Back of the Envelope

Old Post: The first chapter of Fire is here. One of these days, I may even post the prologue.

Merry Christmas! As a Christmas treat, I'll be posting another chapter from Fire. I try not to play favorites among my chapters, but this one is definitely up there. It single-handedly changed the course of the story, as I explain afterwards. Enjoy!

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Chapter 2
Alliances
According to human legend, Orcs were ugly, stupid, vicious creatures. In art, they were portrayed with mottled green skin, protruding jaws, overhanging brows, and large, donkey-like ears. In story, they walked only semi-erect, wore rags when not simply naked, lived in caves like animals, and spoke in a tongue which consisted mainly of grunting, if it was a language at all. Many legends contain a surprising amount of truth. This was not one of those.

The Orcs seated around the large table were no uglier than humans. On the average, they probably looked better, as Orcs lack the many small imperfections in features that humans take for granted. Their faces had well-defined features, more refined than the average human's, but also more refined than the average Orc's. The men tended to be more muscular than human males, and both men and women were tougher than their human counterparts. Only their pale green skin and pointed ears marked them as a different people entirely. They wore brightly-colored clothing, from the loose shirts and close-fitting breeches of the men to the intricately patterned dresses of the women. The more subdued colors of their woolen cloaks and overcoats, removed in the warmth of the room, decorated their chairs.

There was nothing crude about their surroundings. The table around which they sat was well-made, shaped from a single tree into a rectangle facilitating pride of place. The room, built of granite blocks near the center of a fortress designed for defense, could barely contain it. The small council room did not entirely lack for comforts. Since they had been in this meeting for hours, the Orcs were deeply grateful for their cushioned chairs. Tapestries, decorated with abstract images that suggested battles and landscapes rather than simply showing them, covered the walls for insulation as much as decoration. They did this perhaps too well, as the heat from the large hearth had grown well past stifling. Goblin slaves hurried to serve cool wine and fruits to their Orcish masters. These creatures did possess the protruding jaw and overhanging brow humans ascribed to Orcs, as well as motley yellow skin. All of them stood well under five feet, and all were male. The Orcish state kept tight control over Goblin females in a neverending attempt to control the breeding problem.

Talnek, King of the Orcish Tribes, would have turned the head of most human women. Still a young man, in his twelfth year since his Trials, he had well-defined musculature without the bulkiness usually seen in muscular humans. He had combed his jet black hair straight back, so it fell to his shoulders. As was typical for younger Orcs, he had no beard. Behind his place at the head of the table, on his left and right respectively, sat his wife, Anyua, and his son, Masnek. Anyua was a tall woman with raven-black hair braided to her waist, the acknowledged beauty of the court. Wearing a simple grey wool dress, the mark of her order, she stood out starkly against the showy colors of the others. She had borne Talnek only one litter, of which Masnek was the only son, before the witches inducted her into the Coven. Now she would never have another. That made neither her nor her husband happy, but they both understood her duty. Masnek was almost full grown, a young man of fifty-four months. In another six, he would reach maturity, and after facing his Trials he would start counting his age in years. He looked much like his father.

Talnek glared at the seventeen tribal chiefs gathered around the table. Out of the forty-three he had summoned, only these had come. None of the tribes who had come were of greater than middling power, as the six most powerful could, and frequently did, ignore his summons. On the other hand, they were not the feeblest. The weakest tribes had long since sought the protection of stronger ones, and they would not dare attend a meeting that their patrons did not. Talnek wished his own tribe had a few vassals. None of the tribes here owed Talnek any allegiance aside from that of a tribal chieftain to his king, and that was cursed little to work with.

Talnek spoke loudly to be heard above the bickering. "This has to stop!" They glanced in his direction, unconvinced. Bajnik and Mular had been trying to decide, by volume, who had raided whom first. "Not just this argument, the raids. Yes, I know we've always had them, but they're getting out of hand. In another year we will have all-out civil war."

"If it hasn't come already," said Bajnik. He led the most powerful of the tribes present, except perhaps Talnek's own. An older Orc, he had the typical grey beard and shaved head of those who had seen generations come and go. He was still hale, however, and his age only served to augment his authority. "We need to raid each other. With the harvest so poor, many of the tribes don't have enough supplies to last the winter. Some Orcs will die, and we don't want them to be our own tribesmen."

"Then we should raid the human barbarians. The southern lands are fertile, and the humans few."

"And go up against their druids again?" Deslar said, his hands plucking at his sleeves. His led the weakest tribe in attendance, one less powerful than many of the tribes which had sought the protection of stronger ones. Deslar himself did little to inspire confidence. Gaunt, with a thin, pale face, he looked fully as timid as he acted. "Last year's campaign was a disaster."

"What would you rather do?" Talnek growled. "Kill one another? I say we go in force this time. Even the druids cannot stop the entire Orcish nation and our warlocks." Anyua hissed at him. She did not like the warlocks, few of the witches did, but the warriors valued their powerful offensive magic more than witch-charms when it came to battle.

"And what if the druid's mind-bending works on them too? Crazed Orcs killed more of our people than human warriors. If the warlocks turned their magic against us...," Deslar shivered.

Anyua spoke, "Witch-charms can protect you against druidic magic." She smiled. "Perhaps even the warlocks will accept our protection."

"Do you really think your puny magic will work against the druids?" came a new voice. An Orc clad in bright red robes closed the door behind him as he entered.

Talnek's hand closed over his sword hilt and held tightly as he stared at the newcomer. Anyua leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "Don't worry, my charms will protect you. He is, after all, an-sul: stupid and uneducated." Talnek's left hand fingered the witch-charms he wore around his neck, not letting go of the sword hilt in his right hand. He did not really believe his wife on either count. Gar may be an-sul, but sometimes the sul blood ran true in the lower classes. The warlock was not stupid, and while he may not have received the formal education of the sul, his arcane studies more than made up for it.

Carefully keeping his voice clear of hostility, the king addressed the newcomer, "I had not expected you, Gar, otherwise I would have prepared a place for you."

Gar smiled, showing teeth sharpened in the manner of the an-sul. "I'm certain you would have, but I did not intend to come. I heard you talking about us, though, so I thought a warlock representative should join you."

Talnek did not ask how he had listened, since he probably would not have understood the mystical answer. Anyua seemed vexed, however. She spoke before Talnek could, "What do you mean, my puny magic will do no good?"

"Just that. I have studied the magic of the druids, and it is not human in origin." He paused dramatically, then realized that the gesture was lost on the majority of his audience, who just stared at him in blank incomprehension. Frowning in annoyance, he continued, "The humans are channels, drawing power from another source. I cannot say what it is, but it has the power to control us."

"How do you know this? You were not part of the expedition." Deslar's fear seemed to have retreated under some measure of curiosity. Talnek may have considered him a coward, but he did not think him stupid.

"I heard what happened there, so I investigated," Gar said. "I captured one of the converted Orcs and examined his body--"

"You killed him?" Bajnik interrupted.

"It was necessary... and he was a traitor."

"He was mad! What right do you have to kill a crazed Orc?"

"Enough!" Talnek gestured to Gar, "I want to hear what he has to say."

"What I found, in the fading remains of the magic that was laid on him, was unexpected. I discovered that the change of allegiance came not from without, but from within."

"Are you saying that he, and thousands of others, simply chose to turn on their own people?" Anyua asked scornfully.

"Not at all," Gar answered. "What I mean is that somewhere far in our past, someone implanted in us a certain... vulnerability. When the appropriate magic triggers this geas, it compels us to follow the one who activates it. These druids simply activated something that is within each and every one of us."

Anyua had become more disbelieving by the word. "I will not believe that humans somehow placed a geas on our entire race!" Apparently her anger had kept pace with her skepticism.

Gar, by contrast, was unmoved by either her doubt or her anger. He never let others get to him. Instead, he showed exactly the face he wanted his audience to see, never what he actually felt. Talnek suspected that the majority of the awe that others felt for him came from his imperturbable control of himself. That, and the fact that he could probably burn them all to ash without a hitch in his monologue. "That is not what I am saying," Gar said. "Humans did not put this in us, but something else. I do not believe that humans are even the ones triggering this geas. As I said before, they are acting as channels for something else, the thing which did put this in us and is now using it to protect the humans. Whatever this something is, it is powerful, and beyond your--or rather, our abilities to fight." That was surprising. Gar never admitted to any weakness. "I suggest that we forget the south and look elsewhere."

"Then in which direction do you suggest we look?" Talnek asked. "North? The Goblins there barely eke out a living in the Wastes. It couldn't support us." He did not even think of mentioning the east. No one spoke of the things there.

"No, I wasn't suggesting that we conquer the desert. Rather, we should look west."

"West? Are you suggesting we attack the Kawyr?"

"Exactly!" Gar hissed. "They are few, and their lands rich. We--"

"Need I remind you that the Kawyr and Orcs have been at peace for nearly six centuries. Why do you want to break it now?"

"We need the land. They may have been our allies once, but how have they helped us recently?"

"He's right," Bajnik interjected before Talnek could respond. "We aided them in their war against the western humans over two hundred years ago and we got nothing but thousands of Orcs dead. It is time we exacted the price for our aid."

Everyone knew of that ancient war, a messy affair with thousands dead on either side. In the end the border had ended up precisely where it had started. The Kawyr had claimed that this had been their goal all along, to stop the human expansion, but the Orcs did not consider a campaign victorious without conquered lands to show for it.

"Demand repayment for a debt two and a half centuries old?" Talnek scoffed. "If I were to ask any one of you to repay a debt owed my ancestors by your ancestors two centuries past, you'd laugh in my face, if you didn't just draw your sword."

"The Kawyr are not like us," Anyua spoke up. Talnek looked to her gratefully, but she would not meet his eyes. "They have long memories, some of those still alive may have fought in that war. They do remember what they owe us." Well, it looked as if he would get no help from that quarter.

"If we were to ask for repayment, perhaps they would aid us," Deslar added hopefully. Talnek nodded in acknowledgment of his unexpected support.

"I wasn't thinking of asking," Gar said.

Well, Talnek had expected a long meeting. He settled into his chair, entrenching himself for battle.



Talnek strode down the hallway, heading for his private quarters. Anyua and Masnek hurried along in his wake, neither speaking. He was not eager to speak to either one of them anyway. Anyua had not been any help, and even Masnek had spoken up--out of turn, of course!--in favor of war against the Kawyr.

Now Talnek just wanted the peace and quiet of his private office, preferably without his wife and son. He yanked open the door to his family's apartments and headed straight for his office. On the way, he nearly tripped over a decorative table that was probably tastefully placed, but right now just got in his way. The Orcish army had looted the table from the human barbarians in a raid, who in turn had probably looted it from someone else: it was much too fine to be their work. Plus it seemed to be scaled for someone half their height. Talnek's advisors had speculated on its origins for months, the leading theory being that it had been made by a lost tribe of half-sized Orcs (as no other race could possibly have produced something so fine). Finally, he had confiscated the table in a fruitless attempt to get them to do some real work. That had only added speculation on why he had taken it, with theories ranging from a secret message in its silver-inlaid vine carvings to powerful magic in the unidentifiable golden wood. He would have given in to his temptation and burned the infernal thing if he had not known that such an act would make matters worse.

He managed to avoid the table and the rest of the furniture in his private sitting room. Since it was one of the most comfortable rooms in the castle, Anyua liked to entertain her friends here. Talnek liked to entertain his enemies here just before he called for the headsman. Everyone paid careful attention to who gave the invitation. The well-cushioned and well-matched couches and deep chairs were inviting, especially in the warmth from the large fireplace. The deep rug meant that here, if nowhere else in the castle, one could walk barefoot without fear of frostbite. Solitude rather than comfort was Talnek's goal at the moment, so he headed instead for his private office. He slammed the door behind him as he entered, heedless to whether he shut it in the face of a family member. Then he turned the key already in the lock, just in case someone tried to follow.

Talnek regretted his haste immediately, as his office was unlit. He was fumbling for the lamp he kept on his desk, wondering how he was going to light it, when it suddenly sprang to life on its own. He realized then that he had not succeeded in finding isolation.

"It's about time you got out of that interminable meeting, Talnek," a precise voice spoke with an air of annoyance. The speaker sat in Talnek's own desk chair, his legs propped up on the desk. The Orc would have found that position awkward, but the speaker did not seem at all uncomfortable. Though seated he looked taller than the king and slimmer, with less musculature than any Orc. He would have looked human except for his odd coloring. Hair the shade of polished silver, eyes the deep blue of sapphire, made it clear this was no mere human. Orcs hated humans. Something deep in their nature brought disgust at the mere sight of one. For this being, Talnek felt not animosity, but instead something near to reverence. He would not admit it, but he felt certain that this person was wiser than he was, and he knew it would be foolish to ignore his advice. He had no idea how his fellow Orcs believed they could wage war on such creatures.

"Do I know you?" Talnek asked. He knew he did not. The king had only met a Kawyr once before, and it had not been this one. He did not let his awe show. As king he spoke not for himself but for his people--whether they liked it or not.

"No, but I know of you. I came to ask why you wage war on us."

"We haven't declared war on you," he said too defensively. He had been able to prevent that for now. He had left out the yet which he knew should go in there.

"Declared war? Oh, you mean in your little council meeting. I don't care what you declare, it's what you do that matters. Orcish forces have been raiding our eastern borders for months now."

"That must be the An-kol tribe and their vassals, or maybe the Muirthin."

"I don't care who they are, just stop them."

"I'm not sure that I can." Talnek did not want to admit this, but he could not lie to the Kawyr either. "I have little influence over those tribes. They wouldn't stop simply because I commanded it."

"Then back up your command with force of arms. Surely you can do that. You are, after all, the king. You do have an army, I hope."

"Maybe. If every tribe that has answered my summons were to join me, I could defeat the An-kol and Muirthin tribes. But I don't think that would happen. Most of them think they should fight you as well. My own tribe is not strong enough to defeat all of them, assuming even it would back me."

"I am not pleased to hear this."

Talnek ignored the shiver of fear those words gave him, and even worse, the shame at the Kawyr's disappointment. He did not have to answer to the Kawyr, did he? Instead, he tried to stoke his own anger, and perhaps a little authority with it. "Would you have us fight a civil war?"

"If the alternative is war against us, yes. Kai'Wyr and Or'kai have been at peace for nearly six hundred years. Why do you want to attack us now? What do we have that you want?"

It took Talnek a moment to sort out the strange names. Some form of Kawyr and Orc, it seemed. "We want what we always want. What we always need. Land, food, water. It boils down to survival. The harvest was poor this year--"

"Poor harvests should not require war. Don't you have storehouses?"

"Not enough. The harvest only exacerbates the problem, which is that the Orc population is growing too fast." There, Talnek had said it. The Orcs did not like to admit this problem, much less deal with it, but Orcs reproduced nearly as quickly as the disgusting Goblins. Faster than the humans certainly, and probably much faster than the Kawyr. "Our population is getting too big for this land to support. We must expand somewhere, and west is the only option."

"The only option? There are other directions."

"North are the Wastes. We could never grow much food up there. And east... we don't travel east. The things there have destroyed whole Orcish armies."

"And south? I wouldn't think the humans south of you would pose much trouble."

"They didn't used to, but now it seems that they have the ability to control our minds."

"What?" For the first time, the Kawyr seemed truly startled. In one fluid motion, his feet left the desk and he stood, leaning over the desk to look down on Talnek. The next words he spoke carried an authority that Talnek did not think he could refuse if he had to, "Tell me what you mean."

Talnek told him about the disastrous invasion last year and the conclusions that Gar had drawn.

"So they're interfering now," the Kawyr spoke to himself. "Working to protect their pet humans. I wonder why they bother? Can't they just accept their fate? No, they can't, no more than we can." His voice dropped to a mere murmur at the end, just loud enough for Talnek to hear.

"What are you talking about?"

"Hmm?" the Kawyr noticed him again. "Nothing. I think we need an alternative for you."

"What sort of alternative?"

"You need to look farther west. Our land would not be able to provide for you for long. The forests are unsuitable for farming; you'd turn it into a wasteland within a decade. No, I think you should try to establish a foothold in the Novar lands."

"Novar? What's a Novar?"
"The Novar Empire is a human kingdom. Don't you remember them? It was only two hundred and forty years ago when you last fought them."

"The histories tell us that we fought humans to the west of us then. I didn't know what they were called."

"I am not impressed by your education. No matter. The Novar empire is large, with strong armies, but it has nothing near the Orcish numbers. It is a rich land, too, with much to loot and vast expanses of land to conquer."

A rich human land to invade. "So you want us to go past your land? What if they can do what the southern ones can?"

"What, convert you? Don't worry, the ones who helped the southern humans have no interest in the Novar. As for how you'll go past our land, the southern region is nearly uninhabited. You can use the passes there to enter the Novar empire."

"That might work. If I can give the tribes another target, they'll lose interest in your land. Do you have the authority to do this, though? Offer us passage through your land so we can invade another? If we do this, wouldn't you control the passes that will separate Orcish lands?" It had occurred to Talnek that maybe this offer was too good.

"Authority? You have no concept how Kai'Wyr society works, do you? To answer your question, yes, I can extend this offer to you. If you're so concerned, we may be able to simply give you the passes and the southernmost portion of our forest, although I doubt you'll find it hospitable. I'll contact you when all is ready." At that, the lamp went out again.

"When will that be?" he asked the darkness.

"A few months. Spend your winter preparing, you will go to war in the spring."

"We don't have enough food to last that long!"

"We may be able to help you there. This once."

Talnek waited for the door to open as the Kawyr left, but it never did. He finally opened it himself to see his wife and son in the sitting room, discussing him from the way their conversation cut off when he looked in. They gave no indication that they had seen anyone, much less a Kawyr. He almost asked, but decided against it. Instead he used the illumination from the open door to light his lamp, but when he searched his office he found it empty.



At the next day's council meeting, Talnek laid out his proposal. There was arguing, of course. Bajnik and Gar still favored attacking the Kawyr, contending that they were fewer than these humans and that they still owed the Orcs. Anyua and Deslar supported Talnek, though, along with Mular, the chieftain of a tribe nearly as powerful as Bajnik's. The hatred of humans was as strong in the Orcs as the reverence for the Kawyr which Bajnik and Gar tried to deny. Eventually, all the tribes in attendance agreed to support Talnek's campaign, some more reluctantly than others. Relieved that he had managed to redirect their expansionism, Talnek felt ready for another visitation by the Kawyr. When it did not come, Talnek had to assume that he should move forward with his plans.

The next step meant issuing the call to war to the tribes who had not answered his summons to council. He knew from experience that some would be eager to join in an expedition that would mean more land and resources, while others would rather remain here and take those things from their absent neighbors. Two courses of action could prevent this sort of cannibalism. The first involved gathering a large enough force that he could bully all the tribes into joining. The second involved gathering a large enough force that he could leave a portion here to deter any theft. Either way, he needed to convince at least two of the six dominant tribes to join him. The Halien tribe and, surprisingly, the Muirthin soon indicated their willingness to join his expedition. Apparently the Muirthin had discovered the hard way that raiding the Kawyr would not bring much benefit. From what Talnek could gather, while the raids had managed to take whole villages, forcing a mass Kawyr migration westward, they had not left much behind. Not only that, but Kawyr scouts would strike at the raiding parties, peppering them with arrows, then vanishing when the Orcs attempted to strike back. Whole parties had disappeared. Those few times when Orcs managed to come face to face with a Kawyr warrior, a sudden reluctance to fight overcame them. They could do so, when backed by other soldiers stirred to bloodlust, but one-on-one, or even three-on-one, most Orcs stood unresisting while the Kawyr skewered them. In short, the Muirthin were hoping that the humans would provide a richer, easier target.

Since winter was fast approaching, the tribes agreed to muster in the spring. Resources were scarce, but soon supplies began arriving from the west, brought in by Orcs who reported brief and unbelievable encounters with Kawyr who gave them the food and told them to take it east. Very strong warnings accompanied these instructions to prevent the orcs from keeping the food for themselves or selling it at the disproportionately high price it would fetch. An encounter with the Kawyr could cow even headstrong orcs. Talnek paid the bearers a sizeable bounty for the odd fruits and cured meats anyway, then distributed it to his allies. This alone brought the An-kol and Delak tribes and their vassals aboard. That left only two of the dominant tribes who were not part of the expedition, and Talnek knew that the Slizana and Kildan tribes would rather starve than join with him. Until Talnek's great-grandfather had united the marginalized tribes of middling power and seized the throne over fifty years ago, a dynasty descended from those two tribes had ruled over the Orcs. Talnek did not know how they intended to survive without the food, but the preparations of the other tribes at least convinced them not to raid their neighbors.

Much of those preparations consisted of training the an-sul to follow the orders of the sul. There were two classes of Orcs, an-sul and sul. Most Orcs had little intelligence, not much better than the Goblins, but maybe one in a hundred possessed wits nearly matching the Kawyr. These were the sul. At first, sul and an-sul were born to the same parents. An-sul could occasionally have sul children, but sul parents only had sul children. Eventually, the sul began to see themselves as a separate ruling class, and although intelligent Orcs could still be born among the an-sul, they could no longer rise to the sul class. Survival of the Orcish culture depended on the clear and rigid separation of the classes.

As much as the an-sul required training, so did the sul. Although the standard education of sul males included the warrior arts, knowing tactics in theory differed significantly from leading Orcs, particularly an-su, into battle. The leaders needed to learn how to command their less intelligent brethren, which consisted in large part of learning their monosyllabic version of the Orcish language. They had the most difficulty keeping track of names: an-sul names, like their language, consisted largely of one syllable words. This, combined with an abysmal lack of creativity, led to large portions of the population sharing the same name. Order Nal to do something, and a commander would find a dozen Orcs rushing to fulfill the order. Some commanders took advantage of this by dividing their troops into companies based on their names. Of course, a few Orcs had uncommon names, and companies tended to vary widely in size. The correction to this meant that some an-sul would go home with a different name than they went to war with, causing considerable confusion among friends and family. They took their new names with pride, but this would not improve the variety of an-sul names.

Overall, Talnek liked how things were progressing. The next time the Kawyr visited, he was pleased as well.

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This has been Chapter 2 of Fire, a 4,947 word excerpt of a 90,111 word novel.

Above, I promised to explain what made this chapter so interesting. Doing so requires some minor spoilers for the remainder of Fire. Nothing extreme, but be forewarned.

When I first started writing Fire--which is not what the working name was--my plan was simply to follow Victor as I rushed through a few years. This chapter changed all that, and in so doing changed the course of the story. After writing the first chapter, I didn't really feel the inspiration to follow Victor, figuring that what he was going through was pretty boring.

At the same time, I decided that I really wanted to move further away from the whole Tolkienesque tableau of Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits. My original thinking had kept much closer to the fantasy stereotypes, but as I got older, I started to find that just a bit too stale. I got rid of extraneous peoples, and changed others. However, I couldn't just get rid of the Orcs. I had plans for those guys, and I had already put a great deal of thought into their origins and relationships with some of the other races, races which wouldn't just be disappearing. But I wanted something different from the stereotypical ugly, stupid creatures of The Lord of the Rings.

So as I was casting about for what to write about, I realized that I didn't really know anything about the new, redefined Orcs. Well, the best way to find out was to start writing about them and see where it took me. You can see that best at the beginning of the chapter, as I start with the stereotypes, and say "Here's what Orcs aren't." In the next paragraph, I say, "Here's what Orcs are." And believe me, I didn't know that until I started writing it.

So I wrote about the Orcs, and as I wrote and introduced the characters (characters who didn't even exist before I wrote this chapter), I met not just the tribes, with the chieftains and their putative king, but also a witch and a warlock, sul and an-sul, and a Kawyr. All stuff I knew nothing about until they actually appeared in this chapter (aside from the Kawyr, whom I knew something about). And when I got to the end of the chapter, I realized that I had started a war. Way to go, Donald! I had been going to focus on Victor, but I can't just ignore a war I started, and what's going on with Victor is happening at a much slower pace than the war. Darn! So okay, the focus will have to shift from Victor for a while. A whole year that I had been about to skip expanded into seventeen chapters, and as a result, I discovered that interesting things were happening to other characters. Lucia started developing much earlier than expected, I had to introduce someone to keep an eye on Victor, and a character whom I hadn't even planned on giving a point-of-view to became the focus of Fire. All because of this one chapter.

As I expected, I was not able to complete the next chapter of Ryan's and Emily's adventure prior to my departure this week. I apologize for this. Instead, I'm going to have to give you something else, so I'm presenting an excerpt from Fire. Fire is the first, and only complete, part of a story in progress called The War of the Elementals. I hope you enjoy it.

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Chapter 1
Coming of Age
Victor could feel the eyes of the Dominus on him. It was not a pleasant thought, and more than once he almost looked back to prove his apprehension wrong. Unfortunately, he was dismally certain that his suspicion was correct, and so he kept his eyes locked forward, ignored the sweat trickling down his back, and wished that the Dominus did not have to attend this ceremony.

It was a vain wish. A Dominus always appeared at the rite of passage, whether it be for the lowest Plebeian's son or for an Imperial prince. Even the slaves had some sort of examination when they became adults. Regardless of station, some of those newly made men disappeared. Victor's own uncle had vanished the night after his ceremony. Everyone knew that the Domini took them, but no one said a word where the Domini might hear. The Domini did not have the authority to kidnap boys for their mysterious purposes. They possessed no authority, nor did anyone have authority over them. The law did not acknowledge the existence of a Dominus; he could kill someone and the courts would see it as no different from an earthquake or a lightning strike. The law would not acknowledge the murder of a Dominus, either, but only the truly stupid would attempt such a thing. The Domini had power.

His sixteenth birthday should be the proudest day of his life, the day the Novari reckoned that a boy reached manhood. The ceremony, like much else in Novar life, was solemnly religious, filled with details that had to be performed to exacting standards. In most families the head of the household would perform the ceremony, but here the Pontifex Maximus himself led the ritual. The high priest was not a young man--the office of Pontifex Maximus was no longer a stepping stone to higher office--and he moved slowly and spoke softly, but his words were clear and his gestures precise. He had pulled the drapes of his plain white toga over his head to form a hood in indication of his ecclesiastical profession. Occasionally a well-to-do family might hire a trained priest to make certain there were no mistakes in the ceremony, but the High Priest only performed the rite of passage when it mattered to the State. Victor's father was the younger brother of the Emperor himself, and this made Victor's coming of age of national importance, whether he himself felt important or not. Though he had enough older brothers to shield him from the threat of inheriting Imperial power, his status as an Imperial prince required him to follow certain traditions. So Victor knelt in one of the alae of his family's home, surrounded by walls painted with scenes from his family history. He stared straight ahead at the marble busts of his oldest known ancestors, including the Commander himself, while the priest took the bulla from around his neck. Only the priest and Victor's immediate family--and the Dominus--attended this most private part of the ceremony.

Victor, at a gesture from the Pontifex Maximus, removed the bulla from around his neck and handed it to the priest. The bulla was a simple amulet inscribed with ritual words and filled with dried herbs, meant to protect children from evil spirits. As an adult Victor would have no need of its protection. Placing the bulla on a brazier used to burn incense, the priest breathed deeply of the smoke as the leather amulet caught fire. The high priest murmured a prayer which started by invoking the patron gods of Novaro, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and then the patron god of the Principius family, Quirinus. From there the prayer sought the care of Victor's ancestors, then the household spirit, and finally Victor's own Genius, or guardian spirit. Victor had not heard a single mistake in the priest's long prayers. Any misstep would invalidate the whole invocation and require the priest to start over. The young man shifted in an attempt to ease his cramped muscles, disturbed by the thought of having to stay kneeling through the prayer a second time. He'd do it though, to make certain the gods accepted the supplication. The gods did not tolerate human weakness or care about their needs. Like all forces of nature, they could only be dealt with by proper and precise propitiation. The Novari believed that every object, person, place, and idea possessed a spirit with which humans had to deal, whether seeking its help or advice, or simply trying to appease it so that it would not interfere with human plans. This required a myriad of rituals that had to be performed correctly in order not to upset these spirits. The gods were simply the most powerful spirits who possessed the widest sphere of influence. None of these spirits felt any concern for the mortals who sought their help: they had no interest in any sort of relationship beyond exchanging their blessings for the gifts humans offered by way of rituals and sacrifices.

Aside from the Genius, whose prosperity was linked to that of his ward's, only the spirits of a person's ancestors truly cared for his condition. Thus, the Novari always sought their ancestors' help, since they alone would lend a sympathetic ear to their descendants' needs. No one looked for miracles from these spirits, since they were weak compared to the gods, but the Novari did see their ancestors influence their lives in very pragmatic ways. In every way that mattered, power came from one's family line. The ruling class of Novaro were those who traced their lineage all the way back to the First Legion, the legendary heroes whose efforts defeated the demons who had enslaved humanity. Once the battle had ended, these heroes founded the city-state Novaro and set about building the Novar empire. The Plebeians descended from those who joined the city later, either voluntarily or through conquest. Only those descended from the Legion itself numbered among the Patricians, and only they sat in the Imperial Senate which ruled the Novar Empire.

The Principius family's tree began with the Legion's Commander. When the Legion began to adjust from military to civilian life, they chose the Commander and his descendants to rule until the people decided they were fit to govern themselves. For some reason, the Senate had never declared the Emperor unnecessary to the people of Novaro. The Emperor had great power, including the ability to veto any action of the Senate. However, should the Senate decide the Emperor unnecessary, the office would cease to exist, and all power would return to the Senate and whatever rulers the people might select. This led to an uneasy balance of power, with the Emperor constantly aware that his power could vanish at the whim of the Senate. Only three attempts were ever made to remove the Emperor, two early on and one during the reign of a particularly incompetent Principius not two hundred years ago.

The priest completed his prayer and motioned for Victor to rise. The young man did so, trembling slightly from knees that had been bent too long. He did not turn as his father approached carrying his new toga, plain white without an adolescent's purple stripe. Marcus Julius Principius, heir-apparent to the Emperor, draped the toga over Victor, a task normally done by a slave. Victor wavered between pride and embarrassment despite knowing that this was the Principius tradition, unshared by the rest of Novaro. It symbolized the father's acceptance of his son as a worthy heir.

"Congratulations, Son," his father whispered as he embraced Victor.

"I didn't do much... just make it to sixteen."

"Gods' word, there were times we weren't so certain you'd make it," Gaius said, referring to the strange recurring illness which had beset Victor's childhood. The middle of Victor's three older brothers, Gaius was stronger than he looked, his rib-cracking hug serving as a reminder should Victor have forgotten. He had their father's tall and slender build, as well as the same brown eyes and dark brown hair, although he lacked his father's generous amount of gray. Victor himself had the same hair, although he had inherited his mother's gray eyes.

"Well, I'm glad you made it," said Victor's oldest brother, Marcus, as he gave him a simple handshake and a warm smile. A stocky young man, Marcus looked little like his brother, although his pastimes of wrestling and Western-style swordsmanship gave him a grace which belied his build. As the firstborn, he had a more serious disposition than any of the other brothers.

"So am I," said Aulus. His smile looked painted on, as always. Aulus was the consummate cynic, never taking anything at face value. Only two years older, and shorter than even Victor, he did not appear impressed by his younger brother's continued survival. "It'd be embarrassing if our sickly little brother died on us."

"You're not a whole lot healthier," Gaius said, poking Aulus in the ribs. Aulus, skinny and pale, looked less healthy than Victor, but Gaius's comment had no real truth in it. Aulus had never been ill in his life.

Before Aulus could respond with one of his sharp rejoinders, Victor's mother gently pushed them both out of the way. "One would think you could give him some more room. Maybe he wouldn't get sick without so many older brothers suffocating him." She gave him a hug, followed by a kiss on the cheek. A short, slightly plump woman with silver streaking her long black hair, she had been a great beauty in her youth. Her grey eyes were as lively as ever. Avla came from a Plebeian family of foreign descent, with no noble roots at all, either from the Novar Empire or any other nation. Victor's father had married her in defiance of his own father and he had nearly been disowned because of it.

Victor hugged his sister, Lucia, next. Father often said that Lucia looked much like their mother had in her youth. Her raven black hair, nearly as long as her mother's, hung loose. Though nearly three years younger than he, she and Victor were very close. Neither brother nor sister said a word, since each usually knew what the other was thinking. He could sense her warm pride, even if she couldn't hide her impatience. Lucia must have found the ceremony even more boring than he had.

It felt good to be with his family, and Victor was hoping the moment would last when he suddenly remembered the Dominus. He made himself look. The man looked like any other Domini, swathed in black robes with no visible feature, his hands hidden in the sleeves and his face hidden by the hood. Something seemed wrong about that. The hood, though deep, should not have hidden his face so completely, yet Victor could not make out a single hint of his countenance. The Dominus did not say anything--they rarely spoke--but he gave the young man a slight, unmistakable nod. Despite the physical warmth of his family's closeness, Victor felt a chill run down his spine. He did not protest when his father suggested that they move into the peristylium. The Dominus followed at a distance.

The center of most of the larger Novar homes, the peristylium was a garden courtyard sheltered from the busy streets of Novaro and open to the sky. A colonnade supported the eaves of the red tiled roof of the surrounding house, which shadowed the painted walls which displayed an abstract design rather than a more common narrative one. A small fountain sat in the center of the garden, amidst pebbled paths meandering among the flowers and trees. The family spent most of its time here, where they sometimes ate, sometimes played, and sometimes just sat beside the fountain talking. Here, the servants had set up long tables filled with food for the guests. Though no one ate a proper Novar meal without reclining, early afternoon appetizers did not require such repose. The tables took up most of the empty space, while guests filled the remainder. The wandering party-goers were not keeping to the paths and thus were trampling some of Avla's rare flowers, whose arrangement showed much better taste than that of the guests. The women's dresses stood out garishly, as the brighter and more expensive dyes were a popular way to flaunt wealth. By contast, the men wore simple white togas with only a purple trim to signify their rank. Senators distinguished themselves with a wider stripe than mere elected officials, hardly enough to soften the harsh colorlessness of the men.

The Emperor's purple toga made him the sole exception to this rule. Shorter than Victor's father, he had grown thinner in his advancing years, much of his youthful musculature melting away. His hair had thinned as well, though not so much that anyone would call him bald. He spoke softly when in private but as loud as any Western prophet when speaking in public. Victor's uncle was fiercely protective of his younger brother and his family. Only his influence had prevented the former Emperor from repudiating his youngest son for marrying Avla. In return, Victor's father was as loyal to his older brother as any man could be, completely without ambition or thought of advancing himself though the Emperor's power. Victor supposed their close relationship stemmed from the disappearance of their middle brother, whom the Domini had taken. Before he could ruminate further, Emperor Gaius Julius Principius, Dictator for Life, Chief Commander of the Novar Army, and First Citizen of Novaro, greeted Victor himself, with a firm handshake and a kiss on both cheeks, as much as the Emperor could accord to anyone in public.

His wife was nowhere near as warm. Vibia politely shook his hand, while she gave him a cold smile. At least thirty years younger than the Emperor, she was as beautiful now as Avla was rumored to have been, taller than the average Novar woman but with the usual coloring, dark hair and darker eyes. She had nothing of Avla's vibrancy; precise and rigid poise marked her beauty. Moreover, Vibia was a bitter woman. Her only son had died as an infant, and she had had no children since. Though she was not yet past child-bearing years, most of the Patricians already looked to Victor's father as heir. This gave her little love for him or his children, and Victor gladly moved on to some of the other guests.

Publius Julius Aurelius, a distant cousin of an age with Victor's father, was proconsul of the Eastern border, where he commanded the four Novar legions which patrolled the Kainin mountains. A proconsul did much the same thing as a consul, elected officials who co-commanded each province's four legions. The Emperor himself appointed a proconsul to command the legions in provinces which did not yet have their own Senates. Since these areas were usually borders which needed firm leadership, a single proconsul held the office for a term of five years, much longer than the one year term which two consuls shared in the other provinces. This gave the commander the time necessary to deal with the difficulties in the area. These days, the Kainin mountain range was the only Novar border which needed protection, so Publius help the only proconsulship in the Empire. A plump, soft man, with red hair that spoke of non-Novar blood somewhere in his ancestry, he lacked the martial appearance expected of a military commander, but he had gained a reputation which belied his looks. When he saw Victor approach, he gulped down his cup of wine and tossed aside the leg of roast peacock which he had been eating.

He shook Victor's hand with his own greasy one, then smiled apologetically as he let go and wiped his hand on his toga. Victor believed his crudeness was an act. Mostly an act. "So, my boy, now that you have your freedom, are you going to join us on the front?" As long as his father lived, Victor remained under his legal authority, but fathers rarely interfered with the actions of their sons once they reached manhood.

"I was considering it. I guess my older brothers aren't carrying their weight if you want me too." Marcus and Gaius both served as tribunes in one of Publius's legions. The proconsul had the right to choose his own tribunes, six for each legion he commanded. Aside from consuls--and proconsuls--tribunes were the highest ranking officers in the army.

Publius gave a high-pitched giggle at that. "Oh, they do well enough, I suppose." Once he had finished laughing, he continued, "I think the Kawyr are planning a new push, though, and we can use all the help we can get."

"Do you mean that there might be a war?" Victor tried not to sound excited; war was a serious matter, after all, if a rarity in these times. The last war against an enemy state had occurred two and a half centuries ago, when the Kawyr had attacked the border in force. The Empire had not even seen one of its periodic flare-ups since the Agnatius Rebellion, which had ended before Victor's birth.

"I don't know about that. I doubt the Kawyr have the numbers for a full-fledged assault on the Empire, not unless their Orc and Goblin allies turn out to be real." Publius, like most educated Novar citizens, scoffed at the stories of the Orcs and Goblins who had supposedly allied with the Kawyr in the last border war. Marjori, Victor's Philosopher tutor, believed differently, and supported her beliefs with numerous citations of Philosopher records. In the end, no one really knew what lived east of the Kawyr. No expedition had penetrated the mountains along the Dark Coast, and no Novar patrol into Kawyr territory had ever reached the other side. Publius continued, "Still, our patrols have spotted a mass exodus westward, whole villages moving toward the Kainin foothills. Maybe they're planning to attack, or maybe they're just running from something. In either case, I don't think they're going to stop at the mountains."

"I'd like to see a Kawyr," Victor said, but he was distracted. He had just noticed the Dominus and his father moving off together. Why would the black-robed creature want to speak with his father?

"He wouldn't want to see you, I wager," Gaius said as he moved up with Marcus. "Those damned Kawyr don't like us Novari much."

Marcus followed Victor's gaze, and indicated that he should let it go with a slight shake of his head. Gaius gave no sign that he noticed anything. Neither did Publius, but Victor would not have laid any money on his apparent unmindfulness.

Turning his attention back to the topic at hand--Gaius was about to launch into another account of his latest, and only, fight against a Kawyr--Victor asked a question he had been pondering for a while, "What are the Kawyr? I mean, where do they come from? Are they really not human?"

Gaius laughed. "Inhuman? Well, they fight like devils, and they look a little strange, but I wouldn't believe those stories that say they're descended from demons."

Publius picked it up when it became clear that Gaius had no further insight. "It's possible that they're just humans from an odd tribe. They are very different from the average Novar, though. Their hair looks metallic: copper, silver, or even gold. Also, their eyes have odd, vivid, jewel-like colors. Now I've seen other men with odd colored eyes, but never this shade."

"I've fought them, and I'll believe the stories that they're not human," Marcus chimed in. "They're... well, I guess graceful would be the word for it. Their movements seem more precise and coordinated than any human I've ever seen, and they're faster. Unless you overwhelm them, you're dead."

"They're not that fast," Gaius insisted. "I beat one."

"Then you got a slow one, brother. Don't underestimate them, or you might not survive your next encounter."

"Do they really have pointed ears?" Victor asked.

"Of course not," Gaius scoffed. "That's just from the stories about demons. Next you'll be asking if they're really immortal."

"Well, are they?"

Gaius opened his mouth to answer, but Marcus spoke first, "I've never seen an old one." Gaius shut his mouth, frowning.

"You still haven't told me where they come from," Victor pressed.

"The simple truth is that we don't know," Publius answered. "We know that they live beyond the eastern mountains, but we know very little about their origins. Some say that they are related to the Amaranthine, but no one has seen the Amaranthine in generations. Maybe they never really existed, or perhaps they've finally faded." Publius gave his unmanly giggle at that. Although Victor did not know the origin of the word amaranthine, he knew it meant "unfading." The name referred to an immortal race of men who had aided humanity against the demons which the First Legion had vanquished. Novar legends diminished the Amaranthine's role, and the newer accounts claimed that either they never existed at all or the name is a fanciful term for the men of the First Legion. The fact remained, however, that reliable records told of some interaction with them up to a hundred years ago or so, after which they had vanished into the Delvine Mountains in the Kingdom of Manuel.

Publius excused himself as he caught sight of someone else he needed to talk to. "Let me know if you're interested in joining us in the east. We can certainly find a place for you," he said as he headed off.

Victor looked around at the other guests. Since his coming of age was as much a political event as a family celebration, his few friends had decided to hold a private party tomorrow rather than take part in this stuffy affair. Today, most of the guests were politicians, here to impress the Emperor by how much they cared about his nephew, what's-his-name. A few bureaucrats had accompanied the Emperor as well, high ranking officials necessary to the running of the Empire but hardly the sort to make great conversationalists. Aulus was talking with one of them, a decrepit, elderly gentleman who had a white beard and fringes of hair. He might have been tall, but his stoop made him shorter than Aulus. The cane he leaned on punctuated his sentences more than it aided his walking, however.

For some reason, Aulus found the bureaucracy fascinating, less for the record-keeping and accounting than for the sheer amount of information that seemed to go through their offices. He claimed that anyone interested could dig up enough dirt to topple any official. Victor wondered sometimes where Aulus's interests lay. He worked as an apprentice to one of the quaestors for the Emperor's works program. Quaestors were elected officials who took charge of Novaro's finances and public records, each of the hundred or so managing a specific governmental task. Nepotism had given Aulus this advantageous position right away, but his skill with figures made him good at it.

"Who's Aulus talking to?" Victor asked.

"Some paper-pusher, no doubt," answered Gaius. "I really can't see how Aulus can stand being cooped up in some gods-forsaken archive or another all day. He should get some fresh air."

"That's the personal secretary to the Emperor," Marcus said. He had looked more carefully at the old man.

"Not an exciting job, I'd think. Although I suppose the Emperor must trust him."

Aulus left his conversation and came over toward them.

"Trust him? I should say so. He sees everything the Emperor sees," Marcus replied.

Aulus caught the tail-end of the exchange. "Are you talking about Tarquinius? He does a good bit more than just see what the Emperor sees."

"What do you mean?" Marcus asked.

Aulus's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "Tarquinius reviews all reports before they're given to the Emperor, deciding whether they're important enough to bother him with. So..."

"So what?" Gaius asked, annoyed at his brother's drama.

"So, that man controls the flow of information in the Empire! No report goes to the Emperor unless Tarquinius decides that it does. I also suspect, although I'm not certain, that he runs the Empire's spy network in a more direct manner."

"You think that worn-out old man is the spymaster everyone claims the Emperor has hidden somewhere?" Gaius clearly did not buy that. "So what were you talking to him about?"

"This and that." Aulus sighed. "I was trying to probe him for information, find out whether he's what I suspect. He's a wiley one, though. I certainly don't believe he's as thick as he pretends." Victor did not express his doubts. Aulus was always seeing plots and conspiracies. Victor knew his brother was clever, but sometimes he saw things which simply were not there. In Victor's opinion, Aulus was too clever for his own good, and maybe just a bit paranoid.

At that moment Victor's father re-entered the peristylium without the Dominus. Something was wrong. He hurried over to his father, leaving his three brothers arguing over whether Aulus was over-suspicious or the other two were dense. His father's face looked drained of blood.

"What's wrong?" he asked.
His father looked at him, and he saw tears in his eyes. Victor fought down what he thought must be panic. What could upset his father so much? "Father, what's happened?"

His father blinked away the tears as he looked at his son, then placed his hands on his shoulders. "Victor," his father said. "Nothing is wrong. I just... I want you to know that I... we love you." With that, his father embraced him with as much force as Gaius had. It might have felt comforting if his father were not trembling.

* * *
Victor sat on the grass of the peristylium, brooding as he pulled leaves off a nearby shrub. It had large leaves which he plucked one by one and tore to bits. He hardly noticed what he was doing, his mind instead going over his conversation with his father again and again. Something was wrong, no matter how much his father had denied it afterwards. Victor could not forget the look in his father's eyes, not mere worry but stark grief. That made no sense. No one had died that Victor knew about, and he could not get over the impression that the grief was for him.

"Hi Victor!" came a voice that could only be his sister's. "Why are you sitting there? You're getting grass stains all over your new toga." Victor looked up, and saw that he and Lucia were alone. The slaves had finished cleaning up after the party, having removed the tables and the trash, though they had been unable to do much to repair the damage to Avla's prized flower gardens.

Victor smiled at his sister, "You're one to talk. Where's all that dust on your dress from? Have you been upstairs again?" The bright yellow dress clearly displayed dark splotches of gray, and smudges appeared on her hands and face as well. Such quantities of dust had to come from the home's upper story. Tenants had occupied it until a few years ago, but no one kept the place in good repair these days. Their mother had tried without much success to keep them off the second floor.

Lucia giggled. "No one saw me. I wanted to see the Emperor's procession."

"Some procession! He was just heading home from his nephew's party."

"Still, I wanted to watch."

Victor snorted. "I doubt that. It's just that Father sent you back. If he hadn't done so, you wouldn't have wanted to stay anyway."

"Maybe," she admitted. "If he'd asked me whether I wanted to go back, I might have said yes. But he told me to--"

"And that makes the difference. You're usually quite agreeable, you know, but if anyone tells you to do something, you're not such a sweet little girl."

"I'm not that little," she complained, but Lucia was not that easily sidetracked. "So why did he send me back?"

"I don't think it had anything to do with you. He told Mother to take you back because he didn't want her there. And I bet she knows that."

"But why?"

"I wish I knew. Something isn't right. Father's trying not to let it show, and I think he has an easier time hiding it from us than from Mother." Victor pulled another leaf from the bush.

"That poor plant's getting awfully bare."
Victor dropped the leaf, noticing that his hands were stained rather green. "Did you see Father talking to the Dominus?"

"Yes, I saw. Do you think he said something to Dad? You aren't thinking what I think you're thinking, are you? That's not a good thing to think."

"I don't want to think that, but what else makes sense?"

"But, Victor, that's so rare. They look at thousands and thousands, and only take one or two. It's even rarer here in Novaro."

"They say it runs in the family, though, and they took our uncle. What if they've decided I have whatever... trait it is they're looking for? He must have told Father."

"Then it can't be that." Lucia smiled suddenly, triumphantly. "They never tell when they're going to take someone. Whatever he told Dad, it couldn't have been that. So stop worrying about it."

Victor wanted to believe her. "You didn't see Father's face when he came back. He looked at me like he had already lost me."

Lucia knelt down in front of him and grabbed hold of his shoulders, shaking him. She tried to act angry, but Victor could tell she was frightened. "What if they do want to take you? Are you just going to let them? Can't you fight?" Her determination, and the teeth rattling she was giving him, helped Victor to think past his own despair. Resolve replaced resignation.

"You're right." He spoke softly, but his tone held an unaccustomed hardness. "I can fight."

* * *
Victor awoke suddenly from a restless nap, one he had not meant to take at all. He couldn't tell what had awoken him, but it had not been a sound. He did not hear anything, not even the steady drip of the water clock in his bedroom. That was what had disturbed his rest... not a noise, but the silence. He tossed his blankets aside, and realized that he did not even hear that. Ordinarily he would not have noticed the rustling of his blankets, but the lack of it unnerved him. Had he suddenly gone deaf? He realized then that someone was in the room with him, a single figure in black robes, illuminated by some source of light Victor did not see. The Dominus. He shouted in alarm, not hearing that either, but maybe someone else could. The Dominus must have made him deaf, so that he could... what? Or had he made the entire room silent, so that no one would interfere with whatever he intended to do with Victor? Distressingly, that explanation seemed more plausible.

He grabbed for his sword, a gift from the Emperor himself for his birthday. He overlooked the ornate hilt in favor of the short two-and-a-half foot blade, of which both the edge and point were sharpened. Victor pulled the baldric from where it hung on his bed post, where he had known he could reach it quickly. He unsheathed the blade as he came to his feet. He must have moved faster than he realized, because the Dominus only then noticed that he was awake. He had been facing the door, involved in something else. A spell, perhaps? Victor still could not see his face, but something in his manner spoke of surprise.

All Novar bedrooms were small, just spaces to sleep in. Victor's clock was more ornament than even most Patrician bedrooms had. The bed took up considerable space, leaving Victor without any maneuvering room or hope to get around the Dominus to the door. The only window, closed and shuttered, faced inward toward the peristylium, right next to the door. He only had one alternative, and he had to act now while he still had the advantage of surprise.

He lunged forward, thrusting his sword toward the Dominus's vitals. Shock shivered up his arm as the sword hit something Victor could not see and the blade slid to the left of the Dominus. The unexpected shift in direction wrenched Victor's wrist and he dropped his weapon. It struck the ground with a ear-splitting peal.

No, the sword was not making that noise. It made no more sound than anything else in the room. He did hear something, though, a ringing in his ears that was quickly escalating to a painful pitch and volume. Victor fell to his knees, clutching his ears as the sound overwhelmed him. He felt darkness closing in on him and he knew he would die if he lost consciousness. He fought it, but he was losing. Something soft brushed against his cheek. He was lying on the floor now, the ringing drowning out even thought, but he could still look up and see the Dominus standing over him. He saw the face now, the obscuring magic having slipped away. The face looked like... like... his father's.

---

This story is a 5,604 word excerpt of a 90,111 word novel.

This was originally posted on February 12th, 2005, but as I decided to place it at the beginning of the post chain, I had to move it backwards.

I was going to put up the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow this week, but while I liked where it was going, I wasn't too happy with how it got there. It'll take another rewrite before it's ready for the next Carnival.

Meanwhile, here's the prologue from Fire. I've already put Chapters 1 and 2 on this blog, so it's kind of out of order [now changed], but it's pretty much independent what order you read these three chapters. Now, if I put Chapter 3 before Chapter 1, that would be confusing. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

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Prologue

He sat on his throne, a great chair shaped, not carved, from wood. Its intricate designs were a wonder to behold, fanciful and not-so-fanciful animals frolicking on the chair's base and arms. The shapers had so carefully made the animals, both the wonderful and the mundane, that even the imaginary ones looked real and even the ordinary ones looked marvelous. Those who had made the chair had loved the art, but they had loved even more the ruler who would sit in it. That ruler had died long ago, even his name forgotten. None of the Progenitors survived, and fewer of their descendants than they would have hoped. The current occupant of the throne was one of those, and he was not thinking about his chair.

His face appeared young, though he was, in fact, among the eldest of his people. Even seated and still, his lean, muscled body hinted at his preternatural grace. His eyes were large and emerald in color; the sheen of his copper hair nearly matched that of the metal. Humans would have called him beautiful despite the permanent sternness of his narrow face. His eyes contained something else, something deeper, stronger than severity, a hardness that approached ruthlessness. At the moment they did not hold the awful intensity they sometimes had, instead focusing inward. What he saw did not please him, for he grimaced and glanced at the huge crystal cube that stood in the center of the hall. Normally at least five maintained Watch over the crystal--his people treasured their only means of communicating beyond their prison--but he had sent the Watchers away. He wanted to be alone, and he needed to be alone here. He toyed with a small crystal cube in his hand, as perfectly clear as the crystal in the center of the room. The small cube, embedded in a medallion hanging on a heavy gold chain around his neck, was his only visible sign of office. His clothing, though rich, did not engender respect in his subjects the way the simple medallion did.

"Are you certain this Holle is he?" he spoke to the air.

I am certain, a voice replied. The copper-haired man was never quite sure whether that voice was inside his head or outside. My opponent and I have both waited a long time for this. We are not mistaken.

"Perhaps. Could he have tricked you, though? Gained some advantage through deception?"

Tricking me would not be so easy, the voice replied acerbically. It contained its usual annoyance at his doubt. I worked as hard as he did to bring this about. He could not have deceived me.

"Very well, then. If this is he, I must preserve him."

Remember, he could destroy us as well as save us. There is no prophecy in this, and the many possibilities do not allow recklessness. In his case, there is an even more dangerous element.

"Kait he! Don't you think I know that? I must protect him, though. I will not endure a slow and certain death at the mere risk of a quick one. I will set one of the Kai'Daiken to watch over him."

Be careful lest someone detects it.

"Even you could not detect a Kai'Daik who wished to remain hidden. Certainly none of these Hollar will."

It is not the mortals I worry about.

He grimaced. "It will not be found, even by him." The voice fell silent as the man summoned his servant. Soon, very soon now.



Another observer considered the same moment with equal interest, even if he assigned to it a different meaning than the others had. Long, slender fingers tipped with talons stroked the perfectly black orb in which the event played out. The jet black fingers seemed even darker awash in the anti-light of the orb. The affair unfolding in the orb was depicted in that anti-light, a darkness that would mean nothing to mortal sight, but which conveyed more information to his dimly glowing red eyes than those mortals could comprehend. He sighed, a sound like a whistling breeze, and settled back in his chair.

The room, though utterly dark to mortal eyes, was well lit to his. He could see the domed ceiling high above the circular room, the archways with their stone doors held shut by his power. None could enter, of this world or any other, until the one whom he awaited came. The arched doorways bore symbols, detailed carvings that seemed abstract decoration except to those who could read them, or those who could sense the power within them. Those carvings filled the entire room, webbing the floor and covering the ceiling. These had been engraved long before he could have foreseen the need to seal himself in this chamber. They kept the room intact while the building around it decayed and crumbled over the millennia since the war. He himself had placed the later symbols on the doors, sealing them shut.

The barren room contained only the chair in which he sat and the stand on which the orb rested. It had been centuries since either had stirred from their metal resting places. The ornate magical stand for the orb eclipsed his plain chair, as well it should. The orb received better treatment than his body because it contained more of him. Only the slight glow in his eyes and the small movements of his fingers suggested that the shrouded figure in the chair lived at all. The orb showed more life, flickering with black radiance. Long ago, he had foreseen the need to store the power he used, to keep it against need. The orb was the reservoir for that power, and he had inextricably bound himself to it. Once he had spent its remaining aether, he would die. He could live for yet more millenia if he conserved it, but his life meant nothing except for the one last thing he must do. He had saved the aether remaining in the orb for that final task.

He gazed now at the one archway different from all the others. Rather than a door, only a blank wall lay beneath the arch, different for being blank when patterns covered every other surface. Mortal eyes would see that wall and feel only a slight uneasiness without knowing why. He could see more than that, an opening to where they had hidden It from those who should not find It. When the war had neared its end, they had tried to seal that opening and destroy the gateway, but they had failed. Their misguided attempt to protect It from the raiders would make his task harder than it should have been, but the gateway would open when the time came.

Only he remembered that war now. Even the Wyren must have forgotten all but that it had occurred. He alone remembered the time when he and his brethren had thought they ruled the world, discovering too late that they themselves were pawns of two far greater powers. By the time they had sought a means to oppose those powers, they were under siege by hordes of those whom they had believed harmless. Then they had hid their last hope to protect It from those greater powers, and later tried to destroy the way to It lest the hordes gain It. He had come here to watch over the way while his people died, sealing himself in and them out.

He alone had survived that war when he doomed his people, though a score of the most powerful leaders still existed. Their fate was worse than death, worse even than his own. Unlike them, he could die, and he would once he had completed his final duty. Those two forces which had manipulated his people had used others to bring about this event, the culmination of hundreds of years of plotting. This product, this tool was the one for whom he would perform his task. This one would either break the Cycle or seal it for all eternity. Soon, very soon, it would end. He wished he knew the ending; he wished he could live long enough to see it.



The infant howled as loudly as he had before. Though three older brothers should have made this newest birth routine, his parents still marveled for the moment at the miracle of their son. They were even less aware than the infant that they had an audience.

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This prologue is a 1,412 word excerpt of a 90,111 word novel.

Old Post: The beginning of this story is here, while the previous chapter is here.

Thanksgiving continued to push this story off, so it ended up being a bit rushed. I intended to do a major revision on Wednesday, but I ended up watching my niece Wednesday morning. While my niece, who's two-and-a-half, is cute, she's also a handful, and it wasn't easy to keep up: "Come on, come on!", "Outside, outside!", "Come here, come here!", etc., again and again, over and over. After that, I needed a nap, and the revision got pushed back another day, until it was Thursday afternoon and I really needed to get it done if I wanted it ready for the next storyblogging carnival. So here it is, and feel free to criticize if you don't feel it's up to my usual subterranean standards.

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Chapter 5
Out of Boston

Those things that seemed deadly serious at night often looked silly in the light of day. Thinking back on his experiences from the previous night while in the shower, Ryan's first instinct was to simply dismiss them. Or at least the part of them that might require some adjustment of his view of the world. When he did, all that was left was some crazy guy chasing after a crazy girl whom Ryan had helped escape. He then paid for a hotel room, which made sense since she needed a safe place to stay, and now she wanted him to go with her while she went to her folks for a couple of days. So far, so not crazy. It was only when you started factoring in the dreams and hallucinations and the weird behavior of people around Red-eyes that things got interesting. Oh, and the fact that his irises were an unbelievably brilliant shade of red. That and Emily's own visions and her deep belief that Red-eyes was a demon.

Ryan dried himself off quickly, then pulled on his clothes, the same jeans and t-shirt he had worn yesterday, which were dry although the jeans were stiff, and a dark grey sweatshirt. He rubbed the steam from the mirror so he could see himself as he combed his hair. Ryan's hair was dark brown and receding, making his forehead, which had always been high, even higher. At least his eyes, also an unremarkable brown, were not too bloodshot, although there were dark spots beneath. He smiled at himself in the mirror, and then took the time to brush his teeth. He and Emily had bought a few necessities from the gift shop when they arrived last night, although he had neglected to get a razor. Rubbing the rough stubble on his cheeks, he wished he had remembered.

When he finished, he stepped out of the bathroom to find Emily packed and ready to go. Like him, she wore the same clothes as yesterday, in her case jeans and a red sweater over a white button-down blouse. She had added a blue jacket from the gift shop to the ensemble, although it looked entirely too light for winter. A winter cap of black and baby blue with a fuzzy ball on top at least kept her head warm. Her only piece of luggage was the purse she had bought from the gift shop, stocked with whatever else she had found, which raised a question he had not thought of earlier.

"Do you have any ID?" he asked. "If we're going on a plane, you'll need it."

"Yes," Emily replied. "I had my license in my pocket when I left my apartment. I didn't have a chance to grab my purse, but I always keep my license on me when I'm driving, and I had just gotten back from a trip to a friend's. I wish I could have gotten to my car, but the keys are in the purse and like I said I was in too much of a hurry to grab it and he was in the way since it was in my room--"

"Okay, okay," Ryan interrupted, raising his hands. "I really don't need that much of an explanation. So you have your license. How about a credit card? How'd you buy the ticket?"

"Oh, I have my credit card number memorized, so it wasn't a problem to buy tickets over the phone. I really am sorry to have made you pay for everything so far, so I thought I should pay for the tickets."

Unless, of course, Red-eyes is tracking your credit card purchases, in which case I should have paid for the tickets. Ryan didn't think it likely that he was. Psychotic mutant demon or not, Ryan didn't see any reason why he should have the pull to access Emily's credit card account. Besides, aside from expending all his cash on the cab ride, Ryan had put a couple of hundred dollars onto his credit card in the attempt to keep Emily and himself well-supplied and in a safe place, and he was just as happy not to be paying last minute airfare for a trip he did not want to take. So now what? Now I go meet her parents. I wasn't planning a trip, but it's Saturday today, and I'm sure I can call in sick or family emergency or something Monday and even Tuesday--Grad student work schedules were flexible that way--so with any luck, Emily will talk to her parents and they'll convince her that whatever the trouble with Red-eyes is, it's not supernatural and it's all over by now. That is assuming, of course, that they're not as crazy as she is. I sure hope it doesn't run in the family. Her father is a minister. I'll worry about that when we get there.

"Okay," Ryan said. "Let's go."

After the chaos of the previous night, Ryan was prepared for pretty much anything. Anything, that is, except nothing, which is what he got. The hotel had a free shuttle service which took them to the airport, and they arrived without incident. Once they did arrive, Ryan kept an eye out for Red-eyes, but he didn't see him. Whatever Red-eyes was, he might expect them to try to catch a flight out of the area, so Ryan would not have been surprised to find him waiting at the airport. Fortunately, Logan Airport was huge, and without any idea which airline they were taking, Red-eyes would have to rely on pure luck to catch them there. If he was waiting at the airport, Ryan didn't see him.

Ryan had to submit himself to a full pat-down to get through the security screening. One-way tickets were considered high risk, and evoked stronger security measures. By now, though, the terrorists must know this, so they'll get round-trip tickets. So what if they're not planning on coming back? It's not like they're saving the money for retirement. Ryan got through the examination with as good a grace as he could manage, although Emily looked unhappy when she came out. Still, Ryan felt better once he was on the other side, hoping that such extreme security measures might slow down Red-eyes. How could even he slip through that unnoticed?

Since they were flying on Delta, their flight to South Carolina would take them through Atlanta. While it still seemed silly that they needed to practically fly over their destination before switching to a plane heading back, Ryan was an engineer, and he had little difficulty grasping the utility of hubs. The number of permutations connecting any one city to any other city would result in an incredible number of flights. With a hundred cities, one connecting flight between every two of them would take 9,900 flights. Use a hub instead, and you need one flight from each city to the hub, and one from the hub to each city, and you could connect them all with 200 flights. 198 if the hub was one of the cities. After having done the math in his head, Ryan decided that he really had put the previous night behind him. If he could pause long enough from checking over his shoulder to work out an entirely useless math problem, then maybe the paranoia was finally wearing off.

They boarded the flight to Atlanta around nine in the morning, and they were in the air by 9:30. Ryan had a window seat near the wing, and for a moment his paranoia returned as he remembered an old Twilight Zone episode. In it, the man sitting in a window seat could see a monster standing on the wing, but it was never there when anyone else looked. The similarity to their situation was uncanny, and if Ryan had seen Red-eyes or that shadow thing which had been inside him in his dream, he would have gone as crazy as the man in the Twilight Zone episode, but he would not have been entirely surprised. It wasn't until half an hour into the flight that his irrational fear finally stopped nagging him.

For someone who had the most fanciful beliefs about their pursuer, Emily seemed even less worried than Ryan was, all fear forgotten the moment the plane was in the air. In her relief, she talked non-stop, and Ryan learned more than he had ever asked to know about her. Her last name was Adams. It only surprised him that he had not already learned it. He had never directly told her his last name, but she knew it already, having heard him use it when he checked them into the hotel room. She had grown up in South Carolina, and lived there her whole life, where her father had worked at Dutch Fork Baptist Church in some manner for as long as she could remember, finally accepting the position of Senior Pastor five years ago. She had done an undergraduate degree in Education at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, and then come to Boston to pursue a Master's degree at BU. She had considered just staying at USC for her Master's, but she wanted to get out of South Carolina for a few years, and she really felt God calling her to go to Boston. He tried to get a clearer explanation of what that meant: Did it have something to do with those visions? Did she actually hear God's voice? The only explanation he could get was that she felt that she had to go, which left Ryan confused. She had an older brother, Dominic, who was currently in Grad school out west, at Stanford, studying Physics.

She asked him a few questions about his life, which he answered politely, but not in great detail. He had lived all over the Northeast as he grew up, his family travelling with his father, who was a Nuclear Engineer doing contract work. His mother was a nurse and could find work pretty much anywhere. He had graduated from the University of Rochester in New York and gone to Grad school at MIT, which is where he was now--assuming he got back before his advisor decided to fire him.

All in all, it was an educational flight, but he wasn't entirely sorry to see it end as the plane touched down in Atlanta. He had been annoyed with her constant chatter at first, then later found himself just enjoying the sound of her voice, which made him even more annoyed. The opportunity to get off the plane provided a welcome distraction from his tangled thoughts. As soon as they left the gantry, they had to hurry to find the gate for the next flight. The Atlanta airport was huge, and it was a long way from Terminal E to Terminal B. Only after they had located their gate did they determine they had enough time to look for something to eat. It was just past noon, the first flight had not provided a meal, and the itinerary said that the next one would not either. Emily found a McDonald's, but Ryan wanted something less bland, so he headed further down the terminal. Meanwhile, he stopped at the Men's room.

Washing his hands, Ryan took the opportunity to splash some water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror again, realizing that he was paying way more attention to how he looked than he usually did. Want to look good for Emily, huh? He wished it were that simple. What are you doing? Looking for signs of madness in your eyes? If he was going crazy it wasn't something he could see in the mirror. Maybe you're looking for ghosts in the mirror. Well, none of that here in the light of day. Or the light of the fluorescents, anyway. Just myself and the other guys... What?!

His head twisted so fast his neck cracked. He had thought he'd seen... but no, looking behind him he just saw two guys at the urinals, taking care of their business and not the least bit interested in him. I must have imagined it. I've been doing that a lot recently. Since when has my imagination been so good? By which I mean overactive and vivid, which is decidedly not good. He turned back to the mirror, and he was still there. Red-eyes, large as life, standing behind him and watching. Well, there's my sign of madness, right there. How? He looked behind him again, subtly this time, turning his head just enough that he could look out the corner of his eye, perhaps hoping Red-eyes--It can't be Red-eyes!--hadn't noticed his previous whipsnap motion. He still couldn't see him, just the four urinals and the two guys and no Red-eyes. He looked back at the mirror and there he was. What the hell...? Ryan frowned. In the mirror there were five urinals, not four. Turning and leaving the sink behind as he headed for the door, Ryan scanned the wall, counting. Just four, no sign of Red-eyes or the urinal he was standing right in front of. Okay, I can believe that my mind is so far gone that I'm imagining Red-eyes, but a urinal? Exactly how perverse is my imagination? Is it a magic urinal? Ryan blinked and stopped just as he neared the door. No, wait, there were five there. But I counted four just a moment ago? This doesn't make any sense.

Ryan started walking again, this time quickly. He had to find Emily. What if...? Red-eyes could become invisible, only it wasn't invisible, it was unnoticeable, which meant that while your eyes could see him, your brain didn't know he was there, and you just instinctively reacted to him, going so far as to get out of his way, but all at a lower level of your brain without your subconscious bothering to inform you that "Hey, there's a big guy with glowing red eyes over there!" What if he was standing in front of something, like a urinal, blocking your view of it. Well, your brain wouldn't see it, but it wouldn't bother informing you that that was because some big guy was blocking your view. You just wouldn't notice it. But... I knew the urinal was there. Even with Red-eyes in the way, I could see part of it. Why didn't my mind just fill in the rest. Having reached the limits of his knowledge of psychology--Or is it parapsychology? No, more like psychology of the paranormal, as--Now is not the time for this, okay?--Ryan not only didn't know the answer to that question, he also had no idea where to go to find an answer to that question. He did know it wasn't the question he wanted to be asking right now.

I had assumed Emily and I were immune to his disappearing act, but what if we're not? What if we're only immune when he's trying to hurt us, or what if he can control whether we can see him or not? But why--? That was the problem with asking why. There were too many whys and he didn't have time for them. Enough whys, concentrate on the what. Is he following us now? That seems likely. Can I use a mirror to see him again? I sure hope so.

There was the McDonald's, now where was Emily? There, eating her salad at one of the tables. He went to her table and sat down.

"Hi, Ryan. Didn't you find something to eat?"

"Do you have a mirror?"

"Huh? Why do you need one?"

"This is an emergency. Do you have a mirror?"

Emily started to smile, but it faltered when she saw his expression. "No, I don't have one. Why? What's so important about a mirror?"

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

Ryan scraped the chair back and headed over to the small convenience shop next to the McDonald's, doing his best to keep Emily in his sight the whole time. He searched as quickly as he could, until he came across a small travel kit which included a small handheld mirror. He paid for it and headed back to where Emily sat, looking bewildered. He opened the kit and took out the mirror, pretending to study himself in it, while in reality looking for Red-eyes. He found him almost immediately, sitting at the table next to them. A table he had not noticed before. Ryan slid the mirror over to Emily.

"Look into it, and tell me what you see over there," he said softly. He gestured in the direction he knew Red-eyes to be, pointing with his left hand as it lay on the table while his right forearm blocked it from Red-eyes view. "Try not to get his attention."

"Whose attention?" she whispered back, but she had caught his mood, so she tried to use the mirror to look in the direction he indicated while only appearing to look at herself. When her eyes widened, he shook his head slightly. She handed the mirror back, then they both stood up, leaving her salad behind. They walked away with their heads together.

"We do not want to get on a plane with him. There'd be nowhere to run," Ryan said as softly as possible while still being audible in the noisy airport.

"I agree. But how did he get here? Did he fly with us? Why didn't he attack us then? Why isn't he attacking us now?"

"I don't know. Nor do I know why we can't see him normally now like we could before, or why we can see him in the mirror. I doubt he knows about that, or he would have been careful around mirrors."

"I don't think the rules apply to psychotic mutant demons."

Ryan shook his head. "No, I don't believe that. There have to be some rules or else we'd be dead already. You know more about theology than I do, but isn't it the study of spiritual rules? They're different, but there are still rules."

"I've never heard it stated that way. I'm not sure whether that's a good definition of theology or not; I'll have to ask Dom. Anyway, maybe he does follow some rules. So what? We have no idea what they are, and from what we've seen they're incredibly complicated, unless..."

"Unless what?"

"I thought I had an idea there, but I guess I didn't."

"Well, if you do have an idea, please share it with me, because I am really, really lost here."

"So what do you want to do?"

"If we're not getting on that plane, we need some other transportation. I say we leave the terminal and go rent a car."

"Just like that?"

"Why not? Atlanta's not just a Delta hub, it's also a major destination in and of itself. People fly here, leave the terminal, pick up their baggage, and rent a car. That's what we're going to do, minus the luggage."

"And if he follows us? He might attack us, or get in the car with us, or whatever."

"We'll use the mirror to keep an eye out for him, and we'll check the car before we get going. If we see him, we run on foot. But I'd rather be driving a car, wouldn't you?"

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This chapter is 3,326 words long, bringing this short story to a total of 17,636 words. I still have no clue where it's going or how long it will be, but I am starting to get an inkling of what's been going on. Before this, I was as confused as Ryan, now I'm slightly less confused.