

“But that does not explain the—”

“My Council,” Eells said, turning all seventeen masks to him. He looked up, breathing calmly and loudly. “I know the location of this Schism. Regardless of the hours you spend bickering over it, you know that I know. After all, you summoned me here for a reason.”

The Council stood quiet for a moment. Then, one voice spoke. “Brother Rambolt Eells,” it said. “You are no doubt aware of the current tumultuous state of the Commonwealth. An event such as this Schism brings alarm to us all, including the Holy Emperor himself. It is not completely improbable that this Schism is somehow connected to a rebel plot to undo the Commonwealth, or even to eliminate our Holy Emperor. In such dangerous times, a loose thread such as this cannot be allowed to unwind. You have proven yourself a resourceful and powerful instrument to the Order. We bestow upon you the title of Bereaver, and task you with uncovering the source of this Schism and destroying it. You have access to the entirety of the Order’s wealth. You are granted immunity from all municipal, provincial, and inter-world governments. Your methods for accomplishing this task will not be questioned, your progress will not be hindered.”

Eells couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The legend of the Bereaver was ancient, nearly as old as the Order itself. Every citizen of the Real knew of the Bereavers. It was a temporary title, only fabricated during times of great distress. He’d studied the stories of the Bereavers in the abbey. Bereaver Santi ended the Great War. Bereaver Chormakin brought about the Culling of the Reticent. And then of course there was the myth of Bereaver Gaias Tushar Saddantian, who fought back the leaking of the Aether and ascended to the throne of Holy Emperor. Was he really to join such esteemed ranks?

“We expect much of you, Bereaver Eells,” the Council said. “Do not fail us.”

There were no words with which to respond to what he was just told. Of course? I will not fail you? Thank you seemed trite, almost condescending coming from the tongue of… of a Bereaver.

“I am the wall against which the Aether breaks,” he said at last.

“Excellent,” the Council said.

“Satisfactory,” the Council said. “You are merely our tool, Eells. Remember that. Any glory you achieve is in the name of the Order, not yourself. Any grievances you commit are yours to bear. Now prepare yourself for the brand.”

The brand. The mark that identifies the Bereaver. The mark that shows all others that he is above them, that his action is law, that his word is right. Rambolt Eells braces himself as one of the Council members approached him with a large iron tool, its four-pronged end glowing hot red.

#

His face stung. He felt the freshly burnt flesh across his face as he descended the steps of the Council’s tower. Two thick lines, running from his temples to the sides of his jaw, crossing each other over his nose. Soon it would heal into a scar; a permanent, unmistakable mark labeling him Bereaver. It was who he was now, blasted into his skin. He could have no other profession. He could have no other life than his commitment to the absolute ideals of the Order.

He would have it no other way.

Rambolt Eells walked past the two guards at the main door of the Council’s tower. They had given him much guff upon his entrance. Demanded to see his identification, asked him his business, removed from him his rapier. But now they cast him a quick glance, and then in shameful realization turned their eyes away.  He stopped, extended his hand. One of the guards—still carefully keeping his gaze away from the Bereaver— gently placed the rapier in Eells waiting palm. The guard dropped to a kneel and removed his helmet, bending his head forward so as to expose the back of his neck as much as possible. The gesture surprised Eells, but he quickly recognized it and removed his rapier from its scabbard. He placed its blade softly on the guard’s spine.

“You leave your fate up to me,” Eells said. “As a sign of sacrament, yes? A ritual of forgiveness treating me with such brashness when you knew not what fate intended me to be? I could sever your head right now. Immediately. Without consequence. But… you are a faithful servant of the Order. You were merely protecting your Council, as I would have done were I in your position.” He ran the blade slowly across the guard’s skin, drawing a thin line of blood. “But, as the Council has declared, I am not in your position.” In one strike he severed the guard’s head.

Blood spilled across his boots, and Eells could almost feel its warmth through the leather. He’d only killed once before this moment, and that was in self-defence as a boy. He’d trained his fencing skills to their peak, practiced against armored opponents with dulled blades for years, but never once had he expected to actually use his blade to take the life of another. Monks of the Order of Prevalistics were peaceful by nature, and only carried their swords as a symbol of tradition, harkening back to battle-torn days long past. He’d long ago resigned himself to a life of pacifism and contemplation. Decades of meditation within the abbey supposedly parted his mind with any temptation to cause harm to another living being. And yet here, within moments of acquiring his new position of power, he took the life of an innocent man who wished only to atone. It was alarming, unexpected, and exciting. He loved it.

He half-expected another guard to come racing down the hall, gun raised. But he found himself standing above a corpse in the early morning with no consequences.

The other guard gasped and dropped his rifle. Rambolt Eells turned to him. The guard, tearing his eyes away from the decapitated body that sprawled out between them, immediately silenced himself.

“I am the voice that the Aether cannot steal,” Eells said to no one in particular. “I alone have the power to snuff out the Pale Light and free the Real from the sin and corruption that consumes it.”

He pushed open the large stone door of the tower, and stepped out into the streets of Celedin.

The sun was dim overhead, struggling to shine through clouds of smog. The tall gabled roofs of the surrounding buildings loomed over him with their latticed roofs and their oblong windows, surrounding him like walls in a maze. But Rambolt Eells did not feel trapped in a concrete labyrinth. He looked around at the dense crowd that filled the square in front of the Council’s tower and felt nothing but freedom.

So many lives.

So many wrongs to right.

He stepped down the marble steps, and into the cobblestone street. Through the doorway behind him he heard a cry, but he ignored it. Nothing in the past, even moments before, mattered. He was a creature of the future. An engine of progress.

“There is no sin that escapes my sight,” he said. A merchant walking by him turned, evidently curious about the unprovoked statement. Eells met his eyes, and smiled as the man’s skin turned pale and his eyes widened. Eells lifted his blood-streaked rapier to the man’s face. The merchant shouted, dropping his bundle of fruit and vegetables and throwing his hands into the air.

“Please,” the merchant said. “I’ve done nothing. What’s—”

“What do you do at night?” Eells said. The crowd around him hushed. He could feel their fear suddenly igniting, growing like a wildfire.

The merchant’s lips trembled before speaking. “What? I sleep. I mean, I—”

“Recite for me the Nine Writs.”

The merchant blubbered without words. He looked around at the crowd. No one responded to his silent begging. In fact, they backed away from him. He looked back at Eells.

“The… the… The Writ of Subjugation…”

“Which is…?” Eells said, poking the rapier’s tip into the merchant’s skin.

“‘One shall subject himself to the will of the Holy Emperor…”

“And?” Eells said.

The merchant licked his lips. “And… the Writ of Purity… which says ‘one will withhold from any desire—er, no, wait—temptation, to engage in congress with the Aether, unless explicitly directed by the Order. I mean the Order of Prevalistics. And… the Writ of Finalization—”

“What about the Writ of Saturation?”

The man blubbered. “I was— it was— I mean—”

Rambolt Eells ran his rapier through the merchant’s chest. The man’s eyes widened with terror and sorrow, and Eells grabbed his chin.

“‘I hold myself to the standards of the Order of Prevalistics,’” Eells said. “‘I bathe myself in its teachings, for only through complete saturation in knowledge and scripture can I be saved from the eternal torment of the Aether.’” He pulled the blade from the merchant’s ribs, spilled blood across the cobblestone, and the crowd shrieked.

“‘Go not into the abyss alone,’” Eells said, “‘For the Order goes with you, and fights back the dragons of the Pale Light to deliver your soul into sweet oblivion unmolested.’”

The merchant clawed at Eells face, reaching out desperately, and then his eyes rolled back. Eells dropped him. Immediately six uniformed officers of the constabulary burst from the crowd, drawn by the screams or some complaint of a concerned citizen. They raised their pistols and demanded that Rambolt Eells drop his weapon or be fired upon.

For a split-second Eells felt supreme self-doubt, a fear that he had done something outside of acceptable boundaries and would face the terrible consequences. He heard his mother’s voice chastising him, felt his father’s belt upon his flesh. But then he remembered who he was now, and he stood tall, turning to the constables.

They beheld his marked visage and his blue robes, and they lowered there guns.

“I am the wall against which the Aether breaks,” Eells said. He walked. The constables let him pass without even a word.

For the first time in his life, Rambolt Eells was happy.

But that happiness was compounded by the fact that he had a job to do. An important job. Something—likely someone—had disrupted the fragile boundary between the Aether and the Real. This was supremely dangerous, and—more importantly—supreme sacrilege. He would find this source, the cause of this Schism, and he would destroy it in the name of the Order. But where to start?

The Schism had occurred at the Lormian-Celedein Aperture. That was as good a place to start as any.

TIME AWASH WITH BLOOD-- Chapter Three

The lights in the inter-station were painful to Therazine’s eyes. She was used to the soft light of a fire or light bulbs, not the harsh, blue light of the gas tubes that lined the concrete walls that surrounded her. Around her a thousand voices stammered nonsense. The lines for transport off-world were hours long, and there were three times as many people as there were available seats. Workmen in grey suits ushered people through some doors and away from other ones, checking the papers carefully of anyone who passed through. Therazine was next in line for a ticket window that was labeled ‘CELADIN’.

The decision to leave Lormian had not been easy, but her family was penniless and homeless. The fire had left nothing for them. They weren’t even able to afford a funeral for Bren. They buried him in the hills beyond the orchard where in the spring he would play with the rabbits. Leshe said a prayer over the grave, and Therazine didn’t object.

Beyond mere money troubles, MonDozer senior had made it clear that he was not pleased with four of his twenty-seven sons being killed. The death of the promising Wallace MonDozer left him especially disagreeable. Lormian was a new world with the youngest civilization in all the Real, and lacked a strong provincial authority. The High Minister of Lormian handled the interplanetary affairs from his palace in the capital city of Nalak, but left the populace of the world almost entirely to themselves. This near-lawless frontier led to communities raising their own forms of authority and justice. As everywhere else, money was power on Lormian. The elder MonDozer was quite wealthy, and owned an impressive chunk of Lormian land. He had much of the population under his employ; many families just like Therazine’s. And now that she’d killed his most favored son, MonDozer was out for Therazine’s blood.

To stay on Lormian was irresponsible. As long as she was here, she was putting her family at risk. They traveled to Nalak by cover of night and met a woman that Therazine knew they could trust. Madame Senzal was a warm, good natured woman who ran a brothel in the wharf district of Nalak. It was a profitable, black market affair that sat quietly at the heart of the world’s civilization. A decade ago, Therazine had done a job for Madame Senzal pro bono. Now Therazine called upon that owed favor to hide her husband and her son while she left the world.

Money was power. Her farm and her livelihood had been destroyed. There was a job waiting for her in a tavern call The Raven and The Cobbler on Celadin. She had little choice but to leave.

“I’d like passage to Celadin,” she said to the man in the grey suit on the other side of the bulletproof glass.

He didn’t look up at her. Only kept scribbling on a form that sat next to a pile of hundreds others like it. “Documentation,” he said.

She pushed two sheets of paper under the thin margin between the glass and the counter. This, too, was a gift from Madame Senzal. The man glanced up at them briefly, stamped them, and then pushed them back at her. “Travel warning,” he said in a monotone voice. “The state of unrest in the capital remains at level 3. Residents and visitors to Celadin are at minor risk of harm or death at the hands of insurgents.”

“Insurgents?” Therazine said.

The man shot her a look and then went back to his documents. “The rebels still hold Marshagrad, despite the greatest efforts of the Commonwealth. Fighting persists beyond the walls of the capital and shows no sign of ceasing. Travelers are advised to avoid travel to Celadin—”

“Are you forbidding me?”

The man looked up. “It’s an advisory. I’m just mandated to say it. Do whatever you like.” He pulled a lever on a machine on his desk. The machine chime, and churned out a perforated sheet of card stock. “Seventy-eight glit,” he said.

She frowned. She’d sold their remaining horse for twenty, and her rifle for another sixty. All of their other funds had vanished, just as the MonDozers’ had claimed. Would it be wise to leave herself with next to no money in Celadin? But again, did she really have a choice? She fished out a handful of silver cards in from her pocket—each no more than an inch long and half as wide—and scooted them under the window. The man returned to her a single silver card etched with a ‘2’ and then gave her the card stock.

“Next,” the man said.

The person behind Therazine pushed past her. She put the two glit into her pocket and then looked at the card stock. ‘CELADIN’ was stamped across the top. Below that it read ‘NON-REFUNDABLE.’ 

She made her way through the crowd to the workmen at the doors. She found the door for Celadin and showed her ticket to the attendant. He ran it through a machine of his own, and when it chimed he waved her through. She stepped into a room that was larger still, and filled with significantly more people. There was a divider that ran through the middle of the room, clearly labeled with gas-filled lights that one was for people arriving from Celadin and the other was for people departing to Celadin. The line offworld was significantly shorter. This didn’t surprise her. Once one left Celadin, one usually wasn’t eager to go back.

The room itself had a high ceiling, large enough near the entrance to shelter a four story building, and then narrowing down at the far end to no more than ten feet tall. The ceiling was ridged with a lattice-like structure which bent and flowed in a clearly painstakingly crafted manner but was in no way aesthetically appealing. Here and there along every surface were indents and divots of different sizes, ranging from a foot across to ten feet. Along the ceiling and walls this could be forgiven as merely poor artwork; on the floor it was a hazard to the hundreds of people rushing about. Therazine knew, however, that the strange construction of this huge, bizarre room was out of necessity. She didn’t understand the mathematics of the passage between worlds, but she knew that the interstices which made it possible were incredibly temperamental.

At the far end of the room was one such interstice: a hollow arch that opened into off-white light. This portal connected the Real to the Aether, also known as the Beyond, the Outside, or—in some esoteric circles—Hell. The Aether was as mysterious as it was dangerous. As far as Therazine knew, its nature and properties were still entirely unknown. The thaumaturges and the Emperor normally kept the Aether beyond the threshold of the Real (the few instances in which it had bled into reality had caused the annihilation of entire nations), but at these apertures they allowed it to touch the edges of their universe. Some mystic in ages past had discovered that the realm of the Aether was not three-dimensional, and that holes could be punched through it to create tunnels between space in the Real. Therazine was not incredibly familiar with either the sorcery or the history behind this process. But she, like many millions of others in the Commonwealth, used it for safe and easy travel to and from the various kingdoms. She would have to do no more than step through the glowing doorway at the other end of the room, and be instantly transported across countless leagues to Celadin. All for the paltry sum of her horse and her gun.

There were families in the line of people who were arriving from Celadin. Some were wealthy, upper class citizens looking to start their own private empires on the frontier world of Lormian. Others were refugees, fleeing the capital world with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and fear in their hearts. Each person went through a rigorous decontamination process and screening before being allowed to pass on to the streets of the city above them. Some—the more filthy and suspicious-looking among them—were turned away and put into Therazine’s much shorter line.

She watched with detached fascination as the people ahead of her vanished into the pale light. The meeting of the Real and the Aether was naturally chaotic and dangerous. Complex calculations, requiring constant revision and reinvention, were required to keep the apertures stable. Therazine had seen the kinds of people who facilitated the apertures; to say that she’d met them felt inaccurate. These facilitators—known as thaumaturges—weren’t even aware of the Real around them. Nothing outside of their calculations existed. They were incapable of speech, of interaction between human beings… and this left the entirety of their minds open to the task of managing the apertures. Without the thaumaturges, the doors would collapse and be sealed forever; or worse, they’d burst open and let the Aether leak through into the worlds. Ordinary men and women could not possibly hope to contain such chaos. The thaumaturges, however, were far from ordinary. Therazine pictured him (the thaumaturges were always male, for whatever reason) buried in the wall behind the Lormian-Celadin Aperture, embedded in a sprawling mechanical nightmare that kept his body nourished and kept his mind focused. She imagined the shrew-like attendants that wiped the sweat off his hairless brow. They adjusted dials across the machine and checked the seals that connected its tubes and wires to the thaumaturge’s skull. The thaumaturge’s eyes flitted across electric displays and Aethereal manifestations, absorbing the information that was fed into him and bleeding it out in the form of mechanical clicks on a keyboard. Hour after hour, day after day. Therazine shivered. She could not imagine a more grizzly fate.

No, she could. Having your son killed on your front lawn and being forced from your home. That was worse.

“Ma’am?” the workman at the aperture said to her.

She blinked, having been lost in thought. The aperture glowed a sickly white, waiting for her to step through. Her heart began to beat faster. She hated using these things. Every time she passed through an aperture (the last time being probably ten years ago), she felt sick for days afterwards. It left her shivering, retching, and bedridden. That would be an unpleasant thing to deal with in the streets of Celadin, penniless and homeless. She felt the aperture humming in her bones.

She frowned, and ignored the extended hand of the workman. Therazine stepped through.

TIME AWASH WITH BLOOD-- Chapter Two

“Mother,” Leshe said.

“Hush.” Therazine rapped her fingers on the forearm of her rifle to keep them from falling asleep. The perpendicular clip of the rifle sat right in front of her face, looking almost like a harmonica extending from the side of the gun. She pulled her head back an inch and then cracked her neck, before resettling her eye on the telescopic sight. Through it she saw rocks climbing up the other side of the canyon. She traced along a natural trail until she found the cave she had been looking at before.

They had been been sitting on these rocks for hours. She had taken Leshe and left the homestead just after sunrise. They rode out to the range and within minutes found a fresh kill. Its guts had been scooped out like all the others. She fired her rifle in the air once as they approached and the scavenging jackals fled. They made for the mountains immediately after. Around noon they found scat. From there Therazine was able to trace the trail of the murderous creatures to the canyon they sat perched above presently. The cave on the other side was the most likely place that a family of glaive cats would make a den. She watched it constantly, while Leshe kept a lookout over the rest of the canyon with a brass monocular.

Leshe wasn’t happy with this stakeout, she knew. But this was what it took. You find where your prey lives, and you wait outside of its home. When it returns or when it emerges, you kill it from a distance, never to be seen by it. Patience is the mark of an effective hunter. She knew it. The glaive cats knew it. She would teach it to Leshe.

“Mother,” Leshe said.

She looked over at him. He lowered the monocular.

“I don’t think they’re there,” he said.

She sighed and looked back through the telescopic sight. “Neither you or I know that, Leshe. The only way for us to find out will be to wait.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as it takes. You be vigilant and patient, they’ll come to you. Lenfoul are impatient. Prairie dogs are impatient. Do you know what happens to them?”

“They get eaten,” Leshe said.

“That’s right. But the dust worms wait. The glaive cats wait. They eat those that see a need to run. Do you want to be a prairie dog, or a glaive cat, Leshe?”

“I don’t want to be either. I like being a boy.”

She glanced over at him again, and then back to the cave. “Boy’s need to eat. They need walls and land to survive. These animals would see that taken from us. So, as a boy, you need to fight them back. Take from them before they from you.”

“Then why don’t we just go down there?” Leshe said. “Why don’t we just go into that cave and shoot them all?”

Therazine remembered her days within the Society, and all the initiates who were killed on their first job because they were restless.

“Because that cave is their home,” she said. “If we go in there, we’re on their turf. You’ve seen pictures of glaive cats in your books, right? I’m sure they’ve taught you about them.”

“Yes.”

“Well, would you want to tangle with one of them?”

Leshe frowned. “Not especially.”

Therazine nodded. “So then we keep our distance. It’s an advantage of ours. Always hold on to every advantage you have, no matter how minor it may seem or how much easier it might be to abandon it. You never know what the Aether’s going to throw at you.”

“The rectors say we shouldn’t use that word casually,” Leshe said.

She turned fully from the rifle and met Leshe’s eyes. “Excuse me?”

Leshe fiddled with the monocular. “At the abbey. Rector Egan says that every time we use the A-word lightly it lets a ray of the Pale Light into our souls.”

“Aether? Is that the A-word?”

Leshe nodded.

She touched a hand to his leg. “Aether’s just a word, son. Words don’t mean anything, other than to the people hearing them. You say whatever words you want to say. Except shit. Don’t say shit.”

“Rector Egan tells us that the Aether listens to all our words.”

“That’s bullshit,” she said. “And you just said Aether right there.”

Leshe blinked. “But I wasn’t saying it lightly. I was… I just used it to…” He trailed off.

“So your rector would have you believe that the Aether not only listens to what words you say, but will also judge you on how you use them?”

“It’s not… I don’t know,” Leshe said. “He said it better than I did. It made sense when he said it.”

“Leshe, dear, look around us.” Therazine motioned to the rocky canyon around them. Clouds had rolled in from the previous night, covering the tips of the mountains in grey fog. Trees of all varieties grew far apart and stuck out from jagged rocks like hairs on a mole. Far below a stream ran through the canyon, hinting at a lake farther up, and snow past that.

“This is the Real. The Aether isn’t here. It’s kept away from us by very smart, very powerful men and women. If it were capable of listening to us, don’t you think the Prevalists would try and stop that? Would they really let it just listen in on everyone, everywhere?”

Leshe shrugged. “I guess not.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I said a prayer for us last night. There’s just so much I don’t know about… things. I know you and father are having a hard time with the MonDozers. I thought that, you know, maybe a prayer would help us. Or, I don’t know, at least not hurt us.”

Therazine was quiet for a moment. “Your father told you about the MonDozers?”

“No,” Leshe said. “But our walls aren’t too thick. Bren and I hear a lot from our room.”

“You do?”

Leshe nodded.

Therazine bit her lip and turned back to her rifle. That was information she’d have to file away.

She looked back at the cave, and saw movement.

“Leshe,” she said sharply. “Look up.”

There was something moving at the mouth of the cave, partially obscured by a boulder. The foliage along the trail provided her with a scale for its size.

“It’s huge,” Leshe said. “I didn’t know they were that big.”

“That’s just a cub.” Therazine steadied her aim on the creature, waiting for it to move out from behind the rock so she could get a clear view. “Her parents will be big as horses.”

“Oh…” Leshe said. Therazine grinned slightly.

The creature stumbled into view. Through her telescopic sight, Therazine could see the creature’s long, lithe body, taught with muscle and nearly hairless. Underneath its short head, protruding from a lantern jaw, was a stubby horn-like structure, unmistakably identifying the animal as a young glaive cat. The validation made Therazine want to shout.

The cub wobbled over its big paws, kicking pebbles around the flat area outside the cave.

“Do we shoot it?” Leshe whispered.

“No.”

“Why?”

“If we shoot it, we’ll only scare its parents. They’ll flee and not show themselves again, and then this day will be wasted. The baby will draw them out.”

The cub continued to wander about. They waited a few minutes, but no other animal showed itself. The cub laid down and slept.

“Mother.”

“Hush.”

“But mother, what if the parents aren’t there? What if the baby goes back into the cave? Wouldn’t we—Shooting this one is better than shooting none of them, right?”

Therazine sighed. “Leshe, take a stone and throw it. As far down into the canyon as you can.”

Leshe did as she said, and a fist-sized stone tumbled down towards the stream before disappearing amongst the rocks below.

The cub looked up from it nap.

“Again,” Therazine said.

At the second stone the cub stood. It stalked curiously to look over the edge.

“Again.”

A third stone clattered down the rocks and stopped just short of the stream, releasing a dozen other stones which fell into the water with a soft sploosh.

The cub barked and twitched its naked tail. As if in response, a deeper, rumbling growl came from the cave. The cub started to hop, and kept bark. A roar came forth, and then a huge creature emerged into the canyon. The thin fur across its body was faintly striped, but otherwise was a near mirror of the cub. The most glaring difference between them—aside from overall size—was the mandibular growth on its jaw. Whereas the cub had a blunt, club-like growth, the adult sported a heavy blade that jutted forward to twice the length of its head. This blade was jagged from decades of cutting through bone and wood, the ravages of time clearly evident. Therazine’s first thought was admiration at how white and nearly gleaming the jaw blade was. Clearly this creature—a male, from what she could ascertain—took great pride in its weapon.

The adult glaive cat lumbered up to the cub and let loose another harrowing roar. It was easily four times the size of its child.

“Oh, shit,” Leshe said.

“Tongue.” Therazine settled the scope on the cub. If another cub hadn’t emerged at this point, then there wasn’t another. This cub was jumping around its father’s heels eagerly, clearly expecting a hunt of some kind. She waited until the cub stopped to crouch, ready for a pounce. Then she stopped her breath, focused on the rhythm of her own heartbeat, and drew the crosshairs a single degree above the cub’s back.

The rifle cracked. The cub dropped. She ran her thumb on the rifle’s wheel, and the harmonica clip moved a half-inch to the right, lining up a new bullet.

The adult glaive cat barked in alarm. Therazine fired, not wasting a second before cycling the rifle and firing again. The first bullet hit the animal in the lungs, the second in the neck. It howled and fell, gnashing at the air with its massive jaw blade.

Leshe’s hands were covering his ears. “Is that it?”

Therazine remained quiet and kept her eye level with her rifle. Grey smoke wafter from the three spent cases in the harmonica clip. There was no movement in the cave. The adult glaive cat stopped squirming and lay still. There were two bullets left in her gun.

Therazine remained prone and silent. After a minute she saw Leshe starting to stand up in the corner of her eye. Before she could command him to sit back down, the mother appeared at the cave.

She was large, but not as large as the male. But whereas the male had spent its final moment barking in confusion, the female jumped out into the light of day with her teeth bared and took off down the canyon in a run. She bounded to the stream below with startling quickness for a creature her size, and then began up the canyon on Therazine and Leshe’s side.

Leshe shrieked and fell backward onto rocks. Therazine jumped to her own feet to get a better angle on the beast. The glaive cat had seen the chaos and waited, just like Therazine had, and now it made a beeline right for her. Therazine took a half second to admire the creature’s cunning, and then sent a bullet spinning down the side of the canyon and through the female’s head. She tumbled to the bottom.

Therazine flicked the thumbwheel once more and chambered the last round in her gun. She breathed a sigh and then looked over at Leshe.

Her son was pale and breathing hard.

“You showed her where you were,” Therazine said.

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Therazine said. “Just learn from it. You gave up the advantage of concealment because you thought that the fight was over and you wanted to go see your kill. You should have waited.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I said don’t be.”

She reached out and helped her son up. He looked up at her.

“What now?”

“We go and get the male’s head,” Therazine said.

#

The weight of the glaive cat’s head hanging from the saddle made Therazine’s horse tilt to one side as it trotted along. The jaw of the decapitated beast gaped wide, and its blade dug a trench in the ground behind them.

Leshe rode beside her. “Why not give it to the abbey?” he said.

“Because the abbey wouldn’t pay us for it,” Therazine said.

“But the abbey will display it in one of the classrooms. Or the grand hall. They’ll use it for education. Giving it to the Minister just seems… I don’t know, won’t he just mount it on his wall?”

“Maybe. Does it matter what he does with it?

“If he hangs it on his wall, people will think he killed it.”

Therazine looked over at him. “And you don’t want people to think that?”

“Well,” said Leshe, “he didn’t kill it. We did.”

“So?”

“So shouldn’t people know that we did?”

Therazine frowned. “That’s important to you, is it? That people know of your accomplishments?”

“Well, yeah,” Leshe said, his voice wavering. “Isn’t it?”

“Not as often as you think. Sometimes its much better to keep your victories to yourself. The less people know about what it is you do, the better you can do it. Public attention complicates things.”

They trotted on for a moment in silence, and then Leshe asked, “What is it that you used to do, mother? Before you met dad?”

“What do you mean?” Therazine said. “I was a nurse. You know that.”

“Yeah, I mean, I do… but also I don’t. You sometimes talk about things with dad and it sounds like you used to do something else. I don’t know. Where’d you learn to kill like that?”

Time slowed down for Therazine as Leshe talked. For a heartbeat she seriously considered stopping both their horses, dismounting, and having a straight, honest discussion with him about everything. She’d tell him how she used to belong to an organization known as the Bloodletter Society. She’d tell him about all the high-profile people she had killed in her twenties, and about the thousands of ways she knew to end a life. She’d recount it all for him in excruciating detail, late into the night. Every single gruesome, horrifying aspect of her former life would come to light. And she’d end it by explaining to him how much it haunted her, how much she regretted it all. She was rotten in side, the deaths of dozens of other thinking, feeling people staining her soul.

But she didn’t. She’d never even explained it to Kohl in that much detail. He knew what she was, of course. He’d met her when she was at her prime as a killer of men. But they never talked about it. It was in the past, and that was where it belonged.

“You learn a lot about how bodies work as a nurse,” she said.

Leshe frowned and looked out ahead. Therazine doubted that the subject was put to rest. Leshe had turned ten this summer. His questions were going to keep coming, and the answers she was giving wouldn’t suffice. She’d have to talk to Kohl.

They rounded a large boulder and stepped into the savannah. The mountains rose behind them. Ahead of them, far to the distance in the west, a column of black smoke rose into the air.

Therazine’s heart sank into her stomach.

“Mom?” Leshe said, his eyes widening.

A thick, gelatinous fear started crawling through Therazine’s veins.

“Mother, is that—”

“No,” Therazine said quietly. She spurred her horse and stormed across the plains. She kept repeating that word over and over again. The column of smoke grew as the miles passed underneath her. She kept hoping, begging that the column would shift a few degrees to the left or right, to above another homestead down the road. But as she approached, her horse gasping for breath, she came upon her orchard. The smoke rose from a point in the middle of the skeletal trees.

She rushed through the trees, and stopped next to an empty box meant for storing fruit. She couldn’t breath as she beheld the sight ahead of her through the trees.

Her home was gone. There were no flames—the damage was already done. It was a corpse of blackened wood and sheets of ash, belching black smoke high into the cloudy afternoon sky. She didn’t call for Kohl or Bren, because she already saw them. Kohl knelt on the burnt lawn in front of the house, Bren clutched tight in his arms. Above them stood a tall man with a gun to Kohl’s head. There were three other men standing around them, all watching the fire. Their chinless faces and fiery red hair showed that they were all from the same stock.

MonDozer’s boys.

Her mind raced with reasons why this shouldn’t be, exclamations of why the presence of the MonDozer’s on her farm was unjust and unfair. Panic at the loss of her house quickly gave way to fury at the sight of the pistol hovering so close to Bren’s head.

“They haven’t seen us,” Leshe whispered. She jerked her head over him. She hadn’t even realized he was near. Leshe was peering through the trees. “You could get him.”

“What?” she said.

“You got all the glaive cats from more than 300 yards. You can do this. You’ve got five shots. There’s only four of them.”

Leshe’s coolness surprised Therazine, and also terrified her.

“No,” she said. “No. They’re not glaive cats. They’re people.”

“What?” Leshe said. “They’ve got dad. And Bren. We’ve the advantage when we’re hidden like this. You need to, mother.”

“You don’t shoot people, Leshe. You never shoot people.” The anger was growing. “Do you hear me? You never kill people.”

Leshe looked at her like she was completely mad. “But you can’t just—What do we do, then?”

Therazine looked back at the smoking house. The MonDozer with the biggest hat—Wallace, if she recalled—turned back to the one that was holding a gun to her family and said something. The MonDozer with the gun  nodded.

Therazine pushed her horse forward and left the cover of the trees. The four men turned to her. She stopped just beyond the orchard, leaving a dozen yards between her and the MonDozer with the gun.

“Mrs. Morlo,” Wallace MonDozer called to her. He was the eldest of the brothers. The right hand of his father.

“MonDozer,” Therazine returned. Her voice was quivering. She fought to control it, but that sludge-like fear had squirmed into ever blood vessel. Kohl looked up at her, tears streaming down the ash that stained his cheeks. She swallowed, and delivered her words with the power and hatred that spawned them. “Get the fuck off my property, you sons of bitches.”

“Our property, Mrs. Morlo,” Wallace said.

“You have no right to be here, MonDozer,” Therazine shouted. “We had until the end of the season to pay you, dammit. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Thera,” Kohl said in a voice that sounded hoarse from screaming.

“We keep an eye on your account, Mrs. Morlo,” Wallace said. Even if you’d turned a miraculous profit on this sad, dying farm, there’s no way by the Aether you’d be able to make enough money to pay my father.”

“We have the money,” Therazine shouted. She was shaking now. “It’s there.”

“It’s not,” Wallace said with a frown. “Your account’s dry as the land you till.”

What? That wasn’t possible. Her and Kohl had made certain that they had enough. They always had enough. It was there.

“It’s there,” Therazine demanded.

Wallace MonDozer shook his head sadly. “My father wants his land back, Mrs. Morlo.”

“Thera,” Kohl whispered again, and for the first time since she’d arrived Therazine looked at him fully. His eyes were wide and hollow. Bren’s face was held to his chest. Bren, who hadn’t even turned to see his mother yet. Bren, who wasn’t holding his father back.

Bren wasn’t breathing.

Everything inside of Therazine screamed.

“If you want this land back,” Wallace said, “the MonDozers are always open to feudal contracts. I’m sure you could work something out with my father.”

Bren wasn’t breathing. Kohl was holding his motionless body because if he didn’t, Bren would slump to the dirt and ash below.

“Your cattle will, of course, be absorbed by my father’s estate, to pay for the damages to this property. These horses you have, as well. We’ll be needing to—”

Therazine shrieked and yanked the rifle from its scabbard. In an instant she’d flicked the thumbwheel and pulled the trigger. Wallace MonDozer’s neck burst like a balloon full of meat.

The other three MonDozers had their guns on her immediately. Her horse took a bullet to the eye and went down, throwing off her second shot. She pulled away from the falling horse just in time to avoid having her leg pinned and rolled off of it. Then she stood, leveling her gun on the MonDozer brother near Kohl and Bren. Her third bullet struck him in the chest.

The remaining two MonDozers kept firing at her. She thumbed the wheel of the rifle and settled the sights on the head of the MonDozer farthest from her. She only looked through the scope for a split-second—just long enough to see a scraggly red beard and a face of tanned leather—and then she fired. Blood flared up in her scope.

She turned, spun the wheel, and placed the final MonDozer in her sights. He wasn’t five yards from her. One of his bullets cut by her face and tore a long painful streak across her ear. She jerked, her finger pulling the trigger, and her last bullet burrowed into the dirt.

Empty gun.

The MonDozer fired again, barely missing her. Therazine grabbed her rifle by the barrel and hurled it at him. He raised his hands to block it, and in that moment she closed the gap between them and snagged his hand that held the pistol. Before he could react she drove a fist into his gut, doubling him over. Still holding his wrist, she struck the back of his elbow with her other hand. There was a loud crack as his arm bent the wrong way. He screamed and the gun fell from his grip.

Therazine flung the gun up with her foot, snatched it out of the air, and shot him in the face.

The farm instantly became silent, other than the sound of the burning building. The whole altercation had taken eleven seconds. Somewhere behind her she heard Leshe shouting ‘mother.’ She dropped the pistol and ran.

Kohl was still clutching Bren. Leshe was beside him, bawling. Therazine dropped to her knees and took Bren’s head in her hands. His eyes were shut. His skin was cold to the touch.

The house burned and winter settled in.