Fate’s Pawn

The calm before the storm, it won’t be long now.

- Refrain from Storm’s End, a popular war song

Raziel opened his eyes, and it felt like someone had poured salt under his eyelids while he slept. He expected to either be shackled to the chair in the hospital basement or in one of his memories. He wasn’t in a chair. He was lying down. But at the same time, he couldn’t remember ever feeling this terrible in his life.

“He’s awake,” he heard someone say. The words pounded against his throbbing head. There was almost no light, but even the little there was slipped into his eyes like a fork and if he’d had the strength he’d have screamed.

He could only groan and croak. There was a scramble of noises. A moment later a cool metallic container touched his lips, and then pure, wonderful liquid life itself passed through his lips. He tried to guzzle the water, but the hand that held it only allowed him maddeningly small sips.

“Stop. You’ll choke.”

He knew the voice. Keira. She dolled out the water to him with nothing short of cruelty. But after an eternity of her pitiless mercy, his thirst was sated. He tried to ask about Hoeru, but though his lips moved, words seemed to be beyond him just then.

“I can’t hear you,” Kiera said, concern obvious in her voice.

“Kusa.”

The spirit was suddenly beside Raziel. He couldn’t see it so much as feel its presence. Something was pressed into his hand, something cold with flat planes and hard edges. Cool, delicate fingers touched his forehead. The touch was soothing but there was pressure in it. Kusa wasn’t pressing its fingers into his head, and yet he could sense something building in it.

“Kusa,” he heard again, command in its voice. The word struck Raziel like a bolt of lightning. His hand closed involuntarily over whatever had been put in his hand as the object seemed to burst into flame. His back arched, driving him into a contorted bow. Raziel wanted to scream, but his jaws were clamped together so hard he could hear his teeth grinding.

“Kusa,” the spirit said again, more gently. The gem in his hand cooled, and the power that had been surging through it into Raziel shrank from a torrent to a drip.

He gently fell back to the bed again as his muscles began to relax. The darkness of the room sank into him, dragged him back down into dreamless sleep.

Raziel woke again. This time was immeasurably better than the last. He didn’t feel good. Not by a long shot. But he also didn’t feel like beef jerky that had been stretched over a too large skeleton, then beaten with hammers and left out in the summer sun.

The thing Kusa had put in his hand was still there, and Raziel felt its energy still gently flowing into him like like drops of fire. Each pulse of energy wiped away a bit more of his lethargy and pain. He found he was able to sit up.

“Raz?” Keira said.

“Keira?” he asked, his voice back, if a bit rough. “Where are we?”

“We’re at Kusa’s fort. You should lie back down. ”

And then she was sitting beside him on the bed. Her hand pressed against his chest, moving him back down. He acquiesced, though reluctantly. He felt like he’d been still for days.

“Miles said you need all the rest you can get after what Alban did to you,” she said.

“Alban,” Raziel said, memories of the real world returning gradually. He’d been caught by the wizard. Trapped underground.

His memories of that felt less real than the memories of his dreams in between. Had Blank even been a dream?

“How did I get here?” he asked.

“Roland, Miles, and I broke into the hospital to get you and Hoeru. We brought you here. Do you remember what happened in the forest?”

“The forest? You mean while you were bringing me here?”

“Yeah.”

Raziel searched his mind but came up empty. All he could think of was the encounter with Blank. Everything else was, well, blank.

“No. What happened?”

Keira was quiet for a long time. Raziel wished he could see her face, see her expression. Waiting in the empty darkness was difficult.

“A spirit found us. Something that Mask had corrupted. We tried to fight it.”

Again silence.

“We lost.”

Raziel could hear how difficult it was for her to say those words. The words weren’t hesitant or quiet. Just terribly heavy.

“The wolf was about to eat us. You don’t remember what happened?”

There was some emotion she was holding back in that question. The words were too stiff, rigidly held in place.

“No,” he answered.

“The wolf was coming at us. Hoeru was going to do something dumb to try and save us. And then,” she paused. He heard something in the dark. A cracking sound he recognized a moment later as knuckles popping.

“And then you came out of nowhere. I don’t know what you did. But you did something. And the wolf just stopped. You held it there long enough for Kusa to save us.”

Her voice had turned rough. She was struggling to contain it, but he could still hear the emotion in her words. She was angry. But what could she be angry about?

“I don’t remember that.”

“Of course you don’t. That would be too easy.”

The words were bitter, harsh, but Raziel didn’t think they were directed at him.

“So what are we doing here?” he asked.

“After you were taken away by Alban, I saw him talking to Mask. They’re planning something involving this place. There’s something under the tower. We came here to stop them.”

“You came all the way out here just to help Kusa?”

“Well, more or less.”

“And you fought a wolf spirit? Wait, was it that thing Hoeru was afraid of the first time we came out this way?

“I don’t know. I think so though.”

“That’s amazing!”

Silence again, though the tension was different now. He couldn’t stand the darkness anymore. He needed to see her face. He took some of the energy coming from the thing Kusa had given him and willed an orb of gentle blue light into existence. The light was soft enough that it didn’t hurt his eyes. Keira was looking at him with a mix of surprise and confusion.

“What are you talking about? And how are you doing magic? You were almost dead an hour ago.”

“I’m fine. You don’t even look hurt. How did you fight the wolf?”

“I… Hoeru attacked it first. He and Roland were distracting it. So I gathered up all the magic I could and when I saw an opening I went for it.”

“But what did you do?” Raziel asked, his excitement beginning to get the better of him. He could see she was taken aback by his enthusiasm but he couldn’t stop himself.

“I just sort of exploded. It messed up the wolf’s mask, but it didn’t stop it.”

“You exploded? Like with the gremlins?”

“Yeah.”

“So you did it without knocking yourself out this time?”

“It was… on purpose this time.”

“That’s amazing!”

“Stop saying that.”

“It is though. That’s a ton of magic. I saw how big the crater you were in the first time was. And you’ve already improved it enough to make it useful in a fight? That. Is. Amazing.”

“It wasn’t that big a deal.”

Raziel sat up. He stared hard at Keira until she had no choice but to meet his eyes. He could still see doubt and uncertainty there.

“Stop that. If you did what you say you did, you pulled off a hell of a thing. Several hells of things. Or something like that. I’m not sure how to make that plural. The point is...” Raziel had to stop for a moment to figure out what his point was. She was looking at him with curiosity now, the self consciousness somewhat faded. “The point is thank you.”

“Thank… you?”

“Yeah. You got me away from Alban. You came to help Kusa. You risked your life to keep me and my friends alive. Thank you.”

“You… you…” She struggled for words. “You are so weird.”

Raziel grinned. She still looked incredulous, but that was an improvement in his mind. Then he threw his legs off the bed and got to his feet. He stood there for a moment to check if he was unsteady. He wasn’t.

“What are you doing? You need rest.”

“I feel fine. I’m gonna go see the others. Do you know where they are?”

“I--” She’d started to reach for him but just shook her head and let her arm fall. “The last I saw, Miles was at the front of the building. Roland is in here somewhere too. He might be asleep, though gods know how he can be calm enough to sleep at a time like this. I think Hoeru is upstairs.”

“Alright. Thanks. What are you going to do?”

She seemed to consider that. She looked odd in the blue light cast by his tiny orb. But as he was watching her, as she came to a decision, she seemed to grow more solid somehow.

“I’m going to get ready. Mask is coming. There’s going to be a fight.”

“We’re going to stop him,” Raziel said.

She nodded once, firmly. “Yes. Yes, we are.”

Raziel walked out of the room, and the light followed him. He wondered about leaving Keira in the dark, but he decided that if she wanted light, she could make her own. She could explode after all and making light was easy.

They were in one of the square buildings surrounding the tower. Raziel didn’t think it was the same one he, Keira, and Roland has been in the first time they’d come, but it had the same simple layout. Miles stood at the front door facing out. He was holding something that glowed in his hand. A ghostly image of a woman with Miles’ thin nose and mousy hair hovered in the air before him. There was an odd furtive tension in the way Miles stood. Raziel paused for a moment, then crept back a few paces. Then he walked out again, this time letting his feet fall a little harder. When he came around the corner this time, Miles was still looking out but the image was gone.

Raziel moved up beside him and followed his gaze. He was staring at the tower.

“What’re you looking at?”

Miles’ head twitched back in mild surprise.

“Raz? I thought you were Hoeru or Keira. What are you doing up?”

“I came out here to see you. Are you okay?

“No,” Miles said, glancing at Raziel for the first time. They met eyes for a bare instant, but what Raziel saw there was chilling. He’d seen Miles afraid, of course. Maybe more often than he’d seen him unafraid. This was different. The look in his eyes wasn’t fearful. It was one of despair.

“Raz,” he whispered. “We’re going to die.”

“No, we’re not.”

Miles laughed. The sound wild and bitter and so much louder than his whisper. “Of course you’d say that. You don’t even know how to be afraid.”

“Do too,” Raziel said trying to sound playful.

“No, you don’t,” Miles said scornfully. “You just laugh and smile no matter what’s coming. You’re not afraid. You’re not even smart enough to be afraid.”

Miles’ hand slapped over his mouth. He froze like that, horror at his words clear on his face as he refused to look at Raziel. After an awkward several seconds, Miles turned and tried to run back into the building.

Raziel caught him by the upper arm. Miles didn’t try to escape. But he didn’t look back at Raziel.

“Miles, what’s the right thing to do here?”

“What?”

“Right now. Right here. Where we are. What should we do?”

Miles did turn to him. Confusion was crowding out the other emotions Raziel could all but feel pouring off him a moment ago.

“Should we run?” Raziel. asked

“Did you hit your head or something?”

“Just answer the damn question.”

Miles was silent. His whole body slowly going rigid. At his sides his fists were clenched into shaking fists.

“What are you supposed to do to monsters?” Raziel asked.

“Fight them. You’re supposed to fight them.”

“Miles, I know you’re scared. You’ve got every right to be.”

“At least you can do something about it!” Miles yelled suddenly. “You and Roland and Keira and Hoeru, all of you can fight! I can’t do anything! I’m just going to get eaten or worse! I can’t fight, Raz.”

They were quiet then, the silence stretching as Raziel tried to find the words to say what he felt. His mouth usually just ran without him. Having to actually consider what he was going to say was a lot harder.

“Miles, look. If you want to hide or run, I don’t blame you. And I think if you go hide in some corner of one of these buildings, you’ll be fine. They’re coming for the tower, not this stuff. And I think you know that. I think you know that you can help with this fight. I think that’s why you’re afraid.”

Silence again. Finally, Miles spoke. “Shut up Raz. You shouldn’t even be up.” There was no heat in the words. Just weariness.

“I’m fine. Kusa did a thing,” Raziel said, holding up the thing in his hand, hoping to change the subject.

He’d been disoriented when he woke up and then distracted by Keira and realized he hadn’t actually looked at whatever he was holding. It was a small crystal the size of a large marble with so many facets that it was nearly round. Raziel had trouble discerning whether the crystal itself was a deep grass green or if it only looked that way because of the strange green light drifting out from inside it like mist off a pond in the morning.

“What is that?” Miles asked.

“Dunno. Kusa gave it to me when I woke up the first time. It feels good to hold.” He held it out towards Miles, offering it for inspection. Miles hesitated but reached for it.

There was a pop and a flash like a static shock but much louder. An arc of green lightning struck Miles’s hand like a mother hitting a greedy child with a wooden spoon. Miles yelped and jerked his hand back. He shook his hand, blew on it, and stuck his fingers in his mouth.

“Are you okay?”

“Ow ow ow. Yes. Ow. What is that thing?”

“I— I don’t know. Kusa gave it to me.”

“What’s it doing to you? Obviously you can hold it without it hurting you and it must be doing something to explain your rapid recovery.”

Raziel realized he wasn’t sure just what the crystal was doing. He looked down at the crystal in his hand and reached out to it with his magical senses. The light coming off the crystal wasn’t constant. It came in time with pulses of what Raziel thought of as heat but that wasn’t really correct.

“It’s like every time the light grows— like that there— every time that happens, I feel warmth coming up my arm and into my body. It’s sort of like someone is pouring warm water over me. Or maybe in me. That sounded weird.”

“Hm. What exactly was Alban doing to you?” Miles asked, rubbing his hand over his mouth and chin. Raziel told him about the way Alban had forced memories to replay for Raziel and inserted himself in them.

“Oh wow. That’s a fascinating interrogation technique.”

“Probably not the word I’d use,” Raziel interrupted.

Miles went on as if he hadn’t noticed. “He forces you to expend energy by sustaining the memory, because it’s your memory. He only has to deal with the energy cost of keeping himself in the memory and that’s going to be much lower for him. But it also forces an emotional toll on you as well as the cost of the constant use of magic, both of which would build continuously.”

“What’s that got to do with this?” Raziel said, holding up the crystal.

“It’s a cure. The problem was that your system had been over taxed by forcing you to use magic continuously. Kusa has done the reverse. That crystal is constantly adding magic back into your system.”

“Oh. That seems simple.”

“Not at all! You should probably be dead! Or insane,” Miles said, his tone nearly enthusiastic.

“You seem really excited.”

“I am! That thing has to be connected to a power source, and there’s only one that makes sense. And if power can be drawn from it... I need to go to the tower. There’s something I want to test.”

With that Miles left the building. Raziel watched him go. He was still rubbing his chin with one hand and mumbling rapidly to himself the whole way.

“I think that might be what it’s like for people to deal with me,” Raziel said to no one.

“Sometimes,” Roland answered and Raziel nearly jumped out of his skin.

Someone that big had absolutely no business being that quiet. Raziel was half his size, and he had the decency to not be quiet at all.