Chapter 25: The Storm (Patreon)

Being a Roil Chaser was dangerous work, but it was rewarding, in more ways than one.

The empire needed to know immediately if the living storm made any unexpected movements, and Gale liked knowing that the advance warning afforded by him and his companions was literally saving lives from the grim fate that awaited them inside the tangled mass of spacetime.

The incredibly rare and valuable Space and Time lenses that dropped in the wake of the storm were just kind of a bonus.  The majority of their pay came from steady work of mining faradan and government sponsorship.

The danger came from the monsters the Roil would leave in its wake, strange abominations that often had no matching equivalent in the outside world. These creatures were often aggressive, and always tough, for nothing weak could survive being torn from its home plane and thrown violently into another.

Gale and his companions were sitting around the fire, sharing stories in the chill desert night, passing the time with some of the only entertainment they could afford besides sex.

Gale was currently a relief, so he wasn’t allowed.

There were myths that children conceived in the shadow of the Roil were malformed, but anyone who’d followed it for longer than a few months was long since disabused of that notion. The animals in the living storm’s wake didn’t suddenly give birth to two-headed babies or strange malformed hybrids.

No, that only happened to things that wandered in and survived.

Gale glanced up at the Roil in the distance, watching the way the invisible sheets of boiling magic stirred up the horizon, making the last light of dusk shimmer from a thousand different angles as time flickered wildly back and forth inside, making a picture of rainbow colored light.

The Roil itself was invisible, but its effects were not.

Behind all the chatter and joking, there was always The Noise, the constant sound of the storm, the sound that seemed to tread the line between a voice and an object travelling down a metallic tube. It started inaudible, then gently worked up the scale until it was a crystalline tinkle, then it went back down again. Always, it sounded like it was on the edge of resolving into a voice, but it never quite made it.

Gale tuned it out. You either got used to The Sound or you did not and tried to murder yourself and others. It was a legitimate excuse to be dismissed from service, but few people faked the sickness. Being a Roil Chaser was too well compensated by the empire, and they all had people back home.

Gale kept talking and laughing with his friends until he noticed The Noise growing unusually louder.

He glanced up at the storm again. The scintillating rainbow of hundreds of different suns peeking through the storm was much taller than it had been a few seconds ago.

Is it…moving towards us? But we were directly behind it. Gale frowned. The entire time he’d followed the storm, he’d never seen it change its course more than about fifteen degrees at a time.

Behind the storm is the safest place to be. That’s what they said.

Other people noticed the growing storm too, standing to get a better view of the rapidly approaching storm.

Gale’s superior, for one.

“Get on your mounts and ride, you fools!” the man bellowed, sprinting for his tarruk. “Leave everything behind!”

The aging melas’s words shook Gale out of his stupor, and he leaped to follow suit, mounting his turrak and spurring it directly away from the oncoming Roil.

Try as they might, the storm kept growing larger behind them, despite the ground eating sprint they whipped their tarruks into. Out of the corner of his eye, Gale saw the sergeant motion for them to split up and flee in different directions, in the hopes that some of them would escape to warn Solmnath.

Gods, let it be me, Gale prayed as the land around him and his mount began to shift rapidly between desert and grassy plains, summer and winter.

The Noise was starting to sound like a voice.

Gale put his reins in his teeth and clapped his hands over his ears, his legs straining as he focused on bearing his rider at top speed.

***Jebediah Trapper***

“In light of the Mark, the Truthseeker witnessed statements, and the testimony given by these law-abiding humans, I formally instruct the prosecution to drop the charges of Reaping and slave abuse against Jebediah Trapper.”

The old judge gave a phlegmy cough and clacked his judge-sticks together, and Jeb relaxed in his seat. Jeb’s new judge had directly benefited from him discrediting the other guy, including a pay bump, and an open slot for the man’s grandson to start climbing the political ladder.

Maybe this will be relatively painless.

“Now we move onto the civil penalties for failure to register the slaves, and operation of an orphanage without a license.”

Goddamnit, I should stop thinking positive things, because it’s nothing but a damn lure to attract bad shit. Jeb clenched his teeth. He hadn’t really expected any better from the bureaucratic keegan though, so he’d come armed.

“If it pleases the court, I didn’t spend the last week fruitlessly. Here are the licenses and slave registration in question,” Jeb said, patting the folder resting on the table beside him.

The judge motioned and the bailiff handed him the documents, which the old man read, peering down his gold-rimmed bifocals at the documents, his jaw moving as he read to himself.

“It all appears to be in order,” he said, handing the folder back to the Bailiff. “Your willingness to abide by the law is appreciated.”

“Your Honor, a non-Citizen cannot own a business or non-profit that has more than ten beneficiaries.” The prosecution spoke, aiming for any little nitpicky thing he could latch onto.

The judge blinked. “He doesn’t.”

The prosecutor frowned.

“What did he mean by that?” Zlesk asked, sitting next to Jeb.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jeb whispered, waving it off.

“Quite a heroic decision, sheltering the children of a Stitched species, Zlesk Frantell. Really stepping up to the oath of Citizenship. You do us keegan proud, and I wish we had more like you. Let’s discuss the fines you’ll be required to pay for your first two weeks of unlicensed operation.”

Jeb bit his hand as Zlesk loomed over him, trying not to laugh. That would get him hurt and damage their credibility.

“Did you use my signature again?” Zlesk whispered so the judge and prosecutor couldn’t hear.

“I asked if you were prepared to do what was needed to keep kids out of reaper hands,” Jeb whispered back. “You said yes.”

“That didn’t mean I wanted to own and operate a gods-damned orphanage, Jeb.”

“They wouldn’t accept a non-Citizen owner. There’s so many different ways they could’ve taken it away from me.”

“Then apply for citizenship, you fat little –“

“Is something wrong?” The judge asked.

“Nothing, your honor. There was some confusion, but it was quickly cleared up.” Zlesk said, suddenly on his best behavior.

“Good,” The judge said before coughing and spending several seconds clearing his throat. “Then we will continue. In light of the quick response on the part of The Admiral Orphanage, and the special circumstances surrounding its creation, it’s the opinion of this Judge that the penalty be struck down to the bare minimum for lapses of this…”

The judge droned on, and Jeb could feel Zlesk’s eyes boring into him.

“This isn’t over.” Zlesk whispered under his breath.

******

“Well, that was awful,” Jeb said, clipping his murder-buckler back onto his belt, blue arrow down. The buckler had been painted with four arrows in four cardinal directions: Yellow, red, blue, and green.

It needed a little dash of color to liven up its ugliness.

“It could have been much worse,” Zlesk said, rolling his shoulders. “We could have been executed. It’s thanks to my insisting on passing everything through a Truthseeker that we were able to walk out alive.”

“I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” Jeb said, putting on his fingerless glove and foot before grabbing his staff out of the weapon bin.

Of course they didn’t let him walk into the court armed to the teeth.

Strangely, Jeb actually felt overdressed when the two of them stepped out into the open on the sunlit steps of the courthouse.

Rather than a stream of ordinary citizens going about their boisterous business and the occasional purse-snatcher, there was a more muted sense of potential energy in the crowd.

They passed by the imperial guards stationed on every street corner, their sharp eyes boring through each and every passerby, and especially Jeb and Zlesk.

The emperor’s arrival two days ago had seen the entire city placed under a curfew, especially in the upscale areas where the man might be visiting.

Jeb had seen him once, from a distance, as the kitri was waving to the crowd during the parade entering the city.

The emperor had looked a bit like Big Bird’s cool uncle, in that black studded armor. Jeb didn’t know if it was ridiculous or scary. Little of both, perhaps?

Amanda and Brett had been riding the oversized lizards behind him, waving to the crowd and receiving mixed results.

Riding on the emperor’s left hand, had been a big, faceless suit of ominous black armor that looked something like a Nazgul. Creepy. Jeb couldn’t judge size super well from that distance, but they had looked imposing.

When he sent a message to the pair upon their arrival, they’d agreed to meet him today so he could make the hand-off.

Today was the last day they had the mercenary bodyguards, but Zlesk was back in fighting condition, Legolas was armed, Ron was able to sit up, and Jeb’s arm was healing nicely. Even his missing fingernails stopped hurting.

They’d gradually reinforced the orphanage, leveled the older children and their supervision, so hopefully once the mercs left, they didn’t present an appetizing target.

Still, if anything is going to go down, it’s going to go down soon, Jeb thought, patting the legalese in his coat pocket. It was a series of testimonies and stolen financial information that linked the murder of children to financial transactions.

Maybe Jeb couldn’t get all the bad guys, but he could definitely sway public opinion. Make these guys politically toxic enough that some kind of reckoning would come their direction.

Then again, maybe not.

All of this had been in Jeb’s letter, and now all he needed to do was hand the list to Amanda and Brett. Then he could stand back and let the new human aristocrats handle human politics. Kind of a bitter half-win, but being an adult was basically a long string of bitter half-wins.

“You ready to party?” Jeb asked, straightening his jacket and the revolver on his hip. He was ready to party.

Zlesk grunted, making sure his collar was even. They weren’t going to ‘The Party’, which was where the emperor was being hosted by the richest local aristocrats, they were going to the little servant’s entrance in the back of the magnificent mansion, which made Zlesk’s orphanage look like a dingleberry by comparison.

They were going to meet Brett there, hand off all the dirt they’d uncovered on the local leadership, then slink away into the darkness, maybe grab a beer.

Would it change anything? Probably not. One or two people might be mildly inconvenienced, but at the very least, it would grant an iota of political clout to non-child-murdering humans over people who viewed thinking creatures as a resource to be used for their benefit.

Still, Jeb expected his faceless keegan friend might want to make an entrance, so he was loaded with every weapon he could think of, and ready to kick some ass.

I’m gonna be ready for him this time, Jeb thought, eyes narrowed, thinking back to dodgeball.

The sun was arcing down in the sky when they arrived at the mansion, a brightly lit jewel among the slowly darkening streets. Imperial guards got thicker the closer they got, but Jeb and Zlesk were able to mix into the crowd easily enough.

Despite being heavily armed, they seemingly weren’t considered much of a threat, especially when weighed against the aristocrats on either side of them, men and women with decorative, but functional magic swords that burst into flame or treated stone like warm butter, and an average of three wands per person sticking out of their belt like old-fashioned gunslingers.

Jeb and Zlesk fit right in, albeit rather poor-looking and mismatched in comparison.

Jeb let his eyes wander as they waited to get through the oversized main gate. The luxurious wands the aristocrats bore had designs and murals along their sides that hinted at their function, and Jeb was pretty sure he’d seen a mural of two melas humping.

“I should’ve brought my party lenses.” Jeb said, thinking about Vegas lenses.

Zlesk glanced over to where Jeb was looking and snorted. “Nobody likes that guy.”

They slipped away from the stream of aristocrats slowly entering the front gate and kept walking around the back.

Jeb was fairly sure one of the imperial guards was going to stop them as soon as they stepped out of the stream, but the guards posted every ten feet or so simply watched them dispassionately.

Weird. Jeb thought, watching them back.

You’d think they’d stop and question every single suspicious actor, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

There weren’t a whole lot of humans, and none of them were dressed quite as overtly combat-oriented as Jeb was. You’d think that would earn a few questions, but for some reason, they just watched the two of them passively.

Well, no skin off my back, Jeb thought as they headed for the back of the oversized mansion. At least he didn’t have to worry about being attacked by the assassin. The guy probably wouldn’t come within miles of this place, with imperial guards studding the landscape.

Jeb found Brett waiting outside the servant’s entrance. The supermodel was sitting on a fountain, eating an apple in the dark, faintly lit by the torches of the rear entrance.

Feels weird doing shady deals under the watchful eye of the imperial guard. But I doubt they have any skin in this particular game. Jeb figured they were a neutral party.

Or Brett betrayed me, and I’m dead meat. That’s always on the table.

“Brett!” Jeb said as he approached, the gravel of the rear lot crunching under his feet. “You technically outrank me now, so I’m calling in that I.O.U! I’ll give ‘er back in the morning. Probably.”

Brett frowned, his head cocked to the side.

Brett knows what I’m talking about. He has to know what I’m talking about.

Jeb looked harder, and saw the Myst packed in tight around the man’s face, forming the familiar features of his friend from the Tutorial.

Ah, son of a bitch. That’s not Brett. Option three I guess, Jeb thought, reaching for his buckler as all hell broke loose.

***

The imperial guard watched impassively as a half-dozen black-clothed assassin types jumped out of the fountain and the hedges, surrounding the one-legged human in a flat second.

There was a fair amount of shouting, and one of the kidnappers died to the human’s weapons, but in a handful of seconds, the human and his keegan associate were brought down and restrained, dragged into the mansion.

The guard stifled a yawn.

They were under instructions from their superior not to interfere with the business of any one-legged humans today. Didn’t want to get caught up in the Emperor’s Summons.

They’d been around long enough to know a Summons when they saw one. Getting tied up and dragged into the emperor’s presence was uncommon, but not unheard of, especially for people who normally had no interest in appearing before him.

Just one of those nights, the guard thought, glancing up at the horizon.

Sunset’s got a lot of color.

***Jeb***

Jeb opened his eyes with a groan, barely able to see through the rapidly swelling bruise on his left eye.

He already knew the score: Someone had intercepted his communication with the Courvars and set an ambush, and the only reason he was still alive was because they didn’t know if he had backup blackmail material…which he did.

As soon as they had that in their hands, Jeb’s life was forfeit.

And I can’t even lie, Goddamnit this is going to be difficult.

“Good evening,” a sophisticated looking melas man with a well-groomed goatee said upon noticing Jeb’s noise. “I thought you might be out longer than that, but you’re surprisingly resilient.”

He was wearing a green and gold tunic that would’ve looked garish on someone whose skin wasn’t nearly red. His horns seemed almost delicate, swept back like a pompadour. Behind him loomed two more melas thugs with their arms crossed, watching Jeb with that distinctive pleasure that only the very dim took in other people’s suffering.

In the noble’s hand, Jeb’s ‘big stack o’ reaping proof’ gradually burned down to cinders, licking the man’s fingertips without effect, and scattering paper ashes all around.

“Ugh,” Jeb grunted, doing a self-inventory. He was wearing nothing but bruises, his wrists were bound behind his back by thick scratchy rope, a cold circle of steel was clamped around his neck…which seemed to be connected to the wall by a thick chain.

All of Jeb’s clothes and weapons were lying on a big table at the side of the room, his murder-buckler was lying on the edge, Yellow arrow pointed diagonally down toward Jeb’s legs.

Jeb shifted his foot out of the way.

I wonder if I can pick the lock on this thing, Jeb thought, siphoning a thread of Myst out of his core.

Something grabbed Jeb’s siphon and shoved it painfully deep into his core, forcibly drawing Myst out of his body. The experience was deeply unpleasant, like a blowjob from a shopvac.

“Gah!” Jeb thrashed in place on the cold stone floor, the chains connected to his neck rattling as something tried to suck all the magic out of his body in a terrifyingly literal sense. The siphon connecting him to the collar gradually grew bigger, seemingly reinforced by the Myst it was stealing from him.

Jeb’s Core flickered, shrinking slightly in size as the burning center of his being was drawn down the pipe.

With a monumental effort of will, Jeb pinched off the thread of Myst, his chin collapsing down to his chest.

So, Telekinesis is off the table. Good to know.

“That…sucked.” Jeb groaned.

“I’ll bet.” The sophisticated looking melas man said, brow raised. “Do you have any more?”

“More what? You’re going to have to be specific.”

“Do you have any more documents linking us to Kebos O’sut?”

“Of course,” Jeb said, meeting the bastard’s eyes. “I mean, not on me, but yeah, I’ve got a hidden stash.”

Jeb actually had two hidden stashes, but telling the guy he had one wasn’t a lie…not unless Jeb said he only had one. It was necessary to head off certain lines of inquiry by ceding misleading information.

“Where is it?”

“Telling you that seems like it would get me killed.” Jeb shot back.

“Quite astute, but you should consider your life spent at this point anyway. Instead you should think about what other lives will be lost if you remain obstinate.” Mr. Sophistication said, coming closer and leaning down.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to kill everyone you’ve come to know in Solmnath and burn your ridiculous orphanage to the ground with everyone locked inside.”

“How are you gonna lock them inside if you’ve already killed them? And if you’re talking about the corpses, it seems kind of redundant to lock the –“

A sharp slap knocked the last words out of Jeb’s mouth.

“It is not an idle threat.” The melas said, so close Jeb could smell the man’s lunch.

Jeb considered bisecting the man then and there, but with the two beefcakes in the back it would be a short-lived victory. Best to wait until the numbers became manageable.

Jeb didn’t have to wait too long, a couple minutes of questioning later, the entire room shook, and shortly afterward, there was a polite knock on the door.

Mr. Sophistication ducked his head out the door.

“What!” The startled exclamation was the only thing Jeb could make out, followed by some harsh whispers.

“Watch him!” Mr. Sophistication said, pointing at Jeb as he rushed out, slamming the door behind him.

Suddenly silence reigned, and Jeb was alone with the two bruisers, who watched him with dimwitted malevolence.

“Sooo. Do you guys wanna play bridge or something?” Jeb asked with a shrug.

As it turned out, they did not want to play bridge.

“I was thinking more along the lines of making you squeal like a breek caught in a fence.” The left one said, unfolding his arms.

The entire building trembled.

“Is anyone else concerned about that?” Jeb asked as the right-hand thug picked a sharp blade off the table, eyeing Jeb menacingly.

“Oh lay off the sharp objects, dude,” Jeb said with exasperation. “If you cut me in the wrong place and I bleed out, your boss is gonna kill you.”

The two glanced at each other and shared a dim look.

“What are we supposed to do then?” He asked his friend.

“You work me over with your hands. Start from the outside and work your way in. Break my fingers and toes, as it’s very difficult to kill me from damage to those, then you beat my arms, legs, and ribcage around a little bit, but be careful not to make me bleed internally too badly. Am I the only one who knows the right way to torture someone?” Jeb asked.

“That sounds like a lot of thinking.”

“Torture is a serious responsibility,” Jeb said. “You shouldn’t try it if you’re not interested in it.”

The guy stomped on Jeb’s toes with his thick boots.

“AAAHH! FUCK!”

“You got a smart mouth.” The melas brute said, lifting his foot off of Jeb’s toes.

“Eh,” Jeb shrugged, too pained to come up with something clever.

The room wobbled. For an instant, Jeb felt like he was gonna fall sideways as gravity seemed to shudder to the side before returning to its usual direction, the floor under his ass creaked in protest as it settled back.

“The Roil was that?” Leftie asked, steadying himself on the table.

“Maybe you should…”

“I’ll check it out.” Leftie said, stabbing the knife back into the table and heading for the door.

Jeb winked three times with his right eye, taking advantage of their distraction. He glanced over at the Murder-buckler, making double-sure of the yellow arrow’s trajectory, what with the room shaking and all.

It had shifted a little, but it wasn’t aimed at Jeb, so that was good. Once the other bruiser had left the room, it was time to act. If he didn’t escape now, he was asking to die.

“I’ve been wondering, is it normal for Melas women to burst into flame during orgasm?” Jeb asked, getting the brute’s attention. “Because that’s the sort of thing I’ll need to know if I start dating Vresh Tekalis.”

The melas scowled. “What would you know about it?”

“Check my dick for burn marks.” Jeb said, waggling his hips with a grin. “Could it be from your mom? You decide.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” The Melas said, prying the dagger out of the wood and approaching Jeb menacingly with it.

Jeb watched carefully as the man’s legs entered the simulated strike zone.

“Yellow go fast.”

“Yellow go wha-“

The murder-buckler flung itself in the direction of the yellow arrow, spinning violently as it did, the Udium saw-blades audibly tearing through the air. It treated flesh like water, and stone like butter in its mission to follow the trajectory of the yellow arrow.

Chunk! The bloody murder-buckler bored through the stone flooring beside Jeb’s leg as the Melas brute toppled forward, his eyes wide with surprise.

Jeb tugged at the shredded rope behind his back, freeing his hands as the legless melas fell forward, eyes wide. The telekinetic blade was still sawing away right at the edge of Jeb’s skin as he brought his arms to bear.

In a heartbeat, Jeb grabbed the dagger with his right hand, the man’s horns with his left, steering them both out of the danger zone: Jeb didn’t want to get stabbed by a falling asshole he’d already beat.

That would be embarrassing.

“AII–!”

The melas let out a shrill scream before Jeb stabbed him in the throat, shutting him up.

Jeb’s enemy didn’t go down fast or easy, struggling with everything he had while bleeding from both legs and the throat. Were the man not so mortally wounded, he would’ve utterly destroyed Jeb. As it was, Jeb was drenched with blood by the time the bruiser went still.

Jeb collapsed against the wall, panting, the dagger drooping in his hands. Jeb wasn’t sure if the blood he tasted in his mouth was from overexertion or from the puddle he was sitting in.

Could be both.

Jeb desperately tried to catch his breath as he thought of Step 2:

He needed to get this collar off, or failing that, he needed to get the chain off the wall. The chain looked like old-fashioned steel, and the murder-buckler should be able to cut through it easily enough.

Jeb glanced over at the disc-shaped hole in the floor where the buckler had punctured through.

Might be easier said than done, he thought.

CRACK!

There was a tearing sound that was felt through the entire room, almost as if some enormous beam that had been supporting the floor had been mostly severed by some asshole’s sawblade, and had chosen this exact moment to give out.

The floor fell out from under him.

My neck! Jeb thought, grabbing the chain as he began falling through the air.