Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) (11 page)

But ever since that incident, she never went out without a
thorough check of her body before she left her roost, and after
returning she inspected her skin for any cuts or abrasions that
would need proper cleaning and dressing.

After satisfying herself that apart from the soreness in her
limbs, she was healthy and whole, she returned to her bathing area
and emptied the shallow basin in a nearby storm drain, another of
the improvements she had made to her living area. She refilled the
basin from the second hot water pool, setting it out to cool for the
next day, setting herself a mental reminder to go up to the roof
later to bring in more water from the collector she had assembled
on the roof to gather rainwater.

She padded to the clothes line strung up on one side of the
living quarters and donned a clean, dry set of loose, dark clothes; a
tunic and drawstring pants. Then she climbed back up to the attic.

Before she inspected the case, she stepped on a pedal that
she had installed in the floor and metal slats near the ceiling
opened, and she could feel the burst of warmth which indicated
that it was letting the first rays of the rising sun in. She grabbed a
glass jar of purified water from a nearby table where she always
kept it, unscrewed the lid and drank deeply until it was gone. She
set the jar back on the table for cleaning later, then walked over,
sat cross-legged on the floor next to the case, and pulled it onto her
lap.

The first thing she noticed about the case was that it was
made sturdily, and the outside of the case was covered in very fine
leather. The case itself would fetch a nice price on the black
market. She reached both hands out with the case propped
between her crossed knees and felt along the entire perimeter of it.
It was, just like everything else in Dane Eyrris’ apartment,
extremely spartan and minimalist. Though she sometimes
imagined that the more well off residents of the Seat enjoyed some
privileges that the rest didn’t, she was beginning to see that even
they were subject to a life of bland uniformity. A simple clasp on
one side of the case was all that kept it closed. No lock; no
complications.

She lifted it and smelled it to be safe. Only the smell of the
finely tanned leather stood out, though she thought she could
detect the faintest lingering trace of Dane Eyrris’ perfumed scent
on the handle and latch.

She crinkled her nose at the reminder of him, and set the
case back down in her lap. She unhooked the clasp and slowly
lifted the lid of the case, her senses tuned for any trap that Dane
Eyrris might have left in the case.

No trap sprung as she lifted the lid carefully, and she ran
her fingers along the inside of the case, feeling more leather, this
flatter and pulled taut. She moved her fingers in small circles,
spiraling them inward, probing what was something of a jumble to
her other senses. She smelled oil, but there was the scent of
something else there she’d never smelled before. It was vaguely
metallic, but unlike any of the metals she was familiar with.

Then, as she explored the interior of the case, her left
thumb caught on something razor sharp and she quickly withdrew
her hand, sticking the thumb in her mouth and tasting the tang of
her own blood. She sucked it until the blood was gone, while her
right hand continued to move inward even more cautiously, until it
contacted a raised metal surface. Whatever it was, it was an
unusual combination of shapes, a short cylindrical section, flowing
into a thinner section that was clearly sharpened and curved
around in a semi-circle, leading to to a point. A dim memory from
her childhood appeared in her mind as she traced the contour of
the bladed section; it was shaped exactly like the crescent moon.
She had found the narrow, sharp tip with her thumb.

She encircled the fingers of her right hand along the
cylindrical section to grip the handle, and lifted the object from the
case, and used the tips of the fingers on her left hand to examine it
in more detail. The shaft seemed to be made of a long, single piece
of molded metal, but even the cursory image that was forming in
her mind was that of an ornately patterned design along the
entirety of the shaft. It ran about half the length of her forearm
before it turned abruptly and tapered and curved around into the
crescent-moon shape of the blade.

The inner edge of the crescent, curving around to form the
tip, was also razor sharp, and that only confirmed that she was
holding an exquisite weapon unlike any she had ever known of
before.

In contrast, she thought back to the way that her father’s
sword had looked. It had been barely more than a hammered piece
of rusted steel; sharp enough to stick the point in someone and do
damage of course, but nothing had been nothing elegant about it.
It had been an ugly tool for an ugly job. Even the swords of the
Imperial army which she had seen plenty of examples of growing
up, at least had the appearance of being professionally smithed,
had still looked to be made of all crude jagged lines and hard
edges.

Over the sojourns, she had personally fashioned clubs and
other crude stabbing instruments for when she’d needed to defend
herself, but what she now held in her hands was unlike anything
she even could have imagined. It was unlike any of the other
artifacts she had ever seen or experienced from the Before. It felt
like something crafted by the Divines themselves, existing in a
class by itself.

That thought sparked her to wonder if this was part of the
Divine’s plan for her.
Is this a weapon of the Divines?
she wondered to herself,
but not for long.
It sounded pretty ridiculous once she thought about it and
the voice of doubt immediately rose to confront that thought with
one of its own.
There is no plan, not for you, or anyone else. Why would
beings such as you imagine the Divines to be even have need of
weapons?
As she ran her fingers along the curved blade once again,
avoiding the razor sharp edge, she discovered that there was more
to it than she’d first noticed. She slowed her fingers and ran them
slowly along the cool, smooth metal. She felt herself flush with
amazement to realize that the surface of the blade was not
featureless as she had first assumed, but in fact was inlaid with a
series of intricate designs that were etched directly into the metal.
She had never imagined that it was possible to craft such whisper
details into a metal blade this thin. Feeling it sent shivers down her
spine.
She extended the weapon with her right arm and swiped
the air with it. It cut through space with no resistance, and no trace
of wobble, proving her suspicion that it was expertly balanced, like
an extension of her own arm.
After feeling it in her arm, with the power and grace she
had felt through the swing of it, she realized why Dane Eyrris had
had such reverence for this artifact. Not only was it flawless in its
design, weighting and balance, it was like something from a
different world altogether. She certainly had never heard or
experienced anything like it before.
She continued to explore the weapon in all its depths,
quite literally breathless as she ran her fingers up and down its
surfaces. The handle had raised ridges along the grip, and these
seemed to be embossed with images as well. A more careful pass
with her fingers revealed that the handle was composed entirely of
the sculpted figures of people, arrayed from top to bottom as
though they were standing one above the other, with arms
stretched overhead, so that each figure was holding up the one
above. The figures likewise were sculpted from the same smoothly
polished metal as the rest of the weapon.
Catelyn had read in her books about artists, but she had
never before beheld anything that she would have considered art,
until now. The weapon she held was as much art as it was anything
else, and as she explored the handle again, focusing her bubble
more into the tips of her fingers and the palms of her hands, she
realized that here was where the artist had truly shined.
Under her fingers, Catelyn could make out even the most
whisper of details. The figures were flawlessly rendered, and their
anatomies perfectly captured; muscle, bone, faces, breasts and
even genitals. Flowing hair adorned the heads, while the bodies
came in every variety imaginable; long and short, lean and heavy.
And impossibly, Catelyn was almost certain that each figure on the
handle was different and unique.
As she ran her hand over the forms and down to the
bottom of the shaft, the handle transitioned flawlessly to a
perfectly smooth, rounded butt. There was no discernible seam to
indicate that the handle and the blade were separate, a stark
difference from the crudely assembled weapons she had
experience with.
She cautiously returned the fingers of her right hand to the
curved blade. Just as with the butt, where the handle met the
blade, only smooth metal was to be found; the blade simply
extruded from the handle as though the metal had simply been
pulled from the handle itself and shaped by the hands of the
Divines, a work designed to fulfill some holy purpose.
The edge of the razor-sharp blade was unbroken, as
though it had never before been used. On the flat of the blade, she
tried to make sense of the images that were etched there, but the
work was so fine that even her sensitive fingertips could not make
out the visual language well enough to accurately describe what
was there. There appeared to be more of the figures as well as
something even finer. Perhaps writing of some kind, but it was
impossible for her to tell with any certainty.
One conclusion seemed to stand out, and that was there
was some kind of story being told on every surface of the weapon,
but it was a narrative she couldn’t understand.
Catelyn felt tingling in her fingers after such an intimate
examination of something so exquisite, and she knew that she
would be dedicating more of her time to studying this weapon, but
she also knew that now was not the time.
She could feel herself coming down from the adrenaline
high of the night, and although the prize she was now in
possession of was filling her with such curiosity and even awe, she
began to feel her head slowly drooping in exhaustion.
She carefully set the elegantly curved weapon back down
inside the leather case, closed the lid softly and set it to the side,
away from her things. She crawled over on hands and knees to the
pile of blankets she kept on the floor, and collapsed face down,
pulling several of them into a mound to comfort her head. She was
asleep in breaths.

The Emperor Uriel III stood at the great window of the
tower in the Imperial Citadel, arms clasped behind him, and
surveyed his Empire. Not for the first time, he silently wished that
he had the power to obliterate them all. He dreamt often of a great
wall of fire, stretching the length and breadth of the land, purging
it in the heat of his righteousness, forever. This mental image
made his heart race, sweat beading on his forehead, as his lips
quivered in excitement.

From this vantage point in his large windowed study, he
could see his entire Empire. From the embattled walls of
Eastmarch to the slums of Brunley and the encroaching Dun
Marsh. In the far distance to the west, just barely visible to most,
but crystal clear to his eyes, he saw the twin fortresses: Canlis
Point, abutting the Wall of Regret near the foothills of the
Greymount mountain range, and Fort Baldwin, the last of the
fortresses left standing from the Before.

Uriel III shook his head, the long black braid of his oiled
hair swaying halfway down his back behind him. He was seventy,
but through some gift of nature, which he had come to believe was
his own sheer force of will, he had seemingly stopped aging forty
sojourns ago. His face had remained smooth and beautiful, the
face of a god in waiting. He had long ago stopped believing the
nonsense of the past, in the Divines and their domain in the
heavens, the unanswered prayers and the purity of chasteness,
both of which he saw for the offenses against humanity that they
were.

Instead, he believed in the purity of fire, and through that
great element, he saw the path to his own divinity. His great
destiny was to bring the world to heel, to cleanse humanity of the
stain of their own existence. He would be the first of their kind to
transcend the commonness of their shared existence in this world.

He longed to give the people of this world the truth of his
power. And in so doing, to wake them up to their own power, as he
had awoken to his. Not even his closest advisers understood his
will. His destiny.

He alone saw the path humanity must take, if they were to
become as gods.
The Emperor was not, however, alone in the room.
Standing two paces away, silent and dutiful, were his
Imperial Commander and closest friend Ortis Saeva, and his chief
advisor Enaz, the head eunuch of the priory. Enaz, like nearly all of
Uriel III’s subjects, hailed from Exeter and so was reduced to a
single name. Ortis, on the other hand, was from Pyrus far to the
north, and Uriel loved him.
For that love, which had once burned as hot as the
summer sun, Uriel had afforded him, and him alone, the right to
keep his family name though none ever spoke it. Not even the man
himself used the name he has been allowed to keep, which had
always been a curiosity of Uriel’s.
Despite his reluctance to display his special boon, this
made Ortis unique among Uriel’s subjects, but if any man deserved
such a prize, it was Ortis.
Ortis’ unmatched prowess in battle, and the passion they
had once felt for each other, had been the driving forces behind
Uriel’s swiftly executed campaign to unify Exeter under his
singular rule as a boy of thirteen, and his loyal and unswerving
service over these long sojourns had earned Ortis many privileges,
but the only one Ortis had ever asked for had been to keep his
family name. All the more strange to Uriel then, that after securing
the privilege, he chose not to flaunt it.
Uriel had at first been wary of making such an exception,
but he knew that Ortis had earned such a right ten times over, and
so he allowed it, so long as Ortis swore the rest of his life to service
of the Emperor. Ortis Saeva had agreed without question.
Uriel looked to his two most trusted servants now, but his
eyes lingered on Ortis, now frailer than he'd ever been, having
reached his seventy-eighth sojourn. Ortis had been a young man in
the prime of his twenty-second sojourn when they had first met.
Uriel remembered well the strong, muscled body of the soldier he
had once admired, with the most exquisite dark skin and piercing
red eyes.
Red eyes were highly uncommon among the people of
Exeter, and Uriel used to tell Ortis, as they lay naked together after
one of their exuberant couplings, that his eyes were an omen of
their impending victory; that his vision “burned with the fire of
war”. Uriel had fallen in love with him at first sight, and he could
still recall every detail of how they had met.
Uriel had been a boy of twelve when he had departed the
Seat for a sojourn, having been sent away by his father on a
customary tour to see the whole of their Empire. He had begun his
journey by accompanying a retinue of his father’s advisers and a
company of the Imperial army's soldiers to the northern lands to
negotiate trade agreements.
Uriel had already begun planning his father's demise, and
his own rise to power, when he spotted the dark skinned warrior
standing tall and graceful behind one of the Pyric lords.
Ortis was already prized and loved by his people as a
skilled warrior and after some subtle inquiries, the boy Uriel
learned that he was a bodyguard for one of the regents of the Pyric
kingdoms.
The sight of Ortis stirred something in Uriel, and while the
politicians had played at their games, arguing over petty matters of
state under large tents set up on a flat, grassy hill, their eyes had
met and all else faded away.
Later that night Ortis had come to Uriel’s tent, and they
had copulated the way eager young men did.
After, in the glow of their sweat and sex, Uriel told Ortis of
his plans to return to his homeland and unify it, first by killing his
father and then conquering the Empire and quashing all
opposition. Ortis, his exquisite brown skin glowing, had watched
him describe his plans in rapt amazement, his red eyes ablaze with
awe. Uriel could tell that Ortis was the first to see the brilliance of
what he would become.
The next day, Ortis gathered the men under his command,
and bent on one knee, pledging his loyalty and that of his men to
Uriel, begging him, as their Emperor, to command them.
And command them he did, beginning with ordering the
execution of every one of his father’s men. Ortis and his three
hundred phalanx of highly trained soldiers cut through the
unsuspecting diplomats and their honor guard effortlessly.
The Pyric regent he captured as well, but graciously
allowed to return home with his life and any of his men who
wished to remain loyal to their kingdom, provided that neither
they nor any of their descendants make any attempt to become
involved with the Empire of Exeter ever again.
He then commanded Ortis to be the vanguard of his
forces, and together they spent the next sojourn gathering more
and more of his father’s armies under the banner of Uriel the
Third of His Name, either through surrender or subjugation.
Those who refused, Ortis and his elite battalion utterly destroyed.
Although it had taken another six sojourns of bloody
conflict and solidifying his base of power enough to be coronated,
Uriel and Ortis both knew that the reign of Uriel III had begun in
that tent with a simple shared look between two men of vision and
potentiality.
Now, with fifty-six sojourns since their first meeting
behind them, Uriel could only dimly see the beautiful man he had
once desired, and even those fiery red eyes had long since faded
from brilliance. Though he still treasured Ortis’ presence as a
friend and counselor, and as a man who shared nearly all of his
appetites, he no longer sought solace in his arms the way that he
once had. Truthfully, Ortis was the only thing that had ever
connected Uriel to anything substantive in this life.
Enaz cleared his throat, impatiently, and Uriel turned on
him with a lethal glare, causing the olive-skinned man to pale.
Enaz was the prissy type, even for a high ranking eunuch of the
priory, and he wore colorful robes of lavender and saffron; again a
privilege only afforded the highest ranking eunuchs of the priory,
and his perfumed head glistened with a sheen of sweat. His face
was painted,
like a whore
, Uriel thought, and for a moment he was
tempted to grab the top of Enaz’ pale, shiny head and smash the
eunuch’s face into the nearest hard surface.
“Your Grace, we must discuss the recent reports that we
have been hearing about another uprising,” Enaz said matter-offactly.
Uriel winced. He had ruled this nation as Emperor for
over fifty sojourns, with almost no strong efforts of resistance save
those which transpired immediately following the coup in which
he had killed his father and usurped his throne. Now, over the past
three cycles, talk of uprisings were being whispered in a number of
corners throughout the Seat.
Uriel felt a stab of something malevolent rising within
him, but he quickly squashed that urge and resolved to appear
nonplussed for the time being. After all, he could hardly blame
those so far below him from being able to see his grand design, the
majesty of his imminent transformation.
But that did not mean that he could allow such ignorance
to rule the day. He could not tolerate such rebellion if he was to be
remembered as he knew he would be.
Uriel knew that there was but one way to control this
spark before it grew into a larger flame and spread. It was time for
a reminder. Time for another example.
“From where is this latest report, my dear Enaz?” Uriel
demanded, the threat made clear in his voice.
As he spoke, his hand dropped unconsciously to the
handle of the crook which hung from his belt, and he ran his
fingers over the embossed figures carved directly into the metal
handle. The feel of them reassured him of his righteousness, his
mercy in what he was about to do, and what he was to become.
“This report comes from the mercantile district in Belkyn,
your Grace” Enaz replied snidely. “It seems as though the market
vendors are less than pleased by the lack of protection they are
provided, in spite of the increases in compensation they are asked
to pay toward such protecti-.”
Uriel turned and strode the distance to where Enaz stood
in half a breath, raised both hands and snatched Enaz around the
throat.
“And I will remind you, for the last time, to keep that lilt of
amusement from your voice, worm.”
He squeezed the slender man’s throat with all of his
strength, the strength of a man half his age, and watched the dark
eyes of the head Prior bulge as Enaz struggled for a breath that
would not come. Enaz, unlike most of the common people who he
had to deal with on a daily basis, seemed to think himself on a level
with Uriel at times.
Uriel made sure to remind Enaz of his place in the grand
order of things now and then.
When Enaz’ lips turned blue, Uriel released the man and
he slumped to his knees, gasping for air and choking back a sob.
Uriel strode away toward his longtime friend, Ortis, who
had stood passively by, watching his every move. From behind
him, he heard Enaz trying to recover his breath and his senses.
Uriel put his hand on Ortis’ shoulder, staring into the deep red
eyes, eyes that had once never failed to cause Uriel to become lost
in.
Now, those same eyes looked back at him, dull and
rheumy with age, and bearing the wrinkles of time around the
edges of the lids.
Uriel wished so badly that in a future sojourn, when he
had finally achieved his place as an immortal god of this world, he
would someday have enough will to share the gift he himself had
and return his dearest love to the prime of his youth, but he knew
such idle fantasies were pointless.
He wondered if it would just be better for the both of them
if he were to lead Ortis to the edge of the room right here and pitch
him through the glass, sending him to his death in the gutters of
the city he had helped build.
Uriel squeezed Ortis’ shoulder, fully prepared to end his
friend and lover now, rather than see him continue to be lost to the
slow, ravaging decay of time. But, like an old dog who he had once
loved, he could not find it within himself to put that dog down to
his final rest. Not yet.
“Would you take care of this for me, dear Ortis?” he asked,
the tenderness of his voice hearkening back to those earlier times.
Ortis showed Uriel the barest hint of a smile, then snapped
his fist to his heart and deftly bowed before making his way
soundlessly from the room.
Even at his advanced age, Uriel was still impressed by the
man’s speed and agility, honed from his many sojourns as a
soldier. Ortis was likely as deadly today as he was in his youth and
Uriel would wager that his old friend, despite his cold and
indifferent eyes, could kill a dozen men a third of his age in the
time it would take the Emperor to piss. Uriel briefly entertained
the notion of setting up just such a demonstration when Ortis
returned from Belkyn.
Yes, that could be just the thing
, he thought to himself.
Uriel smirked, and turned and strode once more to the
window and looked down to the streets below. He could see every
person within three hundred paces of the tower where he watched.
He stood that way for quite a while, observing the insects
that called themselves his subjects as they moved here and there,
moving in their ordinary way, and then he smiled when he saw the
column of three thousand of his deadliest soldiers, Ortis at their
head, as they passed out of the bailey and under the northwestern
gate towards Belkyn.
Uriel’s face and body flushed with electricity and arousal
at the thought that the people of Belkyn would soon, very soon,
experience a piece of his destiny, and pay a heavy price for their
disloyalty to his magnificence.